"Well, I think it's about time it was put a stop to," said Mrs.
Zelotes. "That Joy boy!"
Then Fanny lost her temper. "I can manage my own daughter, Grandma
Brewster," said she, "and I'll thank you to attend to your own
affairs."
"You don't seem to know enough to manage her," retorted Mrs.
Zelotes, "if you let her go traipsin' round with that Joy boy."
The warfare waged high for a time. Andrew withdrew to the kitchen.
Ellen took little Amabel up in her own chamber and showed her her
beautiful doll, which looked not a day older, so carefully had she
been cherished, than when she first had her. Ellen felt both
resentment and shame, and also a fierce dawning of partisanship
towards Granville Joy. "Why should my grandmother speak of him so
scornfully?" she asked herself. "He is a real good boy."
That night was very cold, a night full of fierce white glitter of
frost and moonlight, and raging with a turbulence of winds. Ellen
lay awake listening to them. Presently between the whistle of the
wind she heard another, a familiar pipe from a boyish throat. She
sprang out of bed and peeped from her window, and there was a dark,
slight figure out in the yard, and he was looking up at her window,
whistling. Shame, and mirth, and also exultation, which overpowered
them both, stirred within the child's breast. She had read of things
like this. Here was her boy lover coming out this bitter night just
for the sake of looking up at her window. She adored him for it.
Then she heard a window raised with a violent rasp across the yard,
and saw her grandmother's night-capped head thrust forth. She heard
her shrill, imperious voice call out quite distinctly, "Boy, who be
you?"
The lovelorn whistler ceased his pipe, and evidently, had he
consulted his own discretion, would have shown a pair of flying
heels, but he walked bravely up to the window and the night-capped
head and replied. Ellen could not hear what he said, but she
distinguished plainly enough her grandmother's concluding remarks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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