'Cast me upon some naked shore,

Where I may tracke

Only the print of some sad wracke,

If thou be there, though the seas roare,

I shall no gentler calm implore.'

HABINGTON.

He was gone. The house was shut up for the evening. No more deep

blue skies or crimson and amber tints. Margaret went up to dress

for the early tea, finding Dixon in a pretty temper from the

interruption which a visitor had naturally occasioned on a busy

day. She showed it by brushing away viciously at Margaret's hair,

under pretence of being in a great hurry to go to Mrs. Hale. Yet,

after all, Margaret had to wait a long time in the drawing-room

before her mother came down. She sat by herself at the fire, with

unlighted candles on the table behind her, thinking over the day,

the happy walk, happy sketching, cheerful pleasant dinner, and

the uncomfortable, miserable walk in the garden.

How different men were to women! Here was she disturbed and

unhappy, because her instinct had made anything but a refusal

impossible; while he, not many minutes after he had met with a

rejection of what ought to have been the deepest, holiest

proposal of his life, could speak as if briefs, success, and all

its superficial consequences of a good house, clever and

agreeable society, were the sole avowed objects of his desires.

Oh dear! how she could have loved him if he had but been

different, with a difference which she felt, on reflection, to be

one that went low--deep down. Then she took it into her head

that, after all, his lightness might be but assumed, to cover a

bitterness of disappointment which would have been stamped on her

own heart if she had loved and been rejected.

Her mother came into the room before this whirl of thoughts was

adjusted into anything like order. Margaret had to shake off the

recollections of what had been done and said through the day, and

turn a sympathising listener to the account of how Dixon had

complained that the ironing-blanket had been burnt again; and how

Susan Lightfoot had been seen with artificial flowers in her

bonnet, thereby giving evidence of a vain and giddy character.

Mr. Hale sipped his tea in abstracted silence; Margaret had the

responses all to herself. She wondered how her father and mother

could be so forgetful, so regardless of their companion through

the day, as never to mention his name. She forgot that he had not

made them an offer.

After tea Mr. Hale got up, and stood with his elbow on the

chimney-piece, leaning his head on his hand, musing over

something, and from time to time sighing deeply. Mrs. Hale went

out to consult with Dixon about some winter clothing for the

poor. Margaret was preparing her mother's worsted work, and

rather shrinking from the thought of the long evening, and

wishing bed-time were come that she might go over the events of

the day again.




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