To Mara it was a bitter ordeal to listen to Bodine's complacent explanation of the affair, and she was glad that she was told in the dusky twilight, which concealed an expression of pain even beyond her control. Words of passionate protest rose to her very lips, but she remembered in time that they would involve revelations which would thwart her purpose to make him happy at every cost to herself. If he ever learned what Clancy had been to her, what he was at this agonized moment, her vocation, if not gone, would be impaired beyond remedy. Afterward, in the solitude of her own room, she accepted this bitter experience, as she had resolved to accept all others, as a part of her lot.
In her morbidness she became Jesuitical. Her father's old friend should be made as happy as it was in her power to render him. Whatever interfered with this purpose should be concealed or trampled upon. Of Clancy she said bitterly, "If he thinks he has been magnanimous, how little he understands me."
Clancy's motives had been somewhat mixed. He was willing that her pride should be rebuked and wounded, and he also wished her to know that he was above the petty resentment of jealousy.
Poor Ella felt that she was becoming isolated; an impression, however, which she would not have had were it not for her recent experiences. Had her heart remained as light and untouched as it was when we first met her, her pleasure over her father's prospects would have been unalloyed. Even now her satisfaction was deep and sincere, but it was not in human nature to forget how summarily she had been denied the happiness so sweet to those of her age. She felt, however, that all were against her; that even kind old Mrs. Bodine would not listen patiently to her thoughts. So she kept them to herself, and sought by forced mirthfulness to disguise them. She talked and laughed with the young men who called upon her, and they came in increasing numbers as inevitably as a flower attracts the bees. She was the life of the "family excursions," as she characterized in her thoughts those in which Mara and Mrs. Hunter had a part; and she joined others of which her father approved, but there was often trouble and sadness in her eyes, and her cheeks and form were losing their roundness of outline. Mrs. Bodine was not deceived. She noted everything silently, and thought, "She is making a brave fight; she must make a brave fight. There is no other course for her. I reckon she'll win it, as many a girl has before."
The old lady was thoughtful, kind, and very attentive. At the same time, with the nicest tact, she infused a firmness and spirit into her demeanor which made the girl feel that her cousin had sympathy only with the effort to conquer or forget. And she honestly made such effort, but was often aghast at its futility. In her brusque way she said to herself, "What's the use of trying? It seems like a disease which must run its course till old Father Time brings some sort of a cure."
One day she went to see Aun' Sheba, and found the old woman feeling poorly.
"Yes, honey," she said, "bein' lazy doan 'gree wid me 'tall. I doan see how Unc. stan's it all de yeah roun'."
"I hab de rheumatiz," Uncle Sheba remarked in the way of explanation.
"Now, Unc., dat ar rheumatiz is like de scapegoat in de Bible. You loads it up with all you sins. We all hope dat wen you got so sot on dat you'd turn ober a new leaf. How you stan' it sittin' roun' all day I doan see, no how. I'se gettin' so heaby an' logy an' oncomf'ble dat I'se gwine ter take in washin' de rest ob de month."
"I'd be glad to go to work to-morrow, too," said Ella. "I'd be glad of anything to make the time pass."