still bleak and dreary.  The only thing she did well, was what she did out of unconscious piety, the silent comforting and consoling of her father.  Not a mood of his but what found a ready sympathiser in Margaret; not a wish of his that she did not strive to forecast, and to fulfil.  They were quiet wishes to be sure, and hardly named without hesitation and apology.  All the more complete and beautiful was her meek spirit of obedience.  March brought the news of Frederick’s marriage.  He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words which proved how far the idioms of his bride’s country were infecting him.

On the receipt of Henry Lennox’s letter, announcing how little hope there was of his ever clearing himself at a court-martial, in the absence of the missing witnesses, Frederick had written to Margaret a pretty vehement letter, containing his renunciation of England as his country; he wished he could unnative himself, and declared that he would not take his pardon if it were offered him, nor live in the country if he had permission to do so.  All of which made Margaret cry sorely, so unnatural did it seem to her at the first opening; but on consideration, she saw rather in such expression the poignancy of the disappointment which had thus crushed his hopes; and she felt that there was nothing for it but patience.  In the next letter, Frederick spoke so joyfully of the future that he had no thought for the past; and Margaret found a use in herself for the patience she had been craving for him.  She would have to be patient.  But the pretty, timid, girlish letters of Dolores were beginning to have a charm for both Margaret and her father.  The young Spaniard was so evidently anxious to make a favourable impression upon her lover’s English relations, that her feminine care peeped out at every erasure; and the letters announcing the marriage, were accompanied by a splendid black lace mantilla, chosen by Dolores herself for her unseen sister-in-law, whom Frederick had represented as a paragon of beauty, wisdom and virtue.  Frederick’s worldly position was raised by this marriage on to as high a level as they could desire.  Barbour and Co. was one of the most extensive Spanish houses, and into it he was received as a junior partner.  Margaret smiled a little, and then sighed as she remembered afresh her old tirades against trade.  Here was her preux chevalier of a brother turned merchant, trader!  But then she rebelled against herself, and protested silently against the confusion implied between a Spanish merchant and a Milton mill-owner.  Well! trade or no trade, Frederick was very, very happy.  Dolores must be charming, and the mantilla was exquisite!  And then she returned to the present life.