The Deacon looked at the whole matter from a commercial standpoint. Here was a likely young man who, though he was unused to many kinds of manual labour, eked out his lack of knowledge with extreme willingness, and asked no wages other than instruction. At the same time he was a prospective purchaser of a house that had been difficult to sell. That was the beginning and end of the matter. That Waldsen was rarely intelligent, and added to their home life, was also an advantage, but secondary. Every day Gurth held Margaret’s chair, and placed it at the table; there was no longer any restraint between them. He saw in her a sweet, womanly nature, whose best part was evidently held in check, owing to the peculiarities of the community in which she lived, which he could not fathom in spite of freedom from all prejudice. He admitted the beauty of purpose with which she clung to her ideals, but could not help contrasting her reserve with Andrea’s spontaneous cheerfulness, her love of everything that grew from the ground and every bird that flew, while Margaret seemed but half conscious of the natural beauties that surrounded her. Waldsen was most contented when employed at the mill. Birds that braved the winter gathered about it for scraps of grain. Nuthatches pried under the mossy shingles, meadow-larks stalked solemnly in the stubbly grass for sweepings, and robins fed upon the berries of many bushes that hedged the pond. Wild geese rested there, and for days at a time flocks of ducks would pass and pause for shelter, and owls roosted nightly in the mill loft, making hearty meals of mice. Many a time he saw the quail coveys far up on the hill running about among the gravestones, and he put a sheaf of rye there for them, and it waved its shadowy pinions above the snow, as if saying to the silent community, “I, too, have slept in the ground; have courage!” Another sheaf he fastened over the mill door, and, seeing it, the Deacon lectured him upon the folly of gathering a lot of birds that must be shot or scared away in berry season, saying, “It’s all very well now, but if you encourage them, where will the profit be when all the biggest berries are bird marked?” Gurth felt like answering, “I will let the birds have them all, so long as they come to me.” But then, where would be the bread for Andrea? He felt beauty so keenly that he could not bear to harness Nature and drive her like a cart-horse for his profit. His needs and his desires were almost irreconcilable, and the consciousness of it well-nigh appalled him. He could not change his temperament in the least degree; even his experiment of passing for a labourer was partly frustrated; he might possibly have masqueraded as a wandering musician, but he began to feel his incapacity for material toil.