"It isn't _me,_ Margaret: if I could do anything, I'm sure I would;
but I really couldn't ask your papa for another new dress, after his
having given you so many this year, already."

"That's the way it always is with you, mamma--you can't do this, and
you can't do that--you are so excessively tiresome! But I will have
the dress, I'm determined. He says his sister wears light blue crape
of an evening; and I'll have light blue crape, too--see if I don't!
I'll get it somehow from the shop, myself. Papa never takes any
notice, I'm sure, what I have on; and he needn't find out anything
about what's gone out of the shop, until they 'take stock,' or
whatever it is he calls it. And then, if he flies into one of his
passions--"

"My dear! my dear! you really ought not to talk so of your papa--it is
very wrong, Margaret, indeed--what would Mr. Basil say if he heard
you?"

I determined to go in at once, and tell Margaret that I had heard
her--resolving, at the same time, to exert some firmness, and
remonstrate with her, for her own good, on much of what she had said,
which had really surprised and displeased me. On my unexpected
entrance, Mrs. Sherwin started, and looked more timid than ever.
Margaret, however, came forward to meet me with her wonted smile, and
held out her hand with her wonted grace. I said nothing until we had
got into our accustomed corner, and were talking together in whispers
as usual. Then I began my remonstrance--very tenderly, and in the
lowest possible tones. She took precisely the right way to stop me in
full career, in spite of all my resolution. Her beautiful eyes filled
with tears directly--the first I had ever seen in them: caused, too,