intervening period
could be swept away, so that he might be entering that soft Paradise
instead of leaving it.

And this sentiment, once rooted, grew rapidly in an aspiring nature, and
a heart that had never yet entertained a serious passion. Now the fair
head that bowed over the work so near him, the lovely hand he had so
often to direct, and almost to guide, and all the other perfections of
mind and body this enchanting girl possessed, crept in at his admiring
eyes, and began to steal into his very veins, and fill him with soft
complacency. His brusque manner dissolved away, and his voice became low
and soft, whenever he was in her delicious presence. He spoke softly to
Jael even, if Grace was there. The sturdy workman was enthralled.

Often he wondered at himself. Sometimes he felt alarmed at the strength
of his passion and the direction it had taken.

"What," said he, "have I flirted with so many girls in my own way
of life, and come away heart-whole, and now to fall in love with a
gentlewoman, who would bid her footman show me the door if she knew of
my presumption!"

But these misgivings could neither cure him nor cow him. Let him only
make money, and become a master instead of a workman, and then he would
say to her, "I don't value birth myself, but if you do, why, I am not
come of workpeople."

He traced a plan with workmanlike precision:--Profound discretion
and self-restraint at "Woodbine Villa:" restless industry and stern
self-denial in Hillsborough.

After his day's work he used to go straight to his mother. She gave him
a cup of tea, and then they had their chat; and after that the sexes
were inverted, so to speak: the man carved fruit, and flowers, and dead
woodcocks, the woman read the news and polities of the day, and the
essays on labor and capital, and any other articles not too flimsy
to bear reading aloud to a man whose time was coin. (There was a free
library in Hillsborough, and a mechanic could take out standard books
and reviews.) Thus they passed the evening hours agreeably, and usefully
too, for Henry sucked in knowledge like a leech, and at the same time
carved things that sold well in London. He had a strong inclination to
open his heart about Miss Carden. Accordingly, one evening he said, "She
lost her mother when she was a child."

"Who lost her mother?" asked Mrs. Little.

"Miss Carden," said Henry, very softly.

The tone was not lost on Mrs. Little's fine and watchful ear; at