They had depended a great deal on Miss Briggs, so when the telegraph editor informed them she was going back to New York, they were positively bewildered by her loss.

Questions elicited the fact that the woman was nervous over the recent explosion and looked for further trouble from the mill hands.

She also suspected the two recent arrivals to be detectives, and the town was so small and so absolutely without police protection that she would not risk her personal safety by remaining longer in it.
"Perhaps I'm homesick," she added.

"It's dreadfully lonely here when I'm not at work, and for that reason I've tried to keep busy most of the time.

Really, I'm astonished to think I've stood this isolation so long; but now that my mind is made up, I'm going, and it is useless to ask me to remain." They offered her higher wages, and Mr.Merrick himself had a long talk with her, but all arguments were unavailing.
"What shall we do, Thursday ?" asked Patsy in despair.