s catches of her breath. Ever
since the child had been missed, Eva's anxiety had driven her from
point to point of unrest as with a stinging lash. She had pelted
bareheaded down the road and up the road; she had invaded all the
neighbors' houses, insisting upon looking through their farthest and
most unlikely closets; she had even penetrated to the woods, and
joined wild-eyed the groups of peering workers on the shore of the
nearest pond. That she could not endure long, so she had rushed home
to her sister, who was either pacing her sitting-room with
inarticulate murmurs and wails of distress in the sympathizing ears
of several of the neighboring women, or else was staring with
haggard eyes of fearful hope from a window. When she looked from the
eastern window she could see her mother-in-law, Mrs. Zelotes
Brewster, at an opposite one, sitting immovable, with her Bible in
her lap, prayer in her heart, and an eye of grim holding to faith
upon the road for the fulfilment of promise. She felt all her
muscles stiffen with anger when she saw the wild eyes of the child's
mother at the other window. "It is all her fault," she said to
herself--"all her fault--hers and that bold trollop of a sister of
hers." When she saw Eva run down the road, with her black hair
rising like a mane to the morning wind, she was an embodiment of an
imprecatory psalm. When, later on, she saw the three editors
coming--Mr. Walsey, of _The Spy_, and Mr. Jones, of _The Observer_,
and young Joe Bemis, of _The Star_, on his bicycle--she watched
jealously to see if they were admitted. When Fanny's head
disappeared from the eastern window she knew that Eva had let them
in and Fanny was receiving them in the parlor. "She will tell them
all about the words they had last night, that made the dear child
run away," she thought. "All the town will know what doings there
are in our family." Mrs. Zelotes made up her mind to a course of
action. Each editor was granted a long audience with Fanny and Eva,
who entertained them with hysterical solemnity and displayed Ellen's
photographs in the red plush album, from the last, taken in her best
white frock, to one when she was three weeks old, and seeming weakly
and not likely to live. This had been taken by a photographer
summoned to the house at great expense. "Her father has never spared
expense for Ellen," said Fanny, with an outburst of grief. "That's
so," said Eva. "I'll testify to that. Andrew Brewster never thou