"There is Amy Mayhew, the deacon's daughter," the girl continued, "who spends more for ribbons and rings and bracelets than my whole wardrobe costs. To-day at school she was showing a new ring; it cost only ten dollars, and while she was saying it her eyes were on my ragged shoes--oh, mother!" With a flood of tears the girl buried her face in her mother's lap. Poor Margaret, she had not yet learned to look with unthinking, unheeding vision on the wrongs of humanity, her own included. Little more than a child, she had looked at life with a child's vision, and wrong, to her, had been wrong, and right was right. The distribution of property that gives one person more than enough and another less than sufficient, can never seem just to a mind unbiased by worldly wisdom. And when once the exact balance between right and wrong is disturbed, the equilibrium lost, a sort of moral chaos is likely to disturb all questions of righteousness and honor.
The mother laid her hand on the girl's crown of dark hair. She could not know--mercifully could not know--of the transformation taking place in the heart of her child. She well knew that many temptations lay in the girl's pathway; and Margaret had not always been tractable and easily controlled. Exuberant of spirit and naturally willful, a sort of restlessness seemed to possess her. But the mother believed that a few years more would tide her child over this trying time, and her one great desire was to get her away from the town, and engaged in some active, responsible work. And while the failure of her plans had bitterly disappointed the daughter, it had all but broken the mother's heart.
Had no thoughts come to Margaret other than those of the disappointment and uncongenial toil, she might still have retained her crown of womanhood unsullied--but alas, and alas! Beside the factory and the honest toil that her willful heart rebelled against, there arose in her mind forms and phantoms of many shapes and colors, tempting, taunting, alluring; and when her untutored mind endeavored to grasp their significance, they evaded her, and with seductive wiles eluded her. Poor girl! tempted by the sparkle of the foam on the cup. And while her heart was sore she sipped the first draught of the poison wine; and later she found, as all who taste must find, that the dregs were more bitter than anything that unsullied girlhood can conceive.
The next morning Mrs. McGowan was not able to leave her bed. A sleepless night, and the care and perplexities that multiplied ahead of her, left her nervous and exhausted. At her earnest request Margaret went to the parsonage and prepared the morning meal.
"Good morning, Margaret, I am glad to see you," said Mr. Thorpe, pleasantly. "I am sorry your mother is ill."
Mrs. Thorpe thought the girl's dark face very sullen and unattractive, and she wondered how even her husband could be kind and patient with people who seemed to care so little for his interest in them.
After Margaret had served the meal, and had left the room, Mr. Thorpe asked his wife what she knew about Mary's illness.
"Mary gave me warning yesterday that she must leave my service, but made no mention of feeling indisposed," Mrs. Thorpe replied. "She gave me to understand that she could not give me all her time. I was not aware that she has a family."
"Then you do not know about the little cripple boy?"
"No; Mary has never mentioned any member of her family to me."