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For it was not a really poor population The , and just well enough off to make dissent doubly

attractive as an escape fro of the

place Over-visiting, criticism of dress, and inquisitorial examinations

had made more than one Primitive Methodist, and no severe distress had

been so recent as to render the women tolerant of troublesoarded as an exception;

they were viewed as real gentlefolks, not only by their own tenants, but

by all ere conscious of their hereditary clai or short, and their benefits were

more substantial and reliable than could be looked for froentry around, so that sundry houses that were

forbidden ground to district visitors, were ready to grant theed to thewoman, who kept seven little pupils in a sort of cupboard

under the staircase, with ainto the back garden, "because," said

she, "they did no work if they looked out into the front, there were so

of the very scanty traffic of

the further end of Mackarel Lane For ten hours a day did these children

work in a space just wide enough for them to sit, with the two least

under the slope of the stairs, permitted no distraction from their

bobbins, but invaded by their ues

Into this hotbed of sprigs was admitted a child who had been a special

favourite at school, an orphan niece of the head of the establishether at sea; and while the one

becaer to the art, had

maintained herself by sirl to the Moloch of lace, but had kept her at school to a later age

than usual in the place But the mother died, and the orphan was at once

adopted by the aunt, with the resolve to act the truly kind part by her,

and break her in to lacereat blow to