“It is dreadful,” she said.

“They say he has about ruined a great many of the people in Banbridge who have trusted them,” said the maid, with a sly, keen glance at her mistress.  She had heard that Mr. Anderson was one of the losers, and she wondered.

“They have paid my son promptly, I believe,” said Mrs. Anderson, although a little reluctantly.  She always disliked alluding to the store to her maid, much more so than towards her equals.  But that the maid misunderstood.  She often told her beau that Mrs. Anderson was not a bit set up nor proud-feeling, if her son did have a store.  Therefore, to-night she understood humility instead of pride from her mistress’s tone, and looked at her admiringly as she daintily polished the delicate pink-and-gold cups.

“I am very glad, indeed, that Mr. Randolph has not lost nothing through them,” she replied.

“No, he has not,” Mrs. Anderson repeated.  “I dare say it is all exaggerated.  The young lady who was here to-night seems like a very sweet girl.”

Mrs. Anderson said that from a beautiful sense of loyalty and justice, while in her mind’s eye she saw her beloved son walking along through the early night with the young lady on his arm, and perhaps falling desperately in love, even at this date, and beginning to think of matrimony with a member of a family about which such tales were told in Banbridge.

But the harm had been done long before she had dreamed of it, and her son had been very much in love with the girl on his arm before he had scarcely known her by sight.  Anderson that night felt in a sort of dream.  He was for the first time practically alone with Charlotte, for Eddy accompanied them very much after the fashion of an extremely lively little dog.  He ran ahead, he lagged behind, and made dashes ahead with wild whoops.  He hid behind trees, and sprang out at them when they passed.  He was frequently startlingly obvious, but could not be said to actually be with them.  He had wondered frankly, before they started, as to why Anderson wished to accompany them at all.

“I don’t see why you want to go ’way up to our house when Charlotte has got me,” he said.  “Ain’t you tired?”

Something in Anderson’s persistency seemed to strike him as significant, for he walked behind them quite soberly, with his eye upon their backs in a speculative fashion at first; then he seemed to be seized with wild excitement, and began frantic demonstrations to attract Anderson’s attention.  In reality the boy was jealous, although nobody dreamed of such a thing.

“A man will never notice a feller when a pretty girl’s around; and she ain’t so very pretty, either,” he said to himself.  He regarded Anderson as his find, and was naturally indignant with Charlotte.  So all the way home he darted and veered about them, in order to divert the man’s mind from the girl to the faithful little boy, but with no avail.  Once or twice Charlotte spoke reproachfully to him, and that was all.  Anderson never spoke a word to him, and his grief and jealousy grew.