And so where was the wonder that this universal favorite should be a favorite with Miss Biron? Of course, there was nothing in the fact to be wondered at, but the infatuated Bram would have had this particular lady as different from other ladies in this respect as he held her superior in every other. But then a fresh thought, which was like a dagger thrust on the one hand, yet which brought some bittersweet comfort for all that, came into his mind. Surely Miss Biron was not the sort of girl to allow such familiarity except from the man whom she had accepted for a husband. Surely, then, these two were engaged--without the consent, or even the knowledge, of Mr. Cornthwaite very likely, but promising themselves that they would get that consent some day. And as he came to this decision Bram looked black. And all the time that these fancies chased each other through his excited brain this lad of twenty retained a saner self which stood outside the other and smiled, and told him that he was an infatuated young fool, a moonstruck idiot, to tumble headlong into love with a girl of whom he knew nothing except that she was as far above him, and of all thought of him, as the stars are above the sea. And he was right in thinking that there was not a man in all that crowd of his rough fellow-workmen who would not have jeered at him and looked down upon him as a hopeless ass if they had known what his thoughts and feelings were. But for all that there was the making in Bram Elshaw, with his dreams and his fancies, of a man who would rise to be master of them all. Out of the heat of the furnace and the glowing iron Bram Elshaw presently passed into the heat of the sun, and stood for a moment, his long rod in his hand, and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. And before he could turn to go back again he heard a little sound behind him which was not a rustle, or a flutter, or anything he could describe, but which he knew to be the sound of a woman moving quickly in her skirts. And the next moment Miss Biron appeared a couple of feet away from him, smiling and growing a little pink as a young girl does when she feels herself slightly embarrassed by an unaccustomed situation. Before she spoke Bram guessed by the position in which she held her little closed right hand that she was going to offer him money. And he drew himself up a little, and blushed a much deeper red than the girl--not with anger, for after all was it not just what he might have expected? But with a keener sense than ever of the difference between them. Miss Biron had begun to speak, had got as far as “I wanted to thank you for explaining everything so nicely,” when something in his look caused her to stop and hesitate and look down.