This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former position,

contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we subsequently

bore many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of toil. If ever

I have deserved (which has not often been the case, and, I think,

never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow

mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary social

advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove myself

ostentatiously his equal and no more. It was while I sat beside him on

his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own in the

cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed hand to

his, at our noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look at both

sides of sympathy like this.

The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather

oppressive; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the first

round of Zenobia's fragrant tea.

"I hope," said I, at last, "that our blazing windows will be visible a

great way off. There is nothing so pleasant and encouraging to a

solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen

amid the gloom. These ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer the

hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the

beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity?"

"The blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two longer,"

observed Silas Foster; but whether he meant to insinuate that our moral

illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say.

"Meantime," said Zenobia, "it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a

shelter."

And, just as she said this, there came a knock at the house door.

"There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so!"

quoth Silas Foster. "Our firelight will draw stragglers, just as a

candle draws dorbugs on a summer night."

Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly

contrasting our own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of the

unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk felt a

little startled at the knock which came so unseasonably, through night

and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,--so it happened that

nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the summons. Pretty

soon there came another knock. The first had been moderately loud; the

second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles of the applicant must

have left their mark in the door panel.




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