ieve you care one straw for
me or for anything I do for you!"

His outburst startled her and, for a moment, she faltered. Then she
said: "I don't see how you can say that, George. I think you're just as
good and kind as you can be."

"Good and kind!" he spluttered. "What do I care about being good and
kind? What I want is love!"

"Well, don't I love you?" She looked at him beseechingly and put her
hand on his shoulder. Her caresses were infrequent and this one, slight
as it was, was enough to fire his blood and muddle his understanding.

"You do love me, don't you?" he begged, pulling her to him, and she, as
usual, submitting without a protest, said, yes, she did.

A word, a touch, and Ellen could always silence any misgiving. But such
misgivings had a way of returning, once George was alone. Then he would
wish that he had Rosie to talk things over with. He was used to talking
things over with Rosie. For some reason, though, he never saw Rosie now
except for a moment when she handed him his supper-pail each evening at
the cars. At other times she seemed always to be out on errands or on
jaunts with Janet and Tom Sullivan. George looked upon Tom as a jolly
decent youngster and he was pleased that the intimacy between him and
Rosie was growing. But at the same time he could not help feeling a
little hurt that Rosie should so completely forget him. True, he was
bound up heart and soul in Ellen and now he was her accepted lover.
That, it seemed to him, ought to be happiness enough and he told himself
that it was enough. Then he would sigh and wonder why he wasn't as
light-heartedly gay as he used to be when he and Rosie went about
together. Rosie, apparently, had entirely forgotten what good chums they
once had been. Well, after all, he couldn't blame her, for she was only
a child.

George did not know and probably never would know that Rosie was
watching him and watching over him with all the faithfulness of a little
dog and that she knew all there was to know of the situation between him
and Ellen.

George had set the latter part of September as the time for his return
to the country. For four long years he had been working and saving for
this very event. Several times before he had been about to leave but
always, at the last moment, some untoward circumstance had crippled his
finances and he had been forced to stay on in the city another few
months. Now for the first time he could go and now he was loath to go.