future time which none of them should 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 castaway
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 unacknowledged,
—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 am 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.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

MARGARET and her father walked home.
The night was fine, the streets clean, and,
with her pretty white silk, like Leezie
Lindsay's gown o' green satin, in the ballad,
kilted up to her knee, she was off with her
father, ready to dance along with the excitement
of the cool, fresh night air.

"I rather think Thornton is not quite easy
in his mind about this strike. He seemed
very anxious to-night."

"I should wonder if he were not. But he
spoke with his usual coolness to the others
when they suggested different things, just
before we came away."

"So he did after dinner as well. It would
take a good deal to stir him from his cool
manner of speaking; but his face strikes me
as anxious."

"I should be if I were he. He must know
of the growing anger and hardly-smothered
hatred of his workpeople, who all look upon
him as what the Bible calls a 'hard man,'—