"And I'll undo it," he returned, casting a side glance at the stranger.
"If those who've worked here so long make mistakes, I'll not give up," she thought; and Mary came round from behind the frame in time to read this thought.
"Don't you mind. You see, we have to be on guard all the time. If we're not, something happens like this. Wait. While they're fixing those spools, you watch me tie these threads. That's what you have to do. To keep everything straight and fasten on the new ends as the old ones run out."
"But I don't see you 'tie' it. There is no knot."
"Of course not. We couldn't have rough things in the thread that is going to make a carpet. We just twist it—so. Do you see? It can't pull apart, and it makes no roughness. Try; keep on trying; and after you have practised awhile, you'll be as swift as swift."
"I feel as slow as slow."
The "new hand" smiled into the eager face of her willing helper, and the poor hunchback's heart glowed. That so bright a creature should ever come to be a worker in that busy mill, side by side with her own self, was stranger than the strangest of the cheap novels she read so constantly.
"It beats all, don't it?" demanded Mary, clasping Amy's little brown hand.
"What, dear? What beats what? Have I done that one better? Do you think I'll ever, ever be able to keep up my side of the 'frame' after this other one leaves me?"
Mary's laugh was good to hear. Mr. Metcalf, entering the room, heard it and smiled. Yet his smile was fleeting, and his only comment a reprimand to "Jack doffer" for his carelessness.