Margret Howth: A Story of To-day

ith all my heart, I could take you back to that "Once upon a time" in which the souls of our grandmothers delighted,-the time which Dr. Johnson sat up all night to read about in "Evelina,"-

h a moral to it, then, I should hope! People that were born in those days had no fancy for going through the world with half-and-half characters, such as we put up with; so Nature turned out complete specimens of each class, with all the appendages of dress, fortune, et cetera, chording decently. The heroine glides into life full-charged with

uch a case that some one did not consider its expediency as "a match" in the light of dollars and cents. As for heroines, of course I have seen beautiful women, and good as fair. The most beautiful is delicate and pure enough for a type of the Madonna, and has a heart almost as warm and holy. (Very pure blood is in her veins, too, if you care about blood.) But at home they call her Tode for a nickname; all we can do, she will sing, and sing through her nose; and on washing-days she often cooks the dinner, and scolds wholesomely, if the tea-napkins are not in order. Now, what is anybody to do with a heroine like that? I have known old maids in abundance, with pathos and sunshine in their lives; but the old maid of novels I never have met, who abandoned her soul to gossip,-nor yet the other type, a life-long martyr of unselfishness. They are mixed generally, and not unlike their married si

a peculiar type,-a man, more than other men: the very mould of man, doubt it who will, that women love longest and most madly. Of course, if I could, I would have blotted out every meanness before I showed him to you; I would have told you Margret was an impetuous, whole-souled woman, glad to throw her life down for her father, without one bitter thought of th

ody or spirit. Stephen Holmes knew that, being a man of delicate animal instincts, and so used it, just as he had used the dumb-bells in the morning. All things were made for man, weren't they? He was leaning against the door of the school-house,-a red, flaunting house, the daub on the landsca

and at its far edge flowed the river,-deep here, tinted with green, writhing and gurgling and curdling on the banks over shelving ledges of lichen and mud-covered rock. Beyond it yawned the opening to the great West,-the Prairies. Not the dreary deadness here, as farther west. A plain, dark russet in hue,-for the grass was sun-scorched,-stretching away into the vague distance, intolerable, silent, broken by hillocks and puny streams that only made the vastness and s

this, if he never had seen one; therefore he was able to recogniz

t tremble passed over the great hills, the broad sweeps of colour darkened from base to summit, then flas

much of the clogging weight of flesh, strengthened the muscles. Six months more in the West would toughen the fibres to iron. He raised an iron weight that lay on the steps, carelessly testing them. For the rest, he was going back here; something of the cold, loose freshness got into his brain, he believed. In the two years of absence his power of concentration had been stronger, his perceptions more free from prejudice, gaining every day delicate point, acuteness of analysis. He drew a long breath of the icy air, coarse with the wild perfume of the prairie. No, his temperament needed a subtiler atmosphere than this, rarer essence than mere brutal freedom The East, the Old World, was his proper sphere for self-development. He would go as soon as he could command the means, leaving all clogs behind. ALL? His idle thought balked here, suddenly; the sallow forehead contracted sharply, and hi

oys had hacked and whittled rough, and waited; fo

he driver. The old man clapped his hands as stage-coachmen do, and drew in long draughts of air, as if there were keen life and promise in every breath. They came up at last, the cart empty, and drying for the day's work after its morning's scrubbing, Lois's pock-marked face all in a glow with trying to keep Barney awake. She grew quite red with pleasure at seeing Holmes, but went on quickly as the men began to talk. Tige followed her, of course; but when she had gone a l

is from a mulatto," he

they seized on every trifle to keep off t

er religion, down under the perversion a

rains to worship. They let the fire lick their blood, if they happen to be born Parsees.

the speaker, with its overhanging brow, square development

ippled there by my Yorkshire blood,-my mother. Never mind; o

had in his pocket but a mere matter of business; yet they were strangely silent about it, as if it

susceptible to religion. The self in them is so starved and hu

e soul is so starved and blind that

intolerant

go on with the conjugation: I have been, I shall be. I,-that covers

," said Hol

ty about her,-her self-existent soul? How,

and heavy jaws like his do not carry their religion on their tongue's end; their

ng on the new idea fiercely, as men and women

it began with Eve. It works slowly, Holmes. In six thousand years, taking humanity as one, this self-existent so

aster soon, in America. There are yet many ill

yonder in those dens? It is la

that. They could not bear the truth. One does not put a weapon in

he lives to come, give to you,

," he said, in a low

the pale strengt

S a God higher than we. The ills of life you mean to conquer will teach it to you, H

the old man's heat,-wa

e. Knowles put his hand

thing stronger,-some God outside of the mean devil they call 'Me.' You'll learn it, boy. There's an old story of a man like you and the rest of your sect, and of the vile, mean, crawling things that God sent to bring him down

en they did speak, it was on indifferent subjects, not referring to the last. The Doctor's heat, as it usually did, boiled out in spasms on trifles. Once he stumped his toe, and, I am sorry to say, swore roundly about it, ju

went on. Afterwards he thought of it. Going through the office, the fat old book-keeper, Huff, stopped him with a story he had been keeping for him all day. He liked to tell a story to Holmes; he could see into a joke; it did a man good to hear a fellow laugh like that. Holmes did laugh, for the story was a good one, and stood a moment, then went in, leaving the old fellow chuckling over his desk. Huff did not know how, lately, after every laugh, this man felt a vague scorn of himself, as if jokes and laughter belonged to a self that ought to have been dead long ago. Perhaps, if the fat old book-keeper had known it, he would have said that the man was better than he knew. But then,-poor Huff! He passed slowly through the alleys between the great looms. Overhead the ceiling looked like a heavy maze of iron cylinders and black

hare in the mill to himself; to-day he was to decide whether he would conclude the bargain. If any dark history of wrong lay underneath, if this simple decision of his was to be the struggle for life and death with him, his cold, firm face told nothing of it. Let us be just to him, stand by him, if we can, in the midst of his desolate home and desolate life, and look through his cold, sorrowful eyes at the deed he was going to do. Dreary enough he looked, going through the great mill, des

it,-silly child! Doubtless she was wiser now. He remembered he used to think, that, when this woman loved, it would be as he himself would, with a simple trust which the wrong of years could not touch. And once he had thought-- Well, well, he was mistaken. Poor Margret! Better as it was. They were nothing to each other. She had put him from her, and he had suffered himself to be put away. Why, he would have given up every prospect of life, if he had done otherwise! Ye

filled with subtile flame. Her soul was-like his own, he thought. He knew what it was,-he only. Even now he glowed with a man's triumph to know he held the secret life of this woman bare in his hand. No other human power could ever come near her; he was secure in poss

on the door as he brushed against it: just a quick, light touch; but it had all the fierce pas

yet working in this paltry life of ours? In so far as the exercise of kindly emotions or self-denial developed the higher part of his nature, it was to be commended; as for its effect on others, that he had nothing to do with. He practised self-denial constantly to strengthen the benevolent instincts. That very morning he had given his last dollar to Joe Byers, a half-starved cripple. "Chucked it at me," Joe said, "like as he'd give a bone to a dog, and be damned to him! Who thanks him?" To tell the truth, you will find no fairer exponent than this Stephen Holmes of the great idea of American sociology,-that the object of life is TO GROW. Circumstances had forced it on him, partly. Sitting now in his room, where he was counting the cost of becoming a merchant prince, he could look back to the time of a boyhood passed in the depths of ignorance and vice. He knew what this Self within him was; he knew how it had forced him to grope his way up, to give this hungry, insatiate soul air and freedom and knowledge.

in the free-and-easy West; one of those men who are unwillingly masters among men. Just and mild, always; with a peculiar gift that made men talk thei

he purchase-money was a wedding dowry; even between Herne and himself it never was openly put into words. If he did not marry Miss Herne, the mill was her father's; that of course must be spoken of, arranged to-morrow. If he took it, then? if he married her? Holmes had been poor, was miserably poor yet, with the position and habits of a man, of refinement. God knows it was not to gratify thos

him outlined on the years to come, practical, if Utopian. Slow and sure successes of science and art, where his brain could work, helpful and growing. Far off, yet surely to come,-surely for him,-a day when a pure social system should be universal, should have thrust out its fibres of light, knitting into one the nations of the earth, when the lowest slave should find its true place and rightful work,

