ad also sprung the
fields of hemp and flax in far-off lands and yielded up their loveliness
to foreign scutchers. The dried death of countless beautiful herbs now
represented the textile fabric on which all this immense energy was
applied.

Thus far, along an obvious line of thought, Raymond's reflections took
him, but there his slight mental effort ended, and even this much tired
him. The time for dinner came; Mr. Best now turned certain hand-wheels
and moved certain levers. They shut off the power and gradually the din
lessened, the pulsing and throbbing slowed until the whole great
complexity came to a stand-still. The drone of the overhead wheels
ceased, the crash of the draw-heads stopped. A startling silence seemed
to grow out of the noise and quell it, while a new activity manifested
itself among the workers. As a bell rang they were changed in a
twinkling and, amid chatter and laughter, like breaking chrysalids, they
flung off their basset aprons and dun overalls, to emerge in brighter
colours. Blouses of pink and blue and red flashed out, straw hats and
sun-bonnets appeared, and all streamed away like magic to their
neighbouring houses. It was as though its soul had passed and left a
dead mill behind it.

Raymond, released for a moment from the attentions of the foreman,
strolled among the machines of the minders and spinners. Then his eyes
were held by an intimate and personal circumstance that linked these
women to this place. He found that on the whitewashed walls beside their
working corners, the girls had impressed themselves--their names, their
interests, their hopes. With little picture galleries were the walls
brightened, and with sentiments and ideas. The names of the workers were
printed up in old stamps--green and pink--and beside them one might
read, in verses, or photographs, or pictures taken from the journals,
something of the history, taste and personal life of those who set them
there. Serious girls had written favourite hymns beside their working
places; the flippant scribbled jokes and riddles; the sentimental copied
love songs that ran to many verses. Often the photograph of a maiden's
lover accompanied them, and there were also portraits of mothers and
sisters, babies and brothers. Some of the girls had hung up
fashion-plates and decorated their workshop with ugly and mean designs
for clothing that they would never wear.

Raymond found that picture postcards were a great feature of these