But while, sunk in a not very profound reverie, he was in the act of
turning the corner of a narrow wynd, he was all but knocked down by a girl
whom another in the crowd had pushed violently against him. Recoiling from
the impact, and unable to recover her equilibrium, she fell helplessly
prostrate on the granite pavement, and lay motionless. Annoyed and half-
angry, he was on the point of walking on, heedless of the accident, when
something in the pale face among the coarse and shapeless shoes that had
already gathered thick around it, arrested him with a strong suggestion of
some one he had once known. But the same moment the crowd hid her from his
view; and, shocked even to be reminded of Isy in such an assemblage, he
turned resolutely away, and cherishing the thought of the many chances
against its being she, walked steadily on. When he looked round again ere
crossing the street, the crowd had vanished, the pavement was nearly empty,
and a policeman who just then came up, had seen nothing of the occurrence,
remarking only that the girls at the paper-mills were a rough lot.
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