hope that she would
meet Shade on the way to the mill, or that Mrs. Bence would finally get
through in time to accompany her. She was suddenly aware that there was
not a soul within sound of her voice who had belonged to her former
world. With a little gasp she looked about her as they entered
the office.

The Hardwick mill to which they now came consisted of a number of large,
red brick buildings, joined by covered passage-ways, abutting on one of
those sullen pools Johnnie had noted the night before, the yard enclosed
by a tight board fence, so high that the operatives in the first-and
second-floor rooms could not see the street. This for the factory
portion; the office did not front on the shut-in yard, but opened out
freely on to the street, through a little grassy square of its own,
tree-shadowed, with paved walks and flower beds. As with all the mills
in its district, the suggestion was dangerously apt of a penitentiary,
with its high wooden barrier, around all the building, the only free
approach from the world to its corridors through the seemly, humanized
office, where abided the heads, the bosses, the free men, who came and
went at will. The walls were already beginning to wear that garment of
green which the American ivy flings over so many factory buildings.

As the two girls came up, Johnnie looked at the wide, clear, plate
windows, the brass railing that guarded the heavy granite approach, the
shining name "Hardwick" deep-set in brazen lettering on the step over
which they entered. Inside, the polished oak and metal of office
fittings carried on the idea of splendour, if not of luxury. Back of the
crystal windows were the tempering shades, all was spacious, ordered
with quiet dignity, and there was no sense of hurry in the well-clad,
well-groomed figures of men that sat at the massive desks or moved about
the softly carpeted floors. The corridor was long, but cleanly swept,
and, at its upper portion, covered with a material unfamiliar to
Johnnie, but which she recognized as suited to its purpose. Down at the
further end of that corridor, something throbbed and moaned and roared
and growled--the factory was awake there and working. The contrast
struck cold to the girl's heart. Here, yet more sharply defined, was the
same difference she had noted between the Palace of Pleasure on the
heights and the mills at the foot of the mountain.

Would the people think she was good enough? Would they understand how
h