as, from some cause,
inestimable to Margaret, and he spared no pains to recover it: but weeks
passed on without any tidings of it. Margaret told herself that she
must give up this, as she had given up so much else, with as much
cheerfulness as she could; but she missed her ring every hour of the
day.

Christmas came; and the expected contest took, place about the rent of
the corner-house. Mr Rowland showed his lady the bank-notes on the
morning of quarter-day, and then immediately and secretly sent them
back. Mrs Rowland had never been so sorry to see bank-notes; yet she
would have been so angry at their being returned, that her husband
concealed the fact from her. Within an hour the money was in Mr
Rowland's hands again, with a request that he would desist from pressing
favours upon those who could not but consider them as pecuniary
obligation, and not as justice. Mr Rowland sighed, turned the key of
his desk upon the money, and set forth to the corner-house, to see
whether no repairs were wanted--whether there was nothing that he could
do as landlord to promote the comfort and security of his excellent
tenants.

Christmas came; and Morris found she could not leave her young ladies
while the days were so very short. She would receive no wages after
Christmas, and she would take care that she cost them next to nothing;
but she could not be easy to go till brighter days--days externally
brighter, at least--were at hand, nor till the baby was a little less
tender, and had shown beyond dispute that he was likely to be a stout
little fellow. She could not think of Miss Margaret getting up quite in
the dark, to light the fire; it was a dismal time to begin such a new
sort of work. Margaret privately explained to her that these little
circumstances brought no discouragement to persons who undertake such
labour with sufficient motive; and Morris admitted this. She saw the
difference between the case of a poor girl first going to service, who
trembles half the night at the idea of her mistress's displeasure if she
should not happen to wake in time; such poor girl undertaking service
for a maintenance, and by no means from love in either party towards the
other--Morris saw the difference between the morning waking to such a
service and Margaret's being called from her bed by love of those whom
she was going to serve through the day, and by an exhilarating sense of
honour and duty. Morris saw that, while to the solita