ith
emphasis. "But you have not told me why you did it," she continued.

Elizabeth was silent a moment. "I had been the means of the whole thing
being discovered," she said, "and I had hurt him enough already."

"And he let you risk your whole fortune just because you had happened to
put your finger through a hole in the hall tapestry."

"No," cried Elizabeth, "he did no such thing. He is very angry with me
now because I invested it; he is not willing, even though he knows that
it's for Katie's sake."

"I thought you said just now that it was for Mr. Archdale's." Elizabeth
looked at her, and smiled triumphantly.

"I did," she answered. "It's the same thing; I have always told you so."

"Um!" said Mrs. Eveleigh, and returned to the attack. "If he wouldn't
take the money, how could you give it?" The girl was silent. "It was the
father, I know; they say a penny never comes amiss to him."

"How did you find this out, Cousin Patience?" But Mrs. Eveleigh laughed
instead of answering. "You have not spoken of it?" cried Elizabeth.

"Not a word. Why, I don't want to proclaim any one of my own family a
goose." The only answer was a smile of satisfaction. "You don't mind
being called a goose, I see," pursued the speaker.

"Not at all. I know it's often true. Only it doesn't happen to be true
here."

Though Mrs. Eveleigh had so openly criticised Elizabeth, it would have
gone ill with any one who had dared to follow her example. She was often
annoyed by things in Elizabeth; but she believed in the girl's truth
more than she did in her own. And there she was quite right. Now she
began to talk about the portrait scene, and declared that Mr. Edmonson
looked very handsome standing beside the old picture that he so much
resembled.

"That portrait was Colonel Archdale's grandfather, his mother's father,
Mr. Edmonson," explained Elizabeth, perceiving that her companion's
ideas were somewhat mixed. And then Mrs. Eveleigh confessed that she had
been trying to explain about the portrait and the relationship, and that
though she had talked learnedly about the matter, she had been a little
confused in her own mind.

"This portrait was in the colonel's father's house, lent him to be
copied, and when he fled he took the original with him, and left the
copy. It was a duel that he fought, and there was something irregular
that he did about it. He went to Virginia, you remember, and while there
he changed his name. Then he came here, a