Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in the continuation
of some subject which had been started at their last meeting.
Margaret was recalled to a sense of the present by some trivial,
low-spoken remark of her mother's; and on suddenly looking up
from her work, her eye was caught by the difference of outward
appearance between her father and Mr. Thornton, as betokening
such distinctly opposite natures. Her father was of slight
figure, which made him appear taller than he really was, when not
contrasted, as at this time, with the tall, massive frame of
another. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving,
with a frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing
over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were
large and arched, giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty
which was almost feminine. The brows were finely arched, but
were, by the very size of the dreamy lids, raised to a
considerable distance from the eyes. Now, in Mr. Thornton's face
the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set earnest
eyes, which, without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent
enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was
looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they
were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which
were slightly compressed over a set of teeth so faultless and
beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare
bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes,
changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of
a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen honest
enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and
instantaneously except by children. Margaret liked this smile; it
was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her
father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these
details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to
explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.
She rearranged her mother's worsted-work, and fell back into her
own thoughts--as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she
had not been in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in
explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate
adjustment of the might of the steam-hammer, which was recalling
to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in
the Arabian Nights--one moment stretching from earth to sky and
filling all the width of the horizon, at the next obediently
compressed into a vase small enough to be borne in the hand of a
child.