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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10433 ***
+
+A FLOCK
+
+of
+
+GIRLS AND BOYS.
+
+by NORA PERRY,
+
+Author Of "Hope Benham," "Lyrics And Legends,"
+"A Rosebud Garden Of Girls," Etc.
+
+
+Illustrated by
+CHARLOTTE TIFFANY PARKER.
+
+1895.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: That little Smith girl]
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
+
+THE EGG BOY
+
+MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE
+
+POLLY'S VALENTINE
+
+SIBYL'S SLIPPER
+
+A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN
+
+ESTHER BODN
+
+BECKY
+
+ALLY
+
+AN APRIL FOOL
+
+THE THANKSGIVING GUEST
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
+
+"MISS PELHAM! MISS MARGARET PELHAM!"
+
+WALLULA CLAPPED HER HANDS WITH DELIGHT
+
+A VERY PRETTY PAIR
+
+SIBYL'S REFLECTIONS
+
+A TALL, HANDSOME WOMAN SMILED A GREETING
+
+SHE WAS ADDRESSING MONSIEUR BAUDOUIN
+
+THE PRETTY LITTLE BASKET OF GREEN AND WHITE PAPER
+
+AS THE FRESH ARRIVALS APPEARED
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"The Pelhams are coming next month."
+
+"Who are the Pelhams?"
+
+Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as
+she exclaimed:
+
+"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the Pelhams
+are?"
+
+Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up _her_ nose as she replied,--
+
+"I do mean to say just that."
+
+"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.
+
+"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.
+
+"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson,
+with a laugh.
+
+"But the Pelhams,--I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at
+least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a
+doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further
+irritated, cried impulsively,--
+
+"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done, pray
+tell, that everybody should know of them?"
+
+"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They
+are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one of
+the oldest families of Boston."
+
+"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until
+it bumped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat
+Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,--
+
+"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"
+
+Then another girl giggled,--it was another of the Robsons,--Dora's
+Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,--
+
+"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her
+'Crack Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."
+
+"You'd better call her L.H.,--'Level Head,'" a voice--a boy's
+voice--called out here.
+
+The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.
+"Who--what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie, by
+hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our
+secrets?"
+
+"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or
+more when you girls came to this end of the piazza."
+
+"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I
+didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let
+me see it."
+
+"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+Will held up the book.
+
+"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"
+
+"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of
+boy's sports," returned Will.
+
+"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her
+head.
+
+"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.
+
+"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.
+
+"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."
+
+Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and
+prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."
+
+"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.
+
+"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the
+hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read
+it twice."
+
+Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he ejaculated in
+pleased astonishment,--
+
+"Come, I say now!"
+
+"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever
+read,--that part about the boat-race I've read over three or four
+times."
+
+"Well, your head _is_ level," cried Will, sitting up still straighter
+in the hammock, and regarding Tilly with a look of respect.
+
+"Because I don't care anything for Boston's grand folks and do care for
+'Jack Hall'?" laughed Tilly.
+
+"Yes, that's about it," responded Will, with a little grin. "I'm so sick
+and tired," he went on, "hearing about 'swells' and money. The best
+fellow I know at school is quite poor; and one of the worst of the lot
+is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."
+
+"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly
+well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.
+
+"I don't!" growled Will.
+
+"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to
+that."
+
+"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.
+
+"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name--"
+
+"I do think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I
+want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of
+'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There
+wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have
+cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and
+sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that
+showed his approval of this trait in his ancestors.
+
+Dora looked at him curiously; then with a faint smile she said,--
+
+"Your cousin Frances is so proud of those old Wentworths. She's often
+told me how grandly they lived, and she's so pleased that her name
+Frances is the name of one of the prettiest of the Governor's wives."
+
+"Yes; and one of the prettiest, and I dare say one of the best of 'em,
+was a servant-girl in Governor Benning Wentworth's kitchen, and he
+married her out of it. Did Fan ever tell you that?" and Will chuckled.
+
+Amy Robson stared at Will with amazement as she exclaimed,--
+
+"Well, I never saw such a queer boy as you are,--to run your own family
+down."
+
+"I'm not running 'em down. 'Tisn't running 'em down to say that one of
+'em married Martha Hilton. Martha Hilton was a nice girl, though she was
+poor and had to work in a kitchen. Plenty of nice girls--farmers'
+daughters--worked in that way in those old times; the New England
+histories tell you that."
+
+Not one of the girls made any comment or criticism upon this statement,
+for Will Wentworth was known to be well up in history; but after a
+moment or two of silence, Dora burst forth in this wise,--
+
+"You may talk as you like. Will Wentworth, but you know perfectly well
+that you don't think a servant-girl is as good as you are."
+
+"If you mean that I don't think she is of the same class, of course I
+don't. She may be a great deal better than I am in other ways, for all
+that. In those old days, though, the servant-girls weren't the kind we
+have now; they were Americans,--farmers' daughters,--most of 'em."
+
+"Oh, well, you may talk and talk in this grand way, Willie Wentworth;
+but you know where you belong, and when the Pelhams come, Tilly'll see
+for herself that you are one of the same sort."
+
+"As the Pelhams?"
+
+"Well, what have you got to say about the Pelhams in that scornful way?"
+asked Amy, rather indignantly.
+
+"I'm not scornful. I was only going to set you right, and say that the
+Pelhams are fashionable folks and the Wentworths are not."
+
+"Oh, I'd like to have your cousin Fanny hear you say that. Fanny thinks
+the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."
+
+"They are."
+
+"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said--"
+
+"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths
+were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the
+Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that
+way,--in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of
+people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,--they
+don't like it."
+
+"Your cousin Fanny says--"
+
+"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she
+were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em
+when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so
+nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,--what you call
+'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."
+
+"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with
+sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.
+
+"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little
+wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we
+shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly
+dear,"--the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,--"you can't,
+for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,--how incapable
+of such meanness!"
+
+"I wouldn't trust this high-mindedness," retorted Tilly, wrinkling up
+her forehead.
+
+"Now, Tilly, you don't mean that,--you don't mean that you've come all
+the way from naughty New York to find such dreadful faults in nice,
+primmy New England. The very dogs here are above such things. Look at
+Punch there making friends with that little plebeian yellow dog."
+
+"And look at Dandy barking at everybody who isn't well dressed," laughed
+Tilly, pointing to a handsome collie, who was vigorously giving voice to
+his displeasure at the approach of a workman in shabby clothing.
+
+The Robson girls and Will Wentworth joined in Tilly's laugh; but Agnes
+Brendon, who could never see a joke, looked disgusted, and glancing at
+the little yellow dog, asked petulantly,--
+
+"Whose dog is it?"
+
+"It belongs to the girl who sits at the corner table," answered Will
+Wentworth, "and its name is Pete. I heard the girl call him this
+morning."
+
+"What a horrid, vulgar name!" exclaimed Agnes. "It suits the dog,
+though; and the people, I suppose, are--"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, look at that horrid worm on your dress!"
+
+Agnes jumped up in a panic, screaming, "Where, where?"
+
+Dora, bending down to brush off the smallest of small caterpillars,
+whispered,--
+
+"The girl who owns the yellow dog is in the other hammock. I just saw
+her, and she can hear every word you say."
+
+"I don't care if she does hear," said Agnes, without troubling herself
+to lower her voice. "You needn't have frightened me with your horrid
+worm story, just for that."
