Mrs. Northover, however, saw nothing to praise, for Sabina's speech had been broken a dozen times.
"If that's what you call working kindly, I'd like to see the wretch in a nasty mood," she said. "I lay you want to slap it sometimes."
Sabina was mending a drag that had burned off. The drags were heavy weights hanging from strings that pressed upon the side of the bobbins and controlled their speed. The friction often burned these cords through and the weights had to be lifted and retied again and again.
"We want a clever invention to put this right," she said. "A lot of good time's wasted with the weights. Nobody's thought upon the right thing yet."
"I'm properly dazed," confessed Nelly Northover. "You live and learn without a doubt—nothing's so true as that."
Her niece had seen her and approached, as the machinery began to still for the dinner-hour.
"Morning, Sarah. Can you do such wonders as Miss Dinnett?" she asked.
"No, Aunt Nelly. I'm a spreader minder. But I'll be a spinner some day, if Mr. Roberts likes for me to stop, here after I'm married."
"Sarah would soon learn to spin," declared Sabina.
Then she turned to bid Raymond Ironsyde good morning. His brother was away from Bridport on a tour with one of his travellers, that he might become acquainted with many of his more important customers. Raymond, therefore, felt safe and was wasting a good deal of his time. He had brought a basket of fruit from North Hill House—a present from Estelle—and he began to dispense plums and pears as the women streamed away to dinner.