Wortley?" she repeated, "why, that's--well, never mind, it's none
o' my business. I cert'nly thought she said Hartley, though. Well,
if you'n Mrs. Wortley _can_ wait till ha' past eight--"

"Frank, dear," the girl broke in appealingly, but the young man
shook his head.

"No, darling," he said firmly, and then looking straight at Luella,
he went on: "This lady's name is Hartley. We are not--we are not
related."

Luella stared blankly at him a moment, then turned to the girl. But
she, though she got up from her seat and going over to the young man
seized his hand and pressed it between her own, did not lift her
eyes to the woman's troubled and accusing gaze.

Luella drew a long breath, took off her checked apron and rolled it
mechanically into a bundle. Her face had hardened; only the
shrewdness was left in her eyes.

"You might 'a told me so before," she said briefly, and turned on
her heel.

The girl was crying on his shoulder. "Tell her, Frank, please tell
her why," she begged, through her sobs.

Luella faced her sternly. "He needn't trouble to tell me why,"
she said, "I know more'n you think, maybe. I know who your
father is, Mr. Wortley, an' I guess I understand pretty well
by now what his troubles are. If he forbade you marryin' each
other, he had his reasons, I don't doubt, for he's a good man,
if he is quick-tempered, an'--"

"He _didn't_ forbid our marrying," the young man broke in sharply,
glaring with ill-suppressed irritation at Luella, while he softly
patted the girl's shoulder. "He begged us on his bended knees to
marry, though I don't know how you know him."

Luella paused with her hand on the door.

"What!" she exclaimed sharply. "Then it was your folks?" She looked
at the girl.

"No, it wasn't!" Dorothy lifted her head. "They b-begged us on
_their_ b-bended knees, too," she sobbed and disappeared again.

"For the Lord's sake!" Luella muttered. Then turning fiercely on him
she took a step forward.

"Do you mean to tell me you're scoundrel enough--" she began, but
the young man--he was really only a boy--shook his head angrily.

"Not at all, not at all," he burst out with a curious likeness to
his father, "I'm no more a scoundrel than you are, Mrs. Judd, and
you'll oblige me by acting accordingly."

It was so evident that he meant what he said, he appeared so
righteously indignant, that Luella paused, dumbfounded, twisting the
apron in her hands.

"Wh-why ain't you married, then?" she