ondency.
Margaret had her duties, too, at this period, and the forenoons were
sacred to them.

One morning as she passed down the street with a small wicker
basket on her arm, Richard said to Mr. Slocum,--

"Margaret has joined the strikers."

The time had already come to Stillwater when many a sharp-faced
little urchin--as dear to the warm, deep bosom that had nursed it as
though it were a crown prince--would not have had a crust to gnaw if
Margaret Slocum had not joined the strikers. Sometimes her heart
drooped on the way home from these errands, upon seeing how little of
the misery she could ward off. On her rounds there was one cottage in
a squalid lane where the children asked for bread in Italian. She
never omitted to halt at that door.

"Is it quite prudent for Margaret to be going about so?" queried
Mr. Slocum.

"She is perfectly safe," said Richard,--"as safe as a Sister of
Charity, which she is."

Indeed, Margaret might then have gone loaded with diamonds through
the streets at midnight. There was not a rough man in Stillwater who
would not have reached forth an arm to shield her.

"It is costing me nearly as much as it would to carry on the
yard," said Mr. Slocum, "but I never put out any stamps more
willingly."

"You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed to
keep Margaret's basket filled. It is an investment in real
estate--hereafter."

"I hope so," answered Mr. Slocum, "and I know it's a good thing
now."

Of the morals of Stillwater at this time, or at any time, the less
said the better. But out of the slime and ooze below sprang the white
flower of charity.

The fifth day fell on a Sabbath, and the churches were crowded.
The Rev. Arthur Langly selected his text from St. Matthew, chap.
xxii, v. 21: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's." But as he did not make it quite plain which was Caesar,--the
trades-union or the Miantowona Iron Works,--the sermon went for
nothing, unless it could be regarded as a hint to those persons who
had stolen a large piece of belting from the Dana Mills. On the other
hand, Father O'Meara that morning bravely told his children to
conduct themselves in an orderly manner while they were out of work,
or they would catch it in this world and in the next.

On the sixth day a keen observer might have detected a change in
the atmosphere. The streets were thronged as usual, and the idlers
still wore their Sunday clothes, but the h