rehension as with a golden light of a suffering,
self-denying love which was her best reward of life and labor on the
earth.

Chapter XVIII

After the exhibition there was a dance. The Brewsters, even Mrs.
Zelotes, remained to see the last of Ellen's triumph. Mrs. Zelotes
was firmly convinced that Ellen's appearance excelled any one's in
the hall. Not a girl swung past them in the dance but she eyed her
white dress scornfully, then her rosy face, and sniffed with high
nostrils like an old war-horse. "Jest look at that Vining girl's
dress, coarse enough to strain through," she said to Fanny, leaning
across Andrew, who was sitting rapt, his very soul dancing with his
daughter, his eyes never leaving her one second, following her fair
head and white flutter of muslin ruffles and ribbons around the
hall.

"Yes, that's so," assented Fanny, but not with her usual sharpness.
A wistful softness and sweetness was on her coarsely handsome face.
Once she reached her hand over Andrew's and pressed it, and blushed
crimson as she did so. Andrew turned and smiled at her. All that
annoyed Andrew was that Ellen danced with Granville Joy often, and
also with other boys. It disturbed him a little, even while it
delighted him, that she should dance at all, that she should have
learned to dance. Andrew had been brought up to look upon dancing as
an amusement for Louds rather than for Brewsters. It had not been in
vogue among the aristocracy of this little New England city when he
was young.

Mrs. Zelotes watched Ellen dance with inward delight and outward
disapproval. "I don't approve of dancing, never did," she said to
Andrew, but she was furious once when Ellen sat through a dance.
Towards the end of the evening she saw with sudden alertness Ellen
dancing with a new partner, a handsome young man, who carried
himself with more assurance than the school-boys. Mrs. Zelotes hit
Andrew with her sharp elbow.

"Who's that dancing with her now?" she said.

"That's young Lloyd," answered Andrew. He flushed a little, and
looked pleased.

"Norman Lloyd's nephew?" asked his mother, sharply.

"Yes, he's on here from St. Louis. He's goin' into business with his
uncle," replied Andrew. "Sargent was telling me about it yesterday.
Young Lloyd came into the post-office while we were there." Fanny
had been listening. Immediately she married Ellen to young Lloyd,
and the next moment she went to live in a grand new house built in a
twink