"Learn to win a lady's faith Nobly, as the thing is high; Bravely, as for life and death-- With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards, Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words, Pure from courtship's flatteries." MRS. BROWNING.
"Mr. Henry Lennox." Margaret had been thinking of him only a moment before, and remembering his inquiry into her probable occupations at home. It was "parler du soleil et l'on en voit les rayons;" and the brightness of the sun came over Margaret's face as she put down her board, and went forward to shake hands with him. "Tell mamma, Sarah," said she. "Mamma and I want to ask you so many questions about Edith; I am so much obliged to you for coming."
"Did not I say that I should?" asked he, in a lower tone than that in which he had spoken.
"But I heard of you so far away in the Highlands that I never thought Hampshire could come in."
"Oh!" said he, more lightly, "our young couple were playing such foolish pranks, running all sorts of risks, climbing this mountain, sailing on that lake, that I really thought they needed a Mentor to take care of them. And indeed they did: they were quite beyond my uncle's management, and kept the old gentleman in a panic for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. Indeed, when I once saw how unfit they were to be trusted alone, I thought it my duty not to leave them till I had seen them safely embarked at Plymouth."
"Have you been at Plymouth? Oh! Edith never named that. To be sure, she has written in such a hurry lately. Did they really sail on Tuesday?"
"Really sailed, and relieved me from many responsibilities. Edith gave me all sorts of messages for you. I believe I have a little diminutive note somewhere; yes, here it is."
"Oh! thank you," exclaimed Margaret; and then, half wishing to read it alone and unwatched, she made the excuse of going to tell her mother again (Sarah surely had made some mistake) that Mr. Lennox was there.
When she had left the room, he began in his scrutinising way to look about him. The little drawing-room was looking its best in the streaming light of the morning sun. The middle window in the bow was opened, and clustering roses and the scarlet honeysuckle came peeping round the corner; the small lawn was gorgeous with verbenas and geraniums of all bright colours. But the very brightness outside made the colours within seem poor and faded. The carpet was far from new; the chintz had been often washed; the whole apartment was smaller and shabbier than he had expected, as back-ground and frame-work for Margaret, herself so queenly. He took up one of the books lying on the table; it was the Paradise of Dante, in the proper old Italian binding of white vellum and gold; by it lay a dictionary, and some words copied out in Margaret's handwriting. They were a dull list of words, but somehow he liked looking at them. He put them down with a sigh.
"The living is evidently as small as she said. It seems strange, for the Beresfords belong to a good family."
Margaret meanwhile had found her mother. It was one of Mrs. Hale's fitful days, when everything was a difficulty and a hardship: and Mr. Lennox's appearance took this shape, although secretly she felt complimented by his thinking it worth while to call.
"It is most unfortunate! We are dining early to-day, and having nothing but cold meat, in order that the servants may get on with their ironing; and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner--Edith's brother-in-law and all. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning about something--I don't know what. I went into the study just now, and he had his face on the table, covering it with his hands. I told him I was sure Helstone air did not agree with him any more than with me, and he suddenly lifted up his head, and begged me not to speak a word more against Helstone, he could not bear it; if there was one place he loved on earth it was Helstone. But I am sure, for all that, it is the damp and relaxing air."
Margaret felt as if a thin cold cloud had come between her and the sun. She had listened patiently, in hopes that it might be some relief to her mother to unburden herself; but now it was time to draw her back to Mr. Lennox.
"Papa likes Mr. Lennox; they got on together famously at the wedding breakfast. I daresay his coming will do papa good. And never mind the dinner, dear mamma. Cold meat will do capitally for a lunch, which is the light in which Mr. Lennox will most likely look upon a two o'clock dinner."
"But what are we to do with him till then? It is only half-past ten now."
"I'll ask him to go out sketching with me. I know he draws, and that will take him out of your way, mamma. Only do come in now; he will think it so strange if you don't."
Mrs. Hale took off her black silk apron, and smoothed her face. She looked a very pretty lady-like woman, as she greeted Mr. Lennox with the cordiality due to one who was almost a relation. He evidently expected to be asked to spend the day, and accepted the invitation with a glad readiness that made Mrs. Hale wish she could add something to the cold beef. He was pleased with everything; delighted with Margaret's idea of going out sketching together; would not have Mr. Hale disturbed for the world, with the prospect of so soon meeting him at dinner. Margaret brought out her drawing materials for him to choose from; and after the paper and brushes had been duly selected, the two set out in the merriest spirits in the world.
"Now, please, just stop here for a minute or two," said Margaret. "These are the cottages that haunted me so during the rainy fortnight, reproaching me for not having sketched them."
"Before they tumbled down and were no more seen. Truly, if they are to be sketched--and they are very picturesque--we had better not put it off till next year. But where shall we sit?"
"Oh! You might have come straight from chambers in the Temple, instead of having been two months in the Highlands! Look at this beautiful trunk of a tree, which the woodcutters have left just in the right place for the light. I will put my plaid over it, and it will be a regular forest throne."
"With your feet in that puddle for a regal footstool! Stay, I will move, and then you can come nearer this way. Who lives in these cottages?"
"They were built by squatters fifty or sixty years ago. One is uninhabited; the foresters are going to take it down, as soon as the other is dead, poor old fellow! Look--there he is--I must go and speak to him. He is so deaf you will hear all our secrets."
The old man stood bareheaded in the sun, leaning on his stick at the front of his cottage. His stiff features relaxed into a slow smile as Margaret went up and spoke to him. Mr. Lennox hastily introduced the two figures into his sketch, and finished up the landscape with a subordinate reference to them--as Margaret perceived, when the time came for getting up, putting away water, and scraps of paper, and exhibiting to each other their sketches. She laughed and blushed: Mr. Lennox watched her countenance.
"Now, I call that treacherous," said she. "I little thought that you were making old Isaac and me into subjects, when you told me to ask him the history of these cottages."
"It was irresistible. You can't know how strong a temptation it was. I hardly dare tell you how much I shall like this sketch."
He was not quite sure whether she heard this latter sentence before she went to the brook to wash her palette. She came back rather flushed, but looking perfectly innocent and unconscious. He was glad of it, for the speech had slipped from him unawares--a rare thing in the case of a man who premeditated his actions so much as Henry Lennox.
The aspect of home was all right and bright when they reached it. The clouds on her mother's brow had cleared off under the propitious influence of a brace of carp, most opportunely presented by a neighbour. Mr. Hale had returned from his morning's round, and was awaiting his visitor just outside the wicket gate that led into the garden. He looked a complete gentleman in his rather threadbare coat and well-worn hat. Margaret was proud of her father; she had always a fresh and tender pride in seeing how favourably he impressed every stranger; still her quick eye sought over his face and found there traces of some unusual disturbance, which was only put aside, not cleared away.
Mr. Hale asked to look at their sketches.
"I think you have made the tints on the thatch too dark, have you not?" as he returned Margaret's to her, and held out his hand for Mr. Lennox's, which was withheld from him one moment, no more.
"No, papa! I don't think I have. The house-leek and stone-crop have grown so much darker in the rain. Is it not like, papa?" said she, peeping over his shoulder, as he looked at the figures in Mr. Lennox's drawing.
"Yes, very like. Your figure and way of holding yourself is capital. And it is just poor old Isaac's stiff way of stooping his long rheumatic back. What is this hanging from the branch of the tree? Not a bird's nest, surely."
"Oh no! that is my bonnet. I never can draw with my bonnet on; it makes my head so hot. I wonder if I could manage figures. There are so many people about here whom I should like to sketch."
"I should say that a likeness you very much wish to take you would always succeed in," said Mr. Lennox. "I have great faith in the power of will. I think myself I have succeeded pretty well in yours." Mr. Hale had preceded them into the house, while Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses, with which to adorn her morning gown for dinner.
"A regular London girl would understand the implied meaning of that speech," thought Mr. Lennox. "She would be up to looking through every speech that a young man made her for the arrire-pense of a compliment. But I don't believe Margaret,--Stay!" exclaimed he, "Let me help you;" and he gathered for her some velvety cramoisy roses that were above her reach, and then dividing the spoil he placed two in his button-hole, and sent her in, pleased and happy, to arrange her flowers.
The conversation at dinner flowed on quietly and agreeably. There were plenty of questions to be asked on both sides--the latest intelligence which each could give of Mrs. Shaw's movements in Italy to be exchanged; and in the interest of what was said, the unpretending simplicity of the parsonage-ways--above all in the neighbourhood of Margaret, Mr. Lennox forgot the little feeling of disappointment with which he had at first perceived that she had spoken but the simple truth when she had described her father's living as very small.
