“Mortimer has got a promise out of his cowardly partner, that he will not let you set foot on the premises, Allen, on account of the part you have taken.” “They say, Allen, that you are a marked man in Manchester, and that no master in any trade will take you in among his men. What do you think of doing, I wonder?” This question Allen could not have answered if he had wished it. It was again put to him by his wife, who waited for him in the street to tell him through her tears all the evil-bodings which a succession of Job’s comforters had been pouring into her ears since the news of the probable dissolution of the strike had got wind. “What do you think of doing, I wonder?” was still the burden of her wail. “Do you know that man?” replied her husband, pointing to a wasted and decrepit man who was selling matches; “that man was once a well-paid spinner. He lost his health in his employment, and now, at forty years of age, is selling matches from door to door. He has submitted to God’s will. I too will submit to sell matches, if it be God’s will that I should lose my good name as innocently as that man has lost his health.” “I told you how it would be. I told you—” cried Mary. “I too foresaw it, Mary, and prepared myself for much;—but not for all.” He reproached her no further for the injury she had done to his good name than by declaring his unalterable will that not an article should be purchased by her beyond a bare supply of daily food till the clothes were bought back again and restored to the Committee, or their full value, if they could not be recovered. --------------------- CHAPTER XII. HOPE EXTINCT.