," cried the young man, fervently. And he was quite in earnest.
At that moment it seemed to him that he could even come and live
there in that house, with the hideous lamp, and the crushed-plush
furniture, and the eager mother; that he could go without anything
and everything to support them if only he could have this girl who
was fairly storming his heart.

"I wouldn't be willing to have you," said Ellen, firmly. "As things
are now I cannot marry you, Mr. Lloyd. Then, too," she added, "you
asked me just now how many people looked at all this labor as I do,
and I dare say not very many. I know not many of your kind of
people. I know how your uncle looks at it. It would hurt you
socially to marry a girl from a shoe-shop. Whether it is just or
not, it would hurt you. It cannot be, as matters are now, Mr.
Lloyd."

"But you love me?"

Ellen suddenly, as if pushed by some mighty force outside herself,
leaned towards him, and he caught her in his arms. He tipped back
her face and kissed her, and looked down at her masterfully.

"We will wait a little," he said. "I will never give you up as long
as I live if you love me, Ellen."

Chapter XXXIX

When Ellen went out into the sitting-room that evening, after Robert
Lloyd had taken leave, her father and mother were still there,
although the callers had gone. Both of them looked furtively at her
as she went through the room to the kitchen to get a lamp, then they
looked at each other. Fanny was glowing with half shamefaced
triumph; Andrew was pale. Ellen did not re-enter the room, but
simply paused at the door, before going up-stairs, and they had a
vision of a face in a tumult of emotions, with eyes and hair
illuminated to excess of brilliancy by the lamp which she held.

"Good-night," she called, and her voice did not sound like her own.

"Something has happened," Fanny whispered to Andrew, when Ellen's
chamber door had closed.

"Do you suppose she's goin' to?" whispered Andrew, in a sort of
breathless fashion. His eyes on his wife's face were sad and
wistful.

"Hush! How do I know?" asked Fanny. "I always told you he liked
her."

However, Fanny looked disturbed. Presently she went out in the
kitchen to mix up some bread, and she wept a little, standing in a
corner, with her face hidden in the folds of an old shawl which hung
there on a peg. Dictatorial towards circumstances as she was when
her beloved daughter came in question, and proud as she was at the