"I'll leave that to their imaginations," she said, and after she had signed each letter, she did another feminine thing.
She had a gentle little cry all by herself, and then through her tears she smiled at her silent forbears who seemed to be watching her more attentively than ever from their frames of tarnished gilt upon the walls.
"It hasn't been all roses and lilies," she told them, "but—that's us!"
CHAPTER XXVII
Meanwhile, as you will guess, it hadn't been "all roses and lilies" either, for the men who had gone on strike.
"Didn't you say you expected trouble?" Mary asked Archey one morning just after the big strike was declared.
"Yes," he told her. "They were talking that way. But they are so sure now that we'll have to give in, that they are quite good natured about it."
Mary said nothing, but her back grew stiff, something like Mrs. Ridge's; and when she saw Uncle Stanley in the outer office a few minutes later and he smiled without looking at her—smiled and shook his head to himself as though he were thinking of something droll—Mary went back to her room in a hurry, and stayed there until she felt tranquil again.
"What are the men saying now?" she asked Archey the following week.
"They are still taking it as a sort of a joke," he told her, "but here and there you catch a few who are looking thoughtful—especially those who have wives or daughters working here."