"Mist clogs the sunshine, Smoky dwarf houses Have we round on every side." MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The next afternoon, about twenty miles from Milton-Northern, they entered on the little branch railway that led to Heston. Heston itself was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashore. It had a character of its own, as different from the little bathing-places in the south of England as they again from those of the continent. To use a Scotch word, everything looked more "purpose-like." The country carts had more iron, and less wood and leather about the horse-gear; the people in the streets, although on pleasure bent, had yet a busy mind. The colours looked grayer--more enduring, not so gay and pretty. There were no smock-frocks, even among the country-folk; they retarded motion, and were apt to catch on machinery, and so the habit of wearing them had died out. In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made themselves business in the shop--even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and re-rolling of ribbons. All these differences struck upon her mind, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for lodgings.
Their two nights at hotels had cost more than Mr. Hale had anticipated, and they were glad to take the first clean, cheerful rooms they met with that were at liberty to receive them. There, for the first time for many days, did Margaret feel at rest. There was a dreaminess in the rest, too, which made it still more perfect and luxurious to repose in. The distant sea, lapped the sandy shore with measured sound; the nearer cries of the donkey-boys; the unusual scenes moving before her like pictures, which she cared not in her laziness to have fully explained before they passed away; the stroll down to the beach to breathe the sea-air, soft and warm on that sandy shore even to the end of November; the great long misty sea-line touching the tender-coloured sky; the white sail of a distant boat turning silver in some pale sunbeam:--it seemed as if she could dream her life away in such luxury of pensiveness, in which she made her present all in all, from not daring to think of the past, or wishing to contemplate the future.
But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be. One evening it was arranged that Margaret and her father should go the next day to Milton-Northern, and look out for a house. Mr. Hale had received several letters from Mr. Bell, and one or two from Mr. Thornton, and he was anxious to ascertain at once a good many particulars respecting his position and chances of success there, which he could only do by an interview with the latter gentleman. Margaret knew that they ought to be removing; but she had a repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town, and believed that her mother was receiving benefit from Heston air, so she would willingly have deferred the expedition to Milton.
For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon in the direction in which it lay. It was all the darker from contrast with the pale gray-blue of the wintry sky; for in Heston there had been the earliest signs of frost. Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke; perhaps, after all, more a loss of the fragrance of grass and herbage than any positive taste or smell. Quick they were whirled over long, straight, hopeless streets of regularly-built houses, all small and of brick. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black "unparliamentary" smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which Margaret had taken to foretell rain. As they drove through the larger and wider streets, from the station to the hotel, they had to stop constantly; great loaded lurries blocked up the not over-wide thoroughfares. Margaret had now and then been into the city in her drives with her aunt. But there the heavy lumbering vehicles seemed various in their purposes and intent; here every van, every waggon and truck, bore cotton, either in the raw shape in bags, or the woven shape in bales of calico. People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar class in London.
"New Street," said Mr. Hale. "This, I believe, is the principal street in Milton. Bell has often spoken to me about it. It was the opening of this street from a lane into a great thoroughfare, thirty years ago, which has caused his property to rise so much in value. Mr. Thornton's mill must be somewhere not very far off, for he is Mr. Bell's tenant. But I fancy he dates from his warehouse."
"Where is our hotel, papa?"
"Close to the end of this street, I believe. Shall we have lunch before or after we have looked at the houses we marked in the Milton Times?"
"Oh, let us get our work done first."
"Very well. Then I will only see if there is any note or letter for me from Mr. Thornton, who said he would let me know anything he might hear about these houses, and then we will set off. We will keep the cab; it will be safer than losing ourselves, and being too late for the train this afternoon."
There were no letters awaiting him. They set out on their house-hunting. Thirty pounds a-year was all they could afford to give, but in Hampshire they could have met with a roomy house and pleasant garden for the money. Here, even the necessary accommodation of two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms seemed unattainable. They went through their list, rejecting each as they visited it. They then looked at each other in dismay.
"We must go back to the second, I think. That one,--in Crampton, don't they call the suburb? There were three sitting-rooms; don't you remember how we laughed at the number compared with the three bed-rooms? But I have planned it all. The front room down-stairs is to be your study and our dining-room (poor papa!), for you know, we settled mamma is to have as cheerful a sitting-room as we can get; and that front room up-stairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a pretty view over the plain, with a great bend of river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bed-room behind, in that projection at the head of the first flight of stairs over the kitchen, you know--and you and mamma the room behind the drawing-room, and that closet in the roof will make you a splendid dressing-room."
"But Dixon, and the girl we are to have to help?"
"Oh, wait a minute. I am overpowered by the discovery of my own genius for management. Dixon is to have--let me see, I had it once--the back sitting-room. I think she will like that. She grumbles so much about the stairs at Heston; and the girl is to have that sloping attic over your room and mamma's. Won't that do?"
"I dare say it will. But the papers. What taste! And the over-loading such a house with colour and such heavy cornices!"
"Never mind, papa! Surely you can charm the landlord into re-papering one or two of the rooms--the drawing-room and your bed-room--for mamma will come most in contact with them; and your book-shelves will hide a great deal of that gaudy pattern in the dining-room."
"Then you think it the best? If so, I had better go at once and call on this Mr. Donkin, to whom the advertisement refers me. I will take you back to the hotel, where you can order lunch, and rest, and by the time it is ready, I shall be with you. I hope I shall be able to get new papers."
Margaret hoped so too, though she said nothing. She had never come fairly in contact with the taste that loves ornament, however bad, more than the plainness and simplicity which are of themselves the framework of elegance.
Her father took her through the entrance of the hotel, and leaving her at the foot of the staircase, went to the address of the landlord of the house they had fixed upon. Just as Margaret had her hand on the door of their sitting-room, she was followed by a quick-stepping waiter:
"I beg your pardon, ma'am. The gentleman was gone so quickly, I had no time to tell him. Mr. Thornton called almost directly after you left; and as I understood, from what the gentleman said, you would be back in an hour, I told him so, and he came again about five minutes ago, and said he would wait for Mr. Hale. He is in your room now, ma'am."
"Thank you. My father will return soon, and then you can tell him."
Margaret opened the door and went in with the straight, fearless, dignified presence habitual to her. She felt no awkwardness; she had too much the habits of society for that. Here was a person come on business to her father; and, as he was one who had shown himself obliging, she was disposed to treat him with a full measure of civility. Mr. Thornton was a good deal more surprised and discomfited than she. Instead of a quiet, middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came forward with frank dignity,--a young lady of a different type to most of those he was in the habit of seeing. Her dress was very plain: a close straw bonnet of the best material and shape, trimmed with white ribbon; a large Indian shawl, which hung about her in long heavy folds, and which she wore as an empress wears her drapery. He did not understand who she was, as he caught the simple, straight, unabashed look, which showed that his being there was of no concern to the beautiful countenance, and called up no flush of surprise to the pale ivory of the complexion. He had heard that Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had imagined that she was a little girl.
