r there--somewhere--there were strange wonders
awaiting him. He watched the trains, long, fast, and so
inevitable-looking, rushing across the moor about a mile and a half from
where he worked, and often, he thought that perhaps some day one of
those flying monsters would bear him away from Lowwood across the moors
into the Big City. What was a city like? And the sea? How big would it
be? It was a staggering thought to imagine a stretch of water that ended
on the sky-line--no land to be seen on the other side! What a wonderful
world it must be!

But a touch of bitterness was creeping into his character, and for this
his mother's teaching was responsible. Nellie was always jealous of the
welfare of the working class, and was ever vigilant as to its interests.
She did not know how matters could be rectified, but she did know that
she and her like suffered unnecessarily.

"There's no reason," she would say, "for decent folk bein' in poverty.
Look at the conditions that puir folk live in!"

"Hoot ay! Nellie, but we canna' help it," a neighbor would reply. "It's
no' for us to be better."

"What way is it no'?" she would demand indignantly. "Do you think we
couldna' be better folk if we had no poverty?"

"Ay, but the like o' us ken no better, an' it wadna' do if we had mair.
We micht waste it," and the tone of resignation always maddened her to
greater wrath.

"There's mair wasted on fancy fal-lals among the gentry than wad keep
many a braw family goin'. Look at the hooses we live in; the gentry
wadna' keep their dogs in them. The auld Earl has better stables for his
horses than the hooses puir folk live in!"

"That's maybe a' richt, Nellie, but you maun mind that we're no' gentry.
We havena' been brocht up to anything else. Somebody has got to work,
an' we canna' help it," and the fatalistic resignation but added fuel to
her anger.

"Ay, we could help it fine, if we'd only try it. It's no' richt that
folk should hae to slave a' their days, an' be always in hardships,
while ither folk who work nane hae the best o' everything. I want a
decent hoose to live in; I want to see my man hae some leisure, an' my
weans hae a chance in life for something better than just work and
trouble," and her voice quivering with anger at the wrongs inflicted
upon her, she would rattle away on her favorite topic.

"There you go again. You are aye herp, herpin' at the big folk, or aboot
the union. I wonder you never turn tired, woman," th