"Mamma, we've had such a time," cried all four, when they reached home. "Such airs as that girl puts on. And somehow contrived to make us feel flat, though she is a nobody. Mrs. Grey is altogether too Quixotic. It is very annoying to have to humor her whims. What in the world did she want of another daughter, when she has a dozen or so of her own?" "But they are all married, and live at a distance, and she was getting old, and probably needed a companion to wait upon her, mend her lace, do her clear-starching, draw her checks, do her shopping, go to market, and all that sort of thing," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "She has put her right in Maud's room. Of all things how strange! And has given away all Maud's beautiful clothes! Why, if I should lose either of you I should regard your garments as the most sacred things in the world; no mortal should ever touch them. But some people have so little feeling." "It isn't quite fair to say that Mrs. Grey has little feeling," said Miss Grosgrain, "for when they were screwing down the lid of Maud's coffin she fainted away. She's _queer_; that's the word to describe her--_queer_." "Well, yes, that _is_ the word," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "When I called the other day, she seemed--well, it's an awful thing to say, and I hope you won't repeat it, girls, but she actually seemed--happy! Why, if one of you should die I should not have another happy moment. I should consecrate my life to grief." In the privacy of their own room that night, Miss Grosgrain dutifully remarked to Miss Clara: "Mamma did not 'consecrate her life to grief' after papa's death, but to spending his money." "Oh, as to that, I think she did all he could have expected," was the reply. "She wore the deepest and the most fashionable mourning she could find; had the deepest possible black edge to her cards, and always put on a mournful expression whenever anyone called." Miss Grosgrain smiled grimly. "You are right as to the 'mournful expression'; she did 'put it on' with a vengeance." CHAPTER IX. Margaret, meanwhile, returned to her work, with burning cheeks. "It is true," she said to herself, "that people have a right to sneer at me. My mother has been a servant and so have I. But we were not born to it, either of us. Even if Mrs. Grey hadn't taken me up, I shouldn't have spent my life in a kitchen. Nobody ever did who could paint like _that_! And yet, my poor father never got on, and it isn't likely I have more talent than he had. But stop; it was only yesterday aunty was saying that gifts sometimes overleap one generation; it is quite possible that I had a grandfather or grandmother whose abilities have come to me. How horrid it is not to know one's relatives!" Just here letters were brought in; one for Margaret, several for Mrs. Grey. Margaret seized hers with a thrill of surprise and delight, for this was an era in her life, her first letter! And she has no objection to our reading it: