“Well?” the judge asked, impatiently, when he came in as soon after this as he decently could. They observed forms with regard to talking about Ellen which, after all, were rather for themselves than for her; Mrs. Kenton, at least, knew that the girl knew when they were talking about her.
“She took it as well as I expected.”
“What is she going to do?”
“She didn’t say. But I don’t believe she will do anything.”
“I wish I had taken our tickets for next Saturday,” said Kenton.
“Well, we must wait now,” said his wife. “If he doesn’t write to her, she won’t write to him.”
“Has she ever answered that letter of his?”
“No, and I don’t believe she will now.”
That night Ellen came to her mother and said she need not be afraid of her writing to Bittridge. “He hasn’t changed, if he was wrong, by coming and saying those things to poppa, and nothing has changed.”
“That is the way I hoped you would see it; Ellen.” Her mother looked wistfully at her, but the girl left her without letting her satisfy the longing in the mother’s heart to put her arms round her child, and pull her head down upon her breast for a cry.