But above all, the
Hope rose clear, simple: the trust in the Master: and shone in her
scarred face,--through her marred senses.
"I knew it wud come right, allus. I was alone then: mother was dead, and
father was gone, 'n' th' Lord thought 't was time to see to me,--special
as th' overseer was gettin' me an enter to th' poorhouse. So He sent Mr.
Holmes along. Then it come right!"
Margaret did not speak. Even this mill-girl could talk of him, pray for
him; but she never must take his name on her lips!
"He got th' cart fur me, 'n' this blessed old donkey, 'n' my room. Did
yoh ever see my room, Miss Marg'et?"
Her face lighted suddenly with its peculiar childlike smile.
"No? Yoh'll come some day, surely? It's a pore place, yoh'll think; but
it's got th' air,--th' air."
She stopped to breathe the cold morning wind, as if she thought to find
in its fierce freshness the life and brains she had lost.
"Ther' 's places in them alleys 'n' dark holes, Miss Marg'et, like th'
openin's to hell, with th' thick smells 'n' th' sights yoh'd see."
She went back with a terrible clinging pity to the Gehenna from which
she had escaped. The ill of life was real enough to her,--a hungry devil
down in those alleys and dens.
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