with his widowed housekeeper, Mary Dinnett, and her daughter, Sabina.
The girl was nineteen, dark and handsome, and very skilled in her
labour. None disputed her right to be called first spinner at the mills.
She was an impulsive, ambitious maiden, and Mr. Best, foreman at the
works, claimed for her that she brought genius as well as understanding
to her task. Sabina joined her friend, Nancy Buckler; Mrs. Dinnett, who
had been a mill hand in her youth, took a seat beside Sally Groves, and
Mr. Churchouse paced alone. He was a round-faced, clean-shaven man with
mild, grey eyes and iron grey hair. He looked gentle and genial. His
shoulders were high, and his legs short. Walking irked him, for a
sedentary life and hearty appetite had made him stout.

The fall of Henry Ironsyde served somewhat to waken Ernest Churchouse
from the placid dream in which he lived, shake him from his normal
quietude, and remind him of the flight of time. He and the dead man were
of an age and had been boys together. Their fathers founded the
Bridetown Spinning Mill, and when the elder men passed away, it was
Henry Ironsyde who took over the enterprise and gradually bought out
Ernest Churchouse. But while Ironsyde left Bridetown and lived
henceforth at Bridport, that he might develop further interests in the
spinning trade, Ernest had been well content to remain there, enjoy his
regular income and live at 'The Magnolias,' his father's old-world
house, beside the river. His tastes were antiquarian and literary. He
wrote when in the mood, and sometimes read papers at the Mechanics'
Institute of Bridport. But he was constitutionally averse from real work
of any sort, lacked ambition, and found all the fame he needed in the
village community with which his life had been passed. He was a
childless widower. Mr. Churchouse strolled now into the churchyard to
look at the grave. It opened beside that of Henry Ironsyde's parents and
his wife. She had been dead for fifteen years. A little crowd peered