“There's nothing to tell, child,” said Andrew. “Don't you worry your little head about it.” Between his anxiety lest the girl should be troubled, and his intense humiliation that she should have discovered him in such an abandon of grief which was almost like a disclosure of the nakedness of his spirit, he was completely unnerved. Ellen felt him tremble, and heard his voice quiver when he spoke. She felt towards her father something she had never felt before—an impulse of protection. She felt the older and stronger of the two. Her grasp on his hand tightened, she seemed in a measure to be leading him along.
When they reached the yard between the houses Andrew cast an apprehensive glance at the windows. “Has she gone?” he asked.
“Who, the dressmaker?”
“Yes.”
“She hadn't when I came out. I saw you come past the house, and I thought you walked as if you didn't feel well, so I thought I would run out and see.”
“I was all right,” replied Andrew. “Have you got to try on anything more to-night?”
“No.”
“Well, then, let's run into grandma's a minute.”
“All right,” said Ellen.
Mrs. Zelotes was sitting at her front window in the dusk, looking out on the street, as was her favorite custom. The old woman seldom lit a lamp in the summer evening, but sat there staring out at the lighted street and the people passing and repassing, with her mind as absolutely passive as regarded herself as if she were travelling and observing only that which passed without. At those times she became in a fashion sensible of the motion of the world, and lost her sense of individuality in the midst of it. When her son and granddaughter entered she looked away from the window with the expression of one returning from afar, and seemed dazed for a moment.