hidden away under the quiet
reserve of her manner. But again with an effort he suppressed his
irritation and proceeded to describe to her the place to which she was
going and the life she would lead there. "For if you imagine that the
senseless delights I overheard you picturing to yourself the other day
are to be yours you may as well disabuse yourself of the notion at once.
Nor will you have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of a number
of giddy young people. You will lead a life of as strict retirement there
as here. My friend, Mrs. Murray, who has so kindly consented to take you
for a time, is about my age; she will have the additional drawback in
your eyes of being very deaf. She lives quite alone in a little village
on the Sussex Downs and sees no one. But you will have plenty to do. I
have made arrangements for you to begin the study of Italian. It is time
you learned another language, and fortunately there is an Italian lady,
a Madame Margherita Martelli, once a famous singer, resident in the
village, who will instruct you in her language and also give you singing
lessons. She will also, perhaps, accompany you on your daily walk."

A curious light flashed suddenly into Margaret's down-drooped hazel eyes.
Her daily lessons! Her daily walk! And one deaf old lady for company! For
one wild minute she felt inclined to rebel, to tell her grandfather that
she was tired of being treated as a child, and that she had a right, at
eighteen, to have some voice in the disposition of her own time.

If she had raised her eyes then, he must have seen the mutinous look in
them, and then, whatever else had happened, or whatever the doctor had
said at his advice being set at nought, it would have been quite certain
that Margaret would not have been permitted to leave Greystones that
summer.

But that desire to rebel vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving
Mr. Anstruther as unaware as he had been before of all that his
granddaughter's quiet, almost indifferent manner concealed.

"After all," she told herself afterwards, "there will be the downs and
the sea to look at. And it will be a change from this."

So she held fast to those two thoughts, and did not permit herself to
be dismayed by the picture her grandfather had drawn of the life that
awaited her at Windy Gap.

Of course, it was out of the question that Margaret should travel alone,
and Mr. Anstruther made arrangements for his housekeeper and cook to
esco