ere was a curious power in the words, as he lingered over them, like
half-comprehended music,--as simple and tender as if they had come from
the depths of a woman's heart: it touched him deeper than his power of
control. Pah! it was a dream of Faust's; he, too, had his Margaret; he
fell, through that love.

He went on slowly to the mill. If the name or the words woke a subtile
remorse or longing, he buried them under restful composure. Whether
they should ever rise like angry ghosts of what might have been, to
taunt the man, only the future could tell.

Going through the gas-lit streets, Holmes met some cordial greeting at
every turn. What a just, clever fellow he was! people said: one of
those men improved by success: just to the defrauding of himself: saw
the true worth of everybody, the very lowest: hadn't one spark of
self-esteem: despised all humbug and show, one could see, though he
never said it: when he was a boy, he was moody, with passionate likes
and dislikes; but success had improved him, vastly. So Holmes was
popular, though the beggars shunned him, and the lazy Italian
organ-grinders never held their tambourines up to him.

The mill street was dark; the building threw its great shadow over the
square. It was empty, he supposed; only one hand generally remained to
keep in the furnace-fires. Going through one of the lower passages, he
heard voices, and turned aside to examine. The management was not
strict, and in case of a fire the mill was not insured: like Knowles's
carelessness.

It was Lois and her father,--Joe Yare being feeder that night. They
were in one of the great furnace-rooms in the cellar,--a very
comfortable place that stormy night. Two or three doors of the wide
brick ovens were open, and the fire threw a ruddy glow over the stone
floor, and shimmered into the dark recesses of the shadows, very
home-like after the rain and mud without. Lois seemed to think so, at
any rate, for she had made a table of a store-box, put a white cloth on
it, and was busy getting up a regular supper for her father,--down on
her knees before the red coals, turning something on an iron plate,
while some slices of ham sent up a cloud of juicy, hungry smell.

The old stoker had just finished slaking the out-fires, and was putting
some blue plates on the table, gravely straightening them. He had
grown old, as Polston said,--Holmes saw, stooped much, with a low,
hacking cough; his coarse clothes were cur