Thus, forgetting his brother as though Daniel had ceased to exist, he threw himself into Estelle's enterprise and planned an entertainment that must at least have rendered the master uneasy.
CHAPTER IX
THE PARTY
Arthur Waldron did more than love his daughter. He bore to her almost a superstitious reverence, as for one made of superior flesh and blood. He held her in some sort a reincarnation of his wife and took no credit for her cleverness himself. Yet he did not spoil her, for her nature was proof against that.
Estelle, though old for her age, could not be called a prig. She developed an abstract interest in life as her intellect unfolded to accept its wonders and mysteries, yet she remained young in mind as well as body, and was always very glad to meet others of her own age. The mill girls were indeed older than she, but Mr. Waldron's daughter found their minds as young as her own in such subjects as interested her, though there were many things hidden from her that life had taught them.
Her father never doubted Estelle's judgment or crossed her wishes. Therefore he approved of the proposed party and did his best to make it a success. Others also were glad to aid Estelle and, to her delight, Ernest Churchouse, with whom she was in favour, yielded to entreaty and joined the company on the lawn of North Hill House. Tea was served out of doors, and to it there came nine workers from the mill, and two of Mr. Best's own girls, who were friends of Estelle. Nicholas Roberts arrived with his future wife, Sarah Northover; Sabina Dinnett came with Nancy Buckler and Sally Groves from the Carding Machine, while Alice Chick brought old Mrs. Chick; Mercy Gale came too—a fair, florid girl, who warped the yarn when it was spun.
Mr. Waldron was not a ladies' man, and after helping with the tea, served under a big mulberry tree in the garden, he turned his attention to Mr. Roberts, already known favourably to him as a cricketer, and Benny Cogle, the engine man. They departed to look at a litter of puppies and the others perambulated the gardens. Estelle had a plot of her own, where grew roses, and here, presently, each with a rose at her breast, the girls sat about on an old stone seat and listened to Mr. Churchouse discourse on the lore of their trade.
Some, indeed, were bored by the subject and stole away to play beside a fountain and lily pond, where the gold fish were tame and crowded to their hands for food; but others listened and learned surprising facts that set the thoughtful girls wondering.
"You mustn't think, you spinners, that you are the last word in spinning," he said; "no, Alice and Nancy and Sabina, you're not; no more are those at other mills, who spin in choicer materials than flax and hemp—I mean the workers in cotton and silk. For the law of things in general, called evolution, seems to stand still when machinery comes to increase output and confuse our ideas of quality and quantity. Missis Chick here will tell you, when she was a spinner and the old rope walks were not things of the past, that she spun quite as good yarn from the bundle of tow at her waist as you do from the regulation spinners."
"And better," said Mrs. Chick.