第22章 CHAPTER V(6)

She felt, too, that reprisals of any kind were out of the question. They were not only impolitic, they were difficult. Her father had an aversion to Dora, and was likely to seize the first opportunity for requesting Ethel to drop the girl's acquaintance. Ruth also had urged her to withdraw from any active part in the wedding, strengthening her advice with the assurance that when a friendship began to decline it ought to be abandoned at once. There was only her grandmother to go to, and at first she did not find her at all interested in the trouble. She had just had a dispute with her milkman, was inclined to give him all her suspicions and all her angry words--"an impertinent, cheating creature,"she said; and then Ethel had to hear the history of the month's cream and of the milkman's extortion, with the old lady's characteristic declaration:

"I told him plain what I thought of his ways, but I paid him every cent I owed him.

Thank God, I am not unreasonable!"

Neither was she unreasonable when Ethel finally got her to listen to her own serious grievance with Dora.

"If you will have a woman for a friend, Ethel, you must put up with womanly ways;and it is best to keep your mouth shut concerning such ways. I hate to see you whimpering and whining about wrongs you have been cordially inviting for weeks and months and years.""Grandmother!"

"Yes, you have been sowing thorns for yourself, and then you go unshod over them.

I mean that Dora has this fine clergyman, and Fred Mostyn, and her brother, and mother, and father all on her side; all of them sure that Dora can do no wrong, all of them sure that Ethel, poor girl, must be mistaken, or prudish, or jealous, or envious.""Oh, grandmother, you are too cruel,"

"Why didn't you have a few friends on your own side?""Father and Ruth never liked Dora. And Fred--I told you how Fred acted as soon as he saw her!""There was Royal Wheelock, James Clifton, or that handsome Dick Potter. Why didn't you ask them to join you at your lunches and dances? You ought to have pillared your own side. A girl without her beaux is always on the wrong side if the girl with beaux is against her.""It was the great time of Dora's life. I wished her to have all the glory of it."

"All her own share--that was right. All of your share, also--that was as wrong as it could be.""Clifton is yachting, Royal and I had a little misunderstanding, and Dick Potter is too effusive.""But Dick's effusiveness would have been a good thing for Fred's effusiveness. Two men can't go on a complimentary ran-tan at the same table. They freeze one another out.

That goes without saying. But Dora's indiscretions are none of your business while she is under her father's roof; and I don't know if she hadn't a friend in the world, if they would be your business. I have always been against people trying to do the work of THEM that are above us. We are told THEYseek and THEY save, and it's likely they will look after Dora in spite of her being so unknowing of herself as to marry a priest in a surplice, when a fool in motley would have been more like the thing.""I don't want to quarrel with Dora. After all, I like her. We have been friends a long time.""Well, then, don't make an enemy of her.

One hundred friends are too few against one enemy. One hundred friends will wish you well, and one enemy will DO you ill. God love you, child! Take the world as you find it.

Only God can make it any better. When is this blessed wedding to come off?""In two weeks. You got cards, did you not?"

"I believe I did. They don't matter. Let Dora and her flirtations alone, unless you set your own against them. Like cures like. If the priest sees nothing wrong----""He thinks all she does is perfect."

"I dare say. Priests are a soft lot, they'll believe anything. He's love-blind at present.

Some day, like the prophet of Pethor,[1] he will get his eyes opened. As for Fred Mostyn, Ishall have a good deal to say about him by and by, so I'll say nothing now."[1] One of the Hebrew prophets.

"You promised, grandmother, not to talk to me any more about Fred.""It was a very inconsiderate promise, a very irrational promise! I am sorry I made it--and I don't intend to keep it.""Well, it takes two to hold a conversation, grandmother.""To be sure it does. But if I talk to you, I hope to goodness you will have the decency to answer me. I wouldn't believe anything different." And she looked into Ethel's face with such a smiling confidence in her good will and obedience, that Ethel could only laugh and give her twenty kisses as she stood up to put on her hat and coat.