Chapter XXXIII

Elsie Marley had let Mrs. Moss out by the side-door, and half an hour later she passed out that way herself. She had promised not to say anything until she returned, and so couldn't even leave a note to explain her own going. She would write one to-night to bid them wait for Mrs. Moss's explanation. And afterward she could tell them that she couldn't bear to see them again. And by that time they would have their own Elsie with the dimples.

And she would be with Miss Pritchard? She supposed so, but she couldn't go there to-night. Eventually, she must; she wasn't sufficiently clever or self-reliant to take care of herself; but she wouldn't go to New York while Mrs. Moss--that terrible Mrs. Moss--was there. What she had said was quite true, but oh, it had been hard and cruel, and Elsie could never forget it!

She had made up her mind to go into Boston to a hotel where she had lunched several times, write Cousin Julia from there, and wait until she should hear from her. She was anxious to get away before Mr. Middleton, who had gone to the library in her place, should return. And yet she took a wide detour that doubled the way to the station; for she could not bear to go near the street on which the library stood.

Forgetting her haste, before she had gone far, she turned and looked back at the parsonage. It was like home to her. Leaving it forever, she realized dimly that it was home to her, the only real home her life had known. And Aunt Milly? Once, not so long ago, Elsie couldn't have imagined herself wanting to go back and throw her arms about her and tell her she wished she had understood and loved her long before. And Katy--dear old Katy!----

Turning away, she almost ran. She met no one in the out-of-the-way path she chose, and she was to take the six-two train for Boston, which Enderby people rarely used.

The station stood on a hill. As she climbed it, Elsie decided to ask the agent, whom she knew slightly, to telephone to the parsonage after the train had gone to say that something had called her away, and that Mrs. Moss would explain. Fearing lest he might forget the latter clause, she stopped and wrote the message out. As she did so, it came to her that they might think she had gone away with her stepmother, and wouldn't be disturbed.

As she took up her satchel again, she heard some one behind her on the wooden walk. Kate had come by the direct way, but she had stopped to put a skirt and jacket over her kitchen-dress and to squeeze her feet into boots to hide the holes in her stockings. Warm with the extra clothing and the unusual effort, Kate actually panted as she caught up to Elsie and seized hold of her as if she were rescuing her from drowning.

"Why, Katy, has anything happened?" the girl inquired anxiously.

"Anything happened? Well, I like that!" ejaculated Kate between her gasps. "No, nothin's happened yet, but I suspicioned something was a-goin' to and so I hiked along after you. What are you a-doin' up here and himself gettin' all tired out at that library?"

Elsie's heart sank yet lower. "There won't be many in to-day, Katy," she said meekly. "And anyhow--but don't keep me, Katy, I must----"

"No, you mustn't, Miss Elsie, no such thing. You're a-comin' straight home with your own Katy. Do you want your aunt a-fallin' down in one of her heart-spells, and her so well and happy for the first time sence I come? She'll have one sure's you're born if you ain't there for your supper--and me after makin' shepherd's pie!"

Elsie paled. "Oh, Katy, I can't go back, honestly I can't, but you'll make it right with them, won't you? Tell them I _had_ to go and she--Mrs. Moss--will explain when she comes back."

"You just come back yourself and wait for her, Miss Elsie. The missus will have one of them flop-overs the first thing if you don't, and then for himself to come home tired from the library and find her in that state and you not by to break it to him, and him not so young as he was once, you know!"

Tears streamed down the girl's distressed face. Kate took her satchel while she got out her pocket-handkerchief, and then would not loose her hold on it. Elsie started on, Kate by her side.

"If you're bound to go, then, you might as well get two tickets, for I'm goin' with you," the latter said stoutly.

Elsie looked at her in amazement.

"Sure thing. If you go, I go," Kate insisted.

"But, Katy, you wouldn't do such a thing? You wouldn't leave--them?"

"Indeed I would," Kate returned exultantly, feeling that she had scored. "I'll go by the same train. I've got some money in my stocking. I couldn't face the music with her in a dead faint, and himself like as not havin' a shock."

Elsie stopped short. "Katy, why will you say such dreadful things?" she cried. "Honestly, it's only a question of a day or two. I've got to go away, and why can't you let me do it quietly now instead of waiting and having it still harder."

"You don't mind the easiest way for you bein' the hardest for them?"

"Yes, I do. But I can't go back. I cannot--act another day."

"Oh, yes you can," replied Kate soothingly. "And, besides, it'll all come right if you just hang on. I knew something was strange--I've suspicioned it ever sence you come. Wasn't it me as went around and took all your baby pictures out o' the old albums and others with big round dimples out o' velvet photograph-frames, and himself lookin' everywhere for 'em and me never lettin' on? I says to myself you wasn't really yourself, but like enough a cousin or foster-sister, and just as good and perhaps more satisfactory. Come, we'll just race around home and go in by the back-door so as to be there for supper as if nothin'd happened."

