"Oh, he saw you all right. He wouldn't more 'n nod to his own wife, if he's on his rounds, and full of business. I've heard that he was very pleasant outside the mill and among his folks, but I never saw him any different from just now. Seems to me he looks on us like he does the spools on the spinners. I always feel as if I were part of the machine--the poorest part--and I guess you will, too. There, it's fixed and starting up. Hurry to your place and don't get scared. Sallie's cross, but she can't help it. She used to be one of the 'fainters.' Yes; that's right. Now all there is, is to keep at it till twelve o'clock whistle." That meant nearly five hours of the steadiest and most difficult labor which Amy had ever undertaken. Yet these others near her, and the crowds of spinners all through the great apartment, appeared to take this labor very easily, and were even able to carry on a conversation amid the deafening noise. Amy watched so intently, and tried so faithfully to do just what and all that was expected of her that she did, indeed, make a rapid progress for one beginning; and when the welcome whistle sounded, she was surprised to see how instantly every frame was stopped, and to hear Mary saying:-- "If you don't want to go with anybody else, I'd admire to have you eat your lunch with me." "I'd like to, certainly, but I don't believe I can eat. My head is whirling, whirling, just like those dreadful spools. Isn't it terrible?" "No, I don't think so. I don't notice them now, except to make them say things. But come along, we have a half-hour nooning. We might have a whole hour, but most of the hands like to give up part of their dinner-time every day and then take the afternoon off on Saturday. The 'Supe' doesn't care, so that's the way we get our 'Saturday-half.' I sometimes wish we worked the other way, but of course we couldn't. If part stops, the other part has to, 'cause every room depends on some other room to keep it going." "Why, I think that's beautiful, don't you? Like a big whole, and all of us the needed parts." "No, I don't. I don't see one single beautiful thing about this hateful old mill. At least, I didn't before this morning, when you came." Amy looked into Mary's face a moment. Then she stooped and kissed it gently. Small though Amy herself was, for her age, she was still taller than her new friend, and felt herself far stronger. Away in another place Gwendolyn and her mates observed this little by-play, and one girl remarked:-- "Hmm. That settles _her_ hash. If she's going to take up with that horrid Mary Reese, there won't anybody go with her. Not a single girl, and as for the fellows--my!" To this flirtatious young person to be ignored by "the fellows" meant the depth of misfortune. Happily, however, Amy had never hear the word "fellow," as at present applied, and to do anything for the sake of attracting attention to herself she would have considered the extreme of vulgarity.