herefore it was that the next day after
breakfast she said to Margaret, "I desire to talk to you a little."

"Certainly, Madame. Will the withdrawing-room answer?"

"Yes, here or there." Margaret closed the door as she followed the
vicomtesse, and after the manner of her day stood while the elder woman
sat very upright in the high-backed chair prophetically designed for her
figure and the occasion.

"Pray be seated," she said. "I have had a white night, Mademoiselle, if
you know what that is. I have been sleepless." If this filled Margaret
with pity, I much doubt. "I have had to elect whether I quarrel with my
son or with myself. I choose the latter, and shall say no more than
this--I am too straightforward to avoid meeting face to face the
hardships of life."

"Bless me, am I the hardship?" thought Margaret, her attitude of defiant
pride somewhat modified by assistant sense of the comic.

"I shall say only this: I have always liked you. Whether I shall ever
love you or not, I do not know. I have never had room in my heart for
more than one love. God has so made me," which the young woman thought
did comfortably and oddly shift responsibility, and thus further aided
to restore her good humor.

"We shall be friends, Margaret." She rose as she spoke, and setting her
hands on Margaret's shoulders as she too stood, said: "You are
beautiful, child, and you have very good manners. There are things to be
desired, the want of which I much regret; otherwise--" She felt as if
she had gone far enough. "Were these otherwise, I should have been
satisfied." Then she kissed her coldly on the forehead.

Margaret said, "I shall try, Madame, to be a good daughter," and,
falling back, courtesied, and left the tall woman to her meditations.

Madame de Courval and Mary Swanwick knew that soon or late what their
children had settled they too must discuss. Neither woman desired it,
the vicomtesse aware that she might say more than she meant to say, the
Quaker matron in equal dread lest things might be said which would make
the future difficult. Mary Swanwick usually went with high courage to
meet the calamities of life, and just at present it is to be feared that
she thus classified the stern puritan dame. But now she would wait no
longer, and having so decided on Saturday, she chose Sunday morning,
when--and she smiled--the vicomtesse having been to Gloria Dei and she
herself to Friends' meeting, both should be in a frame of mind for