vere distress had
been so recent as to render the women tolerant of troublesome weekly
inspections. The Curtis sisters were, however, regarded as an exception;
they were viewed as real gentlefolks, not only by their own tenants, but
by all who were conscious of their hereditary claims to respect; they
did not care whether hair were long or short, and their benefits were
more substantial and reliable than could be looked for from the casual
visitors and petty gentry around, so that sundry houses that were
forbidden ground to district visitors, were ready to grant them a
welcome.

One of these belonged to the most able lacemaker in the place, a
hard-working woman, who kept seven little pupils in a sort of cupboard
under the staircase, with a window into the back garden, "because," said
she, "they did no work if they looked out into the front, there were so
many gapsies;" these gapsies consisting of the very scanty traffic of
the further end of Mackarel Lane. For ten hours a day did these children
work in a space just wide enough for them to sit, with the two least
under the slope of the stairs, permitted no distraction from their
bobbins, but invaded by their mistress on the faintest sound of tongues.
Into this hotbed of sprigs was admitted a child who had been a special
favourite at school, an orphan niece of the head of the establishment.
The two brothers had been lost together at sea; and while the one
widow became noted for her lace, the other, a stranger to the art, had
maintained herself by small millinery, and had not sacrificed her little
girl to the Moloch of lace, but had kept her at school to a later age
than usual in the place. But the mother died, and the orphan was at once
adopted by the aunt, with the resolve to act the truly kind part by her,
and break her in to lacemaking. That determination was a great blow to
the school visitors; the girls were in general so young, or so stupefied
with their work, that an intelligent girl like Lovedy Kelland was no
small treasure to them; there were designs of making her a pupil teacher
in a few years, and offers and remonstrances rained in upon her aunt.
But they had no effect; Mrs. Kelland was persuaded that the child had
been spoilt by learning, and in truth poor Lovedy was a refractory
scholar; she was too lively to bear the confinement patiently; her mind
was too much awake not to rebel against the dulness, and her fingers had
not been brought into training early e