have instilled these doubts into my mind!"

"Oh, my dear Deborah, some day you will be the death of me!" murmured Mrs. Blake, the tears of laughter in her bright eyes. "How long will that antique chestnut continue to be served up as a dainty dish to you dear good Protestants! There aren't any female Jesuits, and I'll be bound that girl has not tried to convert you-now has she? All I meant was that she did not strike me as quite the class of girl who goes out to service in Italy. The ordinary parlor maid over there is quite a different type. Now Concetta looks and speaks like a lady-she might very easily belong to what they call the 'famiglie caduti,' for instance."

"Clare!" gasped Miss Dunn, with agitation depicted on her features"Surely, the word you have employed means fallen! Am I to understand that -oh, I cannot bring myself to mention such a thing! The girl shall go tonight!"

Mrs. Blake, after one bewildered glance at Miss Dunn's horrified countenance, lay back in her chair and gave herself up to open and undisguised mirth.

"Oh, Deborah! You certainly have gone one better than the female Jesuit!" she said, as soon as she could speak. "Do calm yourself. I meant that Concetta had probably seen better days. Her parents have lost money possibly in speculation, as so many of them do over there, and she has come to England as a servant, having heard that the wages are higher here than in her own country. But I don't know anything about it. Really it's only an idea of mine, and it may be quite wrong. And now, do give me some tea! I am quite exhausted. You are too funny for words, Deborah!" Miss Dunn rank the bell with an air of resignation.

"Your ideas are more often incorrect than the reverse, Clare," she remarked,

"and after having thoroughly alarmed me, they will probably prove to be so on this occasion. Let us change the subject. What frivolities have you been indulging in during your recent visit to London?"

With the laughter still lingering in her eyes, Clare embarked on a slightly bowdlerized narrative of theatres and bridge parties, and the topic of the Italian girl was allowed to sink into momentary oblivion. Only momentary, however, for at intervals during the evening, after her friend had left her, Miss Dunn's thoughts reverted again and again to the former's lightly spoken words, and a newly-born suspicion haunted her dreams that night.

III

It was Christmas Eve, but the usual signs of festivity were conspicuously absent from Miss Dunn's household. Deborah was ill. This was an event which occurred very seldom. It seemed impossible, somehow, to associate the physical surrender of illness with her unbending figure and severe physiognomy, but on this occasion she had perforce succumbed to the influenza fiend, and now, with a temperature of a hundred and three degrees, lay prone and suffering upon her bed. Mrs. Blake, calling to inquire about four o'clock, was told by Susan, upon whose nose the inevitable smut still lingered, that Miss Dunn was rather worse, and that Concetta was up-stairs with her.

"She don't seem able to bear her out of 'er sight, mum," she added; "and it do seem strange for her to be so taken up with a furriner!"

Mrs. Blake also thought it rather strange, as she waited in the drawingroom while Susan went to ascertain the invalid's wishes with regard to seeing her. And then a still stranger thing happened. Concetta, her cheeks pale and her eyes dilated, rushed into the

For an instant vague thoughts of a fulfilled and hastily repented of "vendetta" flashed into Mrs. Blake's mind, as she obeyed the peremptory summons. Or had the girl poisoned her mistress in order to secure her money or her jewels? Such things had happened. And, after all, Mrs. Cross might have been deceived, and in that case"Good heavens !" she reflected, "if poor old Deborah is murdered it will be all my fault!" These thoughts lent wings to her feet, and she was up-stairs and was in Miss Dunn's bedroom before Concetta. Deborah, in a starched and befrilled nightcap, which made her look more severe than usual,

was sitting up in bed supported by pillows, and with the scarlet tint of fever on her hollow cheeks. She was talking rapidly, and in a manner very different to her usual measured tones and appropriately chosen language.

"Alice! Alice! my darling! Forgive me! She says you were unhappy-this girl who looks at me with your eyes. I was unkind-and-bitter, but I have been punished all my lonely life! Alice! forgive me!"

"What in the world does she mean?" asked Mrs. Blake. Remorse and Miss Dunn seemed to have so remarkably little in common, and how extremely odd the word "darling" sounded on her lips!

"Who is Alice?" she continued, vaguely, more from inability to restrain the question than because she expected any answer. But an answer came, and although the facts of the two episodes. were at variance, Balaam could hardly have been more astonished than Clare Blake.

"Alice is my mother," said the Italian girl, as she fell on her knees by the bed

and clasped Miss Dunn's burning hands in her own.

"Your mother! Are you out of your mind, too?"

"No, no, she is my mother," repeated Concetta, "and," pointing to Deborah"she is her sister whom she has not seen for more than twenty years."

