Margaret sat disconsolately at her mother's elbow that evening, and felt like a martyr, while her fancies flew away in pursuit of Walter Blount. "Poor fellow! he was thinking of her, no doubt--walking the streets of Lippenstock, and feeling so lonely. How dreadful this separation must be to him! But she would be true. She could never love another. She would not try. She would never marry any one else, however they might try to force her. No; she would pine--she was sure she would--grow pale and thin; and nobody would mind her after that. By-and-by she would grow old, and have poor health; and she would still be single, with nothing to think about but her own faithfulness, and how happy she might have been if her misguided friends would have allowed it. And then her mother would be sorry, when it was too late; but she would forgive her, and tend her declining years to the last. What a beautiful touching martyr life it would all make! but so terribly dull." She pictured to herself a desolate hearth, with not a creature to keep her company but a stupid cat upon a footstool blinking at the fire, and herself in spectacles and a cap, knitting or making clothes for the poor, beneficent to everybody, but sadly moped herself--and all for Walter! She grew consoled in thinking about it. It was as good as a play--at least a dull one. The others were beginning to dance, now; but she would not dance, though her mother had given her leave when Walter Petty came to ask her. She had a headache, she said; and now she knew she must refuse every one else that evening. What of that? It was making a sort of commencement of the life she saw in store for her in the future. Poor girl! A mood so doleful does not last, however, when we are young and healthy. It grew tantalising to Margaret to see the others enjoying themselves, and made her feel neglected; and she welcomed Rosa when Joseph brought her to sit beside his family, and accustom Mrs Naylor to the prospect of a sister-in-law. The jeweller's clerk having divulged that he had ordered a magnificent ring for a lady, it was useless to affect reserve. He accepted the people's congratulations calmly, as his due; and his sister-in-law, making a virtue of necessity, endeavoured to do so likewise. Mrs Deane was in the little knot by Mrs Naylor's sofa--good-natured people who did not believe in her ailments, but had no objection to humouring her, and found the fixed centre of an invalid's couch convenient in that fortuitous concourse of atoms. Mrs Naylor engrossed herself with Mrs Deane, Rose's chaperon, that her feeling towards Rose herself might be less apparent. It was oppressive to go on talking pleasantly to one whom she would have liked to address in quite other terms, had it been permissible. Wherefore Rose fell out of the conversation and turned to Margaret, with whom she had more in common. "How are you here, Margaret? You have neither sung, played, nor danced. What is the matter?"