IX

Towards the close of his second year with Mr. Slocum, Richard was

assigned a work-room by himself, and relieved of his accountant's

duties. His undivided energies were demanded by the carving

department, which had proved a lucrative success.

The rear of the lot on which Mr. Slocum's house stood was shut off

from the marble yard by a high brick wall pierced with a private door

for Mr. Slocum's convenience. Over the kitchen in the extension,

which reached within a few feet of the wall, was a disused chamber,

approachable on the outside by a flight of steps leading to a

veranda. To this room Richard and his traps were removed. With a

round table standing in the center, with the plaster models arranged

on shelves and sketches in pencil and crayon tacked against the

whitewashed walls, the apartment was transformed into a delightful

atelier. An open fire-place, with a brace of antiquated iron-dogs

straddling the red brick hearth, gave the finishing touch. The

occupant was in easy communication with the yard, from which the busy

din of clinking chisels came musically to his ear, and was still

beyond the reach of unnecessary interruption. Richard saw clearly all

the advantages of this transfer, but he was far form having any

intimation that he had made the most important move of his life.

The room had two doors: one opened on the veranda, and the other

into a narrow hall connecting the extension with the main building.

Frequently, that first week after taking possession, Richard detected

the sweep of a broom and the rustle of drapery in this passage-way,

the sound sometimes hushing itself quite close to the door, as if

some one had paused a moment just outside. He wondered whether it was

the servant-maid or Margaret Slocum, whom he knew very well by sight.

It was, in fact, Margaret, who was dying with the curiosity of

fourteen to peep into the studio, so carefully locked whenever the

young man left it,--dying with curiosity to see the workshop, and

standing in rather great awe of the workman.

In the home circle her father had a habit of speaking with deep

respect of young Shackford's ability, and once she had seen him at

their table,--at a Thanksgiving. On this occasion Richard had

appalled her by the solemnity of his shyness,--poor Richard, who was

so unused to the amenities of a handsomely served dinner, that the

chill which came over him cooled the Thanksgiving turkey on his

palate.

When it had been decided that he was to have the spare room for

his workshop, Margaret, with womanly officiousness, had swept it and

dusted it and demolished the cobwebs; but since then she had not been

able to obtain so much as a glimpse of the interior. A ten minutes'

sweeping had sufficed for the chamber, but the passage-way seemed in

quite an irreclaimable state, judging by the number of times it was

necessary to sweep it in the course of a few days. Now Margaret was

not an unusual mixture of timidity and daring; so one morning, about

a week after Richard was settled, she walked with quaking heart up to

the door of the studio, and knocked as bold as brass.

Richard opened the door, and smiled pleasantly at Margaret

standing on the threshold with an expression of demure defiance in

her face. Did Mr. Shackford want anything more in the way of pans and

pails for his plaster? No, Mr. Shackford had everything he required

of the kind. But would not Miss Margaret walk in? Yes, she would step

in for a moment, but with a good deal of indifference, though, giving

an air of chance to her settled determination to examine that room

from top to bottom.

Richard showed her his drawings and casts, and enlightened her on

all the simple mysteries of the craft. Margaret, of whom he was a

trifle afraid at first, amused him with her candor and sedateness,

seeming now a mere child, and now an elderly person gravely

inspecting matters. The frankness and simplicity were hers by nature,

and the oldish ways--notably her self-possession, so quick to assert

itself after an instant's forgetfulness--came perhaps of losing her

mother in early childhood, and the premature duties which that

misfortune entailed. She amused him, for she was only fourteen; but

she impressed him also, for she was Mr. Slocum's daughter. Yet it was

not her lightness, but her gravity, that made Richard smile to

himself.

"I am not interrupting you?" she asked presently.

"Not in the least," said Richard. "I am waiting for these molds to

harden. I cannot do anything until then."

"Papa says you are very clever," remarked Margaret, turning her

wide black eyes full upon him. _"Are_ you?"

"Far from it," replied Richard, laughing to veil his confusion,

"but I am glad your father thinks so."

"You should not be glad to have him think so," returned Margaret

reprovingly, "if you are not clever. I suppose you are, though. Tell

the truth, now."

"It is not fair to force a fellow into praising himself."

"You are trying to creep out!"

"Well, then, there are many cleverer persons than I in the world,

and a few not so clever."

"That won't do," said Margaret positively.

"I don't understand what you mean by cleverness, Miss Margaret.

There are a great many kinds and degrees. I can make fairly honest

patterns for the men to work by; but I am not an artist, if you mean

that."

"You are not an artist?"

"No; an artist creates, and I only copy, and that in a small way.

Any one can learn to prepare casts; but to create a bust or a

statue--that is to say, a fine one--a man must have genius."

"You have no genius?"

"Not a grain."

"I am sorry to hear that," said Margaret, with a disappointed

look. "But perhaps it will come," she added encouragingly. "I have

read that nearly all great artists and poets are almost always

modest. They know better than anybody else how far they fall short of

what they intend, and so they don't put on airs. You don't, either. I

like that in you. May be you have genius without knowing it, Mr.

Shackford."

