Elsie Marley, Honey | Page 6

journey. But
she established herself in the middle of the seat lest she seem to give
any invitation.
CHAPTER III
Elsie Marley was not interrupted, as it happened. Some little time
passed and still she was alone. The girl could not understand a certain
unrest that was upon her. She waited a few moments longer, then she
moved close to the window so as to leave more than half the seat
vacant. Still nothing happened.
At length she turned and looked back. Elsie Moss, who sat between an
old lady and a little boy, smiled and nodded. Elsie Marley half smiled.
Still the other made no move. Then she looked back, really smiled, and

beckoned her to a place beside her.
Elsie Moss, more than willing to be summoned, had some difficulty in
getting away from her present companions. But the grandmother
prevailed upon the little boy to spare her, and she presented herself at
Elsie Marley's seat smiling in her irresistible way with the big dimples
indented, and looking as if she would like to hug her as she had hugged
the little girl outside. And Elsie Marley had a curious intimation that
she shouldn't have minded greatly.
"What do you think," exclaimed Miss Moss as she seated herself, "you
know all my family history and I don't even know your name. I've been
guessing. It ought to be either Isabel or Hildegarde. Is it? Oh, I do wish
it were, they're both so sort of stately and princess-like that they'd just
suit you."
"It isn't either," responded the other with a curious sense of
disappointment. "My name is Elsie also."
"Of all things! But it's rather jolly, after all. And what's the rest?"
"Marley, Elsie Pritchard Marley. But at home they called me Elsie
Pritchard, because I am--all Pritchard."
Unacquainted with the Pritchard distinction, Elsie Moss was not
impressed. But she exclaimed gleefully over the real surname.
"Elsie Marley!" she cried. "Why, isn't that funny, and oh, isn't it dear!
Elsie Marley, honey!"
The other girl looked blank.
"Of course you know the song, or at least the rhyme?"
"Song? Rhyme?"
"Why, yes. You must have heard it: 'And Do You Ken Elsie Marley,
Honey?'"

"Is it really and truly Elsie Marley?" queried the pale Elsie speaking for
the first time like a real girl, though she had no girlish vocabulary from
which to draw.
"Sure," asserted the other, delighted to be able to surprise her seatmate.
And she sang a stanza in the sweetest voice Elsie Marley had ever
heard, though she had heard good music all her life, and famous
singers.
"Do you ken Elsie Marley, honey? The wife who sells the barley,
honey? She won't get up to serve her swine, And do you ken Elsie
Marley, honey?"
"Is there--any more?" demanded Elsie Marley almost eagerly.
"One more, and then you just repeat the first. I've known it all my life.
Mother used to sing it to me when I was a baby. Then a few years ago
when I first went to see vaudeville, I 'got it up,' as they say, with
dancing and a little acting. I used to spring it on people that came to the
house. Dad liked it, but it made my stepmother feel bad--dad said
because I was too professional."
She sighed deeply.
"Sing the rest, please, Elsie?" asked the other, using her name for the
first time.
"I will if you'll let me call you Elsie-Honey? You see it really belongs."
Elsie knew that it was silly, but she found herself quite willing. She
seemed under a strange spell.
"Only," she added, with a stronger sensation of discomfort, "after
to-morrow it isn't likely we'll ever see one another again."
"Oh, yes we will, sure. Why, we just must--at least if you want to half
as much as I do, Elsie-Honey?"
"I do," Elsie confessed shyly and now with a curiously pleasant feeling.

"And now, Elsie, please sing the other stanzas."
"It sounds just dear to say stanzas," cried the other. "I should always
say verses, even if I didn't forget which was which."
With an absurd little flourish of her hands, she turned slightly in her
seat. The dimples came out strongly, and though she sat quite still,
there was truly something dramatic in the manner in which the
would-be actress sang the lines.
"Elsie Marley is grown so fine She won't get up to feed the swine, But
lies in bed till eight or nine, And surely she does take her time.
Do you ken Elsie Marley, honey? The wife who sells the barley, honey?
She won't get up to serve her swine, And do you ken Elsie Marley,
honey?"
Both girls broke into natural, infectious laughter. Mr. and Mrs. Bliss, or
any one who had known Elsie Marley, could