Lyddie tried to speak to Diana on the stairs, but she seemed hardly to hear the greeting. Are they threatening her with dismissal? With blacklisting? A chill went through Lyddie. She thought she had nothing else to lose, but suppose Diana was to go? Diana—the one person who, from her first day on, had treated her like a proper person—the only one who had never laughed at Lyddie’s queer mountain speech or demanded that she change her manners or her mind. All the girls took their burdens to Diana. She was always the one who came to help you. Nobody ever thought of Diana needing help.

She’s ill—like Betsy and Rachel and Prudence and a host of others, Lyddie thought. She’s worked here too long and too hard. How much longer could Diana last? How much longer could any of them last?

I must do something for her, Lyddie decided, give her a present. There was only one present good enough.

“Diana?” Lyddie worked her way through the jostling crowd of operatives crossing the yard. “I been thinking.” She glanced around to see if anyone was listening, but all the girls were too intent on rushing home for their suppers. “About the—the—” Even now that she had made up her mind, she couldn’t quite bring herself to speak the forbidden word in the very courtyard of the corporation. She took a deep breath. “I been thinking on signing.”

The older girl turned to her and put her hand on Lyddie’s sleeve. “Well,” she said, and Lyddie couldn’t quite make out the rest in the clamor of the yard, but it sounded something like: “Well, we’ll see,” as Diana let herself be carried away in the rushing stream of operatives.

But I mean it, thought Lyddie. I mean it.

Earlier in the spring she had known that there were girls in her own house secretly circulating the petition, but now that she had made up her mind to it, she wanted to do it for Diana. How could it be a true present otherwise? After supper she put on her bonnet and went to Diana’s boardinghouse. She asked one of the girls in the front room of Number Three for Diana. “Diana Goss?” the girl asked with a sneer. “It’s Tuesday. She’ll be at her meeting.”

“Oh.”

The girl looked her up and down as though memorizing her features. Maybe the girl was a corporation spy. Stare her down, Lyddie told herself. The other was shorter than she, so when Lyddie stood tall and looked down into her eyes, the girl shifted her gaze. “It’s at their reading room on Central Street.” She glanced back at Lyddie. The sneer had returned. “Number Seventy-six. All are welcome. So I’m told.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Lyddie, and made her way into town.