Just before they reached the kitchen door, Elsie spoke.

"Oh, Katy, couldn't I stay in my room until she--Mrs. Moss comes? My head does ache--terribly."

"Well, child, you go up there now, anyhow, and Katy'll see what her big head can do."

The quick-witted woman got out of her suit and into her slipshod shoes and went straight to Mrs. Middleton.

"That Mis' Moss flew right off, ma'am--forgot somethin' she had to do in New York, it seems, and off she goes. Them Westerners, you know, is reg'lar globe-trotters. She's comin' back to accept our hospitality on Sunday, it seems, but here I am with a company supper fit for the Empress of Injy and plans for meals all day to-morrow and a bed made up. I suppose you wouldn't want to ask Miss Dunham to make her visit now and help eat things up? The pineys are all in blossom, too."

Miss Dunham was an elderly, crippled parishioner who lived a little out of town and came each year to the parsonage for a day or two. Mrs. Middleton threw her arms about Kate.

"Oh, Katy, what a dear you are to think of it! It's just the thing. Day after to-morrow is children's Sunday and she'll enjoy that, and I'm going to church myself and surprise Mr. Middleton. That is why Elsie went into Boston to-day--to get me some gloves and a dove-colored sunshade. Do you think you can get her here to-night, Katy?"

"I'll telephone to himself at the library," said patient Kate, who hated the telephone. "And we'll wait supper."

The plan worked perfectly. The minister fetched Miss Dunham in a motor-car in time for a late tea. Only Kate and Elsie knew what her visit meant to the latter, and Kate didn't understand fully. Mrs. Moss arrived on Sunday shortly after the guest had gone.

But at best Elsie had suffered keenly, and when Mrs. Moss found her pale and hollow-eyed, she felt conscience-stricken. But she had no opportunity to give her any of Elsie Moss's cheering messages, for she went into immediate conference with the Middletons.

They talked for an hour. The waiting was agony for the girl, and she was at once relieved and desperate when at length she was summoned down to the study. Mrs. Middleton beckoned her to a place beside her on the couch, and Elsie dropped gratefully into it. She could not raise her eyes; she sat with her hands clasped tightly, very pale, yet aware somehow, at the very first, of the kindness, the sheltering kindness, as it were, of the woman at her side. And while she had steeled herself to endure the coldness of Mr. Middleton's voice, it had never been more gentle.

"Well, Elsie, we know the whole story, now. It seemed a sad mix-up at first--what a friend of mine up-State would call a 'pretty kettle of fish'; but with Aunt Milly's assistance we managed to get at the crux of the affair and see things more clearly. Aunt Milly declares it was just child's play: that you girls had no more idea of doing anything wrong, of deceiving, than she had last winter when her new hat came from the milliner's and she decided to wear it back foremost and never told any one what she was doing."

Elsie knew from his voice that he was smiling. She wanted to thank him for his kindness; she longed to raise her eyes gratefully to Aunt Milly, but she was powerless to do even that. He went on:

"Mrs. Moss brings word that Miss Pritchard has become deeply attached to--er--the other Elsie. Now that isn't a circumstance to our case. For my part, I couldn't possibly have cared more for my dear sister's daughter than I have come to care for you, Elsie, and Aunt Milly is convinced she couldn't have cared for her nearly so much. In any event, we cannot give you up. Somehow we shall have to come to an agreement with your guardian, Miss Pritchard--that is, if you are willing?"

Elsie knew she should burst into tears if she attempted to answer.

"I'll speak for her. Elsie won't leave us," Mrs. Middleton declared.

"Not if--if you----"

The bell rang violently.

"That sounds like Miss Pritchard now," remarked Mrs. Moss, thankful to have the tenseness relieved. And, in truth, Kate, who was suspiciously near the front door, ushered that lady in at once.

Introductions were gone through hastily. The Middletons felt their prejudice vanish at sight of her kind, worn, genuine face, and she was deeply impressed by the minister. Of his wife, she reserved judgment.

She kissed her young relative with more warmth than she had expected to feel, for there were tears on the girl's white cheeks, and she looked sweet and sorry and appealing. She was indeed a Pritchard, though not so typically so as she had anticipated.

The minister mentioned the point at which they had arrived in the discussion, and for a little they talked all round the matter. Then Miss Pritchard presented her conclusions.

"Those babes took things into their own hands in great style a year ago," she declared. "They got hold of a deck of cards and shuffled them to suit themselves, not realizing that isn't the way to play the game. They shouldn't have touched the cards and they shouldn't have shuffled them; but somehow they happened to make a good deal all round. As the game has come out, we all like it. We shouldn't, indeed, be willing to go back and deal out fresh hands. Am I wrong?"

