“What do you mean, dear?”
“I have become a contributor of pictures to the daily papers. You did not know that you had an artist in the family, did you?”
“No, and I do not know it now.”
“That is too bad of you. Really, I have been earning a little money in that way for some time past. There, you see, I cannot keep a secret after all. But, seriously, father, I feel so sorry for Cousin John. He looks most anxious and miserable, excepting when he is doing something for others, and then he brightens up. I know you are not rich, nor as comfortably off as you might be if you would let that scapegrace heir shift as he can by-and-by; but do you not think that you could strain a point, and let me send that parchment to Cousin John as a Christmas-box?”
“No, Tom. It is very unreasonable of you to expect such a thing. Besides, John wants more than a hundred and fifty pounds a year to lift him out of his troubles. I have generally credited you with a fair amount of good sense. Do not disappoint me now.”
But Tom was very persevering, and persistence generally wins.
She was correct in saying that John Dallington looked full of care. Indeed, neither he nor Margaret Miller would have been able to bear the worries of that time equably, but for the vivid interest which each was taking in the new life that was developing around them.
Margaret was discovering how bitter one woman can render the existence of another. Mrs. Hunter made her hatred of the girl felt in a hundred ways. The village of Darentdale was small, and it seemed that the two must frequently cross each other. The glances of the lady’s eyes were always vindictive and her words were barbed arrows. She was not careful to hide her feelings, and everybody in the place knew how heartily she hated the girl whom her son loved. Margaret was constantly hearing, although she begged her friends to keep silence, what Mrs. Hunter had said; and other letters, unsigned, followed the first, and made her angry as well as wretched. Every action of hers seemed to be misunderstood and misrepresented, and the state of things became intolerable.
John Dallington, upon whose young head some grey hairs were already to be seen, was often vexed as well as unhappy; and a conviction began to force itself upon his mind that he and Margaret would do well to end the present unsatisfactory state of affairs by a speedy marriage. He would leave his mother in undisturbed possession of the old home, and he would take one of the better cottages on the estate, where he and his bride would begin life together in a small way, and work and economise, and love one another until more prosperous times came. It was a very alluring prospect—if he could only get Margaret to adopt it! He resolved that he would at least compel her to think of it, and decided that on Christmas Day, which was approaching, he would lay his project before her.
In Darentdale there were to be no special spasmodic gifts of dinners and flannels on the occasion. For more than a month two vestries belonging to the chapels and the church schoolroom had been the scene of happy evenings of industry, where young people had been busying themselves in all sorts of ways, and especially in manufacturing pretty little Christmas gifts, which had been disposed of at a sale, the proceeds being divided among the workers. The superintendents—the ladies and gentlemen who were trying to help the people to independence, instead of demoralising them with alms—were exceedingly gratified at the result; and it was with a ring of exultation in her voice that Margaret Miller said: “We have not in the whole of Darentdale a single able person whose hands have not been busy for more than a month.”