many-windowed factory stood up like a hen
among her chickens, puffing out black
"unparliamentary" smoke, and sufficiently
accounting for the cloud which Margaret had taken
to foretell rain. As they drove through the
larger and wider streets, from the station
to ihe hotel, they had to stop constantly;
great loaded lurries blocked up the not over-
wide thoroughfares. Margaret had now and
then been into the city in her drives with her
aunt. But there the heavy lumbering vehicles
seemed various in their purposes and intent;
here every van, every waggon and truck, bore
cotton, either in the raw shape in bags, or
the woven shape in bales of calico. People
thronged the footpaths, most of them well-
dressed as regarded the material, but with a
slovenly looseness about them which struck
Margaret as different from the shabby,
threadbare smartness of a similar class in
London.

"New Street," said Mr. Hale. "This, I
believe, is the principal street in Milton.
Bell has often spoken to me about it. It was
the opening of this street from a lane into a
great thoroughfare, thirty years ago, which has
caused his property to rise so much in value.
Mr. Thornton's mill must be somewhere not
very far off, for he is Mr. Bell's tenant. But
I fancy he dates from his warehouse."

"Where is our hotel, papa?"

" Close to the end of this street, I believe.
Shall we have lunch before or after we have
looked at the houses we marked in the
Milton Times?"

"Oh, let us get our work done first."

"Very well. Then I will only see if there
is any note or letter for me from Mr.
Thornton, who said he would let me know
anything he might hear about these houses, and
then we will set off. We will keep the cab;
it will be safer than losing ourselves, and
being too late for the train this afternoon."

There were no letters awaiting him. They
set out on their house-hunting. Thirty
pounds a-year was all they could afford to
give, but in Hampshire they could have met
with a roomy house and pleasant garden for
the money. Here, even the necessary
accommodation of two sitting-rooms and four
bedrooms seemed unattainable. They went
through their list, rejecting each as they
visited it. Then they looked at each other
in dismay.

"We must go back to the second, I think.
That one,—in Crampton, don't they call the
suburb? There were three sitting-rooms;
don't you remember how we laughed at the
number compared with the three bedrooms?
But I have planned it all. The front room
down stairs is to be your study and our
dining-room (poor papa!), for, you know, we
settled mamma is to have as cheerful a
sitting-room as we can get; and that front
room up-stairs, with the atrocious blue and
pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a
pretty view over the plain, with a great bend
of river, or canal, or whatever it is, down
below. Then I could have the little bedroom
behind, in that projection at the head of the
first flight of stairs—over the kitchen, you
know—and you and mamma the room behind
the drawing-room, and that closet in the roof
will make you a splendid dressing-room."

"But Dixon, and the girl we are to have
to help?"

"Oh, wait a minute. I am overpowered
by the discovery of my own genius for
management. Dixon is to have—let me see,
I had it once—the back sitting-room. I
think she will like that. She grumbles so
much about the stairs at Heston; and the
girl is to have that sloping attic over your
room and mamma's. Won't that do?"

"I dare say it will. But the papers!
What taste! And the overloading such a
house with colour and such heavy cornices!"

"Never mind, papa. Surely, you can
charm the landlord into re-papering one or
two of the rooms—the drawing-room and
your bedroom—for mamma will come most
in contact with them; and your bookshelves
will hide a great deal of that gaudy pattern
in the dining-room."

"Then you think it the best? If so, I
had better go at once and call on this Mr.
Donkin, to whom the advertisement refers
me. I will take you back to the hotel, where
you can order lunch, and rest, and by the
time it is ready I shall be with you. I hope
I shall be able to get new papers."

Margaret hoped so too, though she said
nothing. She had never come fairly in
contact with the taste that loves ornament,
however bad, more than the plainness and
simplicity which are of themselves the
framework of elegance.

Her father took her through the entrance
of the hotel, and leaving her at the foot of
the staircase, went to the address of the
landlord of the house they had fixed upon.
Just as Margaret had her hand on the door
of their sitting-room, she was followed by a
quick-stepping waiter.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. The gentleman
was gone so quickly, I had no time to
tell him. Mr. Thornton called almost directly
after you left; and, as I understood from
what the gentleman said, you would be back
in a hour, I told him so, and he came again
about five niinutes ago, and said he would
wait for Mr. Hale. He is in your room now,
ma'am."

"Thank you. My father will return soon,
and then you can tell him."

Margaret opened the door and went in
with the straight, fearless, dignified presence
habitual to her. She felt no awkwardness;
she had too much the habits of society for
that. Here was a person come on business
to her father; and, as he was one who had
shown himself obliging, she was disposed to
treat him with a full measure of civility.
Mr. Thornton was a good deal more surprised