derstand. When machines have come he has
fretted more; for one at least had been clear in his own thought, and
now he cannot have it as he will, since another's thought has been
before him. He told me all this, believing I could understand; and so I
could, madame, since love made me wise enough to see what he might mean,
and if I had not words, at least I had ears, and always I have used them
well. We are still one family when the time comes that I marry, and my
father has good wages in spite of machines, and all are reconciled to
them, save my brother. But the owners build factories. It is no longer
at home that one can work; and in these the children go, yes, even
little ones, and hours are longer, and there is no song to cheer them,
and no mother who can speak sometimes or tell a tale as they wind, and
all is different. And so my mother says always: 'It is not good for
France that the loom is taken out of the houses;' and if she makes more
money because of more silk, she loses things that are more precious than
money, and it is all bad that it must be so. My father shakes his head.
There are wages for every child; and he sees this, and does not so well
see that they earned also at home, and had some things that the factory
stops, for always.

"For me, I am weaver of ribbons, and I love them well, all the bright,
beautiful colors. I look at the windows of my St. Etienne and feel the
color like a song in my heart, and while I weave I see them always, and
could even think that I spin them from my own mind.

"That is a fancy that has rest when the days are long, and the sound of
the mill in my ears, and the beat of the machines, that I feel sometimes
are cruel, for one can never stop, but must go on always. I think in
myself, as I see the children, that I shall never let mine stand with
them, and indeed there is no need, since we are all earning, and there
is money saved, and this is all true for long. The children are come.
Three boys are mine; two with Armand's eyes, and one with mine, whom
Armand loves best because of this, but seeks well to make no difference,
and we call him Etienne for my saint and my church. And, madame, I think
often that more heaven is in him than we often know, and perhaps because
I have prayed always under the window where the lights are all at last
one glory, and the color itself is a prayer, Etienne is so born that he
must have it, too. I take him there a baby, and he stretches his hands
an