wide moor just above, and there was
nothing to keep away the sunshine. This was the reason that Maggie
Menzies still lived there, after she had taken to working in the
factory; it was a long walk to and from Keighley, but it was healthier
for the "li'le lass" to sleep in the fresh air. Everything in Maggie's
life turned upon that one small object; the "li'le lass" was her one
treasure, her one golden bit of happiness, the reason why she cared to
see the sun shine, or to eat, or drink, or rest, or to be alive at all.
Except for the child she was alone in the world, for her husband had
been killed in an accident two years ago, when the baby was only a month
old. Since then she had been Maggie's one thought and care; no one who
has not at some time in their lives spent all their affection on a
single thing or person can at all understand what she felt, or how
strong her love was. It made all her troubles and hardships easy merely
to think of the child; just to call to mind the dimples, and yellow
hair, and fat hands, was enough to make her deaf to the whirr and rattle
of the restless machinery, and the harsh tones of the overseer. When
she began her work in the morning she said to herself, "I shall see her
in the evening;" and when it was unusually tiresome during the day, and
things went very wrong, she could be patient and even cheerful when she
remembered "it's fur _her_." The factory-girls with boisterous
good-nature had tried to make her sociable when she first came; they
invited her to stroll with them by the river in the summer evenings, to
stand and gossip with them at the street corners, to join in their
parties of pleasure on Sundays. But they soon found it was of no use;
Maggie's one idea, when work was over, was to throw her little checked
shawl over her head, and turn her steps quickly towards a certain house
in a narrow alley near the factory, for there, under the care of a
neighbour, she left her child during the day.

It would have been much better, everyone told her, to leave her up at
Haworth instead of bringing her into the smoky town; Maggie knew it, but
her answer was always the same to this advice:

"I couldn't bring myself to it," she said. "I niver could git through
the work if I didn't know she was near me."

So winter and summer, through the damp cold or the burning heat, she
might be seen coming quickly down the steep hill from Haworth every
morning clack, clack, in her wooden shoes, wi