She went back to her tasks in the tiny kitchen with a dull, hopeless air. She had just set a pail of soapy water on the back doorstep, preparatory to scrubbing the porch floor, for Susan insisted that this must be done once a week, no matter how clean it might be, when Polly's voice reached her. It was raised in uttering that shocking phrase which her mistress had forbidden, and which Polly refused to unlearn. Miss Arabella hurried out to the front veranda, fearful lest the minister or the new doctor might be within earshot. "Good-morning, Arabella!" called a sweet voice from the other side of the cedar hedge. Miss Arabella ran joyfully to the gate. "Oh, Elsie, is it you? Come away in and sit a minute; do, now." "No, thank you, Arabella; not this morning. Mother sent me up to see what sort of baby Jake and Hannah have adopted. Come with me." "I'd like to." Miss Arabella glanced wistfully across the orchard, but the vision of her sister-in-law hoeing in the garden quenched the light of hope in her eyes. "I can't go for a little bit," she added. "I haven't done the back stoop yet." The girl stood looking down at her, a splendid contrast, in her strong, erect beauty, to the little, drooping figure. Miss Arabella looked up at her with adoring eyes. There was a strange comradeship between these two. "Oh, Arabella, dear," cried the girl, half pityingly, half laughingly, "why don't you run away?" Miss Arabella looked up with a sudden fire in her eyes and a flush on her cheek. "Oh, Elsie! You don't mean it--really?" "Of course I don't really mean it, Arabella," she answered, half alarmed at the unexpected effect of her words. "Where would you run? Only I do wish you didn't have so much managing." Miss Arabella's head drooped. She seemed ashamed of her sudden outburst. "Oh, I'm all right," she said, in some confusion, and then, to hide it, added: "It seems awful nice to have you back, Elsie. I missed you dreadful." The girl patted her hand affectionately. "Well, you're not likely to miss me any more for a long time," she said, with rather a forced smile. "I s'pose you've learned near everything there is to know about singing now, anyway, haven't you?" asked Miss Arabella comfortably. Elsie Cameron laughed. "I feel as if I'd just begun to get the faintest notion of it." "Well, well, well! Music must be awful slow work. Is that why you got tired of it?" "Tired of it?" "Yes; your ma was saying you didn't want to go back, though they'd all coaxed you." The girl looked down the long, elm-bordered street; her golden-brown eyes had a hurt look, but her mouth was firm. She turned again to Miss Arabella with a faint smile. Her answer was apparently irrelevant. "Don't you remember how Uncle Hughie used to be always telling us never to 'rastle' against the place we're put in?" Miss Arabella looked at her, uncomprehending. In contrast to her narrow experience, Elsie Cameron seemed to possess all that heart could desire.