upon her back at this moment was made in
this malodorous place, by these thickly crowded girls.... Was it in such
thoughts that grew this sense of some personal relation of herself with
her father's most unpleasant bunching-room? Was it for such reasons that
V. Vivian had asked her that day at the Settlement why didn't she go to
the Works some day?...

She heard Hugo's voice, with a note of admiration for visible
efficiency: "How do they keep it up at this clip nine hours?"

"Got to do it, or others will."

"You expect each machine to produce so much, I suppose?"

And Cally, so close to her lordly lover that her arm brushed his, was
seeing for the first time in her life what people meant when they threw
bricks at papa on election night, or felt the strong necessity of
attacking him in the papers. By processes that were less mental than
emotional, even physical, she was driven further down a well-trod path
and stood dimly confronting the outlines of a vast interrogation....
What particular human worth had she, Cally Heth, that the womanhood of
these lower-class sisters should be sapped that she might wear silk next
her skin, and be bred to appeal to the highly cultivated tastes of a
Canning?...

If there are experiences which permanently extend the frontiers of
thought, it was not in this girl's power to recognize one of them
closing down on her now. But she did perceive, by the growing commotion
within, that she had made a great mistake to come to this place....

"Now, here's wrapping," said MacQueen. "Hand work, you see."

But his employer's daughter, it appeared, had seen enough of
cigar-making for one day. At that moment she touched Canning's
well-tailored arm.

"Let's go.... It's--stifling here."

Hugo, just turning from the bunching-machine, regarded her faintly
horrified face with some amusement. And Carlisle saw that he was amused.

"I was wondering," said he, "how long your sociology would survive this
air...."

The peep was meant to end there, and should have done so. But unluckily,
at just that juncture, there came a small diversion. The gaunt girl
Miller, by whose machine the little party stood, took it into her head
to keep at it no longer.

Though nobody had noticed it, this girl had been in trouble for the last
five minutes. The presence of the visitors, or of the superintendent,
had evidently made her nervous; she kept looking half-around out of the
darting corners of her eyes. Three times,