+
+Will Wentworth, as he heard this, fell backward into his reclining
+position, with an explosive laugh. The next minute he sprang out of the
+hammock, and, tucking "Jack Hall" under his arm, was up and off, giving
+a sidelong look as he went at the other hammock, which, though only a
+few rods away, was half hidden by the foliage of the two low-growing
+trees between which it hung. Meeting Tilly and the Robson girls as he
+ran around the corner of the house, he said breathlessly,--
+
+"Look here; that girl must have heard everything that we've said."
+
+"Well, there wasn't anything said that concerned her, until Agnes began
+about the yellow dog; and I stopped that," said Dora, gleefully.
+
+"She may be acquainted with the Pelhams,--how do we know?" exclaimed
+Will, ruefully.
+
+"The Pelhams!" cried Dora and Amy, in one breath.
+
+"Yes, how do we know?" repeated Will.
+
+"That girl who sits over at the corner table with that stuffy old woman,
+acquainted with the Pelhams! Oh, Will, if Agnes could hear you!" cried
+Dora, with a shout of laughter.
+
+"Well, I can't see what there is to laugh at," broke in Will, huffily.
+"Why shouldn't she and the stuffy old woman, as you call her, know the
+Pelhams? She's a nice-looking girl, a first-rate looking girl. What's
+the matter with her?"
+
+"Matter? I don't know that anything is the matter, except that she
+doesn't look like the sort of girl who would be an acquaintance of the
+Pelhams. She doesn't look like their kind, you know. She wears the
+plainest sort of dresses,--just little straight up and down frocks of
+brown or drab, or those white cambric things,--they are more like
+baby-slips than anything; and her hats are just the same,--great flat
+all-round hats, not a bit of style to them; and she's a girl of fourteen
+or fifteen certainly. Do you suppose people of the Pelhams' kind dress
+like that?"
+
+Will gave a gruff little sound half under his breath, as he asked
+sarcastically,--
+
+"How do people of the Pelham kind dress?"
+
+"Oh, like Dora and Amy, and especially like Agnes,--in the height of the
+fashion, you know," Tilly cried laughingly.
+
+"Now, Tilly," expostulated Dora, "neither Amy nor I overdress. We wear
+what all girls of our age--girls who are almost young ladies--wear, and
+I'm sure you wear the same kind of things."
+
+"Not quite, Dora. I'll own, though, I would if I could; but there's such
+a lot of us at home that the money gives out before it goes all 'round,"
+said Tilly, frankly, yet rather ruefully.
+
+"I'm sure you look very nice," said Dora, politely. Amy echoed the
+polite remark, while Will, eying the three with an attempt at a critical
+estimate, thought to himself, "They don't look a bit nicer than that
+girl at the corner table."
+
+But Will was too wise to give utterance to this thought. He knew how it
+would be received; he knew that the three would laugh at him and say,
+"What does a boy know about girl's clothes?"
+
+In the mean time, while all this was going on, what was that girl who
+had suggested the talk, that girl who sat at the corner table in the
+dining room and who was now lying in a hammock,--what was she doing,
+what was she thinking?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+She was lying looking up through the green branches of the trees. She
+had been reading, but her book was now closed, and she was lying quietly
+looking up at the blue sky between the branches. Her thoughts were not
+quite so quiet as her position would seem to indicate. She had, as Will
+Wentworth had said, heard all that talk about the Pelhams. Whatever her
+class in life, she was certainly a delicate and honorable young girl;
+for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party
+of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood,
+she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various
+little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and
+readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these
+demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared
+whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably
+back again into her place, and opened her book.
+
+But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age,
+and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said,
+she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she
+found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would
+dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her
+lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little
+yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she
+quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's
+little device to make it unfinished.
+
+It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of
+her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this
+knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed
+down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of
+laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.
+
+All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way
+across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she
+jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran
+into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person
+she was going in search of,--the person that Dora Robson had called
+"that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow
+dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone
+like satin.
+
+"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his
+young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.
+
+"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"
+cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.
+
+"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.
+
+"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to
+tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.
+Let's go in here, where we shall be all by ourselves," turning towards a
+small unoccupied reception-room.
+
+There, cosily ensconced beside her aunt, with the little yellow dog at
+her feet, the dog's mistress told her story, with various exclamations
+and interjections of, "Now wasn't it horrid of them?" and "Did you ever
+know anything so ridiculous?" while auntie listened with great
+interest, her only comment at the end being,--
+
+"Well, they're not worth minding, Peggy, and I wouldn't act as if I'd
+heard what they said when you meet them. I wouldn't take any notice of
+them."
+
+"I? Why, it's they who won't take any notice of me, auntie. I'm like my
+little dog,--a vulgar plebeian. What would they say, what would they
+think, if they could hear you call me Peggy?--that's as bad as Pete,
+isn't it?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is;" and auntie laughed a little as she spoke.
+
+The great summer hotel was not nearly full yet, for it was only the last
+of June; and as Peggy went down to luncheon, her hand closely clasped in
+"auntie's," whom should she meet face to face in the rather
+deserted-looking hall but "those girls"? It was a little embarrassing
+all round, and they all colored up very rosily as they met.
+
+"I wonder where the boy is?" thought Peggy; "he and that New York girl
+were nice." She glanced over her shoulder at this thought. There was the
+boy; and--yes, he was standing at the office desk, carefully examining
+the hotel register. "He's looking for our names!" flashed into Peggy's
+mind, "and those girls set him up to it. I wonder what they'll say to
+'Mrs. Smith and niece'? I know; they'll say, or the girl they call Agnes
+will say, 'Smith, of course! I knew they had some such common name as
+that.'"
+
+Something very like this comment did take place when Master Will, in
+obedience to Dora Robson's request, brought the information that the
+people at the corner table were Mrs. Smith and her niece. But if Peggy
+could only have heard Will flash out upon this comment the further
+information that very distinguished people had borne the name of
+Smith,--could have heard him quote the famous English clergyman Sydney
+Smith, whose wit and humor were so charming,--if Peggy could have heard
+Will going on in this fashion, she would have thought he was very nice
+indeed, and been quite delighted with his independent outspokenness.
+
+Agnes, however, was anything but delighted. She was, in fact, very angry
+with Will by this time, and what she called his meddlesome, domineering
+airs, and quite determined to let him know at the very first opportunity
+that she was not in the least to be influenced by his opinions.
+
+The opportunity presented itself sooner than she expected. It was just
+after luncheon, and a couple of Indians had come up from their
+neighboring summer camp with a load of baskets for sale.
+
+Dora and Tilly, with Mrs. Brendon and Agnes and Amy, went out to them at
+once. Others soon followed, and a brisk bargaining began. When the
+Indian woman held up a beautiful little basket skilfully woven to
+imitate shells, there was a general exclamation of pleasure, and one
+voice cried out with enthusiasm, "Oh, how lovely!" and the owner of the
+voice reached forth to take the basket in her hand. Agnes Brendon,
+turning quickly, saw that it was Mrs. Smith's niece.
+
+"The idea of that girl pushing herself forward like this!" was Agnes's
+whispered remark to Amy.
+
+"Hush: she'll hear you," whispered back Amy.
+
+"I don't care," answered Agnes, at the same time crowding herself to the
+front and inquiring the price of the basket, with the determination to
+get possession of it before any one else had a chance. But when the
+price--two dollars--was named, Mrs. Brendon pronounced it exorbitant,
+and offered half the sum, never doubting its acceptance. The Indian
+woman, however, shook her head with an air of grim decision; and at that
+very moment, catching sight of Mrs. Smith and her niece, she nodded
+smilingly, repeated the price, and held the basket up again;
+
+"Yes, yes, I'll take it," called out Peggy, nodding and smiling
+responsively; and the next instant the basket was in her hands.
