Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/11

6 of the great engine in the regions below, were the noblest of music in his ears. For Burley was proud of his mill, and rather inclined to consider it as the veritable and final cause of sheep and iron. Were there not men on Australian plains, and Tartar steppes, and American prairies, and English hill-sides, whose sole care was the wool which supplied his constantly craving machines?

The dusty daylight was loaded with a thousand subtle odors of oil and wool and dyes, and the sunshine fell upon hundreds of webs, many-colored and bright-tinted, soft and glossy as silk, beautiful with curious devices and borders and reliefs. It fell also upon hundreds of hands, some of them ordinary enough, slipshod both as to mind and body; others bright, handsome, alert, and full of intelligence. The best workers, almost without exception, were women, rosy-cheeked Yorkshire girls, or the more intellectual Lancashire hand, with her wonderful gray eyes, long-fringed, bewitching, and full of feeling. The men had less individuality, and the long, blue checked pinafore and cloth cap, which all alike wore, still further increased their uniformity.