Ellen spent the afternoon gathering expiatory pond-lilies of which her aunt was as a rule fond. She waded in the pond during the whole afternoon, her skirts trussed up scandalously, emerging with a stocking of black mud on either foot. She was sunburned, she was mosquito-bitten, she was happy, she sung aloud for joy on her way home; and when she left the offering at her aunt’s door, this lady said: “These are very pretty, Ellen, and I thank you, but I wish, my dear, that you had made me some little gift that is a testimony of your industry.”
It was on our way home that we were stopped by some women from the other church, who asked me:—
“Roberta, is it really true that you and Ellen started to bring in hens to the minister’s house at the Young People’s Party?”
“Roberta never started it,” said Ellen, who was easily drawn in ways like this.
“We thought they were joking when they told us,” said Mrs. Mary Snow, who was a widow and very precise.
“Well,” said Miss Amelia Barton, “I should think Mr. Sylvester would have prevented it.”
“Mr. Sylvester enjoyed it, the fowls enhanced the party,” said Ellen. I pulled her along. “Hateful gossips,” she said. As we passed the house where Edward Graham was living, this illustrious young man joined us for the purpose of saying:—
“You remember, Ellen, I told you at the party, when I first saw you coming in with the hen, that you had far better leave it outside. The whole town is talking and buzzing.”
“The whole town disgusts me deeply,” cried Ellen, “and so does any one who lets the buzzing reach my ears.”
“You ought to want to know the reaction of the things you do,” retorted Graham, whose belief in his moralities made him irritable when attacked. “You are criticizing Mr. Sylvester for permitting it and I think you went much too far.”