how sad he looks! l am so glad l am going home,
to be at hand to comfort him and mamma."

She was ready with a bright smile, in which
there was not a trace of fatigue, to greet her
father when he awakened. He smiled back
again, but faintly, as if it were an unusual
exertion. His face returned into its lines of
habitual anxiety. He had a trick of half-
opening his mouth as if to speak, which
constantly unsettled the form of the lips, and
gave the face an undecided expression. But
he had the same large, soft eyes as his
daughter,—eyes which moved slowly and
almost grandly round in their orbits, and were
well veiled by their transparent white eye-
lids. Margaret was more like him than like
her mother. Sometimes people wondered that
parents so handsome should have a daughter
who was so far from regularly beautiful; not
beautiful at all, was occasionally said. Her
mouth was wide; no rosebud that could
only open just enough to let out a yes
and no, and "an't please you, sir." But
the wide mouth was one soft curve of
rich red lips; and the skin, if not white
and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and
delicacy. If the look on her face was in general
too dignified and reserved for one so young,
now, talking to her father, it was bright as
the morning,—full of dimples, and glances that
spoke of childish gladness, and boundless
hope in the future.

It was the latter part of July when
Margaret returned home. The forest trees were
all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below
them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the
weather was sultry and broodingly still.
Margaret used to tramp along by her father's
side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee,
as she felt it yield under her light foot, and
send up the fragrance peculiar to it,—out on
the broad commons into the warm scented
light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living
creatures, revelling in the sunshine, and the
herbs and flowers it called forth. This life—
at least these walks—realised all Margaret's
anticipations. She took a pride in her forest.
Its people were her people. She made hearty
friends with them; learned and delighted in
using their peculiar words; took up her freedom
amongst them; nursed their babies;
talked or read with slow distinctness to their
old people; carried dainty messes to their
sick; resolved before long to teach at the
school, where her father went every day as
to an appointed task, but she was continually
tempted off to go and see some individual
friend—man, woman, or child—in some cottage
in the green shade of the forest. Her out-
of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors life
had its drawbacks. With the healthy shame
of a child she blamed herself for her keenness
of sight, in perceiving that all was not as it
should be there. Her mother—her mother
always so kind and tender towards her—
seemed now and then so much discontented
with their situation; thought that the bishop
strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not
giving Mr. Hale a better living; and almost
reproached her husband because he could not
bring himself to say that he wished to leave
the parish, and undertake the charge of a
larger. He would sigh aloud as he answered,
that if he could do what he ought in little
Helstone, he should be thankful; but every
day he was more overpowered; the world
became more bewildering. At each repeated
urgency of his wife, that he would put himself
in the way of seeking some preferment,
Margaret saw that her father shrank more and
more; and she strove at such times to reconcile
her mother to Helstone. Mrs. Hale said
that the near neighbourhood of so many trees
affected her health; and Margaret would try to
tempt her forth on to the beautiful, broad,
upland, sun-streaked, cloud-shadowed common;
for she was sure that her mother had
accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life,
seldom extending her walks beyond the
church, the school, and the neighbouring
cottages. This did good for a time; but when
the autumn drew on, and the weather became
more changeable, her mother's idea of the
unhealthiness of the place increased; and she
repined even more frequently that her
husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume,
a better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth,
should not have met with the preferment that
these two former neighbours of theirs had done.

This marring of the peace of home, by long
hours of discontent, was what Margaret was
unprepared for. She knew, and had rather
revelled in the idea, that she should have to
give up many luxuries, which had only been
troubles and trammels to her freedom in
Harley Street. Her keen enjoyment, of every
sensuous pleasure, was balanced finely, if not
overbalanced, by her conscious pride in being
able to do without them all, if need were. But
the cloud never comes in that quarter of the
horizon for which we watch for it. There had
been slight complaints and passing regrets
on her mother's part, over some trifle
connected with Helstone, and her father's position
there, when Margaret had been spending her
holidays at home before; but in the general
happiness of the recollection of those times,
she had forgotten the small details which were
not so pleasant.

In the latter half of September, the
autumnal rains and storms came on, and
Margaret was obliged to remain more in the
house than she had hitherto done. Helstone
was at some distance from any neighbours of
their own standard of cultivation.

"It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-
the-way places in England," said Mrs. Hale,
in one of her plaintive moods. "I can't help
regretting constantly that papa has really no
one to associate with here; he is so thrown
away; seeing no one but farmers and labourers
from week's end to week's end. If we
only lived at the other side of the parish it
would be something; there we should be