"It is quite without knowing it, I assure you!" protested Richard,

with suppressed merriment. "What an odd girl!" he thought. "She is

actually talking to me like a mother!"

The twinkling light in the young man's eyes, or something that

jarred in his manner, caused Margaret at once to withdraw into

herself. She went silently about the room, examining the tools and

patterns; then, nearing the door, suddenly dropped Richard a quaint

little courtesy, and was gone.

This was the colorless beginning of a friendship that was destined

speedily to be full of tender lights and shadows, and to flow on with

unsuspected depth. For several days Richard saw nothing more of

Margaret, and scarcely thought of her. The strangle little figure was

fading out of his mind, when, one afternoon, it again appeared at his

door. This time Margaret had left something of her sedateness behind;

she struck Richard as being both less ripe and less immature than he

had fancied; she interested rather than amused him. Perhaps he had

been partially insulated by his own shyness on the first occasion,

and had caught only a confused and inaccurate impression of

Margaret's personality. She remained half an hour in the workshop,

and at her departure omitted the formal courtesy.

After this, Margaret seldom let a week slip without tapping once

or twice at the studio, at first with some pretext or other, and then

with no pretense whatever. When Margaret had disburdened herself of

excuses for dropping in to watch Richard mold his leaves and flowers,

she came oftener, and Richard insensibly drifted into the habit of

expecting her on certain days, and was disappointed when she failed

to appear. His industry had saved him, until now, from discovering

how solitary his life really was; for his life was as solitary--as

solitary as that of Margaret, who lived in the great house with only

her father, the two servants, and an episodical aunt. The mother was

long ago dead; Margaret could not recollect when that gray headstone,

with blotches of rusty-green moss breaking out over the lettering,

was not in the churchyard; and there never had been any brothers or

sisters.

To Margaret Richard's installation in the empty room, where as a

child she had always been afraid to go, was the single important

break she could remember in the monotony of her existence; and now a

vague yearning for companionship, the blind sense of the plant

reaching towards the sunshine, drew her there. The tacitly prescribed

half hour often lengthened to an hour. Sometimes Margaret brought a

book with her, or a piece of embroidery, and the two spoke scarcely

ten words, Richard giving her a smile now and then, and she returning

a sympathetic nod as the cast came out successfully.

Margaret at fifteen--she was fifteen now--was not a beauty. There

is the loveliness of the bud and the loveliness of the full-blown

flower; but Margaret as a blossom was not pretty. She was awkward and

angular, with prominent shoulder-blades, and no soft curves anywhere

in her slimness; only her black hair, growing low on the forehead,

and her eyes were fine. Her profile, indeed, with the narrow forehead

and the sensitive upper lip, might fairly have suggested the mask of

Clytie which Richard had bought of an itinerant image-dealer, and

fixed on a bracket over the mantel-shelf. But her eyes were her

specialty, if one may say that. They were fringed with such heavy

lashes that the girl seemed always to be in half-mourning. Her smile

was singularly sweet and bright, perhaps because it broke through so

much somber coloring.

If there was a latent spark of sentiment between Richard and

Margaret in those earlier days, neither was conscious of it; they had

seemingly begun where happy lovers generally end,--by being dear

comrades. He liked to have Margaret sitting there, with her needle

flashing in the sunlight, or her eyelashes making a rich gloom above

the book as she read aloud. It was so agreeable to look up from his

work, and not be alone. He had been alone so much. And Margaret found

nothing in the world pleasanter than to sit there and watch Richard

making his winter garden, as she called it. By and by it became her

custom to pass every Saturday afternoon in that employment.

Margaret was not content to be merely a visitor; she took a

housewifely care of the workshop, resolutely straightening out its

chronic disorder at unexpected moments, and fighting the white dust

that settled upon everything. The green-paper shade, which did not

roll up very well, at the west window was of her devising. An empty

camphor vial on Richard's desk had always a clove pink, or a pansy,

or a rose, stuck into it, according to the season. She hid herself

away and peeped out in a hundred feminine things in the room.

Sometimes she was a bit of crochet-work left on a chair, and

sometimes she was only a hair-pin, which Richard gravely picked up

and put on the mantel-piece.

Mr. Slocum threw no obstacles in the path of this idyllic

friendship; possibly he did not observe it. In his eyes Margaret was

still a child,--a point of view that necessarily excluded any

consideration of Richard. Perhaps, however, if Mr. Slocum could have

assisted invisibly at a pretty little scene which took place in the

studio, one day, some twelve or eighteen months after Margaret's

first visit to it, he might have found food for reflection.

It was a Saturday afternoon. Margaret had come into the workshop

with her sewing, as usual. The papers on the round table had been

neatly cleared away, and Richard was standing by the window,

indolently drumming on the glass with a palette-knife.

"Not at work this afternoon?"

"I was waiting for you."

"That is no excuse at all," said Margaret, sweeping across the

room with a curious air of self-consciousness, and arranging her

drapery with infinite pains as she seated herself.

Richard looked puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed,

"Margaret, you have got on a long dress!"

"Yes," said Margaret, with dignity. "Do you like it,--the train?"

