dinner, and the knife-tray out of reach. This spirit, so long ago
driven out by the genial influences of family love, by the religion of
an expanding intellect, and the solace of appreciation, now came back to
inhabit the purified bosom which had been kept carefully swept and
garnished. It was the motion of this spirit, uneasy in its unfit abode,
that showed itself by the shiver, the flushed cheek, the clenching hand,
and the flashing eye. It kept whispering wicked things,--"I will baffle
and deceive Maria: she shall withdraw her pity, and laugh at it with
me." "I defy Edward and Hester: they shall wonder how it is that my
fancy alone is free, that my heart alone is untouched, that the storms
of life pass high over my head, and dare not lower." "I will humble
Philip, and convince him..." But, no; it would not do. The abode was
too lowly and too pure for the evil spirit of defiance: the demon did
not wait to be cast out; but as Margaret sat down in her chamber, alone
with her lot, to face it as she might, the strange inmate escaped, and
left her at least herself.

Margaret was in agonised amazement at the newness of the misery she was
suffering. She really fancied she had sympathised with Hester that
dreadful night of Hope's accident: she had then actually believed that
she was entering into her sister's feelings. It had been as much like
it as seeing a picture of one on the rack is like being racked. But
Hester had not had so much cause for misery, for she never had to
believe Edward unworthy. Her pride had been wounded at finding that her
peace was no longer in her own power; but she had not been trifled
with--duped. Here again Margaret refused to believe. The fault was all
her own. She had been full of herself, full of vanity; fancying,
without cause, that she was much to another when she was little. She
was humbled now, and she no doubt deserved it. But how ineffably weak
and mean did she appear in her own eyes! It was this which clouded
Heaven to her at the moment that earth had become a desert. She felt so
debased, that she durst not ask for strength where she was wont to find
it. If she had done one single wrong thing, she thought she could bear
the consequences cheerfully, and seek support, and vigorously set about
repairing the causes of her fault; but here it seemed to her that her
whole state of mind had been low and selfish. It must be this sort of
blindness which had led her so far in so f