"Margaret, my child, you might have gathered us some pears for our dessert," said Mr. Hale, as the hospitable luxury of a freshly-decanted bottle of wine was placed on the table.
Mrs. Hale was hurried. It seemed as if desserts were impromptu and unusual things at the parsonage; whereas, if Mr. Hale would only have looked behind him, he would have seen biscuits and marmalade, and what not, all arranged in formal order on the side-board. But the idea of pears had taken possession of Mr. Hale's mind, and was not to be got rid of.
"There are a few brown beurrs against the south wall which are worth all foreign fruits and preserves. Run, Margaret, and gather some."
"I propose that we adjourn into the garden, and eat them there," said Mr. Lennox. "Nothing is so delicious as to set one's teeth into the crisp, juicy fruit, warm and scented by the sun. The worst is, the wasps are impudent enough to dispute it with one, even at the very crisis and summit of enjoyment."
He rose, as if to follow Margaret, who had disappeared through the window: he only awaited Mrs. Hale's permission. She would rather have wound up the dinner in the proper way, and with all the ceremonies which had gone on so smoothly hitherto, especially as she and Dixon had got out the finger-glasses from the store-room on purpose to be as correct as became General Shaw's widow's sister; but as Mr. Hale got up directly, and prepared to accompany his guest, she could only submit.
"I shall arm myself with a knife," said Mr. Hale: "the days of eating fruit so primitively as you describe are over with me. I must pare it and quarter it before I can enjoy it."
Margaret made a plate for the pears out of a beet-root leaf, which threw up their brown gold colour admirably. Mr. Lennox looked more at her than at the pears; but her father, inclined to cull fastidiously the very zest and perfection of the hour he had stolen from his anxiety, chose daintily the ripest fruit, and sat down on the garden bench to enjoy it at his leisure. Margaret and Mr. Lennox strolled along the little terrace-walk under the south wall, where the bees still hummed and worked busily in their hives.
"What a perfect life you seem to live here! I have always felt rather contemptuously towards the poets before, with their wishes, 'Mine be a cot beside a hill,' and that sort of thing; but now I am afraid that the truth is, I have been nothing better than a Cockney. Just now I feel as if twenty years' hard study of law would be amply rewarded by one year of such an exquisite serene life as this--such skies!" looking up--"such crimson and amber foliage, so perfectly motionless as that!" pointing to some of the great forest trees which shut in the garden as if it were a nest.
"You must please to remember that our skies are not always as deep a blue as they are now. We have rain, and our leaves do fall, and get sodden: though I think Helstone is about as perfect a place as any in the world. Recollect how you rather scorned my description of it one evening in Harley Street: 'a village in a tale.'"
"Scorned, Margaret! That is rather a hard word."
"Perhaps it is. Only I know I should have liked to have talked to you of what I was very full at the time, and you--what must I call it then?--spoke disrespectfully of Helstone as a mere village in a tale."
"I will never do so again," said he, warmly. They turned the corner of the walk.
"I could almost wish, Margaret----" he stopped and hesitated. It was so unusual for the fluent lawyer to hesitate that Margaret looked up at him, in a little state of questioning wonder; but in an instant--from what about him she could not tell--she wished herself back with her mother--her father--anywhere away from him, for she was sure he was going to say something to which she should not know what to reply. In another moment the strong pride that was in her came to conquer her sudden agitation, which she hoped he had not perceived. Of course she could answer, and answer the right thing; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech, as if she had not power to put an end to it with her high maidenly dignity.
"Margaret," said he, taking her by surprise, and getting sudden possession of her hand, so that she was forced to stand still and listen, despising herself for the fluttering at her heart all the time; "Margaret, I wish you did not like Helstone so much--did not seem so perfectly calm and happy here. I have been hoping for these three months past to find you regretting London--and London friends, a little--enough to make you listen more kindly" (for she was quietly, but firmly, striving to extricate her hand from his grasp) "to one who has not much to offer, it is true--nothing but prospects in the future--but who does love you, Margaret, almost in spite of himself. Margaret, have I startled you too much? Speak!" For he saw her lips quivering almost as if she were going to cry. She made a strong effort to be calm; she would not speak till she had succeeded in mastering her voice, and then she said:
"I was startled. I did not know that you cared for me in that way. I have always thought of you as a friend; and, please, I would rather go on thinking of you so. I don't like to be spoken to as you have been doing. I cannot answer you as you want me to do, and yet I should feel so sorry if I vexed you."
"Margaret," said he, looking into her eyes, which met his with their open, straight look, expressive of the utmost good faith and reluctance to give pain, "Do you"--he was going to say--"love any one else?" But it seemed as if this question would be an insult to the pure serenity of those eyes. "Forgive me! I have been too abrupt. I am punished. Only let me hope. Give me the poor comfort of telling me you have never seen any one whom you could----" Again a pause. He could not end his sentence. Margaret reproached herself acutely as the cause of his distress.
"Ah! if you had but never got this fancy into your head! It was such a pleasure to think of you as a friend."
"But I may hope, may I not, Margaret, that some time you will think of me as a lover? Not yet, I see--there is no hurry--but some time----"
She was silent for a minute or two, trying to discover the truth as it was in her own heart, before replying, then she said:
"I have never thought of--you, but as a friend. I like to think of you so; but I am sure I could never think of you as anything else. Pray let us both forget that all this" ("disagreeable," she was going to say, but stopped short) "conversation has taken place."
He paused before he replied. Then, in his habitual coldness of tone, he answered:
"Of course, as your feelings are so decided, and as this conversation has been so evidently unpleasant to you, it had better not be remembered. That is all very fine in theory, that plan of forgetting whatever is painful, but it will be somewhat difficult for me, at least, to carry it into execution."
"You are vexed," said she, sadly; "yet how can I help it?"
She looked so truly grieved as she said this, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone:
"You should make allowances for the mortification, not only of a lover, Margaret, but of a man not given to romance in general--prudent, worldly, as some people call me--who has been carried out of his usual habits by the force of a passion--well, we will say no more of that; but in the one outlet which he has formed for the deeper and better feelings of his nature, he meets with rejection and repulse. I shall have to console myself with scorning my own folly. A struggling barrister to think of matrimony!"
Margaret could not answer this. The whole tone of it annoyed her. It seemed to touch on and call out all the points of difference which had often repelled her in him; while yet he was the pleasantest man, the most sympathising friend, the person of all others who understood her best in Harley Street. She felt a tinge of contempt mingle itself with her pain at having refused him. Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain. It was well that, having made the round of the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr. Hale, whose whereabouts had been quite forgotten by them. He had not yet finished the pear, which he had delicately peeled in one long strip of silver-paper thinness, and which he was enjoying in a deliberate manner. It was like the story of the eastern king, who dipped his head into a basin of water, at the magician's command, and ere he instantly took it out went through the experience of a lifetime. Margaret felt stunned, and unable to recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial conversation that ensued between her father and Mr. Lennox. She was grave, and little disposed to speak; full of wonder when Mr. Lennox would go, and allow her to relax into thought on the events of the last quarter of an hour. He was almost as anxious to take his departure as she was for him to leave; but a few minutes light and careless talking, carried on at whatever effort, was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or his self-respect. He glanced from time to time at her sad and pensive face.
"I am not so indifferent to her as she believes," thought he to himself. "I do not give up hope."
Before a quarter of an hour was over, he had fallen into a way of conversing with quiet sarcasm; speaking of life in London and life in the country, as if he were conscious of his second mocking self, and afraid of his own satire. Mr. Hale was puzzled. His visitor was a different man to what he had seen him before at the wedding-breakfast, and at dinner to-day; a lighter, cleverer, more worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr. Hale. It was a relief to all three when Mr. Lennox said that he must go directly if he meant to catch the five o'clock train. They proceeded to the house to find Mrs. Hale, and wish her good-bye. At the last moment, Henry Lennox's real self broke through the crust.
"Margaret, don't despise me; I have a heart, notwithstanding all this good-for-nothing way of talking. As a proof of it, I believe I love you more than ever--if I do not hate you--for the disdain with which you have listened to me during this last half-hour. Good-bye, Margaret--Margaret!"

Margaret had been thinking of him only a moment before. Her face brightened as she put down her board, and went forward to shake hands with him.