"That's a train?"

"Yes," said Margaret, standing up and glancing over her left

shoulder at the soft folds of maroon-colored stuff, which, with a

mysterious feminine movement of the foot, she caused to untwist

itself and flow out gracefully behind her. There was really something

very pretty in the hesitating lines of the tall, slender figure, as

she leaned back that way. Certain unsuspected points emphasized

themselves so cunningly.

"I never saw anything finer," declared Richard. "It was worth

waiting for."

"But you shouldn't have waited," said Margaret, with a gratified

flush, settling herself into the chair again. "It was understood that

you were never to let me interfere with your work."

"You see you have, by being twenty minutes late. I've finished

that acorn border for Stevens's capitals, and there's nothing more to

do for the yard. I am going to make something for myself, and I want

you to lend me a hand."

"How can I help you, Richard?" Margaret asked, promptly stopping

the needle in the hem.

"I need a paper-weight to keep my sketches from being blown about,

and I wish you literally to lend me a hand,--a hand to take a cast

of."

"Really?"

"I think that little white claw would make a very neat

paper-weight," said Richard.

Margaret gravely rolled up her sleeve to the elbow, and

contemplated the hand and wrist critically.

"It is like a claw, isn't it. I think you can find something

better than that."

"No; that is what I want, and nothing else. That, or no

paper-weight for me."

"Very well, just as you choose. It will be a fright."

"The other hand, please."

"I gave you the left because I've a ring on this one."

"You can take off the ring, I suppose."

"Of course I can take it off."

"Well, then, do."

"Richard," said Margaret severely, "I hope you are not a fidget."

"A what?"

"A fuss, then,--a person who always wants everything some other

way, and makes just twice as much trouble as anybody else."

"No, Margaret, I am not that. I prefer your right hand because the

left is next to the heart, and the evaporation of the water in the

plaster turns it as cold as snow. Your arm will be chilled to the

shoulder. We don't want to do anything to hurt the good little heart,

you know."

"Certainly not," said Margaret. "There!" and she rested her right

arm on the table, while Richard placed the hand in the desired

position on a fresh napkin which he had folded for the purpose.

"Let your hand lie flexible, please. Hold it naturally. Why do you

stiffen the fingers so?"

"I don't; they stiffen themselves, Richard. They know they are

going to have their photograph taken, and can't look natural. Who

ever does?"

After a minute the fingers relaxed, and settled of their own

accord into an easy pose. Richard laid his hand softly on her wrist.

"Don't move now."

"I'll be as quiet as a mouse," said Margaret giving a sudden queer

little glance at his face.

Richard emptied a paper of white powder into a great yellow bowl

half filled with water and fell to stirring it vigorously, like a

pastry-cook beating eggs. When the plaster was of the proper

consistency he began building it up around the hand, pouring on a

spoonful at a time, here and there, carefully. In a minute or two the

inert white fingers were completely buried. Margaret made a comical

grimace.

"Is it cold?"

"Ice," said Margaret, shutting her eyes involuntarily.

"If it is too disagreeable we can give it up," suggested Richard.

"No, don't touch it!" she cried, waving him back with her free

arm. "I don't mind; but it's as cold as so much snow. How curious!

What does it?"

"I suppose a scientific fellow could explain the matter to you

easily enough. When the water evaporates a kind of congealing process

sets in,--a sort of atmospheric change, don't you know? The sudden

precipitation of the--the"--

"You're as good as Tyndall on Heat," said Margaret demurely.

"Oh, Tyndall is well enough in his way," returned Richard, "but of

course he doesn't go into things so deeply as I do."

"The idea of telling me that 'a congealing process set in,' when I

am nearly frozen to death!" cried Margaret, bowing her head over the

imprisoned arm.

"Your unseemly levity, Margaret, makes it necessary for me to

defer my remarks on natural phenomena until some more fitting

occasion."

"Oh, Richard, don't let an atmospherical change come over

_you!"_

"When you knocked at my door, months ago," said Richard, "I didn't

dream you were such a satirical little piece, or may be you wouldn't

have got in. You stood there as meek as Moses, with your frock

reaching only to the tops of your boots. You were a deception,

Margaret."

"I was dreadfully afraid of you, Richard."

"You are not afraid of me nowadays."

"Not a bit."

"You are showing your true colors. That long dress, too! I believe

the train has turned your head."

"But just now you said you admired it."

"So I did, and do. It makes you look quite like a woman, though."

"I want to be a woman. I would like to be as old--as old as Mrs.

Methuselah. Was there a Mrs. Methuselah?"

"I really forget," replied Richard, considering. "But there must

have been. The old gentleman had time enough to have several. I

believe, however, that history is rather silent about his domestic

affairs."

"Well, then," said Margaret, after thinking it over, "I would like

to be as old as the youngest Mrs. Methuselah."

"That was probably the last one," remarked Richard, with great

profundity. "She was probably some giddy young thing of seventy or

eighty. Those old widowers never take a wife of their own age. I

shouldn't want you to be seventy, Margaret,--or even eighty."

