n her lips of empty, anxious days when she
too had waited for the release of the cards announcing safe arrivals
overseas.

Elliott, who was every minute realizing more fully the inexorableness
of the fact that she was where she was and not where she wasn't,
kissed back without much thought. It was her nature to kiss back,
however she might feel underneath, and the surprising suddenness of
the whole affair had left her numb. She really hadn't much curiosity
about the life into which she was going. What did it matter, since she
didn't intend to stay in it? Just as soon as the quarantine was lifted
from Uncle James's house she meant to go back to Cedarville. But she
did notice that the little car was not new, that on their way through
the town every one they met bowed and smiled, that Henry had amazingly
good manners for a country boy, that Laura looked very strong, that
Gertrude was all hands and elbows and feet and eyes, and that the car
was continually either climbing up or sliding down hills. It slid out
of the village down a hill, and it was climbing a hill when it met
squarely in the road a long, low, white house, canopied by four big
elms set at the four corners, and gave up the ascent altogether with a
despairing honk-honk of its horn.

A lady rose from the wide veranda of the white house, laid something
gray on a table, and came smilingly down the steps. A little girl of
eight followed her, two dogs dashed out, and a kitten. The road ran
into the yard and stopped; but behind the house the hill kept on going
up. Elliott understood that she had arrived at the Robert Camerons'.

[Illustration: Laura took the new cousin up to her room]

The lady, who was tall and dark-haired, like Laura, but with lines of
gray threading the black, put her arms around the girl and kissed her.
Even in her preoccupation, Elliott was dimly aware that the quality of
this embrace was subtly different from any that she had ever received
before, though the lady's words were not unlike Laura's. "Dear child,"
she said, "we are so glad to know you." And the big dark eyes smiled
into Elliott's with a look that was quite new to that young person's
experience. She didn't know why she felt a queer thrill run up her
spine, but the thrill was there, just for a minute. Then it was gone
and the girl only thought that Aunt Jessica had the most fascinating
eyes that she had ever seen; whenever she chose, it seemed that she
could turn on a great steady