Mrs. Grey went back to her desk feeling decidedly flat, and found that Margaret, according to her wont, had been illustrating her MS. with a ridiculously funny caricature of a young father holding his son and heir most awkwardly in his arms, while there proceeded from its mouth the words, "Oh, how he pinches! how he pinches!" She laughed, cut it out, and threw it into a drawer, where kindred sketches already reposed. She had just resumed her pen when Mrs. Grosgrain was announced. "Who is Mrs. Grosgrain?" asked Margaret. "I don't remember ever seeing or hearing of her." "No, she was in Europe when you came here, and has only just returned. I shall want her to see you, sometime." So saying, Mrs. Grey proceeded to meet her guest, and after some animated conversation together, the latter said: "I hear you have adopted a young orphan girl, to take the place to you of your darling Maud. Yet, I don't see how you could." "You have not heard the story quite correctly," replied Mrs. Grey. "It is true that I have adopted a young girl of Maud's age, but not to fill her place. No one can or ought to fill that. But there were so many things left by her that were adapted to gratify the taste of a young person, and that young person a girl, that I longed to see them enjoyed. There was Maud's piano standing idle; her rooms tastefully furnished, left empty; and, to tell the truth, plenty of love in this old heart to give away. That _I_ was to gain much, if anything, never crossed my mind. But all has turned out delightfully." "Is she like Maud, then?" "Not in the least. She is a girl of very marked character; once I could not have tolerated her faults. But she amuses me and keeps me young; and she is going to become a very fine woman in time." "And in the meanwhile?" "Why, I shall have to put up with some decided opinions and habits that are not to my mind. But I did not look for, or expect to find, a faultless character. Margaret has heart and soul; she has enthusiasm; she knows her own mind and decides upon this and that at once, and once for all. She does not care for music, as Maud did; in fact, she hates it." "_Hates_ it!" Mrs. Grey smiled. "Oh, it is all love or hate with her. She can't be indifferent to anything. I found she had decided, though undeveloped, artistic talent, and she is taking lessons in drawing and painting. I never met a person who could do so many things well." "Is not her sudden good fortune turning her head?" "Not at all. She has too much good common sense for that. In any sphere she would have been self-reliant, and perhaps appear, to some persons, conceited. But she is too proud to be conceited."