"I know I ought. But I never do what I ought!" "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Dear me! if I had such a boudoir as this, and such a bedroom, and a bureau all to myself, I should be as happy as the day is long. As it is, my sister Jane and I have one room together. She takes the two upper bureau drawers, and I have to put up with the two lower ones. Then she contrives to use nearly all the nails in the closet, and nearly all the shelves; and she is forever getting my towels, and mislaying her hair-brush and using mine; besides, I dote on having things tidy and in order, and she keeps all her things helter-skelter. Well, if you won't be happy, you won't; so there it is! Good-bye. Come and see me, do." "_Is_ it won't?" Margaret asked herself, as the door closed upon the good-humored chatterbox. "If I thought it was--" She had made the acquaintance of Agnes Cameron during the summer; a shallow friendship had sprung up between them, which would never amount to anything more; now a heedless word from a thoughtless girl had done what all Mrs. Grey's wise counsels had failed to do. Margaret went to the glass and looked at herself. She had no vanity, and had never cared what people thought of her. She stood, straightening up now, and studied her own face for the first time. "What a will you have got, Margaret Haydon!" she said; "and what is the use of it, if you sit crying and wailing like a child? _I am ashamed of you!_" She folded the letters she had been brooding over all the morning, tied them together with a bit of white ribbon, and locked them up in a drawer. Then she climbed upon a chair and threw the key as far and as high as she could; it alighted behind a box, and there it lay for a year, untouched. Then she walked down-stairs and into the library, and gave Mrs. Grey a good, wholesome, sound kiss. "Now, aunty," she said, "I hope you've had the worst of me." Mrs. Grey looked up, and smiled. How many times she had prayed for this day! CHAPTER III.