“I know the pitiful need of money has tainted many poor girls with a monstrous and morbid overvalue of it,” said Risley, “and for that I cannot see they are to blame; but in this case I am sure it was not so.  That poor child gave up Vassar College and went to work because she was fairly forced into it by circumstances.  The aunt’s husband ran away with another woman, and left her destitute, so that the support of her and her child came upon the Brewsters; and Brewster has been out of work a long time now, I know.  He told me so.  That mortgage had to be raised, and the girl had to go to work; there was no other way out of it.”

“Why didn’t she tell Aunt Cynthia so?” asked Robert.

“Because she is Ellen Brewster, the outgrowth of the child who would not—­” Risley checked himself abruptly.

“I know,” said Robert, shortly.

The other man started.  “How long have you known—­she did not tell?”

Robert laughed a little.  “Oh no,” he replied.  “Nobody told.  I went there to call, and saw my own old doll sitting in a little chair in a corner of the parlor.  She did not tell, but she knew that I knew.  That child was a trump.”

“Well, what can you expect of a girl who was a child like that?” said Risley.  “Mind you, in a way I don’t like it.  This power for secretiveness and this rigidity of pride in a girl of that age strike me rather unpleasantly.  Of course she was too proud to tell Cynthia the true reason, and very likely thought they would blame her father, or Cynthia might feel that she was in a measure hinting to her to do more.”

“It would have looked like that,” said Robert, reflecting.

“Without any doubt that was what she thought; still, I don’t like this strength in so young a girl.  She will make a more harmonious woman than girl, for she has not yet grown up to her own character.  But depend upon it, that girl never went to work of her own free choice.”

“You say the father is out of work?” Robert said.

“Yes, he has not had work for six months.  He said, with the most dejected dignity and appeal that I ever saw in my life, that they begin to think him too old, that the younger men are preferred.”

“I wonder,” Robert began, then he stopped confusedly.  It had been on his tongue to say that he wondered if he could not get some employment for him at Lloyd’s; then he remembered his uncle, and stopped.  Robert had begun to understand the older man’s methods, and also to understand that they were not to be cavilled at or disputed, even by a nephew for whom he had undoubtedly considerable affection.

“It is nonsense, of course,” said Risley.  “The man is not by any means old or past his usefulness, although I must admit he has that look.  He cannot be any older than your uncle.  Speaking of your uncle, how is Mrs. Lloyd?”

“I fear Aunt Lizzie is very far from well,” replied Robert, “but she tries to keep it from Uncle Norman.”