“Then she is really beautiful?”
“Yes, and more than that. She was sitting sewing in a plain, small parlor but she seemed to be sitting in a circle of wonderful peace. All round her the air looked clearer than in the rest of the room and something sweet and still and heavenly happy came into my soul. Then she told me all about the misery in the cottages and said it had now got beyond individual help and she was sure if thou knew it, and the curate knew it, some proper general relief could be carried out. She had began, she said, ‘with the chapel people,’ but even they were now beyond her care; and she hoped thou would organize some society and guide all with thy long and intimate knowledge of the people.”
“What did thou say to this?”
“I said I knew thou would do iverything that it was possible to do. And I promised that thou would send her word when to come and talk the ways and means over with thee and a few others.”
“That was right.”
“I knew it would be right wi’ thee.”
“Katherine says that our Dick is in love wi’ the preacher’s daughter.”
“I wouldn’t wonder, and if a man hedn’t already got the only perfect woman in the world for his awn you could not blame him. No, you could not blame him!”
“Thou must hev stayed awhile there for it is swinging close to five o’clock.”
“Ay, but I wasn’t at the preacher’s long. I went from his house to Jonathan Hartley’s, and I smoked a pipe with him, and we hed a long talk on the situation of our weavers. Many o’ them are speaking of giving-in, and going to Bradley’s factory, and I felt badly, and I said to Jonathan, ‘I suppose thou is thinking of t’ same thing.’ And he looked at me, Annie, and I was hot wi’ shame, and I was going to tell him so, but he looked at me again, and said: