Ellen turned quite pale, and looked at the other girl with a steady regard of grave, indignant blue eyes.

“No, I am not,” said she.

“Well, don’t be mad, Ellen.  I heard real straight that you were going to marry Granville Joy in the fall.”

“Well, I am not,” repeated Ellen.

“I didn’t suppose you were, but I knew he had always wanted you.”

“Always wanted me!” said Ellen.  “Why, he’s only just out of school!”

“Oh, I know that, and he’s only just gone to work, and he can’t be earning much, but I heard it.”

The stream of factory operatives had thinned; many had taken the trolley-cars, and others had gone to the opposite side of the street, which was shady.  The two girls were alone, standing before a vacant lot grown to weeds, rank bristles of burdock, and slender spikes of evanescent succory.  Abby burst out in a passionate appeal, clutching Ellen’s arm hard.

“Ellen, promise me you never will,” she cried.

“Promise you what, Abby?”

“Oh, promise me you never will marry anybody like him.  I know it’s none of my business—­I know that is something that is none of anybody’s business, no matter how much they think of anybody; but I think more of you than any man ever will, I don’t care who he is.  I know I do, Ellen Brewster.  And don’t you ever marry a man like Granville Joy, just an ordinary man who works in the shop, and will never do anything but work in the shop.  I know he’s good, real good and steady, and it ain’t against him that he ain’t rich and has to work for his living, but I tell you, Ellen Brewster, you ain’t the right sort to marry a man like that, and have a lot of children to work in shops.  No man, if he thinks anything of you, ought to ask you to; but all a man thinks of is himself.  Granville Joy, or any other man who wanted you, would take you and spoil you, and think he’d done a smart thing.”  Abby spoke with such intensity that it redeemed her from coarseness.  Ellen continued to look at her, and two red spots had come on her cheeks.

“I don’t believe I’ll ever get married at all,” she said.

“If you’ve got to get married, you ought to marry somebody like young Mr. Lloyd,” said Abby.

Then Ellen blushed, and pushed past her indignantly.

“Young Mr. Lloyd!” said she.  “I don’t want him, and he doesn’t want me.  I wish you wouldn’t talk so, Abby.”

“He would want you if your were a rich girl, and your father was boss instead of a workman,” said Abby.

Then she caught hold of Ellen’s arm and pressed her own thin one in its dark-blue cotton sleeve lovingly against it.

“You ain’t mad with me, are you, Ellen?” she said, with that indescribable gentleness tempering her fierceness of nature which gave her caresses the fascination of some little, untamed animal.  Ellen pressed her round young arm tenderly against the other.

“I think more of you than any man I know,” said she, fervently.  “I think more of you than anybody except father and mother, Abby.”