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In a corner of one of these, Johnnie's guide stopped before two silent, motionless looms, and threw on the power. He began to instruct her in their operation, all communication being in dumb show; for the clapping thunder of the weaving-room instantly snatches the sound from one's lips and batters it into shapelessness.

The land-holders like to think of the mouths they are responsible for feeding so very poorly, and the busy housewife jingles her keys from weaving-room to embroidery frame, from the little tienda on the ground floor, where she sells vino, cigars, and betel-nut, to the extemporized bakery in the kitchen, where they are making rice cakes and taffy candy, which an old woman will presently hawk about the streets for her.

The intervals were spent frolicking around around the spinning-frames, teasing and talking to the older girls, or entertaining ourselves with the games and stories in a corner, or exploring with the overseer's permission, the mysteries of the the carding-room, the dressing-room and the weaving-room. I never cared much for machinery.

It was to the great weaving-room John went first. As soon as he stood in the open door he was seen and in a moment, as if by magic, the looms were silenced, and the women and girls were on their feet, looking at him with eager, pleasant faces. John lifted his hat and said good morning and a shout of welcome greeted him.

Won't you go tell Sis' Johnnie I'm waitin' for her?" Mandy glanced forward through the weaving-room toward her own silent looms, then down at the little, flushed face at her knee. If she dared to do things, as Johnnie dared, she would pick up the baby and leave. The very thought of it terrified her. No, she must get Johnnie herself. Johnnie would make it right.

Birley's weaving-room, I dare say? 'Oh! isn't it wonderful? said Coningsby. 'A great many people. said the stranger, with a rather supercilious smile. 'But after all, said Coningsby, with animation, 'it is the machinery without any interposition of manual power that overwhelms me. It haunts me in my dreams, continued Coningsby; 'I see cities peopled with machines.

The chamber Betsy occupied was in the ell of the house, and communicated through a closet with the upper room of the old log house of two rooms which had been left standing when the new house was built. The lower apartment of this old structure was now used as a weaving-room. "But why not go down through the window of the lower room?" asked Betsy.

Here also were the huge fire-place, the big brick oven and the large pantry. Then there were the spacious "keeping" or sitting-room, with the mother's bedroom opening out of it, the great weaving-room with its wheels and loom, and two bed-rooms for the "help" down stairs, while above were the children's sleeping-rooms.

It was also the weaving-room, and the great heavy-beamed loom stood in the corner. At the farther end was the vast, smoke-blackened stone fireplace, with two large rude andirons and a swinging crane. A skillet and a gridiron stood against the jamb on one side, a hoe for baking hoe cakes and a little wrought-iron trivet were in order on the other.

They made their own sweet waters and unguents and pomades, long after the nearest chemist supplied a far better and cheaper article. Their spinning-wheels hummed by the kitchen-fire, and their shuttles glided deftly in the weaving-room, many a year after Manchester cottons were cheap and plentiful.