“Oh, you wait and see,” said Fanny, with meaning, and would say no more. She was firm in her conclusion that Cynthia was educating their girl to marry her favorite nephew, but that never occurred to Andrew. He continued to feel, while supremely grateful and overwhelmed with delight at this good fortune for Ellen, the distrust and resentment of a proud soul under obligation for which he sees no adequate reason, and especially when it is directed towards a beloved one to whom he would fain give of his own strength and treasure.
As for Ellen, she was in a tumult of wonder and delight, but when she looked at the doll in her corner there came again that vague sense of injury, and she felt again as if in some way she were being robbed instead of being made the object of benefit.
After Ellen had gone to bed that night she wondered if she ought to go to college, and maybe gain thereby a career which was beyond anything her own loved ones had known, and if it were not better for her to go to work in the shop after all.
Chapter XXII
When Mrs. Zelotes was made acquainted with the plan for sending Ellen to Vassar she astonished Fanny. Fanny ran over the next morning, after Andrew had gone to work, to tell her mother-in-law. She sat a few minutes in the sitting-room, where the old lady was knitting, before she unfolded the burden of her errand.
“Cynthia Lennox came to our house last night with Robert Lloyd,” she said, finally.
“Did they?” remarked Mrs. Zelotes, who had known perfectly well that they had come, having recognized the Lennox carriage in the moonlight, and having been ever since devoured with curiosity, which she would have died rather than betray.
“Yes, they did,” said Fanny. Then she added, after a pause which gave wonderful impressiveness to the news, “Cynthia Lennox wants to send Ellen to college—to Vassar College.”
Then she jumped, for the old woman seemed to spring at her like released wire.
“Send her to college!” said she. “What does she want to send her to college for? What right has Cynthia Lennox got to send Ellen Brewster anywhere?”