"Go ahead, dear," said Miss Pritchard cheerfully, and turning to her friend: "My little cousin thought I was scolding her, Mr. Graham. The truth is, I'm the one who should be scolded. I chose the work I cared for at about Elsie's age and went in for it; and yet when she chooses hers, which happens to be the stage, I act the hen-with-the-duckling." "Oh, Cousin Julia, you're the only one that has ever let me even speak of it!" cried Elsie. Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and smiling through them, she stepped back and began the song. And this time she put in all the _frills_, as she expressed it. She danced and acted and sang, and, as always, she was quite irresistible. The artist was charmed. "It's good enough for the vaudeville stage just as it is," he declared. "There's only one fault." "Oh, what is that?" the girl cried eagerly, with the artist's desire for criticism, even though destructive. "Your voice is too good--altogether too good. You could do it as well and perhaps better with a voice far inferior to yours in range, sweetness, and tone." The girl gazed at him reproachfully. She had always had that to contend with. People had always tried to "buy her off," as she expressed it, by proposing that she become a singer instead of an actress. Now, as always, she rebelled at the idea, and again her vision of a public singer came to her--a very stout blonde lady in a very low-cut gown with a very small waist (the picture had not adapted itself to more modern fashions), placing a fat, squat hand on her capacious bosom, and uttering meaningless syllables that rose to shrieks. Anything but that, she said to herself! Mr. Graham had fallen into a reverie. His hand shaded his brow. He frowned as he endeavored to recollect something. "Just where did you get hold of that song?" he inquired. "My mother used to sing it," replied Elsie, and Miss Pritchard wondered. So far as she had known, none of the Pritchards had sung, and it was difficult to fancy Elsie's mother warbling a ditty of that sort. The birth of her child must have altered Augusta greatly. "It's an old nursery rhyme, I believe," the artist went on, still half in his perplexity. "Isn't it singular about the name--or perhaps you were named for it?" "I was named _after_ it," responded Elsie demurely. He smiled, but he was only half attending. He was reaching for something in the depths of his mind which he did not find, and presently he sauntered on with bent head. Miss Pritchard took up the _Spectator_, and Elsie produced the "First Violin," and presently was lost in that. CHAPTER XVI The next day as the artist met Elsie on the beach on her way to the bath-house, his face lighted up.