rohibition, but nothing could alter his habit of loving her.

"Yes," said she. "It was more on your account than on my own;
confession would be good for the soul. The secret has always rankled
in my pride. I would much rather defy opinion than fly before it.
But I know that you would mind. However, there was another reason."

"What?"

She hesitated a little and colored, even laughed a little,
embarrassed laugh which was foreign to her. "Well, Lyman," said she,
finally, "one reason why I did not speak was that I see my way clear
to making up to that child and her parents for any wrong which I may
have done them by causing them a few hours' anxiety. When she has
finished the high-school I mean to send her to college."

Chapter XV

When Ellen was about sixteen, in her second year at the high-school,
her own family never looked at her without a slight shock of
wonder, as before the unexpected. Her mates, being themselves
in the transition state, received her unquestioningly as a
fellow-traveller, and colored like themselves with the new lights of
the journey. But Ellen's father and mother and grandmother never
ceased regarding her with astonishment and admiration and something
like alarm. While they regarded Ellen with the utmost pride, they
still privately regretted this perfection of bloom which was the
forerunner of independence of the parent stalk--at least, Andrew
did. Andrew had grown older and more careworn; his mine had not yet
paid any dividends, but he had scattering jobs of work, and with his
wife's assistance had managed to rub along, and his secret was still
safe.

One day in February there was a half-holiday. Lloyd's was shut for
the rest of the day, for his brother in St. Louis was dead, and had
been brought to Rowe to be buried, and his funeral was at two
o'clock.

"Goin' to the funeral, old man?" one of Andrew's fellow-workmen had
asked, jostling him as he went out of the shop at noon. Before
Andrew could answer, another voice broke in fiercely. It belonged to
Joseph Atkins, who was ghastly that day.

"I ain't goin' to no funerals," he said; "guess they won't shut up
shop for mine." Then he coughed. His daughter Abby, who had been
working in the factory for some time then, pressed close behind her
father, and the expression in her face was an echo of his.

"When I strike, that's what I'm going to strike for--to have the
shop shut up the day of my funeral," said she; and the remark had a