Eva and the others chuckled, but Mrs. Zelotes eyed the child severely.  “Little girls shouldn’t ask silly questions,” said she.

Andrew passed his hand with a rough caress over the small flaxen head.  “Uncle Andrew can’t sew anything but shoes,” said he.

Little Amabel’s question had aroused in Mrs. Zelotes a carping spirit even against Ellen.  Presently she turned to her.  “I heard something about you,” said she.  “I want to know if it is true.  I heard that you were walking home from school with that Joy boy one day last week.”  Ellen looked at her grandmother without flinching, though the pink was over her face and neck.

“Yes’m, I did,” said she.

“Well, I think it’s about time it was put a stop to,” said Mrs. Zelotes.  “That Joy boy!”

Then Fanny lost her temper.  “I can manage my own daughter, Grandma Brewster,” said she, “and I’ll thank you to attend to your own affairs.”

“You don’t seem to know enough to manage her,” retorted Mrs. Zelotes, “if you let her go traipsin’ round with that Joy boy.”

The warfare waged high for a time.  Andrew withdrew to the kitchen.  Ellen took little Amabel up in her own chamber and showed her her beautiful doll, which looked not a day older, so carefully had she been cherished, than when she first had her.  Ellen felt both resentment and shame, and also a fierce dawning of partisanship towards Granville Joy.  “Why should my grandmother speak of him so scornfully?” she asked herself.  “He is a real good boy.”

That night was very cold, a night full of fierce white glitter of frost and moonlight, and raging with a turbulence of winds.  Ellen lay awake listening to them.  Presently between the whistle of the wind she heard another, a familiar pipe from a boyish throat.  She sprang out of bed and peeped from her window, and there was a dark, slight figure out in the yard, and he was looking up at her window, whistling.  Shame, and mirth, and also exultation, which overpowered them both, stirred within the child’s breast.  She had read of things like this.  Here was her boy lover coming out this bitter night just for the sake of looking up at her window.  She adored him for it.  Then she heard a window raised with a violent rasp across the yard, and saw her grandmother’s night-capped head thrust forth.  She heard her shrill, imperious voice call out quite distinctly, “Boy, who be you?”

The lovelorn whistler ceased his pipe, and evidently, had he consulted his own discretion, would have shown a pair of flying heels, but he walked bravely up to the window and the night-capped head and replied.  Ellen could not hear what he said, but she distinguished plainly enough her grandmother’s concluding remarks.