She put her broad arm with maternal kindness around Jessica’s waist, and led her unresisting toward the door. “Never mind, sis,” she murmured, with clumsy sympathy. “Come in and play with Horace.” Jessica, shuddering again with the chill, buried her face on her sister’s shoulder, and wept supinely. There was not an atom of courage remaining in her heart. “You are low down and miserable,” pursued Lucinda, compassionately. “I’ll make you up some boneset tea. It’ll be lucky if you haven’t caught your death a-cold out here so long.” She had taken a shawl, which hung in the hallway, and wrapped it about her sister’s shoulders. “I half wish I had,” sobbed Jessica. “There’s no fight left in me any more.” “What’s the matter, anyway?” “If I knew myself,” the girl groaned in answer, “perhaps I could do something; but I don’t. I can’t think, I can’t eat or sleep or work. O God! what is the matter with me?” CHAPTER XXXI.--A STRANGE ENCOUNTER. A SOMBRE excitement reigned in Thessaly next day, when it became known that the French-Cana-dian workmen whom the rolling-mill people were importing would arrive in the village within the next few hours. They were coming through from Massachusetts, and watchful eyes at Troy had noted their temporary halt there and the time of the train they took westward. The telegraph sped forward the warning, and fully a thousand idle men in Thessaly gathered about the dépôt, both inside and on the street without, to witness the unwelcome advent. Some indefinite rumors of the sensation reached the secluded milliner’s shop on the back street, during the day. Ben Lawton drifted in to warm himself during the late forenoon, and told of the stirring scenes that were expected. He was quick to observe that Jessica was not looking well, and adjured her to be careful about the heavy cold which she said she had taken. The claims upon him of the excitement outside were too strong to be resisted, but he promised to look in during the afternoon and tell them the news. The daylight of the November afternoon was beginning imperceptibly to wane before any further tidings of the one topic of great public interest reached the sisters. One of the better class of factory-girls came in to gossip with Lucinda, and she brought with her a veritable budget of information. The French Canadians had arrived, and with them came some Pinkerton detectives, or whatever they were called, who were said to be armed to the teeth. The crowd had fiercely hooted these newcomers and their guards, and there had been a good deal of angry hustling. For awhile it looked as if a fight must ensue; but, somehow, it did not come off. The Canadians, in a body, had gone with their escort to the row of new cottages which the company had hired for them, followed by a diminishing throng of hostile men and boys. There were numerous personal incidents to relate, and the two sisters listened with deep interest to the whole recital.