Elsie knew a little Spanish too,
which she had learned from the young person who had taught her dancing,
and Dick enlarged her vocabulary with a few soft phrases, and would sing
her a song sometimes, touching the air upon an ancient-looking guitar
they had found with the ghostly things in the garret,--a quaint old
instrument, marked E. M. on the back, and supposed to have belonged to a
certain Elizabeth Mascarene, before mentioned in connection with a work
of art,--a fair, dowerless lady, who smiled and sung and faded away,
unwedded, a hundred years ago, as dowerless ladies, not a few, are
smiling and singing and fading now,--God grant each of them His
love,--and one human heart as its interpreter!
As for school, Elsie went or stayed away as she liked. Sometimes, when
they thought she was at her desk in the great schoolroom, she would be on
The Mountain,--alone always. Dick wanted to go with her, but she would
never let him. Once, when she had followed the zigzag path a little way
up, she looked back and caught a glimpse of him following her.
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