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Updated: June 25, 2025
He recalled the evening of his former visit, when he and Isabel had met the Ellisons in that parlor, and it seemed, in the retrospect, a scene of the wildest gayety. He turned for consolation into the barber's shop, where he found himself the only customer, and no busy sound of "Next" greeted his ear.
The Ellisons were going up the Saguenay before coming on to Boston, and urged our friends hard to go with them. "No, that must be for another time," said Isabel. "Mr. March has to be home by a certain day; and we shall just get back in season."
Moreover, the leading canoe quickly caught a patch of swift running water, which the Ellisons had carried around the day before, but could run now, by merely guiding their canoe. So, at the start, they made an encouraging gain, and turned once, at the foot of some rapids, to wave back defiance at their opponents. Skill and training were bound to tell, however.
The other canoeists remained where they were, and ate their luncheons together. When, at about two o'clock that afternoon, the sound of the horn, blown four times by Jack Harvey, announced that the race was resumed, there was a do-or-die expression on the faces of Tom Harris and Bob White. Harvey and Henry Burns were a good half mile ahead of them; the Ellisons fully a mile.
Under this Isabel chatted at intervals with the Ellisons, who sat near; but it was not an atmosphere that provoked social feeling, and she was secretly glad when after a while they shifted their position. It was deadly hot, and most of the people saddened and silenced in the heat.
They had made no foolish attempt to live under an assumed name. They had come from New York to the little valley in order to leave behind the scene of their disgrace and all those who had known them. And they had been extremely fortunate. They were all gently born, Elsa's friends and acquaintances, above ordinary inquisitiveness, and they had respected the aloofness of the Ellisons.
Their pace was not abated much as they got into their swing again, and, one by one, they passed the Ellisons. The latter's canoe, encumbered by water that leaked slightly but steadily through the rent in the canvas, dragged somewhat and had to be bailed before they had gone a half mile further.
The Rectory there was closed for the time and untenanted, the Ellisons having returned some months before to their own enlarged and newly furnished house. There, to be sure, a lodging might have been had at no cost, and Sukey offered it as in duty bound. She knew very well, however, that neither her father nor John could stomach being a guest of Dick's.
Eight miles down stream, they were overhauling the foremost canoe rapidly, the canoes of Tom and Bob and Henry Burns and Harvey being nearly abreast, and the four straining every nerve and muscle. The Warrens had fallen at least a half mile behind them. Luck had been with the Ellisons, surely; for running rapids in shallow water is most uncertain work.
A husband," continued Isabel, sententiously, poising a bit of meringue between her thumb and finger, for they had reached that point in the repast, "a husband is almost as good as another woman!" In the parlor they found the Ellisons, and exchanged the history of the day with them. "Certainly," said Mrs. Ellison, at the end, "it's been a pleasant day enough, but what of the night?
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