to dinner. And Lloyd looked at me, and I
believe he counted every gray hair in my head, and he saw my back,
and he saw my hands, and he said--he said I was too old."

Andrew snatched his hands from Ellen's grasp, pressed them to his
face, and broke into weeping. "Oh, my God, I'm too old, I'm too
old!" he sobbed; "I'm out of it! I'm too old!"

Ellen regarded him, and her face had developed lines of strength
hitherto unrevealed. There was no pity in it, hardly love; she
looked angry and powerful. "Father, stop doing so, and look at me,"
she said. She dragged her father's hands from his face, and he
stared at her with his inflamed eyes, half terrified, half
sustained. At that moment he realized a strength of support as from
his own lost youth, a strength as of eternal progress which was more
to be relied upon than other human strength. For the first time he
leaned on his child, and realized with wonder the surety of the
stay.

"Now, father, you stop doing so," said Ellen. "You can get work
somewhere; you are not old. Call yourself old! It is nonsense. Are
you going to give in and be old because two men tell you that you
are? What if your hair is gray! Ever so many young men have gray
hair. You are not old, and you can get work somewhere. McGuire's and
Lloyd's are not the only factories in the country."

"That ain't all," said Andrew, with eyes like a beseeching dog's on
her face.

"I know that isn't all," said Ellen. "You needn't be afraid to tell
me, father. You have taken the money out of the savings-bank for
something."

Again Andrew would have snatched his hands from the girl's and
hidden his face, but she held them fast. "Yes, I have," he admitted,
in a croaking voice.

"Well, what if you have?" asked Ellen. "You had a right to take it
out, didn't you? You put it in. I don't know of anybody who had a
better right to take it out than you, if you wanted to."

Andrew stared at her, as if he did not hear rightly. "You don't know
what I did with it, Ellen," he stammered.

"It is nobody's business," replied Ellen. She had an unexplained
sensation as if she were holding fast to her father's slipping
self-respect which was dragging hard at her restraining love.

"I put it in a worthless gold-mine out in Colorado--the same one
your uncle Jim lost his money in," groaned Andrew.

"Well, it was your money, and you had a perfect right to," said
Ellen. "Of course you thought the mine was all right or you wouldn't
h