He came from his dressing-room to find Madge at the housewifely act of replenishing the fire.

Filled with curiosity, unwilling to ask questions, he remarked that he feared she must often feel lonely, that he supposed Mrs.King did not often make visits unaccompanied by her daughters.
'She does not, worse luck!' Madge on her knees replied with childish audacity.
'I hope when she returns she may not be offended by my intrusion.' 'Don't hope it,'-- she smiled--'such hope would be vain.' He could not help laughing.
'Is it dutiful then of you'-- he paused--'or of me ?' 'Which do you prefer--to sleep in the barn, or that I should be undutiful and disobey my stepmother ?' In a minute she gave her chin that lift in the air that he had seen before.
'You need not feel uncomfortable about Mrs.King; the house is really mine, not hers, and father always had his house full of company.

I am doing my duty to him in taking you in, and in making a feast to please Eliz when the stepmother happens to be away and I can do it peaceably.
And when she happens to be here I do my duty to him by keeping the peace with her.' 'Is she unkind to you ?' he asked, with the ready, overflowing pity that young men are apt to give to pretty women who complain.
But she would have him know that she had not complained.
There was no bitterness in her tone--her philosophy of life was all sweetness.

'No! Bless her! God made her, I suppose, just as He made us; so, according to the way she is made, she packs away all the linen and silver, she keeps this room shut up for fear it will get worn out, and we never see any visitors.

But to-day she went away to St.Philippe to see a dying man--I think she was going to convert him or something; but he took a long time to die; and now we may be snowed up for days, and we are going to have a perfectly glorious time.' She added hospitably, 'You need not feel under the slightest obligation, for it gives us pleasure to have you, and I know that father would have taken you in.' Courthope rose up and followed her glance, almost an adoring glance, to the portrait he had before observed.