"On the whole, perhaps, I shouldn't fancy it myself. Do you

approve of persons marrying twice?"

"N--o, not at the same time."

"Of course I didn't mean that," said Margaret, with asperity. "How

provoking you can be!"

"But they used to,--in the olden time, don't you know?"

"No, I don't."

Richard burst out laughing. "Imagine him," he cried,--"imagine

Methuselah in his eight or nine hundredth year, dressed in his

customary bridal suit, with a sprig of century-plant stuck in his

button-hole!"

"Richard," said Margaret solemnly, "you shouldn't speak jestingly

of a scriptural character."

At this Richard broke out again. "But gracious me!" he exclaimed,

suddenly checking himself. "I am forgetting you all this while!"

Richard hurriedly reversed the mass of plaster on the table, and

released Margaret's half-petrified fingers. They were shriveled and

colorless with the cold.

"There isn't any feeling in it whatever," said Margaret, holding

up her hand helplessly, like a wounded wing.

Richard took the fingers between his palms, and chafed them

smartly for a moment or two to restore the suspended circulation.

"There, that will do," said Margaret, withdrawing her hand.

"Are you all right now?"

"Yes, thanks;" and then she added, smiling, "I suppose a

scientific fellow could explain why my fingers seem to be full of hot

pins and needles shooting in every direction."

"Tyndall's your man--Tyndall on Heat," answered Richard, with a

laugh, turning to examine the result of his work. "The mold is

perfect, Margaret. You were a good girl to keep so still."

Richard then proceeded to make the cast, which was soon placed on

the window-ledge to harden in the sun. When the plaster was set, he

cautiously chipped off the shell with a chisel, Margaret leaning over

his shoulder to watch the operation,--and there was the little white

claw, which ever after took such dainty care of his papers, and

ultimately became so precious to him as a part of Margaret's very

self that he would not have exchanged it for the Venus of Milo.

But as yet Richard was far enough from all that.

X

Three years glided by with Richard Shackford as swiftly as those

periods of time which are imagined to elapse between the acts of a

play. They were eventless, untroubled years, and have no history.

Nevertheless, certain changes had taken place. Little by little Mr.

Slocum had relinquished the supervision of the workshops to Richard,

until now the affairs of the yard rested chiefly on his shoulders. It

was like a dream to him when he looked directly back to his humble

beginning, though as he reflected upon it, and retraced his progress

step by step, he saw there was nothing illogical or astonishing in

his good fortune. He had won it by downright hard work and the

faithful exercise of a sufficing talent.

In his relations with Margaret, Richard's attitude had undergone

no appreciable change. Her chance visits to the studio through the

week and those pleasant, half-idle Saturday afternoons had become to

both Richard and Margaret a matter of course, like the sunlight, or

the air they breathed.

To Richard, Margaret Slocum at nineteen was simply a charming,

frank girl,--a type of gracious young womanhood. He was conscious of

her influence; he was very fond of Margaret; but she had not yet

taken on for him that magic individuality which makes a woman the one

woman in the world to her lover. Though Richard had scant experience

in such matters, he was not wrong in accepting Margaret as the type

of a class of New England girls, which, fortunately for New England,

is not a small class. These young women for the most part lead quiet

and restricted lives so far as the actualities are concerned, but

very deep and full lives in the world of books and imagination, to

which they make early escapes. They have the high instincts that come

of good blood, the physique that naturally fits fine manners; and

when chance takes one of these maidens from her island country home

or from some sleepy town on the sea-board, and sets her amid the

complications of city existence, she is an unabashed and unassuming

lady. If in Paris, she differs from the Parisiennes only in the

greater delicacy of her lithe beauty, her innocence which is not

ignorance, and her French pronunciation; if in London, she differs

from English girls only in the matter of rosy cheeks and the rising

inflection. Should none of these fortunate transplantings befall her,

she always merits them by adorning with grace and industry and

intelligence the narrower sphere to which destiny has assigned her.

Destiny had assigned Margaret Slocum to a very narrow sphere; it

had shut her up in an obscure New England manufacturing village, with

no society, strictly speaking, and no outlets whatever to large

experiences. To her father's affection, Richard's friendship, and her

household duties she was forced to look for her happiness. If life

held wider possibilities for her, she had not dreamed of them. She

looked up to Richard with respect,--perhaps with a dash of sentiment

in the respect; there was something at once gentle and virile in his

character which she admired and leaned upon; in his presence the

small housekeeping troubles always slipped from her; but her heart,

to use a pretty French phrase, had not consciously spoken,--possibly

it had murmured a little, incoherently, to itself, but it had not

spoken out aloud, as perhaps it would have done long ago if an

impediment had been placed in the way of their intimacy. With all her

subtler intuitions, Margaret was as far as Richard from suspecting

the strength and direction of the current with which they were

drifting. Freedom, habit, and the nature of their environment

conspired to prolong this mutual lack of perception. The hour had

sounded, however, when these two were to see each other in a

different light.

One Monday morning in March, at the close of the three years in

question, as Richard mounted the outside staircase leading to his

studio in the extension, the servant-maid beckoned to him from the

kitchen window.

