'I did not think a _little_,' said Hazel, looking flushed and downcast,—'only when you made me. And when people talked.' Rollo enjoyed the sight a minute or two, and then proposed a run. He kept it a very gentle run, however, and when they came to a talking pace again resumed the subject of the mills. 'How much have you thought about it?' he asked. 'What next would you propose?' 'Does your increase of wages let the children stay at home when they are sick? and the little ones when they are well?' 'I admit no children under twelve nor employ any families that send their little children to other mills. That was one of the first steps I took; to settle that. The other thing is somewhat less easy to manage. I cannot make a rule. There would be endless shamming. The only way is to keep a careful supervision myself, and send home any child manifestly unfit for work. In such a case I keep on the wages for one week; at the end of that time the child comes, or doesn't come. If the latter, I know something is very much amiss, and look after the case accordingly. And this matter, as yet, I can trust to nobody but myself.' 'You can trust me,' said Hazel. 'In such matters women's eyes are surer than men's.' 'At twelve miles distance?' said he smiling. 'You are going to open a short cut. And even twelve miles, upon Jeannie, is not much.' Rollo rode a few yards in silence. 'She is your property, of course you know?' 'Thank you, Mr. Rollo!' Hazel said softly. She was smoothing out some locks of Jeannie's mane, which the wind and the run had tossed out of place. 'Take care!' said her companion. 'I shall not take thanks from you in that shape. Here is the Hollow. I am glad Charteris is at this end.' The banks of the dell had risen up about them and the mill buildings began to appear. Paul Charteris' woollen mills came first, brown and dismal as such things are apt to look, surrounded with their straggling settlement of poor cottages. It was a glorious October day; fair over-head and glowing over all the earth; if atmosphere and colouring could have put a blessing upon misery the houses of Mill Hollow would have owned the blessing. But the clear golden light shewed the bare walls, the barren ground, the dingy, forlorn hopelessness of everything, in the full blank nakedness of the facts.