So bitterly had they hated and envied Dainty that it extended to her gentle mother, and even the sight of her pale, sorrowful face, as she moved unobtrusively about the place, giving the most motherly care to Love in his affliction, goaded them to futile rage, until in the malice of their natures they decided that she should no longer remain at Ellsworth.
To further their purpose, they made secret complaints to their aunt that Mrs. Chase was maligning them behind their backs to the servants, and ridiculing them as "beggars on horseback," who had forgotten their former poverty and toil in the sudden accession of riches.
No doubt Mrs. Ellsworth was glad of a pretext for ridding herself of one whose sweet, sad face must have been a constant silent reproach to her for driving her loved daughter to death; for she hastened to assail the astonished creature with reproaches, dismissing her denials with incredulous scorn, and declaring that under the circumstances the roof of Ellsworth could no longer be her shelter.
"I will go this evening, madame," her sister-in-law answered with gentle pride, her pale face flushing as she added: "I should not have trespassed so long on your hospitality but I thought I was making myself useful by nursing Mr. Ellsworth."
"There is a trained nurse," Mrs. Ellsworth said, loftily.
"Yes; but she has been both careless and incompetent."
"I shall dismiss her to-morrow. He will only need his man Franklin now," Mrs. Ellsworth returned; and they parted with cold bows on either side, the heartless woman to return to her nieces with the news of Mrs. Chase's banishment, and the latter to take a sorrowful leave of Lovelace Ellsworth, and pack her trunk and Dainty's for immediate departure.
The hot tears that fell on each dainty piece of clothing as she packed it away only the angels knew, for the mother's heart was breaking over the loss of her child.
She could not bring herself to believe that Dainty had fled with another man, for having accidentally made the acquaintance of the old black mammy, she had been favored with a thrilling narration of all that her daughter had suffered from the persecution of ghosts and the attempt at kidnapping.
It was a terrible shock to the mother's heart, and after that she could not believe that Dainty had eloped. She was sure that the girl had been stolen away, and perhaps murdered.