Had she said the _Pritchards_, Elsie would have been in a quandary; as it was, her face brightened.

"She never knew the Marleys, and there aren't any now," she said. "She knows only the Pritchards."

"Hooray! I shall harp on the Marleys morning, noon, and night!"

"She'll like you," observed Elsie wistfully. "You know she spoke in her letter of young life."

"I shall adore her, dear old thing!" cried the warm-hearted girl. "And Uncle John will adore you. He adored my mother, who was quiet and deep like you. He was always sending her rare things, and pitying her because she was poor and longing to send her money, though dad wouldn't have that."

The appearance of an expressman warned them that they were nearing Boston.

"You're perfectly sure that you're willing to exchange New York for Enderby?" demanded Elsie Moss suddenly.

"Oh, yes, indeed, Elsie."

"And you don't yearn for Cousin Julia?"

Elsie Marley half smiled. "Oh, no," she declared.

But the other was determined not to take any undue advantage.

"Now listen," she said; "if after you see Uncle John you don't fancy him, just say the word or nudge me or wink and I'll swap back without a word. I'll simply step up and say, 'Oh, Uncle John, you've kissed the wrong girl!' though, of course, he may be too dignified to kiss at a train. And then I'll introduce you properly."

They sped on. Soon a trainman entered to say that the next station was Boston and request them not to leave any articles in the car. They said good-by to each other before the train stopped, kissing warmly like real friends. Then Elsie Moss tied a large, dark veil over her hat and well down over her forehead and eyes. It looked as inappropriate for the hot day as the scowling expression she a.s.sumed to cloak the dimples was ill suited to her charming little face.

As they alighted, and a handsome, distinguished-looking gentleman in grey clerical garb advanced to meet them, she fell behind. Raising his hat, he took the hand of the girl who was not his niece.

"And this is Elsie?" he said in a fine, kindly voice.

She murmured a weak affirmative. He kissed her affectionately, took her portmanteau from the porter, and turned to the girl who had come from the car with her.

"And this is your friend, Elsie?" he inquired.

Elsie Moss came forward, scowling so fiercely that the other, despite her blunted sense of humor, could scarcely keep from laughing out.

"My friend, Miss M-Marley," she stammered.

Mr. Middleton shook hands with his sister's daughter, took her satchel, and asked how he could serve her. The girl replied in a thin falsetto voice, which she realized immediately didn't go with the scowl so well as a gruff tone would have done, that she had only twenty-five minutes to get the train for New York and must say good-by at once and take a cab for the other station.

However, he didn't let her go so easily. a.s.suming charge in a simple, offhand manner, he found a taxicab which took them to the South Station, led her to the ticket-office, secured a chair, and put her on the train.

She kissed Elsie Marley again, squeezing her hand meaningly. And she nearly forgot and showed her dimples, looking out of the window as her train pulled out, to see them together, her uncle with his hat in his hand, Elsie waving her pocket-handkerchief.

"He's a darling," she said to herself as they moved toward the Trinity Place Station, "and it's mighty lucky for my career that I didn't see more of him. But he'll be far happier with that lovely honey-princess, and I'm glad she's drawn a prize. As for me, hooray for Cousin Julia and the footlights!"

CHAPTER V

"I hope, Elsie, your friend wasn't in pain?" Mr. Middleton inquired with concern shortly after they were established in the train for Enderby.

"Oh, no," the girl a.s.sured him, trying, but vainly, to add "Uncle John."

"I thought she might be suffering from toothache or neuralgia, wearing that scarf about her face on such a warm day--particularly as she frowned and screwed her mouth in a rather distressed way," he explained.

Elsie smiled. Indeed she almost laughed, partly because she was herself struck by the humor of it, partly because it would so amuse Elsie Moss when she wrote her about it.

"Oh, no," she repeated. "Oh, no, Uncle John"--resolutely--"she was just--well--she was acting, I suppose. She wants very much to go on the stage."

"And doesn't lose any opportunity for practice?" He smiled, but rather ruefully. "Poor child! Somehow, of all ambitions, there seems to be more tragedy, more pitifulness, underlying that than any other. Where one succeeds, so many fail--go down into darkness and obscurity. Your mother had the fever at one time as a very young girl, Elsie. As a matter of fact, she had some little talent in that direction, but fortunately we were able to persuade her to give up the idea entirely."

He sighed. "She was so tender-hearted and affectionate that she could have been induced to give up far more precious things than an ambition of that sort."

Elsie was gazing out of the window. He pointed out a country club and several fine estates at a distance, then asked:

"What is your friend going in for, Elsie, comedy or tragedy?"

