"Well, then, won't you be friends?" he urged. "Great king! you couldn't be any more offish if I'd done it. You needn't think anything's altered. You're the prettiest creatur' that ever stepped, but I wouldn't give up Sue for the Queen of England. Now will you say it's square?"
So nothing was changed. She could not understand it, but she nodded at him and smiled a little. Her trembling did not cease until he was far upon the road.
When Mrs. Withington came home with her basket of greens, Ellen had supper all ready, and she ran forward and held a corner of her mother's apron while they walked together toward the house.
"You look kind o' peaked," said Mrs. Withington tenderly. "What you got on that old brown thing for?"
"I'm going to weed after supper," Ellen answered. "The garden looks real bad."
Mrs. Withington gazed at her keenly.
"Henry Fox asked if we were goin' to be home this evenin'," she said, with much indifference. "I told him I guessed so."
Ellen held the apron hard.
"O mother!" she whispered; "you see him. I haven't got to, have I?"
"Law! no, child," said the other woman. "I guess you ain't. You're mother's own girl."