secured to his mother, had been made to keep
them for a long time. Mr. Bell said they
absolutely lived upon water-porridge for
years— how, he did not know; but long
after the creditors had given up hope of any
payment of old Mr. Thornton's debts (if,
indeed, they ever had hoped at all about it,
after his suicide), this young man returned
to Milton, and went quietly round to each
creditor, paying him the first instalment of
the money owing to him. No noise — no
gathering together of creditors — it was done
very silently and quietly, but all was paid
at last; helped on materially by the circumstance
of one of the creditors, a crabbed old
fellow (Mr. Bell says), taking in Mr. Thornton
as a kind of partner."

"That really is fine," said Margaret.
"What a pity such a nature should be
tainted by his position as a Milton
manufacturer."

"How tainted?" asked her father.

"Oh, papa, by that testing everything by
the standard of wealth. When he spoke of
the mechanical powers, he evidently looked
upon them only as new ways of extending
trade and making money. And the poor men
around him—they were poor because they
were vicious — out of the pale of his sympathies
because they had not his iron nature,
and the capabilities that it gives him for
being rich."

"Not vicious; he never said that.
Improvident and self-indulgent were his words."

Margaret was collecting her mother's working
materials, and preparing to go to bed.
Just as she was leaving the room, she
hesitated — she was inclined to make an
acknowledgement which she thought would please
her father, but which to be full and true
must include a little annoyance. However,
out it came.

" Papa, I do think Mr. Thornton a very
remarkable man; but personally I don't like
him at all."

"And I do! " said her father laughing.
"Personally, as you call it, and all. I don't
set him up for a hero, or anything of that
kind. But good night, child. Your mother
looks sadly tired to-night, Margaret."

Margaret had noticed her mother's jaded
appearance with anxiety for some time past,
and this remark of her father's sent her up
to bed with a dim fear lying like a weight on
her heart. The life in Milton was so
different from what Mrs. Hale had been accustomed
to live in Helstone, in and out
perpetually into the fresh and open air; the air
itself was so different, deprived of all revivifying
principle as it seemed to be here; the
domestic worries pressed so very closely, and
in so new and sordid a form, upon all the
women in the family, that there was good
reason to fear that her mother's health might
be becoming seriously affected. There were
several other signs of something wrong about
Mrs. Hale. She and Dixon held mysterious
consultations in her bedroom, from which
Dixon would come out crying and cross, as
was her custom when any distress of her
mistress called upon her sympathy. Once
Margaret had gone into the chamber soon
after Dixon left it, and found her mother on
her knees, and as Margaret stole out she
caught a few words which were evidently a
prayer for strength and patience to endure
severe bodily suffering. Margaret yearned
to re-unite the bond of intimate confidence
which had been broken by her long residence
at her aunt Shaw's, and strove by gentle
caresses and softened words to creep into the
warmest place in her mother's heart. But
though she received caresses and fond words
back again in such profusion as would have
gladdened her formerly, yet she felt that
there was a secret withheld from her, and
she believed it bore serious reference to her
mother's health. She lay awake very long
this night, planning how to lessen the evil
influence of their Milton life on her mother.
A servant to give Dixon permanent assistance
should be got, if she gave up her whole
time to the search; and then, at any rate,
her mother might have all the personal attention
she required, and had been accustomed
to her whole life.

Visiting register offices, seeing all manner
of unlikely people, and very few in the least
likely, absorbed Margaret's time and thoughts
for several days. One afternoon she met
Bessy Higgins in the street, and stopped to
speak to her.

"Well, Bessy, how are you? Better, I
hope, now the wind has changed."

"Better and not better if yo' know what
that means."

"Not exactly," replied Margaret, smiling.

"I'm better in not being torn to pieces by
coughing o' nights, but I'm weary and tired
o' Milton, and longing to get away to the
land o' Beulah; and when I think I'm farther
and further off, my heart sinks, and I'm no
better; I'm worse."

Margaret turned round to walk alongside
of the girl in her feeble progress homeward.
But for a minute or two she did not speak.
At last she said in a low voice,

"Bessy, do you wish to die?" For she
shrank from death herself, with all the clinging
to life so natural to the young and
healthy.

Bessy was silent in her turn for a minute
or two. Then she replied,

"If yo'd led the life I have, and getten
as weary of it as I have, and thought
at times, 'maybe it'll last for fifty or
sixty years—it does wi' some,' — and got dizzy,
and dazed, and sick, as each of them sixty
years seemed to spin about me, and mock me
with its length of hours and minutes, and
endless bits o' time — oh, wench! I tell thee
thou'd been glad enough when th' doctor
said he feared thou'd never see another
winter."