something out of her childhood. She dreaded to go down-stairs;
she had a feeling of shamefacedness struggling within her; she was
afraid that her father and mother would look at her sharply, then
look again, and ask her what the matter was, and she would not know
what to say. When she went down, and backed about for her mother to
fasten her little frock as was her wont, she was careful to keep her
face turned away; but Fanny caught her up and kissed her in her
usual way, and then her aunt Eva sung out to know if she wanted to
go on a sleigh-ride, and had she seen the snow; and then her father
came in and that look of last night had gone from his face, and
Ellen was her old self again until she was alone by herself and
remembered.

Fanny and Andrew and Eva had agreed to say nothing before the child
about the shutting-up of Lloyd's, and their troubles in consequence.
"She heard too much last night," Andrew said; "there's no use in her
botherin' her little head with it. I guess that baby won't suffer."

"She's jest the child to fret herself most to pieces thinkin' we
were awful poor, and she would starve or somethin'," Fanny said.

"Well, she sha'n't be worried if I can help it, no matter what
happens to me," Eva said.

After breakfast that morning Eva went to work on a little dress of
Ellen's. When Fanny told her not to spend her time over that, when
she had so much sewing of her own to do, Eva replied with a gay,
hard laugh, that she guessed she'd wait and finish her weddin'-fix
when she was goin' to be married.

"Eva Loud, you ain't goin' to be so silly as to put off your
weddin'," Fanny cried out.

"I dunno as I've put it off; I dunno as I want to get married,
anyhow," Eva said, still laughing. "I dunno, but I'd rather be old
maid aunt to Ellen."

"Eva Loud," cried her sister; "do you know what you are doin'?"

"Pretty well, I reckon," said Eva.

"Do you know that if you put off Jim Tenny, and he not likin' it,
ten chances to one Aggie Bemis will get hold of him again?"

"Well," said Eva, "let her. I won't have been the one to drag him
into misery, anyhow."

"Well, if you can feel that way," Fanny returned, looking at her
sister with a sort of mixed admiration and pity.

"I can. I tell you what 'tis, Fanny. When I look at Jim, handsome
and head up in the air, and think how he'd look all bowed down, hair
turnin' gray, and not carin' whether he's shaved and has on a clean
shirt or not, 'cause he's got loa