smile. Not, I think, that
dumb, pathetic eye, common to deformity, that cries, "Have mercy upon
me, O my friend, for the hand of God hath touched me!"--a deeper,
mightier charm, rather: a trust down in the fouled fragments of her
brain, even in the bitterest hour of her bare life,--a faith faith in
God, faith in her fellow-man, faith in herself. No human soul refused
to answer its summons. Down in the dark alleys, in the very vilest of
the black and white wretches that crowded sometimes about her cart,
there was an undefined sense of pride in protecting this wretch whose
portion of life was more meagre and low than theirs. Something in them
struggled up to meet the trust in the pitiful eyes,--something which
scorned to betray the trust,--some Christ-like power in their souls,
smothered, dying, under the filth of their life and the terror of hell.
A something in them never to be lost. If the Great Spirit of love and
trust lives, not lost!

Even in the cold and quiet of the woman walking by her side the homely
power of the poor huckster was wholesome to strengthen. Margret left
her, turning into the crowded street leading to the part of the town
where the factories lay. The throng of anxious-faced men and women
jostled and pushed, but she passed through them with a different heart
from yesterday's. Somehow, the morbid fancies were gone: she was
keenly alive; the coarse real life of this huckster fired her, touched
her blood with a more vital stimulus than any tale of crusader. As she
went down the crooked maze of dingy lanes, she could hear Lois's little
cracked bell far off: it sounded like a Christmas song to her. She half
smiled, remembering how sometimes in her distempered brain the world
had seemed a gray, dismal Dance of Death. How actual it was
to-day,--hearty, vigorous, alive with honest work and tears and
pleasure! A broad, good world to live and work in, to suffer or die,
if God so willed it,--God, the good!

CHAPTER IV.

She entered the vast, dingy factory; the woollen dust, the clammy air
of copperas were easier to breathe in; the cramped, sordid office, the
work, mere trifles to laugh at; and she bent over the ledger with its
hard lines in earnest good-will, through the slow creeping hours of the
long day. She noticed that the unfortunate chicken was making its
heart glad over a piece of fresh earth covered with damp moss. Dr.
Knowles stopped to look at it when he came, passing her with a su