"We've got bad news for poor Miss Elder!"
Mrs. Lane was intensely interested. Even Mr. Lane showed signs of animation.
"I'm not surprised," he said.
"He's done it now," opined Miss Josie with conviction. "I always said Rella Elder was spoiling that boy."
"It's too bad—after all she's done for him! He always was a scamp!" Thus Miss Sallie.
"I've been afraid of it all along," Miss Rebecca was saying, her voice booming through the lighter tones of her sisters. "I always said he'd never get through college."
"But who is Morton Elder, and what has he done?" asked Mrs. Williams as soon as she could be heard.
This lady now proved a most valuable asset. She was so new to the town, and had been so immersed in the suddenly widening range of her unsalaried duties as "minister's wife," that she had never even heard of Morton Elder.
A new resident always fans the languishing flame of local conversation. The whole shopworn stock takes on a fresh lustre, topics long trampled flat in much discussion lift their heads anew, opinions one scarce dared to repeat again become almost authoritative, old stories flourish freshly, acquiring new detail and more vivid color.
Mrs. Lane, seizing her opportunity while the sisters gasped a momentary amazement at anyone's not knowing the town scapegrace, and taking advantage of her position as old friend and near neighbor of the family under discussion, swept into the field under such headway that even the Foote girls remained silent perforce; surcharged, however, and holding their breaths in readiness to burst forth at the first opening.