Annie Kilburn

He waited for her to go on; but she really had nothing more to say, and he

began: "I am not hoping for another charge elsewhere, at least not for the

present; but I am satisfied that my usefulness here is at an end, and I do

not think that my going away will make matters worse. Whether I go or stay,

the dissensions will continue. At any rate, I believe that there are those

who need help more, and whom I can help more, in another field--"

"Yes," she broke in, with a woman's relevancy to the immediate point,

"there is nothing to do here."

He went on as if she had not spoken: "I am going to Fall River to-morrow,

where I have heard that there is work for me--"

"In the mills!" she exclaimed, recurring in thought to what he had once

said of his work in them. "Surely you don't mean that!" The sight, the

smell, the tumult of the work she had seen that day in the mill with Lyra

came upon her with all their offence. "To throw away all that you have

learnt, all that you have become to others!"

"I am less and less confident that I have become anything useful to others

in turning aside from the life of toil and presuming to attempt the

guidance of those who remained in it. But I don't mean work in the mills,"

he continued, "or not at first, or not unless it seems necessary to my work

with those who work in them. I have a plan--or if it hardly deserves that

name, a design--of being useful to them in such ways as my own experience

of their life in the past shall show me in the light of what I shall see

among them now. I needn't trouble you with it."

"Oh yes!" she interposed.

"I do not expect to preach at once, but only to teach in one of the public

schools, where I have heard of a vacancy, and--and--perhaps otherwise. With

those whose lives are made up of hard work there must be room for willing

and peaceful service. And if it should be necessary that I should work in

the mills in order to render this, then I will do so; but at present I

have another way in view--a social way that shall bring me into immediate

relations with the people." She still tried to argue with him, to prove him

wrong in going away, but they both ended where they began. He would not or

could not explain himself further. At last he said: "But I did not come to

urge this matter. I have no wish to impose my will, my theory, upon any

one, even my own child."