“I am pleased, too,” asserted Mr. Todd. “Strange that it should win one more respect from some quarters.”
Ellen wondered if he referred to his wife, and hoped he did. Anything which increased her respect for her husband was not to be regretted.
Frank Ives, still very wan and pale, lost no time in coming to call. His illness, which took him very near to the dark valley, had subdued him and had taken away a certain over-confidence, so that Ellen liked him better. There never had been anything snobbish about Frank, but he had been a little too self-satisfied. If Ellen was kinder than before, it was that her sympathies were aroused, and she made promises to ride and walk with the lad, promises which sent him away in a happy mood.
Thus the autumn passed. Reed wrote often, reporting progress of his affairs. Mr. Barstow’s studio was his until the lease was up in the spring. Tom Clayton was sharing it with him. They were going over the pictures and hoped to have the exhibition and sale some time in December.
Mabel wrote sometimes from New York, sometimes from Baltimore. She said less about her vocation and more about improving her mind. Ellen wondered when she would settle down to anything stable. “She will be steadfast enough once she really makes up her mind what she wants to do,” Ellen said to Miss Rindy.
“The trouble is that she has no set duty,” Miss Rindy answered. “She is the sort of girl who should marry and have something to tie to. I wish she would. Does she ever mention Tom Clayton? He is the man for her.”
“She mentions him once in a while, calls him a dear old thing. I sometimes wonder if she would mention him more, or less, if she were really interested in him.”
“It’s just like a woman to take that sly way of covering her tracks and keep you guessing,” Miss Rindy asserted.
But Mabel did not keep them guessing very long, for before the first of the year Ellen received a letter which said: “Rejoice with me! I have found my vocation and its name is David Harland. Are you surprised, dear? I can assure you that I am. How such a wise, steady, unworldly being could be attracted to a girl brought up in such an atmosphere as I have been is a mystery to me. David is professor of botany and is going to South America next year, it being his Sabbatical year. He is some years older than I am, but we are very congenial, and I am as happy as the day is long. We shall be married just before we sail in June. Of course Gran thinks I am a first-class idiot because I did not choose a social star, but she is somewhat compensated by the fact that she will bring out my frivolous little cousin next winter, and will have the joy of directing her costumes and witnessing her conquests. Tell Miss Rindy she is the daughter of a prophet. How could she have foreseen that I was to fly so far away?”
Then followed loving messages, and promises to write more fully another time. Ellen folded the letter with a sigh. “Poor Tom,” she said.