But that could not be, for she brought good news—­that Higgins had got work at Mr. Thornton’s mill.  Her spirits were damped, at any rate, and she found it very difficult to go on talking at all, much more in the wild way that she had done.  For some days her spirits varied strangely; and her father was beginning to be anxious about her, when news arrived from one or two quarters that promised some change and variety for her.  Mr. Hale received a letter from Mr. Bell, in which that gentleman volunteered a visit to them; and Mr. Hale imagined that the promised society of his old Oxford friend would give as agreeable a turn to Margaret’s ideas as it did to his own.  Margaret tried to take an interest in what pleased her father; but she was too languid to care about any Mr. Bell, even though he were twenty times her godfather.  She was more roused by a letter from Edith, full of sympathy about her aunt’s death; full of details about herself, her husband, and child; and at the end saying, that as the climate did not suit, the baby, and as Mrs. Shaw was talking of returning to England, she thought it probable that Captain Lennox might sell out, and that they might all go and live again in the old Harley Street house; which, however, would seem very incomplete with-out Margaret.  Margaret yearned after that old house, and the placid tranquillity of that old well-ordered, monotonous life.  She had found it occasionally tiresome while it lasted; but since then she had been buffeted about, and felt so exhausted by this recent struggle with herself, that she thought that even stagnation would be a rest and a refreshment.  So she began to look towards a long visit to the Lennoxes, on their return to England, as to a point—­no, not of hope—­but of leisure, in which she could regain her power and command over herself.  At present it seemed to her as if all subjects tended towards Mr. Thornton; as if she could not for-get him with all her endeavours.  If she went to see the Higginses, she heard of him there; her father had resumed their readings together, and quoted his opinions perpetually; even Mr. Bell’s visit brought his tenant’s name upon the tapis; for he wrote word that he believed he must be occupied some great part of his time with Mr. Thornton, as a new lease was in preparation, and the terms of it must be agreed upon.

CHAPTER XL

OUT OF TUNE

’I have no wrong, where I can claim no right,
Naught ta’en me fro, where I have nothing had,
Yet of my woe I cannot so be quite;
Namely, since that another may he glad
With that, that thus in sorrow makes me sad.’ 
Wyatt.

Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell’s visit—­she had only looked forward to it on her father’s account, but when her godfather came, she at once fell into the most natural position of friendship in the world.  He said she had no merit in being what she was, a girl so entirely after his own heart; it was an hereditary power which she had, to walk in and take possession of his regard; while she, in reply, gave him much credit for being so fresh and young under his Fellow’s cap and gown.