She had an instinct which she resented, that her mother and this young man were on two parallels which could never meet.

Her father was at home, seated in the south door with John Sargent and Nahum Beals and Joe Atkins, but she never thought of such a thing as her father's receiving a young man caller, though she would not have doubted so much his assimilating with Robert Lloyd.

She understood that the young man might look at her mother with dissent, while she resented it, but with her father it was different.
The group of men at the south door were talking in loud, fervent voices which seemed to rise and fall like waves.

Nahum Beals's strained, nervous tones were paramount.

"Mr.Beals is talking about the labor question, and he gets quite excited," Ellen remarked, somewhat apologetically, as she ushered young Lloyd into the parlor.
Lloyd laughed.