How
much of the future might arise before her vision? Broadsides in
the streets, signed with her father's name, exonerating the late
Stephen Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing
the guilt of his own son, with such extenuation as his years and
temptation (he could not bring himself to add, his education) might
beseech; were of the Present. So, Stephen Blackpool's tombstone,
with her father's record of his death, was almost of the Present,
for she knew it was to be. These things she could plainly see.
But, how much of the Future?
A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once
again appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to
and fro at the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of
pensive beauty, always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and
serene, and even cheerful; who, of all the people in the place,
alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of
her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of
her, and crying to her; a woman working, ever working, but content
to do it, and preferring to do it as her natural lot, until she
should be too old to labour any more? Did Louisa see this? Such a
thing was to be.
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