"Perhaps so; of course, knowing your age, I can't judge so well how it would strike a stranger."
"I see you have gone back to the old childish way of arranging your hair. What's that for?" asked Enna, turning to Elsie; "I should think it was about time you were beginning to be a little womanly in something."
"Yes, but not in dress or the arrangement of my hair. So papa says, and of course I know he is right."
"He would not let you have it up in a comb?"
"No," Elsie answered with a quiet smile.
"Why do you smile? Did he say anything funny when you showed yourself that day?"
"Oh, Elsie, have you tried putting up your hair?" asked Carrie; while Lucy exclaimed, "Try it again to-night, Elsie, I should like to see how you would look."
"Yes," said Elsie, answering Carrie's query first. "Enna persuaded me one day to have mammy do it up in young-lady fashion. I liked it right well for a change, and that was just what mamma said when I went into the drawing-room and showed myself to her. But when papa came in, he looked at me with a comical sort of surprise in his face, and said. 'Come here; what have you been doing to yourself?' I went to him and he pulled out my comb, and ordered me off to mammy to have my hair arranged again in the usual way, saying, 'I'm not going to have you aping the woman already; don't alter the style of wearing your hair again, till I give you permission.'
"And you walked off as meek as Moses, and did his bidding," said Enna sarcastically. "No man shall ever rule me so. If papa should undertake to give me such an order, I'd just inform him that my hair was my own, and I should arrange it as suited my own fancy."
"I think you are making yourself out worse than you really are, Enna," said Elsie gravely. "I am sure you could never say anything so extremely impertinent as that to grandpa."
"Impertinent! Well, if you believe it necessary to be so very respectful, consistency should lead you to refrain from reproving your aunt."
"I did not exactly mean to reprove you, Enna, and you are younger than I."
"Nobody would think it," remarked Enna superciliously and with a second toss of her head, as she turned from the glass; "you are so extremely childish in every way, while, as mamma says, I grow more womanly in appearance and manner every day."
"Elsie's manners are quite perfect, I think," said Carrie; "and her hair is so beautiful, I don't believe any other style of arrangement could improve its appearance in the least."
"But it's so childish, so absurdly childish! just that great mass of ringlets hanging about her neck and shoulders. Come, Elsie, I want you to have it dressed in this new style for to-night."
"No, Enna, I am perfectly satisfied to wear it in this childish fashion; and if I were not, still I could not disobey papa."
Enna turned away with a contemptuous sniff, and Lucy proposed that they should go down to the drawing-room, and try some new music she had just received, until it should be time to dress for the evening.
Herbert lay on a sofa listening to their playing. "Lucy," he said in one of the pauses, "what amusements are we to have to-night?—anything beside the harp, piano, and conversation?"
"Dancing, of course. Cad's fiddle will provide as good music as any one need care for, and this room is large enough for all who will be here. Our party is not to be very large, you know."
"And Elsie, for one, is too pious to dance," sneered Enna.
Elsie colored, but remained silent.
"Oh! I did not think of that!" cried Lucy. "Elsie, do you really think it is a sinful amusement?"
"I think it wrong to go to balls; at least that it would be wrong for me, a professed Christian, Lucy."
"But this will not be a ball, and we'll have nothing but quiet country dances, or something of that sort, no waltzing or anything at all objectionable. What harm can there be in jumping about in that way more than in another?"
"None that I know of," answered Elsie, smiling. "And I certainly shall not object to others doing as they like, provided I am not asked to take part in it."
"But why not take part, if it is not wrong?" asked Harry, coming in from the veranda.
"Why, don't you know she never does anything without asking the permission of papa?" queried Enna tauntingly. "But where's the use of consulting her wishes in the matter, or urging her to take part in the wicked amusement?—she'll have to go to bed at nine o'clock, like any other well-trained child, and we'll have time enough for our dancing after that."
"Oh, Elsie, must you?—must you really leave us at that early hour? Why, that's entirely too bad!" cried the others in excited chorus.
"I shall stay up till ten," answered Elsie quietly, while a deep flush suffused her cheek.
"That is better, but we shall not know how to spare you even that soon," said Harry. "Couldn't you make it eleven?—that would not be so very late just for once."
"No, for she can't break her rules, or disobey orders. If she did, papa would be sure to find it out and punish her when she gets home."
"For shame, Enna! that's quite too bad!" cried Carrie and Lucy in a breath.
Elsie's color deepened, and there was a flash of anger and scorn in her eyes as she turned for an instant upon Enna. Then she replied firmly, though with a slight tremble of indignation in her tones: "I am not ashamed to own that I do find it both a duty and a pleasure to obey my father, whether he be present or absent. I have confidence, too, in both his wisdom and his love for me. He thinks early hours of great importance, especially to those who are young and growing, and therefore he made it a rule that I shall retire to my room and begin my preparations for bed by nine o'clock. But he gave me leave to stay up an hour later to-night, and I intend to do so."
"I think you are a very good girl, and feel just right about it," said Carrie.
"I wish he had said eleven, I think he might this once," remarked Lucy. "Why, don't you remember he let you stay up till ten Christmas Eve that time we all spent the holidays at Roselands, which was five years ago?"
"Yes," said Elsie, "but this is Saturday night, and as to-morrow is the Sabbath, I should not feel it to be right to stay up later, even if I had permission."
"Why not? it isn't Sunday till twelve," said Herbert.
"No, but I should be apt to oversleep myself, and be dull and drowsy in church next morning."
"Quite a saint!" muttered Enna, shrugging her shoulders and marching off to the other side of the room.
"Suppose we go and select some flowers for our hair," said Lucy, looking at her watch. "'Twill be tea-time presently, and we'll want to dress directly after."
"You always were such a dear good girl," whispered Carrie Howard, putting her arm about Elsie's waist as they left the room.
Enna was quite gorgeous that evening, in a bright-colored silk, trimmed with multitudinous flounces and many yards of ribbon and gimp. The young damsel had a decidedly gay taste, and glanced somewhat contemptuously at Elsie's dress of simple white, albeit 'twas of the finest India muslin and trimmed with costly lace. She wore her pearl necklace and bracelets, a broad sash of rich white ribbon; no other ornaments save a half-blown moss rosebud at her bosom, and another amid the glossy ringlets of her hair, their green leaves the only bit of color about her.
"You look like a bride," said Herbert, gazing admiringly upon her.
"Do I?" she answered smiling, as she turned and tripped lightly away; for Lucy was calling to her from the next room.
Herbert's eyes followed her with a wistful, longing look in them, and he sighed sadly to himself as she disappeared from his view.
Most of the guests came early; among them, Walter and Arthur Dinsmore; Elsie had not seen the latter since his encounter with Mr. Travilla.