United States or Egypt ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ellen's grandmother, who was of a stanch orthodox breed, and was, moreover, anxious to counteract any possible detriment as to religious training from contact with the degenerate Louds of Loudville, had established a strict course of Bible study for her granddaughter at a very early age.
It disturbed him a little, even while it delighted him, that she should dance at all, that she should have learned to dance. Andrew had been brought up to look upon dancing as an amusement for Louds rather than for Brewsters. It had not been in vogue among the aristocracy of this little New England city when he was young. Mrs.
"The Thoroughgoods told the Louds," she explained, "and the Louds told me. Her father thinks she has given in to him; but she hasn't not an inch. He keeps her like a jailer; and she acts like a convict always with an eye open for some way of escape. That man no more understands women than he does making pie." "I've always noticed that the really strong men rarely do.
My son did not marry just as I wished; everybody knows that; the Louds weren't equal to our family, and everybody knows it, and I have never made any secret as to how I felt, but we have always got along well enough. The Brewsters are not quarrelsome; they never have been. There were no words whatever last night to make my granddaughter run away. Eva and Fanny are all wrong about it.
"The Louds always give way, no matter what comes up. You can always tell what kind of a family anybody comes from by the way they take things when anything comes across them. You can't depend on anything she says this morning.
"He never notices any of us, and acts as if he was afraid we'd poison him. My, what's the matter with you?" "Nothing," said Ellen. "You look white as a sheet; ain't you well?" Ellen turned upon her with sudden fury. She had something of the blood of the violent Louds and of her hot-tempered grandmother. She had stood everything from this petty, insistent tormentor.
He looked almost as if he had gypsy blood in him, and he came of a family which was further on the outskirts of society than the Louds had been. When Granville replied "nothing much" to Abby's question, Amos Lee frowned with a swift contraction of dissent, but did not speak until Abby had retorted. "You needn't talk that way to me, Granville Joy," said she. "You can't cheat me.
"She came from those Louds on her mother's side," whispered the first woman, guardedly, with dark emphasis. "Ellen," said Fanny, suddenly, and almost sharply, "you didn't take those things in any way you hadn't ought to, did you? Tell mother." "Fanny!" cried Andrew. "If she did, it's the first time a Brewster ever stole," said Mrs. Zelotes.
Eva Loud had worked in a shop ever since she was fourteen, and had tagged the grimy and leathery procession of Louds, who worked in shoe-factories when they worked at all, in a short skirt with her hair in a strong black pigtail. There was a kind of bold grace and showy beauty about this Eva Loud which added to Mrs. Zelotes's scorn and dislike.
They have seen the tops of their neighbors' heads as often as you or I. The mere fact of familiarity with shoe-knives and leather, and hand-skill instead of brain-skill, makes no difference with such inherent confidence of importance as theirs. The Louds, on the other side the handsome aunt is a Loud are rather below caste, but they make up for it with defiance.
Word Of The Day