“Do let me go into the garden; I’m quite faint,” cried Elvira, jumping up. It was true that the room was very close, rather medicinal, and not improved by Miss Gould’s perfumes; but there was an alacrity about Elfie’s movements, and a vehemence in the manner of her rejection of the said essences, which made her governess not think her case alarming, and she left her to the care of the young cousins, while trying to make up for her incivility by courteously listening to and answering her grandfather, and consuming the tea and sweet-cake. When she went out to fetch her pupil to say goodbye, Miss Gould detained her on the way to obtain condolence on the “dreadful trial that old uncle was,” and speak of her own great devotion to him and the children, and the sacrifices she had made. She said she had been at school with Elvira’s poor mamma, “a sweetly pretty girl, poor dear, but so indulged.” And then she tried to extract confidences as to Mrs. Brownlow’s intentions towards the child, in which of course she was baffled. Elvira was found ranging among the strawberries, with Mary and Kate looking on somewhat dissatisfied. Both the poor girls looked constrained and unhappy, and Miss Ogilvie wondered whether “Cousin Lisette’s” evident intentions of becoming a fixture would be for their good or the reverse. “Are you better, my dear?” asked she, affectionately. “Yes, it was only the room,” said Elvira. “You are a good deal there, are not you?” said Miss Ogilvie to Mary, who had the white flabby look of being kept in an unwholesome atmosphere. “Yes,” said Mary, wistfully, “but grandpapa does not like having me half so much as Elvira. He is always talking about her.” “You had better come back to him now, Elfie,” said Miss Ogilvie. “It makes me ill,” said Elvira, with her crossest look. Her governess laid her hand on her shoulder, and told her in a few decided words, in the lowest possible voice, that she was not going away till she had taken a properly respectful and affectionate leave of her grandfather. Whereupon she knew further resistance was of no use, and going hastily to the door of the room, called out-- “Good-bye, then, grandpapa.” “Ah! my little beauty, are you there?” he asked, in a tone of bewildered pleasure, holding out the one hand he could use. Elvira was forced to let herself be held by it. She hoped to kiss his brow, and escape; but the poor knotted fingers which had once been so strong, would not let her go, and she had to endure many more kisses and caresses and blessings than her proud thoughtless nature could endure before she made her escape. And then “Cousin Lisette” insisted on a kiss for the sake of her dear mamma; and Elfie could only exhale her exasperation by rushing to the pony-carriage, avoiding all kisses to her young cousins, taking the driving seat, and whipping up the ponies more than their tender-hearted mistress would by any means have approved.