Mrs. Blake, with the air of one who is uncertain whether she is awake or in a dream, turned to Susan, who was standing with her eyes and mouth wide open, and suggested that she should go and telephone for the doctor.

"Now tell me what you mean," she said to Concetta. The rapid flow of words from the bed had ceased, and Deborah had fallen into the slumber of exhaustion. Concetta sĮ oke in a low tone in Italian.

"Mrs. Cross has been very kind to mother. All her family cast her off when she married my father, you know, signora."

"I don't know! I never knew she had a sister," murmured Mrs. Blake.

"It is an old, old story, and she, my aunt, was unforgiving, although she loved my mother all the time, and I—it has been the dream of my life to reconcile them, so I begged and persuaded Mrs. Cross to let me take the place of the servant she had chosen at your desire, and—I—came. That is all, sig

nora!"

"It's about enough, too, I think," remarked Mrs. Blake. "But why have you chosen this moment to break it to her? Of course it is that which has sent her temperature up!"

The tears rose to Concetta's dark wistful eyes.

"I could not help it, signora! I was too impulsive, I know, but I am like that! I thought she was dying, and that she would never know who I was, or forgive my mother and, so-"

Here she was interrupted by the entrance of the doctor, and Mrs. Blake, having waited for his verdict, which was,

on the whole, a reassuring one, took her departure. "It's a most extraordinary story," she reflected, as she got into her motor and was whirled rapidly away in

the direction of her home. "I will wire to Rosa Cross at once, just to make sure the girl is not a fraud, with an eye to the old woman's money." But even as the idea entered her mind the remembrance of Concetta's wistful eyes and childlike expression caused her to repent of her suspicions. And then an amused smile curved her lips. "Poor old Deborah!" she murmured. "Who would ever have imagined there was so much sentiment concealed under that stony exterior! Well, well-one never knows!"

*

It was Christmas Eve, a year later, and Mrs. Blake, running in to wish her old friend the compliments of the season, found her sitting with her niece in the firelight. Concetta was kneeling on

the hearthrug, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining, and Miss Dunn's stately figure was, wonderful to relate, leaning back in an armchair.

"Isn't it lovely, Mrs. Blake," demanded Concetta, as she poured out tea and pressed the hot scones on her aunt's guest. "Mother and Nino and my sisters are coming to-night, and we shall spend to-morrow together with la cara zia!"

Mrs. Blake glanced over at Miss Dunn with a gleam of affectionate mockery in her eyes.

"Quite too charming," she said. "And, Deborah, are you not very much obliged to me for having assisted you to replace Jane?"

"I have every reason to be grateful to you, Clare," returned Miss Dunn with some dignity. "Although I must confess that, at the time to which you refer, I entertained grave doubts as to my wisdom in following your advice."

W

HEN the hands quit work for the week at The Big Idea foundry there was an unusual air of quiet and thoughtfulness observable.

As a rule, the Saturday half-holiday's near approach aroused all that was latent of boyish animation in the men. But to-day there was nothing of this in all of the great crowd. Instead, there was the unmistakable evidence of suppressed emotions-the sullen silence that betokened fear or the spirit of unyielding resistance.

A stranger must have marvelled that so many men should say so little. One after another they came forward for their pay, received it, fell out of line and quietly departed for their homes. But

to one who understood the situation the conduct of the men was ominous-it meant that they had heard from the union that headquarters had ordered a strike.

Now, although union workingmen hold closely together, endure great hardships and make great sacrifices for each other and for the cause of organized labor in the United States, it does not follow that they are as fond of conflict as their leaders would have us believe them to be. On the contrary, the fact is that three-fourths of the men who go out on strike do so, as a rule, again t their better judgment.

As good soldiers obey the commands of their officers, so union workingmen

hearken to the orders of their leaders. In their fidelity to the cause of unionism lies the might of organization-a factor that honest and worthy leaders use to the advantage of honest, organized toilers, and the unworthy to their own personal aggrandizement and selfish purposes.

The average American workingman believes in fair play, and that means that he is willing to give the other fellow his chance. Many, however, thoughtlessly rush into ill-advised conflicts with their employers who would not, if properly and prudently counselled. And so, many unfair and unjust acts are committed which are not born of the viciousness of the perpetrators but of their unwisdom, or worse still, of the base designs of mercenary or criminal leaders. And as these things have results both good and evil, it has come to pass that men are more thoughtful in face of such issues than formerly.

And thus it was that the workingmen of The Big Idea plant were neither jubilant nor dismayed. They were loyally obedient, but prudently cautious.

