There was a definite reason why Mrs. Danforth did not give more affection to Elsa, just as there was a definite purpose back of her coming to live in Berkeley. This purpose, however, Mrs. Danforth was slow in carrying out, being a proud-spirited woman. To her many New York friends she explained her removal to Berkeley upon the ground that the quiet, suburban town, with its cultured people and its good schools, was a better place than New York City for Elsa to live in during the years of her young girlhood.
CHAPTER II
PRINCE GRAY OWL
Forth he set in the breezy morn,
Across green fields of nodding corn,
As goodly a Prince as ever was born.
—Christina Rossetti.
Where every wind and leaf can talk,
But no man understand
Save one whose child-feet chanced to walk
Green paths of fairyland.