“But you promised, you know; besides, this was your day, and——” Ellen paused, then she said with a little laugh, “I don’t believe that all these good people would have been so ready to contribute and to help you if I hadn’t asked them, because, dear Lady Orinda, you are a bit stand-offish, and are so proud and haughty that you won’t let any one do things for you if you can avoid it, while I am such a young and humble little ‘creetur’ that I appeal.” “Humble, are you? I haven’t seen much humility, though I admit you are young.” “But I’m growing older every minute. Just think, it won’t be long before I am sixteen, and then what?” “That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Miss Rindy sighed. “If you are going to make music your profession, you should have better opportunities than this little town affords. You’ll never get anywhere living always in this poky place. Jeremy says there isn’t a doubt but you could make your way in the city, and it is there you should go to study.” “Don’t let’s cross that bridge yet. Who knows what may happen? It will be a long time before I have learned all Mr. Todd can teach me; meanwhile I am learning lots of other things, and am growing fonder and fonder of the place, the people, and my own home.” Miss Rindy took her by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “Then you aren’t unhappy, Ellen. You are satisfied to be with me.” Ellen took the two hands laid on her shoulders and kissed first one and then the other. “Dear Cousin Rindy,” she said, “I don’t know what I should have done without you. Of course I was very unhappy at first, while it was all so strange, and the time had been so short since I had lost my dear ones. I would have been unhappy anywhere and with any one, but think what it is to have you, and Jeremy Todd, and Caro, not to mention all the other dear people. I have had to get used to the different way of looking at things, the different standards, but it doesn’t matter a particle now when they call me red-head, and think buttonhole mouths and wasp waists and——” “High foreheads,” put in Miss Rindy. “Yes, it was hard to think that all those old-fashioned standards of beauty were the correct ones. I was sort of bewildered at first, because I had lived with artists who don’t admire such things, but now I don’t care, and there is no one in the world who is as much to me as you are.” “That is a satisfaction to me. Well, Ellen, I reckon we’ll hit it off pretty well as long as we are destined to live together. When the time comes to separate, as it must some day, neither of us will feel like chuckling,” which was as near as Miss Rindy could come to expressing her real affection. “Come along, now,” she added, changing the subject abruptly, “it is long past bedtime; we won’t want to get up in the morning.”