Page:A Girl of the Limberlost.djvu/370

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A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST

before her. I just smiled at her sweetly and said, 'How reasonable you are!' Come to think of it, she was! She might have charged me ten dollars for what she did just as well as nine seventy-five. I couldn't have helped myself. I had made no bargain to begin on."

Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a gust of hearty laughter, and a little of the ache ceased in her breast. There was no time to think, the remainder of that evening, she was so tired she had to sleep, and her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time to dress, breakfast and get to school. There was nothing in the new life to remind her of the old, while it seemed as if there never came a minute for retrospection, but her mother appeared on the scene with more work, or some entertaining thing to do.

Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora's friends to visit her, and proved herself a bright and interesting hostess. She digested a subject before she spoke; and when she advanced a view, her point was sure to be original and tersely expressed. Before three months people waited to hear what she had to say. She kept her appearance so in mind that she made a handsome and a distinguished figure.

Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did Mrs. Comstock. Early in December came a note and a big box from him. It contained several books on nature subjects which would be a great help in school work, a number of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a pair of glass-covered plaster casts for each large moth she had. In these the upper and under wings of male