she had worked before her marriage; and right welcome did her fellow
workers make her, and the look of sadness which for a time clouded her
face, though it did not detract her from her beauty,--by degrees cleared
off,--her eyes sparkled as before,--the bloom came back to her velvet
cheeks and her lips curled again into the bewitching smile that suited
them so well, and with her added years, were developed charms that she
had not possessed before.

Her swelling bust accentuated her tapering waist, and her beautifully
rounded arms, her well shaped, small hands,--her graceful carriage, all
combined to produce a perfect specimen of Yorkshire female lovliness.

Where hundreds were employed, it was not to be expected she would lack
admirers. She had many,--many more than she even imagined.

Though almost faultless in face and figure, yet she was not without some
faults.

She knew she was beautiful, and she was vain. Much of her apparent
artlessness was assumed. She was pleased to be admired, and felt
gratified to see the effect of her glance, as she favoured one with a
languishing look, and another with a haughty stare, or a wicked,
sparkling, mischief loving gleam,--transient on her part but fatally
permanent on susceptible hearts.

In her own heart she had never felt love,--she had never sounded the
depths of her own nature;--she was as yet a stranger to herself.

Amongst others, who were ever ready at her beck and call were two young
men,--both about her own age.--They are both dead now or this story