‘A nice angel you’ll find her when I’m gone,’ grumbled Mrs. Heywood. ‘Once more,’ broke in Myles’s voice, ‘I tell you, mother, I have spoken to you for the last time, unless I hear that this abominable thing is given up--for the last time.’ ‘Myles!’ implored his sister. But she might as well have tried to move one of the great boulders on Blackrigg as make him soften or yield one jot. ‘Come, lass!’ he observed to her. ‘Those that must work must eat. The time’s gone by in this precious palaver, and we’ve only twenty minutes left.’ He sat down and helped himself, and tried to look as if nothing had happened; soon, however, he laid down his knife and fork, and told Mary, who had not even pretended to eat, that it was time to go. She put her shawl over her head, and, saying good afternoon to Edmund, they went out. CHAPTER VII. SANS FAÇON. Six o’clock was the time at which the work-people ‘knocked off.’ Myles and Mary had not spoken as they went to their work, and of course not during the afternoon; and it was only as they were coming home again that they first named the subject which at that moment lay nearest their hearts. Mary was all for mildness and temperate measures. ‘I think, Myles, that if we was to be kind to her, and talk to her, hoo’d likely give it up,’ said the girl, in her soft, broad, Lancashire dialect. ‘Not she, Molly. She’s no intention of giving it up.’ ‘I never could abide yon Hoyle,’ went on Mary. ‘A false, sneakin’ fellow, he always seemed to me. I reckon he’s after mother’s bit o’ brass; but how hoo can gi’ so mich as a thought to him--nay, it fair passes me!’ ‘Ay! you may well blush! I don’t wonder!’ said Myles, grimly. ‘It looks as if some people’s minds were fair crooked, or set up on edge, or upside down, or something.’ They went into the house, and found Edmund alone. ‘She’s not coming back,’ said he, by way of salutation. ‘She’s gone to some of his relations. She says she’s lived through a deal o’ trouble, and has found out at last what it was to be turned out of doors by her own children.’ Neither Mary nor Myles made any answer to this announcement. Mary got tea ready, and they sat down. It was a silent painful meal. Myles rose from it with a sense of relief, and taking Edmund’s book to change, said he was going down to the reading-room. ‘Would thou mind calling at th’ saddler’s in Bold Street for yon strap o’ mine?’ said Mary. ‘What strap, Molly?’ ‘It’s a girder as I took to have a new un made like it. He’ll give you both th’ old and th’ new un. I could like to have it to take wi’ me to-morn. I’ve been using Sally Rogers’; but hoo’s comin’ back again to-morn, and hoo’ll want it hoo’rsel.’ ‘Ay, I’ll get it,’ said Myles, putting on his cap and going out.