Once, during a walk, she said to Aunt Elizabeth:
"I am trying, Aunt Elizabeth.Do you think Aunt Anne sees any improvement?"And all Aunt Elizabeth said was:
"It was a great shock to her, what you did.Maggie--a great shock indeed!"When the last day of the year arrived Maggie was surprised at the strange excitement that she felt.It was excitement, not only because of the dim mysterious events that the evening promised, but also because she was sure that this day would settle the loneliness of herself and Martin.After this they would know where they stood and what they must do.Old Warlock loomed in front of her as the very arbiter of her destiny.On his action everything turned.Oh! if only after this he were well enough for Martin to be happy and at ease about him! She was tempted to hate him as she thought of all the trouble that he had made for her.Then her mind went back to that first day long ago when he had spoken to her so kindly and bidden her come and see him as often as she could.How little she had known then what the future held for her! And now around his tall mysterious figure not only her own fate but that of every one else seemed to hang.Her aunts, Amy, Miss Pyncheon, Miss Avies, Thurston, that strange girl at the meeting, with them all his destiny was involved and they with his.
As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that suddenly, when the door opened, the whole passage seemed full of smoke, clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp-posts and pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part in some malignant dream."It can't be like this really," she told herself."If I were to go to tea now with Mrs.
Mark and sit in her pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman Iwouldn't believe a word of it." And yet it was true enough, her share in it.As the afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she had had when about to visit the St.