+
+Agnes, not only disappointed, but deeply mortified and angry, turned
+hastily to Dora Robson, and gave vent to her feelings by remarking in a
+perfectly clear undertone,--
+
+"The worst of a place like this is that you meet such common people,
+with nothing to recommend them but their money."
+
+Dora and Amy flushed with annoyance at this speech; but Tilly was so
+disgusted and indignant that she broke away from them all with an
+impatient exclamation, and started off across the lawn towards the
+house. Halfway across she met Will Wentworth, with Tom Raymond,--a great
+chum of his, who had just arrived by the noon boat.
+
+"Hullo, what's up, what's the matter?" asked Will, as he perceived the
+expression of Tilly's face.
+
+Tilly stopped, and in a few graphic words told her story, winding up
+with, "Wasn't it horrid of Agnes?"
+
+"Horrid? It was beastly," sputtered Will. "_She_ to call people common!"
+
+"But that girl is not common," said Tilly. "She may belong to people who
+have just made a lot of money,--for that's what Agnes meant to fling
+out,--but there isn't any vulgar common show of it. Look at her, how
+plainly she's dressed, and how quiet she is."
+
+"Wonder what Agnes is up to now? Let's go and see," said Will, wheeling
+about and nodding to Tilly and Tom to follow.
+
+As they came along together, Will a little ahead, Tom Raymond was quite
+silent until they approached the group collected around the Indians;
+then he suddenly ejaculated, "Well, I never!"
+
+"What? What do you mean?--what--who do you see?" asked Tilly, very much
+surprised at this outbreak.
+
+"Is that the girl--the Smith girl you were telling about--there by the
+tree--holding a basket?" asked Tom.
+
+"Yes; why--do you know her?"
+
+"N-o--but--I was thinking--she doesn't look common, does she?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't, only plainly dressed."
+
+"Yes, that's all;" and Tom gave a little odd chuckling laugh.
+
+"How queer Tom Raymond is!" thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer
+still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl.
+Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom with
+rather a puzzled observation.
+
+"I see how it is," reflected Miss Tilly; "they have met before
+somewhere, and Tom doesn't want to know her now. He thinks she isn't
+fine enough for this Boston set, though he owns that she doesn't look
+common. Oh, I do believe that Will Wentworth is the only one here who
+has any sense or heart."
+
+As Tilly arrived at this conclusion of her reflections, Will came
+running up to her.
+
+"Come," he said, "there's no fun here. Let's go and have a game of
+tennis."
+
+"But where's Agnes? I thought you wanted to see what she was doing."
+
+"She's gone off in a huff because I asked her if she'd bought any
+baskets," answered Will, grinning. Tilly laughed, and Tom Raymond gave
+another odd little chuckle. Then the three strolled away to the tennis
+ground. As they were passing the rustic bench under the tree where Mrs.
+Smith and her niece were sitting, Tilly took a sudden resolution, and,
+stopping abruptly, said,--
+
+"We're going to have a game of tennis; won't you join us, Miss--Miss
+Smith?"
+
+The girl looked up with a smile, hesitated a moment, and then accepted
+the invitation. Will, nodding to Tilly a surprised and pleased approval
+of her action, started off ahead of the others to see if the tennis
+ground was occupied. As he turned the corner, he met Dora Robson with a
+racket in her hand.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "here you are! I was just coming after you, for Amy and
+I have got to go in,--mamma has sent for us, and Agnes was so
+disappointed,--now it's all right, for there's Tilly, and--what
+luck--Tom Raymond; he's such a splendid player, and you can--" But Dora
+stopped, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Who--who was that behind Tilly?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+As Agnes, standing waiting upon the tennis-ground where Dora had left
+her, suddenly caught sight of Tom Raymond, her heart gave a little throb
+of exultation. Tom Raymond was the best tennis-player she knew. To have
+him for her partner would be delightful, and she went forward with the
+most gracious welcome to him. So absorbed was she, so pleased at Tom's
+appearance, at his polite response to her, she did not observe Miss
+Smith,--did not see Tilly draw back, did not hear her say, "No, I don't
+care to play, Miss Smith, I want you to play with Will; this is my
+friend Will Wentworth, Miss Smith," by way of introduction.
+
+No; Agnes saw and heard nothing of all this, or of Will's polite
+arrangements with the newcomer. She saw nothing, she thought of nothing,
+but that her own little arrangement to have Tom for a partner was
+successful; and so, blithely and triumphantly, she took her place and
+lifted her racket. Whizz! she sent the ball flying over the netting,
+and whizz! it came flying back again, to be returned by Tom Raymond's
+vigorous stroke. Agnes regarded this stroke with due admiration.
+"Neither Will nor Tilly can match that," she thought; and at the thought
+she looked over and across the netting, to see a girl's uplifted arm
+swinging easily forward, the racket hitting the ball lightly with a
+swift, sure, upward, and onward motion. Where had Tilly learned to
+strike out like that, all at once? Tilly! The uplifted arm that had
+partially hidden the player's face was lowered. What--what--it was not
+Tilly, but--but--that girl! How did she come there? A glance at Will's
+face drawn up into a most exasperating grin, at Will's eyes darting
+forth gleams of fun, was enough for Agnes.
+
+Yes, this was Will Wentworth's doing,--this hateful plot to humiliate
+her and triumph over her. Stung by this thought, she lost sight for that
+moment of everything else, and the ball sent so surely back to her
+dropped to the ground before her partner could rescue it. An exclamation
+of disappointment from Tom added to her discomfiture; and when Will, the
+next instant, cried, "Wait a minute, till I get another racket, Miss
+Smith has broken hers," Agnes, flinging down her own, exclaimed,--
+
+"Miss Smith can have my racket; I'm not going to play any longer!"
+
+"Not going to play? What do you mean?" shouted Will.
+
+"I mean that I am not used to a surprise-party and to playing with
+strangers," was the rude and angry answer.
+
+"You--you ought to--" But Will controlled himself and stopped. He was
+about to say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+Agnes, however, understood by the tone of his voice something of what he
+meant, and turned scornfully away, her head up, and with a glance at Tom
+that plainly showed she expected him to follow her.
+
+But Tom made no movement of that kind. He stood where he was, looking
+across at Will, who, red and ashamed, had approached Miss Smith, and was
+evidently making some sort of apology to her for the insult that had
+been offered to her; and Miss Smith was listening to this apology with
+the coolest little face imaginable.
+
+Tom, taking all this in, gave another of his odd little chuckles. Agnes
+heard it, and flushed scarlet. So he was taking sides with Will
+Wentworth, was he? And what--what--was that--Tilly? Yes, it was
+Tilly,--Tilly with the racket she, Agnes, had flung down,--Tilly
+standing in her place and--and--serving the ball back to that girl! So
+Tilly was with them too? Well, she would see, they would all see, that
+Agnes Brendon was not a person to be snubbed and disregarded in this
+fashion, nor a person to be forced to make acquaintances with vulgar or
+common people against her will. Oh, they would see, they would see! And
+bracing herself up with these indignant resolutions, Agnes betook
+herself to the hotel.
+
+Before the end of the week there were two distinct parties in the house,
+where heretofore there had been but one,--two distinct opposing forces.
+
+On one side were Agnes and Dora and Amy; on the other side were Tilly
+and Tom and Will. Dora and Amy were not naturally ill-natured girls, but
+they were inclined to be worldly and were greatly under Agnes's
+influence. She had been a sort of authority with them for a good while,
+perforce of her dominant disposition and the knowledge she seemed to
+possess of the worldly matters that were of so much interest to them.
+
+"But I should think you would feel ashamed to side with Agnes Brendon in
+persecuting a poor little stranger," said honest Tilly, a day or two
+after the tennis affair; for Agnes had at once set to work to carry out
+her plan of showing that she was not to be forced, as she expressed it,
+into making acquaintances she didn't like, and had thus lost no
+opportunity of being disagreeable.
+
+Dora flushed at Tilly's words, but she answered coolly,--
+
+"Persecuting! I don't call it persecuting to avoid a person one doesn't
+want to know."
+
+"Yes; but how does Agnes avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls
+her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating
+about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith
+was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and
+made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in pretending to hunt
+up one of her own music-books; and when I asked her to be quieter, she
+said something horrid about 'low common songs,' and 'Mrs. Brady' isn't
+a low common song; and the other morning, when Pete, the little dog, ran
+up to her on the piazza, she pushed him away from her in such a
+disagreeable manner--and so it has gone on every day, and I think it's a
+shame, and such a nice girl as Miss Smith is too. I told grandmother all
+about it,--the whole story,--and she says it is Agnes who is vulgar and
+not Miss Smith, and that she never would have brought me here if she had
+known that a girl who could behave like that was to be in the house; and
+you can tell Miss Agnes Brendon this, if you like, and you can tell her
+too that she'll only make us stand by Miss Smith stancher than ever by
+persecuting her as she does."
+
+"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, and there's no such thing as
+persecution anyway,--that's ridiculous. Agnes is very exclusive,--the
+Brendons all are,--and she doesn't like to make acquaintances with
+common people, that's all."
+
+"Common people! Miss Smith isn't any more common than you or I. She's a
+very ladylike girl.--much more ladylike and nice, and nicer-looking too,
+than Agnes."
+
+"Nicer looking with those plain frocky dresses, and her hair all pulled
+back without the sign of a crimp or curl!" and Dora burst into a jeering
+laugh.
+
+"Oh, she isn't all fussed up, I know, as most of us girls are; but her
+clothes are of the very finest materials,--I've noticed that."
+
+"And that stuffy old aunt's clothes are of the finest material, I
+suppose; and the little yellow dog's coat is as fine as a King Charles
+spaniel's," jeered Dora.
+
+"Stuffy old aunt! She isn't stuffy in the least. She's a little
+old-fashioned; that's all. Grandmother has taken quite a fancy to her."
+
+Dora smiled a very provoking smile as she said,--
+
+"Perhaps the Pelhams, when they come, will take a fancy to her too, and
+to that pretty name of Peggy."
+
+The hot color rushed to Tilly's cheeks and the tears to her eyes as she
+turned away. She knew perfectly well that Dora was thinking: "Oh, your
+grandmother is only another old woman a good deal like Mrs. Smith,--what
+is her judgment worth?"
+
+Dora was a little ashamed of herself as Tilly left her. Indeed, she had
+been a little ashamed of herself for some time,--ever since, in fact,
+she had ranged herself on Agnes's side after the tennis affair; but
+once having taken that side she was determined to stick to it, and to
+believe that it was the right side, in spite of some qualms of
+conscience.
+
+Her cousin Amy followed in the same path, and Agnes spared no pains to
+keep them there. She felt that she could not afford to lose her only
+allies. Every minute that had elapsed since she had flung down her
+tennis racket in such anger and mortification had but increased this
+mortification, and strengthened her resolve to show those boys and Tilly
+Morris that she was right and they were wrong about "that girl."
+
+Of course, when she set her face in this direction, she was on the
+lookout for everything unfavorable; and everything, pretty nearly, was
+turned into something unfavorable, so perverted and distorted had her
+vision become. It was "Dora, did you notice this?" and "Amy, did you see
+that?" until the two began to find the incessant harping upon one
+subject rather wearisome, especially as the particular details thus
+pointed out had never yet developed into matters of any importance.
+
+"I wish Agnes wouldn't keep talking about that Smith girl all the time,
+unless there was something more worth while to talk about," broke forth
+Dora impatiently to Amy just after the interview with Tilly.
+
+"So do I," Amy responded emphatically; then, laughing a little, "unless
+there was some real big thing to tell."
+
+"But I don't wonder Agnes doesn't like the girl, with Tilly and Will
+taking up for her and making such a fuss;" and Dora indignantly repeated
+Tilly's accusations. Amy caught at the word "persecution," as Dora had
+done, and together they defended themselves against these accusations
+with a zeal and ingenuity worthy of a better cause.
+
+They were in the full tide of this talk when, as they rounded the curve
+of the shore where they were walking, they came upon Agnes herself,
+coming rapidly towards them.
+
+"Oh, girls, I've been looking for you everywhere. I've got something I
+want to show you," she exclaimed excitedly. "Come up here and sit down;"
+and she led the way to a little cluster of rocks.
+
+Dora and Amy glanced at each other rather apprehensively. Was Agnes
+going to tell them something else about the Smith girl,--going to say.
+"Did you notice this?" or "Did you see that?" in reference to some
+detail that displeased her? They had worked themselves up into quite a
+state of indignation against Tilly and the boys, and of increased
+sympathy with Agnes; but they were so tired of hearing, "Did you notice
+this?" "Did you see that?" when there had been such uninteresting little
+things to "notice," to "see."
+
+With these apprehensions flitting through their minds, the two girls
+seated themselves to listen with very languid interest. But what was
+that Agnes was unfolding,--a newspaper? And what was it she was saying
+as she pointed to a certain column? She wanted them to read that! The
+cousins looked at each other in a dazed, inquiring fashion; and Agnes,
+starting forward, impatiently thrust the paper into Dora's hand and
+cried sharply,--
+
+"Read that; read that!"
+
+Dora in a bewildered way read aloud this sentence, which in big black
+letters stared her in the face,--
+
+"Smithson, alias Smith."
+
+"Well, go on, go on; read what is underneath," urged Agnes, as Dora
+stopped; and Dora went on and read,--
+
+"It seems that that arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got
+himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains
+from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too
+notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of
+Smith. His wife and young son are with him, and the three are living
+luxuriously in the suburbs of Rio, where Smithson has rented a villa. An
+older child, a daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was left behind in this
+country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the name of
+Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston."
+
+The bewildered look on Dora's face did not disappear as she came to the
+end of this statement.
+
+"What did you want me to read this for?" she asked Agnes.
+
+"What did I want you to read it for? Is it possible that you don't
+see,--that you don't understand?"
+
+"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."
+
+"But we do know these--Smiths."
+
+"Agnes, you don't mean--"
+
+"Yes, I do mean that I believe--that I am sure that these Smiths are
+those very identical Smithsons."
+
+"Oh, Agnes, what makes you think so? Smith is such a very common name,
+you know."
+
+"Yes, I know it; but here is a girl whose name is Smith, and she is with
+a Mrs. Smith, her aunt, and they are staying at a summer resort near
+Boston. How does that fit?"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, it does look like--as if it must be, doesn't it?" cried
+Dora, in a sort of shuddering enjoyment of the sensational situation.
+
+"Of course it does. I knew I was right about those people. I knew there
+was something queer and mysterious about them. And what do you
+think,--only yesterday I happened to go into the little parlor, where
+there are writing-materials, and there sat this very Peggy Smith
+directing a letter; and when she went out, I happened to cast my eyes at
+the blotting-pad she had used, and I couldn't help reading--for it was
+just as plain as print--the last part of the address, and it was--'South
+America'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" said Tilly Morris,
+indignantly, as Dora wound up her recital of the Smithson-Smith story.
+
+"Well, you can believe it or not; but I don't see how you can help
+believing, when you remember that their name is Smith, and that they are
+aunt and niece, and that the niece is fourteen or fifteen,--just as the
+paper said,--and that they are staying at a summer resort not far from
+Boston, and--that the niece writes to some one in South America,--think
+of that!"
+
+Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,--
+
+"Well, I don't care, I don't care. I'm not going to talk about it,
+either. How many people have you--has Amy--has Agnes told?"
+
+"I haven't told anybody but you yet. I've just come from Agnes."
+
+"Yet! Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora. My father, you
+know, is a lawyer, and I've heard him talk a great deal when we've had
+company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,--queer
+things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits. One of the things that I
+particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had
+heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the
+neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and
+they had a horrid time. The woman's daughters had to go into court and
+be examined as witnesses. Oh, it was horrid; and the worst of it was
+that even though there was some truth in the stories, there were things
+that were not true,--exaggerations, you know,--and so the woman was
+declared guilty, and her husband had to pay a lot of money to keep her
+out of prison. There was ever so much more that I've forgotten; but I
+recollect papa's turning to us children at the end, and saying, 'Now,
+children, remember when you are repeating things that you have heard
+against people, that the next thing you'll know you may be prosecuted
+for what you've said, and have to answer for it in the law courts.'"
+
+Dora looked scared. "Well, I'm sure," she began, "I haven't repeated
+this to anybody but you; and if Agnes--"
+
+"What's that about me?" suddenly interrupted Agnes herself, as she came
+up behind the two girls. Dora began to explain, and then called upon
+Tilly to repeat her story of the lawsuit.
+
+"Oh, fiddlesticks!" cried Agnes, angrily, after hearing this story; "you
+can't frighten me that way, Tilly Morris. We can't be prosecuted for
+telling facts that are already in the newspapers."
+
+"But we can be for what isn't. It isn't in the newspapers that this Mrs.
+Smith and her niece are these Smithsons."
+
+"Well, Tilly Morris, I should think it was in the newspapers about as
+plain as could be. What do you say to this sentence?" And Agnes pulled
+from her pocket the Smithson article she had cut out, and read aloud:
+"'An older child--a daughter of fourteen or fifteen--was left behind in
+this country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the
+name of Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston;'
+and what do you say to that letter addressed to some place in South
+America?"
+
+"I say that--that--all this might mean somebody else, and not--not
+these--our--my Smiths. What did your mother say when you told her, and
+showed the paper to her?"
+
+"I didn't tell her; I didn't show her the paper. We never tell mamma
+such things; she is a nervous invalid, and it would fret her to death,"
+Agnes responded snappishly.
+
+"Well, I don't believe it's my Smiths; I believe it's somebody else,"
+flashed back Tilly, with tears in her eyes and in her voice.
+
+"Oh, very well; you can stand up for your Smiths, if you like; but
+you'll find they are--"
+
+"Hullo! What's the little Smith girl done now? Agnes, I should think
+you'd get tired of rattling about the Smiths," interposed a voice here.
+
+It was Will Wentworth's voice; he had come out on the piazza just as the
+girls were passing the hall door.
+
+Agnes started back nervously at the sight of him. "I think you are very
+rude to listen and spring at anybody like this," she said.
+
+Will looked at her in astonishment. "I haven't been listening, and I
+didn't spring at you," he responded indignantly. "I simply met you as I
+came out, and heard you say something about the Smiths."
+
+"What did you hear?" asked Agnes, quickly.
+
+"I heard you say to Tilly, 'Stand up for your Smiths if you like;' and I
+knew by that you'd been going for Miss Peggy, and Tilly had been
+defending her." Will's bright eyes, as he said this, suddenly observed
+that there was something unusually serious in the girl's face. "What's
+the matter?" he inquired; "what's up now?"
+
+Agnes put her hand into her pocket, and Tilly drew in her breath with a
+little gasp, and braced herself to come to the defence again when Agnes
+should answer this question, as she fully expected her to do, by
+producing the cutting from the newspaper and repeating her accusations.
+But when Agnes drew her hand forth, there was no slip of paper in it,
+and all the answer that she made to Will's question was to say in a
+mocking tone,--
+
+"Ask Tilly; she knows all the delightful facts now about Miss Peggy and
+her highly respectable family."
+
+The decisive tone in which this was said, the significant expression of
+the speaker's face as she glanced at Tilly, and Tilly's own silence at
+the moment impressed Will very strongly, as Agnes fully intended; and
+when a minute later she slipped her hand over Dora's arm, and went off
+with her toward the tennis ground, and Tilly refused to tell him what
+this something that was "up" was, honest Will felt convinced that the
+"something" must be very queer indeed.
+
+Poor Tilly saw and understood at once the nature of the impression that
+Will had received; but what could she do? It was certainly better to
+keep silence than to speak and tell that dreadful, dreadful story of
+"Smithson, alias Smith." Even, yes, even if it was true,--for Tilly,
+spite of her vehement defence, her stout declaration of disbelief at the
+first, had a shuddering fear at her heart as she thought of that last
+paragraph about the girl of fourteen or fifteen, and of that letter to
+South America,--a shuddering fear that the story might be true; but even
+then she would not be one of those to point a finger at poor innocent
+Peggy; for, whatever her father might have done, Peggy was innocent.
+
+There was one person, however, that Tilly could speak to, could ask
+counsel of, and that, of course, was her grandmother. Grandmother, she
+was quite sure, would agree with her that the story was not to be
+chattered about; and even if it were true that Mrs. Smith and Peggy
+were those very Smithsons, neither was to blame, but only, as she had
+heard her father say once of the family of a man who had proved a
+defaulter, "innocent victims who were very much to be pitied."
+
+But perhaps--perhaps grandmother would not believe that Mrs. Smith and
+Peggy were "those Smithsons," and perhaps she would find some careful
+way to investigate the matter and prove that they were not. With this
+hope springing up over her fears, Tilly flew along the corridor to her
+grandmother's room.
+
+"What! what! what!" cried grandmother, as she listened to the story; "I
+don't believe a word of Agnes's suspicions. There are millions of Smiths
+in the world."
+
+"But did you hear what I said about that last paragraph,--the girl of
+fourteen or fifteen, and--and the letter,--the letter to South America?"
+asked Tilly, tremulously.
+
+"In what paper was it that Agnes found the statement?"
+
+"It was some morning paper: I don't know which one,--I only remember
+seeing the date."
+
+Grandmother rang the bell, and sent for all the morning papers. When
+they were brought her, she put on her spectacles and began the search
+for "Smithson, alias Smith." One, two, three papers she searched
+through; and at last there it was,--"Smithson, alias Smith!"
+
+Tilly watched her grandmother as she read with breathless anxiety, and
+her heart sank as she noticed how serious was the expression on the
+reader's face as she came to the last paragraph.
+
+"Oh, grandmother," she cried, "you do believe it may be our Smiths."
+
+"Well, yes, my dear, I believe that it may possibly be, that's all; but
+it may not be, just as possibly."
+
+"Oh, grandmother, couldn't you inquire--carefully, you know."
