Mr. Hale listened, and tried to be as calm as a judge; he

recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as

it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an

unsatisfactory compromise. His wife and daughter had not only

done quite right in this instance, but he did not see for a

moment how they could have done otherwise. Nevertheless, as a

general rule, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said, that as

the strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters' bringing hands

from a distance (if, indeed, the final result were not, as it had

often been before, the invention of some machine which would

diminish the need of hands at all), why, it was clear enough that

the kindest thing was to refuse all help which might bolster them

up in their folly. But, as to this Boucher, he would go and see

him the first thing in the morning, and try and find out what

could be done for him.

Mr. Hale went the next morning, as he proposed. He did not find

Boucher at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised

to ask for an Infirmary order for her; and, seeing the plenty

provided by Mrs. Hale, and somewhat lavishly used by the

children, who were masters down-stairs in their father's absence,

he came back with a more consoling and cheerful account than

Margaret had dared to hope for; indeed, what she had said the

night before had prepared her father for so much worse a state of

things that, by a reaction of his imagination, he described all

as better than it really was.

'But I will go again, and see the man himself,' said Mr. Hale. 'I

hardly know as yet how to compare one of these houses with our

Helstone cottages. I see furniture here which our labourers would

never have thought of buying, and food commonly used which they

would consider luxuries; yet for these very families there seems

no other resource, now that their weekly wages are stopped, but

the pawn-shop. One had need to learn a different language, and

measure by a different standard, up here in Milton.' Bessy, too, was rather better this day. Still she was so weak

that she seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see

Margaret dressed--if, indeed, that had not been the feverish

desire of a half-delirious state.

Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers,

to go where she did not care to be--her heart heavy with various

anxieties--with the old, merry, girlish toilettes that she and

Edith had performed scarcely more than a year ago. Her only

pleasure now in decking herself out was in thinking that her

mother would take delight in seeing her dressed. She blushed when

Dixon, throwing the drawing-room door open, made an appeal for

admiration.




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