Chapter 29

Margaret did not sleep well in her lavender-scented sheets that night. Always she heard the roar and the click-clack of the mills, and everywhere she saw the weary little workers with their closely-bound skirts, and their strained, anxious faces.

She came down to breakfast with dark circles under her eyes, and she ate almost nothing, to the great, though silent, distress of the family.

The Spencers were alone now. There would be no more guests for a week, then would come a merry half-dozen for the Christmas holidays. New Year’s was the signal for a general breaking up. The family seldom stayed at Hilcrest long after that, though the house was not quite closed, being always in readiness for the brothers when either one or both came down for a week’s business.

It was always more or less of a debatable question—just where the family should go. There was the town house in New York, frequently opened for a month or two of gaiety; and there were the allurements of some Southern resort, or of a trip abroad, to be considered. Sometimes it was merely a succession of visits that occupied the first few weeks after New Year’s, particularly for Mrs. Merideth and Ned; and sometimes it was only a quiet rest under some sunny sky entirely away from Society with a capital S. The time was drawing near now for the annual change, and the family were discussing the various possibilities when Margaret came into the breakfast-room. They appealed to her at once, and asked her opinion and advice—but without avail. There seemed to be not one plan that interested her to the point of possessing either merits or demerits.