Margaret had failed to come to the studio the previous Saturday

afternoon. Richard had worked at cross-purposes and returned to his

boarding-house vaguely dissatisfied, as always happened to him on

those rare occasions when she missed the appointment; but he had

thought little of the circumstance. Nor had he been disturbed on

Sunday at seeing the Slocum pew vacant during both services. The

heavy snow-storm which had begun the night before accounted for at

least Margaret's absence.

"Mr. Slocum told me to tell you that he shouldn't be in the yard

to-day," said the girl. "Miss Margaret is very ill."

"Ill!" Richard repeated, and the smile with which he had leaned

over the rail towards the window went out instantly on his lip.

"Dr. Weld was up with her until five o'clock this morning," said

the girl, fingering the corner of her apron. "She's that low."

"What is the matter?"

"It's a fever."

"What kind of fever?"

"I don't mind me what the doctor called it. He thinks it come from

something wrong with the drains."

"He didn't say typhoid?"

"Yes, that's the name of it."

Richard ascended the stairs with a slow step, and a moment

afterwards stood stupidly in the middle of the workshop. "Margaret is

going to die," he said to himself, giving voice to the dark

foreboding that had instantly seized upon him, and in a swift vision

he saw the end of all that simple, fortunate existence which he had

lived without once reflecting it could ever end. He mechanically

picked up a tool from the table, and laid it down again. Then he

seated himself on the low bench between the windows. It was

Margaret's favorite place; it was not four days since she sat there

reading to him. Already it appeared long ago,--years and years ago.

He could hardly remember when he did not have this heavy weight on

his heart. His life of yesterday abruptly presented itself to him as

a reminiscence; he saw now how happy that life had been, and how

lightly he had accepted it. It took to itself all that precious

quality of things irrevocably lost.

The clamor of the bell in the South Church striking noon, and the

shrilling of the steam-whistle softened by the thick-falling snow,

roused Richard from his abstraction. He was surprised that it was

noon. He rose from the bench and went home through the storm,

scarcely heeding the sleet that snapped in his face like whip-lashes.

Margaret was going to die!

For four or five weeks the world was nearly a blank to Richard

Shackford. The insidious fever that came and went, bringing alternate

despair and hope to the watchers in the hushed room, was in his veins

also. He passed the days between his lonely lodgings in Lime Street

and the studio, doing nothing, restless and apathetic by turns, but

with always a poignant sense of anxiety. He ceased to take any

distinct measurement of time further than to note that an interval of

months seemed to separate Monday from Monday. Meanwhile, if new

patterns had been required by the men, the work in the carving

departments would have come to a dead lock.

At length the shadow lifted, and there fell a day of soft May

weather when Margaret, muffled in shawls and as white as death, was

seated once more in her accustomed corner by the west window. She had

insisted on being brought there the first practicable moment; nowhere

else in the house was such sunshine, and Mr. Slocum himself had

brought her in his arms. She leaned back against the pillows, smiling

faintly. Her fingers lay locked on her lap, and the sunlight showed

through the narrow transparent palace. It was as if her hands were

full of blush-roses.

Richard breathed again, but not with so free a heart as before.

What if she had died? He felt an immense pity for himself when he

thought of that, and he thought of it continually as the days wore

on.

Either a great alteration had wrought itself in Margaret, or

Richard beheld her through a clearer medium during the weeks of

convalescence that followed. Was this the slight, sharp-faced girl he

used to know? The eyes and the hair were the same; but the smile was

deeper, and the pliant figure had lost its extreme slimness without a

sacrifice to its delicacy. The spring air was filling her veins with

abundant health, and mantling her cheeks with a richer duskiness than

they had ever worn. Margaret was positively handsome. Her beauty had

come all in a single morning, like the crocuses. This beauty began to

awe Richard; it had the effect of seeming to remove her further and

further from him. He grew moody and restless when they were together,

and was wretched alone. His constraint did not escape Margaret. She

watched him, and wondered at his inexplicable depression when every

one in the household was rejoicing in her recovery. By and by this

depression wounded her, but she was too spirited to show the hurt.

She always brought a book with her now, in her visits to the studio;

it was less awkward to read than to sit silent and unspoken to over a

piece of needle-work.

"How very odd you are!" said Margaret, one afternoon, closing the

volume which she had held mutely for several minutes, waiting for

Richard to grasp the fact that she was reading aloud.

"I odd!" protested Richard, breaking with a jerk from one of his

long reveries. "In what way?"

"As if I could explain--when you put the quotation suddenly, like

that."

"I didn't intend to be abrupt. I was curious to know. And then the

charge itself was a trifle unexpected, if you will look at it. But

never mind," he added with a smile; "think it over, and tell me

to-morrow."

"No, I will tell you now, since you are willing to wait."

"I wasn't really willing to wait, but I knew if I didn't pretend

to be I should never get it out of you."

"Very well, then; your duplicity is successful. Richard, I was

puzzled where to begin with your oddities."

"Begin at the beginning."

"No, I will take the nearest. When a young lady is affable enough

to read aloud to you, the least you can do is to listen to her. That

is a deference you owe to the author, when it happens to be

Hawthorne, to say nothing of the young lady."

