"I'd like to." Miss Arabella glanced wistfully across the orchard, but the vision of her sister-in-law hoeing in the garden quenched the light of hope in her eyes. "I can't go for a little bit," she added. "I haven't done the back stoop yet."
The girl stood looking down at her, a splendid contrast, in her strong, erect beauty, to the little, drooping figure. Miss Arabella looked up at her with adoring eyes. There was a strange comradeship between these two.
"Oh, Arabella, dear," cried the girl, half pityingly, half laughingly, "why don't you run away?"
Miss Arabella looked up with a sudden fire in her eyes and a flush on her cheek. "Oh, Elsie! You don't mean it—really?"
"Of course I don't really mean it, Arabella," she answered, half alarmed at the unexpected effect of her words. "Where would you run? Only I do wish you didn't have so much managing."
Miss Arabella's head drooped. She seemed ashamed of her sudden outburst. "Oh, I'm all right," she said, in some confusion, and then, to hide it, added: "It seems awful nice to have you back, Elsie. I missed you dreadful."
The girl patted her hand affectionately. "Well, you're not likely to miss me any more for a long time," she said, with rather a forced smile.
"I s'pose you've learned near everything there is to know about singing now, anyway, haven't you?" asked Miss Arabella comfortably.
Elsie Cameron laughed. "I feel as if I'd just begun to get the faintest notion of it."
"Well, well, well! Music must be awful slow work. Is that why you got tired of it?"