misunderstanding what I said the other
day. But who have you heard abusing the
masters?"

Margaret reddened; then smiled as she
said,

"I am not fond of being catechised. I
refuse to answer your question. Besides, it
has nothing to do with the fact. You must
take my word for it, that I have heard some
people, or, it may be, only some one of the
workpeople speak as though it were the
interest of the employers to keep them from
acquiring money—that it would make them
too independent if they had a sum in the
savings bank."

"I dare say, it was that man Higgins who
told you all this," said Mrs Hale. Mr.
Thornton did not appear to hear what
Margaret evidently did not wish him to know.
But he caught it, nevertheless.

"I heard , moreover, that it was considered
to the advantage of the masters to have
ignorant workmen,—not hedge-lawyers, as
Captain Lennox used to call those men in his
company who questioned and would know
the reason for every order."

This latter part of her sentence she
addressed rather to her father than to Mr.
Thornton. Who is Captain Lennox? asked
Mr. Thornton of himself, with a strange kind
of displeasure, that prevented him for the
moment from replying to her. Her father
took up the converstion.

"You never were fond od schools, Margaret,
or you would have seen and known,
before this, how much is being done for
education in Milton."

"No!" said she, with sudden meekness.
"I know I do not care enough about schools.
But the knowledge and the ignorance of
which I was speaking, did not relate to reading
and writing,—the teaching or information
one can give to a child. I am sure, that
what was meant was ignorance of the wisdom
that shall guide men and women. I hardly
know what that is. But he—that is my
informant—spoke as if the masters would like
their hands to be merely tall, large children
—living in the present moment—with a
blind unreasoning kind of obedience."

"In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident
that your informant found a pretty ready
listener to all the slander he chose to utter
against the masters," said Mr. Thornton, in
an offended tone.

Margaret did not reply. She was displeased
at the personal character Mr. Thornton
affixed to what she had said.

Mr. Hale spoke next:

"I must confess that, although I have not
become so intimately acqainted with any
workmen as Margaret has, I am very much
struck by the antagonism between the
employer and the employed on the very surface
of things. I even gather this impression
from what you yourself have from time to
time said."

Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he
spoke. Margaret had just left the room, and
he was vexed at the state of feeling
between himself and her. However, the little
annoyance, by making him cooler and more
thoughtful, gave a greater dignity to what
he said:

"My theory is, that my interests are
identical with those of my work-people,
and vice versâ. Miss Hale, I know, does not
like to hear men called 'hands,' so I won't use
that word, though it comes most readily to
my lips as the technical term, whose origin,
whatever it was, dates before my time. On
some future day—in some millennium—in
Utopia, this unity may be brought into practice
—just as I can fancy a republic the most
perfect form of government."

"We will read Plato's Republic as soon as
we have finished Homer."

"Well, in the Platonic year it may fall out
that we are all—men, women, and children
—fit for a republic: but give me a constitutional
monarchy in our present state of
morals and intelligence. In our infancy we
require a wise despotism to govern us.
Indeed, long past infancy, children and young
people are the happiest under the unfailing
laws of a discreet, firm authority. I agree
with Miss Hale as far as to consider our
people in the condition of children, while I
deny that we, the masters, have anything
to do with the making or keeping them
so. I maintain that despotism is the
best kind of government for them; so that
in the hours in which I come in contact with
them I must necessarily be an autocrat. I
will use my best discretion—from no humbug
or philanthropic feeling, of which we have had
rather too much in the North—to make
wise laws and come to just decisions
in the conduct of my business—laws and
decisions which shall work for my own good
in the first instance—for theirs in the second;
but I will neither be forced to give my
reasons, nor flinch from what I have once
declared to be my resolution. Let them turn
out! I shall suffer as well as they: but at
the end they will find I have not bated
nor altered one jot."

Margaret had re-entered the room and
was sitting at her work; but she did not
speak. Mr. Hale answered—

"I dare say I am talking in great ignorance;
but from the little I know, I should
say that the masses were already passing
rapidly into the troublesome stage which
intervenes between childhood and manhood
in the life of the multitude as well as that
of the individual. Now, the error which many
parents commit in the treatment of the
individual at this time is, insisting on
the same unreasoning obedience as when all
he had to do in the way of duty was, to
obey the simple laws of 'Come when you're
called,' and 'Do as you're bid!' But a
wise parent humours the desire for