"But I _have_ been listening, Margaret. Every word!"

"Where did I leave off?"

"It was where--where the"--and Richard knitted his brows in the

vain effort to remember--"where the young daguerreotypist,

what's-his-name, took up his residence in the House of the Seven

Gables."

"No, sir! You stand convicted. It was ten pages further on. The

last words were,"--and Margaret read from the book,--

"'Good-night, cousin,' said Phoebe, strangely affected by

Hepsibah's manner. 'If you being to love me, I am glad.'"

"There, sir! what do you say to that?"

Richard did not say anything, but he gave a guilty start, and shot

a rapid glance at Margaret coolly enjoying her triumph.

"In the next place," she continued soberly, after a pause, "I

think it very odd in you not to reply to me,--oh, not now, for of

course you are without a word of justification; but at other times.

Frequently, when I speak to you, you look at me so," making a vacant

little face, "and then suddenly disappear,--I don't mean bodily, but

mentally."

"I am no great talker at best," said Richard with a helpless air.

"I seldom speak unless I have something to say."

"But other people do. I, for instance."

"Oh, you, Margaret; that is different. When you talk I don't much

mind what you are talking about."

"I like a neat, delicate compliment like that!"

"What a perverse girl you are to-day!" cried Richard. "You won't

understand me. I mean that your words and your voice are so pleasant

they make anything interesting, whether it's important or not."

"If no one were to speak until he had something important to

communicate," observed Margaret, "conversation in this world would

come to a general stop." Then she added, with a little ironical

smile, "Even you, Richard, wouldn't be talking all the time."

Formerly Margaret's light sarcasms, even when they struck him

point-blank, used to amuse Richard, but now he winced at being merely

grazed.

Margaret went on: "But it's not a bit necessary to be circular or

instructive--with me. I am interested in trivial matters,--in the

weather, in my spring hat, in what you are going to do next, and the

like. One must occupy one's self with something. But you, Richard,

nowadays you seem interested in nothing, and have nothing whatever to

say."

Poor Richard! He had a great deal to say, but he did not know how,

nor if it were wise to breathe it. Just three little words, murmured

or whispered, and the whole conditions would be changed. With those

fateful words uttered, what would be Margaret's probable attitude,

and what Mr. Slocum's? Though the line which formerly drew itself

between employer and employee had grown faint with time, it still

existed in Richard's mind, and now came to the surface with great

distinctness, like a word written in sympathetic ink. If he spoke,

and Margaret was startled or offended, then there was an end to their

free, unembarrassed intercourse,--perhaps an end to all intercourse.

By keeping his secret in his breast he at least secured the present.

But that was to risk everything. Any day somebody might come and

carry Margaret off under his very eyes. As he reflected on this, the

shadow of John Dana, the son of the rich iron-manufacturer, etched

itself sharply upon Richard's imagination. Within the week young Dana

had declared in the presence of Richard that "Margaret Slocum was an

awfully nice little thing," and the Othello in Richard's blood had

been set seething. Then his thought glanced from John Dana to Mr.

Pinkham and the Rev. Arthur Langly, both of whom were assiduous

visitors at the house. The former had lately taken to accompanying

Margaret on the piano with his dismal little flute, and the latter

was perpetually making a moth of himself about her class at

Sunday-school.

Richard stood with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon the

plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things. Presently he

heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere in the distance, saying,--

"I have not finished yet, Richard."

"Go on," said Richard, falling to work again with a kind of

galvanic action. "Go on, please."

"I have a serious grievance. Frankly, I am hurt by your

preoccupation and indifference, your want of openness or

cordiality,--I don't know how to name it. You are the only person who

seems to be unaware that I escaped a great danger a month ago. I am

obliged to remember all the agreeable hours I have spent in the

studio to keep off the impression that during my illness you got used

to not seeing me, and that now my presence somehow obstructs your

work and annoys you."

Richard threw his chisel on the bench, and crossed over to the

window where Margaret was.

"You are as wrong as you can be," he said, looking down on her

half-lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding; for

the abruptness of Richard's movement had startled her.

"I am glad if I am wrong."

"It is nearly an unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark as

you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had died that time!"

"You would have been very sorry?"

"Sorry? No. That doesn't express it; one outlives mere sorrow. If

anything had happened to you, I should never have got over it. You

don't know what those five weeks were to me. It was a kind of death

to come to this room day after day, and not find you."

Margaret rested her eyes thoughtfully on the space occupied by

Richard rather than on Richard himself, seeming to look through and

beyond him, as if he were incorporeal.

"You missed me like that?" she said slowly.

"I missed you like that."

Margaret meditated a moment. "In the first days of my illness I

wondered if you didn't miss me a little; afterwards everything was

confused in my mind. When I tried to think, I seemed to be somebody

else,--I seemed to be _you_ waiting for me here in the studio.

Wasn't that singular? But when I recovered, and returned to my old

place, I began to suspect I had been bearing your anxiety,--that I

had been distressed by the absence to which you had grown

accustomed."

"I never got used to it, Margaret. It became more and more

unendurable. This workshop was full of--of your absence. There wasn't

a sketch or a cast or an object in the room that didn't remind me of

you, and seem to mock at me for having let the most precious moments

of my life slip away unheeded. That bit of geranium in the glass

yonder seemed to say with its dying breath, 'You have cared for

neither of us as you ought to have cared; my scent and her goodness

have been all one to you,--things to take or to leave. It was for no

merit of yours that she was always planning something to make life

smoother and brighter for you. What had you done to deserve it? How

unselfish and generous and good she has been to you for years and

years! What would have become of you without her? She left me here on

purpose'--it's the geranium leaf that is speaking all the while,

Margaret--'to say this to you, and to tell you that she was not half

appreciated; but now you have lost her.'"

As she leaned forward listening, with her lips slightly parted,

Margaret gave an unconscious little approbative nod of the head.

Richard's fanciful accusation of himself caused her a singular thrill

of pleasure. He had never before spoken to her in just this fashion;

the subterfuge which his tenderness had employed, the little detour

it had made in order to get at her, was a novel species of flattery.

She recognized the ring of a distinctly new note in his voice; but,

strangely enough, the note lost its unfamiliarity in an instant.

Margaret recognized that fact also, and as she swiftly speculated on

the phenomenon her pulse went one or two strokes faster.

"Oh, you poor boy!" she said, looking up with a laugh, and a flush

so interfused that they seemed one, "that geranium took a great deal

upon itself. It went quite beyond its instructions, which were simply

to remind you of me now and then. One day, while you were out,--the

day before I was taken ill,--I placed the flowers on the desk there,

perhaps with a kind of premonition that I was going away from you for

a time."

"What if you had never come back?"

"I wouldn't think of that if I were you," said Margaret softly.

"But it haunts me,--that thought. Sometimes of a morning, after I

unlock the workshop door, I stand hesitating, with my hand on the

latch, as one might hesitate a few seconds before stepping into a

tomb. There were days last month, Margaret, when this chamber did

appear to me like a tomb. All that was happy in my past seemed to lie

buried here; it was something visible and tangible; I used to steal

in and look upon it."

"Oh, Richard!"

"If you only knew what a life I led as a boy in my cousin's house,

and what a doleful existence for years afterwards, until I found you,

perhaps you would understand my despair when I saw everything

suddenly slipping away from me. Margaret! the day your father brought

you in here, I had all I could do not to kneel down at your

feet"--Richard stopped short. "I didn't mean to tell you that," he

added, turning towards the work-table. Then he checked himself, and

came and stood in front of her again. He had gone too far not to go

further. "While you were ill I made a great discovery."

"What was that, Richard?"

"I discovered that I had been blind for two or three years."

"Blind?" repeated Margaret.

"Stone-blind. I discovered it by suddenly seeing--by seeing that I

had loved you all the while, Margaret! Are you offended?"

"No," said Margaret, slowly; she was a moment finding her voice to

say it. "I--ought I to be offended?"

"Not if you are not!" said Richard.

"Then I am not. I--I've made little discoveries myself," murmured

Margaret, going into full mourning with her eyelashes.

But it was only for an instant. She refused to take her happiness

shyly or insincerely; it was something too sacred. She was a trifle

appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered

his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had

made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met

him with some natural coquetry. But Richard's tone and manner had

been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration,

moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or

less plain to her that past month, and she had diligently disciplined

herself to accept Richard's friendship, since it seemed all he had to

give. Indeed, it had seemed at times as if he had not even that.

When Margaret lifted her eyes to him, a second after her

confession, they were full of a sweet seriousness, and she had no

thought of withdrawing the hands which Richard had taken, and was

holding lightly, that she might withdraw them if she willed. She felt

no impulse to do so, though as Margaret looked up she saw her father

standing a few paces behind Richard.

With an occult sense of another presence in the room, Richard,

turned at the same instant.

Mr. Slocum had advanced two steps into the apartment, and had been

brought to a dead halt by the surprising tableau in the embrasure of

the window. He stood motionless, with an account-book under his arm,

while a dozen expressions chased each other over his countenance.

"Mr. Slocum," said Richard, who saw that only one course lay open

to him, "I love Margaret, and I have been telling her."

At that the flitting shadows on Mr. Slocum's face settled into one

grave look. He did not reply immediately, but let his glance wander

from Margaret to Richard, and back again to Margaret, slowly

digesting the fact. It was evident he had not relished it. Meanwhile

the girl had risen from the chair and was moving towards her father.

"This strikes me as very extraordinary," he said at last. "You

have never given any intimation that such a feeling existed. How long

has this been going on?"

"I have always been fond of Margaret, sir; but I was not aware of

the strength of the attachment until the time of her illness, when

I--that is, we--came near to losing her."

"And you, Margaret?"

As Mr. Slocum spoke he instinctively put one arm around Margaret,

who had crept closely to his side.

"I don't know when I began to love Richard," said Margaret simply.

"You don't know!"