+
+"No, no, my dear. If it isn't our Smiths, think what an outrage any
+inquiries would be; and if it is, how cruel to stir the matter up! No,
+we must say nothing. The girl is an innocent creature; and if this
+Smithson is her father, I doubt if she has been told by anybody the
+facts of the case,--probably there was some very different reason given
+her for dropping that last syllable of the name. However it may be, it
+would be cruel for us to show by our manner or speech any knowledge of
+the story; for either way, whether they are those Smithsons or not,
+Agnes has made a very unpleasant situation for them, and we must be good
+to them."
+
+"But, grandmother, when Agnes tells other people--"
+
+"She won't. Your little warning, by your description of the way she took
+it, convinces me that she won't."
+
+"But other people read the papers, and they--"
+
+"May not take any more notice than I did, if Agnes's spiteful suspicions
+are held in check."
+
+"But if poor Peggy herself--"
+
+"Peggy probably doesn't read the newspapers any more than you do. But we
+needn't waste time in thinking what if this or that; the clear duty for
+us is to take no notice, and, as I said, be good to them."
+
+"Oh, grandmother, you are such a dear! I knew you'd feel like this."
+
+There was to be an early little dance that night for the young people,
+and Tilly put on her prettiest gown,--a white mull with rose-colored
+ribbons,--and went down to dinner in it, for the dance was an informal
+affair that was to follow very soon after dinner on account of the
+youth of most of the dancers. Her heart beat more quickly as she looked
+across at the corner table and saw Peggy and her aunt in their places,
+and that Peggy was also dressed for the occasion in something white,
+embroidered with rosebuds, and with ribbon loops of pale blue and a
+broad sash of the same color.
+
+"Of course, she expects to dance," thought Tilly, "and Agnes will be
+horrid to her about it in some way or other; but I shall stand by Peggy
+anyway, whatever anybody else may do."
+
+It was with this kind intention that Tilly hurried through her dinner
+and hastened out to join Peggy and her aunt when they left the
+dining-room. But the kind intention was arrested for the moment by
+Dora's voice calling out,--
+
+"Tilly, Tilly, wait a minute."
+
+The next thing Dora had her hand over Tilly's arm. Amy and Agnes were
+just behind, and there was nothing to do but to follow the general
+movement with them to the piazza. That it was a planned movement to
+separate her from Peggy, Tilly did not doubt; for once out on the
+piazza, Agnes, with a whispered word to Amy, turned sharply about in the
+opposite direction to that where Mrs. Smith and her niece were sitting.
+
+A color like a red rose sprang to Tilly's cheeks as she glanced across
+at Peggy, and bowed to her with a swift little smile. Then, "How pretty
+Peggy Smith looks!" and "What a lovely gown she has on!" she said,
+turning a brave and half-defiant glance upon Agnes.
+
+"Yes, it is pretty. It's made of that South American embroidered
+muslin,--convent work, you know," answered Agnes, casting a fleeting
+look at Tilly.
+
+"No, I didn't know," answered Tilly, trying to seem calm and
+indifferent, but failing miserably.
+
+"Yes," went on Agnes, "I know, because my cousins have had several of
+those dresses, and I'm quite familiar with them."
+
+Peggy, sitting there in her odd pretty dress, saw with pity the distress
+in her friend Tilly's face.
+
+"Those girls are worrying poor Tilly, auntie, see,--and I dare say it's
+on my account, for I was sure when she came out that she was intending
+to join us, and that they prevented her,--and, auntie, I'm going to
+brave the lions in their dens, and going over to her."
+
+"They are ill-bred girls, and they may do or say something rude,"
+replied auntie, regarding Peggy with a slightly anxious expression.
+
+"Oh, I don't care for that now. Tilly is such a darling in sticking to
+me, in spite of their disapproval," laughing a little, "that I think I
+ought to stick to her;" and, nodding to her auntie, Peggy started on her
+friendly errand.
+
+"What impudence! She's actually coming over to us uninvited. Well, I
+must say she has nerve!" muttered Agnes, as she observed Peggy's
+movements.
+
+Coming forward, Peggy nodded to the whole group of girls; but it was to
+Tilly she addressed herself, and by Tilly's side she seated herself. It
+was in doing this that the delicate material of her dress caught in a
+protruding nail in the splint piazza chair with an ominous sound.
+
+"Oh, your pretty gown! it's torn!" cried Tilly.
+
+The two sprang up to examine it, and found an ugly little rent that had
+nearly pulled out one of the wrought rosebuds.
+
+"It's too bad,--too bad!" sympathized Tilly.
+
+"But it's easily mended, and it won't show," answered Peggy, cheerfully.
+
+"It isn't easy to mend that South American stuff so that it won't show,"
+remarked Agnes, coolly.
+
+"I know it isn't usually," answered Peggy, as coolly; "but auntie can
+mend almost anything."
+
+"It is a perfectly beautiful dress. I wish I had one just like it,"
+broke forth Tilly, hurriedly, hardly knowing what she was saying in the
+desire to say something kind.
+
+"You could easily send for one like it," spoke up Agnes, "if you knew
+anybody out there, or what shop or convent address to send to."
+
+"We could send for you," said Peggy, turning to Tilly. Tilly looked
+startled.
+
+"Have you friends out there?" asked Agnes, with an impertinent stare at
+Peggy.
+
+"Yes," answered Peggy, curtly, meeting Agnes's stare with a look of
+sudden haughtiness.
+
+Tilly turned hot and cold, but through all her perturbation was one
+feeling of satisfaction. Peggy could stand her ground, it seemed, and
+resent impertinence; but, "Oh, dear!" said this poor Tilly to herself,
+"that South American gown, I suppose, proves that she must be that
+Smithson man's daughter; but grandmother was right,--she is innocent of
+the facts of the case, of that there can be no doubt,--and we must be
+good to her, and now is the time to begin,--this very minute, when Agnes
+is planning what hateful thing she can do next."
+
+Fired by this thought, Tilly sprang to her feet, and, casting a glance
+of scorn and contempt at Agnes, slipped her hand over Peggy's arm and
+said,--
+
+"Come, Peggy, let's go over to the other end of the piazza and walk up
+and down; it's much pleasanter there."
+
+Warm-hearted Tilly's intentions were excellent; but her look of
+contempt, her meaning words, instead of cowing and controlling Agnes,
+only roused her to deeper anger, which resulted in an action that
+probably had not been premeditated even by her jealous and bitter
+spirit. Tilly will never forget that action. It was just as she was
+turning away with Peggy, when she saw that angry face barring her way,
+when she heard those ominous words, "Miss Smithson," and then--and then
+that outstretched hand thrusting forth to Peggy that fluttering,
+dreadful slip of paper!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+But another hand than Peggy's snatched at the fluttering paper. "What is
+it, what does it mean?" demanded Peggy, as a gusty breeze tore the paper
+from Tilly's trembling fingers.
+
+"Yes, and what do you mean, Miss Tilly Morris, by snatching what doesn't
+belong to you?" cried Agnes, shrilly, as she started off to capture the
+flying paper, that, eluding her, blew hither and thither in a
+tantalizing way, and at last, falling at the feet of Will Wentworth, was
+picked up by him as he came out of the hall.
+
+"It is mine, it is mine," shrieked Agnes; "keep it for me."
+
+But Tilly, who was nearer to him, whispered agitatedly,--
+
+"No, no, Will; don't give it to her,--she is--she means--"
+
+"Mischief, I see," whispered back Will, with a swift, intelligent glance
+at Tilly.
+
+"And if you wouldn't read it until--until I see you--oh, if you
+wouldn't!"
+
+Will looked at Tilly with wonder. This was certainly something more
+serious than common. What was it,--what was the trouble?
