seemed to engulf her.

When she reached home, her mother looked at her in astonishment. She
was sewing on the interminable wrappers. Andrew was paring apples
for pies. "What be you home for--be you sick?" asked Fanny. Andrew
gazed at her in alarm.

"No, I am not sick," replied Ellen, shortly. "Mrs. Lloyd is dead,
and the factory's closed."

"I heard she was very low--Mrs. Jones told me so yesterday," said
Fanny, in a hushed voice. Andrew began paring another apple. He was
quite pale.

"When is the funeral to be, did you hear?" asked Fanny. Ellen was
hanging up her hat and coat in the entry.

"Day after to-morrow."

"Have you heard anything about the hands sending flowers?"

"No."

"I suppose they will," said Fanny, "as long as they sent one to him.
Well, she was a good woman, and it's a mark of respect, and I 'ain't
anything to say against it, but I can't help feeling as if it was a
tax."

Chapter XLVI

It was some time after Mrs. Lloyd's death. Ellen had not seen Robert
except as she had caught from time to time a passing glimpse of him
in the factory. One night she overheard her father and mother
talking about him after she had gone to bed, the sitting-room door
having been left ajar.

"I thought he'd come and call after his aunt died," she heard Fanny
say. "I've always thought he liked Ellen, an' here he is now, with
all that big factory, an' plenty of money."

"Mebbe he will," replied Andrew, with a voice in which were
conflicting emotions, pride and sadness, and a struggle for
self-renunciation.

"It would be a splendid thing for her," said Fanny.

"It would be a splendid thing for _him_," returned Andrew, with a
flash.

"Land, of course it would! You needn't be so smart, Andrew Brewster.
I guess I know what Ellen is, as well as you. Any man might be proud
to get her--I don't care who--whether he's Robert Lloyd, or who, but
that don't alter what I say. It would be a splendid chance for
Ellen. Only think of that great Lloyd house, and it must be full of
beautiful things--table linen, and silver, and what-not. I say it
would be a splendid thing for her, and she'd be above want all her
life--that's something to be considered when we 'ain't got any more
than we have to leave her, and she workin' the way she is."

"Yes, that's so," assented Andrew, with a heavy sigh, as of one who
looks upon life from under the mortification of an incubus of fate.

"We'd ought to think of her best good,