Elma was quite pale. The lines of thought had long ago disappeared with the puckerings of wonder on her face. Here indeed was thunder booming with a vengeance, and near, not far off like that golden picture of years ago. Mabs was in deep trouble. "You see what would happen if I told papa? He would order off Mr. Symington in a great fright, because he has never thought somehow that any of us were thinking of him except that he is an awfully clever man! I think also that papa would turn Robin out of the house." "I believe he would," said Elma in a whisper. "And then--how awful! All our friends, their friends! Everywhere we go, we should meet Sarah Meredith! What a life for us! I should like to quarrel--just because I’m being so badly treated, but the consequences would be perfectly awful," said Mabel. She took it as though none of it could be helped. Elma was quite crumpled with the agitation of her feelings. "You must tell papa, Mabel," she said gently. "Oh, Elma, I can’t--about Mr. Symington. Imagine Mr. Symington’s ever knowing and thinking--’What do I care for any of these chits of girls!’ Robin has always got wild--if I smiled to my drawing master even. What I hate, is being dictated to now. And his sulking--instead of standing by me if there is any trouble. He isn’t a man." A sharp ring at the bell, and rat-tat of the postman might be heard. Somebody called up that a letter had come for Mabel. Elma went for it and produced it with quaking heart. The writing seemed something very different to any of the letters which came to Mabel. It was from Mr. Symington. It explained in the gentlest possible way that he had learned from Miss Meredith that his presence in Ridgetown caused some difficulty of which he had never even dreamed. He wrote as a great friend of her dear father’s, and a most loyal admirer of her family, to say the easiest matter in the world was being effected, and that his visit to Ridgetown had come to an end. The paper shook gently in Mabel’s fingers, and fell quivering and uncertain to the floor. She looked up piteously and quite helplessly at Elma, like a child seeking shelter, and then buried her head on the couch. She cried in long, strangled sobs, while Elma stood staring at her. Elma pulled herself together at last. "Mabel dear, I’m going to read it." Mabel nodded into her bent arms. "Oh but," said Elma after shakingly perusing that document, "but he can’t--he can’t do this. It’s dreadful. It’s like blaming you! What can Miss Meredith have said? Oh! Mabel! Mabel, I shall cut that woman dead wherever and however I meet her. Oh, Mabel--what a creature! Don’t you cry. Papa will explain to Mr. Symington. He will believe papa. Papa will explain that you had nothing to do with it, that you don’t mind whether he goes or stays--that----"