"Yes; it is something to be thankful for," Elsie said at length, "but, Enna, it is also a great responsibility. We are only stewards, you know, and sometimes I fear it is hardly right for me to spend so much in personal adornment."
"That wouldn't trouble me in the least; but why do you do it, if you are afraid it's wrong?"
"Papa does not think so; he says the manufacturers of these rich goods must live as well as others, and that for one with my income, it is no more extravagant to wear them than for one with half the means to wear goods only half as expensive."
"And I'm sure he's perfectly right; and of course you have no choice but to obey. Well, I presume I've seen everything now, and I'm actually weary with my labors," she added, throwing herself into an easy-chair. "You've grown a little pale, I think, and your eyes look as if you'd been crying. What ails you?"
"I am not at all ill," returned Elsie, flushing.
"I didn't say you were, but something's wrong with you, and you can't deny it; you don't seem as gay as you used to before you went away."
She paused, but receiving no reply, went on. "Come now, it isn't worth while to be so close-mouthed with me, Miss Dinsmore; for I happen to know pretty much all about it already. You've fallen in love with a man that your father thinks is a scamp and though you don't believe it, you've given him up, in obedience to orders, like the cowardly piece that you are. Dear me, before I'd be so afraid of my father!"
"No, you neither fear nor love your father as I do mine; but fear of papa has very little to do with it. I love him far too well to refuse to submit to him in this, and I fear God, who bids me obey and honor him. But, Enna, how did you learn all this?"
Elsie looked disturbed. "Won't you tell me?"
"So far as I am aware, no one knows it but myself."
"Ah!" thought Elsie, "I did not believe Aunt Adelaide or Walter would tell her; but I wonder how she did find it out."
"I wouldn't give up the man I loved for anybody," Enna went on in a sneering tone. "I say parents have no business to interfere in such matters; and so I told papa quite plainly when he took it upon him to lecture me about receiving attentions from Dick Percival, and threatened to forbid him the house."