'I don't know,' replied her brother, too depressed to comment upon her mode of expression.
'Well, I believe I know. He's going to turn them all off. You see if he isn't. That's what he means by saying, "Wait till the end of the week." Oh dear! oh dear! What a business there'll be! There were at least a hundred in the park that day.'
'It's their own fault. But that would be cutting off his nose to spite his ears, wouldn't it? It would inconvenience him dreadfully to dismiss so many men at once,' objected George.
George, it will be observed, knew even less of his father's business than Sarah, whose visits to her uncle Howroyd's mill and her acquaintance with the Mickleroyd family gave her some knowledge of the working of the mills; so she answered now, 'Oh, he won't care. He'll shut a workroom up and make the others work harder. You may trust him for not inconveniencing himself; it's the people who will be thrown out of employment that I am sorry for.'
George did not argue the matter with her, but walked off to see his uncle, who had nothing consoling to say to him, except that he would stand by them whatever happened.
'And what do you suppose he expects to happen?' George asked his sister, rather irritably, when he returned.
'Goodness knows! All I know is that I shall be glad when this week is over,' she replied.
But Sarah was wrong, for when the time came there was no gladness at Balmoral.
'You were right, Sarah,' said George, coming in and throwing himself down on a cane armchair in the garden, near where his sister was sitting reading.
'I generally am,' said Sarah lightly. She and her brother were great friends in spite of their abuse of each other.