thought she saw in the child indication of genuine, positive suffering.

She decided that she herself had been gravely remiss. The strain of
giving herself so generously and whole-heartedly had worn upon the girl
disastrously, and--she had had warning and hadn't heeded. Until
recently, it is true, Elsie's blithe buoyancy had seemed always the
normal, unconscious, almost effortless efflorescence of a lovely
nature, as natural as playful grace to a kitten, as simple as
breathing. But once or twice back in the fall, Miss Pritchard had been
startled into wondering if the sweet instrument wasn't in danger of
being strained through constant playing upon it, and to be fearful that
Elsie might truly be rarely sensitive in a personal, as she seemed to
be in an artistic, way.

The first time when this had presented itself to her mind had been a
matter of a month or six weeks previous. At that time she had seemed
to discover a shadow in the sparkling eyes and a transient pensive
droop of the lips. Then on the night of Charley Graham's visit, she
had been frightened by the worn look upon the beloved little face, and
had feared some definite trouble.

It was not long after the affair of the five hundred dollars, and Miss
Pritchard had wondered if the difficulty might not be somehow connected
with that. She had just reached the decision to question the girl when
suddenly the weariness, the sadness, the pensiveness, the shadow,
vanished utterly, leaving Elsie not only herself again, but even more
glowingly and infectiously happy and buoyant than before. And from
that moment until this morning at the breakfast-table she had remained
so.

It was natural that now Miss Pritchard's mind should hark back to those
former suspicions. All day she vacillated between the fear that Elsie
was beset by some secret trouble or by the solicitations of some
unscrupulous person, and the apprehension that she was on the verge of
nervous exhaustion. Her face was anxious indeed as she left the office
that night.

She opened the door of her sitting-room with strange sinking of heart.
Then she almost gasped. Her breath was almost taken away by sheer
amazement. Elsie was waiting for her--yet another Elsie. For, radiant
and sparkling as the girl had been, she had never before been like
this. She was fairly dazzling. If Miss Pritchard hadn't been almost
stunned, she would have made some feeble remark about getting out her
smoked glasses.