I'm going to do my best, Margaret.

And if you'll help me, and be a little forbearing, I think--I hope--you'll soon find I'm--I'm--oh, you understand." She had given a stealthy sigh of relief when she discovered that he was not making the protest she had feared.

"Yes, I understand," replied she, her manner a gentle graciousness, which in some moods would have sent his pride flaring against the very heavens in angry scorn.

But he thought her most sweet and considerate, and she softened toward him with pity.

It was very, pleasant thus to be looked up to, and, being human, she felt anything but a lessened esteem for her qualities of delicateness and refinement, of patrician breeding, when she saw him thus on his knees before them.