The Rebellion of Margaret | Page 7

they had said dawned with overwhelming force upon her
mind.
"A lonely, unloved youth." Yes, such a youth had certainly been hers.
Of course her grandfather had never loved her. In the bewildered state
of her mind she hardly knew whether she had always realised that fact,
or whether she had taken his affection for her for granted. And he had
allowed her no friends, no parties, no dances. Why had she thus been
brought up aloof from every one? Certainly, as Mr. Summers had said
in reply to Dr. Knowles' question as to whether she was content with
her existence, she was content simply because she knew no better one.
She had not realised before in what a very different fashion other girls
were brought up. But now her eyes were open. That simple phrase,
"She does not know, poor child, what she is missing," had told her
more than many lengthy explanations could have done.
Looking back afterwards on those moments during which she had stood
gazing with unseeing eyes after the departing figures of the two men,
they seemed to her to make a dividing line between all her previous and
her after life. She had thought that the departure of Miss Bidwell had
been an epoch in it; now that sank into comparative insignificance, for
after all her departure had left her, Margaret, unchanged.
But the same could not be said of this event. Hitherto she had blindly,
unquestioningly accepted her grandfather's right to order every detail of
her life, and if she had thought about the matter at all she had doubtless
supposed that his authority over her would always be as absolute as it
was now.
However, it was one thing to discover that her childhood had missed,
and her girlhood was losing, many of the pleasures that should rightly
belong to them, but to remedy this state of affairs was quite another.
Although the idea that her grandfather had been unduly strict with her
had been thus suddenly brought home to her, it did not in the least
lesson the habitual awe in which she stood of him, and as she was
obliged to continue to adhere to the rules he had laid down for her, she
began to wonder whether she had not been happier when she had not

dreamed of questioning his right to exact such unquestioning obedience
from her.
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," she quoted to herself,
and what was the good of knowing that her life was so dull if she dared
not do anything to make it less so. Since Miss Bidwell's departure she
had fallen into the habit of talking aloud to herself, for she found that
during her many long, lonely hours the sound even of her own voice
made some companionship for her, and her conversations with Eleanor
Humphreys were now no longer carried on in the recesses of her mind
but out loud.
It was a dangerous habit, as she was to discover ere long, especially as
Eleanor had of late, since in fact the seeds of discontent had been sown
in Margaret's mind, not stopped at describing her gaieties to her friend,
but tried to persuade her to break bounds and to come and join in the
revels.
And that was what had brought Margaret into such serious trouble with
her grandfather.
CHAPTER III
MARGARET STARTS ON A JOURNEY
The immediate result of the conversation that Mr. Anstruther had
overheard between his granddaughter and her imaginary friend was a
visit from the doctor to Margaret. Mr. Anstruther was sure that
Margaret would never have dreamed of rebelling against him even in
her thoughts had she not been ill, and within an hour from the time he
had dispatched his granddaughter in disgrace to the house, Mr.
Anstruther followed her there accompanied by Dr. Knowles. Dr.
Knowles it was whose conversation with the clergyman Margaret had
in her turn overheard from behind the hedge, and if he had pitied
Margaret before, his pity increased tenfold, when by a series of
skilfully put questions he had drawn from her a description of her daily
life. But he smiled reassuringly at her as he bade her good-bye, and
promised to send her a prescription that he knew she would like.

But though, when she came to hear of it, Margaret approved this
prescription, her grandfather strongly objected to it when it was first
mooted to him. For it was change of air that the doctor
prescribed--change of air immediate and complete.
"If you could fill this house with young people, and let her lead a gay,
lively life here, I don't say that it might not do her as much good as a
change of climate, but," perceiving that Mr. Anstruther's face was