er a
whelp and her husband a bear.

Harthouse was attracted by Louisa's beauty no less than by her pride. He
was without conscience or honor, and determined, though she was already
married, to make her fall in love with him. He knew the surest way to
her liking was to pretend an interest in Tom, and he at once began to
flatter the sullen young fellow. Under his influence the latter was not
long in telling the story of Louisa's marriage, and in boasting that he
himself had brought it about for his own advancement.

To Louisa, Harthouse spoke regretfully of the lad's idle habits, yet
hopefully of his future, so that she, deeming him honestly Tom's friend,
confided in him, telling him of her brother's love of gambling and how
she had more than once paid his debts by selling some of her own
jewelry. In such ways as these Harthouse, step by step, gained an
intimacy with her.

While Harthouse was thus setting his net, Stephen Blackpool, the mill
worker, was on trial.

It was a time of great dissatisfaction among workmen throughout the
country. In many towns they were banding themselves together into
"unions" in order to gain more privileges and higher wages from their
employers. This movement in time had reached Coketown. Rachel was
opposed to these unions, believing they would in the end do their
members more harm than good, and knowing her mind, Stephen had long ago
promised her that he would never join one. The day had come, however,
when a workman who thus declined was looked on with suspicion and
dislike by his fellows, and at length--though all had liked and
respected Stephen--because he steadfastly refused to join the rest, he
found himself shunned. Day after day he went to and from his work alone
and spoken to by none, and, not seeing Rachel in these days, was lonely
and disheartened.

This condition of things did not escape the eye of Bounderby, who sent
for Stephen and questioned him. But even in his trouble, thinking his
fellow workmen believed themselves in the right, Stephen refused to
complain or to bear tales of them. Bounderby, in his arrogance, chose to
be angry that one of his mill-hands should presume not to answer his
questions and discharged him forthwith, so that now Stephen found
himself without friends, money or work.

Not wholly without friends, either, for Rachel was still the same. And
he had gained another friend, too. While he told her that evening in
his lodgings what had occurred, and th