ss Pritchard returned in a quiet voice that was
like a part of the silent storm, "for it's so late that we can't expect
another snowfall, and it seems really a privilege to have it now--like
plucking violets at Thanksgiving."

For a little, her gaze, too, lost itself outside. Then she turned and
looked at Elsie with a kindness in which there was something wistful.

"I know what you have been thinking, dear," she said. "You're thinking
that I'm not consistent nor fair--and you're right. I am neither. I
agree with you absolutely. Having in the first place consented to your
studying for the stage, I should have looked ahead and faced just this.
As you say, one can't begin at the tip-top--nor yet at the top. One
must make use of humble stepping-stones."

But it seemed that the struggle she had been through to bring herself
to this attitude had been in vain. On a sudden she lost all that she
had gained. Her heart sank as Elsie's face brightened eagerly--became
transformed, indeed.

"The trouble is," she went on sadly, "that the stepping-stones--oh,
Elsie, I'm so afraid the stepping-stones will only lead on and on and
on--never higher. They'll be and remain on a dead level, and you will
step from one to another, one to another, year after year, over the
same dreary waste. I hate awfully to say all this, dear, but when
those people refuse to allow you to do anything but the Elsie-Honey
business over and over, it comes to me what a fate it would be to be
doomed forever to that one stunt."

"Oh, Cousin Julia!" Elsie cried deprecatingly.

"Yes, dear, that's what I am exactly, an old killjoy; but truly I
cannot help it, though I have tried. I have struggled hard against my
prejudice. Elsie, last night you stopped yourself as you were about to
tell me something, but I fear I can guess what it was like. Some one
suggested your going on the road, as they say, with that one thing as
your repertoire--making a tour of the cheap moving-picture houses of a
certain section?"

Elsie grew very pale; her lips trembled. One interested wholly in her
dramatic career, seeing her at that moment, might have concluded that
the girl had it in her to develop a capacity for tragedy as well as
comedy.

"Cousin Julia," she said with tremulous dignity, "I don't want you to
come with me this week. I can go back and forth in a carriage by
myself. I've got to go through it, for I promised and they will have
made arrangements, but--p