ho
came all the way from London--how we had tea with them, how Mr.
Ablethorpe stayed and talked with the one who thought no end of
herself--that is to say, with Constantia, while I was compelled to go
and keep the other one, Harriet, from getting into mischief.

At the very first word Elsie sat up straight in her chair. Then, even
though I said nothing (it was no use entering into details) about
Harriet Caw's taking my arm, Elsie pinched her lips and turned up her
nose.

"You would like her awfully!" I said. "She's as nice as can be."

"Oh!" was all that Elsie said, and she reached for the knitting which
lay within reach.

"Very likely!" she added as she adjusted the stitches, some of which
had slipped off, owing to my having sat down on it when I first came in.

"Yes," I continued, in a kind of quick, fluttering voice--I could hear
so much myself--"she comes from London, but she does not put on any
airs. _And she does not like me at all!_"

"Ah," said Elsie, "and pray how did you find that out?"

So I told her all about Harriet running away because I was so stupid,
and her meeting with Mad Jeremy. I said as little about my going at
him with an open knife as I could. For, after all, that was a foolish
thing to do. But I told Elsie about Harriet Caw fainting, and as much
as I could remember about Harriet running home and slamming herself in
her room.

And all the time the atmosphere in that room was getting more and more
chilly, while Elsie herself would have frozen a whole shipful of beef
and mutton right through the tropics.

"Well," I said when I had finished my tale, "she may have got a temper,
but she is a nice girl and you will like her. We shall go and see her
to-morrow--I told her about you, Elsie."

She flashed a look at me--like striking a vesta at night, it was.

"And pray, what did you tell her about me?"

"I told her that you were pretty--so did Mad Jeremy. And I told her,
besides, that you would be sure to take to one another. Now, will you
go and see her to-morrow?"

Slowly Elsie gathered up all that belonged to her in Nance Edgar's
little sitting-room--her books, her work, and a hat that had been
thrown carelessly on a chair.

"No," she said, the words clicking against one another like lumps of
ice in a tumbler, "no, I will not go and call upon Miss Harriet Caw,
from London. But there is nothing to prevent your going, Mr. Joseph
Yarrow!"

And she in her turn swept out and sla