"Your father," she said.
Elsie Howard read the simple announcement in silence. Then she looked up, the last trace of an old bitterness in her faint smile.
"We will miss him," she said.
"Elsie!" cried her mother. It was a tone the girl had never heard from her before. Her eyes fell.
"No, it wasn't nice to say it. I am sorry. But I can't forget what life was with him." She raised her eyes to her mother's. "It was simply hell, mother; you can't have forgotten. You have said it yourself so often. We can not deny that it is a relief to know—"
"Hush, Elsie, never let me hear you say anything like that again."
"Forgive me, mother," said the girl with quick remorse. "I never will. I don't think I have ever felt that death makes such things so different, and I didn't realize how you would—look at it."
"My child, he was your father," said Mrs. Howard in a low voice. Then Elsie saw the tears in her mother's eyes.
"Such a shock to her," Mrs. Pendleton murmured, sympathetically, to Elsie. "I know, Miss Elsie; I can feel for her—" Elsie mechanically thought of the last hours of Mr. Pendleton, then recalled herself with a start. "Death always is a shock," Mrs. Pendleton finished gracefully, "even when one most expects it. You must let me know if there is anything I can do."