"Always at work!" repeated Mrs. Buffle. "You don't know much of 'em, mum, or you'd not say it. They'll play one day, and work the next; that's their work. It's only a few of the steady ones that'll work regular, all the week through." "What could a good, steady workwoman earn a week at the glove-making?" "That depends, mum, upon how close she stuck to it," responded Mrs. Buffle. "I mean, sitting closely." "Oh, well," debated Mrs. Buffle carelessly, "she might earn ten shillings a week, and do it comfortable." Ten shillings a week! Jane's heart beat hopefully. Upon ten shillings a week she might manage to exist, to keep her children from starvation, until better days arose. _She_, impelled by necessity, could sit longer and closer, too, than perhaps those women did. Mrs. Buffle continued, full of inward gratulation that her silent customer had come round to gossip at last. "They be the improvidentest things in the world, mum, these gloveress girls. Sundays they be dressed up as grand as queens, flowers inside their bonnets, and ribbuns out, a-setting the churches and chapels alight with their finery; and then off for walks with their sweethearts, all the afternoon and evening. Mondays is mostly spent in waste, gathering of themselves at each other's houses, talking and laughing, or, may be, off to the fields again--anything for idleness. Tuesdays is often the same, and then the rest of the week they has to scout over their work, to get it in on the Saturday. Ah! you don't know 'em, mum." Jane paid for her darning cotton and came away, much to Mrs. Buffle's regret. "Ten shillings a week," kept ringing in her ears. CHAPTER XIX. MRS. REECE AND DOBBS. Jane was busy that evening; but the following morning she went into Samuel Lynn's. Patience was in the kitchen, washing currants for a pudding; the maid upstairs at her work. Jane held the body of Anna's frock in her hand. She wished to try it on. "Anna is not at home," was the reply of Patience. "She is gone to spend the day with Mary Ashley." Jane felt sorry; she had been in hopes of finishing it that day. "Patience," said she, "I want to ask your advice. I have been thinking that I might get employment at sewing gloves. It seems easy work to learn." "Would thee like the work?" asked Patience. "Ladies have a prejudice against it, because it is the work supplied to the poor. Not but that some ladies in this town, willing to eke out their means, do work at it in private. They get the work brought out to them and taken in." "That would be the worst for me," observed Jane: "taking in the work. I do fear I should not like it." "Of course not. Thee could not go to the manufactory and stand amid the crowd of women for thy turn to be served as one of them. Wait thee an instant."