Elsie had no easy life during the remaining months of the summer. After Frank Mowbray’s birthday, when all was settled, and he had begun to trim up and brighten Mr. Anderson’s old house, which was to be his future home, she had a great deal to bear from the members of her family, who one and all supported Frank’s suit, which the young man lost no time in making. He for himself would take no refusal, but came back and back with a determination to be successful, which everybody said would eventually carry the day: and each one in succession took up his cause. All St. Rule’s indeed, it may be said, were partisans of Frank. What ailed her at him, her friends said indignantly? who was Elsie Buchanan that she should look for better than that? A fine fellow, a good income, a nice house, and so near her mother! Girls who were going to India, or other outlandish places, asked, with tears in their eyes, what she could desire more? It was not as if there was any one else to disturb her mind, they said: for by this time Ralph Beaton and the rest were all drifting away to India and the Colonies to fulfil their fate: and to think of Johnny Wemyss as lifting his eyes to the minister’s daughter, was such a thing as no one could have believed. Marion came in expressly from the country, with her three babies, to speak powerfully to the heart of her sister. “You will regret but once, and that will be all your life,” she said solemnly. And it has already been seen how her mother addressed her on the subject. Rodie, too, made his wishes distinctly known. “Why will you not take him?” he said; “he is as decent a chap as any in the town. If you scorn him, very likely you will never get another: and you must mind you will not always have me to take you about everywhere, and to get your partners at the balls.” “You to get me partners!” cried Elsie, wildly indignant; “you are a bonnie one! You just hang for your own partners on me; and as for taking me to places, where do you ever take me? That was all ended long ago.” But things became still more serious for Elsie, when her father himself came to a pause in front of her one day, with a grave face. “Elsie,” he said, “I hear it is in your power to make a young man’s life, or to mar it; at least that is what he says to me.” “You will not put any faith in that, father. Who am I, that I should either make or mar?” “I am tempted to think so myself,” he said, with a smile; “but at your age people are seldom so wise. You are like your mother, my dear, and, I doubt not, would be a tower of strength to your husband, as I have good reason to say she has been; but that is not to say that any man has a right to put the responsibility of his being to another’s charge. No, no; I would not say that. But there is no harm in the lad, Elsie. He has good dispositions. I would be at ease in my mind about your future, if you could find it in your heart to trust it to him.”