"Yes, that is so," said the Swede, with a nod of his fair head.

"And now to lose this young one that she set her life by," said the
first girl, with an evident point of malice in her tone, and a
covert look at the pretty girl at Jim Tenny's side. Jim Tenny paled
under his grime; the hand which held the knife clinched.

"What do you s'pose has become of the young one?" said the first
girl. "There's a good many out from the shop huntin' this mornin',
ain't there?"

"Fifty," said the first man, laconically.

"You three were out all day yesterday, wa'n't you?"

"Yes, Jim and Carl and me were out till after midnight."

"Well, I wonder whether the poor little young one is alive? Don't
seem as if she could be--but--"

"Look there! look there!" screamed the elderly girl suddenly. "Look
at _there!_" She began to dance, she laughed, she sobbed, she waved
her lean hands frantically out of the window, leaning far over the
bench. "Look at there!" she kept crying. Then she turned and ran out
of the room, with the other girls and half the cutting-room after
her.

"Damn it, she's got the child!" said the thin man. He kept on
working, his dark, sinewy hands flying over the sheets of leather,