"Mr. Thornton, I believe!" said Margaret, after a half-instant's pause, during which his unready words would not come. "Will you sit down. My father brought me to the door not a minute ago, but unfortunately he was not told that you were here, and he has gone away on some business. But he will come back almost directly. I am sorry you have had the trouble of calling twice."
Mr. Thornton was in habits of authority himself, but she seemed to assume some kind of rule over him at once. He had been getting impatient at the loss of his time on a market-day, the moment before she appeared, yet now he calmly took a seat at her bidding.
"Do you know where it is that Mr. Hale has gone to? Perhaps I might be able to find him."
"He has gone to a Mr. Donkin in Canute Street. He is the landlord of the house my father wishes to take in Crampton."
Mr. Thornton knew the house. He had seen the advertisement, and been to look at it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell's that he would assist Mr. Hale to the best of his power: and also instigated by his own interest in the case of a clergyman who had given up his living under circumstances such as those of Mr. Hale. Mr. Thornton had thought that the house in Crampton was really just the thing; but now that he saw Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales, in spite of a certain vulgarity in it which had struck him at the time of his looking it over.
Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the round, massive up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness. She was tired now, and would much rather have remained silent, and taken the rest her father had planned for her; but, of course, she owed to herself to be a gentlewoman, and to speak courteously from time to time to this stranger; not over-brushed, nor over-polished, it must be confessed, after his rough encounter with Milton streets and crowds. She wished that he would go, as he had once spoken of doing, instead of sitting there, answering with curt sentences all the remarks she made. She had taken off her shawl, and hung it over the back of her chair. She sat facing him and facing the light; her full beauty met his eye; her round white flexile throat rising out of the full, yet lithe figure; her lips moving so slightly as she spoke, not breaking the cold serene look of her face with any variation from the one lovely haughty curve; her eyes, with their soft gloom, meeting his with quiet maiden freedom. He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so to compensate himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked upon her with an admiration he could not repress, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he told himself he was--a great rough fellow, with not a grace or a refinement about him. Her quiet coldness of demeanour he interpreted into contemptuousness, and resented it in his heart to the pitch of almost inclining him to get up and go away, and have nothing more to do with these Hales, and their superciliousness.
Just as Margaret had exhausted her last subject of conversation--and yet conversation that could hardly be called which consisted of so few and such short speeches--her father came in, and with his pleasant gentlemanly courteousness of apology, reinstated his name and family in Mr. Thornton's good opinion.
Mr. Hale and his visitor had a good deal to say respecting their mutual friend, Mr. Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of entertaining the visitor was over, went to the window to try and make herself more familiar with the strange aspect of the street. She got so much absorbed in watching what was going on outside that she hardly heard her father when he spoke to her, and he had to repeat what he said:
"Margaret! the landlord will persist in admiring that hideous paper, and I am afraid we must let it remain."
"Oh dear! I am sorry!" she replied, and began to turn over in her mind the possibility of hiding part of it, at least, by some of her sketches, but gave up the idea at last, as likely only to make bad worse. Her father, meanwhile, with his kindly country hospitality, was pressing Mr. Thornton to stay to luncheon with them. It would have been very inconvenient to him to do so, yet he felt that he should have yielded, if Margaret by word or look had seconded her father's invitation; he was glad she did not, and yet he was irritated at her for not doing so. She gave him a low, grave bow when he left, and he felt more awkward and self-conscious in every limb than he had ever done in his life before.
"Well, Margaret, now to luncheon as fast as we can. Have you ordered it?"
"No, papa; that man was here when I came home, and I have never had an opportunity."
"Then we must take anything we can get. He must have been waiting a long time I'm afraid."
"It seemed exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you came in. He never went on with any subject, but gave little, short, abrupt answers."
"Very much to the point though, I should think. He is a clear-headed fellow. He said (did you hear?) that Crampton is on gravelly soil, and by far the most healthy suburb in the neighbourhood of Milton."
When they returned to Heston, there was the day's account to be given to Mrs. Hale, who was full of questions, which they answered in the intervals of tea-drinking.
"And what is your correspondent, Mr. Thornton, like?"
"Ask Margaret," said her husband. "She and he had a long attempt at conversation, while I was away speaking to the landlord."
"Oh! I hardly know what he is like," said Margaret, lazily; too tired to tax her powers of description much. And then rousing herself, she said, "He is a tall, broad-shouldered man, about--how old, papa?"
"I should guess about thirty."
"About thirty--with a face that is neither exactly plain, nor yet handsome, nothing remarkable--not quite a gentleman; but that was hardly to be expected."
"Not vulgar or common though," put in her father, rather jealous of any disparagement of the sole friend he had in Milton.
"Oh, no!" said Margaret. "With such an expression of resolution and power, no face, however plain in feature, could be either vulgar or common. I should not like to have to bargain with him; he looks very inflexible. Altogether a man who seems made for his niche, mamma; sagacious, and strong, as becomes a great tradesman."
"Don't call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret," said her father. "They are very different."
"Are they? I apply the word to all who have something tangible to sell; but if you think the term is not correct, papa, I won't use it. But, oh mamma! speaking of vulgarity and commonness, you must prepare yourself for our drawing-room paper. Pink and blue roses, with yellow leaves! And such a heavy cornice round the room!"
But when they removed to their new house in Milton, the obnoxious papers were gone. The landlord received their thanks very composedly; and let them think, if they liked, that he had relented from his expressed determination not to repaper. There was no particular need to tell them, that what he did not care to do for a Reverend Mr. Hale, unknown in Milton, he was only too glad to do at the one short sharp remonstrance of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.

The next afternoon they travelled on the railway to Heston. Heston was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashore. It was different from the little bathing-places in the south of England: to use a Scotch word, everything looked more 'purposelike.' The people looked busier; the colours looked greyer. In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen shopmen lounging at their doors to look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure, they busied themselves in the shop - even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and rerolling of ribbons. All these differences struck her, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for lodgings.
Two nights in hotels had cost more than anticipated, and they were glad to take the first clean, cheerful rooms they found. There, for the first time for many days, Margaret felt at rest. There was a dreaminess which made it still more perfect and luxurious. The distant sea, lapping the sandy shore; the cries of the donkey-boys; the stroll down to the beach to breathe the sea-air, soft and warm even at the end of November; the great long misty sea-line touching the sky; the white sail of a distant boat turning silver in some pale sunbeam: she felt she could dream her life away here, without thinking of the past or future.
But the future must be met, however stern and iron it might be. One evening it was arranged that Margaret and her father should go the next day to Milton-Northern, and look for a house. Mr. Hale was anxious to see Mr. Thornton and ascertain his position. Margaret had a repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town, and would willingly have put off the expedition.
For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon above it, contrasting with the pale wintry sky. Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke. They were whirled over long, straight, hopeless streets of small brick houses. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black smoke, and accounting for the cloud.
