Margaret was likewise on the eve of a change.  She stood like a young fledged bird on the edge of the nest, ready to take its first long flight.  It was necessary that she should do something for herself, not so much from the compulsion of immediate circumstances, as in prospect of the future.  Her father was not an old man, but at best he could leave only a trifle at his death; and if Janet outlived him, she would probably require all that, and what labour she would then be capable of as well, to support herself.  Margaret was anxious, too, though not to be independent, yet, not to be burdensome.  Both David and Janet saw that, by her peculiar tastes and habits, she had separated herself so far from the circle around her, that she could never hope to be quite comfortable in that neighbourhood.  It was not that by any means she despised or refused the labours common to the young women of the country; but, all things considered, they thought that something more suitable for her might be procured.

The laird’s lady continued to behave to her in the most supercilious fashion.  The very day of Hugh’s departure, she had chanced to meet Margaret walking alone with a book, this time unopened, in her hand.  Mrs. Glasford stopped.  Margaret stopped too, expecting to be addressed.  The lady looked at her, all over, from head to foot, as if critically examining the appearance of an animal she thought of purchasing; then, without a word, but with a contemptuous toss of the head, passed on, leaving poor Margaret both angry and ashamed.

But David was much respected by the gentry of the neighbourhood, with whom his position, as the laird’s steward, brought him not unfrequently into contact; and to several of them he mentioned his desire of finding some situation for Margaret.  Janet could not bear the idea of her lady-bairn leaving them, to encounter the world alone; but David, though he could not help sometimes feeling a similar pang, was able to take to himself hearty comfort from the thought, that if there was any safety for her in her father’s house, there could not be less in her heavenly Father’s, in any nook of which she was as full in His eye, and as near His heart, as in their own cottage.  He felt that anxiety in this case, as in every other, would just be a lack of confidence in God, to suppose which justifiable would be equivalent to saying that He had not fixed the foundations of the earth that it should not be moved; that He was not the Lord of Life, nor the Father of His children; in short, that a sparrow could fall to the ground without Him, and that the hairs of our head are not numbered.  Janet admitted all this, but sighed nevertheless.  So did David too, at times; for he knew that the sparrow must fall; that many a divine truth is hard to learn, all-blessed as it is when learned; and that sorrow and suffering must come to Margaret, ere she could be fashioned into the perfection of a child of the kingdom.  Still, she was as safe abroad as at home.