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 gla.s.ses.

CHAPTER XXVI

"My dear child, what has happened?" Miss Pritchard cried as Elsie relieved her of her wraps and bag, and she dropped weakly into a chair.

"I believe your dimples have actually doubled in size since morning.

It's positively uncanny, you know, anything like that. Suppose it should go further?"

"Like the Cheshire cat's grin? Well--we should worry, Cousin Julia, dearest. But--what do you think has happened, truly?"

"Your friend from Enderby hasn't appeared?"

"No, this is another sort of bliss. This is--well, dearest darling, it's just that Mr. Coates has started me on something that--that I could go on the stage with!"

Miss Pritchard's face fell. "Oh, Elsie, child, what do you mean?" she asked anxiously. The dimples disappeared but though Elsie spoke quietly, still there was that wonderful lilt in her voice.

"Just this. He called me into his office this morning and spoke to me about--my specialty, you know, 'Elsie Marley, Honey.' One day back in the fall I was showing off with that to some of the girls that were eating their luncheon together, and he happened by and made me repeat it. To-day he said he had had it in mind ever since, and had found that he could adapt it and change the music and make it into a regular vaudeville feature. He thinks it's a real crackerjack. He's going to begin right away to give me training in it."

For a moment Miss Pritchard couldn't speak. Then she had to stifle what started to be a groan. "Oh, my dear child!" she exclaimed.

"It seemed such a lovely ending to a lovely Christmas," said Elsie wistfully. The girl was absolutely carried away by the excitement of it. It didn't even occur to her--until she was in bed that night--what the "ending" of the lovely Christmas was to have been--the ending that alone was to justify her enjoyment of the holiday and of the days since she had weighed her action in the balance and found it wanting.

"Oh, Cousin Julia, really when you understand, it's simply wonderful,"

she went on eagerly. "I'm the only one picked out thus far, and you know most of the others are related to the profession, too. And even if that thing is so old, I can't help liking it. Most of the things _are_ rather awful, I must confess."

"But the first year--the first six months! I never dreamed of such a thing!" Miss Pritchard cried.

"Neither did I, darling dear; that's what makes me so wild with joy,"

said the girl softly.

Touched and almost remorseful, Miss Pritchard kissed her fondly. But she couldn't restrain a sigh.

"Surely it doesn't mean--going on the stage?" she inquired.

"Oh, no indeed, Cousin Julia, at least not right off. Only--well, just being ready if anything should happen, you know."

Then suddenly at the thought of that wonderful eventuality, the girl's dimples came out and her eyes so shone that Miss Pritchard felt as if she should burst into tears. It seemed as if she couldn't bear it!

Again she lamented inwardly. Why should the child have had that crazy desire for the stage? Why shouldn't it have been a pa.s.sion for music--for opera, indeed? Nearly every one who had heard Elsie sing on Christmas Eve had spoken to Miss Pritchard of the girl's wonderful voice, and the question of her cultivating that instead of working for the stage; and Miss Pritchard had yesterday decided to make a fresh plea to Elsie to that effect. What joy would it not be to share the child's enthusiasm, had it been a matter of music!

However, it would be worse than futile to drag in any such thing at this moment, she saw clearly. Carried away by her delight, Elsie would have no ears and no heart for anything else. Miss Pritchard told herself she must wait for the infatuation to cool--and when that might be, she couldn't in the least foresee. Would it ever happen in truth?

As she couldn't possibly force herself to rejoice with Elsie, and couldn't bear not to share in her joy, as they had come to share everything, she suddenly proposed attending a concert that evening to be given by a visiting orchestra from the Middle West. Elsie entered into the plan with spirit, and they went off gayly together. Miss Pritchard knew that Elsie was dreaming dreams to the strains of Bach and Schumann, and wished with all her heart they were another sort of vision; still, it was a happy evening for both where it had threatened to be uncomfortable. But on the night when Elsie Moss had expected to lie awake in agony because of the imminence of her parting with all she loved most, she had only a brief moment of compunction, which she dismissed easily, falling asleep in the midst of radiant and enchanting visions of life on the stage. It was Miss Pritchard whose rest was troubled.

CHAPTER XXVII

The answer of the real Elsie Marley to the letter in which her friend enthusiastically related her advance toward the stage might have indicated how far she had gone since the day on the train when she had opined that the girl who thinks of becoming an actress has to undergo much that isn't nice. It so sympathized and rejoiced with the other in her happiness that it was solace and inspiration at once to Elsie Moss, who was living at a high and unhealthy pitch of excitement, and welcomed, indeed craved greedily, anything in the way of approval or sympathy. For the girl feared that if ever she should stop to consider, she should find her heart a black well of wickedness. But that she wouldn't do. She _would not_ stop to consider. She had her chance now, the chance she had waited for all her life, and she wasn't going to hazard it. She was going to make the most of it, let her conscience go hang!

