“O, thank you, Miss Ruth,” Elsa said very gratefully and in a much relieved tone.
“Doesn’t your old nurse write to you?”
“No,” Elsa answered slowly. “Grandmother said it was better for me to learn to get along without Bettina—so—so I suppose that’s the reason she doesn’t write to me.”
Ruth Warren did not ask any further questions. But she felt that she knew better than ever why Elsa was such a pale-faced child and why there was so often a shadow of something sad in her eyes.
“Do you think I ought to tell grandmother about—about my going over to your house the other night?” Elsa asked suddenly, as the question came into her mind for almost the hundredth time.
“Might not your grandmother’s feelings be hurt because you went to somebody else instead of going to her, with your—your trouble?”
“Perhaps,” Elsa answered, in a doubtful tone, though.
“If she were to ask you about it, you would of course tell her. But when telling a thing unnecessarily means the possibility of hurting somebody’s feelings, then even little girls can help make the world happier by keeping things to themselves. Are you willing, Elsa, to have me tell your grandmother, or anybody else, if ever the time comes when it seems best?”
“Yes, Miss Ruth,” cried Elsa, feeling as if a great weight had rolled from her heart. “Of course grandmother didn’t know how much I loved that doll. She didn’t even know I had her.”
After this talk, Elsa felt that she and Miss Ruth were to be good friends for always.