'Poor child!' said Edith. 'It is a little sad for you to be left,
night after night, just at this time when all the world is so
gay. But we shall be having our dinner-parties soon--as soon as
Henry comes back from circuit--and then there will be a little
pleasant variety for you. No wonder it is moped, poor darling!' Margaret did not feel as if the dinner-parties would be a
panacea. But Edith piqued herself on her dinner-parties; 'so
different,' as she said, 'from the old dowager dinners under
mamma's regime;' and Mrs. Shaw herself seemed to take exactly the
same kind of pleasure in the very different arrangements and
circle of acquaintances which were to Captain and Mrs. Lennox's
taste, as she did in the more formal and ponderous entertainments
which she herself used to give. Captain Lennox was always
extremely kind and brotherly to Margaret. She was really very
fond of him, excepting when he was anxiously attentive to Edith's
dress and appearance, with a view to her beauty making a
sufficient impression on the world. Then all the latent Vashti in
Margaret was roused, and she could hardly keep herself from
expressing her feelings.
The course of Margaret's day was this; a quiet hour or two before
a late breakfast; an unpunctual meal, lazily eaten by weary and
half-awake people, but yet at which, in all its dragged-out
length, she was expected to be present, because, directly
afterwards, came a discussion of plans, at which, although they
none of them concerned her, she was expected to give her
sympathy, if she could not assist with her advice; an endless
number of notes to write, which Edith invariably left to her,
with many caressing compliments as to her eloquence du billet; a
little play with Sholto as he returned from his morning's walk;
besides the care of the children during the servants' dinner; a
drive or callers; and some dinner or morning engagement for her
aunt and cousins, which left Margaret free, it is true, but
rather wearied with the inactivity of the day, coming upon
depressed spirits and delicate health.
She looked forward with longing, though unspoken interest to the
homely object of Dixon's return from Milton; where, until now,
the old servant had been busily engaged in winding up all the
affairs of the Hale family. It had appeared a sudden famine to
her heart, this entire cessation of any news respecting the
people amongst whom she had lived so long. It was true, that
Dixon, in her business-letters, quoted, every now and then, an
opinion of Mr. Thornton's as to what she had better do about the
furniture, or how act in regard to the landlord of the Crampton
Terrace house. But it was only here and there that the name came
in, or any Milton name, indeed; and Margaret was sitting one
evening, all alone in the Lennoxes's drawing-room, not reading
Dixon's letters, which yet she held in her hand, but thinking
over them, and recalling the days which had been, and picturing
the busy life out of which her own had been taken and never
missed; wondering if all went on in that whirl just as if she and
her father had never been; questioning within herself, if no one
in all the crowd missed her, (not Higgins, she was not thinking
of him,) when, suddenly, Mr. Bell was announced; and Margaret
hurried the letters into her work-basket, and started up,
blushing as if she had been doing some guilty thing.