Ready, Aye Ready‪!‬

"Aand they call this 'Woodbine Cottage'!" said Susan Dunn, gazing out upon a paved street, where several unwashed children were disporting themselves in a gutter.

She looked dusty and unhappy, and she spoke disconsolately,—all three things rare with Susan Dunn, for a neater and brighter and more smiling little roundabout of a woman could in general be nowhere found.

The cottage wore an air of confusion. A damp floor told of recent scrubbing, as also did pail and soap, not to speak of Mrs. Dunn's own rolled-up sleeves and bare arms.

In one corner stood a pile of chairs: in another a small wooden cupboard. An empty book-case lay on the table, and through the open door might be seen a folded carpet, waiting for admission.

Side by side with the book-case, on the round table, sat cross-legged a little girl, about seven years old, contemplating the scene with sober eyes. She had plainly climbed there to be out of the way.

There had been a family flitting from an old home to a new. No unusual event this, in the lives of many men and women, but very unusual in the lives of Richard and Susan Dunn.

For during more than fifteen years Dunn had worked as a regularly attached labourer, under Messrs. Horry, Builders, &c.; and not merely as a labourer, but as a clever and skilful "handy man," though, unhappily for himself, not as a skilled artisan. A widowed mother had been unable to afford the seven years' apprenticeship in those days requisite; and Richard Dunn's abilities were thereby handicapped through his after life.

For fifteen years they had known no change; and now suddenly a change had become necessary. Times were bad for business men, and Dunn's employers had failed. Thereby many working-men were cast adrift, and compelled to flit elsewhere in search of employment.

Dunn found what he needed, with less difficulty than he had expected. But he had to quit the pretty cottage and well-cultivated garden-slip which had long been the pride of his heart; to say good-bye to friends of many years' standing; and to find himself fresh quarters at Littleburgh.

"Woodbine Cottage" had sounded hopeful, when first he was advised to take a look at it. Dunn soon found, however, that dreams of country prettiness and twining creepers must be put aside.

Littleburgh was a bustling manufacturing town, of perhaps some nine or ten thousand inhabitants, and, viewed from a money point of view, it might be regarded as a very thriving place. There were cloth-factories and other factories, some of the former being worked almost entirely by women. Fresh houses and streets were being run up in all directions: so the builders were just then having a fairly good time of it. Of course rents were proportionately dear.

The town lay in a flat unbeautiful neighbourhood; very different from the fair and hilly landscape the Dunns were used to look upon. Long rows of small red or white houses, as much alike one to another as a supply of pill-boxes, stretched away to the east and south; and beyond them lay wide brick-fields, with a kiln here and there.