l. Mr. Scherer was very proud of it all, and
ours was a sort of triumphal procession, accompanied by superintendents,
managers and other factotums. I thought of my childhood image of
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and our progress through the flames
seemed no less remarkable and miraculous.

Maude, with alarm in her eyes, kept very close to me, as I supplemented
the explanations they gave her. I had been there many times before.

"Why, Hugh," she exclaimed, "you seem to know a lot about it!"

Mr. Scherer laughed.

"He's had to talk about it once or twice in court--eh, Hugh? You didn't
realize how clever your husband was did you, Mrs. Paret?"

"But this is so--complicated," she replied. "It is overwhelming."

"When I found out how much trouble he had taken to learn about my
business," added Mr. Scherer, "there was only one thing to do. Make
him my lawyer. Hugh, you have the floor, and explain the open-hearth
process."

I had almost forgotten the Huns. I saw Maude gazing at them with a new
kind of terror. And when we sat at home that evening they still haunted
her.

"Somehow, I can't bear to think about them," she said. "I'm sure we'll
have to pay for it, some day."

"Pay for what?" I asked.

"For making them work that way. And twelve hours! It can't be right,
while we have so much, and are so comfortable."

"Don't be foolish," I exclaimed. "They're used to it. They think
themselves lucky to get the work--and they are. Besides, you give them
credit for a sensitiveness that they don't possess. They wouldn't know
what to do with such a house as this if they had it."

"I never realized before that our happiness and comfort were built on
such foundations;" she said, ignoring my remark.

"You must have seen your father's operatives, in Elkington, many times a
week."

"I suppose I was too young to think about such things," she reflected.
"Besides, I used to be sorry for them, sometimes. But these men at the
steel mills--I can't tell you what I feel about them. The sight of their
great bodies and their red, sullen faces brought home to me the cruelty
of life. Did you notice how some of them stared at us, as though they
were but half awake in the heat, with that glow on their faces? It made
me afraid--afraid that they'll wake up some day, and then they will be
terrible. I thought of the children. It seems not only wicked, but mad
to bring ignorant foreigners over here and make them slaves like that,
and so many