+
+But Agnes was by this time close upon him, reaching up her hand and
+crying, "Give it to me, Will, give it to me!"
+
+But Will laughingly thrust the paper into his pocket, and answered,--
+
+"No, I'll keep it for you, and give it to you later; I don't think it
+would be safe now. There's so much thunder in the air it might be struck
+by lightning."
+
+"It might be snatched or stolen, I dare say," said Agnes, with a
+significant look at Tilly; "and you may keep it for me until later in
+the evening, and--read it at your leisure. It's a very interesting
+collection of facts."
+
+"Tum, tum, ti tum," suddenly struck up the band in the hall.
+
+"Eight o'clock!" cried Agnes, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, the ball's begun," said Will, nodding and smiling; "and if you'll
+excuse me," lifting his cap, "I'll go and get into my dancing shoes."
+
+Agnes tried to smile in response; but a little pang of disappointment
+thrilled her as he left her without asking her for a dance. But he
+would later, of course,--later, when he would hand her her property,
+that collection of "facts," and by that time he would have read these
+"facts." She wouldn't need to risk any words of her own in accusation
+after that,--which conclusion shows very plainly that Miss Agnes had
+been sufficiently impressed with Tilly's warning to hold her peace.
+
+That she had not flaunted the newspaper cutting before the eyes of
+others in the house also shows that the accident of the moment and her
+hot anger had, in the one instance only, overcome her caution.
+
+But Tilly did not know all this, and her anxiety increased after she had
+heard those words to Will, "Read it at your leisure."
+
+Peggy, too, had heard those words, though it was quite clear she had not
+heard that other word,--that dreadful name of Smithson; for, "What is it
+all about, that bit of paper?" she asked Tilly innocently, as Agnes and
+Will disappeared in the hallway; and Tilly said to her imploringly,--
+
+"Don't ask me now, Peggy,--don't, that's a dear; I can't stand any more
+now."
+
+And then and there Peggy answered, "I won't, I won't, you dear Tilly; I
+won't say another thing about it, and we won't think about it--" And
+then and there "Tum, tum, ti tum" burst forth the band in Strauss's
+"Morgen Blaetter" waltzes.
+
+"Oh, how I love the 'Morgen Blaetter!'" cried Peggy. "Come, let us get
+into the dancing-hall as soon as possible. Where's auntie? Oh, there she
+is, talking with your pretty grandmother."
+
+The next minute auntie and grandmother were sitting side by side in the
+dancing-hall, watching the two girls as they kept step to that perfect
+waltz music.
+
+"Isn't it just lovely!" sighed Peggy.
+
+"Lovely!" echoed Tilly.
+
+"And how we suit each other! our steps are just alike."
+
+"Just alike," echoed Tilly; whereat they both laughed, and a little
+silence between them followed, and then--
+
+"There's Agnes dancing with Tom Raymond," suddenly exclaimed Tilly. "I
+wonder--"
+
+"Don't wonder or worry about Agnes now, when we are tuned to the 'Morgen
+Blaetter' music," said Peggy. "'Music has charms to soothe the savage
+breast,' somebody has written, you know; and--and," with a soft little
+laugh, "it may soothe the breast of this savage Agnes."
+
+Tilly echoed the soft little laugh, but she could not dismiss Agnes from
+her mind. She could not cease to wonder what it was she was talking
+about so earnestly with Tom Raymond,--to wonder if she had told, or was
+telling him at that very moment, of "Smithson, alias Smith."
+
+And while poor Tilly wondered and worried, there was Peggy, the
+unconscious centre of all the wonder and worry, lifting up a radiant
+face of enjoyment as she floated along to the music of the "Morgen
+Blaetter." Tom Raymond, catching sight of this radiant face, said to
+himself,--
+
+"I wonder if she's engaged for the next dance. I'll ask her the minute
+this is over."
+
+The two girls were standing near their two chaperones when Tom came up,
+and with an odd sort of shyness, asked,--
+
+"Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss--Miss Smith?"
+
+Tilly's heart gave a jump as she noted Tom's sudden confusion and
+hesitation at this "Miss Smith," for it brought back to her his strange
+expression at the first sight of Peggy, and his question, "Is that the
+girl--the Miss Smith you were talking about?" and then his odd,
+chuckling laugh.
+
+Peggy, too, had regarded Tom at that moment with a puzzled observation,
+as if she wondered if she had seen him before; and now, as Tom hesitated
+and bungled at the "Miss Smith," Peggy's own manner showed signs of
+consciousness, if not of embarrassment. Oh, oh! what could it all mean
+but that he had known everything from the first? "And I fancied at the
+first he acted as he did because he thought she wasn't quite fine
+enough; and all the time he knew she was this Miss Smithson, and was
+keeping it to himself, and, knowing that, he's going to ask her to dance
+with him now! Oh, what a good fellow he is, and what injustice I've done
+him!" concluded Tilly. "If only Will now, when he finds out--"
+
+It was just then that a voice called softly from the open window behind
+her, "Miss Tilly, Miss Tilly!" and there was Will beckoning to her.
+"What shall I do with that paper?" he whispered, as Tilly turned. "I
+expect Agnes to be after me for it as quick as she catches sight of me
+again."
+
+The window was a long French window, and Tilly stepped out and joined
+him upon the piazza. "Come around here where nobody can see or overhear
+us," she said. He followed her down the steps to a sheltered rustic
+seat.
+
+"You haven't read it?" she asked.
+
+"Read it? No!" Will answered a little huffily. "You asked me not to
+until I had seen you."
+
+Tilly colored, and then, "You are a gentleman!" she burst out
+vehemently.
+
+"Well, I hope so," Will answered.
+
+"And so is Tom Raymond. I had done him such an injustice; but he's
+turned out so different from what I supposed he was. Oh, he's just
+splendid! and if you--" But here--I'm half ashamed to record it of my
+plucky little Tilly--here, suddenly overcome by all the excitement she
+had been through, Tilly broke down and began to cry.
+
+"Oh, don't! I wish you wouldn't, now! Oh, I say!" cried Will, in boyish
+embarrassment.
+
+Poor Tilly checked her sobs by a vigorous effort; but tears continued to
+flow, and she fumbled vainly for her handkerchief to dry them.
+
+"Here, here, take mine," said Will, hastily thrusting the cambric into
+her hand; "and don't you bother another bit about Agnes and her
+tantrums. I'll burn her old paper if you say so, and I won't read it at
+all."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, you'll have to read it now. She'll ask you,--she'll tell
+you. Yes, read it, read it, Will. I know you'll pity Peggy, as
+grandmother and I do."
+
+Thus adjured, Will drew the bit of paper from his pocket.
+
+Tilly forgot her tears as she watched Will's face. He read it twice. At
+first there was an entire lack of comprehension; at the second reading a
+look of shocked understanding, and, bringing his fist down upon his
+knee, he exclaimed,--
+
+"And Agnes was going to fling this bombshell straight at that poor
+thing!"
+
+Then Tilly knew that Will was on the right side; that he pitied Peggy,
+and that he would agree with all that grandmother had said about her and
+her innocence and ignorance of real facts. This estimate of Master
+Will's sympathy was not a mistaken one. He not only agreed with
+grandmother about Peggy's innocence and ignorance, but in grandmother's
+kind conclusion "that they must be good to her."
+
+"But what did you mean about Tom? What has he done to make you think so
+much better of him?" Will asked curiously.
