quiet till after supper, then,” said Andrew. Then suddenly he leaned his face close to her and whispered with a hiss of tragedy, “Lloyd's shut down.”
Fanny recoiled and looked at him.
“When?”
“The foreman gave notice to-night.”
“For how long? Did he say?”
“Oh, till business got better—same old story. Unless I'm mistaken, Lloyd's will be shut down all winter.”
“Well, it ain't so bad for us as for some,” said Fanny. Both pride and a wish to cheer her husband induced her to say that. She did not like to think that, after the fine marriage she had made, she needed to be as distressed at a temporary loss of employment as others. Then, too, that look of overhanging melancholy in Andrew's face alarmed her; she felt that she must drive it away at any cost.
“Seems to me it's bad enough for anybody,” said Andrew, morosely.
“Now, Andrew, you know it ain't. Here we own the house clear, and we've got that money in the savings-bank, and all that's your mother's is yours in the end. Of course we ain't always thinkin' of that, and I'm sure I hope she'll outlive me, but it's so. You know we sha'n't starve if you don't have work.”
“We shall starve in the end, and you know I've been—” Andrew stopped suddenly as he heard Ellen and his sister-in-law coming. He shook his head at his wife with a warning motion that she should keep silence.
“Don't Eva know?” she whispered.
“No, she came out early. Do for Heaven's sake keep quiet till after supper.”
Eva was sharp-eyed, and all through supper she watched Andrew, and the lines of melancholy on his face, which did not disappear even when he forced conversation.
“What in creation ails you, Andrew?” she burst out, finally. “You look like a walking funeral.”
Andrew made no reply, and Fanny volunteered an answer. “He's all tired out,” she said; “he's got a little cold. Eat some more of the stew, Andrew; it'll do you good, it's nice and hot.”
“You can't cheat me,” said Eva. “There's something to pay.” She took a mouthful, then she stared at Andrew, with a sudden pallor. “It ain't anythin' about Jim, is it?” she gasped out. “Because if it is, there's no use in your waitin' to tell me, you might as well have it over at once. You won't make it any easier for me, I can tell you that.”
“No, it ain't anything about Jim, in the way you mean, Eva,” her sister said, soothingly. “Eat your supper and don't worry.”
“What do you mean by that? Jim ain't sick?”
“No, I tell you; don't be a goose, Eva.”
“He ain't been anywhere with—”
“Do keep still, Eva!” Fanny cried, impatiently. “If I didn't have any more faith than that in a man, I'd give him up. I don't think you're fair to Jim. Of course he ain't been with that girl, when he's goin' to marry you next month.”
“I'm just as fair to Jim as he deserves,” Eva said, simply. “I think just as much of him, but what a man's done once he may do again, and I can't help it if I think of it, and he shouldn't be surprised. He's brought it on himself. I've got as much faith in him as anybody can have, seein' as he's a man. Well, if it ain't that, Andrew Brewster, what is it?”
“Now, you let him alone till after supper, Eva,” Fanny said. “Do let him have a little peace.”
“Well, I'll get it out of him afterwards,” Eva said.
As soon as she got up from the table she pushed him into the sitting-room. “Now, out with it,” said she. Ellen, who had followed them, stood looking at them both, her lips parted, her eyes full of half-alarmed curiosity.
“Lloyd's has shut down, if you want to know,” Andrew said, shortly.
“Oh my God!” cried Eva. Andrew shrank from her impatiently. She made that ejaculation because she was a Loud, and had an off-streak in her blood. Not one of Andrew's pure New England stock would have so expressed herself. He sat down beside the lamp and took up the evening paper. Eva stood looking at him a minute. She was quite pale, she was weighing consequences. Then she went out to her sister. “Well, you know what's happened, Fan, I s'pose,” she said.
“Yes, I'm awful sorry, but I tell Andrew it ain't so bad for us as for some; we sha'n't starve.”
“I don't know as I care much whether I starve or not,” said Eva. “It's goin' to make me put off my weddin'; and if I do put it off, Jim and me will never get married at all; I feel it in my bones.”
“Why, what should you have to put it off for?” asked Fanny.
“Why? I should think you'd know why without askin'. Ain't I spent every dollar I have saved up on my weddin' fixin's, and Jim, he's got his mother on his hands, and she's been sick, and he ain't saved up anything. If you s'pose I'm goin' to marry him and make him any worse off than he is now you're mistaken.”
“Well, mebbe Jim can work somewhere else, and mebbe Lloyd's won't be shut up long,” Fanny said, consolingly. “I wouldn't give up so, if I was you.”
“I might jest as well,” Eva returned. “It's no use, Jim and me will never get married.” Eva's face was curiously set; she was not in the least loud nor violent as was usually the case when she was in trouble, her voice was quite low, and she spoke slowly.
Fanny looked anxiously at her. “It ain't as though you hadn't a roof to cover you,” she said, “for you've got mine and Andrew's as long as we have one ourselves.”
“Do you think I'd live on Andrew long?” demanded Eva.
“You won't have to. Jim will get work in a week or two, and you'll get married. Don't act so. I declare, I'm ashamed of you, Eva Loud. I thought you had more sense, to give up discouraged at no more than this. I don't see why you jump way ahead into trouble before you get to it.”
“I've got to it, and I can feel the steam of it in my face,” Eva said, with unconscious imagery. Then she lit a lamp, and went up-stairs to change her dress before Jim Tenny arrived.
It was snowing hard. Ellen sat in her place by the window and watched the flakes drive past the radiance of the street-lamp on the corner, and past the reflection of the warm, bright room. Now she could see, since the light was in the room where she sat, her father beside the table reading his paper, and shadowy images of all the familiar things projecting themselves like a mirage of home into the night and storm. Ellen could see, even without turning round, that her father looked very sober, and did not seem to be much interested in his paper, and a vague sense of calamity oppressed her. She did not know just what might be involved in Lloyd's shutting down, but she saw that her father and aunt were disturbed, and her imaginings were half eclipsed by a shadow of material things. Ellen dearly loved this early evening hour when she could stare out into the mystery of the night, herself sheltered under the wing of home, and the fancies which her childish brain wove were as a garment of spirit for the future; but to-night she did not dream so much as she wondered and reflected. Pretty soon Ellen saw a man's figure plodding through the fast-gathering snow,
