She heard people say Eva was getting ready to be married, and speculated.

"What is getting ready to be married ?" she asked Eva.
"Why, getting your clothes made, you little ninny," Eva answered.
The next day Ellen had watched her mother at work upon a new little frock for herself for some time before she spoke.
"Mother," she said.
"Yes, child." "Mother, you are making that new dress for me, ain't you ?" "Of course I am; why ?" "And you made me a new coat last week ?" "Why, you know I did, Ellen; what do you mean ?" "And you are going to make me a petticoat and put that pretty lace on it ?" "You know I am, Ellen Brewster, what be you drivin' at ?" "Be I a-gettin' ready to be married, mother ?" asked Ellen, with the strangest look of wonder and awe and anticipation.
Fanny had told this saying of the child's to everybody, and that evening when Jim Tenny came he caught up Ellen and gave her a toss to the ceiling, a trick of his which filled Ellen with a sort of fearful delight, the delight of helplessness in the hands of strength, and the titillation of evanescent risk.
"So you are gettin' ready to be married, are you ?" Jim Tenny said, with a great laugh, looking at her soberly, with big black eyes.

Jim Tenny was a handsome fellow, and much larger and stronger than her father.

Ellen liked him; he often brought candies in his pocket for her, and they were great friends, but she could never understand why he stayed in the parlor all alone with her aunt Eva, instead of in the sitting-room with the others.
Ellen had looked back at him as soberly.

"Mother says I 'ain't," she replied, "but--" "But what ?" "I am getting most as many new clothes as Aunt Eva, and she is." "And you think maybe you are gettin' ready to be married, after all, hey ?" "I think maybe mother wants to surprise me," Ellen said.
Jim Tenny had all of a sudden shaken convulsively as if with mirth, but his face remained perfectly sober.
That evening after the parlor door was closed upon Jim and Eva, Ellen wondered what they were laughing at.
To-night when she saw Eva enter the room, a lighted lamp illuminating her face fairly reckless with happiness, to light the fire in the courting-stove as her sister facetiously called it, she thought to herself that Jim Tenny was coming, that they would be shut up in there all alone as usual, and then she looked out at the storm and the night again, and the little home picture thrown against it.