Lois was Lois in town or country. Some subtile power lay in the coarse, distorted body, in the pleading child's face, to rouse, wherever they went, the same curious, kindly smile. Not, I think, that dumb, pathetic eye, common to deformity, that cries, "Have mercy upon me, O my friend, for the hand of God hath touched me!"—a deeper, mightier charm, rather: a trust down in the fouled fragments of her brain, even in the bitterest hour of her bare, wretched life,—a faith, faith in God, faith in her fellow-man, faith in herself. No human soul refused to answer its summons. Down in the dark alleys, in the very vilest of the black and white wretches that crowded sometimes about her cart, there was an undefined sense of pride in protecting this wretch whose portion of life was more meagre and low than theirs. Something in them struggled up to meet the trust in the pitiful eyes,—something which scorned to betray the trust,—some Christ-like power, smothered, dying, under the filth of their life and the terror of hell. Not lost. If the Great Spirit of love and trust lives, not lost!
Even in the cold and quiet of the woman walking by her side the homely power of the poor huckster was not weak to warm or to strengthen. Margaret left her, turning into the crowded street leading to the part of the town where the factories lay. The throng of anxious-faced men and women jostled and pushed, but she passed through them with a different heart from yesterday's. Somehow, the morbid fancies were gone; she was keenly alive; the homely real life of this huckster had fired her, touched her blood with a more vital stimulus than any tale of crusader. As she went down the crooked maze of dingy lanes, she could hear Lois's little cracked bell far off: it sounded like a Christmas song to her. She half smiled, remembering how sometimes in her distempered brain the world had seemed a gray, dismal Dance of Death. How actual it was to-day,—hearty, vigorous, alive with honest work and tears and pleasure! A broad, good world to live and work in, to suffer or die, if God so willed it,—God, the good! She entered the vast, dingy factory; the woollen dust, the clammy air of copperas were easier to breathe in; the cramped, sordid office, the work, mere trifles to laugh at; and she bent over the ledger with its hard lines in earnest good-will, through the slow creeping hours of the long day. She noticed that the unfortunate chicken was making its heart glad over a piece of fresh earth covered with damp moss. Dr. Knowles stopped to look at it when he came, passing her with a surly nod.
"So your master's not forgotten you," he snarled, while the blind old hen cocked her one eye up at him.
Pike, the manager, had brought in some bills.
"Who's its master?" he said, curiously, stopping by the door.
"Holmes,—he feeds it every morning."
The Doctor drawled out the words with a covert sneer, watching the quiet, cold face bending over the desk, meantime.
Pike laughed.
"Bah! it's the first thing he ever fed, then, besides himself. Chickens must lie nearer his heart than men."
Knowles scowled at him; he had no fancy for Pike's scurrilous gossip.