’As you please.  As Dixon pleases.  But, Margaret, don’t get to use these horrid Milton words.  “Slack of work:”  it is a provincialism.  What will your aunt Shaw say, if she hears you use it on her return?’

‘Oh, mamma! don’t try and make a bugbear of aunt Shaw’ said Margaret, laughing.  ’Edith picked up all sorts of military slang from Captain Lennox, and aunt Shaw never took any notice of it.’

‘But yours is factory slang.’

’And if I live in a factory town, I must speak factory language when I want it.  Why, mamma, I could astonish you with a great many words you never heard in your life.  I don’t believe you know what a knobstick is.’

’Not I, child.  I only know it has a very vulgar sound and I don’t want to hear you using it.’

’Very well, dearest mother, I won’t.  Only I shall have to use a whole explanatory sentence instead.’

‘I don’t like this Milton,’ said Mrs. Hale.  ’Edith is right enough in saying it’s the smoke that has made me so ill.’

Margaret started up as her mother said this.  Her father had just entered the room, and she was most anxious that the faint impression she had seen on his mind that the Milton air had injured her mother’s health, should not be deepened,—­should not receive any confirmation.  She could not tell whether he had heard what Mrs. Hale had said or not; but she began speaking hurriedly of other things, unaware that Mr. Thornton was following him.

’Mamma is accusing me of having picked up a great deal of vulgarity since we came to Milton.’

The ‘vulgarity’ Margaret spoke of, referred purely to the use of local words, and the expression arose out of the conversation they had just been holding.  But Mr. Thornton’s brow darkened; and Margaret suddenly felt how her speech might be misunderstood by him; so, in the natural sweet desire to avoid giving unnecessary pain, she forced herself to go forwards with a little greeting, and continue what she was saying, addressing herself to him expressly.

’Now, Mr. Thornton, though “knobstick” has not a very pretty sound, is it not expressive?  Could I do without it, in speaking of the thing it represents?  If using local words is vulgar, I was very vulgar in the Forest,—­was I not, mamma?’

It was unusual with Margaret to obtrude her own subject of conversation on others; but, in this case, she was so anxious to prevent Mr. Thornton from feeling annoyance at the words he had accidentally overheard, that it was not until she had done speaking that she coloured all over with consciousness, more especially as Mr. Thornton seemed hardly to understand the exact gist or bearing of what she was saying, but passed her by, with a cold reserve of ceremonious movement, to speak to Mrs. Hale.