n heart over, whether you
marry him or not, payin' attention to you, I am glad. It's a
different thing, marriage with a man like Robert Lloyd, and a man
like that would never think of me. I'm right in the ranks, and you
ain't."

"I am," said Ellen, stoutly.

"No, you ain't; you don't belong there, and when I see a chance for
you to get out where you belong--"

"I don't intend to make marriage a stepping-stone," said Ellen.
"Sometimes--" She hesitated.

"What?" asked the other girl.

"Sometimes I think I would rather not go to college, after all."

"Ellen Brewster, are you crazy? Of course, you will go to college
unless you marry Robert Lloyd. Perhaps he won't want to wait." Then
Abby, dauntless as she was, shrank a little before Ellen's wrathful
retort.

"Abby Atkins, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she cried.
"There he's been to see me just twice, the first time on an errand,
and the next with his aunt, and he's walked home with me once
because he couldn't help it; his aunt told him to!"

"But here he is again to-night," said Abby, apologetically.

"What of that? I suppose he has come on another errand."

"Then what made you run away?"

"Because you have all made me ashamed of my life to look at him,"
said Ellen, hotly.

Then down went her head on the bed again, and Abby was leaning over
her, caressing her, whispering fond things to her like a lover.

"There, there, Ellen," she whispered. "Don't be mad, don't feel bad.
I didn't mean any harm. You are such a beauty--there's nobody like
you in the world--that everybody thinks that any man who sees you
must want you."

"Robert Lloyd doesn't, and if he did I wouldn't have him," sobbed
Ellen.

"You sha'n't if you don't want him," said Abby, consolingly.

After a while the two girls bathed their eyes with cold water, and
went down-stairs into the sitting-room. Maria was making herself a
blue muslin dress, and her mother was hemming the ruffles. There was
a cheap blue shade on the lamp, and Maria herself was clad in a blue
gingham. All the blue color and the shade on the lamp gave a curious
pallor and unreality to the homely room and the two women. Mrs.
Atkins's hair was strained back from her hollow temples, which had
noble outlines.

"I'm going to walk a little way with Ellen, she's going home," said
Abby.

"Very well," said her mother. Maria looked wistfully at them as they
went out. She went on sewing on her blue muslin, rather sadly. She