Her unformed, back-sloping hand, covered one side of a sheet of notepaper that she bought in the luncheon hour. “DEAR MR. WILLIAMS, “One line to tell you that I have thought over your very kind suggestion about a holiday, but do not feel that I can say yes to same. Dear Mr. Williams, it is very kind of you, but I cannot feel it would be _right_ of me to do as you ask, and so I must say no, hoping you will not be vexed with me. I do want to be a good girl. So no more, from “Your little friend, “ELSIE.” VIII It took Elsie exactly three months to bring Mr. Williams to the point predicted by Irene Tidmarsh. During that time she was quiet, and rather timid, scrupulously exact in saying “sir” and very careful never to be heard laughing or chattering with Fred Leary. Williams at first made no allusion to her note. When at last he spoke of it, he did so very much in his ordinary manner. “I was sorry to get your little note the other day, Elsie, and to see that you don’t quite trust me after all.” “Oh, but I do,” she stammered. He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid my little friend isn’t quite as staunch as I fancied. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps some day you’ll know me better.” “It wasn’t anything like that. It was just that I--I thought mother wouldn’t like it,” simpered Elsie. “It didn’t seem to me to be quite right.” “It would have been quite right, or I shouldn’t have asked you to do it,” he replied firmly. “I’m a man of great experience, Elsie, a good many years older than you are, and you may be quite sure that I should never mislead you. But I see I made a mistake, you are not old enough to have the courage to be unconventional.” He looked hard at her as he spoke, but Elsie’s vanity was not of the sort to be wounded at the term of which he had made use. She merely drooped her head and looked submissive. A month later he asked her, in thinly veiled terms, whether she had yet changed her mind. “I shan’t ever change it,” Elsie declared. “I daresay I’ve sometimes been rather silly, and not as careful as I ought, but I know very well that it wouldn’t _do_ for me to act the way you suggest. Why, you’d never respect me the same way again, if I did!” She felt that the last sentence was a masterpiece. Williams shrugged his shoulders. “Come, Elsie, let’s understand one another. You’re not ignorant, a girl like you must have had half a dozen men after her. And then what about that doctor fellow--Woolley?” “What about him?” “That’s what I’m asking you. Something happened to cause the unpleasantness between Mrs. Woolley and yourself, and I’ve a very shrewd suspicion that I know what it was.” “Then I needn’t tell you,” said Elsie feebly. “That isn’t the way to speak.” His low voice was suddenly nasty, and she felt frightened. “I’m sorry.”