Elma sat down on the couch with the handkerchief, and looked at the dear old drawing-room with new eyes. She would not take that depressing view of the people upstairs with regard to the Story Books. She was Adelaide Maud, and was "reviewing the habitation" of "these Leighton children" for the first time. "Dear me," said Adelaide Maud, "who is that sweet thing in the silver frame?" "Oh," said Mrs. Leighton, "that’s Mabel, my eldest." Then Adelaide Maud would be sure to say with a refined amount of rapture, "Oh, is that Mabel? I have heard how pretty she is from Mr. Maclean." Then mother--oh, no; one must leave mother out of this conversation. She would have been so certain to explain that Mabel was not pretty at all. Elma sat with her elbows out and her hands presumably resting on air. "Never lean your elbows on your hips, girls," Miss Stanton, head of deportment, informed them in school. "Get your shoulder muscles into order for holding yourself gracefully." One could only imagine Adelaide Maud with a faultless deportment. Elma carried the little handkerchief distractedly to her lips, then was appalled at the desecration. Oh--and yet how lovely! It was really Adelaide Maud’s! She tenderly folded it. How distinguished the drawing-room appeared! How delightful to have had a father who made no mistakes in the choice of furniture! Cuthbert had said so. She could almost imagine that the mauve toque must have bowed before the Louis Seize clock and acknowledged the Cardinal Wolseley chair. It did not occur to her to think that Mrs. Dudgeon might size up the whole appearance of that charming room in a request for pillars and Georgian mirrors, and beaded-work cushions. It is not given to every one to see so far as this, however, and Elma--as Miss Dudgeon for the afternoon--complimented her imaginary hosts on everything. As a wind-up Miss Dudgeon asked Mrs. Leighton particularly if her third daughter might come to take tea with Hermione. "So sweet of you to think of it," said the imaginary Mrs. Leighton, once more in working order. Out of these dreams emerged Elma. Some one was calling her abruptly. "Coming," she shrieked wildly, and clutched the handkerchief. She kept it till she got to Cuthbert. It seemed to her that he, as an invalid, might be allowed a bit of a treat and a secret all to himself. "Adelaide Maud left her handkerchief," she said. "We shall have to call to return it." He gazed at the bit of cambric. "Good gracious, is that what you girls dry your eyes on?" He took it, and looked at it very coldly and critically. "Thank you," he said calmly. "Oh, Cuthbert," she exclaimed with round eyes, "you won’t keep it, will you?" "I shall return it to the owner some day, when she deserves it," said the hero of yesterday, with a number of pauses between each phrase. "Don’t say a word, chucky, will you not?" "I won’t," said Elma honourably, yet deeply puzzled.