e asked herself, and all her being
rose in passionate revolt and resentment.

"Perhaps she does not know that I love him. Perhaps she looks on me only
as a child--a silly, foolish, infatuated child. But I am not! I am not!"
Ellice cried. "I am not! I love him. I loved him when I was a baby, when
I came here eight years ago, and now I am eighteen and a woman, and I
have never changed and never shall!"

During the days that followed the announcement of Joan Meredyth's
engagement to John Everard, Connie watched the girl. She felt troubled,
anxious, and yet scarcely could say why. She knew the girl's passionate
nature. Connie almost dreaded something reckless even tragic. She was
more worried than she could say and of course she could not consult
Johnny. There was no one to consult but Helen, and Helen did not
understand Ellice in the least. Helen was inclined to look down on
Ellice from her superior height as a wayward, wilful, foolish
child--nothing more.

"Send her away. I suppose she is really too old to go to school now,
Connie. How old is she, sixteen?"

"Eighteen."

"She has the heart and the body of a child."

"And the soul of a woman!"

"Sometimes, Connie dear," said Helen sweetly, "you make me almost angry.
You actually seem to be siding with this foolish little thing!"

Connie sighed. "In--in some ways I do. She loves him so, and I know it.
I can't be hard-hearted, I can't blind myself to the truth. Of course, I
know that Johnny's marriage with Joan is the best thing in the world for
both of them, but--"

"But just because a stupid, self-willed girl of eighteen believes
herself deeply in love with Johnny--Oh, Connie, do be your own
reasonable self."

Johnny Everard, blind as most men are, did not notice how quiet and
reserved Ellice had grown of late, how seldom she spoke to him, how when
he spoke to her she only answered him in brief monosyllables, and how
never came a smile now to her red lips, and certainly never a smile into
her great dark eyes.

He did not see what Connie saw--the heaviness about those eyes, the
suggestion of tears during the night, when she came down silently to her
breakfast. She had changed, and yet he did not see it, and if he had
seen it might never guess at the cause.

And Connie too, always kindly and gentle, always sweet and unselfish;
during these days the girl's unselfishness was something to wonder at.

She had always loved Ellice; she had understood the child as