This was due in part to her acquaintance with a Milton laborer, Nicholas Higgins, and his sweet, dying daughter Bessy. Thornton professed derision for the strikers and Margaret, while mostly ignorant of the reasons for a strike, identified with the laborers. The imminent strike by Milton’s working class was a point of contention Mr. Thornton grew to love Margaret both despite and because of her pride, but she disliked him immensely. The two of them were at odds over capitalism and the relationship of masters and laborers. Thornton, one of Milton’s most influential and wealthiest manufacturers, garnered her particular disapproval. She disliked the business and coarseness of the inhabitants and was disdainful of the prominence of business in public life. Hale became a private tutor and Margaret tried to reconcile herself to her new and unlovely environs. The three Hales relocated to the North, where Mr. This quiet genteel life in Southern England was shattered by an unexpected and unwanted proposal from Edith’s brother-in-law, Henry Lennox, and her father’s shocking news that doubts about the Church of England led him to leave the Church and move his family to the industrial Northern town of Milton. She had spent the past ten years living with her aunt and cousin and was now looking forward to the idyllic life of Helstone with her parents. Following the celebration she returned to the village of Helstone where her father was vicar. When the novel opened, Margaret Hale was preparing for her cousin Edith’s wedding to Captain Lennox.
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