Elsie didn't know. She explained that while Miss M-Marley seemed like an old friend, she had only met her on the train as they had left Chicago.

"Ah, that's just like your mother!" he exclaimed. "She was just that way, quick to make friends, and yet as loyal and true as any slower and more cautious person could be."

Again he sighed; then added in a lighter tone: "_She_ wanted to play tragic parts--youth is apt to--but of course with those dimples she would have been doomed to comedy, if not farce."

He gazed reminiscently at her.

"Your baby pictures had her dimples in small, but I see that as you have grown thin you have lost them. You scarcely resemble her at all, and yet already I see how very like her you are."

Elsie could think of no response, and fearing that he was awaking painful feelings, Mr. Middleton changed the subject by inquiring kindly after her stepmother. Elsie replied according to instructions that she was quite well and much gratified to have secured her former position in one of the San Francisco high schools for the coming year.

As he went on to ask about her journey and to exhibit points of interest along the way, he was so chivalrous and thoughtful that the girl realized that she would be considered and cared for as she never would have been with Cousin Julia, and was genuinely relieved. Then her thoughts flew back to those hours with Elsie Moss between Chicago and Boston, which seemed to her the happiest she had ever known. It came to her that if she could have the other girl's companionship, could see her every day, she didn't know that she would greatly care where she was. Perhaps she could even endure hardship. How serious Elsie Moss had been about her motto, "Per aspera ad astra." For all her gayety, she felt she could go through hardship bravely. Ah, she was a rare person! For the first time in her life Elsie Marley was homesick--and for a stranger!

Happily, there was that about Mr. Middleton which reminded her of his niece. She glanced at him from under her long, pale lashes. A man of fifty, he was tall and thin, with a fine florid face set off by a ma.s.s of thick, white hair. His eyes were brown and youthful, full of serenity and kindliness, with a shadow of the idealism that characterized his whole face. His voice was good, his speech elegant, appealing particularly to one accustomed to the tones and inflections of the West. Looking forward to meeting his wife, who would probably be equally pleasing, Elsie felt that in any event she should be as happy between visits as it would be possible to be anywhere without Elsie Moss.

A short drive through the quiet, shady streets of what seemed to be an old, historic town brought them to the parsonage, one of a group of handsome, rather stately buildings near and about a green common. Of colonial style, built of brick, it had a portico with great Corinthian pillars, window-frames and cornices of wood painted white, and stood far back from the street with a beautiful lawn studded by great elms and a glimpse of a garden in the rear.

The driveway led to a side entrance under a porte-cochere. As the carriage drew up, Mr. Middleton glanced eagerly toward the door. His face fell.

"Your Aunt Milly will be here directly," he said and ushered her in.

As she entered the beautiful hall, Elsie couldn't help feeling how fortunate she was to escape the boarding-house.

There was no one in sight. Mr. Middleton looked about, then led her into one of the great front rooms on either side of the wide hall and asked her to make herself comfortable while he went to see if her aunt were ill.

"She is not very strong, as you know, Elsie, and the excitement may have been too much for her," he explained. "She has looked forward so eagerly to your arrival."

Fortunately he did not await any reply. Elsie felt suddenly stunned as by a blow. Left alone, she gazed about her in amazement that was almost horror. The large, square, corner room lighted by four great windows that reached from the floor to the heavy cornice was comfortably, even luxuriously, furnished, but--the girl could scarcely believe her eyes--it was the most untidy-looking place she had ever been in! The heavy crimson hangings, faded by the strong summer sunlight, lost further color by their layer of dust, quite visible even at this distance and at first sight. There were ashes on the hearth, though the heap of waste-paper, dust, and miscellaneous rubbish in the fireplace showed that it hadn't been used for some time. The piano, a baby-grand, stood open, with dust on its dingy keys and more dust on its shining case. The centre-table held a handsome reading-lamp and some books, but was littered with piles of old newspapers and magazines without covers. A kitchen-ap.r.o.n was flung across an armchair; a dirty, paper-covered book lay on a little table with a plate beside it covered with cake-crumbs, and there were crumbs on the richly colored Turkish rug and on the arm of the tapestry-covered chair on the edge of which Elsie perched.

Surely there was some mistake, some monstrous mistake! She had somehow been brought to the wrong house. It wasn't possible that a gentleman like Mr. Middleton could belong to a household such as this, she was saying incredulously to herself, when a shadow fell athwart the threshold and she looked up to see Mrs. Middleton entering on her husband's arm.