sed. There were no dark iron
bars across her life for her soul to clutch and shake madly,--nothing "in
the world amiss, to be unriddled by-and-by." Little Margaret, sitting by
the muddy road, digging her fingers dully into the clover-roots, while she
looked at the spot where the wheels had passed, looked at life
differently, it may be;--or old Joe Yare by the furnace-fire, his black
face and gray hair bent over a torn old spelling-book Lois had given him.
The night perhaps was going to be more to them than so many rainy hours
for sleeping,--the time to be looked back on through coming lives as the
hour when good and ill came to them, and they made their choice, and, as
Holmes said, did abide by it.

It grew cool and darker. Holmes left the phaeton before they entered town,
and turned back. He was going to see this Margaret Howth, tell her what he
was going to do. Because he was going to leave a clean record. No one
should accuse him of want of honor. This girl alone of all living beings
had a right to see him as he stood, justified to himself. Why she had this
right, I do not think he answered to himself. Besides, he must see her, if
only on business. She must keep her place at the mill: he would not begin
his new life by an act of injustice, taking the bread out of Margaret's
mouth. _Little Margaret!_ He stopped suddenly, looking down into a deep
pool of water by the road-side. What madness of weariness crossed his
brain just then I do not know. He shook it off. Was he mad? Life was worth
more to him than to other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He
went slowly through the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the
pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare to
look, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road.
She was sitting there just where he had left her: be knew she would be.
When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her
clasp her hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other. It
was an old, childish fashion of hers, when she was frightened or hurt. It
would only need a word, and he could be quiet and firm,--she was such a
child compared to him: he always had thought of her so. He went on up to
her slowly, and stopped; when she looked at him, he untied the linen
bonnet that hid her face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the little
face had grown! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about her, and
stoope