This time you can the same paper

The man that marries Margaret will never fall out of love with her—she's magnetic to her finger-tips! What's more, there's something in her worth loving—worth loving forever!

At this stage of his reflections he usually pulled himself up short, uncomfortably conscious of his disloyalty. Harriet, he knew, was wholly loyal to him, proud of him, thinking him all that any woman could reasonably expect a husband to be—a gentleman of old family, well set up physically, and indeed good-looking, chivalrous to his wife, devoted to his children, temperate in his habits, upright and honourable. She did not even criticise his natural indolence, which, rather than lack of brains or opportunity, kept his law practice and his earnings too small for the needs of his growing family; but Harriet preferred to do without money rather than have her husband be a vulgar hustler, like a Yankee upstart.

It was this same indolence of Walter's, rather than want of force of character, which led him to stand by passively and see his sister-in-law constantly imposed upon, as he distinctly felt that she was, though he realized that Margaret herself, dear, sweet girl, never seemed conscious of it. Her unexpected outburst at dinner to-night had shocked and hurt him to the quick. He was sure that something really outrageous on Harriet's part must have caused it. Yet rather than raise a row with Harriet, he acquiesced in her decision to leave Margaret at home. It must be said in justice to him that had his astute wife not kept him in ignorance of their Aunt Virginia's invitation to Margaret he would undoubtedly have taken a stand in the matter. Harriet, carefully calculating the limit of his easy forbearance, knew better than to tell him of that invitation; and she could safely count upon Margaret not to put her in the wrong with Walter.

Margaret, meantime, locked in her room, had quickly got over her outbreak of weeping and was now sitting upright upon her bed, resolutely facing her quandary.

It was Harriet's assumption of authority, with its implication of her own subservient position, that was opening Margaret's eyes this evening to the real nature of her position in her sister's household.

Suppose I went straight to her just now, all dressed for the theatre, and told her in an off-hand, careless, artistic manner that I couldn't possibly break my engagement with Aunt Virginia!

Margaret, perched Turk-fashion on the foot of her bed, her hands clasped about one knee, her cheeks flushed, her eyes very bright, contemplated in fancy Harriet's consternation at such an unwonted procedure on her part—and she knew she would not do it. Not because, like Walter, she was too indolent to wrestle with Harriet's cold-blooded tenacity; nor because she was in the least afraid of her sister. After living eight years with Uncle Osmond she would hardly quail before Harriet! But it was that thing Harriet had said to her this afternoon—that awful thing that burned in her brain and heart—it was that with which she must reckon before she could take any definite stand. You should not make any engagements without first finding out what ours are, Harriet had said, which, in view of all the circumstances, simply meant, Being dependent upon us for your food and clothes, your time should be at our disposal. You are no more free to go and come than are the cook and butler.

Now of course Harriet would never admit for an instant that she felt like that. Margaret knew perfectly well that her sister did not begrudge the little it cost to keep her with them. Harriet was not so thrifty as that. This attitude, then, was probably only a pretext to cover something else which Harriet was no doubt unwilling to admit even to her own soul, that something else which Margaret, herself, had tried so long not to see, which made her presence at Berkeley Hill unwelcome to both Walter and Harriet. And Harriet, too proud to acknowledge her true reason for wishing her sister away, pretended to an economic one.