"He is in the city."
"Then I think I'll stay at home," decided Beth. She forecasted events exactly. Judith went, stayed most of the evening, and was escorted home by—Ellis. "He came down," Judith vouchsafed, "after I arrived there."
Since morning Judith had been softer, gentler than usual; but now she was lofty again, with her old manner underlaid by excitement. Beth went sadly to her room and tore up her note to Mather.
[CHAPTER XII]
Forwards Various Affairs
As time passed on, Colonel Blanchard watched with interest, mixed with solicitude, the love-matters of his daughters. Judith's affairs were going to his satisfaction, for though Mather came occasionally to the house, Ellis came oftener. Ellis's land had been bought, his house was going up, and at times he came to discuss his plans with Judith. So far so good, but in another quarter the Colonel was not quite so well pleased, since the visits of Jim Wayne to Beth were becoming very frequent.
Beth was twenty, Jim was twenty-one. He found the way to Chebasset easy to follow, even though he left his mother at home alone—for the Wayne estate was low in the world, and summer-resorts were not for the widow. She, desolate soul, counted her dollars carefully, and encouraged her son's belief that by selling the house and land to Ellis she had made herself comfortable for life. "It was only for that," he explained to Beth, "I allowed her to sell. And now she doesn't need my earnings, so I use them for myself. She likes me to dress well; she says I'm so like my father that she can't bear to have me look shabby. And it's a mark of a gentleman, don't you think, Beth, to look well?"
It was so sweet of Jim to admire his father, that Beth could not bear to say how the elder Wayne was popularly regarded.