'Mamma and I want to ask you about Edith; I am so obliged to you for coming,' she said.
'Did not I say that I should?' asked he, in a low tone.
'But I heard of you far away in the Highlands.'
'Oh!' said he, more lightly, 'our young couple were playing such foolish pranks, running all sorts of risks, climbing this mountain, sailing on that lake, that I really thought they needed a mentor to take care of them. They were quite beyond my uncle's management, and kept the old gentleman in a panic. I thought it my duty not to leave them till I had seen them safely embarked at Plymouth.'
'Edith never mentioned that. To be sure, she has written in such a hurry lately. Did they really sail on Tuesday?'
'Yes. Edith gave me all sorts of messages for you. I believe I have a little note somewhere; here it is.'
'Thank you,' exclaimed Margaret; and then, wishing to read it alone and unwatched, she made the excuse of going to tell her mother that Mr. Lennox was there.
When she had left him, he began to scrutinise the little drawing-room. It was looking its best in the streaming light of the morning sun. The window was open, and clustering roses and honeysuckle came peeping round the corner; the small lawn was gorgeous with verbenas and bright geraniums. But the very brightness outside made the colours within seem poor and faded. The room was smaller and shabbier than he had expected as a background for Margaret, herself so queenly.
He took up one of the books lying on the table; it was the Paradiso of Dante. By it lay a dictionary, and some words copied out in Margaret's hand-writing. They made a dull list, but somehow he liked looking at them. He put them down with a sigh.
Margaret meanwhile had found her mother. It was one of Mrs. Hale's fitful days, when everything was a difficulty; including Mr. Lennox's visit, although secretly she felt complimented by his calling.
'It is most unfortunate! We have nothing but cold meat, and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning - I don't know why. I went into the study just now, and he had his face in his hands. I told him I was sure Helstone air did not agree with him, and he suddenly lifted up his head, and begged me not to speak a word more against Helstone, he could not bear it; if there was one place he loved on earth it was Helstone. But I am sure it is the damp air.'
Margaret felt as if a thin cold cloud had come between her and the sun. She drew her mother back to the subject of Mr. Lennox.
'Papa likes Mr. Lennox; they got on together famously at the wedding. His coming will do papa good. And never mind dinner, dear mamma. Cold meat will do capitally for lunch.'
'But what are we to do with him till then? It is only half-past ten.'
'I'll ask him to go out sketching with me. That will take him out of your way, mamma. Only do come in now; he will think it strange if you don't.'
Mrs. Hale took off her black silk apron, and smoothed her face. She looked a very pretty lady-like woman, as she greeted Mr. Lennox cordially. He accepted the invitation to lunch with a glad readiness that made Mrs. Hale wish she could add something to the cold beef. He was delighted with Margaret's idea of going sketching together. She brought out her drawing materials, and the two set out in merry spirits.
'Now, please, just stop here for a minute,' said Margaret. 'These are the cottages that haunted me so during the rainy fortnight, reproaching me for not having sketched them.'
'Before they tumbled down. Truly, if they are to be sketched - and they are very picturesque - we had better not put it off till next year. But where shall we sit?'
'Oh! On this beautiful tree trunk. I will put my shawl over it, and it will be a regular forest throne.'
'With your feet in that puddle for a regal footstool! Who lives in these cottages?'
'One is uninhabited,' said she; 'the foresters are going to take it down, as soon as the old man who lives in the other is dead, poor old fellow! Look - there he is - I must go and speak to him.'
The old man stood bareheaded in the sun, leaning on his stick in front of his cottage. His stiff features relaxed into a slow smile as Margaret went up to him. Mr. Lennox hastily added the two figures to his sketch - as Margaret perceived later, when they were putting away the paints. She laughed and blushed.
'Now, I call that treacherous,' said she. 'I little thought you were drawing old Isaac and me.'
'It was irresistible. You can't know how strong a temptation it was. I hardly dare tell you how much I shall like this sketch.'
He was not quite sure whether she heard this latter sentence before she went to the brook to wash her palette. She came back rather flushed, but looking perfectly unconscious. He was glad of it, for the speech had slipped from him unawares - a rare thing in his case.
When they reached home, the clouds on her mother's brow had cleared under the lucky influence of a brace of carp, most opportunely presented by a neighbour. Mr. Hale had returned from his morning's round, and was waiting by the garden gate. He looked a complete gentleman in his rather threadbare coat and well-worn hat.
Margaret was proud of her father; she had always a tender pride in seeing how favourably he impressed every stranger. Still her quick eye sought his face and found there traces of some unusual disturbance.
Mr. Hale asked to look at their sketches.
'I think you have made the tints on the thatch too dark, have you not?' He returned Margaret's to her, and held out his hand for Mr. Lennox's.
'No, papa! I don't think I have. It is so much darker in the rain. Is that not like, papa?' said she, peeping over his shoulder, as he looked at the figures in Mr. Lennox's drawing.
'Yes, very like. Your way of holding yourself is capital. And it is just like poor old Isaac. What is this hanging from the branch of the tree? Not a bird's nest, surely.'
'Oh no! that is my bonnet. I wonder if I could manage figures. There are so many people about here whom I should like to sketch.'
'I should say you would succeed,' said Mr. Lennox. 'I think myself I have succeeded pretty well in yours.' Mr. Hale had gone into the house, while Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses.
'A regular London girl would understand the implied meaning of that speech,' thought Mr. Lennox. 'She would look through every speech a young man made her for a compliment. But I don't believe - stay!' exclaimed he. 'Let me help you.' He gathered some velvety roses that were above her reach, and sent her in, pleased and happy, to arrange her flowers.
The conversation at dinner flowed on quietly and agreeably. There was the latest news of Mrs. Shaw in Italy to be exchanged; and in the unpretending simplicity of the parsonage-ways, Mr. Lennox forgot his first feeling on finding her father's living was so small.
'Margaret, my child, you might have gathered us some pears for our dessert,' said Mr. Hale. 'There are a few brown beurres against the south wall. Run and gather us some.'
'I propose that we adjourn into the garden, and eat them there,' said Mr. Lennox. 'Nothing is so delicious as the crisp, juicy fruit, scented by the sun. The worst is, the wasps are impudent enough to dispute it.'
He rose to follow Margaret outside. She made a plate for the pears out of a beetroot leaf, which threw up their colour admirably. Mr. Lennox looked more at her than at the pears; but her father, determined to make the most of the hour he had stolen from his anxiety, chose the ripest fruit, and sat down on the garden bench to enjoy it. Margaret and Mr. Lennox strolled along the little terrace-walk under the south wall, where the bees still hummed busily.
'What a perfect life you seem to live here! I have always felt rather contemptuously towards the poets, with their "Mine be a cot beside a hill," and that sort of thing: but just now I feel as if twenty years' hard study of law would be amply rewarded by one year of such an exquisite serene life as this. Such skies!' - looking up - 'such crimson and amber foliage, so perfectly motionless!' He pointed to some of the great forest trees which shut in the garden like a nest.
'Our skies are not always so deep a blue as now. We have rain, and our leaves do fall, and get sodden: though I think Helstone is about as perfect a place as any in the world. Recollect how you scorned my description of it in Harley Street: "a village in a tale."'
'Scorned, Margaret! That is rather a hard word.'
'Perhaps it is. Only I should have liked to have talked to you about Helstone, and you spoke disrespectfully of it as a mere village in a tale.'
'I will never do so again,' said he, warmly. They turned the corner.
'I could almost wish, Margaret-' He stopped and hesitated. It was so unusual for the fluent lawyer to hesitate that Margaret looked up at him in questioning wonder; but in an instant she wished herself back with her mother - her father - anywhere away from him, for she was sure he was going to say something to which she should not know what to reply.
Her pride made her conquer her sudden agitation, which she hoped he had not perceived. Of course she could answer; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech.
'Margaret,' said he, getting sudden possession of her hand, so that she was forced to stand still and listen, despising herself for the fluttering of her heart. 'Margaret, I wish you did not like Helstone so much - did not seem so perfectly happy here. I have been hoping to find you regretting London - and London friends - enough to make you listen more kindly' (for she was quietly, but firmly, striving to remove her hand from his grasp) 'to one who has not much to offer apart from future prospects - but who does love you, Margaret, almost in spite of himself. Margaret, have I startled you too much? Speak!'