As they drove through the streets, they had to stop constantly; loaded lorries blocked up the thoroughfares. Margaret had now and then been into the city of London in her drives with her aunt. But there the heavy lumbering vehicles seemed to have various purposes; here, every van, wagon and truck bore cotton, either raw in bags, or woven, in the form of bales of calico. People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar class in London.
'New Street,' said Mr. Hale. 'This, Bell tells me, is the main street in Milton. It was the making of this street into a great thoroughfare, thirty years ago, which has caused his property to rise so much in value. Mr. Thornton's mill must be nearby, for he is Mr. Bell's tenant. Before we look for those houses we marked in the Milton Times, I will see if there is any letter for me at our hotel from Mr. Thornton. He said he would let me know anything he might hear about the houses.'
There were no letters awaiting him, so they set out on their house-hunting. Thirty pounds a year was all they could afford, but in Hampshire they could have found a roomy house and pleasant garden for the money. Here, even the necessary two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms seemed unattainable. They went through their list, rejecting each as they visited it. Then they looked at each other in dismay.
'We must go back to the second, I think,' said Margaret. 'That one in the suburb of Crampton? There were three sitting-rooms; don't you remember how we laughed at the number compared with the three bedrooms? But I have planned it all. The front room downstairs is to be your study and our dining-room, for mamma is to have the cheerful sitting-room; and that room upstairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper, had a pretty view of the plain with the river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bedroom behind - over the kitchen - and you and mamma the room behind the drawing-room.'
'But Dixon, and a servant-girl?'
'Wait a minute. Dixon is to have, let me see - the back sitting-room. I think she will like that. And the girl can have that sloping attic over your room and mamma's. Won't that do?'
'I dare say it will. But the wallpapers. What taste!'
'Never mind, papa! Surely you can charm the landlord into re-papering the drawing-room and your bedroom; and your book-shelves will hide a great deal of that gaudy pattern in the dining-room.'
'Then you think it the best? If so, I had better go and call on the landlord. I will take you back to the hotel, where you can order lunch, and by the time it is ready, I shall be with you. I hope I shall be able to get new wallpaper.'
Her father took her through the entrance of the hotel, and went away. Just as Margaret was entering their sitting-room, she was addressed by a waiter:
'I beg your pardon, ma'am. I had no time to tell the gentleman. Mr. Thornton called directly after you left; and, as I understood you would be back in an hour, I told him so, and he came again five minutes ago, and said he would wait for Mr. Hale. He is in your room now, ma'am.'
'Thank you. My father will return soon.' Margaret opened the door and went in; straight, fearless and dignified, as usual. She felt no awkwardness; here was a person come on business to her father; and she would treat him with civility.
Mr. Thornton was a good deal more surprised and discomfited than she. Instead of a quiet, middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came forward with frank dignity - a young lady of a different type to those he was in the habit of seeing. Her dress was very plain: a close straw bonnet of the best material; a dark silk gown, without any trimming; a large Indian shawl, which she wore as an empress wears her drapery. He did not understand who she was, as he caught the simple, straight, unabashed look. He had heard that Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had imagined that she was a little girl; and his words would not come.
'Mr. Thornton, I believe!' said Margaret, after a pause. 'Will you sit down? Unfortunately my father was not told that you were here, and he has gone away on some business. But he will come back soon. I am sorry you have had the trouble of calling twice.'
Mr. Thornton was in the habit of authority himself, but she seemed to assume some kind of rule over him. He calmly took a seat at her bidding.
'Do you know where Mr. Hale has gone? Perhaps I might be able to find him.'
'He has gone to a Mr. Donkin's; the landlord of the house my father wishes to take in Crampton.'
Mr. Thornton knew the house. He had seen the advertisement, and been to look at it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell's: and also because of his own interest in Mr. Hale's circumstances. Mr. Thornton had thought that the house in Crampton, despite a certain vulgarity, was really just the thing; but now that he saw Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales.
Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the round, up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, and her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness. She was tired now, and would rather have rested; but she owed it to herself to speak courteously to this stranger. She wished that he would go, instead of sitting there, curtly answering all her remarks.
She had taken off her shawl, and sat facing the light. Her full beauty met his eye; her round white throat rising out of the lithe figure; her moving lips not breaking the cold serene look of her face; her eyes meeting his with quiet freedom. He almost said to himself that he did not like her. While he looked upon her with admiration, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what he was - a great rough fellow, with not a refinement about him. Her quiet coldness he interpreted as contempt, and resented it so much that he was almost inclined to get up and go away, and have nothing more to do with these supercilious Hales.
Just as Margaret had exhausted her last subject of conversation, her father came in, and with a pleasant gentlemanly apology reinstated his family in Mr. Thornton's good opinion. The two men had much to say about their mutual friend, Mr. Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of entertaining the visitor was over, went to the window and was gazing out at the street, when her father spoke to her:
'Margaret! the landlord will persist in admiring that hideous paper, and I am afraid we must let it remain.'
'Oh dear! I am sorry!' she replied, and began to consider if she could hide part of it, at least, with some of her sketches. Her father, meanwhile, was pressing Mr. Thornton to stay to luncheon. It would have been very inconvenient to him to do so, yet he felt that he should accept, if Margaret also invited him. She did not, and he was glad, yet irritated at her. She gave him a low, grave bow when he left, and he felt more awkward and self-conscious than he had ever done in his life.
'Well, Margaret, now to luncheon. Mr. Thornton must have been waiting a long time, I'm afraid.'
'It seemed exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you came in. He gave such short, abrupt answers.'
'Very much to the point though, I should think. He is a clearheaded fellow. He said that Crampton is on gravelly soil, and by far the most healthy suburb near Milton.'
When they returned to Heston, Mrs. Hale was full of questions. 'And what is Mr. Thornton like?'
'Ask Margaret,' said her husband. 'She and he had a long attempt at conversation, while I was away speaking to the landlord.'
'Oh! I hardly know what he is like,' said Margaret lazily. 'He is a tall, broad-shouldered man, about - how old, papa?'
'I should guess about thirty.'
'About thirty - neither exactly plain, nor handsome, nothing remarkable - not quite a gentleman; but that was hardly to be expected.'
'Not vulgar or common though,' put in her father.
'Oh, no!' said Margaret. 'With such an expression of resolution and power, no face could be vulgar or common. I should not like to have to bargain with him; he looks very inflexible. Altogether he seems made for his niche, mamma; sagacious, and strong, as becomes a great tradesman.'
'Don't call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret,' said her father. 'They are very different.'
'Are they? If you think the term is not correct, papa, I won't use it. But, oh mamma! speaking of vulgarity, you must prepare yourself for our drawing-room paper. Pink and blue roses, with yellow leaves!'
But when they moved to their new house in Milton, the obnoxious wallpaper was gone. The landlord let them think that he had relented; there was no need to tell them that what he did not care to do for an unknown Mr. Hale, he was only too glad to do at the short sharp remonstrance of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.


