Often when out of humour with her he had declined to notice her at table; now once, when he caught her searching glance, he smiled. Dubiously, half with disbelief and half with amazement, she looked steadily back at him for an instant; then she slipped confusedly from her seat and was gone. Webster laughed within himself: "what will she be up to next?" he thought.
It was quiet now at the table: his father had gone back to his paper, his mother was eating the last of her breakfast fruit, and perhaps, thinking that out in the country things were getting ripe. After an interval Webster broke the silence: he was white with emotion.
"Father," he said quietly, "I have decided what I'd like to do."
Webster's father dropped his paper: Webster's mother's eyes were on him. The years had waited for this moment, the future depended upon it.
"If you and mother do not need me for anything else just yet, I'd like to work my way through the University. But if there's something different you'd rather I'd do, or if you both want me in any other way, I am here."
"My son," exclaimed his father, rudely with the back of his hand brushing away a tear that rolled down his cheek—a tear perhaps started by something in his son's words that brought back his own hard boyhood, "your father is here to work for you as long as he is alive and able. Your mother and I are glad—!" but he, got no further: his eyes had filled and his voice choked him.
Webster's mother stood beside him, her hand on his head, her handkerchief pressed to her eyes.
When he had made his preparations for the glad day's adventure and stepped out on the front porch, his father had gone to the bank, his mother was in the kitchen. Elinor was sitting on the top step. Her back was turned. Her sharp little elbows rested on her knees and her face was propped in her palms. Her figure again suggested a crumpled, purple morning-glory—fragile, not threatened by any human violence but imperilled by nature.
She did not look around as he stepped out or move as he passed down. He felt a new wish to say something pleasant but could not quite so conquer himself. As he laid his hand on the yard gate, he was stopped by these words, reaching his ears from the porch: