er and the comforter.

"I always knew something like this would happen!" said Edward. His words
incited Hannah to protest.

"You didn't anything of the kind, Edward Bumpus," she exclaimed.

"Just to think of Janet livin' in that big house up in Warren Street!" he
went on, unheeding, jubilant. "You'll drop in and see the old people once
in a while, Janet, you won't forget us?"

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that, father," said Janet.

"Well, he's a fine man, Claude Ditmar, I always said that. The way he
stops and talks to me when he passes the gate--"

"That doesn't make him a good man," Hannah declared, and added: "If he
wasn't a good man, Janet wouldn't be marrying him."

"I don't know whether he's good or not," said Janet.

"That's so, too," observed Hannah, approvingly. "We can't any of us tell
till we've tried 'em, and then it's too late to change. I'd like to see
him, but I guess he wouldn't care to come down here to Fillmore Street."
The difference between Ditmar's social and economic standing and their
own suggested appalling complications to her mind. "I suppose I won't get
a sight of him till after you're married, and not much then."

"There's plenty of time to think about that, mother," answered Janet.

"I'd want to have everything decent and regular," Hannah insisted. "We
may be poor, but we come of good stock, as your father says."

"It'll be all right--Mr. Ditmar will behave like a gentleman," Edward
assured her.

"I thought I ought to tell you about it," Janet said, "but you mustn't
mention it, yet, not even to Lise. Lise will talk. Mr. Ditmar's very busy
now,--he hasn't made any plans."

"I wish Lise could get married!" exclaimed Hannah, irrelevantly. "She's
been acting so queer lately, she's not been herself at all."

"Now there you go, borrowing trouble, mother," Edward exclaimed. He could
not take his eyes from Janet, but continued to regard her with
benevolence. "Lise'll get married some day. I don't suppose we can expect
another Mr. Ditmar...."

"Well," said Hannah, presently, "there's no use sitting up all night."
She rose and kissed Janet again. "I just can't believe it," she declared,
"but I guess it's so if you say it is."

"Of course it's so," said Edward.

"I so want you should be happy, Janet," said Hannah....

Was it so? Her mother and father, the dwarfed and ugly surroundings of
Fillmore Street made it seem incredible once more. And--what would they
say if they knew wha