whose
employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always
results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to
her neighbour for sympathy.

'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions,
bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what
blisters I had when I began.'

'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh,
when'll it be five o'clock?'

'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.'

Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for
tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own
tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most
of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each
'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea
out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and
confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose
turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a
chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and
they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had
strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for
instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her
poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a
companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a
relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of
dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers
in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth
of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that
rewarded her for her trouble.

The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from
the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded
pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and
sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend,
Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them
together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever
sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange
to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the
active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger
girl had never repelled her, but was long