‘How tainted?’ asked her father.

’Oh, papa, by that testing everything by the standard of wealth.  When he spoke of the mechanical powers, he evidently looked upon them only as new ways of extending trade and making money.  And the poor men around him—­they were poor because they were vicious—­out of the pale of his sympathies because they had not his iron nature, and the capabilities that it gives him for being rich.’

’Not vicious; he never said that.  Improvident and self-indulgent were his words.’

Margaret was collecting her mother’s working materials, and preparing to go to bed.  Just as she was leaving the room, she hesitated—­she was inclined to make an acknowledgment which she thought would please her father, but which to be full and true must include a little annoyance.  However, out it came.

’Papa, I do think Mr. Thornton a very remarkable man; but personally I don’t like him at all.’

‘And I do!’ said her father laughing.  ’Personally, as you call it, and all.  I don’t set him up for a hero, or anything of that kind.  But good night, child.  Your mother looks sadly tired to-night, Margaret.’

Margaret had noticed her mother’s jaded appearance with anxiety for some time past, and this remark of her father’s sent her up to bed with a dim fear lying like a weight on her heart.  The life in Milton was so different from what Mrs. Hale had been accustomed to live in Helstone, in and out perpetually into the fresh and open air; the air itself was so different, deprived of all revivifying principle as it seemed to be here; the domestic worries pressed so very closely, and in so new and sordid a form, upon all the women in the family, that there was good reason to fear that her mother’s health might be becoming seriously affected.  There were several other signs of something wrong about Mrs. Hale.  She and Dixon held mysterious consultations in her bedroom, from which Dixon would come out crying and cross, as was her custom when any distress of her mistress called upon her sympathy.  Once Margaret had gone into the chamber soon after Dixon left it, and found her mother on her knees, and as Margaret stole out she caught a few words, which were evidently a prayer for strength and patience to endure severe bodily suffering.  Margaret yearned to re-unite the bond of intimate confidence which had been broken by her long residence at her aunt Shaw’s, and strove by gentle caresses and softened words to creep into the warmest place in her mother’s heart.  But though she received caresses and fond words back again, in such profusion as would have gladdened her formerly, yet she felt that there was a secret withheld from her, and she believed it bore serious reference to her mother’s health.  She lay awake very long this night, planning how to lessen the evil influence of their Milton life on her mother.  A servant to give Dixon permanent assistance should be got, if she gave up her whole time to the search; and then, at any rate, her mother might have all the personal attention she required, and had been accustomed to her whole life.  Visiting register offices, seeing all manner of unlikely people, and very few in the least likely, absorbed Margaret’s time and thoughts for several days.  One afternoon she met Bessy Higgins in the street, and stopped to speak to her.