ly bear very much the character of hers,
though they may not be pampered by circumstances into such a luxuriance
as in this case. In a city, Mrs Rowland might have been an ordinary
spiteful fine lady. In such a place as Deerbrook, and with a family of
rivals' cousins incessantly before her eyes, to exercise her passions
upon, she has ended in being--"

"What she is," said Margaret, as Hope stopped for a word.

"Margaret is less surprised than you expected, is she not?" said Hester.
"You did not suppose that she would sit and listen as she does to your
analysis of Mrs Rowland. But if the truth were known, she carries a
prophecy about her on her finger. I have no doubt she has been
expecting this very news ever since she recovered her ring. Yes or no,
Margaret?"

"I should rather say she has carried a prophecy in her heart all these
long months," said Hope, "of which that on her finger is only the
symbol."

"However it may be," said Hester, "it has prepared a reception for Mr
Enderby. There is no resisting a prophecy. What is written is
written."

"I must hear him, you know," said Margaret, gently.

"You must; and you must hear him favourably," said her brother.

"I had forgotten," said Hester, ringing the bell. "Morris, a good fire
in the breakfast-room, immediately."

Within the hour, Philip and Margaret were by that fireside, finally
wedded in heart and soul. It was astonishing how little explanation was
needed when Margaret had once been told, in addition to the fact of her
letter having been destroyed, that she was declared to have made Mrs
Enderby the depository of her confidence about a prior attachment.
There was, however, as much to relate as there was little to explain.
How Enderby's heart burned within him, when, in sporting with the idea
of a prior attachment, it came out what Margaret had felt at the moment
of his intrusion upon the conference with Hope, of which he had since,
as at the time, been so jealous! the amusement on her own part, and the
joy on Hester's, which she was trying to conceal by her downcast looks!
How his soul melted within him when she owned her momentary regret at
being saved from under the ice, and the consolation and stimulus she had
derived from her brother's expression of affection for her on the spot!
How clear, how true a refutation were these revealings of the
imputations that had been cast upon her! and how strangely had the facts
been distorted by a prejudice