Chapter XIII

Bear fair presence, though your heart be tainted; Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint. --SHAKESPEARE'S "COMEDY OF ERRORS."

"It's a very handsome present, child, very; and your old auntie will be reminded of you every time she uses it, or looks at it."

"Both beautiful and useful, like the giver," remarked Lottie.

"It" was a sewing-machine, Elsie's gift to Aunt Wealthy, forwarded from Cincinnati, by Mr. Dinsmore; the handsomest and the best to be found in the city; so Elsie had requested that it should be, and so he had written that it was.

"I am glad you like it, auntie, and you too, Lottie," was all she said in response to their praises, but her eyes sparkled with pleasure at the old lady's evident delight.

"It" had arrived half an hour before, on this the second morning after Mr. Dinsmore's departure, and now stood in front of one of the windows of Aunt Wealthy's bedroom--a delightfully shady, airy apartment on the ground floor, back of the parlor, and with window and door opening out upon a part of the lawn where the trees were thickest and a tiny fountain sent up its showers of spray.

Miss Stanhope stood at a table, cutting out shirts. Lottie was experimenting on the machine with a bit of muslin, and Elsie sat near by with her father's letter in her hand, her soft dark eyes now glancing over it for perhaps the twentieth time, now at the face of one or the other of her companions, as Lottie rattled on in her usual gay, flighty style, and Aunt Wealthy answered her sometimes with a straightforward sentence, and again with one so topsy-turvy that her listeners could not forbear a smile.

"For whom are you making shirts, aunt?" asked Elsie.

"For my boy Harry. He writes that his last set are going wonderfully fast; so I must send up another to make."

"You must let us help you, Lottie and I; we have agreed that it will be good fun for us."

"Thank you, dearie, but I didn't suppose plain sewing was among your accomplishments."

"Mamma says I am quite a good needle-woman," Elsie replied with a smile and a blush, "and if I am not it is no fault of hers. She took great pains to teach me. I cut out a shirt for papa once, and made every stitch of it myself."

"And she can run the machine too," said Lottie, "though her papa won't let her do so for more than half an hour at a time, lest she should hurt herself."

"He's very careful of her, and no wonder," Aunt Wealthy responded, with a loving look at the sweet, fair face. "You may help me a little, now and then, children, when it just suits your humor, but I want you to have all the rides and walks, the reading and recreation of every sort that you can enjoy."

"Here comes Lenwilla Ellawea