t life and
of the things valuable in it gradually showing itself. Her delight at
being again with her old friends was perfectly genuine, and she had never
appeared more unselfish or more affectionate. If there was a subtle
difference, it might very well be in us, though I found it impossible to
conceive of her in her former role of teacher and simple maiden, with her
heart in the little concerns of our daily life. And why should she be
expected to go back to that stage? Must we not all live our lives? Miss
Forsythe's solicitude about Margaret was mingled with a curious
deference, as to one who had a larger experience of life than her own.
The girl of a year ago was now the married woman, and was invested with
something of the dignity that Miss Forsythe in her pure imagination
attached to that position. Without yielding any of her opinions, this
idea somehow changed her relations to Margaret; a little, I thought, to
the amusement of Mrs. Fletcher and the other ladies, to whom marriage
took on a less mysterious aspect. It arose doubtless from a renewed sense
of the incompleteness of her single life, long as it had been, and
enriched as it was by observation.

In that June there were vexatious strikes in various parts of the
country, formidable combinations of laboring-men, demonstrations of
trades-unions, and the exhibition of a spirit that sharply called
attention to the unequal distribution of wealth. The discontent was
attributed in some quarters to the exhibition of extreme luxury and
reckless living by those who had been fortunate. It was even said that
the strikes, unreasonable and futile as they were, and most injurious to
those who indulged in them, were indirectly caused by the railway
manipulation, in the attempt not only to crush out competition, but to
exact excessive revenues on fictitious values. Resistance to this could
be shown to be blind, and the strikers technically in the wrong, yet the
impression gained ground that there was something monstrously wrong in
the way great fortunes were accumulated, in total disregard of individual
rights, and in a materialistic spirit that did not take into account
ordinary humanity. For it was not alone the laboring class that was
discontented, but all over the country those who lived upon small
invested savings, widows and minors, found their income imperiled by the
trickery of rival operators and speculators in railways and securities,
who treated the little private a