one thing, she had received her uncle's present of a locket, so
the ring was not her only piece of jewelry; and besides that,
since her talk with David, being "engaged" had seemed less
interesting. However, Miss White felt it her duty to drop a hint
of what had happened to Mr. Ferguson: had it struck him that
perhaps Blair Maitland was--was thinking about Elizabeth?

"Thinking what about her?" Mr. Ferguson said, lifting his head
from his papers with a fretted look.

"Why," said Miss White, "as I am always at my post, sir, I have
opportunities for observing; in fact, I shouldn't wonder if they
were--attached." Cherry-pie would have felt that a more definite
word was indelicate. "Of course I don't exactly _know_ it,"
said Miss White, faithful to Elizabeth's confidence, "but I
recall that when I was a young lady, young gentlemen did become
attached--to other young ladies."

"Love-making? At her age? I won't have it!" said Robert Ferguson.
The old, apprehensive look darkened in his face; his feeling for
the child was so strangely shadowed by his fear that "Life would
play another trick on him," and Elizabeth would disappoint him
some way, that he could not take Cherry-pie's information with
any appreciation of its humor. "Send her to me," he said.

"Mr. Ferguson," poor old Miss White ventured, "if I might
suggest, it would be well to be very kind, because--"

"Kind?" said Robert Ferguson, astonished; he gave an angry thrust
at the black ribbon of his glasses that brought them tumbling