But no one came. Had she accepted his consolations only because there was no one else to comfort her, without caring for him who breathed them in her ear? Were all his lofty hopes to end in nothing, and his love to be rejected? Terror and anxiety thrilled through Rob as he stood and watched, tantalized by all those sounds and half-seen sights. Once only she came, and then she would say little or nothing to him: she had never said much; but she shrank from his outstretched arms now, crying, “Don’t, don’t!” in tones half of terror. That one meeting was a greater disappointment than when she did not come at all. Had she but been taking advantage of him, as great people, Rob knew, were so ready to take advantage of small people? And now that she needed him no longer, was she about to cast him off? In that case, all his fine anticipations, all his triumph, would be like Alnascher’s hopes in the story. His very heart quailed in terror. The disappointment, the downfall, the decay of hopes and prospects would be more than he could bear. The truth was that Margaret, left all alone suddenly in the midst of what to her was a crowd of people, all more or less strangers, seemed to have lost the power of doing so much for herself as to go anywhere. Though they amused her sometimes in spite of herself, they kept her in a kind of subjugation which was very confusing and very novel. “Where are you going, Margaret?” Mrs. Bellingham would say, if she went across the room. “Darling Margaret, don’t leave us,” Grace would add, next time she moved. Even Effie, who was so anxious to be “of use,” would interfere, throwing her arms about her youthful aunt, whispering, “You are not to go to your own room and cry. Oh, come with me to the tower, and look at the sunset.” “Yes, my dear Margaret, go with Effie; it will take off your thoughts a little,” said the new Lady Leslie. Thus Margaret had weights of kindness hung round her on every side, and was changed in every particular of her life from the light-hearted creature who flitted about like the wind, in and out a hundred times a day. Even Bell approved of this thraldom. “Ah, my bonnie dear, keep wi’ Miss Effie. She’s your ain flesh and blood. What would you do out your lane when you have sic company?” “I always went out alone before,” Margaret said, mechanically turning up-stairs again. “Yes, my bonnie doo; but you hadna a bonnie young Miss, a cousin of your ain (for niece is but a jest), to keep ye company.”