Elsie Marley, Honey | Page 3

and they say it'll be an hour more before we get away. It might seem
good to stretch our legs on the prairie yonder?"
Elsie Marley didn't care at all to go. Indeed, she didn't wish to make the
acquaintance of this conspicuous-looking girl with her dark hair cut
square about her ears who had travelled alone all the way from San
Francisco and seemed to know every one in the car. If she should give
her any encouragement, no doubt she would hang about her all the rest
of the way. She excused herself coldly.
"Oh, please do, please come for just a wee turn," urged the other,
smiling and displaying a pair of marvellous dimples. And Elsie Marley
surprised herself by yielding. Possibly she was too indolent to hold out;
perhaps she felt something in the stranger that wouldn't take no for an

answer, and didn't care to struggle against it. Again, she may have felt,
dimly and against her will, something of the real charm of the other.
However that was, she yielded listlessly, put on her neat sailor hat
reluctantly, drew on the jacket of her severe and elegant dark-blue suit,
and followed the stranger slowly from the car.
CHAPTER II
The stranger, who was dressed in a rather graceful and perhaps rather
flamboyant adaptation of the prevailing fashion, was picturesque and
radiant to the extreme: slender, dark, vivid, with big, dark eyes in a
small pointed face, dark hair "bobbed" and curling sufficiently to turn
under about her ears and neck, a rather large mouth flanked by really
extraordinary dimples, and an expression at once gay and saucy and
sweet and appealing withal. Her voice was very sweet, her unusually
finished pronunciation and enunciation giving a curious effect to her
slangy speech. She wore her clothes jauntily, carried herself with
charming grace, and her great dimples made her frank smile irresistible.
"Do you know, I've been simply crazy all the way to come and speak to
you," she confessed as soon as they were outside. "I spotted you the
very first thing, but I was rather phased by that woman with you.
Wasn't she the--goodness gracious! I hope she wasn't any relation--your
aunt or mother?"
"Oh, no indeed, scarcely an acquaintance," returned the other, surprised
that any one should even conjecture that Mrs. Bennet might be
connected with her. Then it occurred to her that Cousin Julia might be
even worse!
"I never met her until a week ago," she went on languidly. "She
happened to be a friend of my lawyer's wife, and he wished me to come
as far as I could in her company. I suppose I oughtn't to travel the rest
of the way alone, but he didn't make any other arrangement."
"Oh, it isn't bad. I've come all the way alone and everything's been jolly.
I've made awfully good friends, though they're all either elderly or
children. So your being about my age only made me want to know you

the more. Well, now that we're acquainted, we'll have to make the most
of what's left of the way. I am Elsie Moss and I was sixteen Christmas
day. Aren't you about that age?"
"I am sixteen, Miss Moss," returned Elsie Marley formally.
"But don't call me Miss," pleaded the other. "Everybody calls me
Elsie."
Elsie Marley did not reply. She disliked the idea that the unchaperoned
stranger should be Elsie, also, and should even have the same initials.
Her imagination was limited; still it occurred to her that the situation
would have been much worse had the girl happened to bear the
surname Pritchard.
She stifled a sigh. They seemed to be getting acquainted perforce. Now
that she was out, however, she didn't care to go back at once, even
though the sun beat down upon them fiercely, and the dry grass was
full of dust and cinders. She glanced about irresolutely.
"Now if this were a scene in a play," remarked Elsie Moss reflectively,
"the engine would have broken down near a grove with immemorial
trees, or there'd be a dell hard by where the hero and heroine could
wander by a stream. Or else--" she hesitated. "You don't feel comfy, do
you?"
"The sun is so hot, it's hardly safe to be out. I'd better go in again,"
replied the other.
"But the car'll be awfully hot, too, standing right in the sun. I know--I'll
get an umbrella."
She rushed off at full speed lest the other should
remonstrate--something that Elsie Marley didn't think of doing. She
accepted the favor as a matter of course, and they walked on slowly, the
one restraining her eager feet with difficulty.
"Oh, dear, I suppose you're going to New York, too?" she asked.

"Everybody seems to be except poor me."
The other returned