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246 partner suggested weakly. "It's struck me that—in the end—it mightn't be a bad thing—that it would change the direction of their mood."

"Wait until the end comes. It's not here yet. Tell me how it happened."

Upon the whole, Mr. Ffrench made a good story of it. He depicted the anxieties and dangers of the occasion very graphically. He had lost a good deal of his enthusiasm on the subject of the uncultivated virtues and sturdy determination of the manufacturing laboring classes, and he was always fluent, as has been before mentioned. He was very fluent now, and especially so in describing the incident of his daughter's presenting herself to the mob and the result of her daring.

"She might have lost her life," he said at one point. "It was an insane thing to have done—an insane thing. She surprised them at first, but she could not hold them in check after Murdoch came. She will bear the mark of the stone for many a day."

"They threw a stone, blast 'em, did they?" said Haworth, setting his teeth.

"Yes—but not at her. Perhaps they would hardly have dared that after all. It was thrown at Murdoch."

"And he stepped out of the way?"

"Oh no. He did not see the man raise his arm, but she did, and was too much alarmed to reflect, I suppose—and—in fact threw herself before him."

He moved back disturbedly the next instant. Haworth burst forth with a string of oaths. The veins stood out like cords on his forehead; he ground his teeth. When the outbreak was over he asked an embarrassing question.

"Where were you?"

"I?"—with some uncertainty of tone." I—had not