h did not answer a word, and the two walked on in silence. Luke
Mickleroyd was thinking bitterly of the part his daughter Jane Mary had
taken in the day's work, and Sarah's thoughts were not more pleasant.

'I dare say you're right, Luke; but one can't change one's character. If
a person's born proud and horrid like me she can't help it; it's her
nature to be so,' she said after a pause.

'There's something above nature, Miss Sarah; and though I'm not one to
preach, I know you know better than me, not being a scholar, that you can
be changed,' replied the man.

Sarah was so surprised at such a speech from a mill-hand that she found
no words to reply; but when he had left her, by her desire, at the back
of the house, she made her way to her room by the back-stairs, and taking
up her favourite attitude on the wide window-seat, sat and gazed out over
Ousebank.

'I hate them all! I hate Ousebank, and the mills, and the hands--the
ungrateful people; they turned against me even, though they know I have
always taken their parts and sympathised with them,' she burst out. Then
the words of her uncle came back to her that she would one day regret the
attitude she had taken up, and she wondered whether she didn't regret it
a little now. And then Luke Mickleroyd's remarks haunted her, and with a
sudden impatient movement she got up and went to the door. There she
paused irresolutely, and then, half-shamefacedly, she turned back and
knelt down by her bedside; and after ten minutes she got up and walked
swiftly out of the room and down the stairs, wondering rather at have
said; and though she said her prayers night and morning as a matter of
habit, she did not remember ever having prayed in the daytime before.

CHAPTER XX.

SARAH'S FIRST STEP TO CONQUEST.

Sarah walked swiftly along the passages, her head erect, her colour a
little brighter, and her lips half-smiling instead of being curved in a
contemptuous droop; and on her way she met Naomi.

'Oh miss!' cried Naomi, and then stopped short, and looked curiously at
her young mistress.

'Well, Naomi, what is it? What are you looking at me like that for? Has
anything more happened?' demanded Sarah.

'No, miss; thank goodness there's nothing more than you know, and that's
enough, and too much. I was only thinking you look rare and beautiful
this evening,' blurted out the maid.

'What nonsense, Naomi! I'm just hot and red, and you don't like pale
people,' replied Sa