occasions for an interchange of visits with neighbouring clergymen; and the poor labourers in the fields, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or tending their cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to speak or be spoken to.  But in Milton every one was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripened intercourse of thought; what they said was about business, very present and actual; and when the tension of mind relating to their daily affairs was over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning.  The workman was not to be found after the day’s work was done; he had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop, according to his degree of character.  Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures at some of the institutions, but he contemplated doing this so much as an effort of duty, and with so little of the genial impulse of love towards his work and its end, that Margaret was sure that it would not be well done until he could look upon it with some kind of zest.

CHAPTER XLI

THE JOURNEY’S END

’I see my way as birds their trackless way—­
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not:  but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow,
In some time—­his good time—­I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird.  In His good time!’
BROWNING’S Paracelsus.

So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing with them any of the brightness of hope which usually accompanies the rays of a February sun.  Mrs. Thornton had of course entirely ceased to come to the house.  Mr. Thornton came occasionally, but his visits were addressed to her father, and were confined to the study.  Mr. Hale spoke of him as always the same; indeed, the very rarity of their intercourse seemed to make Mr. Hale set only the higher value on it.  And from what Margaret could gather of what Mr. Thornton had said, there was nothing in the cessation of his visits which could arise from any umbrage or vexation.  His business affairs had become complicated during the strike, and required closer attention than he had given to them last winter.  Nay, Margaret could even discover that he spoke from time to time of her, and always, as far as she could learn, in the same calm friendly way, never avoiding and never seeking any mention of her name.

She was not in spirits to raise her father’s tone of mind.  The dreary peacefulness of the present time had been preceded by so long a period of anxiety and care—­even intermixed with storms—­that her mind had lost its elasticity.  She tried to find herself occupation in teaching the two younger Boucher children, and worked hard at goodness; hard, I say most truly, for her heart seemed dead to the end of all her efforts; and though she made them punctually and painfully, yet she stood as far off as ever from any cheerfulness; her life seemed