The Girl from Montana - Page 105/133

She had one great longing, however, that he, her friend, who had in a way

been the first to help her toward higher things, and to save her from the

wilderness, might know Jesus Christ as he had not known Him when they were

together. And so in her daily prayer she often talked with her heavenly

Father about him, until she came to have an abiding faith that some day,

somehow, he would learn the truth about his Christ.

During the third season of Elizabeth's life in Philadelphia her

grandmother decided that it was high time to bring out this bud of

promise, who was by this time developing into a more beautiful girl than

even her fondest hopes had pictured.

So Elizabeth "came out," and Grandmother Brady read her doings and sayings

in the society columns with her morning coffee and an air of deep

satisfaction. Aunt Nan listened with her nose in the air. She could never

understand why Elizabeth should have privileges beyond her Lizzie. It was

the Bailey in her, of course, and mother ought not to think well of it.

But Grandmother Brady felt that, while Elizabeth's success was doubtless

due in large part to the Bailey in her, still, she was a Brady, and the

Brady had not hindered her. It was a step upward for the Bradys.

Lizzie listened, and with pride retailed at the ten-cent store the doings

of "my cousin, Elizabeth Bailey," and the other girls listened with awe.

And so it came on to be the springtime of the third year that Elizabeth

had spent in Philadelphia.