very likely
all these fears were exaggerated. She ended by solemnly entreating her
mother at all events not to persist in naming the sex of Margaret's
infant. It was so unlucky, all the gossips told her; "dear heart, as if
there were not as many girls born as boys."

This reflection, though not unreasonable, was met with clamour.

"Have you the cruelty to threaten me with a girl!!? I want no more
girls, while I have you. What use would a lass be to me? Can I set her
on my knee and see my Gerard again as I can a boy? I tell thee 'tis all
settled.

"How may that be?"

"In my mind. And if I am to be disappointed i' the end, 'tisn't for you
to disappoint me beforehand, telling me it is not to be a child, but
only a girl."

CHAPTER XLIX

MARGARET BRANDT had always held herself apart from Sevenbergen; and her
reserve had passed for pride; this had come to her ears, and she knew
many hearts were swelling with jealousy and malevolence. How would they
triumph over her when her condition could no longer be concealed! This
thought gnawed her night and day. For some time it had made her bury
herself in the house, and shun daylight even on those rare occasions
when she went abroad.

Not that in her secret heart and conscience she mistook her moral
situation, as my unlearned readers have done perhaps. Though not
acquainted with the nice distinctions of the contemporary law, she knew
that betrothal was a marriage contract, and could no more be legally
broken on either side than any other compact written and witnessed; and
that marriage with another party than the betrothed had been formerly
annulled both by Church and State and that betrothed couples often
came together without any further ceremony, and their children were
legitimate.

But what weighed down her simple mediaeval mind was this: that very
contract of betrothal was not forthcoming. Instead of her keeping it,
Gerard had got it, and Gerard was far, far away. She hated and despised
herself for the miserable oversight which had placed her at the mercy of
false opinion.

For though she had never heard Horace's famous couplet, Segnius
irritant, etc., she was Horatian by the plain, hard, positive
intelligence, which, strange to say, characterizes the judgment of her
sex, when feeling happens not to blind it altogether. She gauged the
understanding of the world to a T. Her marriage lines being out
of sight, and in Italy, would never prevail to balance her visible