"Father, I saw him walking in the road, and Millie was with him."
Levis knew the significance of this companionship. Under his breath, he said scornfully, "Good Lord!" and aloud, "We'll try not to think of it, Ellen."
He had thought often since his visit to Harrisburg of Stephen. He felt with increasing frequency the uneasy sensation in his heart and he knew that he ought to have a word with some one about it. Stephen was an eye specialist, but he was also acquainted with general medical practice. There was a certain disease of the heart which warned gently for a long time and then leaped with tigerish swiftness—but it could not be that!
There was another problem which he should like to lay before his friend. Life on the farm would be intolerable without Ellen and he believed himself still young enough to find another place. Stephen might be able to tell him of a practice and to help him to it. Neither favor was too large to ask if the old friendliness continued. He planned to go to Harrisburg at some convenient season, but he postponed his journey week after week, believing that there was still time enough.
CHAPTER X
UNEXPECTED GUESTS
A large store of information may be put into a receptive mind in two years. Levis, watching his sturdy young Ellen to see that her bright cheeks did not grow pale or her alert step slow, proceeded to find out how much she could acquire. It was a new and interesting occupation, but his pleasure was tempered by a remorseful wonder as to how much could have been accomplished if he had not been so certain that his own blood and the spirit of the age would keep Matthew and Ellen safe.
Ellen continued her mathematics and concluded her geography. She had studied Beginner's Latin with Amos, and her father required her to translate French. Furnishing his pupil with an outline of English history, he prescribed reading and the relating of what she read. Elementary astronomy, botany, and physiology she absorbed like a sponge.
He sent for books which he had long wished to possess, but had denied himself, a many-volumed illustrated history of art, a history of music, a history of architecture in sumptuous dress. He sat late at night thinking over plans for Ellen, and even brought his accounts up to date and sent out bills, so that nothing might be denied her.