Chapter 14 - Page 2

once you are married to a man like Mr. Barton, who is there can frighten you? And as to being poor," and Mrs. St. John Deloraine explained her generous views as to arrangements on her part, which would leave Margaret far from portionless.

Then Margaret would cry a little, and lay her head on her friend's shoulder, and the friend would shed some natural tears for company; and they would have tea, and Barton would call, and look a great deal at his boots, and fidget with his hat.

"I've no patience with you, Mr. Barton," said Mrs. St. John Deloraine at last, when she had so maneuvered as to have some private conversation with him, and Barton had unpacked his heart. "I've no patience with you. Why, where is your courage? 'She has a history?' She's been persecuted. Well, where's your chivalry? Why don't you try your fortune? There never was a better girl, nor a pleasanter companion when she's not--when she's not disturbed by the nervousness of an undecided young man. If you don't take your courage in both hands, I will carry Margaret off on a yachting voyage to the Solomon Islands, or Jericho, or somewhere. Look here, I am going to take her for a drive in Battersea Park; it is handy, and looking very pretty, and as lonely as Tadmor in the wilderness. We will get out and saunter among the ponds. I shall be tired and sit down; you will show Margaret the marvels of natural history in the other pond, and when you come back you will both have made up your minds!"

With this highly transparent ruse Barton expressed his content. The carriage was sent for, and in less than half an hour Barton and Margaret were standing alone, remote, isolated from the hum of men, looking at a pond where some water-hens were diving, while a fish ("coarse," but not uninteresting) occasionally flopped on the surface, The trees--it was the last week of May--were in the earliest freshness of their foliage; the air, for a wonder, was warm and still.

"How quiet and pretty it is!" said Margaret "Who would think we were in London?"

Barton said nothing. Like the French parrot, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, he thought the more.

"Miss Burnside!" he exclaimed suddenly, "we have known each other now for some time."

This was a self evident proposition; but Margaret felt what was coming, and trembled. She turned for a moment, pretending to watch the movements of one of the water-fowls. Inwardly she was nerving herself to face the hard part of her duty, and to remind Barton of the mystery in her life.

"Yes," she said at last; "we have known each other for some time, and yet--you know nothing about me."

With these words she lifted her eyes and looked him straight in the face. There seemed a certain pride and nobility in her he had not seen before, though her beautiful brown eyes were troubled, and there