A STORY OF TO-DAY.

Margaret stood looking down in her quiet way at the sloping moors and fog.  She, too, had her place and work.  She thought that night she saw it clearly, and kept her eyes fixed on it, as I said.  They plodded steadily down the wide years opening before her.  Whatever slow, unending work lay in them, whatever hungry loneliness they held for her heart, or coarseness of deed, she saw it all, shrinking from nothing.  She looked at the tense blue-corded veins in her wrist, full of fine pure blood,—­gauged herself coolly, her lease of life, her power of endurance,—­measured it out against the work waiting for her.  The work would be long, she knew.  She would be old before it was finished, quite an old woman, hard, mechanical, worn out.  But the day would be so bright, when it came, it would atone for all:  the day would be bright, the home warm again; it would hold all that life had promised her of good.

All?  Oh, Margaret, Margaret!  Was there no sullen doubt in the brave resolve?  Was there no shadow rose just then, dark, ironical, blotting out father and mother and home, coming nearer, less alien to your soul than these, than even your God?

If any such cold, masterful shadow rose out of years gone, and clutched at the truest life of her heart, she stifled it, and thrust it down.  And yet, leaning on the gate, and thinking drearily, vacantly, she remembered a time when God came nearer to her than He did now, and came through that shadow,—­when, by the help of that dead hope, He of whom she read to-night came close, an infinitely tender Helper, who, with the human love that was in her heart to-day, had loved his mother and John and Mary.  Now, struggle as she would for healthy hopes and warmth, the world was gray and silent.  Her defeated woman’s nature called it so, bitterly.  Christ was a dim ideal power, heaven far-off.  She doubted if it held anything as real as that which she had lost.

As if to bring back the old times more vividly to her, there happened one of those curious little coincidences with which Fate, we think, has nothing to do.  She heard a quick step along the clay road, and a muddy little terrier jumped up, barking, beside her.  She stopped with a suddenness strange in her slow movements. "Tiger!" she said, stroking its head with passionate eagerness.  The dog licked her hand, smelt her clothes to know if she were the same:  it was two years since he had seen her.  She sat there, softly stroking him.  Presently there was a sound of wheels jogging down the road, and a voice singing snatches of some song, one of those cheery street-songs that the boys whistle.  It was a low, weak voice, but very pleasant.  Margaret heard it through the dark; she kissed the dog with a strange paleness on her face, and stood up, quiet, attentive as before.  Tiger still kept licking her hand, as it hung by her side:  it was cold, and trembled as he touched it.  She waited a moment, then pushed the dog from her, as if his touch, even, caused her to break some vow.  He whined, but she hurried away, not waiting to know how he came, or with whom.  Perhaps, if Dr. Knowles had seen her face as she looked back at him, he would have thought there were depths in her nature which his probing eyes had never reached.