“Let us hope that Margaret will come back often; and I am sure she will always find her brother’s house a home,” said Lady Leslie, still holding her hand and patting her shoulder kindly. All these words came into her mind in a confusion which prevented her from realizing what they meant. She saw Jean shake her head, and demand sadly how that could be, if Ludovic were to sell the house, as he had just been saying? But even this extraordinary suggestion did not wake Margaret’s preoccupied mind. They all said “Hush!” looking at her. It was supposed among them that the only one who would really suffer by the sale of Earl’s-hall was Margaret, and that to hear of the idea would be more than she could bear. But in her confused condition she took no notice of anything. She did not seem to care for Earl’s-hall, or for the family trouble, or for anything in the world except this strange thing which absorbed her, and which none of them knew. The lamps and the circle of faces were like a phantasmagoria before her eyes, a wreath of white sparks in the darkness, all pale, all indistinct against the dim background. Randal only became a little more real to her by dint of what seemed to her the reproachful look he gave her. She thought it was a reproachful look. He had seen her out-of-doors, though he had not taken any notice of her. She remembered now that he had not even showed her the civility of taking off his hat. “He has no respect for me any more,” Margaret said to herself; and this thought went deep, with a pang, to her very heart. Bell was waiting for her in her room, where already her boxes were packed, and most of her preparations made; and poor Margaret, her mind all confused with a sense that what was supposed to occupy and engross her was scarcely in her thoughts at all, gave herself up into the old woman’s hard yet tender hands, as passive as a child, with all the ease that perfect confidence gives. She was not afraid of Bell, nor did she feel the guilt of keeping from her that uncomfortable secret which was no happiness to her, poor child, and which she would so gladly have pushed aside from her own mind had it been possible. “Eh, I wonder if onybody will over take the pride in it that I have done,” Bell said, taking down her young mistress’s hair, and letting it fall in long, soft undulation of silky brown over her hands. She turned her head away while she brushed, that no tear might drop upon it. “Na, naebody will take the same pride in it as me: for I’ve been a’ ye’ve had to bring ye up from a bairn, my bonnie, bonnie darlin’: and nae ither woman can ever be that. It’s like taking the heart out o’ my breast to see you turn your back on Earl’s-hall.”