Elizabeth was quite sure of it, too. Mrs. Bobby, reading this conviction in her eyes, and all the more anxious for the success of her plan, now that it met with so many unexpected obstacles, went on to expatiate on the delights of a season in town, and all the possibilities that life can offer, to one who has youth, talent and beauty. Elizabeth listened eagerly with dilating eyes, which she only once withdrew from Mrs. Bobby's face, to glance across to the other end of the room, where Mr. Gerard was leaning forward in an attitude of respectful interest, as he talked to Miss Cornelia. For a moment Elizabeth's eyes rested, half absently perhaps, on the strong lines of his face, while the irrelevant thought passed through her mind: "I wonder what he would think." Then, quick as lightning, the answer followed. "I don't care," she said, under her breath, and drew herself up with a little flash of defiance.
She turned towards Mrs. Bobby. "Do you really want me?" she asked, caressingly.
"Should I have asked you, if I didn't," laughed Mrs. Bobby, triumphant, as she saw that victory was hers.
Elizabeth told the news to her aunts as soon as the visitors had left. Their delight was what she had expected. They were eager in approving her decision, and in assuring her that she should have all the pretty gowns that the occasion required, sustained by the conviction, which occurred simultaneously to the minds of both, that their old black silks, which they had foolishly thought of as shabby, would do admirably another winter. It would be the height of extravagance, as Miss Cornelia afterwards observed to replace them.
"It's just what we have always wished for you," she cried, her little curls all a'flutter with joyful excitement, "and so unexpected—quite like a fairy-tale."
"Yes," Elizabeth assented, "quite like a fairy-tale. There's only one difference," she added to herself, as she left the room, "from every well-regulated fairy-tale that I ever heard of. The fairy Godmother, coach and four, are just a little—too late."