A mood so doleful does not last, however, when we are young and healthy. It grew tantalising to Margaret to see the others enjoying themselves, and made her feel neglected; and she welcomed Rosa when Joseph brought her to sit beside his family, and accustom Mrs Naylor to the prospect of a sister-in-law. The jeweller's clerk having divulged that he had ordered a magnificent ring for a lady, it was useless to affect reserve. He accepted the people's congratulations calmly, as his due; and his sister-in-law, making a virtue of necessity, endeavoured to do so likewise. Mrs Deane was in the little knot by Mrs Naylor's sofa--good-natured people who did not believe in her ailments, but had no objection to humouring her, and found the fixed centre of an invalid's couch convenient in that fortuitous concourse of atoms. Mrs Naylor engrossed herself with Mrs Deane, Rose's chaperon, that her feeling towards Rose herself might be less apparent. It was oppressive to go on talking pleasantly to one whom she would have liked to address in quite other terms, had it been permissible. Wherefore Rose fell out of the conversation and turned to Margaret, with whom she had more in common.
"How are you here, Margaret? You have neither sung, played, nor danced. What is the matter?"
"Mamma is poorly. She needs some one by to fetch her smelling-bottle and keep her company when other people go away." She said it with much sobriety and demureness of manner, but the act of saying appeared to dissolve the little which remained of her self-restraint. She bent forward and took Rose's hand, adding in an undertone, "She knows. She has been told about the island. She is coming between us. Wants to break off everything. But she can't! I will not give him up. I will have nothing to say to any one else. Oh Rose! what am I to do? I cannot live if I do not see him sometimes. What shall I do?"
Rose's eyes were roving far away, as were her thoughts; she was looking over Margaret's head, as Margaret leant forward and whispered. By a distant doorway stood a group of men, and her eyes turned dreamily and of themselves in that direction. The group parted to let two ladies enter, an elder and a younger one. The latter addressed a gentleman in passing, and carried him away between herself and her friend from his fellow-loungers. Rose coloured and started, then, meeting Margaret's look of surprise, she controlled herself--