Chapter 15

When Ellen was about sixteen, in her second year at the high-school, her own family never looked at her without a slight shock of wonder, as before the unexpected. Her mates, being themselves in the transition state, received her unquestioningly as a fellow-traveller, and colored like themselves with the new lights of the journey. But Ellen's father and mother and grandmother never ceased regarding her with astonishment and admiration and something like alarm. While they regarded Ellen with the utmost pride, they still privately regretted this perfection of bloom which was the forerunner of independence of the parent stalk--at least, Andrew