e waste of those noble aims with
which her worshipping fancy had endowed the girl even more richly than
her own ambition. It was Grace's wish to pass a year in Europe before
her husband should settle down in charge of his mills; and their
engagement, marriage, and departure followed so swiftly upon one
another, that Miss Gleason would have had no opportunity to proffer
remonstrance or advice. She could only account for Grace's course on
the theory that Dr. Mulbridge had failed to offer himself; but this
explained her failure to marry him, without explaining her marriage
with Mr. Libby. That remained for some time a mystery, for Miss Gleason
firmly refused to believe that such a girl could be in love with a man
so much her inferior: the conception disgraced not only her idol,
but cast shame upon all other women, whose course in such matters is
notoriously governed by motives of the highest sagacity and judgment.

Mrs. Breen hesitated between the duty of accompanying the young couple
on their European travels, and that of going to the village where
Libby's mills were situated,--in southern New Hampshire. She was not
strongly urged to a decision by her children, and she finally chose the
latter course. The mill property had been a long time abandoned before
Libby's father bought it, and put it in a repair which he did not hasten
to extend to the village. This had remained in a sort of picturesque
neglect, which harmonized with the scenery of the wild little valley
where it nestled; and Mrs. Breen found, upon the vigorous inquiry
which she set on foot, that the operatives were deplorably destitute of
culture and drainage. She at once devoted herself to the establishment
of a circulating library and an enlightened system of cess-pools, to
such an effect of ingratitude in her beneficiaries that she was quite
ready to remand them to their former squalor when her son-in-law
returned. But he found her work all so good that he mediated between her
and the inhabitants, and adopted it with a hearty appreciation that went
far to console her, and finally popularized it. In fact, he entered into
the spirit of all practical reforms with an energy and intelligence that
quite reconciled her to him. It was rather with Grace than with him
that she had fault to find. She believed that the girl had returned from
Europe materialized and corrupted; and she regarded the souvenirs of
travel with which the house was filled as so many tokens of mor