But this was no hour for tinkling lines. A manuscript returned by the
last post emphasised her gloom.

Kissing her father good-night, Margaret crept to her room, aching with
desire to write.

She undressed, read a portion of the _Imitation_, then to her table by
the open window.

Two hours brought relief. Margaret placed her poem in an envelope
against its presentation to George in the morning, then from her
window leaned.

From her thoughts at once George sped; they rushed across the sleeping
fields to cling about the person of that Mr. William Wyvern who had
spoken of Mr. Marrapit as reminding him of a minor prophet--shaved.
This was Margaret's nightly practice, but to-night this girl was most
exquisitely melancholy, and with melancholy her thoughts of her
William were tinged. She had not seen him that day; and now she
brooded upon the bitter happening that had forced all her meetings
with her lover to be snatched--fugitive, secret.

For Mr. William Wyvern was not allowed at Herons' Holt. When love
first sent its herald curiosity into William's heart, the young man
had sought to relieve its restlessness by a visit ostensibly on
George, really upon Margaret, and extremely ill-advised in that at his
heels gambolled his three bull-terriers.

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram these were named, and they were abrupt dogs