to
give it to her, and I shall do my duty cheerfully. At your age, it is
not to be expected that you should know anything about children. Leave
all to me, and you will be surprised at the result. A firm rein for a
few weeks,--I shall manage her, never fear!"

Margaret was humble-minded, and fully conscious of her total lack of
experience; still, she could not feel that a system of repression was
the one most likely to succeed with Susan D.

"If we could win the child's affection," she began, timidly. Miss
Sophronia pounced upon her.

"My love, you naturally think so! Believe me, I know what I am talking
about. I have practically brought up William's children; the result is
astonishing, everybody says so." (Everybody did, but their astonishment
was hardly what the good lady fancied it.) "Trust,--dearest Margaret,
simply confide absolutely in me! So important, I always say, for the
young to have entire confidence in their elders."

Margaret was thankful when dinner was over, and her cousin gone to take
her afternoon nap. Basil was in a lowering mood, the result of his
sister's imprisonment. He would do nothing but rage against Cousin
Sophronia, so Margaret was finally obliged to send him away, and sit
down with a sigh to her work, alone.

It was very pleasant and peaceful on the verandah. The garden was hot
and sunny at this hour, but here the shade lay cool and grateful, and
Margaret felt the silence like balm on her fretted spirit. It was all
wrong that she should be so fretted; she argued with herself, scolded,
tried to bring herself to a better frame of mind; but nature was too
strong for her, and the best she could do was to resolve that she would
try, and keep on trying, her very best; and that Uncle John should not
know how worried she was. That, surely, she could manage: to keep a
smiling face when he was at home, and to made light of all these hourly
pin-pricks that seemed to her sensitive nature like sword-thrusts.

So quiet! Only the sound of the soft wind in the great chestnut-trees,
and the clear notes of a bird in the upper branches. A rose-breasted
grosbeak! Her uncle had been teaching her something about birds, and she
knew this beautiful creature, and loved to watch him as he hovered
about the nest where his good wife sat. His song was almost like the
oriole's, Margaret thought. She laid down her embroidery, and watched
the flashes of crimson appear and disappear. What a wonderful, beautiful
thing