Part 13 (2/2)

”Hadn't you better? It must be pretty cold sitting up there. You must take all the wind. You can wrap this shawl all around your face and ears, and I don't want it.”

”No, thank you; I'm plenty warm,” Eva replied. She swallowed hard, and set her mouth hard. There was something about this kindness of her old disapprover which touched her deeply, and moved her to weakness more than had the sight of her recreant love with another girl. f.a.n.n.y saw the little quiver pa.s.s over her sister's face, and leaned over and whispered.

”I shouldn't be a mite surprised if that girl asked Jim to take her.

It would be just like her.”

”It don't make any odds whether she did or not,” returned Eva, with no affectation of secrecy. ”I don't care which way 'twas.” She sat up straighter than ever, and some men in a pa.s.sing sleigh turned to look after her.

”I s'pose she don't think my shawl looks genteel enough to wear,”

Mrs. Zelotes said to f.a.n.n.y; ”but she's dreadful silly.”

They drove through the main street of the city and pa.s.sed Cynthia Lennox's house. Ellen looked at it with the guilt of secrecy. She thought she saw the lady's head at a front window, and the front door opened and Cynthia came down the walk with a rich sweep of black draperies, and the soft sable toss of plumes. ”There's Cynthia Lennox,” said f.a.n.n.y. ”She's a handsome-lookin' woman, ain't she?”

”She's most as old as Andrew, but you'd never suspect it,” said Mrs.

Zelotes. She had used to have a fancy that Andrew and Cynthia might make a match. She had seen no reason to the contrary, and she always looked at Cynthia with a curious sense of injury and resentment when she thought of what might have been.

As Cynthia Lennox swept down the walk to-day, the old lady said, sharply:

”I don't see why she should walk any prouder than anybody else. I don't know why she should, if she's right-minded. The Lennoxes wasn't any grander than the Brewsters way back, if they have got a little more money of late years. Cynthia's grandfather, old Squire Lennox, used to keep the store, and live in one side of it, and her mother's father, Calvin Goodenough, kept the tavern. I dunno as she has so much to be proud of, though she's handsome enough, and shows her bringin' up, as folks can't that ain't had it.” f.a.n.n.y winced a little; her bringing up was a sore subject with her.

”Well, folks can't help their bringin' up,” she retorted, sharply.

”There's Lloyd's team,” Andrew said, quickly, partly to avert the impending tongue-clash between his wife and mother.

He reined his horse to one side at a respectful distance, and Norman H. Lloyd, with his wife at his side, swept by in his fine sleigh, streaming on the wind with black fur tails, his pair of bays stepping high to the music of their arches of bells. The Brewsters eyed Norman Lloyd's Russian coat with the wide sable collar turned up around his proud, clear-cut face, the fur-gauntleted hands which held the lines and the whip, for Mr. Lloyd preferred to drive his own blooded pair, both from a love of horseflesh and a greater confidence in his own guidance than in that of other people. Mr.

Lloyd was no coward, but he would have confided to no man his sensations had he sat behind those furnaces of fiery motion with other hands than his own upon the lines.

”I should think Mis' Lloyd would be afraid to ride with such horses,” said Mrs. Zelotes, as they leaped aside in pa.s.sing; then she bowed and smiled with eager pleasure, and yet with perfect self-respect. She felt herself every whit as good as Mrs. Norman Lloyd, and her handsome Paisley shawl and velvet bonnet as genteel as the other woman's sealskins and floating plumes. Mrs. Lloyd loomed up like a vast figure of richness enveloped in her bulky winter wraps; her face was superb with health and enjoyment and good-humor. Her cheeks were a deep crimson in the cold wind; she smiled radiantly all the time as if at life itself. She had no thought of fear behind those prancing bays which seemed so frightful to Mrs. Zelotes, used to the steadiest stable team a few times during the year, and driven with a wary eye to railroad crossings and a sense of one's mortality in the midst of life strong upon her.

Mrs. Norman Lloyd had never any doubt when her husband held the lines. She would have smiled behind ostriches and zebras. To her mind Norman Lloyd was, as it were, impregnable to all combinations of alien strength or circ.u.mstances. When she bowed on pa.s.sing the Brewsters, she did not move her fixed smile until she caught sight of Ellen. Then emotion broke through the even radiance of her face.

She moved her head with a flurry of nods; she waved her hand; she even kissed it to her.

”Bow to Mis' Lloyd, Ellen,” said her grandmother; and Ellen ducked her head solemnly. She remembered what she had heard the night before, and the sleigh swept by, Mrs. Lloyd's rosy face smiling back over the black fringe of dancing tails. Eva had shot a swift glance of utmost rancor at the Lloyds, then sat stiff and upright until they pa.s.sed.

”I wouldn't ask Ellen to bow to that woman,” said she, fiercely, between her teeth. ”I hate the whole tribe.”

No one heard her except Andrew, and he shook the lines over the steady stable horse, and said, ”G'lang!” hoa.r.s.ely.

Mrs. Norman Lloyd, in the other sleigh, had turned to her husband with somewhat timid and deprecating enthusiasm. ”Ain't she a sweet little girl?” said she.

”What little girl?” Lloyd asked, abstractedly. He had not looked at the Brewsters at all.

”That little Ellen Brewster who ran away and was gone most three days a little while ago. She was in that sleigh we just pa.s.sed. She is just the sweetest child I ever laid eyes on,” and Norman Lloyd smiled vaguely and coldly, and cast a glance over his sable-clad shoulders to see how far behind the team whose approaching bells he heard might be.

”I suppose her father and aunt are out of work on account of the closing of the factory,” remarked Mrs. Lloyd, and a shadow of reflection came over her radiant face.

”Yes, I believe they worked there,” Lloyd replied, shaking loose the reins and speeding the horses, that he might not be overtaken. In a few minutes they reached the factory neighborhood. There were three factories: two of them on opposite sides of the road, humming with labor, and puffing with jets of steam at different points; Lloyd's, beyond, was as large as both those standing hushed with windows blank in the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne.

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