If a man be kind to a pretty woman shall
it not be counted to him for righteousness?
When Elsie Carston got the letter from Diana with its P.S., pregnant with meaning, asking her to telegraph for her at once on any pretext she chose, Elsie was triumphant. Marcus had failed. Not even the attractions of Scotland could hold Diana. She was evidently dying to get back to her aunt. It was no good forcing things down the throats, as it were, of young people: it was not what you gave them that counted, it was what you were to them.
“Shan’t, Diana is coming back,” she announced with pride. This was her triumph—she was the chosen one.
“Then shall I go to my darlin’ Uncle Marcus?” asked Shan’t, radiant; “oh, do let me—for once.”
“No, dear, Uncle Marcus won’t want you.”
“Why won’t he?”
“I don’t know why, but he won’t!”
“Then I shall write to him,” said Shan’t—“a very, very long letter, and he will write back and ask his darlin’ little Shan’t to come and stay with him—see if he doesn’t!” And Shan’t opened her eyes wide—and nodded her head at Aunt Elsie three times. It was not what Shan’t said, it was the way she said it that Aunt Elsie found so cruel. Why had this wretched uncle ever come into their lives? For years he had refused to accept responsibilities, and now that the children had come to an age when they were most charming and attractive, he had suddenly awakened to a belated sense of duty. It was very annoying. But Diana was coming home and Elsie went up to tell Mrs. Sloane so.
She at least would rejoice with Elsie and would not affect an absurd love for Uncle Marcus. Shan’t must have known how very disagreeable it was always hearing Marcus talked of as if he were the only uncle in the world. Elsie found Mrs. Sloane where she best loved to be, in the garden. From the seat on which she sat she looked through a gap cut in the tall yew hedges on to the range of hills—blue in the distance. Between her and the hills were golden cornfields, green fields, fields where the red soil was newly turned, and trees—dark fir trees standing like sentinels against the sky-line, plumed beeches, spreading oaks—and at her feet every flower that grows, rioting, singing at the tops of their voices, in wide borders, for flowers do sing for those who love them. Was it any wonder that her face was beautiful when she turned it in welcome towards Elsie?