to a "new hand"; most employers would have told the child which way to go and then left her to shift for herself, or at best have sent a man or boy to show her the way. Perhaps he would have done so with some girls, but he saw that the child was timid and homesick, and knew that a few kind words would go a great way toward making her feel at home and happy, and would serve as an offset against the disagreeable first impressions of the rag-room, and the weariness of regular work undertaken for the first time.

Why should he care to have one of his factory girls "feel at home and happy"? some one will say; his relations with them are only those of business: so much work for so much money; it was nothing to him what they thought or felt. Mr. James Mountjoy did not feel so. He thought that his father and he were placed in this responsible position and given the care of several hundred human souls expressly that some good work might be done for them. He felt that human beings are more precious than machinery, and that happiness is an important factor in goodness. He looked upon his work-people as those for whom he must give account, and tried to act in all his dealings with them "to the glory of God." Had he been actuated by the purest selfishness and the most approved business principles, he could not have chosen a wiser course; for men and women treated as friends become almost of necessity friendly, and seeing their own interests cared for were all the more likely to care for those of their employer. Katie Robertson certainly never forgot Mr. James's judicious kindness on the morning of her entrance into the mill; he was to her the kindest, sweetest, and most lovable of gentlemen. She felt ready to do anything he should tell her and to keep every rule he might make. Then, too, he was a Christian, and understood all about what she meant when she had said God would help her; surely it must be very easy to be good and resist temptation in a place with such a master, and she felt like thanking God that, in spite of the suffocating dust, "the lines had fallen to her in such very pleasant places."

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST DAY.

Left to herself Katie looked timidly round. It is always an ordeal to meet so many strangers for the first time, and our little friend was beginning to feel quite forlorn, when Miss Peters, the superintendent of the rag-room, came to her and began to show her about the work to be done; how, besides the rags being sorted, the buttons were to be taken off and the larger pieces cut into small ones by pulling them dexterously along and between two great sharp knives set on end for the purpose. Katie had already covered her clean dress with the long-sleeved blue apron and her hair with the little mob-cap her mother had provided, and at once commenced her work, not at all seeing or noticing the scornful looks that passed between some of the girls whose ragged finery and dirty hair-ribbons full of dust and "flue" presented a lively contrast to her own neat and suitable equipment. We may observe, in passing, that before long this simple method of protection so commended itself to some of the more sensible girls and their parents that many of them adopted it and mob-caps and overalls became quite the fashion in the mill.

Katie was a smart little girl and could work very quickly when she set about it; of course to-day she was anxious to show how much she could do, and her piles and boxes were fuller than those of any girls near her by the time of the warning whistle, which indicated that in half an hour the dinner-bell would sound. Then there was a bustle in the room. The piles were taken away in long and deep barrows which men wheeled into the room, the boxes were carried off, emptied into the vats, and brought back again; some of the girls swept the floor and tables by which they stood; talking was permitted in this half-hour, and such a Babel as the tongues of forty or fifty girls suddenly unloosed can make may be better imagined than described. The "new hand" took advantage of the interval to divest herself of her cap and apron, and putting on her hat, after washing her hands in one of the row of basins provided for the purpose, appeared as neat and nice for her homeward walk as she had done in the morning when she came.

Such was not the case with most of the girls, whose fluffy, disordered appearance as they issued from the rag-room was proverbial.

At precisely twelve o'clock the great bells began to clang and the steam-whistle to shriek, and the long corridors and stairs echoed to the tramp of many feet as the hundreds of men, women, boys, and girls rushed down and out, and scattered in every direction toward the many homes where dinner was awaiting them.

Eric and Alfred met their sister just outside of the door, and the three were soon at home, Katie talking so much and so fast all the way, that her brothers, as they said, "could hardly get in a word edgewise." Many of the mill operatives carried their dinner with them and spent the noon hour in gossip with each other, but Mrs. Robertson was careful both of the bodies and souls of her children. She knew that the former would be much more vigorous if every day they had a warm, comfortable, if frugal, meal at noontide, and thought that the latter would be kept pure and unsullied much longer if not exposed to the kind of talk apt to pass between idle men and women of all grades and associations in society. So ever since they first went into the bindery, the boys had regularly come home to dinner, and were much the better, not only for it, but also for the quick walk in the open fresh air.

Poor Mrs. Robertson had passed a lonely morning. She was used to being alone while her daughter was at school, but that was different; she had conjured up all sorts of dangers and disagreeables that the girl might have to encounter, and she rather expected to see her brought in on a board bruised and maimed from some part of the machinery into which she had fallen or been entangled. But when Katie came rushing in like a whirlwind, in high spirits, with glowing cheeks and a splendid appetite, which yet she could scarcely take time to gratify, so full was she of enthusiastic talk concerning the beauty and grandeur of the mill and the kindness of Mr. James, her mother felt rather ashamed of her forebodings.

Never had a dinner tasted so nicely; never had the little girl, to her remembrance, eaten so much. She was in such a hurry to be off again, so as not to be late, that the boys declared she would not give them any time to eat at all, and again predicted that in a month's time things would not be so rose-colored.

In the afternoon a surprise awaited the little factory-girl. Hardly had work recommenced as the silence of voices and the noise of machinery followed upon the long steam-whistle, than Mr. James again appeared, followed by another "new hand." She was a tall, stout girl; in reality just about Katie's age, but looking several years older, dressed in a light-blue cashmere, considerably soiled and frayed. Her hair, which was "banged" low over her forehead, was braided in a long tail behind, and tied with a bunch of tumbled red ribbons, and around her neck was a chain and locket intended to resemble gold. The girls all looked at her inappropriate costume, most of them with envy and admiration, a few with pity for a girl who knew no better than to come to factory work in so very unsuitable a dress, and Katie looked up in some surprise to find that the new comer, who had been placed next to her, was her old school companion, Bertie Sanderson.

Miss Peters came forward pleasantly, showed the new girl how to do her work just as she had showed Katie in the morning, and glancing at her dress, suggested that another time a similar protection to that of her companion would be advisable, and then