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Fanny felt very little inclined to talk, and even Kilcullen, with all his knowledge of womankind with all his assurance, had some difficulty in commencing what he had to get said and done that morning. "So Grey Abbey will once more sink into its accustomed dullness," said he. "Cokely went yesterday, and Tierney and the Ellisons go to-day. Don't you dread it, Fanny?"
You saw what she said. I was breakfasting at the Ellisons, and her letter, with some others, was brought to me there from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia's eye before it caught mine and its size, the elegance of the paper, the hand-writing altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion.
And something did happen but not to the canoe steered by Tom Harris. The three foremost canoes were now upon the brink of the worst rapids, and each youth was bracing himself for the run. They saw the Ellisons shoot quickly over the brink, go swiftly down the smooth incline into the rougher water. All at once, the canoe seemed to be checked abruptly and hang for a moment. Then it slid on again.
It was plainly to be seen that, although the Ellisons had been reduced in circumstances through the loss of the mill, there was still an abundance of its kind yielded by the farm. On a table were dishes of apples and fall pears; two pumpkin pies of vast circumference squatted near by, close to a platter of honey and a huge pitcher of milk.
Arbuton, "but it's not such a rare thing in the East, you know." "I suppose not. The Ellisons are not an old family. If we went back of my uncle, we should only come to backwoodsmen and Indian fighters. Perhaps that's the reason we don't care much for old families. You think a great deal of them in Boston, don't you?" "We do, and we don't.
The first day's race was done. The canoes headed for shore. It was six o'clock, and the Ellisons were still in the lead. But the margin was not now so great. Between them and the nearest canoe there was not over a quarter of a mile of winding stream. Harvey and Henry Burns had done well. But Tom and Bob had accomplished even more.
"Why, that this was going to happen that you were going to dance. It was nearly time." "I do not know what you mean." "It was always thus with the Ellisons," said the other woman. "All the Ellisons danced this way once in their lives. All the girls do so. They're very strange, these Ellison girls. They dance because they must, I suppose. It's as natural as breathing, for them. You can't help it.
We could do things with you, in the right place." Miss Lady stamped her foot upon the floor in sudden fury. "Mamma," cried she, "when you talk this way I fairly hate you!" "You talk like all the foolish Ellisons," said the other, slowly. "Now, I could tell you things, when the time came. But, meantime, you forget that you and I have absolutely no resources." "Excepting me!" This with white scorn.
On went the four canoes; up rapids or around them, as proved necessary according to the depth of the water. Harvey and Henry Burns, seeing they were gaining on the leaders, would take no more chances on questionable rapids, but carried around those that the Ellisons did. Tom and Bob and the Warrens also took the readiest way around each difficulty.
Yet the Ellisons, though they loved their little cousin, did not spoil her, neither the doctor, nor his great grown-up sons whom she knew as the boys, nor his daughters whom she called the girls, though they were wellnigh women when she came to them.
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