hey were acquiring the virile fringe of spring
or if their eyes deceived them, and wondered, with respect to the
tips of maple and horse-chestnut branches, whether or not they were
swollen red and glossy. Sometimes they sniffed incredulously when a
soft gust of south wind seemed laden with fresh blossom fragrance.

"I declare, if I didn't know better, I should think I smelled apple
blossoms," said Maria.

"Stuff!" returned Abby. She was marching along with an alert,
springy motion of her lean little body. She was keenly alive to the
situation, and scented something besides apple blossoms. She had
tried to induce Maria to remain at home. "I don't know but there'll
be trouble, and if there is, you'll be just in the way," she told
her before they left the house, but not in their parents' hearing.

"Oh, I don't believe there'll be any. Folks will be too glad to get
back to work," replied Maria. She had a vein of obstinacy, gentle as
she was; then, too, she had a reason which no one suspected for
wishing to be present. She would not yield when John Sargent begged
her privately not to go. It was just because she was afraid there
might be trouble, and he was going to be in it, that she could not
bear to stay at home herself.

Andrew had insisted upon accompanying Ellen in spite of her
remonstrances. "I've got an errand down to the store," he said,
evasively; but Ellen understood.

"I don't think there is any danger, and there wouldn't be any danger
for me--not for the girls, sure," she said; but he persisted.

"Don't you say a word to your mother to scare her," he whispered.
But they had not been gone long before Fanny followed them, Mrs.
Zelotes watching her furtively from a window as she went by.

All the returning employes met, as agreed upon, at the corner of a
certain street, and marched in a solid body towards Lloyd's. The men
insisted upon placing the girls in the centre of this body, although
some of them rebelled, notably Sadie Peel. She was on hand, laughing
and defiant.

"I guess I ain't afraid," she proclaimed. "Father's keepin' on
strikin', but I guess he won't see his own daughter hurt; and now
I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape, if it is late in the season.
They're cheaper now, that's one good thing. On some accounts the
strike has been a lucky thing for me." She marched along, swinging
her arms jauntily. Ellen and Maria and Abby were close together.
Andrew was on the right of Ellen, Granville Joy beh