("What did it all lead to?" thought Elma.)
"Oh, there were other fights too, papa, but one I think is over. Have you seen Mabel's face to-night?"
Mr. Leighton started.
Elma required some sort of confidant, "or I shall explode or something," she explained. She told her father about Mr. Symington.
"And I've been worrying so because it seemed so sad about Mabel. And she never gave it away, did she? And when you all thought so much of Isobel when she first came, and Mabel was getting dropped all round, she never said a word, did she?"
"No," said Mr. Leighton, with a long-drawn impatient sort of relief in his voice. "No, but you did. You talked so much about the man all through your illness that your mother thought you were in love with him yourself. Ridiculous nonsense," he said testily. "And here have I been trying to brace you up to hearing that Mabel is engaged to him, and the scoundrel wishes to marry her at once."
Dr. Merryweather, who had said that Elma was not to be excited, ought to have been on the spot just then. She sat on her father's knee and hugged him.
"Oh, papa, papa, how glorious," said she. "Never mind, I shall always stay with you, I shall, I shall."
"Oh, will you?" said Mr. Leighton dismally. "Mabel said the same thing not so long ago."
Mrs. Leighton and Aunt Katharine came on the balcony, and behind them, Mabel and Mr. Symington.