It did not sound so great a matter after all to keep back Frank Mowbray, that was all: to prevent him from penetrating to her father’s room, recalling her father’s painful memories, and his struggle with himself. Her arm within the hoops! it was not so exaggerated an idea after all, it was more than breaking an arm, it might be perhaps breaking a heart: still it was a piece of actual exertion that was required of her on her father’s behalf. Elsie had not given very much serious consideration to Frank Mowbray, but she knew vaguely as much as she had chosen to know, the meaning and scope of his attentions, and the possibility there was, if she did not sharply discourage him, that he would shortly demand a decision from her one way or other. Elsie had not sharply discouraged him; she had been friendly, unwilling to give pain, unwilling to act as if she believed that it could matter to him one way or another: but she had not shown him particular favour. In no way was her conscience guilty of having “led him on.” Her pride sprang up in flames of indignation at the thought of having led any one on. There was Raaf Beaton too: they had both been the same to her, boys she had known, more or less, all her life, whom she liked very well to dance with, even to talk to for an idle moment, whom she would not vex for the world. Oh no, she would not vex them for the world, neither of them! nevertheless, to select one of them, to bind herself to either, to pretend to take either as the first of men? Elsie almost laughed, though her eyes were still hot with tears, at that ridiculous thought. Yet this was the easiest way of stopping Frank from disturbing her father, oh! the easiest way! She had only to receive him a little more warmly than usual, to listen to what he said, to let him walk with her when they went out of doors, and talk to her when they were within. It is very likely that on both sides this influence also was exaggerated. There was nothing that Frank would not have done for Elsie and her smiles; but after a time no doubt his mind would have returned to his former resolutions, and he would not have felt it necessary to abandon a previously-formed and serious intention on her account. But a girl rarely understands that, nor does the man think of it, in the excitement of such a crisis. Elsie had no doubt that she had the fullest power to turn aside Frank from any attempt on her father’s peace. And then came her mother’s recommendation to be kind to him, to make up to him for something that was past. It was a recommendation that made her blood boil, that she should pay him for some injustice past. Be kind to him, as her mother said, to make up, make as it were money of herself to be a compensation to him! This idea was odious to the girl: but yet it was only another version of the same necessity that she should keep him from disturbing papa.