Violet went very softly into her sister's dressing-room and stood for several minutes watching her with a mixture of curiosity, interest and amusement, before Elsie became aware of her presence. She sat with her elbow on the window seat, her cheek in her hand, eyes fixed on some distant point in the landscape, but evidently with thoughts intent upon something quite foreign to it; for the color came and went on the soft cheeks with every breath, and conscious smiles played about the full red lips. At last turning her head and catching her young sister's eye, she crimsoned to the very forehead. "O Elsie, don't mind me!" Violet said, springing to her side and putting her arms around her. "Are you so very happy? You look so, and I am glad for you; but--but I can't understand it." "What, Vi?" Elsie asked, half hiding her blushing face on her sister's shoulder. "How you can love anybody better than our own dear, darling, precious papa and mamma." "Yes, I--I don't wonder, Vi," blushing more deeply than before, "but they are not angry--dear, dear mamma and papa--it seems to me I never loved them half so dearly before--and they say it is quite natural and right." "Then it must be, of course; but--I wish it was somebody else's sister and not mine. I can't feel as if a stranger has as much right to my own sister as I have; and I don't know how to do without you. O Elsie, can't you be content to live on always in just the way we have ever since we were little bits of things?" Elsie answered with an ardent embrace and a murmured "Darling Vi, don't be vexed with me. I'm sure you wouldn't if you knew how dearly, dearly I love you." "Well, I do suppose you can't help it!" sighed Violet, returning the embrace. "Can't help loving you? No, indeed; who could?" Elsie returned laughingly. "You wouldn't wish it, surely? You value my affection?" "Oh you dear old goose!" laughed Violet; "but that was a wilful misunderstanding. None so stupid as those that won't comprehend. Now I'll run away and leave you to your pleasant thoughts. May I tell Molly?" "Yes," Elsie answered with some hesitation, "she'll have to know soon. Mamma thinks it should not be kept secret, though it must be so long before--" "Ah, that reminds me that I was to pass over to you the lesson papa just gave me--that fretting is never wise or right. I leave you to make the application," and she ran gayly away. So joyous of heart, so full of youthful life and animation was she that she seldom moved with sedateness and sobriety in the privacy of home, but went tripping and dancing from room to room, often filling the house with birdlike warblings or silvery laughter.