with so doleful a countenance that the older woman had a quickly
suppressed impulse to go to him and speak. She did open the
subject to the girl next morning, approaching it obliquely. In
her own day a very progressive person, she felt that her daughter
had far outstripped her, and she offered advice but timidly to
this tall, perfectly dressed young woman who seemed so competent
in all the affairs of life, and who knew so much more than she
did upon many subjects. But after a little profitless skirmishing
she came out with:

"Looks like you must have said something hard to Grant last
night--he never came in to say good-by to me. Ain't you going to
have him, Ma'Lou? Don't you care anything about him?"

"I care a great deal about Grant," Mary Louise told her, in a
voice of pain. "I could love him dearly--if I'd let myself. But,
mother, I just can't settle down to live here in Watauga. There's
nobody and nothing here for me."

The woman looked at her child, and her mind misgave her sorely
that she had done wrong to send the girl away among an alien
people, where she would learn to despise her own.

"You're still grievin' about Ellen Kendrick," she said finally.
"If I were you I wouldn't let that go the way it has. Don't--"
she hesitated, with eyes full of helpless solicitude upon her
daughter's face--"honey, don't wait for any sign from Ellen,
because you won't get it. You just take those postal cards that
you got for her on your Canadian trip, and some morning you step
over to the side door and ask for her, if you want to see her. I