with John Sargent and Nahum Beals and Joe Atkins, but she never
thought of such a thing as her father's receiving a young man
caller, though she would not have doubted so much his assimilating
with Robert Lloyd. She understood that the young man might look at
her mother with dissent, while she resented it, but with her father
it was different.

The group of men at the south door were talking in loud, fervent
voices which seemed to rise and fall like waves. Nahum Beals's
strained, nervous tones were paramount. "Mr. Beals is talking about
the labor question, and he gets quite excited," Ellen remarked,
somewhat apologetically, as she ushered young Lloyd into the parlor.

Lloyd laughed. "It sounds as if he were leading an army," he said.

"He is very much in earnest," said the girl.

She placed painstakingly for her guest the best chair, which was a
spring rocker upholstered with crush-plush. The little parlor was
close and stuffy, and the kerosene-lamp, with the light dimmed by a
globe decorated with roses, heated the room still further. This lamp
was Fanny's pride. It had, in her eyes, the double glory of high art
and cheapness. She was fond of pointing at it, and inquiring, "How
much do you think that cost?" and explaining with the air of one who
expects her truth to be questioned that it only cost forty-nine
cents. This lamp was hideous, the shape was aggressive, a discordant
blare of brass, and the roses on the globe were blasphemous. Somehow
this lamp was the first thing which struck Lloyd on entering the
room. He could not take his eyes from it. As for Ellen, long
acquaintance had dulled her eyes. She sat in the full glare of this
hideous lamp, and Lloyd considered that she was not so pretty as he
had thought last night. Still, she was undeniably very pretty. There
was something in the curves of her shoulders, in her pink-and-white
cotton waist, that made one's fingers tingle, and heart yearn, and
there was an appealing look in her face which made him smile
indulgently at her as he might have done at a child. After all, it
was probably not her fault about the lamp, and lamps were a minor
consideration, and he was finical, but suppose she liked it? Lloyd,
sitting there, began to speculate if it were possible for one's
spiritual nature to be definitely damaged by hideous lamps. Then he
caught sight of a plate decorated with postage-stamps, with a
perforated edge through which ribbons were run, and he wondered if