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Well, if not tr
| WILD MARGARET, OBL
\ rembling, quivering, as:a leaf quivers: when.
the summer wind passes over its bosom...
What was this that she had done? ‘Notwithstanding her
é
\grandmother’s warning and her own good resolutions, she”
had spent—how long!—nearly an ‘hour talking alone with
Lord Blair Leyton. And he had given her a rose! Not
‘only given it to her, but fastened it in the antimacassar:
~ She could feel his fingers touching: her still, as it seemed
to her! She looked down at the rose, gleaming like a spot
of blood on the white cotton of the antimacassar, then,\ .
with-a sudden gesture, she went. to pull it out and’
' fling it through the window; but she averted her hand
- even as it touched the velvet leaves, Yes, she had doné ;
wrong; she ought not to ha've spoken to him, ought not to
have remained with him, and most certainly ought not to ,
have taken the rose from him. os
‘She saw now how wrong she had been. They used to |.
call her ‘‘ Wild Margaret,” ‘‘Mad Madge,’ when she was
a child, but she had ‘been trying. to become quiet, and dig-
-nified; and discrect, and, as it seemed to her, had suc-
_ ceeded, until this wicked young man had tempted her into
flirting—was it flirting ?—in the starlight.
“You Jook flushed, my dear,’’ said Mrs. Hale. Are»
you tired?” . poo Oo
_~.“T think Iam a little,’’ said Margaret, longing to.get to
the solitude of her own room.
» .** It’s the country air,’’ said the old lady, nodding. “Tt
. always makes people from London sleepy. Was it pleasant
in the garden?” she added, innocently.
Margaret’s face flushed. — -
“*¥—es, very,” she:replied; then she was going on to” .
tell the old lady of her meeting with Lord Blair, but
_ Stopped short, |
- the old lady a kiss, she went up-stairs. to her own room, |
“T think I will go up to bed now,” she said, and giving
There she thought over every word that the young lord:
said, and that she herself had spoken. There had been no
harm in any of it, surely!) He had spoken respectfully, ,
~ almost-reverentially, and even when he had given her the
rose he had done it with as much difidence and high-bred
courtesy as if she had been a countess. Surely there had
een no harm in if. ae | Wg ee
It was a lovely morning when. she woke, and dressing
herself she went straight to the picture gallery. As she
left the room Lord Blair’s red rose seemed to smile at her
from the dressing-table, ‘and she took it up and carried —
itin her hand. It was just possible that she might meet -
him, if so; it would be as well to-have the rose with her,
for give it back she meant to, if a chance afforded. The