She'd got far beyond 'Lucile'--though 'Peck's Bad Boy' was still
the favourite of Angus when he got time for any serious reading--- and
was coming to loathe the crudities of our so-called American
civilization. So she said. She begun to let out to Angus that they
wasn't doing right by the little one, bringing him up in a hole like New
York City where he'd catch the American accent--though God knows where
she ever noticed that danger there!--and it was only fair to the child
to get him to England or Paris or some such place where he could have
decent advantages. I gather that Angus let out a holler at first so that
Ellabelle had to consult another specialist and have little Angus
consult one, too. They both said: 'Certainly, don't delay another day if
you value the child's life or your own,' and of course Angus had to give
in. I reckon that was the last real fight he ever put up till the time
I'm going to tell you about.
"They went to England and bought a castle that had never known the
profane touch of a plumber, having been built in the time of the first
earl or something, and after that they had to get another castle in
France, account of little Angus having a weak throat that Ellabelle got
another gentlemanly specialist to find out about him; and so it went,
with Ellabelle hovering on the very edge of a nervous breakdown, and
taking up art and literature at different spots where fashion gathered,
going to Italy and India's coral strand to study the dead past, and so
forth, and learning to address her inferiors in a refined and hostile
manner, with little Angus having a maid and a governess and something
new the matter with him every time Ellabelle felt the need of a change.
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