"You being you," said the girl, and she spoke as simply and soberly as Bruce himself, though her own warmth surprised her, "I see you can't go. But was that all you meant"--her voice grew ludicrously disappointed--"by a person's having a choice only of how he will do a thing? There's nothing to that but making the best of things!"
Bruce Fearing threw back his head and laughed heartily.
"You're the funniest girl I've ever seen."
"Then you can't have seen many. But _is_ there?"
"Yes," she nodded, "I'm afraid it is. And frightfully old. I was hoping you were going to tell me something new and exciting."
The boy chuckled again. "Nothing so good as that. Besides, I've a hunch the exciting things aren't very new, after all."
Elliott went to sleep that night, if not any happier, at least more interested. She had looked deep into the heart of a boy, different, it appeared, from any boy that she had ever known; and something loyal and sturdy and tender she had seen there had stirred her. It was odd how well acquainted she felt with him; odd, too, how curious she was to know him better, even though he hadn't the least idea who his grandfather had been. "Bother his grandfather!" Elliott chuckled to realize how such a sentiment would horrify Aunt Margaret. Grandfathers were very important to Aunt Margaret and Aunt Margaret's children. Grandfathers had always seemed fairly important to Elliott herself until now. Was it their relative unimportance in the Robert Camerons' estimation, or a pair of steady gray eyes, that had altered her valuation? The girl didn't know and she was keen enough to know that she didn't; keen enough, too, to perceive that the change in her estimation of grandfathers applied to a single case only and might be merely temporary.
However that might be, she was not ready yet to do anything so inherently distasteful as make the best of what she didn't like, especially when nobody but herself and two boys would know it. When one makes the best of things, one likes to do it to crowded galleries, that perceive what is going on and applaud. The Robert Camerons, Elliott was quite sure, wouldn't applaud. They would take it as a matter of course, just as they took her as a matter of course. They were quite charming about it, as delightful hosts as one could wish--if only they lived differently!--but Elliott wasn't used to being taken for granted. She might have been these new cousins' own sort, for any difference she could detect in their actions. They didn't seem to begin to understand her importance. Perhaps she wasn't so important, after all. The doubt had never before entered her mind.