bagged at the knees. At least this is what Cousin Eva Barr, who went to the wedding, told me. I wasn't invited. They say that the Setons have been living on cold hash ever since.
"They went to French Lick Springs on their honeymoon and now Herman is back at the factory learning the corset business."
Miss Ogilvie had not been well lately and Aunt Julia was becoming more and more eccentric. She had shut up all but one great room at Shane's Castle and would see no one but the Doctor and Hattie Tolliver. "I go to see her three times a week. She needs some one to take hold of that great house. There's no one else, so I do it. Miss Ogilvie comes in to sit with Pa while I'm gone. She's given up some of her pupils. She says she finds she can't do as much as she once could.
"Your father is doing well at the bank and I've managed to lay aside quite a sum after the debts were paid. We'll need it to send Fergus to school. I've sold the rings that Aunt Julia gave me and we're now on the prosperous side of things once more. If your father had only listened to me, we'd have been rich to-day, but he always said he knew best, and he trusted people too much. Before long we'll have enough to come East. I want to be with my children."
Then there were inquiries after her health and Clarence's welfare and endless cautions and advice concerning the management of the flat, for distance made little difference to Hattie Tolliver when it concerned the interests of some one she loved. It was as if she ran Ellen's household as well. In one letter she was even bold enough to ask whether there was any hope of her becoming a grandmother.
Each of these letters, though it bore a great similarity to all the others, was in a sense an epic. They recorded in sentences vigorously written and crowded with a host of details, the daily history of a community. They were fiercely personal and colored by the prejudices of Hattie Tolliver. In her enemies there was nothing good and in those she loved best nothing bad. Her world
