"Yes, it belonged to your great-grandmother, Horace, and I prize it highly on that account. No, Aunt Chloe, I shall wipe it out and put the peaches into it myself; it will take but a moment, and it's too precious a relic to trust to any other hands than my own."
Lottie was apparently in the gayest spirits, enlivening the little party with many a merry jest and light, silvery laugh, enjoying the good things before her, and gratifying her hostess with praises of their excellence. Yet through it all she was furtively watching her friends, and grieved to notice the unwonted paleness of her cheek, the traces of tears about her eyes, that her cheerfulness was assumed, and that if she ate anything it was only from a desire to please her father, who seemed never to forget her for a moment, and to be a good deal troubled at her want of appetite. In all these signs Lottie read disappointment of Egerton's hopes, and of Elsie's, so far as he was concerned.
"So I suppose her father has commanded her to give him up," she said to herself. "Poor thing! I wonder if she means to be as submissive as she thought she would."
The two presently slipped away together into the garden, leaving the gentlemen conversing in the sitting-room, and Miss Stanhope busied with some household care.
"You poor dear, I am so sorry for you!" whispered Lottie, putting her arm about her friend. "Must you really quite give him up?"
"Papa says so," murmured Elsie, vainly struggling to restrain her tears.
"Is it that he believes Mr. Travilla was not mistaken?"
"Yes, and--and he has heard some other things against him, and thinks his explanation of Mr. Travilla's mistake quite absurd. Oh, Lottie, he will not even allow us one parting interview and says I am never to see Mr. Egerton again, or hold any communication with him in any way. If I should meet him in the street I am not to recognize him; must pass him by as a perfect stranger, not looking at him or permitting him to see my face, if I can avoid doing so."
"And will you really submit to all that? I don't believe I could be so good."
"But don't you feel that it's very hard? doesn't it make you feel angry with your father and love him a little less?"
"I was angry for a little while this afternoon," Elsie acknowledged with a blush, "but I am sure I have no right to be; I know papa is acting for my good,--doing just what he believes will be most likely to secure my happiness. He says it is to save me from a life of misery, and certainly it would be that to be united to such a man as he believes Mr. Egerton is."