But that was not enough to satisfy her.  She caught hold of his arm and clung to it.  “Father,” she said, in a tone which had in it, to his wonder, a firm womanliness—­his own daughter seemed to speak to him as if she were his mother—­“you are not telling me the truth.  Something is the matter, or you wouldn’t do like this.”

“No, there’s nothin’, nothin’ at all, dear child,” said Andrew.  He tried to loosen her little, clinging hand from his arm.  “Come, let’s go back to the house,” he said.  “Don’t you mind anything about it.  Sometimes father gets discouraged over nothin’.”

“It isn’t over nothing,” said Ellen.  “What is it about, father?”

Andrew tried to laugh.  “Well, if it isn’t over nothin’, it’s over nothin’ in particular,” said he; “it’s over jest what’s happened right along.  Sometimes father feels as if he hadn’t made as much as he’d ought to out of his life, and he’s gettin’ older, and he’s feelin’ kind of discouraged, that’s all.”

“Over money matters?” said Ellen, looking at him steadily.

“Over nothin’,” said her father.  “See here, child, father’s ashamed that he gave way so, and you found him.  Now don’t you worry one mite about it—­it’s nothing at all.  Come, let’s go back to the house,” he said.

Ellen said no more, but she walked up from the field holding tightly to her father’s poor, worn hand, and her heart was in a tumult.  To behold any convulsion of nature is no light experience, and when it is a storm of the spirit in one beloved the beholder is swept along with it in greater or less measure.  Ellen trembled as she walked.  Her father kept looking at her anxiously and remorsefully.  Once he reached around his other hand and chucked her playfully under the chin.  “Scared most to death, was she?” he asked, with a shamefaced blush.

“I know something is the matter, and I think it would be better for you to tell me, father,” replied Ellen, soberly.

“There’s nothing to tell, child,” said Andrew.  “Don’t you worry your little head about it.”  Between his anxiety lest the girl should be troubled, and his intense humiliation that she should have discovered him in such an abandon of grief which was almost like a disclosure of the nakedness of his spirit, he was completely unnerved.  Ellen felt him tremble, and heard his voice quiver when he spoke.  She felt towards her father something she had never felt before—­an impulse of protection.  She felt the older and stronger of the two.  Her grasp on his hand tightened, she seemed in a measure to be leading him along.

When they reached the yard between the houses Andrew cast an apprehensive glance at the windows.  “Has she gone?” he asked.

“Who, the dressmaker?”

“Yes.”

“She hadn’t when I came out.  I saw you come past the house, and I thought you walked as if you didn’t feel well, so I thought I would run out and see.”

“I was all right,” replied Andrew.  “Have you got to try on anything more to-night?”