As for Miss Carrington, she had at first absolutely
quailed before that most righteous indignation.
She turned from white to red, and from
red to white again; nor did she trust herself to
speak till she could regain that sarcastic tone in
which she had spoken, at first.

"After such a display of emotion, to call it
by a mild term, as this, I think it will be better
for me to retire. If I am unworthy to live at
all, I am certainly especially unworthy to live
in the presence of such injured purity.
Meanwhile, I must frankly own that I am sorry for
you, Mr. Penmore."

"Oh, let her go—let her go," murmured
Gabrielle, still sobbing convulsively on her
husband's breast.

"After what has happened—" Gilbert
began addressing his cousin.

"Oh, you need not be afraid," she answered.
"After what has happened, it is, as you were
going to say no doubt, better that all
intercourse should cease between us. The
intentions with which I originally came here have
been misinterpreted, and the foulest aspersions
have been cast upon my character. There is
an end of everything between us."

It is not to be supposed that a scene of such
a painful nature as this which I have attempted
to describe could reach its termination without
the introduction into it of some element of the
more grotesque sort. Miss Cantanker, who
had remained silent all this time, and who had
indeed worn the appearance of one so utterly
paralysed and overwhelmed with astonishment
as to have lost all power of speech, now when
she saw her mistress about to leave the room,
burst out into a tirade of frenzied eloquence,
such as is not often heard.

"Yes," she exclaimed, looking around her
with flashing eyes, "and if my mistress had
listened to me, it's long enough ago that all this
would have been brought to an end. To come
to a 'ouse like this, where the very beds is of
iron like a workus or a prison in place of her
nice four-poster with hangings like a Christian's
should be, and valance round the bottom—to
get nothing to eat but what's unfit to set before
a dog, and she ordered in a special way to have
her nootriment of the daintiest and the best—
to have all this to undergo, and her own devoted
servant also annoyed and put upon at every
turn with a dog-hole offered her to sleep in and
required to take her meals with an ignorant
servant-of-all-work that couldn't spell her own
name—and besides all this to be insulted and
told she wasn't fit to live—why, 'tis enough to
make one's very spirit bust with rage and leave
the 'ouse at wanst without so much as waiting
for a cab."

At this point, Miss Cantanker's address was
cut short by her mistress, who, telling her to be
silent, and to follow her immediately, made at
once for the door. Before she passed through
it, she turned round, and addressing Gilbert
again, said:

"It will be necessary that I should see you
once more, in order to make a final settlement
of a business nature. If you please, we will say
at nine o'clock to-morrow."

And with that she left the room.

TO-MORROW!

EXETER SIXTY YEARS AGO.

MANUFACTURING was, in former times, a term
far more appropriately applied to the great
labours of our country than it can be now—for these
immense productions were once almost wholly the
result of hand labour. Machinafactures would
be a more becoming name for the outpourings of
our immense establishments, now that engines
have to such an extent superseded manual toil.
In the ancient staple trade of England, from the
shearing of the wool to the packing up of the
finished cloth, the very simplest appliances were
employed, and almost every stage was confided to
the personal charge of individual and isolated
man. The shearer clipped the sheep's wool, which
was delivered over to the washer to be cleaned
and dried; the solitary comber sat by his oven
and pulled it into smoothness; the spinner in
her cottage twisted her distaff, and turned and
reeled the threads, of which the weaver took
charge to feed his lonely loom. In early days
the fulling was merely the treading under feet—
the Norman word fouler still betrays its origin—
the dyer dipped the fabric into the vat, the
calenderer gave it a gloss from heavy pressure,
the tucker folded it up, and the packer corded
the finished article. Little by little, invention
facilitated, simplified, and improved, the various
processes; combined intelligence superseded
separate labour. Machinery, directed by a few,
did the work of many; and all the engineering
arts were brought to economise the cost and
to perfect the production.

Sixty years ago, the woollen manufacture
was in a transition state; there existed a
constant rivalry between the north and the west of
England; but the north had many advantages
in the competition. Engineering genius exerts
itself most successfully where it finds an
abundance of the raw materials with which it works.
Devon was, and is, rich in water power, but it has
neither coals nor iron; and the cheapness of
these, especially of the former, settles many a
question where steam can be made the motive
power. Added to this, the woollen trade of
Exeter was the child of protections and
privileges.

Threescore years ago, in the city of Exeter,
almost every other man you met, wore an apron
of emerald green serge, girded and tied with a
scarlet woollen band—they all belonged to the
"Guild of Incorporated Weavers, Fullers, and
Shearmen," who were alone permitted to exercise
their craft within the precincts of the
city, and to their body no man was admitted
who had not served an apprenticeship of seven
years in order to learn the "art and mystery"
of the said craft. Various royal charters
confirmed the monopolies, while they led to the