bravest and strongest, spoke excitedly to them of the injustice done them. Even now they were working for less than other factories were paying.

“There is surely justice for girls as well as men somewhere in the world, if we only demand it,” she cried, encouragingly. “Let us demand our rights. We will all go down, and I will tell the proprietor that we cannot live under this new reduction. If he promises us the old prices, we will return to work. If he refuses, we will strike.”

The braver girls heartily joined the scheme, and the weaker ones naturally fell in, not[Page 76] knowing what else to do under the circumstances, and frightened at their own boldness.

[Page 76]

Dido Morgan, taking little Margaret Williams by the hand, naturally headed the line, and the girls quietly marched after her, two by two, down the almost perpendicular stairs.

Dido stopped before the ground-glass door on the first floor, on which was inscribed:

 TOLMAN BIKE, 

 PRIVATE. 

Her heart beat very quickly, but clasping Maggie’s hand closer, she opened the door and entered.

[Page 77]

[Page 77]

 CHAPTER V. THE FAILURE OF THE STRIKE. 

Tolman Bike was engaged in conversation with foreman Flint when Dido opened the door and entered.

He lifted his head, and never noticing Dido, fixed a look of absolute horror on Maggie Williams’s tear-stained and swollen face, as he rose pale and trembling and gasped in a husky tone:

“Why do you come to me?”

Margaret gazed stupidly at him with her small, grey eyes, offering no reply.

Dido, greatly astonished at Mr. Bike’s manner, stammered out that she represented the girls he employed, who had decided 

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