The Cotton Mill Orphan

Juliette Purcell has never known anything beyond her small, miserable world: the tiny tenement where she lives with her mother and brother; the grimy street filled with terrifying homeless men; and the market square where they scrounge scraps of food. Her mother, a washerwoman, works incessantly, yet Juliette and her brother Reuben often go hungry.

Juliette knows little joy, except for her time with Emory Hicks, a sweet street urchin who's always been kind to her. When whooping cough tears through her building and strips her mother away, Juliette is lucky to find help from Margie Lane, a childless woman in the building. But Margie is always ill, and her husband despises Juliette and Reuben.

Life is a bitter struggle for survival, and as Juliette fights to keep herself, Margie, and Reuben alive-even after losing touch with Emory-she is constantly haunted by a feeling of being watched.

When Juliette and Emory finally find each other again, the haunted feeling she has feared reveals a surprising secret that changes everything.