six o'clock
repeated the other girl . `` Look at yourself , and look at us ! '' As she spoke , Ellen saw projected upon her mental vision herself passing down the street with the throng of factory operatives which her bodily eyes actually witnessed . She had come opposite Lloyd 's as the six o'clock whistle was blowing . She saw herself in her clean , light summer frock , slight and dainty , with little hands like white flowers in the blue folds of her skirt , with her fine , sensitive outlook of fair face , and her dainty carriage ; and she saw others -- those girls and women in dingy skirts and bagging blouses , with coarse hair strained into hard knots of exigency from patient , or sullen faces , according to their methods of bearing their lots ; all of them rank with the smell of leather , their coarse hands stained with it , swinging their poor little worn bags which had held their dinners . There were not many foreigners among them , except the Irish , most of whom had been born in this country , and a sprinkling of fair-haired , ruddy Swedes and keen Polanders , who bore themselves better than the Americans , being not so apparently at odds with the situation . The factory employés in Rowe were a superior lot , men and women .