"We are the trees whom shaking fastens more." GEORGE HERBERT.
Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again. He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton. He was anxious not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctuality. The church-clock struck half-past seven as he stood at the door awaiting Dixon's slow movements; always doubly tardy when she had to degrade herself by answering the door-bell. He was ushered into the little drawing-room, and kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to his wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped figure made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting. Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered, for the darkness was coming on. The lamp threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room, from which, with country habits, they did not exclude the night-skies, and the outer darkness of air. Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome, ponderous, with no sign of female habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sate, and no convenience for any other employment than eating and drinking. To be sure, it was a dining-room; his mother preferred to sit in it; and her will was a household law. But the drawing-room was not like this. It was twice--twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable. Here were no mirrors, not even a scrap of glass to reflect the light, and answer the same purpose as water in a landscape; no gilding; a warm, sober breadth of colouring, well relieved by the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers. An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves. Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places: and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently put down. Behind the door was another table decked out for tea, with a white table-cloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.
It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares were habitual to the family; and especially of a piece with Margaret. She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it. She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness. She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening--the fall. He could almost have exclaimed--"There it goes again!" There was so little left to be done after he arrived at the preparation for tea, that he was almost sorry the obligation of eating and drinking came so soon to prevent him watching Margaret. She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongues. Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter, and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two, unobserved as they fancied, by any. Margaret's head still ached, as the paleness of her complexion, and her silence might have testified; but she was resolved to throw herself into the breach, if there was any long untoward pause, rather than that her father's friend, pupil, and guest should have cause to think himself in any way neglected. But the conversation went on; and Margaret drew into a corner, near her mother, with her work, after the tea-things were taken away; and felt that she might let her thoughts roam, without fear of being suddenly wanted to fill up a gap.
Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in the continuation of some object which had been started at their last meeting. Margaret was recalled to a sense of the present by some trivial, low-spoken remark of her mother's; and on suddenly looking up from her work, her eye was caught by the difference of outward appearance between her father and Mr. Thornton, as betokening such distinctly opposite natures. Her father was of slight figure, which made him appear taller than he really was, when not contrasted, as at this time, with the tall, massive frame of another. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving, with a frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched, giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty which was almost feminine. The brows were finely arched, but were by the very size of the dreamy lids, raised to a considerable distance from the eyes. Now, in Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set, earnest eyes, which without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly compressed, over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen, honest, enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously except by children. Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.
She rearranged her mother's worsted-work, and fell back into her own thoughts--as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she had not been in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the might of the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in the Arabian Nights--one moment stretching from earth to sky and filling all the width of the horizon, at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be borne in the hand of a child.
"And this imagination of power, this practical realisation of a gigantic thought, came out of one man's brain in our good town. That very man has it within him to mount, step by step, on each wonder he achieves to higher marvels still. And I'll be bound to say, we have many among us who, if he were gone, could spring into the breach and carry on the war which compels, and shall compel, all material power to yield to science."
"Your boast reminds me of the old lines--
'I've a hundred captains in England,' he said, 'As good as ever was he.'"
At her father's quotation Margaret looked suddenly up, with inquiring wonder in her eyes. How in the world had they got from the cog-wheels to Chevy Chace?
"It is no boast of mine," replied Mr. Thornton; "it is plain matter-of-fact. I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town--or perhaps I should rather say a district--the necessities of which give birth to such grandeur of conception. I would rather be a man toiling, suffering--nay, failing and successless--here, than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease. One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly."
"You are mistaken," said Margaret, roused by the aspersion on her beloved South to a fond vehemence of defence, that brought the colour into her cheeks and the angry tears into her eyes. "You do not know anything about the South. If there is less adventure or less progress--I suppose I must not say less excitement--from the gambling spirit of trade, which seems requisite to force out these wonderful inventions, there is less suffering also. I see men here going about in the streets who look ground down by some pinching sorrow or care--who are not only sufferers but haters. Now, in the South we have our poor, but there is not that terrible expression in their countenances of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here. You do not know the South, Mr. Thornton," she concluded, collapsing into a determined silence, and angry with herself for having said so much.
"And may I say you do not know the North?" asked he, with an inexpressible gentleness in his tone, as he saw that he had really hurt her. She continued resolutely silent; yearning after the lovely haunts she had left far away in Hampshire, with a passionate longing that made her feel her voice would be unsteady and trembling if she spoke.
"At any rate, Mr. Thornton," said Mrs. Hale, "you will allow that Milton is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever meet with in the South."
"I'm afraid I must give up its cleanliness," said Mr. Thornton, with the quick gleaming smile. "But we are bidden by parliament to burn our own smoke; so I suppose, like good little children, we shall do as we are bid--some time."
"But I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume the smoke, did you not?" asked Mr. Hale.
"Mine were altered by my own will, before parliament meddled with the affair. It was an immediate outlay, but it repays me in the saving of coal. I'm not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until the act was passed. At any rate, I should have waited to be informed against and fined, and given all the trouble in yielding that I legally could. But all laws which depend for their enforcement upon informers and fines, become inert from the odiousness of the machinery. I doubt if there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past, although some are constantly sending out one-third of their coal in what is called here unparliamentary smoke."
"I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean here above a week together; and at Helstone we have had them up for a month or more, and they have not looked dirty at the end of that time. And as for hands--Margaret, how many times did you say you had washed your hands this morning before twelve o'clock? Three times, was it not?"
"Yes, mamma."
"You seem to have a strong objection to acts of parliament and all legislation affecting your mode of management down here at Milton," said Mr. Hale.
"Yes, I have; and many others have as well. And with justice, I think. The whole machinery--I don't mean the wood and iron machinery now--of the cotton trade is so new that it is no wonder if it does not work well in every part all at once. Seventy years ago what was it? And now what it is not? Raw, crude materials came together; men of the same level, as regarded education and station, took suddenly the different position of masters and men, owing to the motherwit, as regarded opportunities and probabilities, which distinguished some, and made them far-seeing as to what great future lay concealed in that rude model of Sir Richard Arkwright's. The rapid development of what might be called a new trade, gave those early masters enormous power of wealth and command. I don't mean merely over the workmen; I mean over purchasers--over the whole world's market. Why, I may give you, as an instance, an advertisement, inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that so-and-so (one of the half-dozen calico-printers of the time) would close his warehouse at noon each day; therefore, that all purchasers must come before that hour. Fancy a man dictating in this manner the time when he would sell and when he would not sell. Now, I believe, if a good customer chose to come at midnight, I should get up, and stand hat in hand to receive his orders."
Margaret's lip curled, but somehow she was compelled to listen; she could no longer abstract herself in her own thoughts.
