A week later she confided to Miss White the great fact of her engagement; but she was not so excited about it by that time. For one thing, she had received her uncle's present of a locket, so the ring was not her only piece of jewelry; and besides that, since her talk with David, being "engaged" had seemed less interesting. However, Miss White felt it her duty to drop a hint of what had happened to Mr. Ferguson: had it struck him that perhaps Blair Maitland was--was thinking about Elizabeth? "Thinking what about her?" Mr. Ferguson said, lifting his head from his papers with a fretted look. "Why," said Miss White, "as I am always at my post, sir, I have opportunities for observing; in fact, I shouldn't wonder if they were--attached." Cherry-pie would have felt that a more definite word was indelicate. "Of course I don't exactly _know_ it," said Miss White, faithful to Elizabeth's confidence, "but I recall that when I was a young lady, young gentlemen did become attached--to other young ladies." "Love-making? At her age? I won't have it!" said Robert Ferguson. The old, apprehensive look darkened in his face; his feeling for the child was so strangely shadowed by his fear that "Life would play another trick on him," and Elizabeth would disappoint him some way, that he could not take Cherry-pie's information with any appreciation of its humor. "Send her to me," he said. "Mr. Ferguson," poor old Miss White ventured, "if I might suggest, it would be well to be very kind, because--" "Kind?" said Robert Ferguson, astonished; he gave an angry thrust at the black ribbon of his glasses that brought them tumbling from his nose. "Was I unkind? I will see her in the library after supper." Miss White nibbled at him speechlessly. "If he is severe with her, I don't know what she _won't_ do," she said to herself. But Mr. Ferguson did not mean to be severe. When Elizabeth presented herself in his library, the interview began calmly enough. Her uncle was brief and to the point, but he was not unkind. She and Blair were too young to be engaged,--"Don't think of it again," he commanded. Elizabeth looked tearful, but she did not resent his dictum;--David's lack of sympathy had been very dampening to romance. It was just at the end that the gunpowder flared. "Now, remember, I don't want you to be foolish Elizabeth." "I don't think being in love is foolish, Uncle." "Love! What do you know about love? You are nothing but a silly little girl." "I don't think I'm very little; and Blair is in love with me." "Blair is as young and as foolish as you are. Even if you were older, I wouldn't allow it. He is selfish and irresponsible, and--"