ts exact likeness opposite, as if it were seeing itself in a
looking-glass.

Dixon's house was shut up, and the key left next door; but the woman in
whose charge it was left knew that Libbie was expected, and came forward
to say a few explanatory words, to unlock the door, and stir the dull
grey ashes that were lazily burning in the grate: and then she returned
to her own house, leaving poor Libbie standing alone with the great big
chest in the middle of the house-place floor, with no one to say a word
to (even a common-place remark would have been better than this dull
silence), that could help her to repel the fast-coming tears.

Dixon and his wife, and their eldest girl, worked in factories, and were
absent all day from the house: the youngest child, also a little girl,
was boarded out on the week-days at the neighbour's where the door-key
was deposited, but although busy making dirt-pies, at the entrance to
the court, when Libbie came in, she was too young to care much about her
parents' new lodger. Libbie knew that she was to sleep with the elder
girl in the front bedroom, but, as you may fancy, it seemed a liberty
even to go upstairs to take off her things, when no one was at home to
marshal the way up the ladder-like steps. So she could only take off her
bonnet, and sit down, and gaze at the now blazing fire, and think
sadly on the past, and on the lonely creature she was in this wide
world--father and mother gone, her little brother long since dead--he
would been more than nineteen had he been alive, but she only thought of
him as the darling baby; her only friends (to call friends) living far
away at their new house; her employers, kind enough people in their way,
but too rapidly twirling round on this bustling earth to have leisure to
think of the little work-woman, excepting when they wanted gowns turned,
carpets mended, or household linen darned; and hardly even the natural
though hidden hope of a young girl's heart, to cheer her on with the
bright visions of a home of her own at some future day, where, loving
and beloved, she might fulfil a woman's dearest duties.

For Libbie was very plain, as she had known so long that the consciousness
of it had ceased to mortify her. You can hardly live in Manchester
without having some idea of your personal appearance: the factory lads
and lasses take good care of that; and if you meet them at the hours
when they are pouring out of the mills, you are sure to hear a go