But still Lancashire was the land of plenty and of hospitality; still her generous fires burnt merrily upon her ample hearths, making the stranger forget her murky skies, and the smoke-dimmed countenance of her landscapes. Her work-people still got the largest wages, her masters still made the greatest fortunes of any masters and work-people, taken collectively, in England; and nothing was said about the over-production of the last plethoric year, nor of the piled-up goods in the overstocked warehouses. CHAPTER III. RIFTS WITHIN THE LUTE. The brother and sister walked together down the sloping street already mentioned, and which was, as usual at that time, full of work-people, streaming out of the numberless factories which formed the staple of Thanshope buildings. Arms were swinging, and clogs were clattering; tongues were wagging furiously in the reaction of the release from work, and the inhalation of the air, which, though close and thunderous, was yet fresher than that in the great hot factories. Thanshope was built on a situation with considerable claims to natural beauty, and there were days, even now, when it looked beautiful. Its streets all climbed up and down steep hills. Whenever the day or the smoke was clear enough, hills might be seen surrounding it on all sides in the distance, except to the south, where Manchester lay. There was a river--the river Thanse--running through the town, which unfortunate stream formed a fertile source of bickering and heart-burning amongst the members of the town-council, the medical men, and the people who write to the newspapers: one party of them contended that there was nothing the matter with the river Thanse, it was a good and wholesome stream, which purified the town; while the other party said that it and its unspeakable uncleanness were at the root of all the ills that Thanshope flesh suffered from. Altogether, the verdict of a stranger would most likely have been that Thanshope was a dim, unlovely, smoky place, in which no one would choose to live whose business did not oblige him to do so--a place where substantial dirt was the co-operator of substantial prosperity, where grime and plenty went hand in hand. Yet there were people who loved this dirty town, and who lived contented lives in it--people not belonging to the great swarm of workers who were obliged to live there, and who, perhaps, thought more about the rate of wages than about the æsthetic condition of their surroundings.