Dancing was in full swing in the evening when Mr. Leighton methodically put on an overcoat and took Elma to sit out in the verandah. "It is to prevent your dancing too much," he told her. Elma had the feeling of being manipulated as she had been when she was ill. What did all this mystery mean? She tucked in readily enough beside her father. The night was warm, with a clear moon, and the lights from the drawing-room and on the balcony shed pretty patches of colour on her white dress and cloak. Mr. Leighton began to talk of Adelaide Maud of all people. She was there, with her sisters. They had at last dropped the armour of etiquette which had prevented more than one from ever appearing at the Leightons. "I don’t suppose any of you really know what that girl has come through," said Mr. Leighton. "All these years it has gone on. A constant criticism, you know. Mrs. Dudgeon found out long ago about Cuthbert, and what Cuthbert calls ’roasted’ her continually. Adelaide Maud remained the fine magnificently true girl she is to-day. That is a difficult matter when one’s own family openly despises the people one has set one’s heart on. She never gave a sign of giving in either way--did she?" "Not a sign," said Elma. "Adelaide Maud is a delicious brick, she always has been. The Story Books have come true at last." "It does not sound like being in battle," said Mr. Leighton, in a pertinacious way. "But a battle of that sort is far more real than many of the fights we back up in a public manner. One relieves the poor, and you girls give concerts for hospitals, but who can give a concert to relieve the like of the trouble that Adelaide Maud has gone through? She never wavered." Elma thought of another fight--should she tell her father? "We talk about Ridgetown being a slow place, but what a drama can be lived through here!" went on Mr. Leighton. "Isobel, for instance, thinks there’s nothing in life unless one attends fifty balls a month. Yet she lived her little drama in Ridgetown. And she has learned to be civil to Miss Meredith. There’s another fight for you. It cost her several pangs, let me tell you." ("What did it all lead to?" thought Elma.) "Oh, there were other fights too, papa, but one I think is over. Have you seen Mabel’s face to-night?" Mr. Leighton started. Elma required some sort of confidant, "or I shall explode or something," she explained. She told her father about Mr. Symington. "And I’ve been worrying so because it seemed so sad about Mabel. And she never gave it away, did she? And when you all thought so much of Isobel when she first came, and Mabel was getting dropped all round, she never said a word, did she?"