When you learn that this story begins with the heroine setting offthrough the woods to visit her grandmother, who was ill, you may guessthat it is the familiar tale of Little Red Riding Hood. I must admitthat that is what it is, and I warn you that you may count upon a veryartless little heroine and a wolf of insinuating manners and glibtongue; but this grandmother will not be eaten up.
Nor did Ethel carry a basket containing a little pat of butter and acake. She had, instead, a large and luxurious box of candied fruitunder her arm; and instead of singing through the woods, she wore asulky and miserable expression. Unfortunately red hoods are not invogue, for such a thing would have been notably becoming to her littlegypsy face. However, she was young enough and lovely enough to lookwell in anything, even a sulky expression.
She was not without some excuse for her discontented air. Ethel wasone of those unfortunate little bones of contention so often to befound in divided families, and she had been so much disputed over andargued about, and so rarely consulted or even questioned, that she hadgrown to think of herself as a helpless pawn in an incomprehensiblegame, where she could never win anything.
The disputes had begun long before she was born. Her father’s familyhad that pride of newly acquired wealth beside which pride of ancestryshrinks to nothing. Indeed, to spring from splendid ancestors mayoften make one feel a little humble, but to feel that one is vastlymore important than any of one’s forbears makes for arrogance.
The Taylors had objected very much to the marriage of their only son.Even when the marriage was made, and there was no earthly use inobjecting, they kept on, in a very unpleasant way. All the misfortuneswhich the young man brought upon his wife and child by hisrecklessness and folly only increased their anger against the victims;and when he died, they all came forward with helpful suggestions as towhat he should have done when he was alive.
Ethel had been a small girl of nine then, and not yet looked upon asguilty; but when she refused to leave her mother and take advantage ofthe offers made by several of the Taylors, she lost their sympathy.Her mother, with criminal selfishness, hadn’t made the least attemptto persuade her child to leave her. On the contrary, she had gone backto her own people, and had lived with them in quiet contentment.
It was to these people of hers that the Taylors so strongly objected.She herself was a quiet and inoffensive creature who gave littletrouble, but her parents were Italians, and poor, and not ashamed ofeither of the two things.
Dr. Mazetti had been professor of romance languages in a small Westerncollege, but he had become so absorbed in the enormous commentary uponDante which he was writing that he found his teaching very much in theway; so he gave up his chair. Mrs. Taylor, the paternal grandmother,had spoken about this.
“Of course,” she had said, not very pleasantly, “it’s a good thing tohave faith in your husband’s work; but suppose it’s not a financialsuccess?”
“We don’t expect it to be,” replied Mrs. Mazetti, in her excellentEnglish. “Such work as that is not undertaken for money.”
“Do you mean to say that you’ll permit your husband to give up his—”began Mrs. Taylor, but the other interrupted her.
“A man does not ask the permission of others to do what he thinksbest,” she said quietly. “I shoul