Miss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery was not just to her taste:  femineity often finds it very hard to accept the fact of muliebrity.

“Was”—?

She stopped short; but her question had asked itself.

“Elsie there?  She was, for an hour or so.  She looked frightfully handsome.  I meant to have spoken to her, but she slipped away before I knew it.”

“I thought she meant to go to the party,” said Miss Darley.  “Did she look at you?”

“She did.  Why?”

“And you did not speak to her?”

“No.  I should have spoken to her, but she was gone when I looked for her.  A strange creature!  Is n’t there an odd sort of fascination about her?  You have not explained all the mystery about the girl.  What does she come to this school for?  She seems to do pretty much as she likes about studying.”

Miss Darley answered in very low tones.  “It was a fancy of hers to come, and they let her have her way.  I don’t know what there is about her, except that she seems to take my life out of me when she looks at me.  I don’t like to ask other people about our girls.  She says very little to anybody, and studies, or makes believe to study, almost what she likes.  I don’t know what she is,” (Miss Darley laid her hand, trembling, on the young master’s sleeve,) “but I can tell when she is in the room without seeing or hearing her.  Oh, Mr. Langdon, I am weak and nervous, and no doubt foolish,—­but—­if there were women now, as in the days of our Saviour, possessed of devils, I should think there was something not human looking out of Elsie Venner’s eyes!”

The poor girl’s breast rose and fell tumultuously as she spoke, and her voice labored, as if some obstruction were rising in her throat.

A scene might possibly have come of it, but the door opened.  Mr. Silas Peckham.  Miss Darley got away as soon as she well could.

“Why did not Miss Darley go to the party last evening?” said Mr. Bernard.

“Well, the fact is,” answered Mr. Silas Peckham, “Miss Darley, she’s pooty much took up with the school.  She’s an industris young. woman,—­yis, she is industris,—­but perhaps she a’n’t quite so spry a worker as some.  Maybe, considerin’ she’s paid for her time, she is n’t fur out o’ the way in occoopyin’ herself evenin’s,—­that—­is, if so be she a’n’t smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime.  Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot.  Amoosements are objec’s of a secondary natur’, accordin’ to my v’oo.” [The unspellable pronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New England Brahminism.]