day-makers, and the slopes nearer the
factories dotted with houses and gardens.

An unexpected event revived these hopes. A few days before Christmas it
became known to Hanaford that Mrs. Westmore would return for the
holidays. Cicely was drooping in town air, and Bessy had persuaded Mr.
Langhope that the bracing cold of Hanaford would be better for the child
than the milder atmosphere of Long Island. They reappeared, and brought
with them a breath of holiday cheerfulness such as Westmore had never
known. It had always been the rule at the mills to let the operatives
take their pleasure as they saw fit, and the Eldorado and the Hanaford
saloons throve on this policy. But Mrs. Westmore arrived full of festal
projects. There was to be a giant Christmas tree for the mill-children,
a supper on the same scale for the operatives, and a bout of skating and
coasting at Hopewood for the older lads--the "band" and "bobbin" boys in
whom Amherst had always felt a special interest. The Gaines ladies,
resolved to show themselves at home in the latest philanthropic
fashions, actively seconded Bessy's endeavours, and for a week Westmore
basked under a sudden heat-wave of beneficence.

The time had passed when Amherst might have made light of such efforts.
With Bessy Westmore smiling up, holly-laden, from the foot of the ladder
on which she kept him perched, how could he question the efficacy of
hanging the opening-room with Christmas wreaths, or the ultimate benefit
of gorging the operatives with turkey and sheathing their offspring in
red mittens? It was just like the end of a story-book with a pretty
moral, and Amherst was in the mood to be as much taken by the tinsel as
the youngest mill-baby held up to gape at the tree.

At the New Year, when Mrs. Westmore left, the negotiations for the
purchase of the Eldorado were well advanced, and it was understood that
on their completion she was to return for the opening of the
night-school and nursery. Suddenly, however, it became known that the
proprietor of the road-house had decided not to sell. Amherst heard of
the decision from Duplain, and at once foresaw the inevitable
result--that Mrs. Westmore's plan would be given up owing to the
difficulty of finding another site. Mr. Gaines and Truscomb had both
discountenanced the erection of a special building for what was, after
all, only a tentative enterprise. Among the purchasable houses in
Westmore no other was suited to the purpose, and