Chapter 2 - Page 2

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dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for
years--at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just
before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep. She took
her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to
the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future. Her eyes
began to see, not visions of what had been, but the sight
actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in the
railway carriage. His blue-black hair was grey now, and lay
thinly over his brows. The bones of his face were plainly to be
seen--too plainly for beauty, if his features had been less
finely cut; as it was, they had a grace if not a comeliness of
their own. The face was in repose; but it was rather rest after
weariness, than the serene calm of the countenance of one who led
a placid, contented life. Margaret was painfully struck by the
worn, anxious expression; and she went back over the open and
avowed circumstances of her father's life, to find the cause for
the lines that spoke so plainly of habitual distress and
depression.

'Poor Frederick!' thought she, sighing. 'Oh! if Frederick had but
been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost
to us all! I wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from
Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because
of that terrible affair. Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am
so glad I am going home, to be at hand to comfort him and mamma.

She was ready with a bright smile, in which there was not a trace
of fatigue, to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back
again, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion. His face
returned into its lines of habitual anxiety. He had a trick of
half-opening his mouth as if to speak, which constantly unsettled
the form of the lips, and gave the face an undecided expression.
But he had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter,--eyes which
moved slowly and almost grandly round in their orbits, and were
well veiled by their transparent white eyelids. Margaret was more
like him than like her mother. Sometimes people wondered that
parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far from
regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said.
Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just' enough
to let out a 'yes' and 'no,' and 'an't please you, sir.' But the
wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if
not white and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If
the look on her face was, in general, too dignified and reserved
for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was bright as
the morning,--full of dimples, and glances that spoke of childish
gladness, and boundless hope in