“It will be long before we shall be wanted as advocates of the use of machinery in this place,” replied Mrs. Stone. “I can scarcely imagine that in our lifetime there will be any complaints of too great an abundance of productive power.” “When we can afford it, my dear, perhaps we may indulge ourselves with a visit to England, and then we can judge for ourselves whether it has been a good thing or not for our Yorkshire friends and neighbours that improved machinery has been introduced there. If they have any trade at all, it is owing to this cause, for they could never have supported a competition with other manufacturing places by any means but this.” “Your father seems well enough satisfied with his trade,” said Mrs. Stone. “He and his people have suffered occasionally, as all do, from a temporary glut in the market; but he has witnessed, through a long life, a gradual and steady extension of trade with the gradual introduction and improvement of machinery. I only wish that our settlement may have the same experience on the small scale which will suit our numbers. “Perhaps,” said her husband, “if we should live to see our grand-children grow up in this place, we may be able to give them a lesson out of our experience. I can fancy you, a venerable grandmother, sitting at a window of a handsome stone house on yonder slope, and saying to a grandchild,— “‘I well remember cutting up our meat with stones, and cooking it in a hole in the ground on the very spot where those tanpits are in use, preparing leather enough to maintain a hundred people by its sale. There, where the threshing machines turn out corn on which thousands are to feed, stood our labourers with their flails, toiling to supply our little band with a scanty provision. There, where that range of mills is preparing dye-woods to be sent east and west, were hands which could ill be spared once employed in chopping fuel for our nightly fires; and, beyond, where the straw-platting and basket manufactory employs a hundred and fifty of our population, sat little Betsy on the grass, trying to make a frame-work of twigs. And, on that side, where the brick-grounds and potteries extend over three acres, did our first potter attempt his first basin, unsteady and crooked as it was, for want of the machinery which now enables us to make such ware as we may well be proud of. There is now not a house within a hundred miles that has not some of our blue and white tea-ware, or a dinner service of our yellow ware, or, at least, some of our brown basins.’” “Some of our grand-children will surely be potters, if you be a true prophet,” said Mrs. Stone, laughing. “Very likely. And if they are, I hope they will be always on the watch to introduce every mechanical improvement into their business, as a duty to society and to themselves.”