Elsie Marley lay in her berth that night for some time in a state between musing and actually dreaming. She was conscious—partly conscious, that is—of a new sensation of happiness. She did not, however, at all realize how fortunate she was. She did not know that for the first time in her life the door of her heart had been opened in response to another. It was, perhaps, open only a crack. Possibly it had been fast so long that it would not remain open. None the less, at the moment it stood ajar.
After dinner the girls had talked late—late for sleeping-car hours, that is to say. Elsie Marley herself had talked; had said more in an hour than she had ever before said in a day. Questioned in a frank, sympathetic manner by the other Elsie, she had been led to speak of her grandmother's household and of her daily life there, going into details so far as she knew how, as she found the other so generously and romantically concerned. Then she had gone on to speak of Cousin Julia Pritchard and the boarding-house, confessing her apprehension and dread, which seemed somehow to have become more definite in the interval. She even showed the stranger Cousin Julia's letter.
Having perused it, Elsie Moss acknowledged that it wasn't altogether a pleasant outlook for such a one as Elsie Marley, honey, though she herself wouldn't mind it. Indeed, she declared that she should have liked it immensely. And finally, as she left to go back to her berth, she exclaimed with fervor that she only wished that Miss Pritchard were her cousin, and the Reverend John Middleton Elsie Marley's uncle and guardian.
As those were Elsie Moss's last spoken words that night, so that thought was uppermost in her mind as she fell asleep shortly after her cropped head touched the pillow. And next morning when she woke early with a startlingly delightful idea, it almost caused her to bound from her upper berth as if it had been a bed in the middle of a stationary floor. For it came not in embryo, not in the egg, so to speak, but full-fledged. It seemed as if she couldn't possibly wait until she was dressed to divulge it to Elsie Marley.
But Elsie Marley was, like her prototype, late in rising, and the other Elsie's eagerness grew yet keener as she waited. Finally, however, they were alone together in the former's seat, as the train sped rapidly eastward.
Elsie Marley's countenance seemed almost to have changed overnight. There was truly something in it that had not been there before. Of course it was not animated now; nevertheless, it was not so utterly wanting in expression as it had been the day before, even in juxtaposition with the vivid little face beside her.
"Oh, Elsie-Honey, I've got something perfectly gorgeous to tell you," cried the dark Elsie. "Listen—you're not very keen about going to your cousin's, are you?"
Elsie confessed that she liked the idea less than ever.
"And I just hate—the short of it is—I simply cannot go anywhere but to New York. You'd ever so much prefer Enderby because it's select and has culture and advantages, and you'd sooner have a dignified clergyman uncle than a newspaper cousin. As for me, I should adore Cousin Julia."
"It seems a pity, surely," admitted Elsie quietly.