Through the long morning Ellen sat idle. She could not bear to be in the house, but sat on the porch, a lonely and mournful figure. A score of vague plans came into her mind only to be rejected. Could Matthew be won over?--she did not think so. Could her grandfather be persuaded?--she doubted it. Could they be compelled by law to give her what was right?--she had no friends to advise her. The mysterious visitor to whom her father had meant to entrust her--she thought of him with despair.
By turns grief and resentment overwhelmed her, but finally apathy succeeded both. The blow which she had received seemed to have injured her beyond recovery; plans were useless when all earthly hopes could be so quickly dissolved.
"I may die!" said she and found in that a dreary consolation.
At dark Matthew brought Millie home and the three sat for a while together on the porch. Ellen had been afraid that she might cry, but the event seemed too unreal to draw tears from a fountain so nearly exhausted. Millie rocked rapidly back and forth, for once as loquacious as her sisters. She stood a little in awe of Ellen's mind, but she believed that she was making a favorable impression upon her. She was nervous and excited and her short sentences were not always completed.
"I haven't yet been in your house except last month when your father--" Millie feared that she had made a mistake.
"Would you like to go through it now?" asked Ellen, unmoved by Millie's allusion.
"To-morrow will do for sight-seeing," said Matthew with heavy facetiousness unlike him.
"I guess it will!" laughed Millie. "It seems as though I'm to be here a long time, from what the preacher said!"
When the clock struck nine, Matthew rose. Calvin had attended to the stock, Matthew had given himself a whole holiday, the only holiday he was to give himself deliberately in all his life. Millie also rose abruptly.
"Are you going to bed, Ellen?" asked Matthew.
Ten o'clock struck and eleven and Ellen sat still. Then she went in and advanced slowly toward the stairway. With her foot on the lowest step, she heard Millie laugh. Grossly offended, she turned and went into her father's office and closed the door. Millie had asked for no changes, and here was the old sofa with its worn cushions, a desk, a chair, and a little table, upon it a few books, a pad of paper, two lead-pencils, and some withered flowers in a glass. Ellen lay down upon the sofa as though it were her bier.