"I have reason;--and that from experience. The demand for thrown silk is greater than ever it was; and if that is not a good sign, I don't know what is. Nearly twice as much thrown silk is imported now as there was when the trade was most protected; and our throwsters at home find a demand for a million of pounds more than was needed two years ago. Now what is this silk all wanted for but to be woven? and, depend upon it, Mr. Short, you will have your share." "Aye, when, I wonder? You talk as if I were a young man, instead of an old fellow who can't wait for his bread till new-fashioned schemes are tried, and the old ones found to be best. When, I say?" "When we make trial of fair play between nation and nation; which will be after next July." "And here is May now," observed Mrs. Cooper. "If no more silk is to be smuggled after July, Mr. Short, you will soon be at your loom again. I wish I could think that the French gentleman would be comfortable after that time; but I fear the feeling against him is too strong to go down so soon." "That is the worst of such feelings ever being allowed to grow up," replied her husband. "However we may talk about being on free, and fair, and friendly terms of competition with the French after July, I doubt whether we shall be willing to make the experiment really a fair one, as if we belonged all to one country." "Why, John," said his wife, "even you would not work for the foreigner so soon as for your old employer. You were saying so this very morning." John muttered something about its being a different thing countenancing Frenchmen in their proper country and in one's own neighbourhood; but he could not give a very satisfactory account of what he meant. He ended by hoping that there would be room in the world of production for everybody; and that all would find out where it was easiest to get what all wanted, that each, whether English, French, or Chinese, might be employed to furnish what he could provide most easily and cheaply, and all help one another. If this were done, all might perhaps be well furnished with necessaries and comforts; and, if not, their privations would not be made more bitter by the jealousies which God's children now nourished against one another. Short was sure the only way to have peace and quiet was to go on in the old way. "What shall we make of you, my boy?" cried Cooper, catching up the child for a romp, before beginning the arduous task of putting his new piece into the loom. "What shall we make of you, child? Will you be a little weaver?" The boy immediately began stamping with his tiny foot, and reaching out his hand for the shuttle. "Why, look!" cried his delighted mother. "He is pretending to weave already. Aye; that is the way, my boy. Tread, tread! That is the way. Will Ichabod be a weaver, like father?"