“What will you do?” asked Margaret soberly, as Elsie paused for breath.
“Dance my way into fame! Now don’t look so horrified, or I shall think you are going to be a ‘Miss Prunes and Prisms’ instead of the good wholesome ‘sister’ Dr. Ely thinks you are.”
Elsie watched with sparkling eyes the pink flush on Margaret’s cheek, and a moment later mischievously intensified it by saying: “I wonder how the staid Dr. Ely would relish hearing the world say that the sister of——”
“Elsie!” exclaimed Margaret apprehensively.
“I was merely going to say—of the lady he admires so much was premier danseuse at the Standard?”
Elsie was half-way to the house by the time she had explained herself.
“Oh, cet Elsie!” exclaimed Lizzette with a laugh. “What fire, what verve zere ees under zat pretty head.”
“She’s a great puzzle to me,” said Margaret somewhat sadly. “I really fear she’ll burn her wings yet. I hope I can keep her out of the candle.”
“She’ll keep herself out,” exclaimed Antoine energetically. “She’s got a heap of good sense; but she’s just like some wild bird, made to be gay and beautiful all her life.”
“She’s been dropped in a sorry corner of the world, if that is her destiny. There is little hope of anything but the daily drill of duty in this household,” answered Margaret.