'How did you get out, dear? Did they see you?'
'No; Ralph is bad with his asthma, and mother is sitting upstairs with him. I said I had some sewing to do…. Oh, Dick, I cannot bear to think that you're going away, and that I shall never see you again.'
'Yes, you will, dear,' he answered cheerfully. 'Now I wonder if your husband would consent to your going on the stage?'
'Who would do the dressmaking for him?' she asked. 'He talks about the business, but we would be starving if we relied upon what we sell.' And stopping from time to time as their talk grew more earnest, they strolled through the crowded streets, Kate hanging on Dick's arm, her face inspiring the jeers of the factory girls.
'I wouldn't kiss her if I were you,' said the most impudent.
'Wouldn't you really?' cried two youths, stealing up from behind and seizing two of the girls by the waist, and kissing them despite blows and laughter.
The combats that followed forced Kate and Dick into the roadway. 'We cannot talk here,' Dick said; 'isn't there a quiet street near by?'
'There's Market Street; don't you remember, Dick, where you met me the day you took me to the potteries?'
'Yes,' he said, 'I do remember that day. What a crash! and all because you wouldn't let me kiss you; just like those boys and girls. You were more determined than those girls were, for methinks, as we say in Shakespeare, they wished to be kissed; but you didn't then.'
'That was the day,' she answered, 'that I took round Mrs. Barnes's dress after having stayed up all night to finish it. Here's Market Street,' and they walked towards the square of sky enframed in the end of the street, talking of the luck that had brought them together just at the moment when they thought that chance had divided them for ever.