conviction, partly in compassion to the ignorance of women in
political economics, he threw off to Margret divers commentaries
on the text, as she passed in and out.

If she had risen to the full level of Joel's views, she might
have considered these views tinctured with radicalism, as they
consisted in the propriety of the immediate "impinging of the
President." Besides, (Joel was a good-natured man, too, merciful
to his beast,) Nero-like, he wished, with the tiger drop of blood
that lies hid in everybody's heart, that the few millions who
differed with himself and the "Gazette" had but one neck for
their more convenient hanging, "It's all that'll save the
kentry," he said, and believed it, too.

If Margret fell suddenly from the peak of outlook on life to the
homely labor of cooking supper, some of the healthy heroic flush
of the knightly days and the hearth-fire went down with her, I
think. It brightened and reddened the square kitchen with its
cracked stove and meagre array of tins; she bustled about in her
quaint way, as if it had been filled up and running over with
comforts. It brightened and reddened her face when she came in
to put the last dish on the table,--a cosy, snug table, set
for four. Heroic dreams with poets, I suppose, make them unfit
for food other than some feast such as Eve set for the angel.
But then Margret was no poet. So, with the kindling of her hope,
its healthful light struck out, and warmed and glorified these
common things. Such common things! Only a coarse white cloth,
redeemed by neither silver nor china, the amber coffee, (some
that Knowles had brought out to her father--"thrown on his hands;
he couldn't use it,--product of slave-labour!--never, Sir!") the