There is no such anguish of retrospection as that with which the very young look back upon moments in which they feel they have made themselves ridiculous, and given their fellow-creatures an inferior, inadequate representation of them. This it was which overwhelmed Margaret now. She had acquired a little knowledge, if from nothing else, from the conversation of Mrs. Bellingham, which had modified her innocence. She had heard of girls who “flung themselves at the heads” of men. She had heard of those who gave too much “encouragement,” who “led on” reluctant wooers. This talk had passed lightly enough over her head, always full of dreams; but yet it had left a deposit as so much light talk does. When first her eyes fell upon the picture, this was the thought that rushed upon her. Almost before the ready tear had formed which came at the sight of Earl’s-hall, before the quick pang of grief for the loss of all which the old house represented to her, before the sense of fatal bondage and entanglement which was her special burden, had time to make itself felt--came, with a flood of agony and shame, a realization of herself as she had been when Rob Glen had seated himself at the end of the potato field to make this drawing. Other things that had happened to her had not involved any fault of hers; she did not even feel that she was seriously to blame for the forging of the chain that bound her--but this, this had been her own doing. She it was who had wooed him to Earl’s-hall; she had asked him to come, and to come again; she had persuaded him to a hundred things he never would have thought of by himself. But for her he would not have returned day by day, getting more and more familiar. When she rushed about everywhere for the things he wanted, when she admired everything he did with such passionate enthusiasm, when she could hang over his shoulder watching every line he drew, what had she been doing? “Flinging herself at his head,” “leading him on,” “encouraging him,” oh, and more than encouraging him! as Ludovic had said. This was worse even than the bondage in which it had resulted. Her face was covered with burning blushes; her soul overflowed with shame.