ink it was, she chose to represent that evening,-and with her usual success; for no woman ever knew more thoroughly her material of shape or colour, or how to work it up. Not an ill-chosen fancy, either, that of the moist, warm month. Some tranced summer's day might have drowsed down into such a human form by a dank pool, or on the thick grass-crusted meadows. There was the full contour of the limbs hid under warm green folds, the white flesh that glowed when you touched it as if some smothered heat lay beneath, the snaring eyes, the sleeping face, the amber hair uncoiled in a languid quiet, while yellow jasmines deepened its hue into molten sunshine, and a great tiger-lily laid its sultry head on her

talkers." She was (aside from the necessary sarcasm to keep up this reputation) a good-humoured soul enough,-when no one stood in her way. But if her shallow virtues or vices were palpable at all to him, they became one with the torpid beauty of the oppressive summer day, and weighed on him alike with a vague disgust. The woman luxuriated in perfume; some heavy odour always hung about her. Holmes, thinking of her no

hand. So many years (he was ashamed to think how many) he had built the thought of this girl as his wife into the future, put his soul's strength into the hope, as if love and the homely duties of husband and father were what life was given for! A boyish fancy, he thought. He had not learned then that all dreams must yie

ped to pat the dog softly, who was trying to lick his hand,-with the hard fingers shaking a l

a woman's heart in their way to success, and trampled it down under an iron heel. Men li

sized only by cunning. No wonder Dr. Knowles cursed him for a "slippery customer," and was cheated by him the next hour. While he and Holmes were counting out the bills, a little white-headed girl crept shyly in at the door, and came up to the table,-oddly dressed, in a frock

"My Sophy, Mr. Holmes. Good girl, Sophy is. Bring her up to the mill sometimes," he sai

at lying on the table: there wa

er tone, "I'm father and m

d Holmes, kindly. "How

lt the want of that all my life.. Good eddications. Says I, 'Now, boys, you've got your fortunes, nothing to hinder your bein' President. Let's see what stuff 's

folded up the bills. Even this man could spare time out of his hard, stingy life to lo

lmes, I hope we'll be agreeable. I'll strive to do my best,"-

of broken "chayney" with which she was making

et looked as if it ought to be warm, but he was deathly cold. On the street the young doctor beset him again with bows and news: Cox was his name, I believe; the one, you remember, who had such a Talleyrand nose for ferreting out successful men. He had to bear with him but fo

igns to you, yonder," sa

If you do not know h

rattan, as he went. The coal-digger was abrupt and

h only a minute

" correct

man's fa

yoh, Stephen. That's hearty, now. It's only a wured I want, but it'

owing me in the mill. His hai

in' fast to the end. Feeble, pore-like. It's a bad life

rdly attentive, but with little thought to waste on Joe Y

th' note Yare forged? Yes? Ther' 's none knows o' that but yoh an' me. He's safe, Yare is, on

s

' to do rig

ing not to be eager, and

'pose,-what d' yoh think, if we give him a chance? It's yoh he fears. I see him a-watchin' yoh; what

es s

tice before mercy. Haven't I heard yo

olmes's arm, looked up and down th

s right! Yoh're just

yet

he's tryin'. An' we're sendin' him to hell. Somethin' 's wrong.

" said Holmes, after a p

eceived no answer. Some blacker shad

d woman,-you knew he

ect, she said. Mercy's fur them,-an' outside,

old bitterness rising up in his tone, his g

not speak

her's Stephen, 'times. Hungry, pitiful, like women's. His got desper't' 't th' last. Drunk hard,-died of 't, yo

s a shor

vy iron jaws. "She never-let go. Somehow, too, she'd the law on her side in outward showin', an'

orner now, and Polston

k o' Yare's c

aid, lightly, "if I am like my mother,

and mother leave their souls fightin' in their chil

ponies. One or two gentlemen on horseback were alongside, attendant on a lady within, Miss Herne. She turned her fair fa

ookin' fagged, an' yer eyes is gettin' more like yer father's. I'm glad things is takin' a good turn with yoh; an' yoh'll never be like him, s

ton moving idly down the road. How cold it was growing! People passing by had a sickly look, as if they were struck by the plague. He pushed th