Pritchard exclaimed, frowning as she attempted to
recollect whether that could be the married name of any one who had
formerly been at Miss Peacock's. As she looked up she saw that Elsie
was almost ghastly white.

She sprang from her chair and went to her.

"Elsie, darling, are you ill?" she cried.

Elsie almost gasped.

"No, Cousin Julia, only--startled, _scared_," she said in a strange
voice that frightened Miss Pritchard still further.

But the maid waited. About to ask her to excuse her to Mrs. Moss, she
looked again at Elsie.

"You don't know her, dear?" she said gently, putting the card before
her.

"Yes--I do. That's what--fazed me," gasped Elsie. "It's
my--stepmother. I'm afraid something awful has happened."

Now Miss Pritchard was white, too.

"My child, are you out of your head?" she exclaimed. "What are you
talking about? You never had a stepmother. You couldn't have."

Then she half smiled.

"Oh, Elsie!" she cried reproachfully, "it's some of your stage friends
come to see you. How you startled me! I'll settle with you later for
that and give you a good scolding, but I won't stop now. Will you have
her up here or down in the parlor?"

"Please, let's have her up here," said the white-faced girl in the same
strained tone. "There's nothing to do now but go through with it. It
serves me just right. But----"

Without understanding, her heart beating strangely, Miss Pritchard
asked that Mrs. Moss be brought up.

They waited in silence. Presently the caller was ushered in, a slender
woman clad in black, with a young-looking, sad face. Seeing Elsie, she
too became very white. But the girl rushed upon her, flung her arms
about her, and hid her face on her shoulder. And the stranger clasped
her close.

Miss Pritchard stared in amazement. She hadn't known of any warm
friend of Elsie's except the young girl in Enderby; but this was
unmistakably an affection of long standing. For a moment she stood
stock-still. Then somehow she got them both over to the sofa, relieved
Mrs. Moss of her wraps, and sat down near.

"I don't understand," she said finally. "You are evidently an old
friend of my little cousin's. Perhaps you are the lady she stayed with
while she was finishing her school after Mrs. Pritchard's death?"

Mrs. Moss looked hard at Elsie, reproachfully yet lovingly. It was so
good to see the girl that the plans she had laid as she came on from
Massachusetts escaped her.