Isobel's engagement cut her further and further away from enjoying anything very much. She had always the feeling of cold critical eyes being on her. She often congratulated herself on having got over the stage where she used long words in quite their wrong sense. Isobel's proximity in these days would have been dreadful.
Miss Grace also seemed downhearted. It had been a trying winter for her, yet no actual evidence of ill-health had asserted itself. She was concerned about Elma too, who seemed to be losing what the others were gaining by being away, that just development which comes from happy experience. Elma plodded and played, but her bright little soul only came out unfledged of fear at Miss Grace's.
At last one day Miss Grace's face lit.
"My dear, your gift is composition."
Nobody ever had thought of it before. Elma's expression lightened to a transforming radiance.
"Oh, I wonder if I ever could get lessons," she cried.
They discovered a chance, through correspondence. So Elma held the fort, and tried to grapple single-handed with musical composition.
"If only I could compose an anthem before Mabel and Jean get home," she said one day.
"Heavens, Elma, you aren't going to die?" asked Betty.
CHAPTER XXIII