my great friend, Arthur Waldron, talks
rubbish about everybody having to work sooner or later--not that he ever
did. But you were quick enough to see in a moment. You're tremendously
clever, really."

"I wish I was; but I saw, of course, that you were rather contemptuous
of it all."

"So I was at first," he confessed. "At first I felt that it was a
woman's show, and that what women can do well is no work for men. But
I soon saw I was wrong. It increased my respect for women in a way. To
find, for instance, that you could do what you do single-handed and make
light of it; that was rather an eye-opener. Whenever any pal of mine
talks twaddle about what women can't do, I shall bring him to see you at
work."

"I could do something better than spin if I got the chance," she said,
and he applauded the sentiment highly.

"Of course you could, and I'm glad you've got the pluck to say so. I
knew that from the first. You're a lot too clever for spinning, really.
You'd shine anywhere. Let's sit here under this thorn bush. I must get
some rabbiting over this scrub. The place swarms with them. You don't
mind if I smoke?"

They rested, and he ventured to make a personal remark after Sabina had
taken off her gloves to cool her hands.

"You've hurt yourself," he said, noting what seemed to be an injury. But
she made light of it.

"It's only a corn from stopping the spindles. Every spinner's hands are
like that. Alice Chick has chilblains in winter, then she gets a cruel,
bad hand."

The slight deformity made Raymond uncomfortable. He could not bear to
think of a woman suffering such a stigma in her tender flesh.

"They ought to invent something to prevent you being hurt," he said, and
Sabina laughed.

"Why, there are very few manual trades don't leave their mark," she
answered, "and a woman's lucky to get nothing worse than a scarred
hand."

"Would it come right," he ventured to ask, "if you gave up spinning?"

"Yes, in no time. There are worse things happen to you in the mills than
that--and more painful. Sometimes the wind from the reels numbs your
fingers till you can't feel 'em and they go red, and then blue. And
there's always grumbling about the temperature, because what suits hemp
and flax don't suit humans. If some clever man could solve these
difficulties, it would be more comfortable for us. Not that I'm
grumbling. Our mill is about as perfect as any mill can be, and we've
got the blessing of living in the c