we
should be upset. I never saw anything like his impassioned vehemence. It
reminded me of Salvini. I never was loved like that before."

"And what answer did you make to him?" asked Mrs. Easterfield, her voice
trembling.

"I did not make him any. It would not have been fair to the others or to
myself to do that. I shall not swerve from my purpose, but I shall not
be rash."

Mrs. Easterfield rose suddenly and stepped to the open window; she could
not sit still a moment longer; she needed air. "Olive," she said, "this
is mad and wicked folly in you, and it is impertinent in him, no matter
how much you encouraged him. I would like to send him back to his desk
this minute. He has no right to come to his employer's house and behave
in this manner."

Olive did not get angry. "He is not impertinent," said she. "He knows
nothing in this world but that I once loved him, and that now he loves
me. Employer and employee are nothing to him. I don't believe he would
go if you told him to, even if you could do such a thing, which I don't
believe you would, for, of course, you would think of me as well as of
him."

"Olive Asher," cried Mrs. Easterfield in a voice which was almost a
wail, "do you mean to say that you are to be considered in this matter,
that for a moment you think of marrying this man?"

"Yes," said Olive; "I do think of it, and the more I think of it the
better I think of it. He is a good man; you have told me that yourself;
and I can feel that he is good. I know he loves me. There can be no
mistake about his words and his eyes. I feel as I never felt toward any
other man, that I might become attached to him. And in my opinion a real
attachment is the foundation of love, and you must never forget that I
once loved him." The girl now stepped close to Mrs. Easterfield. "I am
sorry to see those tears," she said; "I did not come here to make you
unhappy."

"But you have made me very unhappy," said the elder lady, "and I do not
think I can talk any more about this now."

When Olive had gone Mrs. Easterfield hurried down-stairs in search of
Lancaster. She did not care what any one might think of her
unconventional eagerness; she wanted to find him, and she soon
succeeded. He was sitting in the shade with a book, which, when she
approached him, she did not believe he was reading.

"Yes," said she, as he started to his feet in evident concern, "I have
been crying, and there is no use in trying to conceal it. Of co