In spite of Mrs. Kendall's earnest efforts Margaret was not easily convinced that marriage might be desirable, and that all husbands were not patterned after Tim Sullivan and Mike Whalen. Nor was this coming marriage the only thing that troubled Margaret. Life at the Alley was still too vividly before her eyes to allow her to understand any scheme of living that did not recognize the supremacy of the sharpest tongue and the heaviest fist; and this period of adjustment to the new order of things was not without its trials for herself as well as for her mother. The beauty, love, and watchful care that surrounded her filled her with ecstatic rapture; but the niceties of speech and manner daily demanded of her, terrified and dismayed her. Why "bully" and "bang-up" should be frowned upon when, after all, they but expressed her pleasure in something provided for her happiness, she could not understand; and why the handling of the absurdly large number of knives, forks, and spoons about her plate at dinner should be a matter of so great moment, she could not see. As for the big white square of folded cloth that her mother thought so necessary at every meal--its dainty purity filled Margaret with dismay lest she soil or wrinkle it; and for her part she would have much preferred to let it quite alone. There were the callers, too--beautiful ladies in trailing gowns who insisted upon seeing her, though why, Margaret could not understand; for they invariably cried and said, "Poor little lamb!" when they did see her, in spite of her efforts to convince them that she was perfectly happy. And there were the children--they, too, were disconcerting. They came, sometimes alone, and sometimes with their parents, but always they stared and seemed afraid of her. There were others, to be sure, who were not afraid of her. But they never "called." They "slipped in" through the back gate at the foot of the garden, and they were really very nice. They were Nat and Tom and Roxy Trotter, and they lived in a little house down by the river. They never wore shoes nor stockings, and their clothes were not at all like those of the other children. Margaret suspected that the Trotters were poor, and she took pains that her mother should see Nat and Tom and Roxy. Her mother, however, did not appear to know them, which did not seem so very strange to Margaret, after all; for of course her mother had not known there were any poor people so near, otherwise she would have shared her home with them long ago. At first, it was Margaret's plan to rectify this little mistake immediately; but the more she thought of it, the more thoroughly was she convinced that the first chance belonged by right to Patty's family and the Whalens in New York, inasmuch as they had been so good to her. She determined, therefore, to wait awhile before suggesting the removal of the Trotter family from their tiny, inconvenient house to the more spacious and desirable Five Oaks.