"I ought to have been born in the lower classes and have had my way to make," he had been heard to say.
Unfortunately, however, he had been born a gentleman of leisure and educated as one. But this did not prevent him from indulging in his proclivities. He had made more than one wild business venture which had electrified his neighbors. Once he had been on the verge of a great success and again he had overstepped the verge of a great loss. He had lost money, but he had never lost confidence in his business ability.
"I have gained experience," he said. "I shall know better next time."
His wife had died early and his daughter had spent her girlhood with a relative abroad. She had developed into beauty so faultless that it had been said that its order belonged rather to the world of pedestals and catalogues than to ordinary young womanhood.
But the truth was that she was not an ordinary young woman at all.
"I suppose," she said at dinner on the evening of her visit to the Briarley cottage,—"I suppose these work-people are very radical in their views."
"Why?" asked her father.
"I went into a cottage this afternoon and found a young workman there in his working clothes, and instead of leaving the room he remained in it as if that was the most natural thing to do. It struck me that he must belong to the class of people we read of."
"I don't know much of the political state of affairs now," said Mr. Ffrench. "Some of these fellows are always bad enough, and this Haworth rose from the ranks. He was a foundry lad himself."
"I met Mr. Haworth, too," said Miss Ffrench. "He stopped in the street to stand looking after the carriage. He is a very big person."