But it was terribly hard for one of her nature to have no one in whom to confide, and she longed for Elsie Marley. If she could have talked things over with Elsie Marley it would have made it easier. Simply to unburden her heart would mean much. Ever since she had been in New York she had longed to see Elsie again; and with this added reason, and a desire to learn more of her life in Enderby than she could gather from her stiff and rather non-committal letters, she began to feel, about the time that she forwarded a letter to Elsie's lawyer in San Francisco, that she must induce her to come to New York for a visit.
A letter from her stepmother seemed to render it almost imperative. Mrs. Moss, who was devoted to Elsie and missed her sadly, was greatly troubled by the irregularity of the girl's letters and hurt by their want of frankness. Knowing that John Middleton had not approved of Elsie's father marrying her, she began to fear lest he be trying to turn his niece against her. Now she had written to protest against the perfunctory letters, which, instead of allowing her to share in any way in Elsie's life, shut her out.
Elsie was deeply moved and full of compunction. She loved her stepmother dearly and thought of her constantly, faithful soul that she really was. She was always wondering how auntie would take this or view that; but the very topics she was moved to enlarge upon in her letters were those which circumstances forbade her to mention. All her interests were connected with Miss Pritchard, of whose very existence Mrs. Moss was unaware, with the school, and less directly with Elsie Marley, whose name she was masquerading under. Leaving all these out of consideration, and depending almost wholly upon the fragments she received concerning life in the parsonage at Enderby, a brief letter once in three or four weeks was the utmost the girl could compass.
Immediately upon receipt of her stepmother's letter, she determined to ask Miss Pritchard if she might invite her friend Elsie Moss to come on for a week or a fortnight. As she waited for Miss Pritchard to come from the office that night, however, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder if it would be quite safe. Despite her enthusiastic admiration of Elsie Marley, which had not in the least abated, and despite the unfavorable impression she had of the Pritchards, which only deepened as the days passed, she had come to feel that in personal appearance and somewhat in manner her friend must resemble her kinsfolk.
In which case it would be as dangerous for the well-being of the one as of the other for her to be brought in contact with Miss Pritchard. For, stiff as were her letters and non-committal, Elsie knew that there was little difference in the strength of attachment that held the wrong Elsie to the place she had usurped in either instance. Whatever she might do, therefore, she mustn't bungle or err in that respect.
The Pritchard estate was not yet settled. The house had been sold and such personal effects and heirlooms as were to be kept for Elsie Marley put in storage for the time in San Francisco. Elsie Moss understood this, and knew that Miss Pritchard did so; but she felt that the latter wondered that she had no relics or keepsakes with her. She had had to confess one day that she had no photographs of her family she would be willing to show, leaving Miss Pritchard to make such inference as she would.
That evening at the dinner-table—she felt it would be easier to approach the matter in semi-public—Elsie asked her if she happened to have any old Pritchard photographs.
"Yes, dear, I have an old album in the chest by the window that has pictures of Aunt Ellen, Cousin Ellen, and Cousin Augusta. There are half a dozen, I think, of Cousin Ellen, and three or four of your mother, but no baby picture of you, nor any other, if that's what you're looking for. After my father died we began to lose connection with one another, and after that visit I made when you were a baby, all communication ceased. So I got no photographs after that."
"No, I wasn't thinking of my kid pictures, Cousin Julia. I was just—wondering," the girl returned. "Would it be an awful bother to get out the album?"
"No bother at all, child. To tell the truth, I love to get it out, for there are a lot of other pictures besides the Pritchards that I like to look over. There's a picture of my Cousin Arthur Moore, who fell in the battle of Lookout Mountain, that I'd like you to see."