Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/311

Rh allowed, Bolling would weakly give in to the wishes of his family and let the whole matter drop. For this reason she never let the subject grow cold but talked about it continually, constantly picturing to her master the wealth and distinction that would be his when he got possession of the hub factory.

She raked up old scores between the Taylors and Bollings, exaggerating the importance of bygone trifling disagreements until she made it seem that a regular feud had always existed between the owners of The Hedges and Mill House. She hated Philip with a venom that poisoned her whole system.

"The sight er him makes my victuals bitter in my mouf," she would mutter, "an' 'fo' Gawd if he don' eben tu'n my liquor agin me."

She longed to know in what his superior conjuring powers differed from her own. It never entered her head that he did not employ some occult methods to gain his ends.

The attic had become more and more Philip's place of refuge. Not only was it the one place that Aunt Peachy never entered, but it was the respository [sic] of his books and tools, his drugs and chemicals. There he worked and read, there his mother came for the quiet chats, there his little neighbor Rebecca would find her way when he