The Crux | Page 3

a shame!" she whispered under hen breath. "A shame! And nobody
to stand up for him!"
She half rose to her feet as if to do it herself, but sank back irresolutely.
A fresh wave of talk rolled forth.
"It'll half kill his aunt."
"Poor Miss Elder! I don't know what she'll do!"
"I don't know what he'll do. He can't go back to college."
"He'll have to go to work."
"I'd like to know where nobody'd hire him in this town."

The girl could bear it no longer. She came to the door, and there, as
they paused to speak to her, her purpose ebbed again.
"My daughter, Vivian, Mrs. Williams," said her mother; and the other
callers greeted her familiarly.
"You'd better finish your lessons, Vivian," Mr. Lane suggested.
"I have, father," said the girl, and took a chair by the minister's wife.
She had a vague feeling that if she were there, they would not talk so
about Morton Elder. Mrs. Williams hailed the interruption gratefully.
She liked the slender girl with the thoughtful eyes and pretty, rather
pathetic mouth, and sought to draw her out. But her questions soon led
to unfortunate results.
"You are going to college, I suppose?" she presently inquired; and
Vivian owned that it was the desire of her heart.
"Nonsense!" said her father. "Stuff and nonsense, Vivian! You're not
going to college."
The Foote girls now burst forth in voluble agreement with Mr. Lane.
His wife was evidently of the same mind; and Mrs. Williams plainly
regretted her question. But Vivian mustered courage enough to make a
stand, strengthened perhaps by the depth of the feeling which had
brought her into the room.
"I don't know why you're all so down on a girl's going to college. Eve
Marks has gone, and Mary Spring is going and both the Austin girls.
Everybody goes now."
"I know one girl that won't," was her father's incisive comment, and her
mother said quietly, "A girl's place is at home 'till she marries."
"Suppose I don't want to marry?" said Vivian.
"Don't talk nonsense," her father answered. "Marriage is a woman's
duty."

"What do you want to do?" asked Miss Josie in the interests of further
combat. "Do you want to he a doctor, like Jane Bellair?"
"I should like to very much indeed," said the girl with quiet intensity.
"I'd like to be a doctor in a babies' hospital."
"More nonsense," said Mr. Lane. "Don't talk to me about that woman!
You attend to your studies, and then to your home duties, my dear."
The talk rose anew, the three sisters contriving all to agree with Mr.
Lane in his opinions about college, marriage and Dr. Bellair, yet to
disagree violently among themselves.
Mrs. Williams rose to go, and in the lull that followed the liquid note of
a whippoorwill met the girl's quick ear. She quietly slipped out,
unnoticed.
The Lane's home stood near the outer edge of the town, with an outlook
across wide meadows and soft wooded hills. Behind, their long garden
backed on that of Miss Orella Elder, with a connecting gate in the gray
board fence. Mrs. Lane had grown up here. The house belonged to her
mother, Mrs. Servilla Pettigrew, though that able lady was seldom in it,
preferring to make herself useful among two growing sets of
grandchildren.
Miss Elder was Vivian's favorite teacher. She was a careful and
conscientious instructor, and the girl was a careful and conscientious
scholar; so they got on admirably together; indeed, there was a real
affection between them. And just as the young Laura Pettigrew had
played with the younger Orella Elder, so Vivian had played with little
Susie Elder, Miss Orella's orphan niece. Susie regarded the older girl
with worshipful affection, which was not at all unpleasant to an
emotional young creature with unemotional parents, and no brothers or
sisters of her own.
Moreover, Susie was Morton's sister. The whippoorwill's cry sounded
again through the soft June night. Vivian came quickly down the
garden path between the bordering beds of sweet alyssum and

mignonette. A dew-wet rose brushed against her hand. She broke it off,
pricking her fingers, and hastily fastened it in the bosom of her white
frock.
Large old lilac bushes hung over the dividing fence, a thick mass of
honeysuckle climbed up by the gate and mingled with them, spreading
over to a pear tree on the Lane side. In this fragrant, hidden corner was
a rough seat, and from it a boy's hand reached out and seized the girl's,
drawing her down beside him. She drew away from him as far as the
seat allowed.
"Oh Morton!" she said. "What have you done?"
Morton was sulky.
"Now Vivian, are you down on me too? I thought I had one