Ellen and Abby almost never kissed each other; Abby was not given to endearments of that kind.  Maria was more profuse with her caresses.  That night when they reached the corner of the cross street where the Atkinses lived, Maria went close to Ellen and put up her face.

“Good-night,” said she.  Then she withdrew her lips suddenly, before Ellen could touch them.

“I forgot,” said she.  “You mustn’t kiss me.  I forgot my cough.  They say it’s catching.”

Ellen caught hold of her little, thin shoulders, held her firmly, and kissed her full on her lips.

“Good-night,” said she.

“Good-night, Ellen,” called Abby, and her sharp voice rang as sweet as a bird’s.

When Ellen came in sight of her grandmother’s house, she saw a window-shade go down with a jerk, and knew that Mrs. Zelotes had been watching for her, and was determined not to let her know it.  Mrs. Pointdexter came out of her grand house as Ellen passed, and took up her station on the corner to wait for a car.  She bowed to Ellen with an evasive, little, sidewise bow.  Her natural amiability prompted her to shake hands with her, call her “my dear,” and inquire how she had got on during her first day in the factory, but she was afraid of her friend, whose eye she felt upon her around the edge of the drawn curtain.

It was unusually dark that night for early fall, and the rain came down in a steady drizzle, as it had come all day, and the wind blew from the ocean on the east.  The lamp was lighted in the kitchen when Ellen turned into her own door-yard, and home had never looked so pleasant and desirable to her.  For the first time in her life she knew what it was to come home for rest and shelter after a day of toil, and she seemed to sense the full meaning of home as a refuge for weary labor.

When she opened the door, she smelled at once a particular kind of stew of which she was very fond, and knew that her mother had been making it for her supper.  There was a rush of warm air from the kitchen which felt grateful after the damp chill outside.

Ellen went into the kitchen, and her mother stood there over the stove, stirring the stew.  She looked up at the girl with an expression of intense motherliness which was beyond a smile.

“Well, so you’ve got home?” she said.

“Yes.”

“How did you get along?”

“All right.  It isn’t hard work.  Not a bit hard, mother.”

“Ain’t you tired?”

“Oh, a little.  But no more than anybody would be at first.  I don’t look very tired, do I?” Ellen laughed.

“No, you don’t,” said Fanny, looking at her cheeks, reddened with the damp wind.  The mother’s look was admiring and piteous and brave.  No one knew how the woman had suffered that day, but she had kept her head and heart above it.  The stew for Ellen’s supper was a proof of that.

“Where’s father?” asked Ellen, taking off her hat and cape, and going to the sink to wash her face and hands.  Fanny saw her do that with a qualm.  Ellen had always used a dainty little set in her own room.  Now she was doing exactly as her father had always done on his return from the shop—­washing off the stains of leather at the kitchen sink.  She felt instinctively that Ellen did it purposely, that she was striving to bring herself into accord with her new life in all the details.