'Did I give them to you?'
'No!
Vanity; you did not.
You may have worn sister roses very probably.'
She looked at them, wondering for a minute, then she smiled a little as she said—
'They are from Helstone, are they not?
I know the deep indentations round the leaves.
Oh! have you been there?
When were you there?'
'I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.
I went there on my return from Havre.'
'You must give them to me,' she said, trying to take them out of his hand with gentle violence.
'Very well.
Only you must pay me for them!'
'How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time of delicious silence.
'Let me speak to her.'
'Oh, no!
I owe to her,—but what will she say?'
'I can guess.
Her first exclamation will be,
"That man!"'
'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says,
"That woman!"'