“Let’s hope so,” said Mrs. Somerville.  “Only we’ll have to pay them for it pretty soon, Nellie, or there won’t be enough strength left in us to pay them with.  I’ve got beyond minding anything much, but I would like to get even with old Church.”

They had talked away, the two women, ignoring Ned.  He listened.  He understood that from the misery of this woman was drawn the pomp and pride, the silks and gold and glitter of the society belle, and he thought with a cruel satisfaction of what might happen to that society belle if this half-starved woman got hold of her.  Measure for measure, pang for pang, what torture, what insults, what degradation, could atone for the life that was suffered in this miserable room?  And for the life of “that girl downstairs” who had given up in despair?

“How about a union now?” asked Nellie, turning with the first pieces of another coat to the machine.

“Work’s too dull,” was the answer.  “Wait for a few months till the busy season comes and then I wouldn’t wonder if you could get one.  The women were all feeling hurt about the reduction, and one girl did start talking strike, but what’s the use now?  I couldn’t say anything, you know, but I’ll find out where the others live and you can go round and talk to them after a while.  If there was a paper that would show old Church up it might do good, but there isn’t.”

Then the rattle of the machine began again, Nellie working with an adeptness that showed her to be an old hand.  Ned could see now that the coats were of cheap coarse stuff and that the sewing in them was not fine tailoring.  The cut material in Nellie’s hands fairly flew into shape as she rapidly moved it to and fro under the hurrying needle with her slim fingers.  Her foot moved unceasingly on the treadle.  Ned watching her, saw the great beads of perspiration slowly gather on her forehead and then trickle down her nose and cheeks to fall upon the work before her.

“My word!  But it’s hot!” exclaimed Nellie at last, as the noise stopped for a moment while she changed the position of her work.  “Why don’t you open the door?”

“I don’t care to before the place is tidy,” answered Mrs. Somerville, who had washed her cups and plates in a pan and had just put Ned on one of the shaky chairs while she shook and arranged the meagre coverings of the bed.

“Is he still carrying on?” enquired Nellie, nodding her head at the partition and evidently alluding to someone on the other side.

“Of course, drink, drink, drink, whenever he gets a chance, and that seems pretty well always.  She helps him sometimes, and sometimes she keeps sober and abuses him.  He kicked her down stairs the other night, and the children all screaming, and her shrieking, and him swearing.  It was a nice time.”

Once more the machining interrupted the conversation, which thus was renewed from time to time in the pauses of the noise.  The room being “tidied,” Mrs. Somerville sat down on the bed and taking up some pieces of cloth began to tack them together with needle and thread, ready for the machine.  It never seemed to occur to her to rest even for a moment.