"Yes, mother," Elma answered, turning her face to the wall, but a thousand times less ashamed than she had been the day before when her mother spoke to her. "I couldn't help it, dearest." She took that soft white hand in hers and pressed it hard in silence. "It's no wonder, you know," she said at last, after a long deep pause. "He's going away from Chetwood to-day--and it was so very, very hard to say good-bye to him for ever." "Oh yes, I know, darling," Mrs. Clifford answered, eyeing her harder than ever now with a half-incredulous look. "I know all that. But--you've had a good night in spite of everything, Elma." Elma guessed what she meant. They two could converse together quite plainly without words. "Well, yes, a better night," she answered, hesitating, and shutting her eyes under the bed-clothes for very shame. "A little disturbed--don't you know--just at first; but I had a good cry very soon, and then that mended everything." Her mother still looked at her, half doubting and half delighted. "A good cry's the right thing," she said slowly, in a very low voice. "The exact right thing, perfectly proper and normal. A good cry never did any girl on this earth one atom of harm. It's the best safety-valve. You're lucky, Elma, my child, in being able to get one." "Yes, dear," Elma answered, with her head still buried. "Very lucky indeed. So I think, too, mother." Mrs. Clifford's eye fell aimlessly upon certain tiny bits of feathery fluff that flecked the floor here and there like floating fragments of thistledown. In a second, her keen instinct divined what they meant. Without one word she rose silently and noiselessly, and opened the lower drawer, where the boa usually reposed among the furs and feathers. One glimpse of those mangled morsels showed her the truth at a glance. She shut the drawer again noiselessly and silently as she had opened it. But Elma, lying still with her eyes closed tight, yet knew perfectly well how her mother had been occupied. Mrs. Clifford came back, and, stooping over her daughter's bed, kissed her forehead tenderly. "Elma, darling," she said, while a hot tear or two fell silently upon the girl's burning cheek, "you're very, very brave. I'm so pleased with you, so proud of you! I couldn't have done it myself. You're stronger-minded than I am. My child, he kissed you for good-bye yesterday. You needn't say yes, you needn't say no. I read it in your face. No need for you to tell me of it. Well, darling, it wasn't good-bye after all, I'm certain of that. Believe me, my child, he'll come back some day, and you'll know you can marry him." "Never!" Elma cried, hiding her face still more passionately and wildly than before beneath great folds of the bed-clothes. "Don't speak to me of him any more, mother! Never! Never! Never!" CHAPTER XVII. VISIONS OF WEALTH.