up the steps and into the house, where black
Hannah was waiting to receive her.

"You can't come in," said Madam gruffly. "I am tired. I will see you some
other time."

"All right," said Quin. "What time shall I come Saturday afternoon?"

"Saturday afternoon? Why then?"

"To go out to Mr. Ranny's farm."

For an instant they measured glances; then Quin began to laugh--a
confident, boyish laugh full of teasing affection.

"Come on," he coaxed, "be a good scout. Let's give 'em the surprise of
their lives."

"You rascal, you!" she said, hitting at him with her cane. "I believe you
are at the bottom of all this. Mind, I promise you nothing."

"You don't have to," he called back. "I can trust you. I'll be here at
three!"

He arrived on Saturday an hour early in the hope of seeing Eleanor, and
was gloriously rewarded by thirty minutes alone with her in the big dark
drawing-room. All the way up from the factory he had thought of the
things he wanted to tell her--all the Martel news, the progress of
affairs at Valley Mead, the fact that he had won his first-term
certificate at the university, and above all about his promotion at
Bartlett & Bangs. But Eleanor gave him no chance to tell her anything.
She was like a dammed-up stream that suddenly finds an outlet. Into
Quin's sympathetic ears she poured her own troubles, talking with her
hands and her eyes as well as her lips, exaggerating, dramatizing,
laughing one minute, half crying the next.

The summer, it seemed, had been one long series of clashes with her
grandmother. She hadn't enjoyed one day of it, she assured him; that is,
not a _whole_ day, for of course there were some gorgeous times in
between. Her friends had not been welcome at the house, and one (whom
Quin devoutly hoped was Mr. Phipps) had been openly insulted. She had not
been allowed to take part in the play given at the club-house, when it
had been planned with her especially in mind for the leading role. She
had even been forbidden to go to the last boathouse dance, because it was
a moonlight affair, and grandmother had never heard of such a thing as
dancing without lights.

"She has spent the entire summer nagging at me," Eleanor concluded. "I
couldn't do a thing to please her. If I stayed in she wanted me to go
out; if I went out she thought I ought to stay in. If I put on one dress
she invariably made me change it for another. And as for being late to
meals, why, each time it happened you woul