lf it never was openly put
into words. If he did not marry Miss Herne, the mill was her father's;
that of course must be spoken of, arranged to-morrow. If he took it,
then? if he married her? Holmes had been poor, was miserably poor yet,
with the position and habits of a man of refinement. God knows it was
not to gratify those tastes that he clutched at this money. All the slow
years of work trailed up before him, that were gone,--of hard, wearing
work for daily bread, when his brain had been starving for knowledge,
and his soul dulled, debased with sordid trading. Was this to be always?
Were these few golden moments of life to be traded for the bread and
meat he ate? To eat and drink,--was that what he was here for?

As he paced the floor mechanically, some vague recollection crossed his
brain of a childish story of the man standing where the two great roads
of life parted. They were open before him now. Money, money,--he took
the word into his heart as a miser might do. With it, he was free from
these carking cares that were making his mind foul and muddy. If he had
money! Slow, cool visions of triumphs rose before him outlined on the
years to come, practical, if Utopian. Slow and sure successes of science
and art, where his brain could work, helpful and growing. Far off, yet
surely to come,--surely for him,--a day to come when a pure social
system should be universal, should have thrust out its fibres of light
knitting into one the nations of the earth, when the lowest slave should
find its true place and rightful work, and stand up, knowing itself
divine. "To insure to every man the freest development of his
faculties": he said over the hackneyed dogma again and again, while the
heavy, hateful years of poverty rose before him that had trampled him
down. "To insure to him the freest development," he did not need to wait
for St. Simon, or the golden year, he thought with a dreary gibe; money
was enough, and--Miss Herne.

It was curious, that, when this woman, whom he saw every day, came up in
his mind, it was always in one posture, one costume. You have noticed
that peculiarity in your remembrance of some persons? Perhaps you would
find, if you looked closely, that in that look or indelible gesture
which your memory has caught there lies some subtile hint of the tie
between your soul and theirs. Now, when Holmes had resolved coolly
to weigh this woman, brain, heart, and flesh, to know how much of a
hindrance she woul