ime Anne).

ELSIE, the daughter of Gottlieb, a cottage farmer of Bavaria. Prince
Henry of Hoheneck, being struck with leprosy, was told he would never
be cured till a maiden chaste and spotless offered to give her life
in sacrifice for him. Elsie volunteered to die for the prince, and he
accompanied her to Salerno; but either the exercise, the excitement,
or some charm, no matter what, had quite cured the prince, and when he
entered the cathedral with Elsie, it was to make her Lady Alicia,
his bride.--Hartmann von der Aue, _Poor Henry_ (twelfth century);
Longfellow, _Golden Legend_.

[Illustration] Alcestis, daughter of Pelias and wife of Admetos died
instead of her husband, but was brought back by Hercules from the
shades below, and restored to her husband.

_Elsie (Venner)_, a girl marked before her birth as one apart from her
kind. Her mother, treading upon a rattle-snake near her door, leaves
the imprint of the loathsome thing upon the child. She is a "splendid
scowling beauty" with glittering black eyes. When angry, they are
narrowed and gleam like diamonds, and "charm" after an unhuman
fashion. She bit her cousin when a child, and the wound had to be
cauterized. She is wild almost to savagery and she falls in love with
her tutor savagely for awhile, afterward loves him hopelessly. She
dies of a strange decline, and the ugly mark about her throat that
obliges her always to wear a necklace has faded out.--Oliver Wendell
Holmes, _Elsie Venner_ (1861).

ELSMERE (_Robert_), hero of religious novel of same name, by Mrs.
Humphrey Ward.

ELSPETH (_Auld_), the old servant of Dandie Dinmont, the store-farmer
of Charlie's Hope.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time George II.).

_Elspeth (Old)_ of the Craigburnfoot, the mother of Saunders
Muckelbacket (the old fisherman at Musselcrag), and formerly servant
to the countess of Glenallan.--Sir W. Scott, _The Antiquary_ (time
George III.).

ELVINO, a wealthy farmer in love with Amina the somnambulist.
Amina being found in the bedroom of Conte Rodolfo the day before her
wedding, induces Elvino to break off the match and promise marriage
to Lisa; but as the truth of the matter breaks upon him, and he is
convinced of Amina's innocence, he turns over Lisa to Alessio, her
paramour, and marries Amina, his first and only love.--Bellini's
opera, _La Sonnambula_ (1831).

ELVIRA, sister of Don Duart, and niece of the governor of Lisbon.
She marries Coldio, the coxcomb son of Don