, I've a
hunch the exciting things aren't very new, after all."

Elliott went to sleep that night, if not any happier, at least more
interested. She had looked deep into the heart of a boy, different, it
appeared, from any boy that she had ever known; and something loyal
and sturdy and tender she had seen there had stirred her. It was odd
how well acquainted she felt with him; odd, too, how curious she was
to know him better, even though he hadn't the least idea who his
grandfather had been. "Bother his grandfather!" Elliott chuckled to
realize how such a sentiment would horrify Aunt Margaret. Grandfathers
were very important to Aunt Margaret and Aunt Margaret's children.
Grandfathers had always seemed fairly important to Elliott herself
until now. Was it their relative unimportance in the Robert Camerons'
estimation, or a pair of steady gray eyes, that had altered her
valuation? The girl didn't know and she was keen enough to know that
she didn't; keen enough, too, to perceive that the change in her
estimation of grandfathers applied to a single case only and might be
merely temporary.

However that might be, she was not ready yet to do anything so
inherently distasteful as make the best of what she didn't like,
especially when nobody but herself and two boys would know it. When
one makes the best of things, one likes to do it to crowded galleries,
that perceive what is going on and applaud. The Robert Camerons,
Elliott was quite sure, wouldn't applaud. They would take it as a
matter of course, just as they took her as a matter of course. They
were quite charming about it, as delightful hosts as one could
wish--if only they lived differently!--but Elliott wasn't used to
being taken for granted. She might have been these new cousins' own
sort, for any difference she could detect in their actions. They
didn't seem to begin to understand her importance. Perhaps she wasn't
so important, after all. The doubt had never before entered her mind.

The fact was, of course, that among these busy, efficient people she
was feeling quite useless; and she didn't like to appear incompetent
when she knew herself to be, in her own line, a thoroughly able
person. But it irked her to think that she had been forced into a
position where in self-defense she must either acquire a kind of
efficiency she didn't want or do without. At the same time it troubled
her lest this reluctance become apparent. For they were all loves and
she wouldn'