So Richard slept in the studio, and had his plate at table, like one of the family. This arrangement was favorable to many a stolen five minutes with Margaret, in the hall or on the staircase. In these fortuitous moments he breathed an atmosphere that sustained him in his task of dispelling Mr. Slocum's recurrent fits of despondency. Margaret had her duties, too, at this period, and the forenoons were sacred to them.
One morning as she passed down the street with a small wicker basket on her arm, Richard said to Mr. Slocum,--
"Margaret has joined the strikers."
The time had already come to Stillwater when many a sharp-faced little urchin--as dear to the warm, deep bosom that had nursed it as though it were a crown prince--would not have had a crust to gnaw if Margaret Slocum had not joined the strikers. Sometimes her heart drooped on the way home from these errands, upon seeing how little of the misery she could ward off. On her rounds there was one cottage in a squalid lane where the children asked for bread in Italian. She never omitted to halt at that door.
"Is it quite prudent for Margaret to be going about so?" queried Mr. Slocum.
"She is perfectly safe," said Richard,--"as safe as a Sister of Charity, which she is."
Indeed, Margaret might then have gone loaded with diamonds through the streets at midnight. There was not a rough man in Stillwater who would not have reached forth an arm to shield her.
"It is costing me nearly as much as it would to carry on the yard," said Mr. Slocum, "but I never put out any stamps more willingly."
"You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed to keep Margaret's basket filled. It is an investment in real estate--hereafter."
"I hope so," answered Mr. Slocum, "and I know it's a good thing now."