was now seventeen, determined to seek work in the factories. The family
was thus split up, and the younger generation brought back into the
house at night new ideas gained amid the social intercourse of the mill.

Mary Whittaker's position in the town after her marriage to Parfitt was
quietly accepted by the community of weavers. They still called her by
her maiden name, but there was nothing unusual in that. Often, too, she
was referred to as "Mary that was selled for sixpence," but here again,
at least as far as the older generation was concerned, no stigma was
implied. It was simply a frank statement of fact. With the younger
generation, however, who were quicker than their elders in absorbing new
ideas and new codes of social convention, "Mary that was selled for
sixpence" was a name that aroused curiosity, and sometimes derision.
Occasionally Mary's stepdaughters would be twitted about the name at the
mill, and their faces would burn as they realised that a dark shadow
hung over the woman whom they had been taught to call mother, and who
had won their hearts from the day on which she first set foot in their
father's house. Once they spoke of the matter to their father, anxious
to learn the exact truth from his lips.

"Aye, I bowt her for sixpence afore I wed her," he said, looking them
steadily in the face, "an' t' man that selled her to me said I'd gotten
her muck-cheap. Them was t' truest words he iver spak, an' shoo would
hae been muck-cheap if I'd gien a million pund for her."

During all the years that Mary Whittaker had spent at Holmton she had
not once caught sight of Samuel Learoyd. Fieldhead Farm was only four
miles away, but she had never had the courage to go near it. The farmer
visited Holmton only on market days, and notlung could ever induce his
stepdaughter to go near the scene of her deep humiliation. But though