ce of the mother at him, then at Ellen, and the meaning
laughter, repelled him to the point of disgust. He turned his back
to the window and resumed his work, but, in spite of himself, the
pathos of the picture which he had seen began to force itself upon
him, and he thought almost tenderly and forgivingly that she, the
girl, had not once looked his way. He even wondered, pityingly, if
she had been mortified and annoyed by her mother's behavior. A great
anger on Ellen's behalf with her mother seized upon him. How pretty
she did look moving along in that little flower-laden procession, he
thought, how very pretty. All at once a desire for the photograph
which would be taken seized him, for he divined the photograph.
However, he said to himself that he would send back the valedictory
which he had not yet read by post, with a polite note, and that
would be the end.

But it was only the next evening that Robert Lloyd with the
valedictory in hand got off the trolley-car in front of the Brewster
house. He had proved to himself that it was an act of actual
rudeness to return anything so precious and of so much importance to
the owner by the post, that he ought to call and deliver it in
person. When he regained his equilibrium from the quick sidewise
leap from the car, and stood hesitating a little, as one will do
before a strange house, for he was not quite sure as to his
bearings, he saw a white blur as of feminine apparel in the front
doorway. He advanced tentatively up the little path between two rows
of flowering bushes, and Ellen rose.

"Good-evening, Mr. Lloyd," she said, in a slightly tremulous voice.

"Oh, good-evening, Miss Brewster," he cried, quickly. "So I am
right! I was not sure as to the house."

"People generally tell by the cherry-trees in the yard," replied
Ellen, taking refuge from her timidity in the security of
commonplace observation, as she had done the night before, giving
thereby both a sense of disappointment and elusiveness.

"Won't you walk in?" she added, with the prim politeness of a child
who accosts a guest according to rule and precept. Ellen had never,
in fact, had a young man make a formal call upon her before. She
reflected now, both with relief and trepidation, that her mother was
away, having gone to her aunt Eva's. She had an instinct which she
resented, that her mother and this young man were on two parallels
which could never meet. Her father was at home, seated in the south
door