seven in the evening
With a little effort of fancy , one could readily transform the huge mills , thus illuminated , into palaces lighted up for festival occasions , and the figures of the workers , passing to and fro before the windows , into forms of beauty and fashion , moving in graceful dances . Alas ! this music of the shuttle and the daylong dance to it are not altogether of the kind which Milton speaks of when he invokes the `` soft Lydian airs '' of voluptuous leisure . From this time henceforward for half a weary year , from the bell-call of morning twilight to half-past seven in the evening , with brief intermissions for two hasty meals , the operatives will be confined to their tasks . The proverbial facility of the Yankees in despatching their dinners in the least possible time seems to have been taken advantage of and reduced to a system on the Lowell corporations . Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated , the working-men and women here contrive to repair to their lodgings , make the necessary preliminary ablutions , devour their beef and pudding , and hurry back to their looms and jacks in the brief space of half an hour . In this way the working-day in Lowell is eked out to an average throughout the year of twelve and a half hours .