By the end of the first day, the girl was far from ready to operate her own machine, but Lyddie had run out of patience. She told Mr. Marsden to assign the girl a loom next to her own. “I’ll watch out for her and tend my own machines as well.”

Before the noon break of the next day, a flying shuttle had grazed the girl’s shoulder, and she had let the shuttle run out of weft, ruining several inches of cloth. When a warp thread snapped, instead of instantly hitting the lever to stall the loom, she threw her apron over her head and burst into tears.

“Shut off your loom,” Lyddie yelled over to her. “You can tie the knot this time. You should know how by now, ey?” The girl burst into tears again, and before Lyddie could decide what to do with her, Diana was there, slapping off the loom. Burning with shame, Lyddie glanced over as Diana, without a quiver of impatience, helped the girl retrieve the broken ends and tie a weaver’s knot. When, finally, Diana stood back and told the girl to pull the lever into place, Lyddie touched Diana’s shoulder. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

Diana nodded and went back to work. At the last bell Lyddie found herself going down the stairs beside Diana.

“She’s going to do fine, your Brigid,” Diana said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lyddie said, wondering how Diana knew the girl’s name and then annoyed that the foreigner should be “hers.” Surely Lyddie had never wanted her. “She seems all thumbs and tears. They be such fools, those Irish.”

Diana gave a wry smile. “We’re all allowed to be fools the first week or two, aren’t we?”

Lyddie blushed furiously. “I never thanked you proper for taking care of me before,” she said. “And your doctor—he never sent a bill. Mind you, I’m not complaining, but—”

Diana didn’t comment on the doctor. “Your head seems to have quite recovered. How do you feel? No pain, I hope.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” Lyddie said. “Just ornery as a old sow.”

“Ornery enough to add your name to the petition?” Diana whispered.

She was teasing her, Lyddie was sure of it. “I don’t reckon I aim to ever get that ornery,” Lyddie said.

*  *  *

Betsy signed the petition. One of the Female Labor Reform girls caught her in an apothecary shop one evening and got her to write in her name.

Lyddie was furious. “They got you when you was feeling low,” she said. “They go creeping around the city taking advantage when girls are feeling sick or worn out. Now you’ll be blacklisted, and what will I do without you?”

“Better to go out with a flourish than a whine, don’t you think?” But Betsy was never allowed her imagined exit. She was to be neither blacklisted nor dismissed.