The rejoinder indicated that she was wholly in the right.

"Now, for my part, I'm used to Elsie Moss and I want to keep her, but I wouldn't take her out of reach of her own kin--at least not for some time. There's a man in Boston I want her to study with--she's going to be an opera-singer--and we're to be here at the inn all summer so that we can get respectively acquainted with our shuffled kith and kin--I want a chance to know my little Pritchard cousin, too."

It seemed easier to speak beside the point than to the question. Thereupon the minister suggested that Miss Pritchard should remain permanently at Enderby. That might well have waited, but Miss Pritchard declared she had already thought of taking a house in the fall.

"I thought if you insisted upon trading back, we'd all be in sight of one another that way, even though we elders might be mutually hating each other," she added.

Whereupon they began to mention particular houses, and would have gone on indefinitely but for Mrs. Moss. It was she, the outsider, for whom, whatever the sequel, there would be no place in the plans, who called them back to the real matter at issue.

"Apparently, then," she said, "you're going to let things remain largely in the _status quo_. But one difficulty comes to my mind. When all is said, my Elsie was wholly at fault in all this. She's sorry now, but for all that, I'm afraid she hasn't taken it so hard as this Elsie here, and what's more--this is what I'm getting at: Elsie Moss can drop the name she assumed falsely and, going elsewhere, resume her own as a matter of course. But this Elsie, who has become well acquainted here and entered into the life of the place, cannot suddenly change from Moss to Marley without a great deal of pain to herself."

Quite true. No one had thought of that. It seemed appalling!

"Of course," Mrs. Moss went on rather doubtfully, "she could keep on with the name. It's perfectly possible to have two Elsie Mosses in one family. People would only take them for cousins."

"It's possible," the minister acknowledged, "but it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be honorable for Elsie to continue to use the name now."

"Ah, but Jack, it would be cruelly hard for her to change back to Marley!" cried his wife; and he sadly agreed.

"Do you think you could go through it, dear?" he asked, turning to Elsie.

"I ought to bear something a great deal harder," cried Elsie suddenly.

"No, you ought not, my dear," rejoined Mrs. Middleton. "No, Jack, it would be too hard on Elsie--on any young girl; and, besides, it would hurt her influence at the library and with the schoolgirls. If people could understand everything clearly, it would be another matter, but they couldn't. Elsie's best friends know it. For my part, I don't believe she deserves any punishment for doing wrong unconsciously--especially since she's been such an angel of mercy to this house. But even if she had, she's suffered enough already to atone--with plenary grace."

"She's got to go by some name," Miss Pritchard remarked palpably, but that gave Mrs. Middleton a suggestion.

"I know," she cried. "Oh, Jack! Oh, Elsie!" and her face was quite irradiated with love and good-will. "I know exactly what we'll do! Elsie is just seventeen. We'll adopt her, Jack, for our own daughter, and she shall wear our name henceforth. She shall be Elsie Middleton, and Elsie Moss shall remain Elsie Moss, and they'll really be cousins."

She held out her arms, and Elsie nestled into them.

"My dearest Mildred!" cried her husband, going over to them in his enthusiasm. "Isn't she wonderful?" he demanded, and almost in the same breath asked Miss Pritchard's consent to legalize the adoption.

"Of course, only after suitable arrangements and provision were made, Miss Pritchard. All we want now is your general or conditional approval."

Miss Pritchard smiled as she sighed. "I'm sure I don't know what the Pritchards would say, but if Elsie's willing I confess I don't see any objection."

Elsie's expression made any questioning of her unnecessary.

"My own Elsie, my darling daughter," murmured Mrs. Middleton in her sentimental way, stroking Elsie's hair. But, strange to say, Elsie found it all very grateful.

"As to Elsie M--" Miss Pritchard began, when she was interrupted by a knock on the door, which she had left ajar (greatly to Kate's approval), and Elsie Moss burst in.

In the excitement of the moment, she seemed her old self again--though Miss Pritchard knew it to be a lovelier self. She stood a moment in the doorway, a charming little figure in a smart rose-colored linen suit with a large drooping hat perched coquettishly upon her short locks, her dimples very conspicuous. Then she rushed upon Elsie Marley, who had come forward shyly, and flung her arms about her.

Then she turned, her arm still about the other girl, to Miss Pritchard.

"I couldn't wait any longer, Cousin Julia," she said sweetly. "I just had to see Elsie-Honey."

"We're to be real cousins," the other whispered, and the quick-witted girl understood at once.

"How perfectly ripping!" she cried. "Oh, everybody's so dear and darling that I should simply die of shame and remorse if I didn't just have to stay alive to worship Cousin Julia and get acquainted with Uncle John and Aunt Milly and--love my honey!"