“Look here, Miss Brewster,” he said, “why on earth didn't you tell Aunt Cynthia?”
“Tell her?” repeated Ellen, vaguely.
“Yes; make a clean breast of it to her. Tell her just why you went to work, and gave up college?”
Ellen colored, and looked at him half defiantly, half piteously. “I told her all I ought to,” she said.
“But you did not; pardon me,” said Robert, “you did not tell her half enough. You let her think that you actually of your own free choice went to work in the factory rather than go to college.”
“So I did,” replied Ellen, looking at him proudly.
“Of course you did, in one sense, but in another you did not. You deliberately chose to make a sacrifice; but it was a sacrifice. You cannot deny that it was a sacrifice.”
Ellen was silent.
“But you gave Aunt Cynthia the impression that it was not a sacrifice,” said Robert, almost severely.
Ellen's face quivered a little. “I saw no other way to do,” she said, faintly. The authoritative tone which this young man was taking with her stirred her as nothing had ever stirred her in her life before. She felt like a child before him.