Yes! Margaret remembered it well. Edith and Mrs. Shaw had gone todinner. Margaret had joined the party in the evening. The recollectionof the plentiful luxury of all the arrangements, the stately handsomenessof the furniture, the size of the house, the peaceful, untroubled ease ofthe visitors--all came vividly before her, in strange contrast to thepresent time. The smooth sea of that old life closed up, without a markleft to tell where they had all been. The habitual dinners, the calls, theshopping, the dancing evenings, were all going on, going on for ever,though her Aunt Shaw and Edith were no longer there; and she, ofcourse, was even less missed. She doubted if any one of that old setever thought of her, except Henry Lennox. He too, she knew, wouldstrive to forget her, because of the pain she had caused him. She hadheard him often boast of his power of putting any disagreeable thoughtfar away from him. Then she penetrated farther into what might havebeen. If she had cared for him as a lover, and had accepted him, and thischange in her father"s opinions and consequent station had taken place,she could not doubt but that it would have been impatiently received byMr. Lennox. It was a bitter mortification to her in one sense; but shecould bear it patiently, because she knew her father"s purity of purpose,and that strengthened her to endure his errors, grave and serious thoughin her estimation they were. But the fact of the world esteeming herfather degraded, in its rough wholesale judgment, would haveoppressed and irritated Mr. Lennox. As she realised what might havebeen, she grew to be thankful for what was. They were at the lowestnow; they could not be worse. Edith"s astonishment and her aunt Shaw"sdismay would have to be met bravely, when their letters came. SoMargaret rose up and began slowly to undress herself, feeling the fullluxury of acting leisurely, late as it was, after all the past hurry of theday. She fell asleep, hoping for some brightness, either internal orexternal. But if she had known how long it would be before thebrightness came, her heart would have sunk low down. The time of theyear was most unpropitious to health as well as to spirits. Her mothercaught a severe cold, and Dixon herself was evidently not well,although Margaret could not insult her more than by trying to save her,or by taking any care of her. They could hear of no girl to assist her; allwere at work in the factories; at least, those who applied were wellscolded by Dixon, for thinking that such as they could ever be trusted towork in a gentleman"s house. So they had to keep a charwoman inalmost constant employ. Margaret longed to send for Charlotte; butbesides the objection of her being a better servant than they could nowafford to keep, the distance was too great.
Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr. Bell, orby the more immediate influence of Mr. Thornton. They were mostly ofthe age when many boys would be still at school, but, according to theprevalent, and apparently well-founded notions of Milton, to make a ladinto a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimated to thelife of the mill, or office, or warehouse. If he were sent to even theScotch Universities, he came back unsettled for commercial pursuits;how much more so if he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he couldnot be entered till he was eighteen? So most of the manufacturersplaced their sons in sucking situations" at fourteen or fifteen years ofage, unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literatureor high mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole strength andvigour of the plant into commerce. Still there were some wiser parents;and some young men, who had sense enough to perceive their owndeficiencies, and strive to remedy them. Nay, there were a few nolonger youths, but men in the prime of life, who had the stern wisdomto acknowledge their own ignorance, and to learn late what they shouldhave learnt early. Mr. Thornton was perhaps the oldest of Mr. Hale"spupils. He was certainly the favourite. Mr. Hale got into the habit ofquoting his opinions so frequently, and with such regard, that it becamea little domestic joke to wonder what time, during the hour appointedfor instruction, could be given to absolute learning, so much of itappeared to have been spent in conversation.
Margaret rather encouraged this light, merry way of viewing her father"sacquaintance with Mr. Thornton, because she felt that her mother wasinclined to look upon this new friendship of her husband"s with jealouseyes. As long as his time had been solely occupied with his books andhis parishioners, as at Helstone, she had appeared to care little whethershe saw much of him or not; but now that he looked eagerly forward toeach renewal of his intercourse with Mr. Thornton, she seemed hurt andannoyed, as if he were slighting her companionship for the first time.
Mr. Hale"s over-praise had the usual effect of over-praise upon hisauditors; they were a little inclined to rebel against Aristides beingalways called the Just.
After a quiet life in a country parsonage for more than twenty years,there was something dazzling to Mr. Hale in the energy whichconquered immense difficulties with ease; the power of the machineryof Milton, the power of the men of Milton, impressed him with a senseof grandeur, which he yielded to without caring to inquire into thedetails of its exercise. But Margaret went less abroad, among machineryand men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, shewas thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affectingmasses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. Thequestion always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings ofthese exceptions as small as possible? Or, in the triumph of the crowdedprocession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gentlylifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have nopower to accompany on his march?