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WILD MARGARET. 19
Mrs. Hale shook her head.
“No one I know, my dear,’’ she said. ‘‘ None of the
- gentry hereabouts would, fight with any one, least of al] a
common man. A tall man, with an ugly face—”’
-“Oh, very ugly and evil-looking—I think they called
him Pyke.”’
‘“Pyke—Jem Pyke!’ said Mrs. Hale. “Oh, I know
him; a dreadful bad character, my dear... I’m not sur-
prised at his kicking a dog, or fighting either.. He’s one
of our worst men—a poacher and a thief, so they say. I
wonder he didn’t get the best of it!”
‘‘ He got the very possible worst of it,’? said Margaret,
with an unconscious tone of satisfaction. ‘‘ There's the
picture, grandma! And where will you hang it?”
It was aclever little picture; a bit of a London street,
faithfully and carefully painted, and instinct with grace
_and feeling: . .
The old lady of course did not see all the good points,
but she was none the less proud and delighted, and stood
regarding it with admiring awe that rendered her speech-
ess.
“You dear, clever girl,” she said, kissing her, ‘‘and
it is for me, really for me?’ Oh; Margaret, if your poor
father——”’
Margaret sighed. . :
“Get me a hammer and a nail, grandma,’’ she said,
after a moment, ‘‘and I’ll put it ina good light; the light
ig everything, you know.”’ .
A hammer and nail were brought, and the picture hung,
and the two went out into the garden, and presently the
girl was singing like a nightingale from her over-brim-
ming heart. But suddenly she stopped and looked in at
- the window of the room where the old lady had returned
to see the unpacking and uncreasing of the clothes which
had traveled in the unpretending Gladstone bag.
‘Oh, grandma, I beg your pardon! I forgot! Perhaps
the earl won’t like my. singing?”
Mrs. Hale laughed. - ° ,
. °The earl! My dear, he is right at the other end of the
building and could scarcely hear a brass band from here!
But come in now, Margaret, and have some supper. You
must go to. bed early after your long journey, or you
won't sow the seed for those roses I want to see in your
cheeks!” ;
When she woke in the morning with the scent: of the
honeysuckle wafting across her face, Margaret could al-
most have persuaded herself that Leyton Court was a VI1S-
ion of a dream, and that she should find herself presently
on her way to the art school at Kensington amidst all the
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