'Bessy--we have a Father in Heaven.' 'I know it! I know it,' moaned she, turning her head uneasily

from side to side.

'I'm very wicked. I've spoken very wickedly. Oh! don't be

frightened by me and never come again. I would not harm a hair of

your head. And,' opening her eyes, and looking earnestly at

Margaret, 'I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do o' what's to

come. I read the book o' Revelations until I know it off by

heart, and I never doubt when I'm waking, and in my senses, of

all the glory I'm to come to.' 'Don't let us talk of what fancies come into your head when you

are feverish. I would rather hear something about what you used

to do when you were well.' 'I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been

rightly strong sin' somewhere about that time. I began to work in

a carding-room soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs and

poisoned me.' 'Fluff?' said Margaret, inquiringly.

'Fluff,' repeated Bessy. 'Little bits, as fly off fro' the

cotton, when they're carding it, and fill the air till it looks

all fine white dust. They say it winds round the lungs, and

tightens them up. Anyhow, there's many a one as works in a

carding-room, that falls into a waste, coughing and spitting

blood, because they're just poisoned by the fluff.' 'But can't it be helped?' asked Margaret.

'I dunno. Some folk have a great wheel at one end o' their

carding-rooms to make a draught, and carry off th' dust; but that

wheel costs a deal o' money--five or six hundred pound, maybe,

and brings in no profit; so it's but a few of th' masters as will

put 'em up; and I've heard tell o' men who didn't like working

places where there was a wheel, because they said as how it mad

'em hungry, at after they'd been long used to swallowing fluff,

tone go without it, and that their wage ought to be raised if

they were to work in such places. So between masters and men th'

wheels fall through. I know I wish there'd been a wheel in our

place, though.' 'Did not your father know about it?' asked Margaret.

'Yes! And he were sorry. But our factory were a good one on the

whole; and a steady likely set o' people; and father was afeard

of letting me go to a strange place, for though yo' would na

think it now, many a one then used to call me a gradely lass

enough. And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and soft, and

Mary's schooling were to be kept up, mother said, and father he

were always liking to buy books, and go to lectures o' one kind

or another--all which took money--so I just worked on till I

shall ne'er get the whirr out o' my ears, or the fluff out o' my

throat i' this world. That's all.' 'How old are you?' asked Margaret.




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