‘Ay, my darling!’ his heart cried within him, in a kind of anguish, ‘but you don’t love me; and if you did, I should not be worthy of you, if I did what was wrong to win you.’ No doubt he took a wild, fantastic, mistaken view of things, but to him it was much more real than if the most accomplished logician had argued it out for him, and proved it to be founded on the purest and most solidly reasonable basis. CHAPTER IV. COMBINATION _V._ STARVATION. For the space of some six weeks--that is, from early March to the middle of April, Adrienne, Helena, Mr. Sutcliffe, Hugo, Sebastian, and others who worked with them or under them, had toiled hard at the schools of both kinds which Mr. Mallory had opened in connection with his relief system. At first considerable difficulties were naturally experienced; some of the work-people grumbled bitterly at being obliged to ‘go to school again,’ as the condition of receiving a sum, which appeared to them small indeed, after the abundant wages they had for years been earning; but the tact and kindness of the three principals, Sebastian, Adrienne, and good little Mr. Sutcliffe, and the hearty manner in which they were backed up by their subordinates, soon worked wonders. Ere long the work-people themselves discovered how much better off they were than those of their friends whose masters had not seen fit to provide for them; and who were just then groaning under the obnoxious ‘labour test,’ as it was called, which roused so much gall and bitterness before the sewing and educational schools were fairly started. Learning to make clothes, or reading, writing, and arithmetic, were felt to be decidedly more distinguished and elevating employments than stone-breaking, or road-making, and were, moreover, much better adapted to the lissom fingers, and to the physique, accustomed to sedentary labour in a high temperature, of the operatives. By degrees they fell into their places. They felt that they were known, and expected, and missed if they did not come at the appointed time. The great warehouse was warmed and lighted, and threw open its doors hospitably wide to receive them. ‘Mallory’s schools’ were known all over the town, and those who attended them were envied by those who did not.