For a moment more Forrest did not speak. He glanced keenly up the dim avenue, holding his head very high, as was his way, and himself very erect. Already the sting and shame of her recent experience seemed fading in Jenny's past. There was something so new, strange, sweet, in this masterful assumption on his part of all control and command, there was something so complete in her faith in him, something so like girlish admiration if not hero-worship surging up in the throbbing little heart beneath that worn old winter cloak, that much of her old bright, buoyant, merry self came back to her. "If I can't be a man," said she to herself, "I'm the next thing to one, if there ever was one," and then was amazed at her own impulse to peer up into his grave, soldierly face and aghast to find herself drawing closer to his side. In the suddenness and alarm of this revelation she nearly jumped beyond arm's length, and he felt constrained to retake her hand and draw it farther through his arm. "You will find it easier if you will let me bear a little of the weight to-night," said he, gravely, "and that is why I have made it my business to intrude upon your time and attention. Miss Wallen, will you kindly tell me what claim your brother has upon you?" "He _is_ my brother and out of work," she answered, simply. "Can't he get work?" "He says he can't." "What can he do?" "He writes well, and he had a clerkship, but Mart was--unsteady, and he lost it. Then he got a place in the freight-yards, but there was a strike, and he went out. They wouldn't take him back then because he was so foolish in his talk; and they can't take him now, for hundreds of better men, steadier men, old employees, have been laid off. Ever since the World's Fair business has been falling away." "And you have had not only that house and your mother to care for, but an able-bodied brother?" Jenny dropped her head. Able-bodied brother, indeed!--with wife, babies, debts, duns, and all! She had borne the weight of the whole establishment upon her fragile shoulders; but that wasn't a thing to speak of to him,--to anybody. Her silence touched him. "Do you mean that out of your little salary you have paid that house-rent and all the expenses and your mother's and his too?" No answer. "I wish you would tell me," he said, in such grave, courteous tones that they went to her heart. "I beg you not to think me intrusive. I have never heard of such a case before. Why, Miss Wallen, I'm appalled when I see how thoughtless I have been. You simply cannot afford the time to work for me at the price you fixed." "It pays better than mending Mart's clothes, etc., at home," said she, whimsically; "very much better than anything I can get to do up town." "Good heavens! cannot your mother mend Mart's clothes? Can't he mend them himself? My--my--poor little friend, I had no idea matters were as bad as this!"