to do with. Whom should I spend it on
if not on you?"

Elsie winced. Her little face grew wistful. "Then it's because I'm a
Pritchard you do it?" she demanded.

Miss Pritchard laughed. "My dear, how you pin one to cold facts. If
you must know, then, it's because you aren't a Pritchard. It's because
you're yourself, through and through, and haven't a trace nor a look of
the Pritchards that I love you so and long to have you happy here with
me, who am not a Pritchard either. No doubt your family rubbed that
fact in sufficiently, so you didn't expect me to be. To tell the
truth, I could never abide the Pritchards. I was such a misfit when I
visited Aunt Ellen's years ago, that I rather dreaded your coming,
though I did feel that being so young you might not be inveterate, and
that we might manage to hit it off, as they say."

Immensely cheered, Elsie kissed her warmly. Miss Pritchard threw the
cloak over her shoulders, produced a rosy silk scarf to tie over her
bobbed hair, and they were off.

The conversation came back to Miss Pritchard next day as she sat at her
desk near a great window whence the streets below were like canyons.

"Dear me, how little Elsie must have had in her life to be so absurdly
grateful as she is," she said to herself. "And what a life those women
must have led her to make her so ready to refuse what meant so much to
her if it came to her as to a Pritchard."

Which suddenly reminded her of the Pritchard family lawyer and a letter
she had found on her plate that morning with the name of the firm Bliss
& Waterman on the envelope. Not caring to open it before Elsie, she
had brought it to the office.

Breaking the seal, she was amazed to learn that the lawyer wished to
consult her in regard to a request for five hundred dollars Elsie
Marley had recently made. He would not, of course, hand over a
comparatively large sum like that without her guardian's sanction, and
he felt constrained to add that certain outstanding obligations against
the residue of the property had recently come to light which might
curtail the income for a year. He still felt that if Miss Pritchard
remained willing to pay Elsie's general expenses, that the allowance
which they had agreed upon and which he had sent regularly ought to
cover pin-money and something more. Elsie had made no explanations.
Of course, if the money were for educational purposes, he would arrange
to send it. If Miss Pritchard would ki