Still, her secret cares had thinned her cheeks, and taught her lips to assume a sadder curve; had placed a line or two upon her frank, calm brow, and lent a quiet pensiveness to her dark-brown eyes. It had always been a good face--now it had the dignity and pathos of well-borne sorrow. They entered the great gas-lighted room. Myles went off to his part of the mill and Mary to hers. How hot and overpowering it felt, after the bitter rawness of the outside air! She cast aside her shawl, and set her looms going, and in a few minutes the old accustomed roar of the machinery had somewhat soothed her; and her monotonous, weary pondering over ways and means, and sharp, stinging fears as to some dread event hovering in the near future, had been somewhat dissipated by attention to her work and the chat of a fellow factory-worker. ‘I reckon we’st soon have to shut up shop here, Mary,’ said the latter. ‘I yeard Wilson say as how we couldn’t hold out mich longer.’ ‘Eh, what?’ said Mary, with a start--‘eh, I hope not, lass. What mun we do, if we’ve no work?’ The other girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’ve yeard say, too, as if we do have any work, it’ll be wi’ Surats, and I mun say I’d rayther have none at all. I conno’ work yon stuff.’ ‘I care nowt at all, whether it’s Surats, or what it is, so as I’ve summat to do, and summat to earn,’ said Mary. ‘Thou may work twelve hours a day at Surats, and not earn above six shillin’ a week,’ said her companion cynically; and then the conversation ceased, and Mary was left to her reflections. At eight they went home to breakfast, and at half-past they were at their work again, and continued at it until half-past twelve, when Wilson put his head into the room, and called out, ‘All the hands in this here room will please wait a few minutes in the big yard. I’ve got something to say to you.’ The same announcement had been made in the different rooms, and the result was, all the hands were assembled and waiting, some curiously, some apathetically, for the communication that was coming. Wilson jumped upon a lorrie which stood in the yard, and in a clear, distinct voice, read out from a paper he held in his hand this announcement:--