"Miss Marg'et, I think there BE something wrong in my head. Did
YOH ever notice it?"

Margret put her hand kindly on the broad, misshapen forehead.

"Something is wrong everywhere, Lois," she said, absently.

She did not see the slow sigh with which the girl smothered down
whatever hope had risen just then, listened half-attentive as the
huckster maundered on.

"It was th' mill," she said at last. "I kind o' grew into that
place in them years: seemed to me like as I was part o' th'
engines, somehow. Th' air used to be thick in my mouth, black
wi' smoke 'n' wool 'n' smells.

"In them years I got dazed in my head, I think. 'T was th' air
'n' th' work. I was weak allus. 'T got so that th' noise o' th'
looms went on in my head night 'n' day,--allus thud, thud. 'N'
hot days, when th' hands was chaffin' 'n' singin', th' black
wheels 'n' rollers was alive, starin' down at me, 'n' th'
shadders o' th' looms was like snakes creepin',--creepin' anear
all th' time. They was very good to me, th' hands was,--very
good. Ther' 's lots o' th' Master's people down there, though
they never heard His name: preachers don't go there. But He'll
see to 't. He'll not min' their cursin' o' Him, seein' they
don't know His face, 'n' thinkin' He belongs to th' gentry. I
knew it wud come right wi' me, when times was th' most bad. I
knew"----