She sat down, waiting until it was time to go; quietly taking the dull picture into her slow, unrevealing eyes; a sluggish, hackneyed weariness creeping into her brain; a curious feeling, that all her life before had been a silly dream, and this dust, these desks and ledgers, were real, —­all that was real.  It was her birthday; she was twenty.  As she happened to remember that, another fancy floated up before her, oddly life-like:  of the old seat she made for herself under the currant-bushes at home when she was a child, and the plans she laid for herself when she should be a woman, sitting there,—­how she would dig down into the middle of the world, and find the kingdom of the griffins, or would go after Mercy and Christiana in their pilgrimage.  It was only a little while ago since these things were more alive to her than anything else in the world.  The seat was under the currant-bushes still.  Very little time ago; but she was a woman now,—­and, look here!  A chance ray of sunlight slanted in, falling barely on the dust, the hot heaps of wool, waking a stronger smell of copperas; the chicken saw it, and began to chirp a weak, dismal joy, more sorrowful than tears.  She went to the cage, and put her finger in for it to peck at.  Standing there, if the life coming rose up before her in that hard, vacant blare of sunlight, she looked at it with the same still, waiting eyes, that told nothing.

The door opened at last, and a man came in,—­Dr. Knowles, the principal owner of the factory.  He nodded shortly to her, and, going to the desk, turned over the books, peering suspiciously at her work.  An old man, overgrown, looking like a huge misshapen mass of flesh, as he stood erect, facing her.

“You can go now,” he said, gruffly.  “To-morrow you must wait for the bell to ring, and go—­with the rest of the hands.”

A curious smile flickered over her face like a shadow; but she said nothing.  He waited a moment.

“So!” he growled, “the Howth blood does not blush to go down into the slime of the gutter? is sufficient to itself?”

A cool, attentive motion,—­that was all.  Then she stooped to tie her sandals.  The old man watched her, irritated.  She had been used to the keen scrutiny of his eyes since she was a baby, so was cool under it always.  The face watching her was one that repelled most men:  dominant, restless, flushing into red gusts of passion, a small, intolerant eye, half hidden in folds of yellow fat,—­the eye of a man who would give to his master (whether God or Satan) the last drop of his own blood, and exact the same of other men.

She had tied her bonnet and fastened her shawl, and stood ready to go.

“Is that all you want?” he demanded.  “Are you waiting to hear that your work is well done?  Women go through life as babies learn to walk,—­a mouthful of pap every step, only they take it in praise or love.  Pap is better.  Which do you want?  Praise, I fancy.”