n't be no more brewers in the peerage."

He shook his head and drank his tea.

Mrs. Northover changed the subject.

"How's the works?" she asked. "Do the people like the new master?"

"Just the same--same hours, same money--everything. And Mister Daniel's
brother, Mister Raymond's, come to it to learn the business. He is a
cure!"

"He's over there now," said Job, waving his hand in the direction of
'The Tiger.' "Drinking port wine he is with that young sport, Motyer,
and others like him. I don't like Motyer's face. He's a shifty chap, and
a thorn in his family's side by all accounts. But Mister Raymond have a
very open countenance and ought to have a good heart."

"What do you mean when you say he's a 'cure,' Sarah?" asked her aunt.

"He's that friendly with us girls," she answered. "He's supposed to be
learning all there is to spinning, but he plays about half his time and
you can't help laughing. He's so friendly as if he was one of us; but
Sabina Dinnett is his pet. Wants to make her smoke cigarettes! But
there's no harm to him if you understand."

"There's always harm to a chap that plays about and don't look after his
own business," declared Job. "I understand his brother's been very
proper about him, and now it's up to him; and he ain't at the Mill to
offer the girls cigarettes."

"He's got his own room and Mister Best wishes he'd bide in it,"
explained Sarah, "but he says he must learn, and so he's always
wandering around. But everybody likes him, except Levi Baggs. He don't
like anybody. He'd like to draw us all over his hackling frames if he
could."

They chattered awhile, then worked again; but Sarah stayed to supper,
and it was not until half-past ten o'clock that she started for home.

Another Bridetown girl--Alice Chick, the spinner--had been spending her
half holiday in Bridport. Now she met Sarah, by appointment, at the top
of South Street and the two returned together.

CHAPTER VII

A WALK

The Carding Machine was a squat and noisy monster. Mr. Best confessed
that it had put him in mind of a passage from Holy Writ, for it seemed
to be all eyes, behind and before. The eyes were wheels, and beneath,
the mass of the carder opened its mouth--a thin and hungry slit into
which wound an endless band. Spread upon this leathern roller was the
hemp tow--that mass of short material which Levi Baggs, the hackler,
pruned away from his long strides. As for the minder, Sally Groves, she
seemed