"
"Amen!" said Warner.
"Don't you think Warner," said his wife, "that you could sell
that piece to some other person, and owe Barber for the money
he advanced?"
"No!" said her husband shaking his head. "I'll go straight."
"And let your children starve," said his wife. "when you
could get five or six shillings at once. But so it always was
with you! Why did not you go to the machines years ago like
other men and so get used to them?"
"I should have been supplanted by this time," said Warner, "by
a girl or a woman! It would have been just as bad!"
"Why there was your friend Walter Gerard; he was the same as
you, and yet now he gets two pound a-week; at least I have
often heard you say so."
"Walter Gerard is a man of great parts," said Warner, "and
might have been a master himself by this time had he cared."
"And why did he not?"
"He had no wife and children," said Warner; "he was not so
blessed."
The baby woke and began to cry.
"Ah! my child!" exclaimed the mother. "That wicked Harriet!
Here Amelia, I have a morsel of crust here. I saved it
yesterday for baby; moisten it in water, and tie it up in this
piece of calico: he will suck it; it will keep him quiet; I
can bear anything but his cry.
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