red--why, I know
just from what Mattie has told me about the way you do at the library
that you understand the satisfaction of doing for others, and that
getting tired's a part of it."

Reaching the parsonage, Elsie didn't go in, but sat on a bench in the
garden for an hour, not thinking, hardly musing, but in a sort of spell
as it were. As she rose at the stroke of six, she was saying to
herself: "I never knew life was like that!" And she repeated it as she
entered the house.

On the hall-table was a letter from the Elsie in New York. Taking it
to her room, she perused it eagerly. One paragraph she read over
twice, and yet twice again at bedtime.

"Oh, Elsie-Honey," the passage ran, "I was so relieved and thankful to
get your letter and feel convinced that you like Uncle John and Aunt
Milly just as well as I do Cousin Julia--though I don't see how you
can--quite. It came to me the night before I got your letter--suppose
you should want to swap back? The cold shivers chased one another up
and down my spine and nearly splintered it. Of course, I should have
done it without a word, but oh, Elsie-Honey, I don't mind telling you
now that it would have broken my heart for sure. For I'm simply mad
about Cousin Julia--so dotty over her that I believe if she'd told me I
couldn't on any account study for the stage, I should have kissed her
hand like a meek lamb. Instead of which she knows and approves--that
is, she is willing. Only an angel from heaven would really
approve--and I suppose he (or she) wouldn't. At any rate, my present
job is trying to keep from bursting with happiness."

CHAPTER XV

"Elsie, I rather want to hear that Elsie-Marley-Honey-thing again,"
remarked Miss Pritchard. "Would you mind doing it now?"

The two sat alone on the veranda of the hotel at an hour when other
guests were resting after the midday meal. Before them, beyond a
stretch of mosslike lawn and a broad sandy beach, rolled the sea,
brilliantly blue, with the waves curling dazzlingly white. Miss
Pritchard, comfortably dressed in a plain pongee-silk suit with a long
jacket, was ensconced on a willow settee with some recent English
reviews. Elsie, perched on the railing, her back against a pillar,
gazed at the far-away sky-line. She wore a pale-pink linen frock. Her
small face with its dark eyes and big dimples, her bobbed hair, and her
exceeding slenderness of form gave her such an appearance of
youthfulness that s