The Spinners. Eden Phillpotts

of fact he did not himself know the meaning of the word half as well as Sabina.

      He filled her thoughts, and believing him to be honourable, in the everyday acceptation of the word, she knew she was safe and need not fear him. This fact added to the joy and excitement of a situation that was merely thrilling, not difficult. For she had to be receptive only, and that was easy: the vital matter rested with him. She did not do anything to encourage him, or take any step that her friends could call "forward." She just left it to him and knew not how far he meant to go, yet felt, in sanguine moments, that he would go all the way, sooner or later, and offer to marry her. Her friends declared it would be so. They were mightily interested, but not jealous, for the girls recognised Sabina's advantages.

      When, therefore, he asked her to take a walk on a certain Sunday afternoon, she agreed to do so. There was no plotting or planning about it. He named a familiar place of meeting and proposed to go thence to the cliffs—a ramble that might bring them face to face with a dozen people who knew them. She felt the happier for that. Nor could Sally Groves and her warning cast her down for long. The hint that Raymond was a gentleman and Sabina a spinner touched a point in their friendship long past. The girl knew that well enough; but she also knew what Sally did not, and told herself that Raymond was a great deal more than a gentleman, just as she—Sabina—was something more than a spinner. That, however, was the precious knowledge peculiar to the young people themselves. She could not expect Sally, or anybody else, to know it yet.

      As for the young man, life had cut away from him most of his former interests and amusements. He was keeping regular hours and working steadily. He regarded himself as a martyr, yet could get none to take that view. To him, then, came his love affair as a very present help in time of trouble. The emotions awakened by Sabina were real, and he fully believed that she was going to be essential to his life's happiness and completion. He knew nothing about women, for his athletic pursuits and ambitions to excel physically produced an indifference to them. But with the change in his existence, and the void thereby created, came love, and he had leisure to welcome it. He magnified Sabina, and since her intellect was as good as his own and her education better, he assured himself that she was in every respect superior to her position and worthy of any man's admiration.

      He did not analyse his feelings or look ahead very far. He did not bother to ask himself what he wanted. He was only concerned to make Sabina 'a chum,' as he said, to himself. He knew this to be nonsense, even while he said it, but in the excitement of the quest, chose to ignore rational lines of thought.

      They met by the little bridge over Bride, then walked southerly up a hill to a hamlet, and so on to the heights. Beneath the sponge-coloured cliffs eastward swept the grand scythe of Chesil Bank; but an east wind had brought its garment of grey-blue haze and the extremity of the Bank, with Portland Bill beyond, was hidden. The cliffs gave presently and green slopes sank to the beaches. They reached a place where, separated from the sea by great pebble-ridges, there lay a little mere. Two swans swam together upon it, and round about the grey stone banks were washed with silver pink, where the thrift prospered.

      Sabina had not talked much, though she proved a good listener; but Raymond spoke fitfully, too, at first. He was new to this sort of thing and told her so.

      "I don't believe I've ever been for a walk with a girl in my life before," he said.

      "I can't walk fast enough for you, I'm afraid."

      "Oh yes, you can; you're a very good walker."

      At last he began to tell her about himself, in the usual fashion of the male, who knows by instinct that subject is most interesting to both. He dwelt on his sporting triumphs of the past, and explained his trials and tribulations in the present. He represented that he was mewed up like an eagle. He described how the tragic call to work for a living had sounded in his ear when he anticipated no such painful experience. Before this narrative Sabina affected a deeper sympathy than she felt, yet honestly perceived that to such a man, his present life of regular hours must be dreary and desolate.

      "It's terrible dull for you, I'm sure," she said.

      "It was," he confessed, "but I'm getting broken in, or perhaps it's because you're so jolly friendly. You're the only person I know in the whole world who has got the mind and imagination to see what a frightful jar it was for an open-air man like me to be dropped into this. People think it is the most unnatural thing on earth that I should suddenly begin to work. But it's just as unnatural really as if my brother suddenly began to play. Even my great friend, Arthur Waldron, talks rubbish about everybody having to work sooner or later—not that he ever did. But you were quick enough to see in a moment. You're tremendously clever, really."

      "I wish I was; but I saw, of course, that you were rather contemptuous of it all."

      "So I was at first," he confessed. "At first I felt that it was a woman's show, and that what women can do well is no work for men. But I soon saw I was wrong. It increased my respect for women in a way. To find, for instance, that you could do what you do single-handed and make light of it; that was rather an eye-opener. Whenever any pal of mine talks twaddle about what women can't do, I shall bring him to see you at work."

      "I could do something better than spin if I got the chance," she said, and he applauded the sentiment highly.

      "Of course you could, and I'm glad you've got the pluck to say so. I knew that from the first. You're a lot too clever for spinning, really. You'd shine anywhere. Let's sit here under this thorn bush. I must get some rabbiting over this scrub. The place swarms with them. You don't mind if I smoke?"

      They rested, and he ventured to make a personal remark after Sabina had taken off her gloves to cool her hands.

      "You've hurt yourself," he said, noting what seemed to be an injury. But she made light of it.

      "It's only a corn from stopping the spindles. Every spinner's hands are like that. Alice Chick has chilblains in winter, then she gets a cruel, bad hand."

      The slight deformity made Raymond uncomfortable. He could not bear to think of a woman suffering such a stigma in her tender flesh.

      "They ought to invent something to prevent you being hurt," he said, and

       Sabina laughed.

      "Why, there are very few manual trades don't leave their mark," she answered, "and a woman's lucky to get nothing worse than a scarred hand."

      "Would it come right," he ventured to ask, "if you gave up spinning?"

      "Yes, in no time. There are worse things happen to you in the mills than that—and more painful. Sometimes the wind from the reels numbs your fingers till you can't feel 'em and they go red, and then blue. And there's always grumbling about the temperature, because what suits hemp and flax don't suit humans. If some clever man could solve these difficulties, it would be more comfortable for us. Not that I'm grumbling. Our mill is about as perfect as any mill can be, and we've got the blessing of living in the country, too—that's worth a lot."

      "You're fond of the country."

      "Couldn't live out of it," she said. "Thanks to Mr. Churchouse, I know more about things than some girls."

      "I should think you did."

      "He's very wise and kind and lends me books."

      "A very nice old bird. I nearly went to live with him when I came to

       Bridetown. Sorry I didn't, now."

      She smiled and did not pretend to miss the compliment.

      "As to the Mill," he went on; "don't think I'm the sort of chap that just drifts and is contented to let things be as they were in the time of his father and grandfather."

      "Wouldn't you?"

      "Certainly not. No doubt it's safer and easier and the line of least resistance and all that sort of thing. But when I've once mastered the business, you'll see. I didn't want to come in, but now I'm in, I'm going to the roots of it, and I shall have a pretty big say in things, too, later on."

      "Fancy!" said Sabina.

      "Oh