“My brother and he were friends at school,” said Alice. “But I only came to know him about a year ago. He came to see Arthur once, and then I went with Arthur to see him and his family. But his mother behaved very strangely to me and asked me a great many questions. She kept looking from Arthur to Richard, and then back, in the oddest way. I couldn’t understand it. Then she asked me to go to her bedroom and there she told me. She was very rough to me, I thought, but tears were in her own eyes. She said she could not have Richard keeping company with us, for she knew what my mother was, and who my father was, and we were not respectable people, and it would never do. If she heard of Richard going to our house once again, she would have to do something we shouldn’t like.

“Then she cried a lot and said she was very sorry to hurt me, for I seemed a good girl, and it wasn’t my fault, but she couldn’t help it. And there she stopped as if she had said too much already. I thought myself ill-used, and Arthur too, for we both liked Richard, though my mother didn’t think him at all our equal, or fit to be Arthur’s companion, for Arthur was a clerk, while Richard worked with his hands. Arthur said he worked with his hands too, and turned out far poorer work than Richard—stupid figures instead of beautiful books. I said I worked with my needle quite as hard as Richard with his tools, but it had no effect on my mother. Her ways of looking at things are not the same as ours, because she was born a lady.”

“Never mind, Alice. Every good woman will be a lady one day—I am sure of that. It was cruel to treat you so! How can anybody belonging to Richard do such a thing? He’s so gentle and good himself.”

“He’s the kindest of men, and I love him,” said Alice earnestly. “When I told poor Arthur as we went home that night that he wasn’t to see any more of Richard, he couldn’t help crying. I saw it, though he tried to hide it. Of course I didn’t let him know I saw him cry. Men are ashamed of crying. I’m not a bit. For Richard was the only school friend who was kind to Artie. He once fought a big fellow that used to tease him.