"Ay, but how long will it take to earn the money to do it? This strike, as I look upon it, has took at the rate of five years of prosperity out of our lives, Master Johnny." "The league--or whatever it is--allows you all money to live, does it not?" "We get some, sir. It's not a great deal. They tell us that there's strikes a-going on in many parts just now; these strikes have to be helped as well as the operatives here; and so it makes the allowance small. We have no means of knowing whether that's true or not, us women, I mean; but I dare say it is." "And the allowance is not enough to keep you in food?" "Master Johnny, there's so many other things one wants, beside bare food," she answered, with a sigh. "We must pay our rent, or the landlord would turn us out; we must have a bit o' coal for firing: we must have soap; clothes must be washed, sir, and we must be washed; we must have a candle these dark evenings; shoes must be mended: and there's other trifles, too, that I needn't go into, as well as what Hoar takes for himself----" "But does he take much?" I interrupted. "No, sir, he don't: nothing to what some of 'em takes: he has always been a good husband and father. The men, you see, sir, must have a few halfpence in their pockets to pay for their smoke and that, at their meetings in the evening. There's not much left for food when all this comes to be taken out--and we are seven mouths to fill." No wonder they were hungry! "Some of the people you've known ought to help you, Eliza. Mrs. Sterling at the old home might: or Mrs. Coney. Do they?" Eliza Hoar shook her head. "The gentlemen be all again us, sir, and so the ladies dare not do anything. As to Mrs. Sterling--I don't know that she has so much as heard of the strike--all them miles off." "You mean the gentlemen are against the strike!" "Yes, sir; dead again it. They say strikes is the worst kind of evil that can set in, both for us and for the country; that it will increase the poor-rates to a height to be afraid of, and in the end drive the work away from the land. Sitting here with my poor children around me at dusk to save candle, I get thinking sometimes that the gentlemen may not be far wrong, Master Johnny." Seeing the poor quiet faces lifted to me, from which every bit of spirit seemed to have gone, I wished I had my pockets full of buns for them. But buns were not likely to be there; and of money I had none: buying one of the best editions of Shakespeare had just cleared me out. "Where's Hoar?" I asked, in leaving. A hot flush overspread her face. "He has not shown himself here, Master Johnny, since what he did to _him_," was her resentful answer, pointing to Dick. "Afraid to face me, he is." "I'd not say too much to him, Eliza. It could not undo what's done, and might only make matters worse. I dare say Hoar is just as much vexed about it as you are."