She smiled a grim smile, for she had been pleased by Margaret’s frankness; and perhaps she felt that she had been asking questions too much as if she had a right to catechise.  Margaret laughed outright at the notion presented to her; laughed so merrily that it grated on Mrs. Thornton’s ear, as if the words that called forth that laugh, must have been utterly and entirely ludicrous.  Margaret stopped her merriment as soon as she saw Mrs. Thornton’s annoyed look.

’I beg your pardon, madam.  But I really am very much obliged to you for exonerating me from making any plans on Mr. Thornton’s heart.’

‘Young ladies have, before now,’ said Mrs. Thornton, stiffly.

‘I hope Miss Thornton is well,’ put in Mr. Hale, desirous of changing the current of the conversation.

‘She is as well as she ever is.  She is not strong,’ replied Mrs. Thornton, shortly.

‘And Mr. Thornton?  I suppose I may hope to see him on Thursday?’

’I cannot answer for my son’s engagements.  There is some uncomfortable work going on in the town; a threatening of a strike.  If so, his experience and judgment will make him much consulted by his friends.  But I should think he could come on Thursday.  At any rate, I am sure he will let you know if he cannot.’

‘A strike!’ asked Margaret.  ’What for?  What are they going to strike for?’

‘For the mastership and ownership of other people’s property,’ said Mrs. Thornton, with a fierce snort.  ’That is what they always strike for.  If my son’s work-people strike, I will only say they are a pack of ungrateful hounds.  But I have no doubt they will.’

‘They are wanting higher wages, I suppose?’ asked Mr. Hale.

’That is the face of the thing.  But the truth is, they want to be masters, and make the masters into slaves on their own ground.  They are always trying at it; they always have it in their minds and every five or six years, there comes a struggle between masters and men.  They’ll find themselves mistaken this time, I fancy,—­a little out of their reckoning.  If they turn out, they mayn’t find it so easy to go in again.  I believe, the masters have a thing or two in their heads which will teach the men not to strike again in a hurry, if they try it this time.’

‘Does it not make the town very rough?’ asked Margaret.

’Of course it does.  But surely you are not a coward, are you?  Milton is not the place for cowards.  I have known the time when I have had to thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men, all swearing they would have Makinson’s blood as soon as he ventured to show his nose out of his factory; and he, knowing nothing of it, some one had to go and tell him, or he was a dead man, and it needed to be a woman,—­so I went.  And when I had got in, I could not get out.  It was as much as my life was worth.  So I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the factory doors.  And I would have lifted those heavy stones, and dropped them with as good an aim as the best man there, but that I fainted with the heat I had gone through.  If you live in Milton, you must learn to have a brave heart, Miss Hale.’