“Why, I don’t know. I haven’t thought much about it, to confess the truth. Are you going?”
“I don’t know yet. It is the ardent desire of my heart, and if both Betsy and Bess are there I shall feel a maiden all forlorn to be left at home. Not to have a proper gift and to be deprived of such a boon as attending the happy event is almost too much for my equaliberum.”
Mr. Kemp looked up with a merry chuckle. “It does me good to hear your old familiar manner of speech, Elfie,” he said. “Why haven’t you a proper gift for your beloved Miss Jewett?”
“Don’t cause me to enclose the state of the family finances, Mr. Titian. I haven’t anything to buy with; that is the whole truth.”
“I can sympathize with you because I have often been in that condition myself.”
“Oh, but you never need be without a beautiful present to give when you have all these fine pictures.”
“That is what I always have to fall back upon, my dear Elfie.”
“Are you going to give one to Miss Jewett?” Elizabeth made bold to ask.
“Why, I don’t know her so very well, and I really had not thought of giving her anything. I have made her acquaintance only very recently, you see, and Mr. Tyson I have met very seldom.”
“But you have known her as long, almost as long, as you have me, and I am sure we are very intimate friends,” returned Elizabeth, with the thought of how well one of the pictures would look in the new house.