CHAPTER V.
CALLS.
The next morning Miss Elinor felt better, and as time passed on and her brother did not again visit his new tenants, she began to feel a little more amiably disposed toward the strangers, and at last decided to call, intending to go next to the brown house in the hollow, where she was a frequent visitor. She accordingly started one afternoon for the white house on the hill, where she was most cordially received. With the ladylike manners of Mrs. Huntington she could find no fault, but she did not like the expression of Adelaide’s eyes, nor the sneering manner in which she spoke of the country and country people; neither did she fail to see the basket which the young lady pushed hastily under the lounge as Aunt Peggy ushered her into the sitting-room. On the table there were scissors, needles and thread, but not a vestige of sewing was visible, though on the carpet were shreds of cloth, and from beneath the lounge peeped something which looked vastly like the wristband of a man’s shirt.
“Pride and poverty! I’ll venture to say they sew for a living,” Miss Elinor thought, and making her call as brief as possible, she arose to go.
It was in vain that Adelaide urged her to stay longer, telling her “it was such a treat to see some one who seemed like their former acquaintances.”
With a toss of her head Miss Elinor declined, saying she was going to visit a poor family in the hollow, a blind man and his daughter, and in adjusting her furs she failed to see how both Adelaide and her mother started at her words. Soon recovering her composure, the former asked, who they were, and if they had always lived in Oakland?
“Their name is Warren,” said Miss Elinor, “and they came, I believe, from some city in western New York, but I know nothing definite concerning them, as they always shrink from speaking of their former condition. Alice, though, is a sweet little creature—so kind to her old father, and so refined, withal.”
Mechanically bidding her visitor good afternoon, Adelaide went to her mother’s side, exclaiming:
“Who thought those Warrens would toss up in Oakland! Of course, when they know that we are here, they’ll tell all about father and everything else. What shall we do?”
“We are not to blame for your father’s misdeeds,” Mrs. Huntington answered; and Adelaide replied: