There were other phases, too. It was not always poverty, Margaret found, that was responsible for setting the children to work. Sometimes it was ambition. There were men who could not even speak the language of their adopted country intelligibly, yet who had ever before them the one end and aim--money. To this end and aim were sacrificed all the life and strength of whatever was theirs. The minute such a man's boys and girls were big enough and tall enough to be "sworn in" he got the papers and set them to work; and never after that, as long as they could move one dragging little foot after the other, did they cease to pour into the hungry treasury of his hand the pitiful dimes and pennies that represented all they knew of childhood. CHAPTER XXXII The winter passed and the spring came. The Mill House, even to the most skeptical observer, showed signs of being a success. Even already a visible influence had radiated from its shining windows and orderly yard; and the neighboring houses, with their obvious attempt at "slickin' up," reminded one of a small boy who has been told to wash his face, for company was coming. The classes boasted a larger attendance, and the stomachs and the babies of many a family in the town were feeling the beneficial results of the lessons. To Margaret, however, the whole thing seemed hopelessly small: there was so much to do, so little done! She was still the little girl with the teaspoon and the bowl of sand; and the chasm yawned as wide as ever. To tell the truth, Margaret was tired, discouraged, and homesick. For months her strength, time, nerves, and sympathies had been taxed to the utmost; and now that there had come a breathing space, when the intricate machinery of her scheme could run for a moment without her hand at the throttle, she was left weak and nerveless. She was, in fact, perilously near a breakdown. Added to all this, she was lonely. More than she would own to herself she missed her friends, her home life at Hilcrest, and the tender care and sympathetic interest that had been lavished upon her for so many years. Here she was the head, the strong tower of defense, the one to whom everybody came with troubles, perplexities, and griefs. There was no human being to whom she could turn for comfort. They all looked to her. Even Bobby McGinnis, when she saw him at all--which was seldom--treated her with a frigid deference that was inexpressibly annoying to her.