"
Adelaide met them at the door. "Just in time," she said, "for there is the
dressing-bell. Your own old room, Elsie dear: you know the way and will
find Aunt Chloe in waiting. Horace, you will make yourself at home of
course."
It was strictly a family party, sociable and informal. Elsie had not met
Arthur since their return, and at the first moment scarcely recognized him
in the moustached and bewhiskered young man who rose and came forward,
with a slight limp, to meet her as she entered the drawing-room.
"How do you do?" he said, holding out his right hand, while steadying
himself with a cane held in the left. "I hope you're glad to get back to
America?"
"Arthur, is it? Yes; thank you: and I'm very glad your injuries have
proved less serious than was at first feared," she said, kindly meeting
his advances half-way.
"Oh yes," he replied, with attempted nonchalance, "I shall be all right by
and by."
Then retreating to the seat from which he had just risen, the corner of a
sofa by the side of his sister Adelaide, his eye following Elsie as she
crossed the room to pay her respects to her grandfather and others. "What
on earth you call that girl little for, I can't imagine," he remarked in
an undertone; "why she's quite above the average height; graceful as a
young fawn, too; splendid figure, and actually the most beautiful face I
ever saw.
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