But Amabel, without paying the slightest heed to Ellen’s words, looked up at her with amazement, as Andrew and Fanny had done.  “What’s the matter, Ellen?” she asked, in her little, hoarse voice.

Fanny and Andrew, who had just entered, stood waiting.  Ellen bent over her shoe, drawing in the strings firmly and evenly.

“Mr. Lloyd has reduced the wage-list,” she said.

“How much?” asked Andrew, in a hoarse voice.

“Ten per cent.”

There was a dead silence.  Andrew and Fanny looked at Ellen like people who are uncertain of their next move; Amabel stared from one to the other with her weak, watery eyes.  Ellen continued to lace her shoes.

“What do you think about it, Ellen?” asked Andrew, almost timidly.

“I know of only one thing to think,” replied Ellen, in a dogged voice.

As she spoke she pulled the tag off a shoe-string because it would not go through the eyelet.

“What is that?” asked Fanny, in a hard voice.

“I think it is cruelty and tyranny,” said Ellen, pulling the rough end of the string through the eyelet.

“I suppose the times are pretty hard,” ventured Andrew; but Ellen cut him short.

“Robert Lloyd has half a million, which has been accumulated by the labor of poor men in prosperous times,” said she, with her childlike severity and pitilessness.  “There is no question about the matter.”

Then Fanny flung all self-interest to the wind and was at her daughter’s side like a whirlwind.  The fact that the two were of one blood was never so strongly evident.  Red spots glowed in the elder woman’s cheeks and her black eyes blazed.

“Ellen’s right,” said she; “she’s right.  For a man worth half a million to cut down the wages of poor, hard-working folks in midwinter is cruelty.  I don’t care who does it.”

“Yes, it is,” said Ellen.

Fanny opened her mouth to tell Ellen of the rumor concerning Robert’s engagement to Maud Hemingway, then she refrained, for some reason which she could not analyze.  In her heart she did not believe the report to be true, and considered the telling of it a slight to Ellen, but it influenced her in her indignation against Robert for the wage-cutting.

“What are they going to do?” asked Andrew.

“I don’t know,” replied Ellen.

“Did he—­young Lloyd—­talk to the men?”

“No; notices were tacked up all over the shop.”

“That was the way his uncle would have done,” said Andrew, in a curious voice of bitterness and respect.

“So you don’t know what they are going to do?” said Fanny.

“No.”

“Well, I know what I would do,” said Fanny.  “I never would give in, if I starved—­never!”

Chapter LI