“At least,” he insisted, “your cousin Cornelia’s will have different faces, and you’re going to go and look at ’em. Elsie, you’re _not_ having a good time, and one way or another I’ve got to make you. You need a new view of some kind; you’ve got to be shaken out of this hermit habit you’ve fallen into.” “Papa, please,” she said, appealingly. “I don’t want to go. Don’t make me. Please!” At this he rose from his chair and came to her and took one of her hands in his. The room was warm, and she sat near the fire; but the slender hand he held was cold. “Elsie, I want you to,” he said. “I don’t want to think your mother might reproach me for not making you do what seems best for you. Let me wire your aunt to-morrow you’ll come next week.” Her lower lip moved pathetically, and along her eyelids a liquid tremulousness twinkled too brightly. “I couldn’t——” she began. “Don’t tell me that any more, Elsie.” “No,” she said, meekly. “I meant I couldn’t get ready until week after next, Papa—or the week after that. I couldn’t go before December. Not before then, please, Papa.” He patted her hand and laughed; pleased that she would be obedient; touched that she was so reluctant to leave him. “That’s the girl! You’ll have a glorious time, Elsie; see if you don’t!” he said, and, looking down tenderly upon her shining eyes, never suspected the true anguish that was there. XXIII THE STRANGE MIRROR IT WAS still there, and all the keener, when Elsie dressed before the French mirror in the big and luxurious bedchamber to which she had been shown on her arrival at her aunt’s house. “Mrs. Cromwell and Miss Cornelia had an engagement they couldn’t break. They said for me to say they’re sorry they couldn’t be here when you came,” a maid told her. “Mrs. Cromwell said tell you she’s giving a dinner for you and Miss Cornelia this evening. It’s set for early because they’re going to theatricals and dancing somewheres else afterward, so she thought p’raps you better begin dressing soon as your trunk gets here. They’ll have to dress in a hurry, theirselves, so you may not see ’em till dinner.” But Elsie did not have to wait that long. Half an hour later, when she had begun to dress, Cornelia rushed in, all fur and cold rosy cheeks. She embraced the visitor impetuously. “D’you mind bein’ hugged by a bear?” she asked. “I couldn’t wait even to take off my coat, because I remembered what an awf’ly nice _little_ thing you were! Do you know we haven’t seen each other for nine years?” She stepped back with her hands upon Elsie’s shoulders. “I’ve got to fly and dress,” she said. “_My_ but you’re lovely!” With that, she turned and scurried out of the room, leaving behind her a mingled faint scent of fur and violets, and the impression upon Elsie that this cousin of hers was the prettiest girl she had ever seen.