objection to helping her about David.

And that was how it happened that these four little lives were
thrown together--four threads that were to be woven into the
great fabric of Life.




CHAPTER II

On the other side of the street, opposite the Maitland house, was
a huddle of wooden tenements. Some of them were built on piles,
and seemed to stand on stilts, holding their draggled skirts out
of the mud of their untidy yards: some sagged on rotting sills,
leaning shoulder to shoulder as if to prop one another up. From
each front door a shaky flight of steps ran down to the unpaved
sidewalk, where pigs and children and hens, and the daily tramp
of feet to and from the Maitland Works, had beaten the earth into
a hard, black surface--or a soft, black surface, when it rained.
These little huddling houses called themselves Maitland's
Shantytown, and they looked up at the Big House, standing in
melancholy isolation behind its fence of iron spears, with the
pride that is common to us all when we find ourselves in the
company of our betters. Back of the little houses was a strip of
waste land, used for a dump; and beyond it, bristling against the
sky, the long line of Mercer's stacks and chimneys.

In spite of such surroundings, the Big House, even as late as the
early seventies, was impressive. It was square, with four great