y memory long after, with
the sound of the happy voice, as though it came out of another world.
But it remained only a picture, and I never asked myself whether that
sunny face ever made any home happy, nor did I ever listen for that
voice again from behind the high stone-wall.

Many years of my life passed away. There were changes in the factories.
The machines grew more like human beings, and we men could act more like
machines. There were fewer of us needed; but I still held my place, and
my steadiness gave me a position.

One day, in the end of May, I was walking early in the morning towards
the factories, as usual, when suddenly there fell across my path a
glowing beam of sunshine that lighted up the grass before me. I stopped
to see how the green blades danced in its light, how the sunshine fell
down the sloping, bank across the stream below. Whirring insects seemed
to be suddenly born in its beam. The stream flowed more gayly, the
flowers on its brim were richer in color. A voice startled me. It was
only that of one of my fellow-workmen, as he shouted, "Look at Gloomy
Robert!--there's a sunbeam in his way, and he stumbles over it!" It was
really so. I had stumbled over a beam of sunlight. I had never observed
the sunshine before. Now, what life it gave, as it gleamed under the
trees! I kept on my way, but the thought of it followed me all up the
weary stairs into the high room where the great machines were standing
silently. Suddenly, after my work began, through a high narrow window
poured a strip of sunshine. It fell across the colored threads which
were weaving diligently their work. This day the work was of an
unusually artistic nature. We have our own artists in the mills, artists
who must work under severe limitations. Within a certain space their
fancy revels, and then its lines are suddenly cut short. Nature scatters
her flowers as she pleases over the field, does not measure her groups
to see that they stand symmetrically, nor count her several daisies that
they may be sure to repeat themselves in regular order. But our artist
must fit his stems to certain angles so that their lines may be
continuous, constantly repeating themselves, the same group recurring,
yet in a hidden monotony.

My pattern of to-day had always pleased me, for we had woven many yards
of it before,--the machines and I. There were rich green leaves and
flowers, gay flowers that shone in light and hid themselves in shade,
and I had