“She is fifteen.”
“Small for her age, isn’t she? But there’s time for her to grow. Going to send her to school, I suppose.”
“Most certainly.”
During these interrogations Ellen was most unhappy. She looked pleadingly at her cousin, who understood and made the suggestion that she should go into the kitchen to see if the soup were boiling over; and the girl, grateful for a chance to escape, obeyed with alacrity, hearing, however, as she went out, that Miss Garrett had started a new topic.
“Speaking of schools,” Miss Sophia began, “did you hear about the new teacher? She went riding alone with a young man last Sunday afternoon when she should have been in Sunday school teaching a class and behaving herself.”
“Do you call that misbehaving?” was what Ellen heard her cousin ask.
Then she heard no more, for the soup was not boiling over, so she went down to the back lot in order to get away as far as possible. Later she saw Miss Garrett going down the street, so, returning, she found her cousin sitting with some sewing, the cat in her lap.
She smiled quizzically as Ellen entered. “Well, how did you like Miss Garrett?” she asked.
“I didn’t like her at all,” answered Ellen hotly.
“Of course you didn’t. I needn’t have asked the question. She is a gossipy old frump. She is so strait-laced it’s a wonder she doesn’t break in two. Virtuous? Oh, yes, she has all the Christian virtues except charity. I call her an article of bigotry and virtue, for she is narrow-minded to the last degree, and has no use for any one who doesn’t live up to her standards. She has not cottoned to me much since I came back from overseas, and I was rather surprised to see her this morning. She came only out of curiosity, of course, for she doesn’t love me.”