a row of reels from which the
finished material descended through series of rollers. The retaining
roller aloft gave it to the steel delivery roller which drew the thin,
sad-looking stuff with increased speed downward. And here at its moment
of most shivering tenuity, when the perfected and purified material
seemed reduced to an extremity of weakness, came the magic change.
Unseen in the whirring complexity of the spinner, it received the
momentous gift that translates fibre to yarn. In a moment it changed
from stuff a baby's finger could break to thread capable of supporting
fifteen pounds of pressure. For now came the twist--that word of mighty
significance--and the tiny thread of new-born yarn descended to the
spindle, vanished in the whirl of the flier and reappeared, an
accomplished miracle, winding on the bobbin beneath.

Upon the spindle revolved the flier--a fork of steel with guide eye at
one leg of the fork--and through the guide eye came the twisted yarn to
wind on the bobbin below. There, as the bobbin frame rose and fell, the
thread was perfectly delivered to the reel and coiled off layer by layer
upon it.

Mrs. Northover stared to see the nature of a Spinner's duties and the
ease with which she controlled the great, pulsing, roaring frame of a
hundred spindles. Sabina's eyes were everywhere; her hands were never
still; her feet seemed to dance a measure to the thunder of the Frame.
Now she marked a roving reel aloft that was running out, and in a moment
she had broken the sliver, swept away the empty reel and hung up a full
one. Then she drew the new sliver down to the point of the break and, in
a moment, the two merged and the thread ran on. Now her fingers touched
the spindles, as a musician touches the keys, and at a moment's pressure
the machine obeyed and the yarn flew on its way obedient. Now she
cleared a snarl, or catch, where a spindle appeared to have run amuck or
created hopeless confusion; now she readjusted the weights that kept a
drag on the humming bobbins. Her twinkling hands touched and calmed and
fed the monster. She knew its whims, corrected its errors, brought to
her insensate machine the complement of brain that made it trustworthy.
And when the bobbins were all full, she hastened along the Frame, turned
off the driving power and silenced the huge activity in a moment. Then,
like lightning, she cut her hundred threads and lifted the bobbins from
their spindles until she had a pile upo