"don't now--Mammy Maria said I was
never to--let you kiss me."

"Oh," he said with some iciness--"Listen to her an' you will die an
old maid. Besides, I am not engaged to Mammy Maria."

"Do you think I am a coquette?" she asked, sitting down by him again.

"Worst I ever saw--I said to Nellie just now--I mean--" he stopped
and laughed.

She looked at him, pained.

"Then you've stopped to see Nellie, and that is why you are late? I
do not care what she says--I am true to you, Harry--because--because
I love you."

He was feigning anger, and tapping his boot with his riding whip:

"Well--kiss me yourself then--show me that Mammy Maria does not boss
my wife."

She laughed and kissed him. He received it with indifference and some
haughtiness.

Then his good nature returned and they sat and talked, watching the
sunset.

"Don't you think my dress is pretty?" she asked after a while, with a
becoming toss of her head.

"Why, I hadn't noticed it--stunning--stunning. If there is a queen on
earth it is you,"--he added.

She flushed under the praise and was silent.

"Harry,"--she said after a while, "I hate to trouble you now, but I
am so worried about things at home."

He looked up half frowning.

"You know I have always told you I could not marry you now. I would
not burden you with Papa."

"Why, yes," he answered mechanically, "we're both young and can wait.
You see, really, Pet--you know I am dependent at present on the
Gov'nor an'--"

"I understand all that," she said quickly--"but"--

"A long engagement will only test our love," he broke in with a show
of dignity.

"You do not understand," she went on. "Things have got so bad at home
that I must earn something."

He frowned and tapped his foot impatiently. She sat up closer to him
and put her hand on his. He did not move nor even return the
pressure.

"And so, Harry--if--if to help papa--and Millwood is sold--and I can
get a good place in the mill--one off by myself--what they call
drawer-in--at good wages,--and, if only for a little while I'd work
there--to help out, you know--what would you think?"

He sprang up from his seat and dropped her hand.

"Good God, Helen Conway, are you crazy?" he said brutally--"why, I'd
never speak to you again. Me? A Travis?--and marry a mill girl?"

The color went out of her face. She looked in her shame and sorrow
toward the sunset, where a cloud, but ten minutes before, had stood
all rosy and purple with the