But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible?

I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.

Nay, nay!” said the Squire. “It’s not so easy to break one’s heart. Sometimes I’ve wished it were. But one has to go on living—‘all the appointed days,’ as is said in the Bible.

Mr Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the natural sorrow. In the first place, there was selfishness enough in him to have taken pleasure in the idea that his great love might come in to comfort and console her; much the same kind of strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a mother's heart, when her drooping infant nestles close to her, and is dependent upon her for everything.

To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!

Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words

I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art.