It lights up the flaxen hair of the girls,
which falls loose on their slender white necks and thin bare
shoulders, and their coarse chemises. These, with a short petticoat
of the roughest linen, form their whole attire. The warm glow falls
on the old woman's face, neck, and breast--a face worn away to a
skeleton, with shrivelled skin and sunken eyes, red and watery with
smoke, dust, and working by lamplight--a long goitre neck, wrinkled
and sinewy--a hollow breast covered with faded, ragged shawls._
_Part of the right wall is also lighted up, with stove, stove-bench,
bedstead, and one or two gaudily coloured sacred prints. On the stove
rail rags are hanging to dry, and behind the stove is a collection of
worthless lumber. On the bench stand some old pots and cooking
utensils, and potato parings are laid out on it, on paper, to dry.
Hanks of yarn and reels hang from the rafters; baskets of bobbins
stand beside the looms. In the back wall there is a low door without
fastening. Beside it a bundle of willow wands is set up against the
wall, and beyond them lie some damaged quarter-bushel baskets._
_The room is full of sound--the rhythmic thud of the looms, shaking
floor and walls, the click and rattle of the shuttles passing back
and forward, and the steady whirr of the winding-wheels, like the hum
of gigantic bees.
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