Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in the continuation

of some subject which had been started at their last meeting.

Margaret was recalled to a sense of the present by some trivial,

low-spoken remark of her mother's; and on suddenly looking up

from her work, her eye was caught by the difference of outward

appearance between her father and Mr. Thornton, as betokening

such distinctly opposite natures. Her father was of slight

figure, which made him appear taller than he really was, when not

contrasted, as at this time, with the tall, massive frame of

another. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving,

with a frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing

over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were

large and arched, giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty

which was almost feminine. The brows were finely arched, but

were, by the very size of the dreamy lids, raised to a

considerable distance from the eyes. Now, in Mr. Thornton's face

the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set earnest

eyes, which, without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent

enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was

looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they

were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which

were slightly compressed over a set of teeth so faultless and

beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare

bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes,

changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of

a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen honest

enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and

instantaneously except by children. Margaret liked this smile; it

was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her

father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these

details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to

explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.

She rearranged her mother's worsted-work, and fell back into her

own thoughts--as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she

had not been in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in

explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate

adjustment of the might of the steam-hammer, which was recalling

to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in

the Arabian Nights--one moment stretching from earth to sky and

filling all the width of the horizon, at the next obediently

compressed into a vase small enough to be borne in the hand of a

child.




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