"None," was the indifferent reply.

"Then--but, perhaps, you are not well, Margaret?"

"I am quite well, I thank you, William Hinkley, but I don't feel
like going out this evening. I am not in the humor."

Already, in the little village of Charlemont, Margaret Cooper
was one of the few who were permitted to indulge in humors, and
William Hinkley learned the reason assigned for her refusal, with
an expression of regret and disappointment, if not of reproach.
An estoppel, which would have been so conclusive in the case of
a city courtier, was not sufficient, however, to satisfy the more
frank and direct rustic, and he proceeded with some new suggestions,
in the hope to change her determination.

"But you'll be so lonesome at home, Margaret, when your mother's
with us. She'll be gone before you can get back, and--"

"I'm never lonesome, William, at least I'm never so well content
or so happy as when I'm alone," was the self-satisfactory reply.

"But that's so strange, Margaret. It's so strange that you should
be different from everybody else. I often wonder at it, Margaret;
for I know none of the other girls but love to be where there's a
fiddle, and where there's pleasant company. It's so pleasant to be
where everybody's pleased; and then, Margaret, where one can talk
so well as you, and of so many subjects, it's a greater wonder
still that you should not like to be among the rest."