“Lord! don’t preach,” said the other man, with a sneer.

Ellen had stopped work with the rest when Robert addressed them.  Then she recommenced her stitching without a word.  Her thoughts were in confusion.  She had so long held one attitude towards him that she could not readily adjust herself to another.  She was cramped with the extreme narrowness of the enthusiasm of youth.  At noontime she heard all the talk which went on about him.  She heard some praise him, and some speak of him as simply doing his manifest duty, and some say openly that he should have put the wages back upon the former footing, and she did not know which was right.  He did not come near her, and she was very glad of that.  She felt that she could not bear it to have him speak to her before them all.

When she went home at night the news had preceded her.  Fanny and Andrew looked up eagerly when she entered.  “I hear he has compromised,” said Andrew, with doubtful eyes on the girl’s face.

“Yes; he has cut the wages five instead of ten per cent.,” replied Ellen, and it was impossible to judge of her feelings by her voice.  She took off her hat and smoothed her hair.

“Well, I am glad he has done that much,” said Fanny, “but I won’t say a word as long as you ain’t hurt.”

With that she went into the kitchen, and Ellen and Andrew heard the dishes rattle.  “Your mother’s been dreadful nervous,” whispered Andrew.  He looked at Ellen meaningly.  Both of them thought of poor Eva Tenny.  Lately the reports with regard to her had been more encouraging, but she was still in the asylum.

Suddenly, as they stood there, a swift shadow passed the window, and they heard a shrill scream from up-stairs.  It sounded like “Mamma, mamma!” “It’s Amabel!” cried Ellen.  She clutched her father by the arm.  “Oh, what is it—­who is it?” she whispered, fearfully.

Andrew was suddenly white and horror-stricken.  He took hold of Ellen, and pushed her forcibly before him into the parlor.  “You stay in there till I call you,” he said, in a commanding voice, the like of which the girl had never heard from him before; then he shut the door, and she heard the key turn in the lock.

“Father, I can’t stay in here,” cried Ellen.  She ran towards the other door into the front hall, but before she could reach it she heard the key turn in that also.  Andrew was convinced that Eva had escaped from the asylum, and thus made sure of Ellen’s safety in case she was violent.  Then he rushed out into the kitchen, and there was Amabel clinging to her mother like a little wild thing, and Fanny weeping aloud.

When Andrew entered Fanny flew to him.  “O Andrew—­O Andrew!” she cried.  “Eva’s come out!  She’s well! she’s cured!  She’s as well as anybody!  She is!  She says so, and I know she is!  Only look at her!”

“Mamma, mamma!” gasped Amabel, in a strange, little, pent voice, which did not sound like a child’s.  There was something fairly inhuman about it.  “Mamma,” as she said it, did not sound like a word in any known language.  It was like a cry of universal childhood for its parent.  Amabel clung to her mother, not only with her slender little arms, but with her legs and breast and neck; all her slim body became as a vine with tendrils of love and growth around her mother.