A Mental Struggle. 51
*'' Speak ! " he says vehemently. " Why is it that you
will not go?"
" Perhaps because I do not care to," returns she, in a
tone so quiet as compared with the ill-suppressed anger of
his, that it serves to heighten the sense of injustice beneath
which he is writhing.
" The fact that I am going has nothing to do with it ? "
questions he keenly. " / am not preventing you from
accompanying your sister and your friend ?"
"Tom./"
The word falls from her lightly, but there is a world of
well-bred insolence in her tone. She takes one step nearer
to the door, and he opening it mechanically, she passes
through it to the hall beyond, and he is left alone.
As she disappears, the young man turns aside, and
clenches his hands hard, but not a word escapes him.
Perhaps, all things considered, the poor pampered ponies
would have preferred any other driver that day, and the
girls a livelier companion; but che sara, sara, so all have
to put up with Felix, nilly willy. Once applying the whip
a trifle too freely to the back of Gill, she resents it, and
intimating her wrongs to Jack, they both start off" upon an
endless journey to Nowhere ! But a steep hill and Mr.
Brown's firm hand reduces them at last to something that
resembles order.
During the rather trying half-mile in which they had
bolted, Miss Brown had screamed a good deal, and had
declared, as loudly as she well could, her disapproval of her
brother's mode of driving; but of that disapproval her
brother had taken little heed. There had been, indeed, a
positive joy to him in the excitement caused by the ponies'
viciousness; and when at last his sister's exclamations of
fear had become known to him, he had turned upon her,
and advised her in plain if carefully measured terms to
restrain her excitement.
This rebuff, though gently delivered, awoke within the
breast of Elinor dire wrath and a settled desire for venge¬
ance. Setting her lips very closely together, she mentally
4—2
Permalink: http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/r9zhb
