But George good-
naturedly tried to make the conversation general, so as to give
them time to recover themselves.
Elsie soon ventured to steal shy looks at Mr. Stanhope, and with
her usual quickness discovered that he was more in terror of her
than she of him, and she exulted in the fact.
"I'll punish him well, if I get a chance," she thought with a
certain phase of the feminine sense of justice. But the sadness of
his face quite disarmed her when her mother, in well-meant
kindness, asked:
"Where is your home located, Mr. Stanhope?"
"In the seminary," he answered in rather a low tone.
"You don't mean to say that you have no better one than a forlorn
cell in Dogma Hall?" exclaimed George, earnestly.
Mr. Stanhope crimsoned, and then grew pale, but tried to say
lightly, "An orphan of my size and years is not a very moving
object of sympathy; but one might well find it difficult not to
break the Tenth Commandment while seeing how you are surrounded."
Elsie was vexed at her disposition to relent toward him; she so
hardened her face, however, that James rallied her:
"Why, Puss, what is the matter? Yours is the most unpromising
Thanksgiving phiz I have seen today.
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