“I’ve got some savings, and he’s—he’s determined to help as he can. I’ll find work. I’ll—we’ll manage—the baby and I.”

“It ain’t right.”

“I’ll need to go soon. I can’t bring dishonor on the Association. Any whisper of this, and our enemies will dance like dervishes with delight.” She could hear the grim amusement in Diana’s voice. “I won’t hand them a weapon to destroy us. Not if I can possibly help it.”

“How can I help you? Oh Diana, I been so blind—”

She touched Lyddie’s cheek lightly. “Let’s just pray everyone has been as blind. I’ll write you, if I may. Tell you how things go—”

“You been so good to me—”

“I’ll miss you, little Lyddie.” The final bell began to clang. “Quick. Slip in before they lock you out.”

“Diana—” But the older girl pushed her toward the door and hurried away down the street toward Number Three.

*  *  *

The word passed around the floor next morning was that Diana Goss had left, snatching an honorable dismissal while she could still get it. Much more of her radical doings and she would have been blacklisted, or so the rumors went.

20

B Is for Brigid

Brigid had two looms now and would soon be ready for a third. She stood between them proudly, the sweat pouring from her forehead in concentration. If she would wear less clothing—but no, the girls from the Acre wore the same layers of dress, summer and winter. Still, despite her craziness, Brigid was turning into a proper operative.

Mr. Marsden hardly came past Lyddie’s looms these days. When their eyes met by chance, it was as though they had never been introduced. Earlier, his coldness had worried her. She feared then that he might find some reason to dismiss her, so she had been scrupulous to observe every regulation to the letter. As the days went on, she became less anxious about Mr. Marsden’s state of mind, much preferring his coolness to the rosebud smiles and little pats she had endured before her illness.

She treated herself to some more books. In honor of Ezekial Freeman—what a handsome name her friend had chosen for himself—she bought Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself and a Bible. Both volumes became a quiet comfort to her Sunday loneliness, because as she read them she could hear Ezekial’s rich, warm voice filling the darkness of the cabin.

She had liked Mr. Dickens’s account of his travels in America—all but the Lowell part. It was, as Diana had warned her, romantical. There was no mention in its rosy descriptions of sick lungs or blacklisting or men with wives at Concord.