For he saw her lips quivering almost as if she were going to cry. She made a strong effort to be calm; she would not speak till she had mastered her voice, and then she said:
'I was startled. I did not know that you cared for me in that way. I have always thought of you as a friend; and, please, I would rather go on thinking of you so. I cannot answer you as you want me to do, and yet I should feel so sorry if I vexed you.'
'Margaret,' said he, looking into her eyes, which met his with their open, straight look. 'Do you' - he was going to say, 'love anyone else?' But it seemed as if this question would be an insult. 'Forgive me. I have been too abrupt. I am punished. Only let me hope. Tell me you have never seen anyone whom you could-' Again he could not end his sentence.
Margaret reproached herself as the cause of his distress. 'Ah! if only you had never got this fancy into your head! It was such a pleasure to think of you as a friend.'
'But may I not hope, Margaret, that some time you will think of me as a lover? Not yet, but some time.'
She was silent, trying to discover the truth in her own heart, before replying. Then she said:
'I could never think of you except as a friend. Pray, let us both forget that all this' ('disagreeable,' she was going to say, but stopped short) 'conversation has taken place.'
He paused. Then, in his habitual cold tone, he answered:
'Of course, as your feelings are so decided, and as this conversation has been so evidently unpleasant to you, it had better not be remembered. That is all very fine in theory, that plan of forgetting whatever is painful, but it will be somewhat difficult for me, at least, to carry it out.'
'You are vexed,' said she, sadly; 'yet how can I help it?'
She looked so truly grieved, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone:
'You should make allowances for the mortification, not only of a lover, Margaret, but of a man not given to romance in general, who has been carried out of his usual habits by the force of a passion - well, we will say no more of that; but he meets only with rejection. I shall have to console myself with scorning my own folly. A struggling barrister to think of matrimony!'
Margaret could not answer this. The whole tone of it annoyed her. It seemed to call out the points which had often repelled her; while yet he was the pleasantest man, the most sympathising friend, the person of all others who understood her best in Harley Street. She felt a tinge of contempt mingle itself with her pain at having refused him. Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain.
It was well that, having made the round of the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr. Hale. He had not yet finished the pear, which he had delicately peeled in one long strip, and which he was enjoying in a deliberate manner. Margaret felt stunned, and unable to recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial conversation between her father and Mr. Lennox. She was grave; wondering when Mr. Lennox would go, and allow her to think.
He was almost as anxious to depart as she was for him to leave; but a few minutes light talking was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or his self-respect. He glanced at her sad and pensive face.
'She is not so indifferent to me as she believes,' thought he. 'I do not give up hope.'
He had begun conversing with quiet sarcasm, speaking of life in London and the country in a mocking manner. Mr. Hale was puzzled. His visitor was a different man to the one he had seen earlier; a lighter, cleverer, more worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr. Hale. It was a relief to all three when Mr. Lennox said that he must go to catch the train. They went to the house to find Mrs. Hale, and wish her good-bye.
At the last moment, Henry Lennox's real self broke through the crust.
'Margaret, don't despise me; I have a heart, despite all this good-for-nothing way of talking. I believe I love you more than ever - if I do not hate you - for the disdain with which you have listened to me during this last half-hour. Good-bye, Margaret!'

Chapter 3: "THE MORE HASTE THE WORSE SPEED"


"Unwatch'd the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved that beech will gather brown, The maple burn itself away;
Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air;
* * * * *
Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger's child;
As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills." TENNYSON.
The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being carted off at the front door, to the nearest railway station. Even the pretty lawn at the side of the house, was made unsightly and untidy by the straw that had been wafted upon it through the open door and windows. The rooms had a strange echoing sound in them,--and the light came harshly and strongly in through the uncurtained windows,--seeming already unfamiliar and strange. Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; and there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and interrupting each other every now and then to exclaim at, and turn over with fond regard, some forgotten treasure, in the shape of some relic of the children while they were yet little. They did not make much progress with their work. Down-stairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to counsel or advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte. These two last, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady could keep up so this last day, and settled it between them that she was not likely to care much for Helstone, having been so long in London. There she stood, very pale and quiet, with her large grave eyes observing everything--up to every present circumstance however small. They could not understand how her heart was aching all the time, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could lift off or relieve, and how constant exertion for her perceptive faculties was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain. Moreover, if she gave way, who was to act? Her father was examining papers, books, registers, what not, in the vestry with the clerk; and when he came in, there were his own books to pack up, which no one but himself could do to his satisfaction. Besides, was Margaret one to give way before strange men, or even household friends like the cook and Charlotte? Not she! But at last the four packers went into the kitchen to their tea; and Margaret moved stiffly and slowly away from the place in the hall where she had been standing so long, out through the bare echoing drawing-room, into the twilight of an early November evening. There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing,--perhaps, Margaret thought, the very robin that her father had so often talked of as his winter pet, and for which he had made, with his own hands, a kind of robin-house by his study-window. The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low on the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.
Margaret went along the walk under the pear-tree wall. She had never been along it since she paced it at Henry Lennox's side. Here, at this bed of thyme, he began to speak of what she must not think of now. Her eyes were on that late-blowing rose as she was trying to answer; and she had caught the idea of the vivid beauty of the feathery leaves of the carrots in the very middle of his last sentence. Only a fortnight ago! And all so changed! Where was he now? In London,--going through the old round; dining with the old Harley Street set, or with gayer young friends of his own. Even now, while she walked sadly through that damp and drear garden in the dusk, with everything falling and fading, and turning to decay around her, he might be gladly putting away his law-books after a day of satisfactory toil, and freshening himself up, as he had told her he often did, by a run in the Temple Gardens, taking in the while the grand inarticulate mighty roar of tens of thousands of busy men, nigh at hand, but not seen, and catching ever, at his quick turns, glimpses of the lights of the city coming up out of the depths of the river. He had often spoken to Margaret of these hasty walks, snatched in the intervals between study and dinner. At his best times and in his best moods had he spoken of them; and the thought of them had struck upon her fancy. Here there was no sound. The robin had gone away into the vast stillness of night. Now and then, a cottage door in the distance was opened and shut, as if to admit the tired labourer to his home; but that sounded very far away. A stealthy, creeping, cranching sound among the crisp fallen leaves of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed almost close at hand. Margaret knew it was some poacher. Sitting up in her bedroom this past autumn, with the light of her candle extinguished, and purely revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and the earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of the poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy moonlit lawn, their disappearance in the black still shadow beyond. The wild adventurous freedom of their life had taken her fancy; she felt inclined to wish them success; she had no fear of them. But to-night she was afraid, she knew not why. She heard Charlotte shutting the windows, and fastening up for the night, unconscious that any one had gone out into the garden. A small branch--it might be of rotten wood, or it might be broken by force--came heavily down in the nearest part of the forest; Margaret ran, swift as Camilla, down to the window, and rapped at it with a hurried tremulousness which startled Charlotte within.
"Let me in! Let me in! It is only me, Charlotte!" Her heart did not still its fluttering till she was safe in the drawing-room, with the windows fastened and bolted, and the familiar walls hemming her round, and shutting her in. She had sate down upon a packing-case; cheerless, chill was the dreary and dismantled room--no fire, nor other light, but Charlotte's long unsnuffed candle. Charlotte looked at Margaret with surprise; and Margaret, feeling it rather than seeing it, rose up.
"I was afraid you were shutting me out altogether, Charlotte," said she, half-smiling. "And then you would never have heard me in the kitchen, and the doors into the lane and churchyard are locked long ago."
"Oh, miss, I should have been sure to have missed you soon. The men would have wanted you to tell them how to go on. And I have put tea in master's study, as being the most comfortable room, so to speak."
"Thank you, Charlotte. You are a kind girl. I shall be sorry to leave you. You must try and write to me, if I can ever give you any little help or good advice. I shall always be glad to get a letter from Helstone, you know. I shall be sure and send you my address when I know it."
The study was all ready for tea. There was a good blazing fire, and unlighted candles on the table. Margaret sat down on the rug, partly to warm herself, for the dampness of the evening hung about her dress, and over-fatigue had made her chilly. She kept herself balanced by clasping her hands together round her knees; her head dropped a little towards her chest; the attitude was one of despondency, whatever her frame of mind might be. But when she heard her father's step on the gravel outside, she started up, and hastily shaking her heavy black hair back, and wiping a few tears away that had come on her cheeks she knew not how, she went out to open the door for him. He showed far more depression than she did. She could hardly get him to talk, although she tried to speak on subjects that would interest him, at the cost of an effort every time which she thought would be her last.
