Page:Possession (1926).pdf/137

 into a great world where there were no neighbors and no sewing circles.

But the two who suffered most were the two whose pride was greatest. . . those born enemies Mrs. Tolliver and Skinflint Seton. From the moment of the elopement the ancient feud over the swindle of the synthetic corset stays emerged without shame or pretense into the open, and the story became common property that Harvey Seton had been seen on the Tollivers' piazza being ordered into the street because he suggested that Ellen had eloped because the circumstances made it necessary.

Scarcely less mysterious than the missing five hours was the nature of Gramp's illness, a thing which had baffled the consultations and head waggings of the Town's best medical talent. Two days later he was up and about again perambulating once more, in his coonskin coat, the icy pavement of the Town. And it was with a new look of defiant malice that he regarded the faces peering at him from behind the Boston ferns of Sycamore Street. The sharp old eyes mocked the passers-by. They said, "My Granddaughter has a good deal of the old man in her. She has the courage to do as she sees fit. You'll hear from that girl!" All this punctuated by the sharp tap! tap! tap! of his tough hickory stick on icy pavements where an ordinary man would long ago have slipped and broken his leg. 

EEKS passed before there came from Ellen any news beyond the mere statement that she was alive, comfortable and well, and that although she was sorry for her actions she could not have done otherwise. Some day, she implied with romantic overtones, they would understand.

When at last a real letter came, it was turbulent, hard and unrepentant. Nor was the spelling the best. 