“We must get at him—for Lydia’s sake,” declared Mary. “She shan’t be trapped to her doom by an unknown creature like that if I can prevent it.” “There’s surely something beastly to the man,” asserted Tom, “otherwise, after he’d once seen what my sister was in this house, he’d have understood it was a vain and selfish plot to try and get her out of it.” “She’s always talking about the greatest good to the greatest number,” added Mary, “and now ’tis for her to practise what she preaches. Here there’s ten want her; and is one doubtful male, come from Lord knows where, to count against all her nearest and dearest? God forbid!” “Well, I hope she’ll see it like that; and if she don’t, we must make it our business to queer that man’s pitch. If you and me, working heart and soul for our children and the family in general, can’t get this foreigner on the run, we’re not what I think we are.” * * * * * Next morning Mary was far too indisposed to rise, and before she went to work, Lydia took her up a cup of tea and three slices of toast and butter. “I’ve decided, Mary,” she said, “and if it’s any comfort to you to know it, I may tell you that I shall stop here.” Whereupon Mary wept again, held Mrs. Trivett’s hand and kissed it. “Blessed be your name,” she gurgled, “and may God’s reward meet the case, Lydia. I’d give you all the kingdoms of earth if they was mine.” CHAPTER XXI THE PROTEST At one end of the glazing house—a lofty and bright workroom at the top story of the Mill—stood the dry press, to which the choice papers demanding extra finish came after glazing. Here they were piled between heavy slabs of hot metal and subject to great pressure; but the primal business of glazing had already been done between metal rollers. A range of these presented the principal object in this workshop. Girls prepared the paper for the rollers, and Medora had once been of this cheerful and busy throng. Hither came the paper from its final drying after the size bath, and the workers stood with a heap of sheets on one side of them and a little stack of polished zinc plates on the other. With her left hand each girl snatched a sheet of paper, with her right a plate of zinc; and then she inter-leaved the paper with the metal until a good wad rose in her crib. The paper was now ready for the glazing rollers, and men, who tended these massive machines, ran the sheets and zinc wads between the steel rollers, backward and forward twice and thrice under tremendous strain. Then what was dim and lustreless reappeared with a bright and shining surface, and the sheets returned again to the girls, who separated zinc and paper once more. Mr. Pinhey had often preached on this text—indeed his simile was worn threadbare, though he repeated it to every new-comer in the glazing house and rolling room.