"I only name such things to show what almost unlimited power the manufacturers had about the beginning of this century. The men were rendered dizzy by it. Because a man was successful in his ventures, there was no reason that in all other things his mind should be well-balanced. On the contrary, his sense of justice, and his simplicity, were often utterly smothered under the glut of wealth that came down upon him; and they tell strange tales of the wild extravagance of living indulged in on gala-days by those early cotton-lords. There can be no doubt, too, of the tyranny they exercised over their work-people. You know the proverb, Mr. Hale, 'Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil,'--well, some of these early manufacturers did ride to the devil in a magnificent style--crushing human bone and flesh under their horses' hoofs without remorse. But by-and-by came a reaction; there were more factories, more masters; more men were wanted. The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the battle is pretty fairly waged between us. We will hardly submit to the decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with only a smattering of the knowledge of the real facts of the case, even though that meddler be called the High Court of Parliament."
"Is there necessity for calling it a battle between the two classes?" asked Mr. Hale. "I know, from your using the term, it is one which gives a true idea of the real state of things to your mind."
"It is true; and I believe it to be as much a necessity as that prudent wisdom and good conduct are always opposed to, and doing battle with ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, every one who rules himself to decency and sobriety of conduct, and attention to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master, but as an overlooker, a cashier, a book-keeper, a clerk, one on the side of authority and order."
"You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I understand you rightly," said Margaret, in a clear, cold voice.
"As their own enemies, certainly," said he, quickly, not a little piqued by the haughty disapproval her form of expression and tone of speaking implied. But, in a moment, his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were but a poor and quibbling answer to what she had said, and, be she as scornful as she liked, it was a duty he owed to himself to explain, as truly as he could, what he did mean. Yet it was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning. He could best have illustrated what he wanted to say by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the simple straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush of colour into his dark cheek, he said:
"I am not speaking without book. Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve. We went into a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got employment in a draper's shop (a capital place, by the way, for obtaining a knowledge of goods). Week by week, our income came to fifteen shillings, out of which three people had to be kept. My mother managed so that I put by three out of these fifteen shillings regularly. This made the beginning; this taught me self-denial. Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age, rather than her own wish, requires, I thank her silently on each occasion for the early training she gave me. Now when I feel that in my own case it is no good luck, nor merit, nor talent,--but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgences not thoroughly earned,--indeed, never to think twice about them,--I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is impressed on the countenances of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure, at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character."
"But you have the rudiments of a good education," remarked Mr. Hale. "The quick zest with which you are now reading Homer, shows me that you do not come to it as an unknown book: you have read it before, and are only recalling your old knowledge."
"That is true,--I had blundered along it at school; I dare say, I was even considered a pretty fair classic in those days, though my Latin and Greek have slipt away from me since. But I ask you, what preparation were they for such a life as I had to lead? None at all. Utterly none at all. On the point of education, any man who can read and write starts fair with me in the amount of really useful knowledge that I had at that time."
"Well! I don't agree with you. But there I am perhaps somewhat of a pedant. Did not the recollection of the heroic simplicity of the Homeric life nerve you up?"
"Not one bit!" exclaimed Mr. Thornton, laughing. "I was too busy to think about any dead people, with the living pressing alongside of me, neck to neck, in the struggle for bread. Now that I have my mother safe in the quiet peace that becomes her age, and duly rewards her former exertions, I can turn to all that old narration and thoroughly enjoy it."
"I dare say, my remark came from the professional feeling of there being nothing like leather," replied Mr. Hale.
When Mr. Thornton rose up to go away, after shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Hale, he made an advance to Margaret to wish her good-bye in a similar manner. It was the frank familiar custom of the place; but Margaret was not prepared for it. She simply bowed her farewell; although the instant she saw the hand, half put out, quickly drawn back, she was sorry she had not been aware of the intention. Mr. Thornton, however, knew nothing of her sorrow, and, drawing himself up to his full height, walked off, muttering as he left the house--
"A more proud, disagreeable girl I never saw. Even her great beauty is blotted out of one's memory by her scornful ways."

Mr. Thornton left the house, and walked rapidly to Crampton. He was anxious not to slight his new friend by arriving late. The church clock struck half past seven as he rang the door-bell, and was ushered into the little drawing-room.
He was kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him to his wife. Her pale face made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting. Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered; it threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room.
Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome and ponderous, with no sign of feminine habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sat. To be sure, that was a dining-room; but his mother's drawing-room was not like this either. It was twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable. Here were no mirrors, no gilding - just the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers. In one window was a tall white vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale-green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves. Pretty baskets of work stood about: and books lay on one table, as if recently put down. Behind the door was a table set for tea, with cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.
It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares especially fitted Margaret. She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, not attending to the conversation, but busy with the tea-cups, among which her ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless daintiness. She had a bracelet on one arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening - the fall. He could almost have exclaimed, 'There it goes, again!'
Margaret handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs. Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two.
Margaret's head still ached; but she was resolved to throw herself into the breach, if there was any long pause, rather than give her father's guest any cause to think himself neglected. But the conversation went on; and after tea Margaret drew into a corner with her work. She felt that she might let her thoughts roam, without fear of being suddenly wanted to fill up a gap.
Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in some subject they had started discussing at their last meeting. On looking up from her work, Margaret's eye was caught by the difference in appearance between the two men. Her father was of slight figure, when contrasted with the tall, massive frame of the other. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving, with a frequent trembling movement passing over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched, giving to the eyes a languid beauty which was almost feminine.
In Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell low over clear, deep-set, earnest eyes, which seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble; his lips were slightly compressed over teeth so faultless as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when a rare bright smile shone out of the eyes. It changed his whole look from a severe and resolved expression to the keen honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly except by children. Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character seemed to explain the attraction the two men evidently felt towards each other.
She rearranged her mother's wool-work, and fell back into her own thoughts, while Mr. Thornton forgot her presence in explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of genii in the Arabian Nights - one moment stretching from earth to sky, at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be held in a child's hand.
'And this practical realisation of a gigantic thought came out of one man's brain in our good town. That man has it within him to mount, step by step, to higher marvels still. And I'll be bound to say, we have many among us who could carry on the war which shall compel all material power to yield to science. I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town - perhaps I should rather say a district - which has given birth to such grandeur of conception. I would rather be a man toiling, suffering - even failing - here. than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease. One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.'
'You are mistaken,' said Margaret, roused by the aspersion on her beloved South to a vehemence that brought the colour into her cheeks and angry tears into her eyes. 'You do not know anything about the South. If there is less adventure or less progress there from the gambling spirit of trade, which seems necessary to force out these wonderful inventions, there is less suffering also. I see men here going about in the streets who look ground down by sorrow or care - who are not only sufferers but haters. Now, in the South we have our poor, but they have not that terrible expression of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here. You do not know the South, Mr. Thornton,' she concluded, angry with herself for having said so much.
'And may I say you do not know the North?' asked he, with an inexpressible gentleness, as he saw that he had really hurt her. She remained resolutely silent; her passionate longing for the lovely haunts she had left made her feel that her voice would tremble if she spoke.
