Elaine rose, with a face expressing neither displeasure nor distaste. She merely said, "Yes, Aunt Emily;" and, taking up her tray of dead flowers, left the room and closed the door behind her.
Miss Ellen's eyes followed her anxiously, and, as the footsteps died away along the passage, she lay back among her cushions and a slight flush rose in her white face.
"Emily," she said, "I should like to have a little talk with you."
"That is just what I have come up for," said her sister, seating herself in Elaine's vacated chair, and taking out her knitting. "About this work from Helbronner's, isn't it? Well, my dear, we have just been discussing it among ourselves, and have come to the conclusion to send back the design. It will not do, my dear Ellen, as I know you will agree. It would be considered quite Popish by the villagers, and, as Mr. Hill would not like to object to it if it were our work, it would be placing him in a most awkward position."
Miss Ellen fixed her soft, questioning eyes on her sister's face, but soon removed them, with a sigh of resignation. Emily's mind was full of the design for the new altar-cloth, and it would be useless at such a moment to appeal to her on the subject of her niece's future. She could but lie still and hear the pros and cons respecting a design of cross intertwined with lilies, which design Miss Emily, for some inscrutable reason, seemed to consider appropriate only to the Church of Rome. Presently, through the open window could be heard Elaine and the maid setting out for their walk, and again Miss Willoughby caught herself wishing that the girl's footfall had had more of girlish buoyancy about it.
CHAPTER III.
The champaign, with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air.
Browning.