North and South Part II

Margaret does her best to like Milton Northern... but she finds it difficult. She meets some of the mill owners at a dinner and finds the women are very boastful. She tries to like John Thorton her father's pupil but she does not like his arrogance and hard hearted demeanour. He does not like his workers to oppose him and claims that he made his way up from poverty so they should be able to do the same. She is cool with him but he finds her attractive. She meets some of the mill workers, and finds it hard to understand them. She is shocked by their organising themselves to strike and not work, and she finds she is snubbed by Higgins, one of the more intelligent workers, when she offers to visit his 2 daughters. She does not seem to have a role as the vicar's daughter, visiting and helping the poor. The Northern folk are too independent for that. Margaret becomes friendly with Nicolas Higgins and his daughters and begins to understand why they have to organise a union and strike... When a strike happens, Margaret protects Thornton from the milling crowd, and he thinks that that means she is in love with him. Then he sees her at the railway station one night with a young man and begins to think she is in love with someone else and seeing him secretly. The truth is that Margaret's brother, Frederick who was in the Navy, led a mutiny because of ill treatment on his ship and he has now had to live abroad and she has to keep his visit to England secret. He comes back to see his mother who is increasingly ill and then goes back to his new home. During his brief visit, he knocks down a man who has gone to the police about him, and Margaret tells lies to cover this up. John knows she is lying but he backs her up.