“See,” she said, pointing at the shed, “a warp thread’s snapped. If we don’t catch that, we’re in trouble.” An empty shuttle might damage a few inches of goods, she explained, but a broken warp could leave a flaw through yards of cloth. “We don’t get paid when we ruin a piece.” She pinched a tiny bag hung from the metal frame of the loom. It spit out a puff of talc, which she rubbed into her fingertips. Then fishing out the broken ends of warp, she showed Lyddie how to fasten them together with a weaver’s knot. When Diana tied the ends, they seemed to melt together, leaving the knot invisible. She stepped aside. “Now you start it,” she said.

Lyddie was a farm girl. She took pride in her strength, but it took all of her might to yank the metal lever into place. She broke into a sweat like some untried plow horse. The temples were not much larger than apples, but when Diana asked her to move one, she felt as though someone had tied a gigantic field stone to the end of the leather cord. Still, the physical strength the work required paled beside the dexterity needed to rethread a shuttle quickly, or, heaven help her, tie one of those infernal weaver’s knots.

Everything happened too fast—a bobbin of weft thread lasted hardly five minutes before it had to be replaced—and it was painfully deafening. But tall, quiet Diana moved from loom to loom like the silent angel in the lion’s den, keeping Daniel from harm.

There were moments when all three looms were running as they ought—all the shuttles bearing full quills, all three temples hung high on the cloth, no warp threads snapping. During one of these respites, Diana drew Lyddie to the nearest window. The sill was alive with flowers blooming in pots, and around the frame someone had pasted single pages of books and magazines. Diana pressed down a curling corner of a poem. Most of the sheets were yellowing. “Not so much time to read these days,” Diana said. “We used to have more time. Do you like to read, Lyddie?”

Lyddie thought of the regulations that she was still trying laboriously to decipher when no one was looking. “I’ve not much schooling.”

“Well, you can remedy that,” the older girl said. “I’ll help, if you like, some evening.”

Lyddie looked up gratefully. She felt no need with Diana to apologize or to be ashamed of her ignorance. “I’m needing a bit of help with the regulations …”

“I shouldn’t wonder. They’re a trial for us all,” Diana said. “Why don’t you bring the broadside over to Number Three tonight and we’ll slog through that wretched thing together.”

*  *  *

Amelia was not pleased that evening after supper when she realized that Lyddie was getting ready to go out. “Your first day. You ought to rest.”