He was now the general manager of the factory, and had always thought that fate was on his side since the night he had heard of Martha's death and that the child she left behind her was a girl.
Josiah glanced at his watch.
"Time to make the rounds," he said and, lifting Mary on his arm, he left the office and started through the plant.
And, oh, how Mary loved it--the forests of belts, whirring and twisting like live things, the orderly lines of machine tools, each doing its work with more than human ingenuity and precision, the enormous presses reminding her of elephants stamping out pieces of metal, the grinders which sang to her, the drilling machines which whirred to her, the polishing machines which danced for her, the power hammers which bowed to her.

Yes, and better than all was the smile that each man gave her, smiles that came from the heart, for all the quiet respect that accompanied them.
"It's his daughter," they whispered as soon as Josiah was out of hearing.
Here and there one would stop smiling and say, "I remember the day he brought her mother through--" At the end of one of the workshops, Mr.Spencer looked at his watch again.
"We'd better get back to the office," he said.

"Tired, dear ?" In a rapture of denial, she kicked her little toes against his side.
"Bred in the bone..." he mused.

"Eh, if she had only been a boy...!" But that was past all sighing for, and in the distance he saw Cousin Stanley, just back from Boston, evidently coming to find him.
Mary, too, was watching the approaching figure.

She had sometimes seen him at the house and had formed against him one of those instinctive dislikes which few but children know.