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North & South, 33%

Plot is moving along. Margaret, the outsider/southerner/aristocrat, laughs at the thought of being interested in Thornton.  This angers the mother who is also angry at the thought that she was interested.  Pride in both directions.

Thornton is the "good" owner--straightforward in his dealings with factory workers, but he insists he has no obligation to explain any of the economics to the men.

Bessy's father (she is the sick girl--cotton dust--whom Margaret has befriended) is headed out on strike.

Margaret's mother is dying--cancer?--hard to tell.  Margaret will rise to the occasion, first by keeping her weak father in ignorance of the true state of his wife's health.

Promises to be an interesting labor/management novel.

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