Lyddie received no gifts, indeed expected none, but she did get a note from Triphena, who thanked her for returning the loan. There was little news to report from Cutler’s. She asked after Lyddie’s health and complained that the mistress was as harsh as ever. Willie had run off at last, and the new boy and girl weren’t worth two blasts on a penny whistle. Lyddie had to smile. Poor Triphena.

Was she thinking of Triphena when it happened? Or was she overtired? It was late on Friday—the hardest time of the week. Was she careless when she replaced the shuttle in the right-hand box or had there been a knot in the weft thread? She would never know. She remembered rethreading the shuttle and putting it back in the race, yanking the lever into its slot … Before she could think she was on the floor, blood pouring through the hair near her right temple … the shuttle, the blasted shuttle. She tried to rise, she needed to stop the loom, but Diana got there almost at once, racing along the row, tripping with both hands the levers of her own machines and Lyddie’s four as she ran. She knelt down beside Lyddie.

“Dear God,” she said, cradling Lyddie’s head in her lap. She pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and held it tight against Lyddie’s temple. It filled immediately with blood. She eased her apron out from under Lyddie’s head, snatched it off her shoulders, and pressed it against the soaked handkerchief.

Girls had begun to gather. “Get me some cold water, Delia—clean!” she cried after the girl. “And handkerchiefs, please. All of you!” she cried to the girls crowding about them.

Mr. Marsden’s head appeared in the circle of heads above them. The girls shifted to make room for the overseer. “What’s this here?” His voice was stern, but his face went ashen as he looked down at the two girls.

“She was hit by the shuttle,” Diana said.

“What?” he yelled above the noise.

“Shuttle—shuttle—shuttle.” The word whished back and forth across the circle like a shuttle in a race.

“Well … well … get her out of here.” He clamped a large blue pocket handkerchief over his nose and mouth and hurried back to his high stool.

“Not partial to the sight of blood, are we?” The speaker was kneeling on the floor beside Diana, offering her the dainty white handkerchiefs she had collected from the operatives.

The cool water came at last. Diana lifted her apron from Lyddie’s temple. The first gush of blood had eased now to a trickle. She dipped a handkerchief into the water and, gently as a cow licking its newborn, cleaned the wound. “Can you see all right?” she asked.