Three Margarets

Excerpt

THE ARRIVAL.

Long ago and long ago,And long ago still,There dwelt three merry maidensUpon a distant hill.Christina G. Rossetti.

The rain was falling fast. It was a pleasant summer rain that plashed gently on the leaves of the great elms and locusts, and tinkled musically in the roadside puddles. Less musical was its sound as it drummed on the top of the great landau which was rolling along the avenue leading to Fernley House; but the occupants of the carriage paid little attention to it, each being buried in her own thoughts. The night was dark, and the carriage-lamps threw an uncertain gleam on the three figures leaning back in their corners, muffled and silent. The avenue was long,—interminably long, it seemed to one of the three travellers; and finally the silence so oppressed her that she determined to conquer her shyness and break it.

"What a very long avenue!" she said, speaking in a low, sweet voice.

There was no reply. She hesitated a moment, and then added timidly, "Don't you think that, as we are cousins, we might introduce ourselves and make acquaintance? My name is Margaret Montfort."

"Why, so is mine!" exclaimed the traveller opposite her. "And mine!" added the third, from the further corner.

The voice of the second speaker sounded as if it might be hearty, and as if only awkwardness gave it a sullen tone. The third spoke with a soft, languid utterance and the faintest shade of a foreign accent.

"How strange!" exclaimed the first Margaret Montfort. "Of course I knew that we had the same surname, as our fathers were brothers; but that we should all three be named—and yet it is not strange, after all!" she added. "Our grandmother was Margaret, and it was natural that we should be given her name. But how shall we manage? We cannot say First, Second, and Third Margaret, as they do on the stage."

"I am never called anything but Peggy," said the second girl, still in a half-sullen, half-timid tone.

And "My home name is Rita," murmured the third reluctantly; and she added something in an undertone about "short acquaintance," which the first Margaret did not choose to hear.

"Oh, how pretty!" she said cordially. "Then I may call you Peggy and Rita? About myself"—she stopped and laughed—"I hardly know what to say, for I have always been called Margaret, since I was a baby."

"But one of us might as well be Margaret," answered Peggy. "And somehow, your voice sounds as if you looked like it. If this road were ever coming to an end, we might see."

"Oh, I do see!" cried Margaret, leaning forward to look out of the window. "I see the lights! I see the house! We are really here at last!"

As she spoke, the carriage drove up before a long building twinkling with lights, and stopped at a broad flight of steps, leading to a stone-paved veranda. As the coachman opened the carriage-door, the door of the house opened too, and a cheerful light streamed out upon the three weary travellers. Two staid waiting-women, in spotless caps and aprons, were waiting to receive them as they came up the steps....