The Home at Greylock. E. Prentiss
to do so, for she has spent many happy hours here in dear little Maud's day."
Margaret rose and went, in a lifeless way, to bathe her tear-swollen eyes, and in a few moments a bright, smiling girl made her appearance.
"Oh! this lovely room!" she cried. "How glad I am to see it once more. You naughty child! why haven't you been to see me? Well, I never saw so many pretty things together in any one room in my life. I am sure you must be the happiest girl living. If you couldn't be happy in such a room as this, you couldn't be happy anywhere!"
"Well, then, let me tell you that it takes more than a beautiful room to make one happy. All this room is good for for me is to be wretched in!"
"Now, Margaret, I did think you would get over moping when you settled down here and found yourself openly adopted by Mrs. Grey. Why, my mother says you ought to be overwhelmed with gratitude."
"I know I ought. But I never do what I ought!"
"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Dear me! if I had such a boudoir as this, and such a bedroom, and a bureau all to myself, I should be as happy as the day is long. As it is, my sister Jane and I have one room together. She takes the two upper bureau drawers, and I have to put up with the two lower ones. Then she contrives to use nearly all the nails in the closet, and nearly all the shelves; and she is forever getting my towels, and mislaying her hair-brush and using mine; besides, I dote on having things tidy and in order, and she keeps all her things helter-skelter. Well, if you won't be happy, you won't; so there it is! Good-bye. Come and see me, do."
"Is it won't?" Margaret asked herself, as the door closed upon the good-humored chatterbox. "If I thought it was—"
She had made the acquaintance of Agnes Cameron during the summer; a shallow friendship had sprung up between them, which would never amount to anything more; now a heedless word from a thoughtless girl had done what all Mrs. Grey's wise counsels had failed to do.
Margaret went to the glass and looked at herself. She had no vanity, and had never cared what people thought of her. She stood, straightening up now, and studied her own face for the first time.
"What a will you have got, Margaret Haydon!" she said; "and what is the use of it, if you sit crying and wailing like a child? I am ashamed of you!"
She folded the letters she had been brooding over all the morning, tied them together with a bit of white ribbon, and locked them up in a drawer. Then she climbed upon a chair and threw the key as far and as high as she could; it alighted behind a box, and there it lay for a year, untouched. Then she walked down-stairs and into the library, and gave Mrs. Grey a good, wholesome, sound kiss.
"Now, aunty," she said, "I hope you've had the worst of me."
Mrs. Grey looked up, and smiled. How many times she had prayed for this day!
CHAPTER III.
Margaret never knew what caused this sudden change, but it was simply this. If it was a passion with her to love, it was also a passion to avoid unpleasant sights. And the picture drawn by Agnes Cameron revolted her. To have somebody share her room who kept everything in disorder would be something intolerable. All her life long she had been used to the beauty of perfectly-kept rooms; on the mother's part this was mere feminine nicety, such as any woman might possess. In Margaret it was the artistic element inherited from her father; she must have order reign where she dwelt, not because it is meet and right to be orderly, but because it hurt her eye to see confusion. At this stage of her history, she would have been surprised to be told this; perhaps have stoutly denied it. But a realizing sense of what a hardship it would be to her to have such a room-mate as Jane Cameron had come over her now, and, with it, confusion of face that she had behaved in so ungrateful a way. It was not in her to ask any one's pardon, out and out, but the kiss and the little speech from her were equivalent to going down on her knees, had she been somebody else.
Mrs. Grey seized this gentler mood at once.
"I have been thinking," she said, without comment or ado, "what is to be done about your education. You are too old to go to school, and perhaps I could manage to teach you myself. But in order for that, I shall have to find out how far your mother took you."
"She took me as far as she could, and then let me go on by myself. Now, about algebra, for instance. She knew nothing about it, but there was a number of old school-books in the house where we lived, and I was allowed the use of them."
"And you studied algebra?"
"Yes, I studied it just as I should take a dose of medicine—swallowed it down, and then helped my self to a lump of sugar, to take the taste out."
"A metaphorical lump, I suppose?"
"Yes, I made patchwork."
"What an extraordinary idea! However, I think I understand it. Your needle represented a brush, and those bits of bright-colored flannels, paint. We must look into that. Now, what else did you study?"
"Mother made me study English grammar. She said she owed it to my father's family to have me understand his language."
"English grammar? How is that?"
"Why, as a general rule, mother talked to me in French, but she was very particular to have me keep up what English I had learned from my father. She had a few French books, and taught me to read to him, and until his death I had plenty of time for it."
"I did not know your father was an Englishman."
"But he was. He was travelling through Europe on foot, stopping to sketch when anything took his fancy, and one day he saw my mother standing near a châlet, with a child in her arms, and fell in love with her. The child belonged to a neighbor who often lodged artists for weeks at a time, and he contrived to spend a whole summer there."
But our readers need not hear the whole story of Margaret's fragmentary education. She was now between seventeen and eighteen, and had managed to pick up a wonderful amount of information; but culture she had none. This she soon began to feel, but as the companion of a woman cultivated to the last degree, and with her own brilliant powers, she glided, without difficulty, into regions most girls in her position would have had to reach through laborious toil. And as to art, Mrs. Grey had only to provide her with materials, and give her opportunity to experiment, and the next thing she knew, grace and beauty dropped like magic from the tiny point of her pencil. But so many other gifts developed themselves, that there was no danger of one-sidedness.
So she dashed on, eager, breathless, like one running a race; entering into everything with zest and enjoyment, and undertaking work enough to exhaust a less dauntless nature. And then another cloud began to arise. Christmas was coming, and with it twelve human beings to criticise, misunderstand, dislike her.
Twelve human beings for her to criticise, be jealous of, and, as like as not, hate. At least that was the way she chose to put it, but this is Mrs. Grey's version:
"They'll all come, this year; my darling boys and girls, and their little folks. Will they find it somewhat awkward, before they get acquainted with Margaret? It will be trying for her, poor child, to see a mother and children together."
However, she had tact—the kind of tact that comes from Christian instincts. She talked to Margaret about the home-comers, exactly as if they were her brothers and sisters, got her interested, asked her to manage a Christmas-tree, and consulted her about everything.
"Do the children have a tree every year?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, yes—every year."
"Then I should like to get up something different; I don't know what, but I can think out a plan."
The next morning she came down as radiant as the sun.
"I have a plan," she announced, "and now I must have a carpenter."