"Good lad!" said Margaret, happily mimicking her father. "You shall have some of the olives in a minute or two." "Olives seem to me precisely the right thing for us," said I. "And why, sir?" It was very curious to me to see how, in her speech to me, she whipped about from the familiar "Oliver" to the stately "Sir." There was always a reason for it, and I would have given much to know it. "Your olives come from Italy, and I have been thinking of your Italian count." "So have I," she said very soberly, and never said another word till we were safe and quiet in her day-room at the "Bald-Faced Stag." For over two hours I had Margaret to myself, and we were as happy and companionable as we had been in Dick Doley's cottage. And at this I marvelled. Our Kate was the only woman I had to judge by, and when our Kate got into her very best Sunday gown she got into her tantrums along with it, and poor Jack, what with awe of her finery and anxiety lest he should anger the minx, commonly had a thorny time of it. With Margaret it was just the opposite. When we got in, she excused herself and went off to her own room, coming back, after a weary time, in such a glory of silks and satins that I blinked my eyes before her dazzlements. What made it worse was that there was a comb--as she called it, though I should in my ignorance have thought it some rich and rare work in filigree belonging to an empress--which, owing to the smallness of her mirror and the poor light, she could not get to sit perfectly in its golden cushion, and I was bidden to put it where and as it ought to be. I was a long time over the task, in part because I was really clumsy, but mainly because I was in no hurry. I got it right at last, and even ventured, very craftily and lightly, to kiss it as it lay there. "It's quite right now," said I. "At last! I'm afraid it's been a trouble to you. Now, Oliver, open the bottle of olives, and, while we eat them, tell me all about the ghost." Many a time in the hard days that came to me later, I refreshed my soul by thinking those happy hours over again. They are part of me, but no part of my story, and I make no record of them here. We had long talks, with long silences between them, as can only happen with very real friends who are company for one another without a clatter of words. At last this golden time came to an end, for in walked the Colonel and Master Freake to supper. "I am thankful," said the Colonel to Margaret. "Murray told me you'd been taken to jail." "You heard the news with great content, I suppose," said Margaret. "I did, because--" He stopped to frown into the snuff-box. "Because of what? Pray observe, gentlemen, what an affectionate father I have!" "Because he also told me the name of your jailer!" "You don't deserve to have a daughter," declared Margaret, with such a pretence of vehemence that her cheeks, between and beneath her coils of yellow hair, blazed like two poppies in a wheat-shook.