h her that it was such a
strange thing I happened to be there the day the note came. And also
she thinks it strange I decided so quickly to take her to the hospital,
when she had just said she couldn't go. I tell her I do a good many
things on the spur of the moment, and getting the men to pick her up
and hurry away with her was just another case of spur, and she shuts
her eyes when I say that and looks as if she is praying. The lucky
part was her fainting at the right time. Anyhow, she is at the
hospital, and that old rooster of hers is finding out a good many
things it took her absence from home for him to learn. I never expect
to get married. NEVER!

CHAPTER XXIII

I have just found out why Elizabeth and Whythe had their break. Miss
Bettie Simcoe told me. It took Miss Bettie some time to get at the
bottom of it, but Elizabeth told her last night, and this morning I was
given the information at the first moment Miss Bettie could get me to
herself.

Elizabeth was dead right in the stand she took, but her little spurt of
independence didn't last long, and she is now ready to give in when the
chance comes to give. Miss Bettie added that on her own account.
Whythe couldn't afford to be married, but that wasn't to interfere with
his marriage. He had expected to take Elizabeth to his mother's home
and plant her in it, but when he told her Elizabeth balked. She
preferred to stay with her aunt Susanna after her marriage to going to
Whythe's home, and when she so informed him he said things he
shouldn't, and then both sent off skyrockets and the whole thing went
up in the air. And then I came.

She has now changed her mind and is willing to follow her husband
wherever he leads. She is truly womanly, also she is still wearing the
ring of the beau with whom she sought to bring Whythe to terms, and to
please her worldly aunt. But she will return the ring when it is
proper to do so. She is waiting to find out.

Elizabeth had more sense than I gave her credit for in refusing to live
in the House of Eppes; but it's either live there or not live with
Whythe, and she evidently can't live without him. I'd hate love to
make me lose the little gumption I was born with, and even my little
knows no house is big enough for a son's wife and a mother-in-law and
three in-law sisters. It won't be a Home, Sweet Home, place when
Elizabeth enters the Eppes house, and it will be nip and tuck as to who
wins out, but tha