Margaret heard enough of this unreasonableness to dishearten her;

and when they came away she found it impossible to cheer her

father.

'It is the town life,' said she. 'Their nerves are quickened by

the haste and bustle and speed of everything around them, to say

nothing of the confinement in these pent-up houses, which of

itself is enough to induce depression and worry of spirits. Now

in the country, people live so much more out of doors, even

children, and even in the winter.'

'But people must live in towns. And in the country some get such

stagnant habits of mind that they are almost fatalists.'

'Yes; I acknowledge that. I suppose each mode of life produces

its own trials and its own temptations. The dweller in towns must

find it as difficult to be patient and calm, as the country-bred

man must find it to be active, and equal to unwonted emergencies.

Both must find it hard to realise a future of any kind; the one

because the present is so living and hurrying and close around

him; the other because his life tempts him to revel in the mere

sense of animal existence, not knowing of, and consequently not

caring for any pungency of pleasure for the attainment of which

he can plan, and deny himself and look forward.' 'And thus both the necessity for engrossment, and the stupid

content in the present, produce the same effects. But this poor

Mrs. Boucher! how little we can do for her.' 'And yet we dare not leave her without our efforts, although they

may seem so useless. Oh papa! it's a hard world to live in!' 'So it is, my child. We feel it so just now, at any rate; but we

have been very happy, even in the midst of our sorrow. What a

pleasure Frederick's visit was!' 'Yes, that it was,' said Margaret; brightly. 'It was such a

charming, snatched, forbidden thing.' But she suddenly stopped

speaking. She had spoiled the remembrance of Frederick's visit to

herself by her own cowardice. Of all faults the one she most

despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart

which leads to untruth. And here had she been guilty of it! Then

came the thought of Mr. Thornton's cognisance of her falsehood.

She wondered if she should have minded detection half so much

from any one else. She tried herself in imagination with her Aunt

Shaw and Edith; with her father; with Captain and Mr. Lennox;

with Frederick. The thought of the last knowing what she had

done, even in his own behalf, was the most painful, for the

brother and sister were in the first flush of their mutual regard

and love; but even any fall in Frederick's opinion was as nothing

to the shame, the shrinking shame she felt at the thought of

meeting Mr. Thornton again. And yet she longed to see him, to get

it over; to understand where she stood in his opinion. Her cheeks

burnt as she recollected how proudly she had implied an objection

to trade (in the early days of their acquaintance), because it

too often led to the deceit of passing off inferior for superior

goods, in the one branch; of assuming credit for wealth and

resources not possessed, in the other. She remembered Mr.

Thornton's look of calm disdain, as in few words he gave her to

understand that, in the great scheme of commerce, all

dishonourable ways of acting were sure to prove injurious in the

long run, and that, testing such actions simply according to the

poor standard of success, there was folly and not wisdom in all

such, and every kind of deceit in trade, as well as in other

things. She remembered--she, then strong in her own untempted

truth--asking him, if he did not think that buying in the

cheapest and selling in the dearest market proved some want of

the transparent justice which is so intimately connected with the

idea of truth: and she had used the word chivalric--and her

father had corrected her with the higher word, Christian; and so

drawn the argument upon himself, while she sate silent by with a

slight feeling of contempt.




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