'At any rate, Mr. Thornton,' said Mrs. Hale, 'you will admit that Milton is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever see in the South.'
'I'm afraid so,' said Mr. Thornton, with the quick gleaming smile. 'Though now Parliament wishes us to swallow our own smoke.'
'I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume the smoke, did you not?' asked Mr. Hale.
'Mine were altered before Parliament passed the Smoke Nuisance Act; it repays me in the saving of coal. I'm not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until the Act was passed. At any rate, I should have waited to be informed against and fined, and would have given all the trouble that I legally could. But I doubt if there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past, although some are constantly sending out unparliamentary smoke.'
'I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean for a week together,' said Mrs. Hale; 'and at Helstone we have had them up for a month without getting dirty.'
'You seem to have a strong objection to all laws affecting your management here at Milton,' said Mr. Hale.
'Yes, I have; and many others have as well. And justly, I think. The whole machinery - I don't mean the iron machinery now - of the cotton trade is so new that it is no wonder if it does not work well in every part all at once. Seventy years ago, what was it? Raw materials came together; men of the same level of education and station took suddenly the different positions of masters and men, owing to the mother-wit of some, which made them foresee the great future that lay concealed in that rude model of Sir Richard Arkwright's. The rapid development of a new trade gave those early masters enormous wealth and power - not merely over the workmen, but over world's market. Why, for instance, an advertisement was inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that one of the calico-printers would close his warehouse at noon each day; and that therefore all purchasers must come before that hour. Fancy a man dictating in this way the time when he would sell! Now, if a good customer chose to come at midnight, I should get up to receive his orders.'
Margaret's lip curled, but she was compelled to listen.
'I only name such things to show what almost unlimited power the manufacturers had at the beginning of this century. They were made dizzy by it. Such a man's sense of justice was often smothered under the glut of wealth that came down upon him; and they tell strange tales of the wild extravagance of those early cotton-lords. There can be no doubt that they tyrannised over their work-people - crushing them underfoot without remorse. But by-and-by came a reaction. There were more factories; more men were wanted. The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the battle is pretty fairly waged between us. We will hardly submit to the decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with only a smattering of knowledge about the real facts of the case, even though that meddler be called the High Court of Parliament.'
'Need you call it a battle between the two classes?' asked Mr. Hale.
'I believe it indicates the true state of things; and prudent wisdom is always doing battle with ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, everyone who acts decently and attends to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master, but as an over-looker, a cashier, a book-keeper, or a clerk.'
'You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I understand you rightly,' said Margaret in a clear, cold voice.
'As their own enemies, certainly,' said he quickly, somewhat piqued by her haughty disapproval. But his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were a poor answer, and that he needed to explain. He could best illustrate what he wanted to say by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the most straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush to his cheek, he said:
'Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are blest with; a strong woman of firm resolve. We went to a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got work in a draper's shop. Our weekly income was fifteen shillings, out of which three people had to be kept. My mother managed so that I saved three of those shillings regularly. This taught me self-denial. Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age requires, I thank her silently for the early training she gave me. I feel that in my own case it is not good luck, nor merit, nor talent - but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgence. And I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is shown on the faces of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.'
'But you have had the rudiments of a good education,' remarked Mr. Hale. 'The quick zest with which you are now reading Homer, shows me that you have read it before, and are recalling your old knowledge.'
'That is true; at school, I dare say I was considered a pretty fair classical scholar, though my Latin and Greek have slipped away since. But I ask you, what preparation were they for such a life as I had to lead? None at all. On the point of education, any man who can read and write starts fair with me.'
'Well! I don't agree with you. Did not the recollection of the heroic simplicity of the Homeric life nerve you up?'
'Not one bit!' exclaimed Mr. Thornton, laughing. 'I was too busy struggling for bread to think about it. Now that I have my mother safe in the peace that rewards her former exertions, I can turn to that old narration and thoroughly enjoy it.'
When Mr. Thornton rose to go, after shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Hale he advanced to Margaret to wish her good-bye in a similar manner. It was the custom of the place; but Margaret was not prepared for it. She simply bowed her farewell; although the instant she saw the hand quickly drawn back, she was sorry she had not been aware of his intention.
Mr. Thornton, however, drawing himself up to his full height, walked off, muttering as he left the house-
'A more proud, disagreeable girl I never saw. Even her great beauty is blotted out of one's memory by her scornful ways.'


"By the soft green light in the woody glade, On the banks of moss where thy childhood played By the household tree, thro' which thine eye First looked in love to the summer sky." MRS. HEMANS.
Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding. Her mother had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, none of which anybody fully understood, except Mr. Hale, who was perfectly aware that all his arguments in favour of a grey satin gown, which was midway between oldness and newness, had proved unavailing; and that, as he had not the money to equip his wife afresh, from top to toe, she would not show herself at her only sister's only child's wedding. If Mrs. Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor pretty Miss Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except that of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married life, on which she could descant by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, only eight years older than herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue black hair one so seldom sees. Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest. Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all these premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw's characteristic conclusion, as she thought over her sister's lot: "Married for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?" Mrs. Hale, if she spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, "a silver-grey glac silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house."
Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting would take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the confusion of the last two or three days, in the house in Harley Street, where she herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and was wanted everywhere at one and the same time. Her mind and body ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours. The farewells so hurriedly taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those she had lived with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the times that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been, they were gone never to return. Margaret's heart felt more heavy than she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for years--at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep. She took her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future. Her eyes began to see, not visions of what had been, but the sight actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in the railway carriage. His blue-black hair was grey now, and lay thinly over his brows. The bones of his face were plainly to be seen--too plainly for beauty, if his features had been less finely cut; as it was, they had a grace if not a comeliness of their own. The face was in repose; but it was rather rest after weariness than the serene calm of the countenance of one who led a placid, contented life. Margaret was painfully struck by the worn, anxious expression; and she went back over the open and avowed circumstances of her father's life, to find the cause for the lines that spoke so plainly of habitual distress and depression.
"Poor Frederick!" thought she, sighing. "Oh! if Frederick had but been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost to us all! I wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because of that terrible affair. Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am so glad I am going home, to be at hand to comfort him and mamma."
She was ready with a bright smile, in which there was not a trace of fatigue, to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back again, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion. His face returned into its lines of habitual anxiety. He had a trick of half-opening his mouth as if to speak, which constantly unsettled the form of the lips, and gave the face an undecided expression. But he had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter,--eyes which moved slowly and almost grandly round in their orbits, and were well veiled by their transparent white eyelids. Margaret was more like him than like her mother. Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said. Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a "yes" and "no," and "an't please you, sir." But the wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If the look on her face was, in general, too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was bright as the morning,--full of dimples, and glances that spoke of childish gladness, and boundless hope in the future.
