Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/274

 to the landlord of the Crampton Terrace house. But it was only here and there that the name came in, or any Milton name, indeed; and Margaret was sitting one evening, all alone in the Lennox's drawing-room, not reading Dixon's letters, which yet she held in her hand, but thinking over them, and recalling the days which had been, and picturing the busy life out of which her own had been taken and never missed; wondering if all went on in that whirl just as if she and her father had never been; questioning within herself, if no one in all the crowd missed her, (not Higgins, she was not thinking of him,) when, suddenly, Mr. Bell was announced; and Margaret hurried the letters into her work-basket, and started up, blushing as if she had been doing some guilty thing.

"Oh, Mr. Bell! I never thought of seeing you!"

"But you give me a welcome, I hope, as well as that very pretty start of surprise."

"Have you dined? How did you come? Let me order you some dinner."

"If you 're going to have any. Otherwise, you know, there is no one who cares less for eating than I do. But where are the others? Gone out to dinner? Left you alone?"

"Oh yes! and it is such a rest. I was just thinking-But will you run the risk of dinner? I don't know if there is anything in the house."

"Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club. Only they don't cook as well as they did, so I thought, if you were going to dine, I might try and make out my dinner. But never mind, never mind! There aren't ten cooks in England to be trusted at