to-night
Perhaps mamma will come to me to-night when every one is gone."

And armed with this anticipation, she went downstairs, looking only a
little more flushed than usual, and able to bear her part in the
conversation and the amusements as easily as if no question as to her
future fate were hanging undecided in the air.

But Lady Caroline did not stay when she visited Margaret that night as
usual in her pretty room. She caressed and kissed her with more than
customary warmth, but she did not attempt to enter into conversation
with her in spite of the soft appeal of Margaret's inquiring eyes. "My
dear child, I cannot possibly stay with you to-night," she said. "Your
Aunt Isabel has asked me to go into her room for a few minutes.
Good-night, my own sweetest: you looked admirable to-night in that lace
dress, and your singing was simply charming. Mr. Bevan was saying that
you ought to have the best Italian masters. Good-night, my darling," and
Margaret was left alone.

She was a little disturbed--a little, not very much. She was not apt to
be irritable or impatient, and she had great confidence in her parents'
love for her. She had never realized that she lived under a yoke.
Everything was made so smooth and easy that she imagined that she had
only to express her will in order to have it granted. That there might
be difficulties she foresaw: her parents might hesitate and parley a
good deal, but she had not the slightest fear of overcoming their
reluctance in course of time. She had always been a young princess, and
nobody had ever seriously combated her will.

"I am sure that if I am resolute enough I shall be allowed to do as I
choose," she said to herself; and possibly this was true enough. But
Margaret had never yet had occasion to measure her resolution against
that of her father and mother.

She went to bed and to sleep, therefore, quite peacefully, and slept
like a child until morning, while Wyvis Brand was frantically pacing up
and down his old hall for the greater part of the night, and Janetta was
wetting her pillow with silent tears, and Philip Ashley, sleepless like
these others, vainly tried to forget his disappointment in the perusal
of certain blue-books. Margaret was the cause of all this turmoil of
mind, but she knew nothing of it, and most certainly did not partake in
it.

She suspected that she was to be spoken to on the subject of Mr. Brand's
letter, when, after breakfast, next morning, she fo