It was past the usual tea-time when she reached home; but she had

the comfort of feeling that no one had been kept waiting for her;

and of thinking her own thoughts while she rested, instead of

anxiously watching another person to learn whether to be grave or

gay. After tea she resolved to examine a large packet of letters,

and pick out those that were to be destroyed.

Among them she came to four or five of Mr. Henry Lennox's,

relating to Frederick's affairs; and she carefully read them over

again, with the sole intention, when she began, to ascertain

exactly on how fine a chance the justification of her brother

hung. But when she had finished the last, and weighed the pros

and cons, the little personal revelation of character contained

in them forced itself on her notice. It was evident enough, from

the stiffness of the wording, that Mr. Lennox had never forgotten

his relation to her in any interest he might feel in the subject

of the correspondence. They were clever letters; Margaret saw

that in a twinkling; but she missed out of them all hearty and

genial atmosphere. They were to be preserved, however, as

valuable; so she laid them carefully on one side. When this

little piece of business was ended, she fell into a reverie; and

the thought of her absent father ran strangely in Margaret's head

this night. She almost blamed herself for having felt her

solitude (and consequently his absence) as a relief; but these

two days had set her up afresh, with new strength and brighter

hope. Plans which had lately appeared to her in the guise of

tasks, now appeared like pleasures. The morbid scales had fallen

from her eyes, and she saw her position and her work more truly.

If only Mr. Thornton would restore her the lost friendship,--nay,

if he would only come from time to time to cheer her father as in

former days,--though she should never see him, she felt as if the

course of her future life, though not brilliant in prospect,

might lie clear and even before her. She sighed as she rose up to

go to bed. In spite of the 'One step's enough for me,'--in spite

of the one plain duty of devotion to her father,--there lay at

her heart an anxiety and a pang of sorrow.

And Mr. Hale thought of Margaret, that April evening, just as

strangely and as persistently as she was thinking of him. He had

been fatigued by going about among his old friends and old

familiar places. He had had exaggerated ideas of the change which

his altered opinions might make in his friends' reception of him;

but although some of them might have felt shocked or grieved or

indignant at his falling off in the abstract, as soon as they saw

the face of the man whom they had once loved, they forgot his

opinions in himself; or only remembered them enough to give an

additional tender gravity to their manner. For Mr. Hale had not

been known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller

colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in

youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and

feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to

their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which

they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal of this

kindliness, after the lapse of years, and an interval of so much

change, overpowered him more than any roughness or expression of

disapproval could have done.




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