It was the Interpreter who asked the assembled workmen to endorse a petition to the governor asking clemency for Sam Whaley. The ground upon which the petition was based was that the guilty principal in the crime was still at liberty--that others, still unknown, were involved with him--that Sam Whaley by his confession had saved the Mill and the community from the full horrors planned by the agitator, and that under the new standard of industrial citizenship the former follower of the anarchist might in time become a useful member of society. A solemn hush fell over the company when Peter Martin, Mary, John and Helen were the first to sign the petition. The old house is no longer empty, deserted and forlorn. Repaired and repainted from the front gate to the back-yard fence--with well-kept lawn, flowers and garden--it impresses the passer-by with its air of modest home happiness. To Helen and her mother who live there, to John and his wife, Mary, and to the old workman who live in the cottage next door, the spirit of the old days has returned. The neighbors in passing always stop for a word with the gray-haired woman who works among her flowers just as she used to do before the discovery of the new process, or with her sweet-faced daughter. The workmen going to or from the Mill always have a smile or a word of greeting for the mother and the sister of their comrade manager. Nor is there a man or woman in all the city or in the country round about who does not know and love this Helen of the old house, who is giving herself so without reserve to the people's need, who has, as the Interpreter says, "found herself in service." But when the deep tones of the Mill whistle sound over the city, the valley and the hillsides, there is a look in Helen's eyes that only those who know her best understand. And often in these days the neighborhood of the old house rings with the merry voices of Bobby and Maggie and their playmates. From the Flats--from the tenement houses--from the homes of the laborers, they come, these children, to this beautiful woman who loves them all and who calls them, somewhat fancifully, her "jewels of happiness." "Yer see," explained little Maggie, "the princess lady, she jest couldn't help findin' them there happiness jewels--'cause her heart was so kind--jest like the Interpreter said." THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Helen of the Old House, by Harold Bell Wright