"You and Katie." Mrs. Manning had coupled the names, as if they stood in exactly the same position to Mr. Gilmour, and were, as she put it, equally in danger. Could she, Elsie, have made a great mistake? Could she really have done anything unmaidenly? Had she given Douglass Gilmour cause to think she sought him, followed him, or was putting herself more forward than was becoming a pure-minded girl?
Even to imagine the possibility of such a construction made the girl's cheek flush and flame. Yet her mother, her darling, tender, indulgent mother, had thought it necessary to speak to her. She must have done something to call forth words such as had never been addressed to her before. She had laughed at and thought lightly of them at first, but now the memory was a pain.
Elsie looked back over the three happy months of their acquaintance with Douglass Gilmour, and, as she did so, made a severe comparison between his conduct towards herself and Katie. After all, how brotherly he had been to both of them! Each had been enlisted to help in some branch of work; each was accustomed to consult him, and be consulted about it. If he showed a kindness to one, he did the same to the other. And yet it had seemed to Elsie that there was a subtle, indefinable something in Douglass Gilmour's manner towards herself that had never been manifested towards Katie. Or she had thought so. Had she made the terrible mistake of giving what had not been asked for?
Just at this moment, when the girl was catechising herself in the most unsparing fashion, in came Katie, bright and bonny, panting a little with hurrying upstairs to dress for dinner.
"Elsie, you are ready. Give me a little help, like a darling, as you are; for I am late. I met Mr. Gilmour in Rathbury. He had been visiting some poor people in my district this morning, and wanted to give me a hint or two before leaving home for a time. What a good man he is! And how the poor love him! He is quite one of my heroes."
Elsie could have said, "He is my one hero," but she said nothing, only listened, with just a little further sinking of the heart, to the praises which poured from the lips of her sister in no stinted measure. She rendered the little help required by Katie, thinking the while that it was no wonder her sister was enthusiastic; no wonder if she, too, had yielded to the charm of such a noble life, and learned to place him first in her esteem.
They went downstairs together, and Elsie did her best to hide the wounds she had received during the probing process she had gone through.
Begun by her mother, continued by herself, the climax had been reached when she had listened to Katie. Before Elsie reached the dining-room she had made up her mind that these past happy visions were but a baseless fabric after all, and that she had committed a grievous mistake, which she must correct as best she might.
Well, if Douglass Gilmour's affections were given to Katie, and hers to him, she would at least strive to be unselfish. Neither by word nor deed would she betray to others how great a mistake she had made; but she would pray to be made contented and useful too, and, though she was quite sure that the highest happiness was not within her reach, she would strive to be satisfied with what was left her.
At nineteen, if one's happy dreams have been rudely broken in upon, we make up our minds that the future has little left for us, and that we shall never even dream again. There may be comfort in self-sacrifice—a possible life of usefulness; but reconstruct a shattered idol, or place another on the vacant pedestal—never!