The moulders had demanded a ten per cent increase of pay and recognition. of the union. There were other, but unimportant, demands; merely inserted, the manager of the plant declared, to obscure the real issue, which he held to be the closed shop, or recognition of the union's demand. Nearly all of the men agreed with the manager that the demands other than the recognition of the union issue were inserted in the "cause for strike" in order to have something to trade on. There was not the slightest doubt of it in the minds of the grievance committee of the men and the directors and manager of The Big Idea Mill Building Co.

But a few months back the company had surprised the workingmen, especially their leaders, by voluntarily advancing the pay of all employees from

ten to twenty per cent, the larger percentage going to those hitherto earning the least. This move was joyfully hailed by the men generally as an act of friendliness and justice. They were pleased to know that their employers were willing to share the prosperity of the plant with them, and would have forthwith appointed a committee to voice their appreciation but for their leaders, who would rather have forced the advance from their employers.

Alex Bowman, head of the moulders' union, objected to any demonstration of appreciation. "You're only getting what's your own," said he, "and not all of that. Some of you may be well enough paid, but look at us mouldersthe men who do the hardest work in the shops-we are to get only ten per cent raise! Is that fair? Is it fair, I ask, to raise common labor twenty per cent and skilled labor only ten?"

"But look at the difference in wages, Alex," urged Harvey Williams, a freight handler and day laborer whose wage formerly was but $1.75 per day. "You moulders made from $3.50 to $5.00 a day before the raise, while we got just about enough to keep going on. I think the men who got the lowest pay ought to have the biggest raise."

"It's not a square deal!" declared Bowman. "You fellows are entitled to your raise, all right, and we're going to have the same thing. This company has got all kinds of money, and we'll just find out how strong the union is."

"But that isn't what the union's for," objected Sam Young of the carpenters. "You moulders are getting more now than the moulders over at the Great Northern, and I don't see where you have any kick coming."

"We'll kick for just as much of a raise as anybody else in these shops gets, that's what," said Bowman, defiantly.

"That's baby talk!" declared Harvey Williams. "You talk and act like's if you's sore because we fellows got a little

boost more than you did; and you don't seem to keep in mind that none of us asked for anything or expected it."

"That makes no difference. We've got the power to force an even divvy, and we'll do it," said Bowman, savagely.

"Yes, you'll raise trouble because you think you've got a rich union back of you. But what about us?" demanded Williams. "We haven't got any big treasury to pull on, and, what's more, we don't want trouble."

"If you're willin' to submit it's no sign that the moulders will," replied Bowman. "If anybody gets twenty per cent raise 'round here the moulders is in on that-all the way."

"The moulders are hogs, and troublebreeders, that's what they are!" Williams was now thoroughly angered.

"You'll take that back!" exclaimed Bowman.

"Not on your account, nor because you don't like it," hissed Williams. "It's true, and I mean it just the way I said it. Moulders cause more trouble than all the other men in the plant, and it's the same thing everywhere else. If the moulders don't get it all they kick. I'm

glad we don't have to work for moulders, I am."

"Well, you might do worse."

"I reckon that's true-we might not have any work at all; and if that's what you're drivin' at I'll tell you right now that I believe that this company is on the square. I don't believe there's a valler one in it; and if it comes to shovin', they won't stand for it. Now you fellows mind what I'm sayin'they'll shut down, an' do it too quick, if we fellows get the least bit too gay."

"It is useless for you to cause a strike," the manager argued, "because you have no grievance that will stand investigation. You are now being paid. ten per cent more than the union men in other plants and there's not the slightest excuse in the world for bringing the union question up. The company wants union men-has always wanted thembecause we believe that union men are more reliable than non-union men. And we have always felt that if we had to deal with unruly or unreasonable union men we could shift the responsibility to where it belonged-to the union. We have never discriminated against members of the union, nor do we mean to, unless they force us to it-then we shall drop them."

"But this order comes from headquarters," urged Bowman. "It's the rule now to unionize shops out and out; and we've got to obey orders."

"As to that, Mr. Bowman, I have a word to say on my own account," continued the manager. "And I am glad, under the circumstances, to have the men hear this: Alex Bowman, more than all the men employed by The Big Idea Mill Building Company, is responsible for the present trouble. Bowman, didn't you urge headquarters to take the action referred to? Answer that."

"Well, suppose I did?" said Bowman. "Then stand by your guns," replied the manager. "You have brought about this state of affairs, and but a moment ago you undertook to create the impression in the minds of these men that you were not responsible for it. For my part, Bowman, I'll trust you no more, and my advice to you, men, is, that before you do anything you might be sorry for you should take this matter up with headquarters on its merits." With that Mr. Bowen went back to his office.

As soon as the manager had gone the men crowded around Bowman and demanded to see the strike order.