As soon as permitted she hastened home, and was glad to lie down all the evening from sheer fatigue, but she made light of her weariness, concealed the treatment she had received from the girls, and the dejection it was beginning to occasion in spite of her courage; she even made the little home group laugh by her droll accounts of the day.  Then they all petted and praised and made so much of her that her spirits rose to their usual height, and she said confidently, as she went to a long night’s rest, “Don’t you worry, little mother; I didn’t expect to get broken in to my work without a backache.”

The next day it was just the same, but Belle knew now what to charge for the ribbons, or, if she was not sure, the others were obliged, under the eye of the inexorable foreman—­who for some reason gave this counter a great deal of attention—­to tell her correctly, so she began to lie in wait for customers.  Some came to her of their own accord, and they smiled back into her eager, smiling face.

In two or three instances her intent black eyes and manner seemed to attract attention and arrest the steps of those who had no intention of stopping.  One case was so marked that the alert foreman drew near to note the result.  An elderly lady, whose eye Belle had apparently caught by a look of such vivacity and interest that the woman almost felt that she had been spoken to, came to the girl, saying, “Well, my child, what have you that is pretty to-day?”

“Just what will please you, madam.”

“You please me, whether your ribbons will or not.  It’s pleasant for a customer to be looked at as if she were not a nuisance,” she added significantly, and in a tone that Belle’s companions, with their cold, impassive faces, could not fail to hear.  “You may pick out something nice for one of my little granddaughters.”

Dimpling with smiles and pleasure, Belle obeyed.  Feeling that the eye of the arbiter of their fates was upon them, the young women near might have been statues in their rigid attitudes.  Only the hot blood mounting to their faces betrayed their anger.  There was evidently something wrong at the ribbon counter—­something repressed, a smouldering and increasing indignation, a suggestion of rebellion.  So the foreman evidently thought, from his frequent appearances; so the floor-walker clearly surmised, for with imperious glances and words he held each one sternly to her duty.  Belle was smiling and working in the midst of a gathering storm, and she was becoming conscious of it.  So far from cowering, her indignation was fast rising, and there was an ominous glow kindling in her dark eyes.  Their seemingly unwarranted hostility and jealousy were beginning to incense her.  She believed she had as much right there as they had, and she resolved to maintain her right.  Catching an ireful glance from the girl in charge of the counter, she returned it with interest.  Even this spark came very near kindling the repressed fires into an open flame, regardless of consequences.  The bread of these girls was at stake, but women are not calculating when their feelings are deeply disturbed.