At
the third course she rose. "I've forgotten something," said she.
"I must go at once. No, no one must be disturbed on my account.
I'll drive straight home." And she was gone before Mrs. Baker
could rise from her chair.
At home Margaret went up to her own room, through her bedroom to
Selina's--almost as large and quite as comfortable as her own and
hardly plainer. She knocked. As there was no answer, she opened
the door. On the bed, sobbing heart-brokenly, lay Selina, crushed
by the hideous injustice of being condemned capitally merely for
tearing off a bit of leather which the shoemaker had neglected to
make secure.
"Selina," said Margaret.
The maid turned her big, homely, swollen face on the pillow,
ceased sobbing, gasped in astonishment.
"I've come to beg your pardon," said Margaret, not as superior to
inferior, nor yet with the much-vaunted "just as if they were
equals," but simply as one human being to another. The maid sat
up. One of her braids had come undone and was hanging ludicrously
down across her cheek.
"I insulted you, and I'm horribly ashamed." Wistfully: "Will you
forgive me?"
"Oh, law!" cried the maid despairingly, "I'm dreaming.
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