from the arcades.

Outside the church big fat-bellied pigeons were cooing about the tower
or strutting and pecking on the ground. To kill one was a grave offense.
The worst boy playing in the lane durst not lift a hand against them.

Very different game were Eagle and the other alien whom she led past the
red faced English children.

"Good day," she spoke pleasantly, feeling their antagonism. They
answered her with a titter.

"Sally Blake is the only one I know," she explained in French, to her
companion who moved feebly and stiffly behind her dancing step. "I
cannot talk English to them, and besides, their manners are not good,
for they are not like our peasants."

Sally Blake and a bare kneed lad began to amble behind the foreigners,
he taking his cue smartly and lolling out his tongue. The whole crowd
set up a shout, and Eagle looked back. She wheeled and slapped the St.
Bat's girl in the face.

That silent being whom she had taken under her care recoiled from the
blow which the bare kneed boy instantly gave him, and without defending
himself or her, shrank down in an attitude of entreaty. She screamed
with pain at this sight, which hurt worse than the hair-pulling of the
mob around her. She fought like a panther in front of him.

Two men in the long narrow lane leading from Smithfield, interfered, and
scattered her assailants.