XVI
ELLIS TAKES A TRICK
Late one afternoon a handsome trap, drawn by two spirited bays, drove up
to Carteret's gate. Three places were taken by Mrs. Carteret, Clara, and
the major, leaving the fourth seat vacant.
"I've asked Ellis to drive out with us," said the major, as he took the
lines from the colored man who had the trap in charge. "We'll go by the
office and pick him up."
Clara frowned, but perceiving Mrs. Carteret's eye fixed upon her,
restrained any further expression of annoyance.
The major's liking for Ellis had increased within the year. The young
man was not only a good journalist, but possessed sufficient cleverness
and tact to make him excellent company. The major was fond of argument,
but extremely tenacious of his own opinions. Ellis handled the foils of
discussion with just the requisite skill to draw out the major,
permitting himself to be vanquished, not too easily, but, as it were,
inevitably, by the major's incontrovertible arguments.
Olivia had long suspected Ellis of feeling a more than friendly interest
in Clara. Herself partial to Tom, she had more than once thought it
hardly fair to Delamere, or even to Clara, who was young and
impressionable, to have another young man constantly about the house.
True, there had seemed to be no great danger, for Ellis had neither the
family nor the means to make him a suitable match for the major's
sister; nor had Clara made any secret of her dislike for Ellis, or of
her resentment for his supposed depreciation of Delamere.
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