“Ellen will be ready to go with you, Mr. Bittridge.”
“Well, that’s good,” said the young man, and while he talked on she sat wondering at a nature which all modesty and deference seemed left out of, though he had sometimes given evidence of his intellectual appreciation of these things. He talked to Mrs. Kenton not only as if they were in every-wise equal, but as if they were of the same age, almost of the same sex.
Ellen came in, cloaked and hatted, with her delicate face excited in prospect of the adventure; and her mother saw Bittridge look at her with more tenderness than she had ever seen in him before. “I’ll take good care of her, Mrs. Kenton,” he said, and for the first time she felt herself relent a little towards him.
A minute after they were gone Lottie bounced into the room, followed by Boyne.
“Momma!” she shouted, “Ellen isn’t going to the theatre with that fellow?”
“Yes, she is.”
“And you let her, momma! Without a chaperon?”
Boyne’s face had mirrored the indignation in his sister’s, but at this unprecedented burst of conventionality he forgot their momentary alliance. “Well, you’re a pretty one to talk about chaperons! Walking all over Tuskingum with fellows at night, and going buggy-riding with everybody, and out rowing, and here fairly begging Jim Plumpton to come down to the steamer and see you off again!”
“Shut up!” Lottie violently returned, “or I’ll tell momma how you’ve been behaving with Rita Plumpton yourself.”
“Well, tell!” Boyne defied her.