Likes and Dislikes
- When she gets back from the Higgenses, Margaret finds two letters waiting on her family's table. One is a note from her mother and the other has foreign postage on it.
- Her dad walks in and asks what the doctor had to say about Mrs. Hale. Margaret lies and says it's nothing to worry about. He notices that Margaret is sad as she says this, but just pinches her cheek and tells her to cheer up.
- Meanwhile, over at the Thornton house, John Thornton is asking his mother about which families have accepted their invitation to come over for dinner. She reads them out and he takes special interest in the Hales. He knows that Mrs. Hale won't be able to make it and feels bad that she is so ill.
- Mrs. Thornton and Fanny (John's sister) take the chance to talk smack about the Hales for being so poor and haughty. John scolds them and tells his mother he wishes she'd like Margaret more. She wants to know if he's asking this because he wants to marry her.
- John replies that even if he wanted to, Margaret would never accept him. That being said, Mrs. Thornton agrees to make more of an effort to get along with Margaret.
- The conversation turns to business. It seems that some workers have already started walking out of their factories.
- Thornton mentions that if the workers insist on striking, he's going to bring in cheap immigrant labor from Ireland—people who'll work for a fraction of what the local workers demand. Sounds familiar? This sort of thing is definitely still going on today.
- Thornton closes the chapter by vowing that his workers will learn a lesson if they try to tangle with him.