Front matter (continued 6)

Mr. Leighton began to talk of Adelaide Maud of all people. She was there, with her sisters. They had at last dropped the armour of etiquette which had prevented more than one from ever appearing at the Leightons.

"I don't suppose any of you really know what that girl has come through," said Mr. Leighton. "All these years it has gone on. A constant criticism, you know. Mrs. Dudgeon found out long ago about Cuthbert, and what Cuthbert calls 'roasted' her continually. Adelaide Maud remained the fine magnificently true girl she is to-day. That is a difficult matter when one's own family openly despises the people one has set one's heart on. She never gave a sign of giving in either way--did she?"

"Not a sign," said Elma. "Adelaide Maud is a delicious brick, she always has been. The Story Books have come true at last."

"It does not sound like being in battle," said Mr. Leighton, in a pertinacious way. "But a battle of that sort is far more real than many of the fights we back up in a public manner. One relieves the poor, and you girls give concerts for hospitals, but who can give a concert to relieve the like of the trouble that Adelaide Maud has gone through? She never wavered."

Elma thought of another fight--should she tell her father?

"We talk about Ridgetown being a slow place, but what a drama can be lived through here!" went on Mr. Leighton. "Isobel, for instance, thinks there's nothing in life unless one attends fifty balls a month. Yet she lived her little drama in Ridgetown. And she has learned to be civil to Miss Meredith. There's another fight for you. It cost her several pangs, let me tell you."

("What did it all lead to?" thought Elma.)

"Oh, there were other fights too, papa, but one I think is over. Have you seen Mabel's face to-night?"

Mr. Leighton started.

Elma required some sort of confidant, "or I shall explode or something," she explained. She told her father about Mr. Symington.

"And I've been worrying so because it seemed so sad about Mabel. And she never gave it away, did she? And when you all thought so much of Isobel when she first came, and Mabel was getting dropped all round, she never said a word, did she?"

"No," said Mr. Leighton, with a long-drawn impatient sort of relief in his voice. "No, but you did. You talked so much about the man all through your illness that your mother thought you were in love with him yourself. Ridiculous nonsense," he said testily. "And here have I been trying to brace you up to hearing that Mabel is engaged to him, and the scoundrel wishes to marry her at once."

Dr. Merryweather, who had said that Elma was not to be excited, ought to have been on the spot just then. She sat on her father's knee and hugged him.

"Oh, papa, papa, how glorious," said she. "Never mind, I shall always stay with you, I shall, I shall."

"Oh, will you?" said Mr. Leighton dismally. "Mabel said the same thing not so long ago."

Mrs. Leighton and Aunt Katharine came on the balcony, and behind them, Mabel and Mr. Symington.

"Isn't this a midsummer's night's dream?" sighed Elma, after the congratulations were over. "I shall get up in the morning ever afterwards, and I shall say, 'Now here there dawneth another blue day'--even although it's as black as midnight."

"Well, now that we're rid of Mabel," said Aunt Katharine placidly, "when will your turn come along?"

"Oh, Elma is going to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton.

"H'm. Well, she always admired Miss Grace," said Aunt Katharine. "There's nothing like being an old maid from the beginning."

Elma stirred herself gently, and laughed in the moonlight.

"Miss Grace is to be married to Dr. Merryweather," she said with a smile. It was her piece of news, reserved till now for a proper audience.

Miss Grace had told her anxiously in the course of the afternoon. "Oh," Elma had said, "how nice! Dr. Merryweather is such a duck!"

"Do you think so?" had asked Miss Grace seriously. "Miss Annie used to think he was a little loud in his manners."

Miss Grace would ever be loyal to Miss Annie. Adelaide Maud came out just then with Cuthbert. "How much finer to have been loyal to the like of Cuthbert!" Elma could not help the thought. Ah, well, there were fights and fights, and no doubt Miss Grace had won on her particular battlefield.

A new dance commenced indoors, and some came searching for partners.

"Mr. Leighton," said the voice of George Maclean, "won't you spare Elma for this dance?"

They turned round to look at him.

"Elma wants to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton gravely, putting his arms round her.

"Hph!" said Aunt Katharine in an undertone. "It's another Miss Grace, sure enough."

"Why don't you go and dance?" asked Adelaide Maud of Elma.

There were her two ideals, Miss Grace and Adelaide Maud, crossing swords as it were with one another. And there was George Maclean waiting at the window of the drawing-room. A Strauss waltz struck up inside, one which she loved. Ah, well, there were several kinds of fights in the world. She felt in some inscrutable way that it was "weak" to stay with her father.

She went in with George Maclean.

Mr. Leighton pulled up a chair for his wife, as the others, including even Aunt Katharine, faded from the balcony.

"I take this as an omen, they are all leaving us," he said in a sad manner.

Mrs. Leighton sighed gently. "We did the same ourselves, didn't we, John?"

And with a Strauss waltz hammering out its joyous commanding rhythm, a son and daughter engaged, and Elma just deserted, Mr. Leighton replied very dismally indeed, "I suppose so."

"Hush," said Mrs. Leighton. "Who knows? This may be another."

It was Jean with a University acquaintance of Cuthbert's.

He placed her carefully in a chair and bent in a lounging manner over her.

"You see," said Jean in a high intense voice, "it's the method that does it."

"Ha," said Mr. Leighton joyously. "Herr Slavska may yet save me a daughter."

Butler and Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

* * * * * * * *

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Nina's Career Uncle Hilary's Nieces The Five Macleods

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