ng as a man's could be. It was ten years
after I wore spectacles that you began. Only for that miserable fever,
you could read shorthand now."

Her own blue eyes filled with tears. There was a sudden silence.
Margret shivered, as if some pain stung her. Holding her father's bony
hand in hers, she patted it on her knee. The hand trembled a little.
Knowles's sharp eyes darted from one to the other; then, with a
smothered growl, he shook himself, and rushed headlong into the old
battle which he and the school-master had been waging now, off and on,
some six years. That was a fight, I can tell you! None of your
shallow, polite clashing of modern theories,--no talk of your
Jeffersonian Democracy, your high-bred Federalism! They took hold of
the matter by the roots, clear at the beginning.

Mrs. Howth's breath fairly left her, they went into the soul of the
matter in such a dangerous way. What if Joel should hear? No doubt he
would report that his master was an infidel,--that would be the next
thing they would hear. He was in the kitchen now: he finished his
wood-chopping an hour ago. Asleep, doubtless; that was one comfort.
Well, if he were awake, he could not understand. That class of
people----And Mrs. Howth (into whose kindly brain just enough of her
husband's creed had glimmered to make her say, "that class of people,"
in the tone with which Abraham would NOT have spoken of Dives over the
gulf) went tranquilly back to her knitting, wondering why Dr. Knowles
should come ten times now where he used to come once, to provoke Samuel
into these wearisome arguments. Ever since their misfortune came on
them, he had been there every night, always at it. She should think he
might be a little more considerate. Mr. Howth surely had enough to
think of, what with his--his misfortune, and the starvation waiting for
them, and poor Margret's degradation, (she sighed here,) without
bothering his head about the theocratic principle, or the Battle of
Armageddon. She had hinted as much to Dr. Knowles one day, and he had
muttered out something about its being "the life of the dog, Ma'am."
She wondered what he meant by that! She looked over at his bearish
figure, snuff-drabbled waistcoat, and shock of black hair. Well, poor
man, he could not help it, if he were coarse, and an Abolitionist, and
a Fourierite, and----She was getting a little muddy now, she was
conscious, so turned her mind back to the repose of her stocking.
Mar