It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home. The forest trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still. Margaret used to tramp along by her father's side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it yield under her light foot, and send up the fragrance peculiar to it--out on the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the sunshine, and the herbs and flowers it called forth. This life--at least these walks--realised all Margaret's anticipations. She took a pride in her forest. Its people were her people. She made hearty friends with them; learned and delighted in using their peculiar words; took up her freedom amongst them; nursed their babies; talked or read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their sick; resolved before long to teach at the school where her father went regularly every day as to an appointed task, but she was continually tempted off to go and see some individual friend--man, woman, or child--in some cottage in the green shade of the forest. Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors life had its drawbacks. With the healthy shame of a child, she blamed herself for her keenness of sight in perceiving that all was not as it should be there. Her mother--her mother always so kind and tender towards her--seemed now and then so much discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not giving Mr. Hale a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he could not bring himself to say that he wished to leave the parish, and undertake the charge of a larger. He would sigh aloud as he answered, that if he could do what he ought in little Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more overpowered; the world became more bewildering. At each repeated urgency of his wife, that he would put himself in the way of seeking some preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more and more; and she strove at such times to reconcile her mother to Helstone. Mrs. Hale said that the near neighbourhood of so many trees affected her health; and Margaret would try to tempt her forth on to the beautiful, broad, upland, sun-streaked, cloud-shadowed common; for she was sure that her mother had accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life, seldom extending her walks beyond the church, the school, and the neighbouring cottages. This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on, and the weather became more changeable, her mother's idea of the unhealthiness of the place increased; and she repined even more frequently that her husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume, a better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth, should not have met with the preferment that these two former neighbours of theirs had done.
This marring of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent, was what Margaret was unprepared for. She knew, and had rather revelled in the idea, that she should have to give up many luxuries, which had only been troubles and trammels to her freedom in Harley Street. Her keen enjoyment of every sensuous pleasure was balanced finely, if not overbalanced, by her conscious pride in being able to do without them all, if need were. But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it. There had been slight complaints and passing regrets on her mother's part, over some trifle connected with Helstone, and her father's position there, when Margaret had been spending her holidays at home before; but in the general happiness of the recollection of those times, she had forgotten the small details which were not so pleasant.
In the latter half of September, the autumnal rains and storms came on, and Margaret was obliged to remain more in the house than she had hitherto done. Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of their own standard of cultivation.
"It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England," said Mrs. Hale, in one of her plaintive moods. "I can't help regretting constantly that papa has really no one to associate with here; he is so thrown away; seeing no one but farmers and labourers from week's end to week's end. If we only lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something; there we should be almost within walking distance of the Stansfields; certainly the Gormons would be within a walk."
"Gormons," said Margaret, "Are those the Gormons who made their fortunes in trade at Southampton? Oh! I'm glad we don't visit them. I don't like shoppy people. I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without pretence."
"You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!" said her mother, secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gormon whom she had once met at Mr. Hume's.
"No! I call mine a very comprehensive taste; I like all people whose occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and sailors, and the three learned professions, as they call them. I'm sure you don't want me to admire butchers and bakers, and candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?"
"But the Gormons were neither butchers nor bakers, but very respectable coach-builders."
"Very well. Coach-building is a trade all the same, and I think a much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's carriage, and how I longed to walk!"
And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, as she crossed some heath, she seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly and easily as the fallen leaf that was wafted along by the autumnal breeze. But the evenings were rather difficult to fill up agreeably. Immediately after tea her father withdrew into his small library, and she and her mother were left alone. Mrs. Hale had never cared much for books, and had discouraged her husband, very early in their married life, in his desire of reading aloud to her, while she worked. At one time they had tried backgammon as a resource; but as Mr. Hale grew to take an increasing interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the interruptions which arose out of these duties were regarded as hardships by his wife, not to be accepted as the natural conditions of his profession, but to be regretted and struggled against by her as they severally arose. So he withdrew, while the children were yet young, into his library, to spend his evenings (if he were at home), in reading the speculative and metaphysical books which were his delight.
When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her a great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and had found the summer's day all too short to get through the reading she had to do before her return to town. Now there were only the well-bound, little-read English Classics, which were weeded out of her father's library to fill up the small book-shelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Season's, Hayley's Cowper, Middleton's Cicero, were by far the lightest, newest, and most amusing. The book-shelves did not afford much resource. Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to all of which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused and questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her sister's circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower means at Helstone Vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the rain upon the leads of the little bow window. Once or twice Margaret found herself mechanically counting the repetition of the monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to put a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they had heard from him. But a consciousness that her mother's delicate health and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged--the full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion,--made her pause and turn away from the subject each time she approached it. When she was with her mother, her father seemed the best person to apply to for information; and when with him, she thought that she could speak more easily to her mother. Probably there was nothing much to be heard that was new. In one of the letters she had received before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her that they had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well in health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but not the living intelligence she longed for. Frederick was always spoken of, in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as "Poor Frederick." His room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted, and put into order by Dixon, Mrs. Hale's maid, who touched no other part of the household work, but always remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady Beresford as ladies' maid to Sir John's wards, the pretty Miss Beresfords, the belles of Rutlandshire. Dixon had always considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young lady's prospects in life. If Miss Beresford had not been in such a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman there was no knowing what she might have become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert her in her affliction and downfall (alas, her married life). She remained with her, and was devoted to her interests; always considering herself as the good and protecting fairy, whose duty it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr. Hale. Master Frederick had been her favourite and pride; and it was with a little softening of her dignified look and manner, that she went in weekly to arrange the chamber as carefully as if he might be coming home that very evening.
Margaret could not help believing that there had been some late intelligence of Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was making her father anxious and uneasy. Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any alteration in her husband's looks or ways. His spirits were tender and gentle, readily affected by any small piece of intelligence concerning the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of any crime. But now Margaret noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were pre-occupied by some subject, the oppression of which could not be relieved by any daily action, such as comforting the survivors, or teaching at the school in hope of lessening the evils in the generation to come. Mr. Hale did not go out among his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his study; was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the household was a rap on the back-kitchen window shutter--a signal which at one time had often to be repeated before any one was sufficiently alive to the hour of the day to understand what it was, and attend to him. Now Mr. Hale loitered about the garden if the morning was fine, and if not, stood dreamily by the study window until the postman had called, or gone down the lane, giving a half-respectful, half-confidential shake of the head to the parson, who watched him away from the sweet-briar hedge, and past the great arbutus, before he turned into the room to begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an occupied mind.
But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest. The fern-harvest was over; and now that the rain was gone, many a deep glade was accessible, into which Margaret had only peeped in July and August weather. She had learnt drawing with Edith; and she had sufficiently regretted, during the gloom of the bad weather, her idle revelling in the beauty of the woodlands, while it had yet been fine, to make her determined to sketch what she could before winter fairly set in. Accordingly, she was busy preparing her board one morning, when Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the drawing-room door, and announced, "Mr. Henry Lennox."

