"Oh," said Margaret, drawing a long breath and speaking with evident relief; "of course I will do anything for you."
"You young ladies are so cautious in these days; you answered as though I was going to ask you to lend me ten thousand pounds, or lay a proposal of marriage at your feet."
Again Margaret coloured violently, but she laughed also; she felt she had so nearly made herself supremely ridiculous.
"What I want you to do," continued Mr. Stevens, earnestly, "is nothing very remarkable. I want you to manage that I shall have a little time alone with Mrs. Dorriman. I have something to say to her, and it so happens that I never can see her alone; you are always there, you know."
"My dear Mr. Stevens," she said, all the former charm and cordiality of her manner once again in full force, "how dreadfully sorry I am that I have been so blind and so stupid. I am afraid I have been dreadfully in your way."
"Well, you have rather," said Mr. Stevens, who was disappointed to find her manner, capricious; he had thought her above that sort of thing.
Margaret laughed again, but she went upstairs, put on her things, and then found Mrs. Dorriman, who was still weighing in her own mind the respective merits of cranberry or blackberry jam for the pudding that evening.
"Which does Mr. Stevens like best? for I think he will dine here to-night," Margaret said, with a smile the little lady did not understand.
"Have you asked him, my dear?" she asked placidly; "I did not know he was here."
"No, but I think you will ask him. He is here, and, by the way, he wants to see you about something."
Mrs. Dorriman took off her housekeeping apron, washed her hands, and went composedly to meet her fate, with an innocence and want of suspicion that gave Margaret much quiet amusement.
Mrs. Dorriman was a little nervous, because she thought perhaps Mr. Stevens brought her news from her brother. She had not heard from him for some days, and she expected him daily; since the frequent attacks of illness, which she did not thoroughly understand the import of, a vague uneasiness filled her.
"Is my brother well? Have you news of him?" she asked hastily, when she went into the room.
"He was well enough when I heard," he answered; and then a sudden shyness possessed him.