"Mr. Joy is a very old friend of mine," Ellen said, quickly, with a painful impulse of loyalty. The moment she saw her old school-boy lover intimidated, and manifestly at a disadvantage before this elegant young gentleman, she felt a fierce instinct of partisanship. She stood a little nearer to him. Granville's face lightened, he looked at her gratefully, and Robert stared from one to the other doubtfully. He began to wonder if he had interrupted a love-scene, and was at once pained with a curious, new pain, and indignant. Then, too, he scarcely knew what to do. He had been sent to ask Ellen to come into the parlor. "My aunt is in the house," he said. "Your aunt?" "Yes, my aunt, Miss Lennox." Ellen gave a great start, and stared at him. "Does she want to see me?" she asked, abruptly. Robert glanced at Granville. He was afraid of being rude towards this possible lover, but the young man was quick to perceive the situation. "I guess I must be going," he said to Ellen. "Must you hurry?" she returned, in the common, polite rejoinder of her class in Rowe. "Yes, I guess I must," said Granville. He held out his hand towards Ellen, then drew it away, but she extended hers resolutely, and so forced his back again. "Good-night," she said, kindly, almost tenderly, and again Robert thought with that sinking at his heart that here was quite possibly the girl's lover, and all his dreams were thrown away. As for Granville, he glowed with a sudden triumph over the other. Again he became almost sure that Ellen loved him after all, that it was only her maiden shyness which had led her to refuse him. He pressed her hand hard, and held it as long as he dared; then he turned to Robert. "I'll bid you good-evening, sir," he said, with awkward dignity, and was gone. "I will go in and see your aunt," Ellen said to Robert, regarding him as she spoke with a startled expression. It had flashed through her mind that Miss Lennox had possibly come to confess the secret of so many years ago, and she shrank with terror as before the lowering of some storm of spirit. She knew how little was required to lash her mother's violent nature into fury. "She was not--?" she began to say to Robert, then she stopped; but he understood. "Don't be afraid, Miss Brewster," he said, kindly. "It is not a matter of by-gones, but the future. My aunt has a plan for you which I think you will like." Ellen looked at him wonderingly, but she went with him across the moonlit yard into the house.