one--still hopes.

There had been a fourth. Margaret loved him! Yet he was the only one
whom Margaret should not have loved. He was unworthy in all points.
Yet, when he went abroad, breaking cruelly and indifferently all
ties with her (they had been engaged), Margaret still clung to him,
and ever since has refused all comers for his sake. Her face is long
and utterly devoid of colour; her nose is too large; her mouth a
trifle too firm for beauty; her eyes, dark and earnest, have,
however, a singular fascination of their own, and when she smiles
one feels that one _must_ love her. She is a very tall woman, and
slight, and gracious in her ways. She is, too, a great heiress, and
a woman of business, having been left to manage a huge property at
the age of twenty-two. Her management up to this has been faultless.

"Now, how can I help you?" asks she, looking at Lady Rylton. "What
is distressing you?"

"Oh! you know," says Mrs. Bethune, breaking impatiently into the
conversation. "About Maurice and this girl! This new girl! There,"
contemptuously, "have been so many of them!"

"You mean Miss Bolton," says Margaret, in her quiet way. "Do you
seriously mean," addressing Lady Rylton, "that you desire this
marriage?"

_ "Desire_ it? No. It is a necessity!" says Lady Rylton. "Who could
desire a daughter-in-law of no lineage, and with the most
objectionable tastes? But she has money! That throws a cloak over
all defects."