herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue-black hair one
so seldom sees. Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers
she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest.
Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all these
premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw's characteristic conclusion,
as she thought over her sister's lot: 'Married for love, what can
dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?' Mrs. Hale, if she
spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, 'a
silver-grey glace silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things
for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.' Margaret
only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come,
and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting
would take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the
confusion of the last two or three days, in the house in Harley
Street, where she herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and
was wanted everywhere at one and the same time. Her mind and body
ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said
within the last forty-eight hours. The farewells so hurriedly
taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those she had lived
with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the times
that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been,
they were gone never to return. Margaret's heart felt more heavy
than she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own
dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for
years--at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just
before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep. She took
her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to
the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future. Her eyes
began to see, not visions of what had been, but the sight
actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in the