mills,
and when there showed no consciousness of any presence lower than
Truscomb's; and Amherst's first thought was that, in the manager's
enforced absence, he was to be called to account by the head of the
firm. But he was affably welcomed by Mr. Gaines, who made it clear that
his ostensible purpose in coming was to hear Amherst's views as to the
proposed night-schools and nursery. These were pointedly alluded to as
Mrs. Westmore's projects, and the young man was made to feel that he was
merely called in as a temporary adviser in Truscomb's absence. This was,
in fact, the position Amherst preferred to take, and he scrupulously
restricted himself to the answering of questions, letting Mrs. Westmore
unfold his plans as though they had been her own. "It is much better,"
he reflected, "that they should all think so, and she too, for Truscomb
will be on his legs again in a day or two, and then my hours will be
numbered."

Meanwhile he was surprised to find Mr. Gaines oddly amenable to the
proposed innovations, which he appeared to regard as new fashions in
mill-management, to be adopted for the same cogent reasons as a new cut
in coat-tails.

"Of course we want to be up-to-date--there's no reason why the Westmore
mills shouldn't do as well by their people as any mills in the country,"
he affirmed, in the tone of the entertainer accustomed to say: "I want
the thing done handsomely." But he seemed even less conscious than Mrs.
Westmore that each particular wrong could be traced back to a radical
vice in the system. He appeared to think that every murmur of assent to
her proposals passed the sponge, once for all, over the difficulty
propounded: as though a problem in algebra should be solved by wiping it
off the blackboard.

"My dear Bessy, we all owe you a debt of gratitude for coming here, and
bringing, so to speak, a fresh eye to bear on the subject. If I've been,
perhaps, a little too exclusively absorbed in making the mills
profitable, my friend Langhope will, I believe, not be the first
to--er--cast a stone at me." Mr. Gaines, who was the soul of delicacy,
stumbled a little over the awkward associations connected with this
figure, but, picking himself up, hastened on to affirm: "And in that
respect, I think we can challenge comparison with any industry in the
state; but I am the first to admit that there may be another side, a
side that it takes a woman--a mother--to see. For instance," he threw in
jocosely, "I flat