_have_ you been?" cried Lady Caroline, who was
always caressing, if inflexible.

"I have been to Janetta Colwyn's, mamma," said Margaret, imperturbably,
"to ask her to give a message to Mr. Brand."

"Margaret! Have you quite forgotten yourself? Oh, that unsuitable
friendship of yours!"

"I don't think you need call it unsuitable, mamma," Margaret rejoined,
with a weary little smile. "Janetta absolutely refused to give the
message, and told me to obey my parents. I really do not see that _you_
can blame her."

Lady Caroline replied only by a look of despair which spoke unutterable
things, and then she walked onward to the spot where she had left the
carriage. The three ladies drove home in complete silence. Lady Caroline
was seriously displeased, Alicia curious, Margaret in rebellion and
disgrace. The state of things was becoming very grave, for the whole
tenor of life at Helmsley Court was disturbed, and Margaret's father and
mother wanted their daughter to be a credit and an ornament to them, not
a cause of disturbance and irritation. Margaret had kept up a gallant
fight: she had borne silence, cold looks, absence of caresses, with
unwavering courage; but she began now to find the situation unendurable.
And a little doubt had lately been creeping into her heart--was it all
worth while? If Wyvis Brand were really as undesirable a _parti_ as he
was represented to be, Margaret was not sure that her lot would be very
happy as his wife. Hitherto she had maintained that the stories told
about him, his habits and his position, were falsehoods. But if--she
began to think--if they were true, and if a marriage with him would
exclude her from the society to which she had been accustomed, was it
worth while to fight as hard as she had done? Perhaps, after all, her
mother and her father were right.

Lady Caroline, not knowing of these weaknesses in Margaret's defence,
was inclined for once to be more severe than caressing. She went
straight to her husband when she entered the Court, and had a long
conversation with him. Then she proceeded to Margaret's room.

"I have been talking to your father, Margaret," she said coldly, "and we
are both very much distressed at the course which things are taking."

"So am I, mamma," said Margaret.

"Of course we cannot proceed in the mediaeval fashion, and lock you up in
your own room until you are reasonable," said Lady Caroline, with a
faint smile. "I should have thought that your own