"Perhaps it was while I was ill; perhaps it was long before that;

may be my liking for him commenced as far back as the time he made

the cast of my hand. How can I tell, papa? I don't know."

"There appears to be an amazing diffusion of ignorance here!"

Margaret bit her lip, and kept still. Her father was taking it a

great deal more seriously than she had expected. A long, awkward

silence ensued. Richard broke it at last by remarking uneasily,

"Nothing has been or was to be concealed from you. Before going to

sleep to-night, Margaret would have told you all I've said to her."

"You should have consulted with me before saying anything."

"I intended to do so, but my words got away from me. I hope you

will overlook it, sir, and not oppose my loving Margaret, though I

see as plainly as you do that I am not worthy of her."

"I have not said that. I base my disapproval on entirely different

ground. Margaret is too young. A girl of seventeen or eighteen"--

"Nineteen," said Margaret, parenthetically.

"Of nineteen, then,--has no business to bother her head with such

matters. Only yesterday she was a child!"

Richard glanced across at Margaret, and endeavored to recall her

as she impressed him that first afternoon, when she knocked defiantly

at the workshop door to inquire if he wanted any pans and pails; but

he was totally unable to reconstruct that crude little figure with

the glossy black head, all eyes and beak, like a young hawk's.

"My objection is impersonal," continued Mr. Slocum. "I object to

the idea. I wish this had not happened. I might not have disliked

it--years hence; I don't say; but I dislike it now."

Richard's face brightened. "It will be years hence in a few

years!"

Mr. Slocum replied with a slow, grave smile, "I am not going to be

unreasonable in a matter where I find Margaret's happiness concerned;

and yours, Richard, I care for that, too; but I'll have no

entanglements. You and she are to be good friends, and nothing

beyond. I prefer that Margaret should not come to the studio so

often; you shall see her whenever you like at our fireside, of an

evening. I don't think the conditions hard."

Mr. Slocum had dictated terms, but it was virtually a surrender.

Margaret listened to him with her cheek resting against his arm, and

a warm light nestled down deep under her eyelids.

Mr. Slocum drew a half-pathetic sigh. "I presume I have not done

wisely. Every one bullies me. The Marble Workers' Association ruins

my yard for me, and now my daughter is taken off my hands. By the

way, Richard," he said, interrupting himself brusquely, and with an

air of dismissing the subject, "I forgot what I came for. I've been

thinking over Torrini's case, and have concluded that you had better

make up his account and discharge him."

"Certainly, sir," replied Richard, with a shadow of dissent in his

manner, "if you wish it."

"He causes a deal of trouble in the yard."

"I am afraid he does. Such a clean workman when he's sober!"

"But he is never sober."

"He has been in a bad way lately, I admit."

"His example demoralizes the men. I can see it day by day."

"I wish he were not so necessary at this moment," observed

Richard. "I don't know who else could be trusted with the frieze for

the Soldiers' Monument. I'd like to keep him on a week or ten days

longer. Suppose I have a plain talk with Torrini?"

"Surely we have enough good hands to stand the loss of one."

"For a special kind of work there is nobody in the yard like

Torrini. That is one reason why I want to hold on to him for a while,

and there are other reasons."

"Such as what?"

"Well, I think it would not be wholly politic to break with him

just now."

"Why not now as well as any time?"

"He has lately been elected secretary of the Association."

"What of that?"

"He has a great deal of influence there."

"If we put him out of the works it seems to me he would lose his

importance, if he really has any to speak of."

"You are mistaken if you doubt it. His position gives him a chance

to do much mischief, and he would avail himself of it very adroitly,

if he had a personal grievance."

"I believe you are actually afraid of the fellow."

Richard smiled. "No, I am not afraid of him, but I don't underrate

him. The men look up to Torrini as a sort of leader; he's an

effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a dissatisfaction.

Either he or some other disturbing element has recently been at work

among the men. There's considerable grumbling in the yard."

"They are always grumbling, aren't they?"

"Most always, but this is more serious than usual; there appears

to be a general stir among the trades in the village. I don't

understand it clearly. The marble workers have been holding secret

meetings."

"They mean business, you think?"

"They mean increased wages, perhaps."

"But we are now paying from five to ten per cent more than any

trade in the place. What are they after?"

"So far as I can gather, sir, the finishers and the slab-sawers

want an advance,--I don't know how much. Then there's some talk about

having the yard closed an hour earlier on Saturdays. All this is

merely rumor; but I am sure there is something in it."

"Confound the whole lot! If we can't discharge a drunken hand

without raising the pay of all the rest, we had better turn over the

entire business to the Association. But do as you like, Richard. You

see how I am bullied, Margaret. He runs everything! Come, dear."

And Mr. Slocum quitted the workshop, taking Margaret with him.

Richard remained standing awhile by the table, in a deep study, with

his eyes fixed on the floor. He thought of his early days in the

sepulchral house in Welch's Court, of his wanderings abroad, his long

years of toil since then, and this sudden blissful love that had come

to him, and Mr. Slocum's generosity. Then he thought of Torrini, and

went down into the yard gently to admonish the man, for Richard's

heart that hour was full of kindness for all the world.