Elfie gave him the direction. The man got upon his box. And the carriage was driven off towards the parsonage.
“Now I wonder if my sudden arrival will shock Erminie very much? Or if it does, if the shock will hurt her? She has no reason whatever to expect me. She may even have retired to bed. Perhaps I ought rather to go to a hotel to-night, and send for Dr. Sales in the morning, and get him to break the news gently to Erminie,” mused Elfie, as she sat back in her carriage.
But she did not act upon her thought. On the contrary, she exclaimed to herself:
“Bosh! it won’t be such a shock to her, after all! I am not returning from the grave! She had no reason to believe me dead! And if she had had, though she loved me very much, she didn’t love me to such excess as to die of joy at my resurrection. And besides, I couldn’t possibly wait till to-morrow to see her, and to hear from dear little Mim.”
And upon this decision Elfie rested, laying back at ease in her cushions until the carriage reached the gates of the parsonage.
Then she eagerly looked out to see if there were any external signs by which she could guess whether the household had retired for the night.
“All right! I see the lights gleaming through the library shutters, and I know by them Erminie is still up,” she said to herself, as the carriage stopped and the coachman got down and opened the door.
“Here is the dollar agreed upon for your fare! And here is half a dollar extra to reward you for not roaring at travellers like the other hackmen did!” said Elfie, as she quickly thrust the money into the man’s hand, and opened the gate.
As the carriage drove off again, she ran up the walk leading from the gate to the front door of the house. And when she reached it she seized the bell-pull and rang a peal like a fire-alarm.
The door was opened by old Uncle Bob, who, on seeing his young mistress, jumped a yard backward, exclaiming: