Chapter 21 - Page 2

opportunity of studying, papa. He
is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it. I know
he is good of his kind, and by and by I shall like the kind. I
rather think I am already beginning to do so. I was very much
interested by what the gentlemen were talking about, although I
did not understand half of it. I was quite sorry when Miss
Thornton came to take me to the other end of the room, saying she
was sure I should be uncomfortable at being the only lady among
so many gentlemen. I had never thought about it, I was so busy
listening; and the ladies were so dull, papa--oh, so dull! Yet I
think it was clever too. It reminded me of our old game of having
each so many nouns to introduce into a sentence.'

'What do you mean, child?' asked Mr. Hale.

'Why, they took nouns that were signs of things which gave
evidence of wealth,--housekeepers, under-gardeners, extent of
glass, valuable lace, diamonds, and all such things; and each one
formed her speech so as to bring them all in, in the prettiest
accidental manner possible.'

'You will be as proud of your one servant when you get her, if
all is true about her that Mrs. Thornton says.'

'To be sure, I shall. I felt like a great hypocrite to-night,
sitting there in my white silk gown, with my idle hands before
me, when I remembered all the good, thorough, house-work they had
done to-day. They took me for a fine lady, I'm sure.'

'Even I was mistaken enough to think you looked like a lady my
dear,' said Mr. Hale, quietly smiling.

But smiles were changed to white and trembling looks, when they
saw Dixon's face, as she opened the door.

'Oh, master!--Oh, Miss Margaret! Thank God you are come! Dr.
Donaldson is here. The servant next door went for him, for the
charwoman is gone home. She's better now; but, oh, sir! I thought
she'd have died an hour ago.'

Mr. Hale caught Margaret's arm to steady himself from falling. He
looked at her face, and saw an expression upon it of surprise and
extremest sorrow, but not the agony of terror that contracted his
own unprepared heart. She knew more than he did, and yet she
listened with that hopeless expression of awed apprehension.

'Oh! I should not have left her--wicked daughter that I am!'
moaned forth Margaret, as she supported her trembling father's
hasty steps up-stairs. Dr. Donaldson met them on the landing.

'She is better now,' he whispered. 'The opiate has taken effect.
The spasms were very bad: no wonder they frightened your maid;
but she'll rally this time.'

'This time! Let me go to her!' Half an hour ago, Mr. Hale was a
middle-aged man; now his sight was dim, his senses wavering, his
walk tottering, as if he were seventy years of age.