These thoughts made him speak with a singular tenderness to his daughter, and he saw the tears come into her eyes with happy surprise at it.
The day was a cold winter day, and the whole country white and spectral with unbroken snow. The farm-houses and the scattered mills rose up from it dark and well-defined, like islands in a spellbound sea. In some way it seemed exactly to fit his mood, and he walked to the mill that morning wondering at the subdued, resigned influence that swayed him.
Ben Holden met him at the gates, and said something to him about the machinery in the lower weaving-room. He went with him and examined it, and then slowly ascended to the upper shed. He had not been in it for weeks. One-half of the looms were idle, but Sarah Benson was in her old place.
He had avoided her, consciously avoided her lately, not that he loved her less, but because, in the gathering difficulties of his life, any happy termination to his love seemed so impossible. But he looked at her steadily and inquiringly this morning. Her lips quivered, and she returned the glance with one of infinite sorrow
