You never listened to a word that I said
You only seen me from the clothes that I wear
Or did the interest go so much deeper
It must have been to the color of my hair

Ellory hadn't been out and about for about two months. Mourning meant that she couldn't enjoy most of the celebrations of the Christmas seasons. That she could go to the Christmas and New Year's balls had been a generosity from Evelyn's part. Then, she'd been sick almost all of January. She'd caught a cold, Merlin knows from where. By February, Ellory could explode from boredom.

February hadn't been much interesting either. Mourning, coupled with Evelyn's unwillingness to attend many parties meant that Ellory couldn't do so either. It wouldn't do for her to be out partying when her sister mourned their mother at home.

Another cause for Ellory's anguish during those weeks had been the absence of Reuben Crouch. Things had been going swell and then he'd stopped writing. That had coincided with his return to Great Britain, something Ellory had heard from some acquiantance completely randomly. That made her very sad and then very angry. What was the point of him contacting her if he wasn't going to make any effort to see her or at the very least write her now that he was in the same country? Then, her insecurities overcame her. Maybe he didn't want to write to her because he didn't like her. Someone could have told him something and his hatred for her could have been rekindled. Maybe he'd only written to her from Canada to atone, because he hadn't thought, at that time, that he might return and now that he was back he didn't care about her anymore.

The most recent Witch Weekly article was a new log to the flame of Ellory's insecurities. She hadn't recognized the woman pictured on the cover - after reading the article about her, Ellory decided she didn't like her very much! Apparently, this Una Walsh was the subject of Reuben Crouch's affections!

Ellory couldn't help but compare herself to the other young woman. She wasn't very pretty, Ellory pettily thought. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth - everything on her face seemed too big! In fact, she looked a bit on the plumper side in that picture. So Ben liked some fat girl! Ellory's short-lived sense of superiority was crashed by the self-conscious realization that Ben probably liked her for her curves. Something that Ellory lacked. She tried very hard to convince herself that Una Walsh was in fact fat and unimpressive, but the image of her superior houglass body persisted in Ellory's mind.

So that was why Reuben hadn't written to her. He had a prettier girl to love whose family wouldn't give him hell for their relationship, on top of that!

To spice things up and for the sake of this thread, it was Reuben Crouch she run into at Scrivenshaft's that morning. (Couldn't it have been at a party, where she could have at least looked as well as her mourning clothes would allow? How was she supposed to rival that American lady?)

It was awkward, with then having seen each other but not really making a move to greet each other. At a convenient time, however, when both of them happened to be looking at the same shelf, Ellory said quietly: "Is it due to lack of writing supplies that I received no letter from you all this time, then?" Her voice had been pleasant enough, almost playful, even, but the accusation was lurking underneath it all the same.