"Yes," said the minister, coming to her relief, "I once worked in a
cotton-mill. Then," he continued, dismissing the personal concern, "it
seems to me that I saw things in their right light, as I have never been
able to see them since--"
"And how brutal," she broke in, "how cruel and vulgar, what I said must
have seemed to you!"
"I fancied," he continued evasively, "that I had authority to set myself
apart from my fellow-workmen, to be a teacher and guide to the true life.
But it was a great error. The true life was the life of work, and no one
ever had authority to turn from it. Christ Himself came as a labouring
man."
"That is true," said Annie; and his words transfigured the man who spoke
them, so that her heart turned reverently toward him. "But if you had been
meant to work in a mill all your life," she pursued, "would you have been
given the powers you have, and that you have just used to save me from
despair?"
The minister rose, and said, with a sigh: "No one was meant to work in a
mill all his life. Good night."
She would have liked to keep him longer, but she could not think how,
at once. As he turned to go out through the Boltons' part of the house,
"Won't you go out through my door?" she asked, with a helpless effort at
hospitality.
"Oh, if you wish," he answered submissively.
When she had closed the door upon him she went to speak with Mrs. Bolton.
She was in the kitchen mixing flour to make bread, and Annie traced
her by following the lamp-light through the open door. It discovered
Bolton sitting in the outer doorway, his back against one jamb and his
stocking-feet resting against the base of the other.
"Mrs. Bolton," Annie began at once, making herself free of one of the hard
kitchen chairs, "how is Mr. Peck getting on in Hatboro'?"
"I d'know as I know just what you mean, Miss Kilburn," said Mrs. Bolton, on
the defensive.
"I mean, is there a party against him in his church? Is he unpopular?"
Mrs. Bolton took some flour and sprinkled it on her bread-board; then she
lifted the mass of dough out of the trough before her, and let it sink
softly upon the board.
"I d'know as you can say he's unpoplah. He ain't poplah with some. Yes,
there's a party--the Gerrish party."