together to Ellen, as they had done before. They
would never force her to anything, and if, after all that her mother
could say, she still wished to see the fellow, they would not deny her.

When it came to this, Ellen was a long time silent, so long a time that
her mother was beginning restively to doubt whether she was going to
speak at all. Then she drew a long, silent breath. "I suppose I ought to
despise myself, momma, for caring for him, when he's never really said
that he cared for me."

"No, no," her mother faltered.

"But I do, I do!" she gave way piteously. "I can't help it! He doesn't
say so, even now."

"No, he doesn't." It hurt her mother to own the fact that alone gave her
hope.

The girl was a long time silent again before she asked, "Has poppa got
the tickets?"

"Why, he wouldn't, Ellen, child, till he knew how you felt," her mother
tenderly reproached her.

"He'd better not wait!" The tears ran silently down Ellen's cheeks, and
her lips twitched a little between these words and the next; she spoke
as if it were still of her father, but her mother understood. "If he
ever does say so, don't you speak a word to me, momma; and don't you let
poppa."

"No; indeed I won't," her mother promised. "Have we ever interfered,
Ellen? Have we ever tried to control you?"

"He WOULD have said so, if he hadn't seen that everybody was against
him." The mother bore without reply the ingratitude and injustice that
she knew were from the child's pain and not from her will. "Where is his
letter? Give me his letter!" She nervously twitched it from her mother's
hand and ran it into her pocket. She turned away to go and put off her
hat, which she still wore from coming in with Lottie; but she stopped
and looked over her shoulder at her mother. "I'm going to answer it, and
I don't want you ever to ask me what I've said. Will you?"

"No, I won't, Nelly."

"Well, then!"

The next night she went with Boyne and Lottie to the apartment overhead
to spend their last evening with the young people there, who were going
into the country the next day. She came back without the others,
who wished to stay a little longer, as she said, with a look of gay
excitement in her eyes, which her mother knew was not happiness. Mrs.
Kenton had an impulse to sweep into her lap the lithograph plans of
the steamer, and the passage ticket which lay open on the table before
herself and her husband. But it was too late to hide them from Ellen.