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 delicate brown fish that Joel had caught, the bread her mother had made, the golden butter,--all of them touched her nerves with a quick sense of beauty and pleasure.