er
meals in her room till they got back.

Her mother paid no heed to her repeated declaration. "Lottie," she
asked, with the heart-quake that the thought of Richard's act always
gave her with reference to Ellen, "have you ever let out the least hint
of that?"

"Of course I haven't," Lottie scornfully retorted. "I hope I know what a
crank Ellen is."

They were not just the terms in which Mrs. Kenton would have chosen to
be reassured, but she was glad to be assured in any terms. She said,
vaguely: "I believe in my heart that I will stay at home, too. All this
has given me a bad headache."

"I was going to have a headache myself," said Lottie, with injury. "But
I suppose I can get on along without. I can just simply say I'm not
going. If he proposes to stay, too, I can soon settle that."

"The great difficulty will be to get your father to go."

"You can make Ellen make him," Lottie suggested.

"That is true," said Mrs. Kenton, with such increasing absence that her
daughter required of her:

"Are you staying on my account?"

"I think you had better not be left alone the whole day. But I am not
staying on your account. I don't believe we had so many of us better go.
It might look a little pointed."

Lottie laughed harshly. "I guess Mr. Breckon wouldn't see the point,
he's so perfectly gone."

"Do you really believe it, Lottie?" Mrs. Kenton entreated, with a sudden
tenderness for her younger daughter such as she did not always feel.

"I should think anybody would believe it--anybody but Ellen."

"Yes," Mrs. Kenton dreamily assented.

Lottie made her way to the door. "Well, if you do stay, mother, I'm not
going to have you hanging round me all day. I can chaperon myself."

"Lottie," her mother tried to stay her, "I wish you would go. I don't
believe that Mr. Trannel will be much of an addition. He will be on your
poor father's hands all day, or else Ellen's, and if you went you could
help off."

"Thank you, mother. I've had quite all I want of Mr. Trannel. You can
tell him he needn't go, if you want to."

Lottie at least did not leave her mother to make her excuses to the
party when they met for starting. Mrs. Kenton had deferred her own
till she thought it was too late for her husband to retreat, and then
bunglingly made them, with so much iteration that it seemed to her it
would have been far less pointed, as concerned Mr. Breckon, if she
had gone. Lottie sunnily announced that she was going to stay wi