"She's not the kind for that," they said, and stood with bared heads while she passed in and out of sight.
"Oh, but it's good to get back here," said Mary, as they found themselves once more in the mayor's rooms. "I shall be glad to buckle down to work again."
But there was little chance for "buckling down" that day. Even as she spoke, Bailey Armstrong was beside Mary Snow with warm greetings and Allingham was exchanging salutations with the Mayor herself. A stream of others were coming in, all the employees about the place, and hundreds of others, who wanted to clasp the hands of the returned prisoners, and assure them of their loyal support.
The women of the city began to arrive about ten o'clock, the "Progressives" arriving at that hour in a body, and everyone of them clasping and kissing the Mayor as, it is safe to say, no incumbent of that office was ever hugged and kissed before—at least, during office hours.
"O, Gertrude," said Mrs. Blake, "we would never have put you in, if we'd known what it would bring you."
"To think we were letting you in for kidnaping and imprisonment," said Mrs. Turner.
"Like a criminal—or step-child," added Mrs. Mason.
"O, Gertie!" cried the fluffy woman known as Bella, "and I brought it on by telling you all that stuff my laundress told me. Rudolph says I did." And she burst into tears.
"Don't cry, Bella," said the mayor, soothingly. "I was finding things out, anyway. It would have been just the same in the end."
"But Rudolph says—" insisted the weeping one, when the push from behind carried her on out into the corridors.