shaw! I thought you wasn't coming. We'll be late if we don't hurry.
Hmm. Wore your white cloak, didn't you? Well, I guess the girls won't
laugh at you much. A dark one would have been better."

"But I have no dark one, so it was this or nothing. How fast you walk,
almost as if you were running!"

"We'll be late, I tell you. I don't want to get docked, if _you_ do."

"What is 'docked'?"

"Why, having something taken from your wages."

"Would that be done for just so short a time?"

"Yes, indeed. The time-keeper watches out and nobody has a chance to get
off. To be late five minutes means losing a quarter day's wages. They
count off a quarter, a half, three-quarters, or a whole, according to
time."

"Then Gwendolyn, let's run. I wouldn't make you lose for anything."

"All right."

When they arrived at the mill, Gwendolyn said:--

"You come this way with me. Hang your cap and coat right here, next to
mine. Never mind if the girls do stare, you'll get used to that. I felt
as if I should sink the first day I came, though that was ages ago.
Hello, Maud, where was you last night?"

Amy did not feel in the least like "sinking." She had overcome her
drowsiness, and the light was already growing much stronger. She looked
around upon these strangers who were to be her comrades at toil, with a
friendly interest and curiosity. Some of her new mates regarded her with
equal curiosity, though few with so kindly an interest as her own. The
unconscious ease of Amy's bearing they esteemed "boldness," or even
"cheek," and her air of superior breeding was distasteful to them.

"My, ain't she a brazen thing! Looks around on the whole crowd as if she
thought she could put on all the airs she pleased, even in the mill.
Well, 'ristocrat or no 'ristocrat, she'll have to come down here. We're
just as good as she is and--"

"A little better, too, you mean," commented a lad, just passing.

The girl who scorned "'ristocrats" paused in fastening her denim apron
and looked after the youth, who was, evidently, a personage of
importance in the eyes of herself and mates. They watched his jaunty
movements with undisguised admiration, and his passing left behind him a
wake of smiles and giggles which to Amy seemed out of proportion to the
wit of his remark.

However, there was little loitering, and the long procession of girls,
with its sprinkling of men and boys, swiftly ascended the narrow open
staircase to the upper floors. This stairc