I wouldn't mind it so much if he were not a low factory
boy, unworthy of a gentleman's attention."
"How dared he touch you?" asked Mrs. Davis, angrily.
"Oh, he's impudent enough for anything. He walked home with Hester Paine
last evening from the writing school. I suppose she didn't know how to
refuse him. I met him just now and told him he ought to know his place
better than to offer his escort to a young lady like Hester. He got mad
and struck me."
"It was very proper advice," said Mrs. Davis, who resembled her son in
character and disposition, and usually sided with him in his quarrels.
"I should think Hester would have more sense than to encourage a boy in
his position."
"I have no doubt she was bored by his company," said Halbert, who feared
on the contrary that Hester was only too well pleased with his rival,
and hated him accordingly; "only she was too good-natured to say so."
"The boy must be a young brute to turn upon you so violently."
"That's just what he is."
"He ought to be punished for it."
"I'll tell you how it can be done," said Halbert. "Just you speak to
father about it, and get him dismissed from the factory."
"Then he is employed in the factory?"
"Yes. He and his mother are as poor as poverty, and that's about all
they have to live upon; yet he goes round with his head up as if he were
a prince, and thinks himself good enough to walk home with Hester
Paine.
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