of her own way than is common in any rank with girls of her age.
Part of this was the necessity of the case; for of course all the
money went through her hands, and the household arrangements were
guided by her will and pleasure. But part was her father's
indulgence, for he left her, with full trust in her unusual sense
and spirit, to choose her own associates, and her own times for
seeing them.

With all this, Mary had not her father's confidence in the matters
which now began to occupy him, heart and soul; she was aware that he
had joined clubs, and become an active member of the Trades' Union,
but it was hardly likely that a girl of Mary's age (even when two or
three years had elapsed since her mother's death) should care much
for the differences between the employers and the employed--an
eternal subject for agitation in the manufacturing districts, which,
however it may be lulled for a time, is sure to break forth again
with fresh violence at any depression of trade, showing that in its
apparent quiet, the ashes had still smouldered in the breasts of a
few.

Among these few was John Barton. At all times it is a bewildering
thing to the poor weaver to see his employer removing from house to
house, each one grander than the last, till he ends in building one
more magnificent than all, or withdraws his money from the concern,
or sells his mill, to buy an estate in the country, while all the
time the weaver, who thinks he and his fellows are the real makers
of this wealth, is struggling on for bread for his children, through
the vicissitudes of lowered wages, short hours, fewer hands
employed, etc. And when he knows trade is bad, and could understand
(at least partially) that there are not buyers enough in the market