oal in the land," said his wife,
"and then the engines would not be able to work; and we should have our
rights again."

"Amen!" said Warner.

"Don't you think Warner," said his wife, "that you could sell that piece
to some other person, and owe Barber for the money he advanced?"

"No!" said her husband shaking his head. "I'll go straight."

"And let your children starve," said his wife, "when you could get five
or six shillings at once. But so it always was with you! Why did not you
go to the machines years ago like other men and so get used to them?"

"I should have been supplanted by this time," said Warner, "by a girl or
a woman! It would have been just as bad!"

"Why there was your friend Walter Gerard; he was the same as you, and
yet now he gets two pound a-week; at least I have often heard you say
so."

"Walter Gerard is a man of great parts," said Warner, "and might have
been a master himself by this time had he cared."

"And why did he not?"

"He had no wife and children," said Warner; "he was not so blessed."

The baby woke and began to cry.

"Ah! my child!" exclaimed the mother. "That wicked Harriet! Here Amelia,
I have a morsel of crust here. I saved it yesterday for baby; moisten
it in water, and tie it up in this piece of calico: he will suck it; it
will keep him quiet; I can bear anything but his cry."

"I shall have finished my job by noon," said Warner; "and then, please
God, we shall break our fast."

"It is yet two hours to noon," said his wife. "And Barber always keeps
you so long! I cannot bear that Barber: I dare say he will not advance
you money again as you did not bring the job home on Saturday night. If
I were you, Philip, I would go and sell the piece unfinished at once to
one of the cheap shops."

"I have gone straight all my life," said Warner.

"And much good it has done you," said his wife.

"My poor Amelia! How she shivers! I think the sun never touches this
house. It is indeed a most wretched place!"

"It will not annoy you long, Mary," said her husband: "I can pay no
more rent; and I only wonder they have not been here already to take the
week."

"And where are we to go?" said the wife.

"To a place which certainly the sun never touches," said her husband,
with a kind of malice in his misery,--"to a cellar!"

"Oh! why was I ever born!" exclaimed his wife. "And yet I was so happy
once! And it is not our fault. I cannot make it out Warner, why you
should not get