or three lines relating to the incident of the morning. Her voice was
husky, but her manner was gay. During the whole evening she was gay.
She insisted on making tea, and was too quick with the kettle for Edward
to help her. She proposed music, and she sang--song after song. Hester
was completely relieved about her; and even Edward gave himself up to
the hope that all was well with her. From music they got to dancing.
Margaret had learned, by sitting with Maria during the children's
dancing-lesson, a new dance which had struck her fancy, and they must be
ready with it next week at Dr Levitt's. Alternately playing the dance
and teaching it, she ran from the piano to them, and from them to the
piano, till they were perfect, and her face was as flushed as it could
possibly be at Mrs Levitt's dance next week. But in the midst of this
flush, Hope saw a shiver: and Hester remarked, that during the teaching,
Margaret had, evidently without being aware of it, squeezed her hand
with a force which could not have been supposed to be in her. These
things made Hope still doubt.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE UNCONSCIOUS.

Mr Hope might well doubt. Margaret was not gay but desperate. Yes,
even the innocent may be desperate under circumstances of education and
custom, by which feelings natural and inevitable are made occasions of
shame; while others, which are wrong and against the better nature of
man, bask in daylight and impunity. There was not a famishing wretch
prowling about a baker's door, more desperate than Margaret this day.
There was not a gambler setting his teeth while watching the last turn
of the die, more desperate than Margaret this day. If there was a
criminal standing above a sea of faces with the abominable executioner's
hands about his throat, Margaret was, for the time, as wretched as he.

If any asked why--why it should be thus with one who has done no wrong,
the answer is--Why is there pride in the human heart?--why is there a
particular nurture of this pride into womanly reserve?--Why is it that
love is the chief experience, and almost the only object, of a woman's
life? Why is it that it is painful to beings who look before and after
to have the one hope of existence dashed away--the generous faith
outraged--all self-confidence overthrown--life in one moment made dreary
as the desert--Heaven itself overclouded--and death all the while
standing at such a weary distance that ther