But Old Tomah’s heart was sad, and far away beside a rippled lake was another who felt the same.
CHAPTER XXII
“When ye see two hearts tryin’ to beat ez one, gin ’em the chance.”–Old Cy Walker.
Chip’s success and popularity in Greenvale was practically nullified by Hannah, who from wounded vanity and petty jealousy became her enemy from the outset.
Aunt Comfort did not know it. Angie was not conscious of the facts, or, busy with her own social duties and home-making, gave them no thought. And yet, inspired by Hannah’s malicious tongue, Greenvale looked upon poor Chip as one it was best to avoid.
With Angie as sponsor, she had been made one of the Christmas church decorators, and had been twice invited to parties, only to exasperate Hannah all the more and cause an increase of sneers.
“She’s nobody an’ an upstart,” Hannah said at the first meeting of the village sewing circle after Chip’s advent, “an’ I’ve my doubts about her father an’ mother ever bein’ married. Then she’s an infiddle an’ believes in Injun sperrits an’ hobgoblin things she calls spites, an’ is a reg’lar heathen. I don’t trust her a minit, an’ never leave the house ’thout I lock up my things.”
Much more of this sort fell from Hannah’s lips whenever occasion offered, though never within hearing of Aunt Comfort or Angie. Neither did the townspeople enlighten them, and so the undercurrent of innuendo and gossip, once started by Hannah, spread until all Greenvale looked askance at Chip.
There was also some color for this ill repute, for Angie had concealed nothing, and Chip, foolishly perhaps, had asserted her belief when it would have been better to conceal it.