Helstonleigh with glove manufactories. It was a trade that might be said to be a to the localities where it was carried on, since it was one of the very few employments that furnished to the poor female population easy, clean, and profitable work at their own homes. The evils arising to women who go out to work in factories have been rehearsed over and over again; and the chief evil—we will put others out of sight—is, that it takes the married woman from her home and her family. Her young children drag themselves up in her absence, for worse or for better; alone they must do it, for she has to be away, for daily bread. There is no home privacy, no home comfort, no home happiness; the factory is their life, and other interests give way to it. But with glove-making the case was different. Whilst the husbands were at the manufactories pursuing their day's work, the wives and elder daughters were earning money easily and pleasantly at home. The work was clean and profitable; all that was necessary for its being common skill as a seamstress.  
Not five minutes' walk from Mrs. Halliburton's house, and nearer to Helstonleigh, a turning out of the main road led you to quite a colony of workwomen—gloveresses, as they were termed in the local phraseology. It was a long, wide lane; the houses, some larger, some smaller, built on either side of it. A road quite wide enough for health if the inhabitants had only kept it as it ought to have been kept: but they did not do so. The highway was made a common receptacle for refuse. It was so much easier to open the kitchen door (most of the houses were entered at once by the kitchen), and to "chuck" things out, pêle-mêle, rather than be at the trouble of conveying them to the proper receptacle, the dust-bin at the back. Occasionally a policeman would come, picking his way through the dirt and dust, and order it to be removed; upon which some slight improvement would be visible for a day or two. The name of this charming place was Honey Fair; though, in truth, it was redolent of nothing so pleasant as honey.
 
Of the occupants of these houses, the husbands and elder sons were all glove operatives; several of them in the manufactory of Mr. Ashley. The wives sewed the gloves at home. Many a similar colony to Honey Fair was there in Helstonleigh, but in hearing of one you hear of all. The trade was extensively pursued. A very few of the manufactories were of the extent that was Mr. Ashley's; and they gradually in size, until some comprised not half a score workmen, all told; but whose masters alike themselves by the title of "manufacturer."
 
There flourished a shop in the general line in Honey Fair kept by a Mrs. Buffle, a great gossip. Her husband, a well-meaning, steady little man, in his speech and gait, neat and clean in his , and thence called "the dandy," was chief workman at one of the smallest of the establishments. He had three men and two boys under him; and so he styled himself the "foreman." No one knew half so much of the affairs of their neighbours as did Mrs. Buffle; no one could tell of the ill-doings and shortcomings of Honey Fair as she could. Many a gloveress girl, running in at dusk for a halfpenny candle, did not receive it until she had first submitted to a lecture from Mrs. Buffle. Not that her custom was all of this description: some of the gentlemen's houses in the neighbourhood would deal with her in a chance way, when out of articles at home. Her were good; her home-cured bacon was particularly good. Amidst other treats to Honey Fair was that of pigs and pig-sties, kept by Mrs. Buffle.
 
Occasionally Mrs. Halliburton would go to this shop; it was nearer to her house than any other; and, in her small way, had been extensively patronised by her. Of all her customers, Mrs. Halliburton was the one who most puzzled Mrs. Buffle. In the first place, she never gossiped; in the second, though evidently a lady, she would carry her purchases home herself. The very servants from the very large houses, coming in their smart caps, would loftily order their pound of bacon or shillingsworth of eggs sent home for them. Mrs. Halliburton took hers away in her own hand; and this puzzled Mrs. Buffle. "But her pays ready money," observed that lady, when relating this to another customer, "so 'tain't my place to ."
 
During the summer weather, whenever Jane had occasion to walk through Honey Fair, on her way to this shop, she would linger to admire the women at their open doors and windows, busy over their nice clean work. Rocking the cradle with one foot, or jogging the baby on their knees, to a of their own composing, their hands would be ever active at their employment. Some made the gloves; that is, seamed the fingers together and put in the thumbs, and these were called "." Some welted, or the gloves round at the edge of the wrist; these were called "welters." Some worked the three lines on the back; and these were called "pointers." So............