And who shall say that the sweet lilies of the field, the roses and the violets, colored with the hues of the dawn, and freshened in the dew of the twilight, when offered and consecrated by the homage of an innocent heart, are not grateful to her whose purity they typify! Yet there was a lurking family pride in Margaret's heart that she could not entirely eradicate, and a sleeping antipathy to the house of Hers that at times betrayed itself to her watchful self-examination.

The reader must not imagine that, when she told the missionary at Gilbert's bedside that had the youth fallen in battle she perhaps would rejoice, she actually desired such an event.
She spoke to one who knew her better.

She felt this antipathy, but did not know its extent; and, with the humility of virtue, she feared that, although engaged in an act of charity, there might be the fiend of revenge at the bottom of her soul.

Margaret de Stramen was not blind to her imperfections, and she did not hesitate to impute to herself an inclination to the un-Christian hate so cherished by her family.

But she endeavored to overcome it by prayer, by the Sacraments, by penance, and by pondering the splendid example of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Lady Margaret was not one of those fair and fanciful creations, endowed with such exquisite sensibilities as to perceive and return the admiration of a young knight-errant with whom she had been associated by any romantic circumstance.