d them as a
necessary part of the system. What would become of the laws and the
courts if there were no rogues? We must _have_ Northwicks. It's a pity
that the Northwicks should have families; but I don't blame the
Northwicks for providing against the evil day that Northwickism is sure
to end in. I'm glad the roof can't be taken from over those women's
heads; I respect the paternal love and foresight of J. Milton in deeding
the property to them."

"It's downright robbery of his creditors for them to keep it!" Gerrish
shouted.

"Oh, no, it isn't, Billy. It's law. You must respect the law and the
rights of property. You'll be wanting the strikers to burn down the
shoe-shops the next time we have trouble here. You're getting awfully
incendiary, Billy."

Putney carried the laugh against Gerrish, but there were some of the
group, and there were many people in Hatboro', including most of the
women, who felt the want of exemplary measures in dealing with
Northwick's case. These ladies did not see the sense of letting those
girls live on just as if nothing had happened, in a house that their
father's crimes had forfeited to his victims, while plenty of honest
people did not know where they were going to sleep that night, or where
the next mouthful of victuals was to come from. It was not really the
houseless and the hungry who complained of this injustice; it was not
even those who toiled for their daily bread in the Hatboro' shops who
said such things. They were too busy, and then too tired, to think much
about them, and the noise of Northwick's misdeeds died first amid the
din of machinery. It was in the close, stove-heated parlors of the
respectable citizens, behind the windows that had so long commanded
envious views of the Northwicks going by in their carriages and sledges,
and among women of leisure and conscience, that his infamy endured, and
that the injuries of his creditors cried out for vengeance on those
daughters of his; they had always thought themselves too good to speak
to other folks. Such women could not understand what the Ponkwasset
Mills Company meant by not turning those girls right out of doors, and
perhaps they could not have been taught why the company had no power to
do this, or why the president, at least, had no wish to do it. When they
learned that his family still kept up friendly relations with the
Northwick girls, they were not without their suspicions, which were not
long in becoming their e