"Make haste, and you won't be so very late."
Val went with lagging steps to the parlor, and came hurrying out with her things. Ethan had not even looked round. He was laughing at something Emmie was saying.
"We haven't seen Harry Wilbur lately; ask him if he can't come in to-night," said Mrs. Gano, as she saw Val off.
Oh yes, a great deal of water had flowed under the bridge since her own daughter was young.
It was plain that Ethan was a great success in New Plymouth. Not that any of the neighbors knew him as yet, not that he had gone anywhere except to St. Thomas's that first Sunday; but such glimpses as the inhabitants had of him, whether at his rather absent-minded devotions or driving about with Mrs. Gano, had roused a fever of interest. The fact of his great wealth, combined with his somewhat glowering good looks, his slow transforming smile, ran away with hearts by the score, and made the tumble-down Fort a centre of seething gossip and excitement. Harry Wilbur was known to look upon the new-comer with open suspicion.
"Can't say I've much use for an American who isn't an American," said the florid Westerner to Julia Otway at the Hornsey "tea-fight."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, look at him."
"Where—where?"
Her unblushing excitement seemed further to annoy the usually equable Wilbur.