e, Margaret, not you."

"Margaret," said Hope, "your sister speaks for herself. I think that
you are the injured one, as Hester herself will soon agree. So far from
having anything to reproach you with, I honour your forbearance,--
unremitting till this hour,--I mourn that we cannot, if we would,
console you in return. But whatever I can do shall be done. Your
friendships, your pursuits, shall be protected. If we persecute your
affections at home, I will take care that you are allowed their exercise
abroad. Rely upon me, and do not think yourself utterly lonely while
you have a brother."

"I have been very selfish," said Margaret, recovering herself at the
first word of kindness; "wretchedness makes me selfish, I think."

She raised herself up on the sofa, and timidly held out her hand to her
sister. Hester thrust it away. Margaret uttered a cry of agony, such
as had never been heard from her since her childhood. Hope fell on the
floor--he had fainted at the sound.

Even now there was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret
reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness--for her loss of the
power of self-control. Hester's remorse, however greater in degree, was
of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done
before, that she made her husband wretched--that she should never have
another happy moment--that she wished he had never seen her. For the
rest of the day she was humbled, contrite, convinced that she should
give way to her temper no more. Her eyes filled when her husband spoke
tenderly to her, and her conduct to Margaret was one act of
supplication. But a lesser degree of this same kind of penitence had
produced no permanent good effect before; and there was no security that
the present paroxysm would have a different result.

Morris had seen that the children were engaged up-stairs when she came
down at Margaret's silent summons, to help to revive her master. When
she saw that there had been distress before there was illness, she took
her part. She resolved that no one but herself should hear his first
words, and sent the ladies away when she saw that his consciousness was
returning. All the world might have heard his first words. He
recovered himself with a vigorous effort, swallowed a glass of wine, and
within a few minutes was examining a patient in the waiting-room. There
the little girls saw him as they passed the half-open door, on their way
out with their