"Your palpitations, mother?" he said. "You have been exerting yourself in the heat. Come up-stairs to your room and lie down." He gave her his arm, and led her away looking like a bold child detected in a misdemeanour. She did not appear again in public till the cool of the evening, when she presented a penitent and crestfallen aspect, very different from her warlike demeanour on the tennis-ground. Mrs Naylor's spirit sank almost as rapidly as her foe's. Now that the stir of battle was at an end, she could sit and make up her list of killed and wounded. Whether the enemy had taken flight or been withdrawn from the contest, this was a grievous blow which she had dealt at parting. She had been pluming herself on her skilful management of Margaret's affairs; and it now appeared that she had managed nothing, and the objectionable attachment was like to be too much for her. But the girl should not have her way, if she could help it. She would keep a sharper eye on her than ever. It was that pernicious young Blount's going away which had thrown her off her guard. But her eyes were opened now, and she would watch; and meanwhile she would rate Margaret soundly, and bring her to a sense of the turpitude of her behaviour. She did so, and Margaret had to expiate in much weariness of spirit her happy little outbreak on Fessenden's Island. CHAPTER XXVII. AN OBDURATE DAUGHTER. Margaret had a bad quarter of an hour that afternoon, when the lawn-tennis was over. She felt no misgiving as she went up-stairs. The danger had been got over, she thought, on Sunday morning, when her mother started off in full career upon the other scent. What a happy circumstance was Uncle Joseph's engagement! She positively loved Rosa now for having accepted him. And Rose herself was so dear a girl, the very nicest aunt whom Joseph could have found her; binding him closer to them, if that were possible, instead of estranging him as another might have done. It was therefore an altogether unexpected shock when her mother, following her into her room, closed and fastened the door, and in a voice which shook with anger, demanded of her what she meant. "Mean, mother dear? I do not understand you." "You know perfectly what I mean, you double, deceitful girl!" Margaret understood now. The tempest, delayed for a while, was upon her. She hung her head, and bent like a willow before the blast. "You may well cower," her mother cried, pacing up and down. Her spirit boiled, to think that she had been so duped--she, the wise one, the manager--and she could neither sit nor stand still, in her vehement indignation. "That I should be mother of a girl whose name can be mentioned as I have heard you spoken of this day! Shameless, deceitful, unwomanly--oh!" Words failed her as she stood with clenched hands and eyes of wrath, which might have turned the other to stone, had she dared look up and meet them.