"Have you been a very long walk to-day?" asked she, on seeing his refusal to touch food of any kind.
"As far as Fordham Beeches. I went to see Widow Maltby; she is sadly grieved at not having wished you good-bye. She says little Susan has kept watch down the lane for days past.--Nay, Margaret, what is the matter, dear?" The thought of the little child watching for her, and continually disappointed--from no forgetfulness on her part, but from sheer inability to leave home--was the last drop in poor Margaret's cup, and she was sobbing away as if her heart would break. Mr. Hale was distressingly perplexed. He rose, and walked nervously up and down the room. Margaret tried to check herself, but would not speak until she could do so with firmness. She heard him talking, as if to himself.
"I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see the sufferings of others. I think I could go through my own with patience. Oh, is there no going back?"
"No, father," said Margaret, looking straight at him, and speaking low and steadily. "It is bad to believe you in error. It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite." She dropped her voice at the last few words, as if entertaining the idea of hypocrisy for a moment in connection with her father savoured of irreverence.
"Besides," she went on, "it is only that I am tired to-night; don't think that I am suffering from what you have done, dear papa. We can't either of us talk about it to-night, I believe," said she, finding that tears and sobs would come in spite of herself. "I had better go and take mamma up this cup of tea. She had hers very early, when I was too busy to go to her, and I am sure she will be glad of another now."
Railroad time inexorably wrenched them away from lovely, beloved Helstone, the next morning. They were gone; they had seen the last of the long low parsonage home, half-covered with China-roses and pyracanthus--more homelike than ever in the morning sun that glittered on its windows, each belonging to some well-loved room. Almost before they had settled themselves into the car, sent from Southampton to fetch them to the station, they were gone away to return no more. A sting at Margaret's heart made her strive to look out to catch the last glimpse of the old church tower at the turn where she knew it might be seen above a wave of the forest trees; but her father remembered this too, and she silently acknowledged his greater right to the one window from which it could be seen. She leant back and shut her eyes, and the tears welled forth, and hung glittering for an instant on the shadowing eyelashes before rolling slowly down her cheeks, and dropping, unheeded, on her dress.
They were to stop in London all night at some quiet hotel. Poor Mrs. Hale had cried in her way nearly all day long; and Dixon showed her sorrow by extreme crossness, and a continual irritable attempt to keep her petticoats from even touching the unconscious Mr. Hale, whom she regarded as the origin of all this suffering.
They went through the well-known streets, past houses which they had often visited, past shops in which she had lounged, impatient, by her aunt's side, while that lady was making some important and interminable decision--nay, absolutely passed acquaintances in the streets; for though the morning had been of an incalculable length to them, and they felt as if it ought long ago to have closed in for the repose of darkness, it was the very busiest time of a London afternoon in November when they arrived there. It was long since Mrs. Hale had been in London; and she roused up, almost like a child, to look about her at the different streets, and to gaze after and exclaim at the shops and carriages,--
"Oh, there's Harrison's, where I bought so many of my wedding things. Dear! how altered! They've got immense plate-glass windows, larger than Crawford's in Southampton. Oh, and there, I declare--no, it is not--yes, it is--Margaret, we have just passed Mr. Henry Lennox. Where can he be going, among all these shops?"
Margaret started forwards, and as quickly fell back, half-smiling at herself for the sudden motion. They were a hundred yards away by this time; but he seemed like a relic of Helstone--he was associated with a bright morning, an eventful day, and she should have liked to have seen him, without his seeing her,--without the chance of their speaking.
The evening, without employment, passed in a room high up in an hotel, was long and heavy. Mr. Hale went out to his bookseller's, and to call on a friend or two. Every one they saw, either in the house or out in the streets, appeared hurrying to some appointment, expected by, or expecting somebody. They alone seemed strange and friendless, and desolate. Yet within a mile, Margaret knew of house after house, where she for her own sake, and her mother for her aunt Shaw's, would be welcomed, if they came in gladness, or even in peace of mind. If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends. London life is too whirling and full to admit of even an hour of that deep silence of feeling which the friends of Job showed, when "they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great."

The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being carted off to the railway station. The rooms had strange echoes, and the light came harshly and strongly in through the uncurtained windows. The house seemed already unfamiliar.
Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and now and then exclaiming fondly on some forgotten treasure, or relic of the children when they were little. They did not make much progress with their work.
Downstairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte. These two, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady could keep up so, and agreed that she probably did not care much for Helstone, having been so long in London. There she stood, very pale and quiet, with her large grave eyes observing everything. They could not understand how her heart was aching, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could relieve. Constant exertion was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain.
Moreover, if she gave way, who was to manage? Her father was examining papers, books, registers and what not, in the vestry with the clerk; and he had his own books to pack up. Besides, was Margaret one to give way before strange men, or even household friends like the cook and Charlotte? Not she.
But at last the four packers went into the kitchen to their tea; and Margaret moved stiffly and slowly away from her place in the hall, through the bare echoing drawing-room, out into the twilight of an early November evening. There was a veil of soft dull mist obscuring all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing. The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low on the ground. Already one or two were floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.
Margaret went along the walk under the pear-tree wall. She had never been along it since she paced it at Henry Lennox's side. Here he began to speak of what she must not think of now. Only a fortnight ago! And all so changed! Where was he now? In London; dining with the Harley Street set, or with friends of his own. Even now, while she walked sadly through that damp and drear garden in the dusk, with everything falling and fading, and turning to decay around her, he might be gladly putting away his law-books, and freshening himself up, as he had told her he often did, by a run in the Temple Gardens, hearing the roar of the city and catching glimpses of its lights in the river.
Here there was no sound. The robin had gone away into the vast stillness of night. Now and then, a distant cottage door opened and shut, as if to admit the tired labourer to his home. A stealthy, creeping, crunching sound among the crisp fallen leaves of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed closer. Margaret knew it was some poacher. From her bedroom, with her candle extinguished, and revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy moonlit lawn to disappear in the black still shadow beyond. She had felt no fear of them. But tonight she was afraid, she knew not why. She heard Charlotte locking up for the night, unaware that anyone had gone out into the garden. A small branch came down heavily in the forest. Margaret ran to the window, and rapped at it hurriedly.
'Let me in, Charlotte!' Her heart did not stop fluttering till she was safe in the drawing-room, with the windows fastened. Chill was the dreary and dismantled room, with no fire or light but Charlotte's candle.
'I was afraid you were shutting me out, Charlotte,' said Margaret, half-smiling. 'And then you would never have heard me in the kitchen.'
'Oh, miss, I should have been sure to have missed you. I have put tea in master's study, as being the most comfortable room.'
'Thank you, Charlotte. You are a kind girl. I shall be sorry to leave you. You must try and write to me. I shall always be glad to get a letter from Helstone, you know.'
In the study, there was a good blazing fire. Margaret sat down on the rug to warm herself, clasping her hands round her knees; her head dropped a little in despondency. But when she heard her father's step outside, she started up, and hastily shaking back her heavy black hair, and wiping a few tears away, she went to open the door for him. He showed far more depression than she did. She could hardly get him to talk, despite her efforts.
'Have you been for a very long walk today?' asked she, on seeing his refusal to touch any food.
'To Fordham Beeches. I went to see Widow Maltby; she is sadly grieved at not having wished you good-bye. She says little Susan has kept watch down the lane for days past. - Nay, Margaret, what is the matter, dear?'
The thought of the child watching for her, and continually disappointed - from no forgetfulness on her part, but from sheer inability to leave home - was the last drop in poor Margaret's cup, and she was sobbing as if her heart would break. Mr. Hale was perplexed. Margaret tried to check herself, but could not yet speak. She heard him talking to himself.
'I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see the sufferings of others. Oh, is there no going back?'
'No, father,' said Margaret, looking straight at him, and speaking low and steadily. 'It is bad to believe you in error, but it would be infinitely worse to think you a hypocrite. It is only that I am tired tonight; I am not suffering from what you have done, dear papa.' Finding that tears would come in spite of herself, she added, 'I had better go and take mamma this cup of tea.'
The next morning they were wrenched away from beloved Helstone. They had seen the last of the long low parsonage, half-covered with China-roses and pyracanthus. In the carriage to the station, Margaret strove to catch the last glimpse of the old church tower above the forest trees; but her father was looking for it too, and she silently acknowledged his greater right to the window from which it could be seen. She leant back and shut her eyes, the tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.
