It was a great gratification to Adelaide's pride in her niece to learn that more than one coronet had been laid at her feet; yet she was not sorry to hear that they had been rejected with the gentle firmness which she knew Elsie was capable of exercising.
"But what more could the bairn or her father desire? would he keep the sweet lassie single a' her days, Miss Dinsmore?" asked Mrs. Murray when Adelaide told her this.
"No," was the smiling rejoinder; "I know he would be very loath to resign her; but this is Elsie's own doing. She says the man for whom she would be willing to give up her native land must be very dear indeed, that her hand shall never be given without her heart, and that it still belongs more to her father than to any one else."
"Ah, that is well, Miss Adelaide. I hae been sorely troubled aboot my sweet bairn. I never breathed the thoct to ither mortal ear, but when they cam hame frae that summer in the North, she was na the blythe young thing she had been; and there was that in the wistfu' and hungered look o' her sweet een--when she turned them whiles upon her father--that made me think some ane he didna approve had won the innocent young heart."
"Ah, well, Mrs. Murray, whatever may have been amiss then, is all over now. My sister writes me that Elsie seems very happy, and as devotedly attached to her father as ever, insisting that no one ever can be so dear to her as he."
Mrs. Dinsmore's last letter was dated Naples, and there they still lingered.
One bright spring day they were out sight-seeing, and had wandered into a picture-gallery which they had visited once or twice before. Rose had her husband's arm. Elsie held her little brother's hand in hers.
"Sister," said the child, "look at those ladies and gentlemen. They are English, aren't they?"
"Yes; I think so," Elsie answered, following the direction of his glance; "a party of English tourists. No, one of the gentlemen looks like an American."
"That one nearest this way? I can only see his side face, but I think he is the handsomest. Don't you?"
"Yes; and he has a fine form too, an easy, graceful carriage, and polished manners," she added, as at that moment he stooped to pick up a handkerchief, dropped by one of the ladies of his party, and presented it to its owner.