After the wedding Margaret travelled quietly home with her father. Her mother had stayed at home for a multitude of half-reasons, which nobody fully understood except Mr. Hale, who was aware that she had felt her grey satin gown was too old for the occasion. As he had not the money to buy his wife a new outfit, she would not show herself at her only niece's wedding.
If Mrs. Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her sister; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty Miss Beresford, and she had forgotten all misfortunes except that of disparity of age in marriage, on which she could talk by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, with the sweetest temper and jet-black hair; Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest. So Mrs. Shaw concluded: 'Married for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?'
Mrs. Hale might have truthfully answered, 'A silver-grey silk, a white bonnet, dozens of things for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.' Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not sorry that they would meet at Helstone parsonage, rather than during the confusion of the last few days in Harley Street. Her mind and body ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours. The hurried farewells oppressed her with a sad regret for the times that were no more; it did not matter what those times had been, they were gone never to return.
Margaret's heart felt heavier than she could have thought possible in going to her own dear longed-for home. She wrenched her mind away from the recollection of the past to the bright contemplation of the hopeful future. She looked at her dear father leaning back asleep in the railway carriage; his black hair was grey now, and thinner. The finely cut bones of his face were plainly to be seen. The face was in the repose of weariness, rather than the serene calm of one who led a placid, contented life. Margaret was painfully struck by his worn, anxious expression; and she looked into the past, to find the cause for the lines of distress and depression.
'Poor Frederick!' thought she, sighing. 'Oh! if only Frederick had been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost to us! I wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because of that terrible affair. Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am so glad I am going home, to comfort him and mamma.'
She was ready with a bright smile to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion; and his face returned into its lines of habitual anxiety. He had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter. Margaret was more like him than like her mother.
Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far from conventionally beautiful. Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a 'yes' and 'no.' But the wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white, had an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If the look on her face was in general too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was full of dimples and childish gladness.
It was late July when Margaret returned home. The forest trees were a dark, dusky green; the ferns below them caught the slanting sunbeams; the weather was broodingly still. Margaret used to tramp along by her father's side, crushing down the ferns with her light foot - out on to the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the sunshine and the flowers.
She took a pride in the New Forest. Its people were her people. She made friends with them; delighted in using their peculiar words; nursed their babies; talked or read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their sick; and resolved before long to teach at the school, where her father went every day; but she was continually tempted off to go and see some friend in some cottage in the green shade of the forest.
Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her indoors life had its drawbacks. She perceived that all was not as it should be there. Her mother, always kind and tender towards her, seemed discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop was strangely neglectful in not giving Mr. Hale a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he did not wish to leave the parish to go to a larger one.
He would sigh that if he could do what he ought in little Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more overpowered; the world became more bewildering. When his wife urged him to seek preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more and more; and she strove to reconcile her mother to Helstone. Mrs. Hale said that the nearness of so many trees affected her health, so Margaret would try to tempt her on to the beautiful, broad, sun-streaked common, for she was sure that her mother had become too used to an indoors life. This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on, and the weather became changeable, her mother's idea of the unhealthiness of the place increased; and she resumed her complaints.
Margaret was unprepared for this marring of the peace of home. She had rather revelled in the idea of giving up the luxuries of Harley Street. But the cloud never comes from that part of the sky where we watch for it. There had been slight complaints from her mother about Helstone during Margaret's holidays at home before; but in the general happiness of the memory of those times, she had forgotten the small, less pleasant details.
In late September, the autumnal rains and storms came on, and Margaret had to stay in the house more. Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of their own standing.
'It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England,' said Mrs. Hale plaintively. 'Papa has no one to associate with here; he is thrown away, seeing no one but farmers and labourers. If we lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something; we should be almost within walking distance of the Stansfields, and certainly the Gormans.'
'Gormans,' said Margaret. 'Are those the Gormans who made their fortunes in trade at Southampton? Oh! I'm glad we don't visit them. I don't like shoppy people. I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without pretence.'
'You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!' said her mother, secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gorman whom she had once met.
'No! I call mine a very comprehensive taste. I like all people whose occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and sailors, and the three learned professions - the church, law and medicine. I'm sure you don't want me to admire butchers and bakers, and candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?'
'But the Gormans were neither butchers nor bakers, but very respectable coach-builders.'
'Coach-building is a trade all the same, and a much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's carriage, and how I longed to walk!'
And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, she seemed to be borne over the heath as lightly and easily as a fallen leaf wafted by the autumn breeze.
But the evenings were rather difficult to fill up agreeably. Immediately after tea her father withdrew into his small library, and she and her mother were left alone. Mrs. Hale had never cared much for books, and had always discouraged her husband from reading aloud to her. At one time they had tried backgammon; but as Mr. Hale took an increasing interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the resulting interruptions were resented by his wife. So he withdrew into his library, to spend his evenings at home in reading the speculative and metaphysical books which were his delight.
When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her a great box of books, recommended by masters or governesses, and had found the summer's day too short to get through her reading. Now there were only the well-bound little-read English Classics on the small bookshelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Seasons and Middleton's Cicero were the lightest, newest, and most amusing. Margaret told her mother every detail of her London life, to which Mrs. Hale listened with interest; sometimes amused, but at other times inclined to compare her sister's comfortable life with the narrower means at Helstone vicarage.
On such evenings Margaret was apt to stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the rain. Once or twice she wondered if she might venture a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they had heard from him. But she was aware that her mother's delicate health, and dislike of Helstone, dated from the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been involved - the full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion. So she turned away from the subject. Her father seemed the best person to ask for information; though when she was with him, she thought that she could speak more easily to her mother.
In one of the letters she had received at Harley Street, her father had told her that they had heard from Frederick. He was still at Rio, and very well in health, and sent his best love; which was dry bones, but not the living news she longed for.
Frederick was always spoken of as 'Poor Frederick.' His room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted by Dixon, Mrs. Hale's maid, who did no other housework, but remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady Beresford as maid to the pretty Miss Beresfords. Dixon had always considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young lady's prospects. If Miss Beresford had not been in such a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman, there was no knowing what she might not have become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert her in her affliction and downfall (alias her married life). She remained devoted. Master Frederick had been her favourite; and her dignified manner softened when she went in to arrange his room as carefully as if he might be coming home that very evening.
Margaret could not help believing that there had been some news of Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was making her father anxious. Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any change in her husband. His spirits were always easily affected by the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of a crime. But now Margaret noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were pre-occupied. Mr. Hale did not go out among his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his study, and anxious for the village postman to call. He loitered about the garden or stood dreamily by the study window until the postman had been. Then he turned into the room to begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an occupied mind.
But Margaret was at an age when any fears are easily banished by a bright sunny day. And when the fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest. The fern-harvest was over, and now that the rain was gone, many a deep glade was accessible. Margaret had learnt drawing with Edith; and now decided to sketch what she could before winter set in.
Accordingly, she was preparing her board one morning, when Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the drawing-room door and announced, 'Mr. Henry Lennox.'