They were to stop in London overnight. Poor Mrs. Hale had cried nearly all day; and Dixon showed her sorrow by extreme crossness, and an irritable attempt to keep her skirts from touching Mr. Hale, whom she regarded as the cause of all this suffering.
It was the very busiest time of a London afternoon in November when they arrived. It was long since Mrs. Hale had been in London; and she roused up, almost like a child, to look at the streets, and exclaim at the shops and carriages.
'Oh, there's Harrison's, where I bought so many of my wedding-things. Dear! how altered! They've got immense plate-glass windows, larger than Crawford's in Southampton. Oh, I declare - Margaret, we have just passed Mr. Henry Lennox. Where can he be going, among all these shops?'
Margaret started forwards, and then quickly fell back, half-smiling at herself. They were a hundred yards away by this time; but he seemed like a relic of Helstone - he was associated with a bright morning, an eventful day, and she should have liked to have seen him, without his seeing her.
The long evening was passed in an hotel. Everyone they saw appeared hurrying to some appointment. They alone seemed friendless and desolate. Yet within a mile, Margaret knew of house after house where she and her mother would be welcomed, if they came in gladness. But if they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in their complicated trouble, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these acquaintances' homes. London life is too whirling and full to allow that deep silence of feeling which the friends of Job showed, when 'they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great.'


"Old and young, boy, let 'em all eat, I have it; Let 'em have ten tire of teeth a-piece, I care not. ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY.
Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard and seen that she hardly knew how to rouse herself up to the duties which awaited her; the necessity for keeping up a constant flow of cheerful conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out, always looked to Margaret's return from the shortest walk as bringing in some news.
"And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?"
"She was so ill I never thought of asking her," said Margaret, dolefully.
"Dear! Everybody is ill now, I think," said Mrs. Hale, with a little of the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another. "But it must be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets." (Her kindly nature prevailing, and the old Helstone habits of thought returning.) "It's bad enough here. What could you do for her, Margaret? Mr. Thornton has sent me some of his old port wine since you went out. Would a bottle of that do her good, think you?"
"No, mamma! I don't believe they are very poor,--at least, they don't speak as if they were; and, at any rate, Bessy's illness is consumption--she won't want wine. Perhaps, I might take her a little preserve, made of our dear Helstone fruit. No! there's another family to whom I should like to give--Oh mamma, mamma! how am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I've seen to-day?" exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had preordained for herself before she came in, and telling her mother what she had seen and heard at Higgins's cottage.
It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively. It made her restlessly irritated till she could do something. She directed Margaret to pack up a basket in the very drawing-room, to be sent there and then to the family; and was almost angry with her for saying, that it would not signify if it did not go till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy. Mrs. Hale called her unfeeling for saying this; and never gave herself breathing-time till the basket was sent out of the house. Then she said:
"After all, we may have been doing wrong. It was only the last time Mr. Thornton was here that he said, those were no true friends who helped to prolong the struggle by assisting the turn-outs. And this Boucher-man was a turn-out, was he not?"
The question was referred to Mr. Hale by his wife, when he came upstairs, fresh from giving a lesson to Mr. Thornton, which had ended in conversation, as was their wont. Margaret did not care if their gifts had prolonged the strife; she did not think far enough for that, in her present excited state.
Mr. Hale listened, and tried to be as calm as a judge; he recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise. His wife and daughter had not only done quite right in this instance, but he did not see for a moment how they could have done otherwise. Nevertheless, as a general rule, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said, that as the strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters bringing hands from a distance (if, indeed, the final result were not, as it had often been before, the invention of some machine which would diminish the need of hands at all), why, it was clear enough that the kindest thing was to refuse all help which might bolster them up in their folly. But as to this Boucher, he would go and see him the first thing in the morning, and try and find out what could be done for him.
Mr. Hale went the next morning, as he proposed. He did not find Boucher at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised to ask for an Infirmary order for; and, seeing the plenty provided by Mrs. Hale, and somewhat lavishly used by the children, who were masters downstairs in their father's absence, he came back with a more consoling and cheerful account than Margaret had dared to hope for; indeed, what she had said the night before had prepared her father for so much worse a state of things that, by a re-action of his imagination, he described all as better than it really was.
"But I will go again, and see the man himself," said Mr. Hale. "I hardly know as yet how to compare one of these houses with our Helstone cottages. I see furniture here which our labourers would never have thought of buying, and food commonly used which they would consider luxuries; yet for these very families there seems no other resource now that their weekly wages are stopped, but the pawn-shop. One had need to learn a different standard, up here in Milton."
Bessy, too, was rather better this day. Still she was so weak that she seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see Margaret dressed--if, indeed, that had not been the feverish desire of a half delirious state.
Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers, to go where she did not care to be--her heart heavy with various anxieties--with the old, merry, girlish toilettes that she and Edith had performed scarcely more than a year ago. Her only pleasure now in decking herself out was in thinking that her mother would take delight in seeing her dressed. She blushed when Dixon, throwing the drawing-room door open, made an appeal for admiration.
"Miss Hale looks well, ma'am,--doesn't she? Mrs. Shaw's coral couldn't have come in better. It just gives the right touch of colour, ma'am. Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too pale."
Margaret's black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness compressed into massive coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a large spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together by two large coral pins, like small arrows for length. Her white silk sleeves were looped up with strings of the same material, and on her neck, just below the base of her curved and milk-white throat, there lay heavy coral beads.
"Oh, Margaret! how I should like to be going with you to one of the old Barrington assemblies,--taking you as Lady Beresford used to take me."
Margaret kissed her mother for this little burst of maternal vanity; but she could hardly smile at it, she felt so much out of spirits.
"I would rather stay at home with you,--much rather, mamma."
"Nonsense, darling! Be sure you notice the dinner well. I shall like to hear how they manage these things in Milton. Particularly the second course, dear. Look what they have instead of game."
Mrs. Hale would have been more than interested,--she would have been astonished, if she had seen the sumptuousness of the dinner-table and its appointments. Margaret, with her London cultivated taste, felt the number of delicacies to be oppressive; one half of the quantity would have been enough, and the effect tighter and more elegant. But it was one of Mrs. Thornton's rigorous laws of hospitality, that of each separate dainty enough should be provided for all the guests to partake, if they felt inclined. Careless to abstemiousness in her daily habits, it was part of her pride to set a feast before such of her guests as cared for it. Her son shared this feeling. He had never known--though he might have imagined, and had the capability to relish--any kind of society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals: and even now, though he was denying himself the personal expenditure of an unnecessary sixpence, and had more than once regretted that the invitations for this dinner had been sent out, still, as it was to be, he was glad to see the old magnificence of preparation.
Margaret and her father were the first to arrive. Mr. Hale was anxiously punctual to the time specified. There was no one upstairs in the drawing-room but Mrs. Thornton and Fanny. Every cover was taken off, and the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly flowered carpet. Every corner seemed filled up with ornament, until it became a weariness to the eye, and presented a strange contrast to the bald ugliness of the look-out into the great mill-yard, where wide folding gates were thrown open for the admission of carriages. The mill loomed high on the left-hand side of the windows, casting a shadow down from its many stories, which darkened the summer evening before its time.
"My son was engaged up to the last moment on business. He will be here directly, Mr. Hale. May I beg you to take a seat?"
Mr. Hale was standing at one of the windows as Mrs. Thornton spoke. He turned away, saying,
"Don't you find such close neighbourhood to the mill rather unpleasant at times?"
She drew herself up:
"Never. I am not become so fine as to desire to forget the source of my son's wealth and power. Besides, there is not such another factory in Milton. One room alone is two hundred and twenty square yards."
"I meant that the smoke and the noise--the constant going out and coming in of the workpeople, might be annoying!"
"I agree with you, Mr. Hale!" said Fanny. "There is a continual smell of steam and oily machinery--and the noise is perfectly deafening."
