now what we are going to do, but we must break
it off, somehow."

"We might take her with us somewhere," Mrs. Kenton suggested.

"Run away from the fellow? I think I see myself! No, we have got to stay
and face the thing right here. But I won't have him about the house any
more, understand that. He's not to be let in, and Ellen mustn't see him;
you tell her I said so. Or no! I will speak to her myself." His wife
said that he was welcome to do that; but he did not quite do it. He
certainly spoke to his daughter about her, lover, and he satisfied
himself that there was yet nothing explicit between them. But she was so
much less frank and open with him than she had always been before that
he was wounded as well as baffled by her reserve. He could not get her
to own that she really cared for the fellow; but man as he was, and old
man as he was, he could not help perceiving that she lived in a fond
dream of him.

He went from her to her mother. "If he was only one-half the man she
thinks he is!"--he ended his report in a hopeless sigh.

"You want to give in to her!" his wife pitilessly interpreted. "Well,
perhaps that would be the best thing, after all."

"No, no, it wouldn't, Sarah; it would be the easiest for both of us, I
admit, but it would be the worst thing for her. We've got to let it run
along for a while yet. If we give him rope enough he may hang himself;
there's that chance. We can't go away, and we can't shut her up, and we
can't turn him out of the house. We must trust her to find him out for
herself."

"She'll never do that," said the mother. "Lottie says Ellen thinks he's
just perfect. He cheers her up, and takes her out of herself. We've
always acted with her as if we thought she was different from other
girls, and he behaves to her as if she was just like all of them, just
as silly, and just as weak, and it pleases her, and flatters her; she
likes it."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned the father. "I suppose she does."

This was bad enough; it was a blow to his pride in Ellen; but there was
something that hurt him still worse. When the fellow had made sure of
her, he apparently felt himself so safe in her fondness that he did not
urge his suit with her. His content with her tacit acceptance gave the
bitterness of shame to the promise Kenton and his wife had made each
other never to cross any of their children in love. They were ready
now to keep that promise for Ellen, if he asked it of them, rather
than answer