Her discoveries about herself were many.

“What is it to-day?” he would say, smiling fondly at her.  “I see it is something dreadful by your face.”

“It is something that struck me suddenly when I was thinking of you, and I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry.”

“Then be glad, you child.”

“It is this:  I used to think a good deal of myself; the people here thought me haughty; they said I had a proud walk.”

“You have it still,” he assured her; the vitality in her as she moved was ever a delicious thing to him to look upon.

“Yes, I feel I have,” she admitted, “but that is only because I am yours; and it used to be because I was nobody’s!”

“Do you expect my face to fall at that?”

“No, but I thought so much of myself once, and now I am nobody at all.  At first it distressed me, and then I was glad, for it makes you everything and me nothing.  Yes, I am glad, but I am just a little bit sorry that I should be so glad!” “Poor Grizel!” said he.

“Poor Grizel!” she echoed.  “You are not angry with me, are you, for being almost sorry for her?  She used to be so different.  ’Where is your independence, Grizel?’ I say to her, and she shakes her sorrowful head.  The little girl I used to be need not look for me any more; if we were to meet in the Den she would not know me now.”

Ah, if only Tommy could have loved in this way!  He would have done it if he could.  If we could love by trying, no one would ever have been more loved than Grizel.  “Am I to be condemned because I cannot?” he sometimes said to himself in terrible anguish; for though pretty thoughts came to him to say to her when she was with him, he suffered anguish for her when he was alone.  He knew it was tragic that such love as hers should be given to him, but what more could he do than he was doing?

CHAPTER XIV

ELSPETH

Ever since the beginning of the book we have been neglecting Elspeth so pointedly that were she not the most forgiving creature we should be afraid to face her now.  You are not angry with us, are you, Elspeth?  We have been sitting with you, talking with you, thinking of you between the chapters, and the only reason why you have so seldom got into them is that our pen insisted on running after your fascinating brother.

(That is the way to get round her.)

Tommy, it need not be said, never neglected her.  The mere fact of his having an affair of his own at present is a sure sign that she is comfortable, for, unless all were well with Elspeth, no venture could have lured him from her side.  “Now I am ready for you,” he said to the world when Elspeth had been, figuratively speaking, put to sleep; but until she was nicely tucked up the world had to wait.  He was still as in his boyhood, when he had to see her with a good book in her hand before he could set off on deeds of darkness.  If this was but the story of a brother and sister, there were matter for it that would make the ladies want to kiss Tommy on the brow.