"I have heard noise that was called music far more deafening. The engine-room is at the street-end of the factory; we hardly hear it, except in summer weather, when all the windows are open; and as for the continual murmur of the workpeople, it disturbs me no more than the humming of a hive of bees. If I think of it at all, I connect it with my son, and feel how all belongs to him, and that his is the head that directs it. Just now, there are no sounds to come from the mill; the hands have been ungrateful enough to turn out, as perhaps you have heard. But the very business (of which I spoke when you entered), had reference to the steps he is going to take to make them learn their place." The expression on her face, always stern, deepened into dark anger, as she said this. Nor did it clear away when Mr. Thornton entered the room; for she saw in an instant, the weight of care and anxiety which he could not shake off, although his guests received from him a greeting that appeared both cheerful and cordial. He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact. He inquired after Mrs. Hale, and heard Mr. Hale's sanguine, hopeful account; and, glancing to Margaret, to understand how far she agreed with her father, he saw that no dissenting shadow crossed her face. And as he looked with this intention, he was struck anew with her great beauty. He had never seen her in such dress before; and yet now it appeared that such elegance of attire was so befitting her noble figure and lofty serenity of countenance that she ought to go always thus apparelled. She was talking to Fanny; about what he could not hear; but he saw his sister's restless way of continually arranging some part of her gown, her wandering eyes, now glancing here, now there, but without any purpose in her observation; and he contrasted them uneasily with the large soft eyes that looked forth steadily at one object, as if from out their light beamed some gentle influence of repose: the curving lines of the red lips, just parted in the interest of listening to what her companion said--the head a little bent forwards, so as to make a long sweeping line from the summit, where the light caught on the glossy raven hair, to the smooth ivory tip of the shoulder; the round white arms, and taper hands, laid lightly across each other, but perfectly motionless in their pretty attitude. Mr. Thornton sighed as he took in all this with one of his sudden comprehensive glances. And then he turned his back to the young ladies, and threw himself, with an effort, but with all his heart and soul, into a conversation with Mr. Hale.
More people came--more and more. Fanny left Margaret's side and helped her mother to receive her guests. Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent neglect. But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing--or not doing--better than he knew the movements of any one else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed or not. Somebody took her down to dinner; she did not catch the name; nor did he seem much inclined to talk to her. There was a very animated conversation going on among the gentlemen; the ladies, for the most part, were silent, employing themselves in taking notes of the dinner and criticising each other's dresses. Margaret caught the clue to the general conversation, grew interested and listened attentively. Mr. Horsfall, the stranger, whose visit to the town was the original germ of the party, was asking questions relative to the trade and manufactures of the place; and the rest of the gentlemen--all Milton men--were giving him answers and explanations. Some dispute arose, which was warmly contested; it was referred to Mr. Thornton, who had hardly spoken before; but who now gave an opinion, the grounds of which were so clearly stated that even the opponents yielded. Margaret's attention was thus called to her host; his whole manner, as master of the house, and entertainer of his friends, was so straightforward, yet simple and modest, as to be thoroughly dignified. Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much advantage. When he had come to their house, there had been always something, either of over-eagerness or of that kind of vexed annoyance which seemed ready to pre-suppose that he was unjustly judged, and yet felt too proud to try and make himself better understood. But now, among his fellows, there was no uncertainty as to his position. He was regarded by them as a man of great force of character; of power in many ways. There was no need to struggle for their respect. He had it, and he knew it; and the security of this gave a fine grand quietness to his voice and ways, which Margaret had missed before.
He was not in the habit of talking to ladies; and what he did say was a little formal. To Margaret herself he hardly spoke at all. She was surprised to think how much she enjoyed this dinner. She knew enough now to understand many local interests--nay, even some of the technical words employed by the eager millowners. She silently took a very decided part in the question they were discussing. At any rate, they talked in desperate earnest,--not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the old London parties. She wondered that, with all this dwelling on the manufacturers and trade of the place, no allusion was made to the strike then pending. She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by the masters, as having only one possible end. To be sure, the men were cutting their own throats, as they had done many a time before; but if they would be fools, and put themselves into the hands of a rascally set of paid delegates, they must take the consequence. One or two thought Thornton looked out of spirits; and, of course, he must lose by this turn-out. But it was an accident that might happen to themselves any day; and Thornton was as good to manage a strike as any one; for he was as iron a chap as any in Milton. The hands had mistaken their man in trying that dodge on him. And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the workmen's discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of what Thornton had decreed.
It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father's eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about. She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be. If in her cooler moments she might not approve of the spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time which none of them would live to see. She was rather startled when Mr. Thornton spoke to her close at her elbow:
"I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner,--were you not, Miss Hale?"
"Certainly. But then I know so little about it. I was surprised, however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who thought in so diametrically opposite a manner, as the Mr. Morison he spoke about. He cannot be a gentleman--is he?"
"I am not quite the person to decide on another's gentlemanliness, Miss Hale. I mean, I don't quite understand your application of the word. But I should say that this Morison is no true man. I don't know who he is; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall's account."
"I suspect my 'gentleman' includes your 'true man.'"
"And a great deal more, you would imply. I differ from you. A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman."
"What do you mean?" asked Margaret. "We must understand the words differently."
"I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity. A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe--a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life--nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as 'a man.' I am rather weary of this word 'gentlemanly,' which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun 'man,' and the adjective 'manly' are acknowledged--that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day."
Margaret thought a moment--but before she could speak her slow conviction, he was called away by some of the eager manufacturers, whose speeches she could not hear, though she could guess at their import by the short clear answers Mr. Thornton gave, which came steady and firm as the boom of a distant minute gun. They were evidently talking of the turn-out, and suggesting what course had best be pursued. She heard Mr. Thornton say:
"That has been done." Then came a hurried murmur, in which two or three joined.
"All those arrangements have been made."
Some doubts were implied, some difficulties named by Mr. Slickson, who took hold of Mr. Thornton's arm, the better to impress his words. Mr. Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows a very little, and then replied:
"I take the risk. You need not join in it unless you choose." Still some more fears were urged.
"I'm not afraid of anything so dastardly as incendiarism. We are open enemies; and I can protect myself from any violence that I apprehend. And I will assuredly protect all others who come to me for work. They know my determination by this time, as well and as fully as you do."
Mr. Horsfall took him a little on one side, as Margaret conjectured, to ask him some other question about the strike; but, in truth, it was to inquire who she herself was--so quiet, so stately, and so beautiful.
"A Milton lady?" asked he, as the name was given.
"No! from the south of England--Hampshire, I believe," was the cold, indifferent answer.
Mrs. Slickson was catechising Fanny on the same subject.
"Who is that fine distinguished-looking girl? a sister of Mr. Horsfall's?"
"Oh dear, no! That is Mr. Hale, her father, talking now to Mr. Stephens. He gives lessons; that is to say, he reads with young men. My brother John goes to him twice a week, and so he begged mamma to ask them here, in hopes of getting him known. I believe we have some of their prospectuses, if you would like to have one."
"Mr. Thornton! Does he really find time to read with a tutor, in the midst of all his business,--and this abominable strike in hand as well?"
Fanny was not sure, from Mrs. Slickson's manner, whether she ought to be proud or ashamed of her brother's conduct; and, like all people who try and take other people's "ought" for the rule of their feelings, she was inclined to blush for any singularity of action. Her shame was interrupted by the dispersion of the guests.

Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard that she could hardly keep up a flow of cheerful conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out, always looked to Margaret to bring some news.
'And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?'
'She was so ill I never thought of asking her,' said Margaret, dolefully.
'Dear! Everybody is ill now, I think,' said Mrs. Hale, with a little of the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another. 'But it must be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets.' (Her kindly nature prevailing.) 'Mr. Thornton has sent me some old port wine. Would a bottle of that do her good, think you?'
'No, mamma. I don't believe they are very poor; and Bessy's illness is consumption - she won't want wine. Perhaps I might take her a little fruit preserve. No! there's another family to whom I should like to give - Oh mamma! how am I to dress up in my finery, and go to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?' exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had set for herself, and telling her mother about John Boucher.
It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively. She told Margaret to pack up a basket, to be sent there and then to the family; and was almost angry with her for saying that it would wait till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy. Mrs. Hale called her unfeeling, and ordered the basket to be sent out of the house. Then she said:
'After all, we may have been doing wrong. Mr. Thornton said, those were no true friends who helped to prolong the struggle by assisting the turn-outs. And this Boucher-man was a turn-out, was he not?'
She asked this of Mr. Hale when he came upstairs, after giving a lesson to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Hale listened, and tried to judge calmly; he recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise. He did not see how his wife and daughter could have done otherwise. Nevertheless, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said; that the strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters' bringing hands from a distance, so the kindest thing was to refuse all help which might bolster them up in their folly. But, as to this Boucher, he would go and see him first thing in the morning, and try and find out what could be done for him.
