elf she let her work coarsen
up. Anyway, when little Angus come to be eighteen his pa shocked her one
day by saying he must go back home to some good college. 'You mean
England,' says Ellabelle, they being at the time on some other foreign
domains.

"'I do not,' says Angus, 'nor Sweden nor Japan nor East Africa. I mean
the United States.' 'You're jesting,' says she. 'You wrong me cruelly,'
says Angus. 'The lad's eighteen and threatening to be a foreigner.
Should he stay here longer it would set in his blood.' 'Remember his
weak throat,' says Ellabelle. 'I did,' says Angus. 'To save you trouble
I sent for a specialist to look him over. He says the lad has never a
flaw in his throat. We'll go soon.'

"Of course it was dirty work on the part of Angus, getting to the
specialist first, but she saw she had to take it. She knew it was like
the time they agreed on his name--she could see the Scotch blood leaping
in his veins. So she gave in with never a mutter that Angus could hear.
That's part of the genius of Ellabelle, knowing when she can and when
she positively cannot, and making no foolish struggle in the latter
event.

"Back they come to New York and young Angus went to the swellest college
Ellabelle could learn about, and they had a town house and a country
house and Ellabelle prepared to dazzle New York society, having met
frayed ends of it in her years abroad. But she couldn't seem to put it
over. Lots of male and female society foreigners that she'd met would
come and put up with her and linger on in the most friendly manner, but
Ellabelle never fools herself so very much. She knew she wasn't making
the least dent in New York itself. She got uncomfortable there. I bet
she had that feeling you get when you're riding your horse over soft
ground and all at once he begins to bog down.

"Anyway, they come West after a year or so, where Angus had more drag
and Ellabelle could feel more important. Not back to Wallace, of course.
Ellabelle had forgotten the name of that town, and also they come over a
road that misses the thriving little town of North Platte by several
hundred miles. And pretty soon they got into this darned swell little
suburb out from San Francisco, through knowing one of the old families
that had lived there man and boy for upward of four years. It's a town
where I believe they won't let you get off the train unless you got a
visitor's card and a valet.

"Here at last Ellabelle felt she might come i