tavern, she is fired, because she wasn't supposed to leave the Tavern without exact permission from the owner of the place. Triphena gives her five dollars, and Lyddie insists she will pay her back with interest. Lyddie then works at a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, to pay the debt on her family's farm. She is taken under the wing of Diana, a woman who is involved in the struggle for better conditions. She stays with her roommates at a company boarding house. Amelia Cate, one of her roommates, is like a mother to them. Betsy, another roommate, reads Oliver Twist to Lyddie. Wanting to reread it, Lyddie checks it out of the library but struggles to read it. Gradually, she becomes a better reader and speller. Her mother sends her a letter saying her sister, Agnes, has died. Lyddie works very hard, and so when the Overseer picks up the pace of the looms, she stays when others are fired or quit. Betsy stays on because she needs money to go to college like her brother. She wants to go to Oberlin College in Ohio, a college for girls. But, because of the bad factory conditions, she develops a horrible cough. The doctor has declared her too weak to go see her uncle so she has to go to the hospital, which uses up most of her money. After that, she leaves. Luke delivers a letter from Ezekial Freeman that pays off his debt. With all her roommates gone, Lyddie is now alone in her room, but her uncle, Judah, drops off her sister Rachel. Also, he tells Lyddie that her mother is institutionalized and they need to sell the farm to pay for this. Lyddie tries to stop him, but he remains firm. Lyddie convinces the boarding house's mistress to allow Rachel to stay for two weeks. She writes to Charlie and tells him of Rachel and the farm but is upset when he does not reply. Luke proposes marriage to her, but she is revolted by the letter and nearly rips it up when she stops as she almost tears Charles' name. Rachel takes up a job at the mill as a doffer but soon gets sick with a cough like Betsy's. Charlie visits Lyddie and offers to take Rachel with him to the Phinney family, who owns the mill where Charlie works and treats him like