Mr. Hale went the next morning. He did not find Boucher at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised to ask for an Infirmary order for her; and, seeing the plenty provided by Mrs. Hale, and somewhat lavishly used by the children, who were masters in their father's absence, he came back with a more cheerful account than Margaret had hoped for.
'But I will go again, and see the man himself,' said Mr. Hale. 'I hardly know how to compare these houses with our Helstone cottages. I see furniture here which our labourers would never have thought of buying, and food which they would consider luxuries; yet for these very families there seems no other resource, now that their wages are stopped, but the pawn-shop. One needs to measure by a different standard, up here in Milton.'
Bessy, too, was rather better this day; although still so weak that she seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see Margaret dressed up.
Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers - her heart heavy with anxieties - with the old, merry preparations that she and Edith had performed scarcely more than a year ago. Her only pleasure now in decking herself out was in thinking that her mother would take delight in seeing her dressed. She blushed when Dixon admired her.
'Miss Hale looks well, ma'am, doesn't she? Mrs. Shaw's coral gives the right touch of colour. Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too pale.'
Margaret's black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round into massive silky coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together by two large coral pins. On her neck, just below her curved white throat, there lay heavy coral beads.
'Oh, Margaret! how I should like to be going with you to one of the old Barrington assemblies.'
Margaret kissed her mother, but said, 'I would rather stay at home with you, mamma.'
'Nonsense, darling! Be sure you take note of the dinner. I shall like to hear how they manage these things in Milton.'
Mrs. Hale would have been astonished if she had seen the sumptuousness of the dinner-table. Margaret felt the number of delicacies to be oppressive; half would have been enough, and the effect more elegant. But it was one of Mrs. Thornton's rigorous laws of hospitality that enough should be provided of each separate dainty for all the guests to partake, if they wished. Abstemious herself, it was part of her pride to set a feast before her guests.
Her son shared this feeling. He had never known any kind of society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals; and even though he was denying himself any unnecessary personal expense, and had regretted that the invitations for this dinner had been sent out, still he was glad to see the old magnificence.
Mr. Hale was anxiously punctual, and Margaret and her father were the first to arrive. There was no one in the drawing-room but Mrs. Thornton and Fanny. The covers were taken off, and the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly-flowered carpet. Every corner seemed filled up with ornament, until it wearied the eye, and presented a strange contrast to the bald ugliness of the view into the great mill-yard, where the gates were thrown open to admit carriages. The mill loomed high on the left, casting a long shadow which darkened the summer evening.
'My son will be here directly, Mr. Hale. May I beg you to take a seat?'
Mr. Hale was standing at one of the windows as Mrs. Thornton spoke. He turned away, saying,
'Don't you find such close neighbourhood to the mill rather unpleasant at times?'
She drew herself up. 'Never. I am not become so fine as to desire to forget the source of my son's wealth and power. Besides, there is not another such factory in Milton. One room alone is two hundred and twenty square yards.'
'I meant that the smoke and the noise - the constant going in and out of people, might be annoying.'
'I agree with you, Mr. Hale!' said Fanny. 'There is a continual smell of steam and oil - and the noise is perfectly deafening.'
'I have heard noise that was called music far more deafening. The engine-room is at the other end of the factory; we hardly hear it, except when all the windows are open. As for the work-people, they disturb me no more than the humming of a hive of bees. Just now, there are no sounds from the mill; the hands have been ungrateful enough to turn out, as perhaps you have heard. But my son is going to make them learn their place.' The expression on her face, always stern, deepened into dark anger as she said this. Nor did it clear when Mr. Thornton entered the room; for she saw, in an instant, the weight of care which he could not shake off, although his guests received a cheerful greeting.
He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact. He inquired after Mrs. Hale, and heard Mr. Hale's hopeful account; and glancing at Margaret, he saw that no dissenting shadow crossed her face.
As he looked, he was struck anew with her great beauty. He had never seen her in such dress before; her elegant attire befitted her noble figure and serene face. She was talking to Fanny; about what, he could not hear. He saw his sister's restless way of constantly re-arranging her gown, her eyes wandering without any purpose; and he contrasted them uneasily with the large soft eyes that looked steadily at one object; the curving red lips, just parted in listening - the head a little bent forwards, so as to make a long sweeping line from the glossy raven hair to the smooth ivory tip of the shoulder; the round white arms, and hands laid lightly across each other. Mr. Thornton sighed as he took in all this with a sudden comprehensive glance. And then he turned his back on the young ladies, and threw himself, with an effort, into a conversation with Mr. Hale.
More people came. Fanny left Margaret's side, and helped her mother to receive her guests. Mr. Thornton felt that no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless; but he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing better than he knew the movements of anyone else in the room.
Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed. Somebody took her down to dinner; she did not catch the name; nor did he seem much inclined to talk to her. There was a very animated conversation going on among the gentlemen; Margaret grew interested and listened attentively. Mr. Horsfall, a stranger to the town, was asking about Milton's trade and manufactures; and the rest of the gentlemen were giving him answers and explanations. Some dispute arose, and was referred to Mr. Thornton, who had hardly spoken; but who now gave an opinion so clearly that the opponents yielded.
His whole manner as master of the house, and entertainer of his friends, was so straightforward, yet simple and modest, as to be thoroughly dignified. Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much advantage. When he had come to their house, there had been always some over-eagerness or vexed annoyance which seemed ready to pre-suppose that he was unjustly judged. But now, among his fellows, there was no uncertainty as to his position. He was regarded by them as a man of great force of character; of power in many ways. He had their respect, and he knew it; and the security of this gave a fine grand quietness to his voice and manner.
Margaret was surprised at how much she enjoyed this dinner. She knew enough now to understand many local interests - even some of the technical words used by the eager mill-owners. They talked in desperate earnest, not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the old London parties.
She wondered that no one mentioned the strike. She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by the masters, as having only one possible end. To be sure, the men were cutting their own throats; but if they would be fools, they must take the consequence. One or two thought Thornton looked out of spirits; of course, he must lose by this turn-out. But Thornton could manage a strike, for he was as iron a chap as any in Milton. And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the workmen's discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of what Thornton had decreed.
It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, because she could listen to something larger than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about. She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication caused by what had been achieved, and what yet should be. If she might not approve of their spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time. She was rather startled when Mr. Thornton spoke to her, close at her elbow:
'I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner - were you not, Miss Hale?'
'Certainly. But then I know so little about it. I was surprised, however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who thought so differently, like the Mr. Morison he mentioned. He cannot be a gentleman - is he?'
'I cannot decide on another's gentlemanliness, Miss Hale. I mean, I don't quite understand your application of the word. But I should say that this Morison is no true man. I don't know him; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall's account.'
'I suspect my "gentleman" includes your "true man."'
'And a great deal more, you would imply. I differ from you. A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.'
'What do you mean?' asked Margaret.
'I take it that "gentleman" is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as "a man," we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself - to life - to eternity. I am rather weary of this word "gentlemanly," which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and with much distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of "man" and "manly" are unacknowledged.'
Margaret thought a moment - but before she could speak, he was called away by the eager manufacturers. Although she could not hear their questions, she could guess at them by the short, firm answers Mr. Thornton gave. They were evidently talking of the turn-out, and suggesting what course to take. She heard Mr. Thornton say:
'That has been done. All those arrangements have been made.'
Some doubts were implied by Mr. Slickson, who took hold of Mr. Thornton's arm. Mr. Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows, and replied:
'I take the risk. You need not join in it unless you choose. I'm not afraid; I can protect myself from any violence. And I will assuredly protect all others who come to me for work. They know my determination by this time.'
Mr. Horsfall took him on one side. Margaret assumed it was to ask him some question about the strike; but, in truth, it was to inquire who she herself was - so quiet, so stately, and so beautiful.
'A Milton lady?' asked he.
'No! from the south - Hampshire, I believe,' was the cold, indifferent answer.
Mrs. Slickson was questioning Fanny on the same subject. 'Who is that fine distinguished-looking girl?'
'Oh! Mr. Hale there is her father. He gives lessons; my brother John goes to him twice a week, and so he begged mamma to ask them here, in hopes of getting him known.'
'Does Mr. Thornton really find time to read with a tutor, in the midst of all his business - and this abominable strike as well?'
Fanny was not sure, from Mrs. Slickson's manner, whether she ought to be proud or ashamed of her brother; she was inclined to blush. Her shame was interrupted by the dispersion of the guests.