you, Sadie Peel," she said.

"I'll shut up when I get ready, Abby Atkins! I ain't afraid of them
if you be. They dassen't hit me. Scab, scab!" the girl yelled back,
with a hysteric laugh.

"Don't that girl know anything?" growled a man behind her.

"Shut up, Sadie Peel," said Abby Atkins.

"I ain't afraid if you be, and I won't shut up till I get ready, for
you or anybody else. I'm goin' to have my nearseal cape! Hi!"

"I ain't afraid," said Abby, contemptuously, "but I've got sense."

Maria pressed close to Sadie Peel. "Please do keep still, Sadie,"
she pleaded. "Let us get into the factory as quietly as we can.
Think, if anybody was hurt."

"I ain't afraid," shrieked the girl, with a toss of her red fringe,
and she laughed like a parrot. Abby Atkins gripped her arm so
fiercely that she made her cry out with pain. "If you don't keep
still!" she said, threateningly.

Willy Jones was walking as near as he could, and he carried his
right arm half extended, as if to guard her. Now and then Abby
turned and gave him a push backward.

"They won't trouble us girls, and you might as well let us and the
men that have sticks go first," she said in a whisper.

"If you think--" began the young fellow, coloring.

"Oh, I know you ain't afraid," said Abby, "but you've got your
mother to think of, and there's no use in running into danger."

The pickets were gradually left behind; they were, in truth,
half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind
to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show
of indignation and bluster, but when it came to more they hesitated.

Presently the company came into the open space before Lloyd's.
Robert and Lyman Risley and several foremen were standing at the
foot of the stairs. The windows of the factory were filled with
faces, and derisive cries came from them. Lloyd's tall shaft of
chimney was plumed with smoke. The employes advanced towards the
stairs, when suddenly Amos Lee, Dixon, and a dozen others appeared,
coming with a rush from around a corner of the building, and again
the air was filled with the cry of "Scab!" Ellen and Abby linked
arms and sprang forward before the men with an impetuous rush, with
Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew following. Ellen, as she rushed on
towards the factory stairs, was conscious of no fear at all, but
rather of a sort of exaltation of courage. It did not really occur
to her that she could be hurt, that it could