“And who is this?” inquired Elsie, bending her brows, “who knows of my husband’s movements better than I do myself? Send that woman from the house, father. The last one, you remember the last one!”
“Elsie, do you not know me?” inquired Catharine, astonished.
“How should I?” was the terse answer. “What am I to you?”
“I am your friend!”
Elsie laughed softly. “I never had but one friend, and she——”
“Well, never mind her, darling,” interposed the old lady, anxiously.
Elsie cast a scrutinizing glance at the old lady, and a look of profound astonishment came to her face.
“Why, mother, how strange you look! How old you are! Dear me, your hair has grown so white; and that queer cap. This will never do, mother.”
“My child—my dear child!”
Elsie laughed, and shook her head.