The girl's hands were working together, her eyes set, all the
slow years of ruin that had eaten into her brain rising before
her, all the tainted blood in her veins of centuries of slavery
and heathenism struggling to drag her down. But above all, the
Hope rose clear, simple: the trust in the Master: and shone in
her scarred face,-- through her marred senses.

"I knew it wud come right, allus. I was alone then: mother was
dead, and father was gone, 'n' th' Lord thought 't was time to
see to me,--special as th' overseer was gettin' me an enter to
th' poor-house. So He sent Mr. Holmes along. Then it come
right!"

Margret did not speak. Even this mill-girl could talk of him,
pray for him; but she never must take his name on her lips!

"He got th' cart fur me, 'n' this blessed old donkey, 'n' my
room. Did yoh ever see my room, Miss Marg'et?"

Her face lighted suddenly with its peculiar childlike smile.

"No? Yoh'll come some day, surely? It's a pore place, yoh'll
think; but it's got th' air,--th' air."

She stopped to breathe the cold morning wind, as if she thought
to find in its fierce freshness the life and brains she had lost.

"Ther' 's places in them alleys 'n' dark holes, Miss Marg'et,
like th' openin's to hell, with th' thick smells 'n' th' sights