When Margaret was alone with him, George added still further praises.
"I am engaged to one of the dearest girls," he said, "but there was no chance of our marrying for years; not till I got a living. But as soon as our uncle died, Sidney settled £10,000 upon me; settled it, you know, for fear of my dropping it into the gulf at the East End; and Laura's parents have consented to our being married as soon as I get my holiday. There never was anyone like Sidney."
Margaret listened with shining eyes and a smiling face. It seemed wonderful to her that such a man as Sidney should have been brought to her to be her friend. He looked to her like one who went about being good and doing good, lifting into a higher region every pursuit in which he was engaged; even the details of his business assumed an aspect of romance and dignity when he spoke of them. It was a full life, this one of Sidney's; fuller than that of George, who was only a curate, and could never be more than the rector of a parish. And as far as a girl could share the fullness of his life, he was making her share his. She could hardly realize now how her days had passed away before she knew him.
Now and then Colonel Cleveland spared Margaret to accompany Sidney to some gathering of the poor in George Martin's parish in the East End. She could sing well; and she sang for them simple English songs, which the most ignorant could understand, and which went home to the saddest hearts. There was an inexpressible charm to Sidney in the unaffected, single-hearted, almost childish grace of the girl, as she stood facing these poor brothers and sisters of hers, and singing with her clear, pure voice words that she would have found it difficult to speak. She was accustomed to dress plainly, and after a fashion of her own; and there was nothing incongruous about her, nothing to excite the envy of the poorest. She might have been one of themselves, but for the simple refinement and unconscious dignity of her bearing.
Sidney was a good speaker, and could hit upon the exact words with which to address any kind of audience, without offending the most critical taste. His speeches were naturally less religious, and more secular, than George Martin's; but there was a kindly, almost brotherly, tone running through them which never failed to tell. He loved to hear the plaudits that interrupted and followed his short addresses; and to watch the color mounting in Margaret's face, and the light kindling in her eyes. There were moments of supreme pleasure to him in those dingy and crowded lecture-halls and school-rooms.
"How fond they are of you!" she exclaimed one evening, "and how good you are to them!"
He had been offering a number of small prizes for competition, the sum total of which was less than what he would have spent in one evening's entertainment in society; and a tumult of applause had followed. He felt himself that he was walking in a good path. He enjoyed seeing the strange sights that were to be found in unexplored London as much as he had enjoyed the strange scenes in foreign lands. How the poor lived presented to him an interesting problem, to which the usual gatherings of ordinary society were flat and dull. George and he went to and fro in the slums, doing their utmost to lift here and there one victim out of the miry depths. It was a pleasure to him to give aid liberally; a pleasure to feel that these poor people were fond of him; but a far greater pleasure yet to stand in Margaret's eyes as the champion of the sorrowful and neglected.
CHAPTER IX.
IS SOPHY ALIVE?
"Leave Sidney alone with me to-night, Margaret; I have business to talk about," said Colonel Cleveland one evening, about a year after his accident. He had never been able to set his foot upon the ground since his fatal fall; and when Martin entered his room, and looked at the wasted frame and pallid face of the man who had once been so strong and full of life, tears of sympathy and pity stood in his eyes; and he grasped his thin and meager hand in silence.