om Ditmar had spoken. Then the harnesses are put on the loom, the
threads attached to the cylinder on which the cloth is to be wound. The
looms absorbed and fascinated Janet above all else. It seemed as if she
would never tire of watching the rhythmic rise and fall of the
harnesses,--each rapid movement making a V in the warp, within the angle
of which the tiny shuttles darted to and fro, to and fro, carrying the
thread that filled the cloth with a swiftness so great the eye could
scarcely follow it; to be caught on the other side when the angle closed,
and flung back, and back again! And in the elaborate patterns not one,
but several harnesses were used, each awaiting its turn for the impulse
bidding it rise and fall!... Abruptly, as she gazed, one of the machines
halted, a weaver hurried up, searched the warp for the broken thread,
tied it, and started the loom again.

"That's intelligent of it," said Caldwell, in her ear. But she could only
nod in reply.

The noise in the weaving rooms was deafening, the heat oppressive. She
began to wonder how these men and women, boys and girls bore the strain
all day long. She had never thought much about them before save to
compare vaguely their drudgery with that from which now she had been
emancipated; but she began to feel a new respect, a new concern, a new
curiosity and interest as she watched them passing from place to place
with indifference between the whirling belts, up and down the narrow
aisles, flanked on either side by that bewildering, clattering machinery
whose polished surfaces continually caught and flung back the light of
the electric bulbs on the ceiling. How was it possible to live for hours
at a time in this bedlam without losing presence of mind and thrusting
hand or body in the wrong place, or becoming deaf? She had never before
realized what mill work meant, though she had read of the accidents. But
these people--even the children--seemed oblivious to the din and the
danger, intent on their tasks, unconscious of the presence of a visitor,
save occasionally when she caught a swift glance from a woman or girl a
glance, perhaps, of envy or even of hostility. The dark, foreign faces
glowed, and instantly grew dull again, and then she was aware of lurking
terrors, despite her exaltation, her sense now of belonging to another
world, a world somehow associated with Ditmar. Was it not he who had
lifted her farther above all this? Was it not by grace of her associa