"What were you crying about, Sharley!"
"Because my grandmother's dead," said Sharley, after some reflection.
"Ah, yes, I remember! about '36, I think, her tombstone gives as the date of that sad event?"
"I think it's wicked in people to laugh at people's dead grandmothers," said Sharley, severely. "You ought to be at church."
"So I was."
"I wasn't; mother wouldn't—" But her lip quivered, and she stopped. The memory of the new hat and Sunday dress, of the golden church-bells, and hush of happy Sabbath-morning thoughts came up. That he should see her now, in this plight, with her swollen eyes and pouting lips, and her heart full of wicked discontent!
"Wouldn't what, Sharley?"
"Don't!" she pleaded, with a sob; "I'm cross; I can't talk. Besides, I shall cry again, and I won't cry again. You may let me alone, or you may go away. If you don't go away you may just tell me what you have been doing with yourself this whole long summer. Working hard, of course. I don't see but that everybody has to work hard in this world! I hate this world! I suppose you're a rich man by this time?"
The young man looked at the chocolate dress, the yellow leaves, the falling hair, and answered gravely,—a little coldly, Sharley thought,—that his prospects were not encouraging just now. Perhaps they never had been encouraging; only that he in his young ardor had thought so. He was older now, and wiser. He understood what a hard pull was before young architects in America,—any young architect, the best of young architects,—and whether there was a place for him remained to be proved. He was willing to work hard, and to hope long; but he grew a little tired of it sometimes, and so—He checked himself suddenly. "As if," thought Sharley, "he were tired of talking so long to me! He thought my question impertinent." She hid her face in her drooping hair, and wished herself a mile away.
"There was something you once told me about some sort of buildings?" she ventured, timidly, in a pause.