muffled in heavy capes and woolen caps was marching along the car-tracks.  She followed them.  At the corner of West Street, in obedience to a sharp command she saw them halt, turn, and advance toward a small crowd gathered there.  It scattered, only to collect again when the soldiers had passed on.  Janet joined them.  She heard men cursing the soldiers.  The women stood a little aside; some were stamping to keep warm, and one, with a bundle in her arms which Janet presently perceived to be a child, sank down on a stone step and remained there, crouching, resigned.

“We gotta right to stay here, in the street.  We gotta right to live, I guess.”  The girl’s teeth were chattering, but she spoke with such vehemence and spirit as to attract Janet’s attention.  “You worked in the Chippering, like me—­yes?” she asked.

Janet nodded.  The faded, lemon-coloured shawl the girl had wrapped about her head emphasized the dark beauty of her oval face.  She smiled, and her white teeth were fairly dazzling.  Impulsively she thrust her arm through Janet’s.

“You American—­you comrade, you come to help?” she asked.

“I’ve never done any picketing.”

“I showa you.”

The dawn had begun to break, revealing little by little the outlines of cruel, ugly buildings, the great mill looming darkly at the end of the street, and Janet found it scarcely believable that only a little while ago she had hurried thither in the mornings with anticipation and joy in her heart, eager to see Ditmar, to be near him!  The sight of two policemen hurrying toward them from the direction of the canal aroused her.  With sullen murmurs the group started to disperse, but the woman with the baby, numb with cold, was slow in rising, and one of the policemen thrust out his club threateningly.

“Move on, you can’t sit here,” he said.

With a lithe movement like the spring of a cat the Italian girl flung herself between them—­a remarkable exhibition of spontaneous inflammability; her eyes glittered like the points of daggers, and, as though they had been dagger points, the policeman recoiled a little.  The act, which was absolutely natural, superb, electrified Janet, restored in an instant her own fierceness of spirit.  The girl said something swiftly, in Italian, and helped the woman to rise, paying no more attention to the policeman.  Janet walked on, but she had not covered half the block before she was overtaken by the girl; her anger had come and gone in a flash, her vivacity had returned, her vitality again found expression in an abundant good nature and good will.  She asked Janet’s name, volunteering the information that her own was Gemma, that she was a “fine speeder” in the Chippering Mill, where she had received nearly seven dollars a week.  She had been among the first to walk out.

“Why did you walk out?” asked Janet curiously.

“Why?  I get mad when I know that my wages is cut.  I want the money—­I get married.”