; and the
well-kept turf, the bright cottage gardens, the new central group of
library, hospital and club-house, gave to the mill-village the hopeful
air of a "rising" residential suburb.

In the bright June light, behind their fresh green mantle of trees and
creepers, even the factory buildings looked less stern and prison-like
than formerly; and the turfing and planting of the adjoining
river-banks had transformed a waste of foul mud and refuse into a little
park where the operatives might refresh themselves at midday.

Yes--Westmore was alive at last: the dead city of which Justine had once
spoken had risen from its grave, and its blank face had taken on a
meaning. As Justine glanced at her husband she saw that the same thought
was in his mind. However achieved, at whatever cost of personal misery
and error, the work of awakening and freeing Westmore was done, and that
work had justified itself.

She looked from Amherst to Cicely, who sat opposite, eager and rosy in
her mourning frock--for Mr. Langhope had died some two months
previously--and as intent as her step-parents on the scene before her.
Cicely was old enough now to regard her connection with Westmore as
something more than a nursery game. She was beginning to learn a great
deal about the mills, and to understand, in simple, friendly ways,
something of her own relation to them. The work and play of the
children, the interests and relaxations provided for their elders, had
been gradually explained to her by Justine, and she knew that this
shining tenth birthday of hers was to throw its light as far as the
clouds of factory-smoke extended.

As they mounted the slope to Hopewood, the spacious white building,
with its enfolding colonnades, its broad terraces and tennis-courts,
shone through the trees like some bright country-house adorned for its
master's home-coming; and Amherst and his wife might have been driving
up to the house which had been built to shelter their wedded happiness.
The thought flashed across Justine as their carriage climbed the hill.
She was as much absorbed as Amherst in the welfare of Westmore, it had
become more and more, to both, the refuge in which their lives still met
and mingled; but for a moment, as they paused before the flower-decked
porch, and he turned to help her from the carriage, it occurred to her
to wonder what her sensations would have been if he had been bringing
her home--to a real home of their own--instead of acc