For her part, the real Elsie Marley was led at this time to consider, and the more seriously. To her inexperience, it looked as if Elsie Moss were very near the stage, as if another year might find her a fixed star in that firmament. And what then? She would be independent of Cousin Julia and the boarding-house, and might she not want to resume her own name and make herself known to her own relations? Or would she, out of her abounding affection for Cousin Julia, suffer the present state of affairs to continue?

The girl pondered long and rather sadly over the dilemma, but always inclined to the belief that the latter was really the only possible sequel. It wasn't that the question of what would become of her in the former instance was all-important; it wasn't that Elsie Moss would probably not think of any other course of action. It was the fact that some one very much like herself was needed here at Enderby. Mr.

Middleton depended upon her. Mrs. Middleton would hardly know how to get along without her. Katy counted strongly upon her sympathy and co-operation. And even Mattie Howe and d.i.c.k Clinton would miss her.

And, after all, didn't the fact of Elsie Moss's securing her heart's desire almost immediately, together with the working out of her own presence at Enderby to the satisfaction of a few very dear people, quite justify the exchange they had made? Hadn't it really proved a beneficent idea?

Arrived at this point, the girl was rea.s.sured. The only difficulty was that the question didn't stay settled. It came up again and yet again and the whole argument had to be redebated. And finally she came to the conclusion that her wisest plan was to ward it off. Like the other Elsie, she decided to avoid meditation and plunge into action. And though the sort and amount of action to which she was limited wouldn't have seemed action at all to the other girl, it answered her purpose, nevertheless. Elsie Marley threw herself into the performance of the various duties she had a.s.sumed with more fervor than ever, and presently had recovered a good measure of her former serenity.

But it seemed only to have been regained to be threatened.

One night early in February, when Miss Stewart relieved her and she left the library, she found d.i.c.k Clinton waiting outside. He often did this, for he and Elsie had become good friends since the day he had first appeared at the library and asked for help. She had seen him at all the parties of the high-school pupils which she had attended, and had gone coasting on his double-runner with other girls a number of times. And no Sunday pa.s.sed that he didn't seek her after service and walk home with her.

He was strangely silent to-night. His first shyness having worn off, he had since always had plenty to say. Elsie was always quiet, and not a word was spoken until they were next door to the parsonage.

"Oh, Miss Moss, would you just as lief walk back a little way?" he asked suddenly. "I had something I wanted to say to you, and there's the parsonage and I haven't begun. I won't make you late for your supper--or dinner, whatever it is."

Rather surprised, Elsie complied willingly, and they had no sooner turned than he began.

"It's something I've done," he blurted out. "I feel sort of--like thirty cents, you know. I should sort of like to know--what you think of it."

"Whatever it is, I don't believe you need to feel that way about it, d.i.c.k," she said gently.

"I do, just the same, though I'm not sure I should have before I knew you, Miss Moss, you're so awfully sort of square, you see," he owned.

"I'm glad anyhow it ain't so bad but what I can tell you. This is what it is: one of the other fellows that's about my height and build wanted to go to the motor-show in Boston last week and his dad wouldn't let him. He's simply wild over aeroplanes, and there was a model there, and when the last night came, he got me to help him out. He pretended to go to bed about a quarter of nine. Instead, he sneaked me up the back-stairs and left me in his room, and he caught the nine o'clock for Boston. I went to bed and put out the light. After a while his mother put her head in the door and asked if I was asleep, and then came in and kissed me. About two o'clock he came back, climbed in the window, and I vamoosed. It seemed all right, and I couldn't have refused him, and yet I felt queer."

"I should think you were innocent enough. It seems to me the other boy had all the responsibility of it," Elsie observed.

"That's just what I thought. And I'm dead sure it would only have seemed fun last winter. And I'd have to do it again if he asked me.

But--you know that little Howe kid that's trying to stretch himself out to get big enough to be a boy scout?"

"Yes, indeed, Charles Augustus Howe."

"Well, he's always asking me things, and taking my answers so solemnly, and yesterday he wanted to know if I thought it was wrong to tell a lie to yourself in the dark. I tried to reason out the thing with him and--great snakes, but it made me feel queer all over! Talking to that kid about truth and honor and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I sort of hypnotized myself; but afterward it made me feel cheap.

And--and there you are!"

"But you didn't get anything out of it for yourself, d.i.c.k," said Elsie.

"Nothing but feeling cheap before that kid."