+
+While Tilly was enlightening him upon this point, Tom's voice was heard
+saying, "Oh, here they are," and Tom himself came round the clump of
+sheltering bushes accompanied by Peggy. And "We've been looking for you
+everywhere," said Peggy. "We've just had another of the Strauss waltzes,
+and the next thing is the 'Lancers;' and we want you and Tilly--"
+
+"Will Wentworth, I want my property, if you please; that paper I gave
+you to keep for me," a very different voice--a high, sharp voice that
+the whole four recognized at once--interrupted here.
+
+Tilly started, and turned pale.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Tilly, she sha'n't have it," whispered Will.
+
+Agnes flushed resentfully as she came forward and saw the confidential
+friendliness of the little group. For "that girl" she had been neglected
+and disregarded like this! Not a moment longer would she bear such
+insults. It was all nonsense,--all that stuff about being prosecuted
+for showing up facts. She would be stopped by that foolishness no
+longer. She would first take her stand boldly, and let everybody know
+what a fraud this Miss Smith was. These were some of the wild thoughts
+that leaped up out of the bitter fountain in Agnes's distorted mind at
+that instant, and her voice was sharper than ever as she again said,--
+
+"I want my property,--the paper I gave you to keep for me."
+
+Will had risen to his feet, and answered very coolly, "I can't give it
+to you."
+
+"What do you mean? Have you lost it?"
+
+"No, but I can't give it to you."
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes, and that's the reason I don't give it to you. I know if I should
+you would--"
+
+"Probably give it to Miss Smithson," cried Agnes, shrilly. "Miss
+Smithson," going toward Peggy, "I--"
+
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, come with me. We're all your friends,--grandmother
+and I and Will and Tom; and we know how sweet and innocent you are. Oh,
+Peggy, come, come, and don't listen to her!" burst forth Tilly, in an
+agony of pity and horror, as she put an arm around Peggy to draw her
+away.
+
+But Peggy was not to be drawn away.
+
+"What in the world is the matter? What is it all about? What do you
+mean, Tilly, dear, by 'innocent'? What has she," glancing at Agnes
+disdainfully "been getting up against me?"
+
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, don't!" moaned Tilly.
+
+"Well, this is rich," laughed Agnes, jeeringly. "Nobody has been getting
+up anything against you, Miss Smithson."
+
+"What do you mean by calling me Miss Smithson? That isn't my name."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" derisively. "How long since did you change it for
+Smith?"
+
+"I have never changed it for Smith."
+
+"Oh, I believe that 'Miss Smith' is down on the hotel register, and you
+answer to that name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Peggy, looking at Agnes with great scorn.
+"'Mrs. Smith and niece' are down on the register. It was the clerk who
+registered us in that way, and all of you seemed to take it for granted
+that _my_ name must be Smith also. Perhaps I ought to have corrected the
+mistake at once; but after I overheard that conversation on the piazza,
+and--saw somebody examining the register a few minutes later" glancing
+away from Agnes with a smile at Will, who looked rather sheepish--"after
+that I thought I'd let the mistake go until the rest of the family
+arrived, it was so amusing."
+
+"Oh," retorted Agnes, "this all sounds very straight and pretty, but I
+dare say you've got used to telling such stories. Perhaps you'll tell us
+now what name you do call your own, and if it is by that those South
+American friends you write to are known."
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Tom Raymond will tell you," answered Peggy, quickly. "I've
+thought for some time that he might be one of the Tennis Club that came
+out to Fairview at my brother's invitation last summer, and I thought he
+suspected who I was, and--and wouldn't tell because--because he saw,
+just as I did, what fun the mistake was. But now, if he will, he can
+introduce me--to my friends, Tilly and Will Wentworth, as--"
+
+[Illustration: "Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!"]
+
+"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" shouted Tom, before Peggy could go
+any further.
+
+"Pelham!" cried Tilly, in a dazed way.
+
+"Pelham!" repeated Will.
+
+"Yes, Pelham! Pelham!" exclaimed Tom, exultantly, flinging up his cap
+with a chuckle of delighted laughter.
+
+"And you're not--you're not the daughter of that dreadful Smithson?"
+burst forth Tilly, in a little transport of happy relief.
+
+"'That dreadful Smithson'? Who is he, and who said I was his daughter?"
+
+"_She_ said it," roared Will, darting a furious look at Agnes; "and she
+cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his
+pocket.
+
+"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to snatch
+the paper from his hand.
+
+"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now
+I'll give it to--Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to
+circulate about the house," answered Will.
+
+"I--I--if I happened to notice it before the rest of you--and--and
+thought that it might be this Miss Smith--"
+
+"That it _must_ be! you insisted," broke in Will.
+
+"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl,
+and--and--the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South
+American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,--"if I happened to be
+before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be;
+and--"
+
+"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's
+clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper
+slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as
+in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they
+thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"
+with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it _must_ be, because you wanted
+it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all
+now,--everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to
+that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my
+uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying
+and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all
+for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for
+I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,--oh,
+Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful
+little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite
+of--even this--this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to
+shield me."
+
+"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever
+might just possibly have happened to--to--"
+
+"Mr. Smithson--" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in
+something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's
+shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes
+had disappeared.
+
+"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped
+your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there
+wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully,
+though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had so long
+manfully repressed.
+
+"Finished off! I should say so!" cried Will, joining in Tom's laughter.
+
+"And to think that you were a Pelham,--one of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams
+all the time," put in Tilly, still with an air of bewilderment.
+
+"And am now," laughed Peggy. "Oh, Tilly, you are such a dear!"
+
+"One of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams!" shouted Tom. "Guess she won't be in
+a hurry to set up a claim to 'em now!" and Tom burst out again in wild
+chuckles of hilarity.
+
+"And I never saw her, and I don't believe she ever met one of us
+before," cried Peggy.
+
+"She told Amy that she didn't know the Pelhams yet, but that her Aunt
+Ann did, and her aunt was coming next month and would introduce her to
+them when they arrived," said Tilly, with a demure smile.
+
+"Well, she'll probably like my sister Isabel's Skye terrier, with its
+fine name of Prince, much better than she does my poor little plebeian
+doggie, with its vulgar name of Pete," remarked Peggy, her eyes
+twinkling with fun.
+
+"Oh, Peggy, to think of your hearing all that talk about the dog and
+everything."
+
+"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking
+rather red as he recalled his own words.
+
+"Yes, and everything,--all about the dogs and the difference between the
+Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.
+
+"Oh, I say now," began Will.
+
+"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,--I liked it.
+It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think
+that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a
+maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the
+register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and
+never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,--when I think of all
+this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this
+minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in
+her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from
+whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."
+
+But what was that sound,--that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly
+rang over and above the dance music?
+
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out
+from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see
+that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,--a coaching-party.
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage
+drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The
+long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party
+atop of the coach.
+
+"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins,"
+said a bystander.
+
+Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the
+dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was passing them; and Dora
+whispered,--
+
+"Are they the Pelhams,--Agnes's Pelhams?"
+
+"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed
+laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She
+ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."
+
+"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking
+dreadfully a few minutes ago."
+
+"I should think she might; she had had a blow."
+
+"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that
+Smith girl."
+
+"No, they're not."
+
+"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"
+
+"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss
+Pelham speaking to--Miss Peggy Pelham."
+
+Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought;
+but--but--what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down
+from her top seat on the coach was saying?
+
+"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance,
+Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little
+waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine
+time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and
+away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with
+auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."
+
+"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.
+
+"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid
+fact,--so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake
+again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the
+crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll
+see what a blow Agnes has had."
+
+Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and
+never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but
+though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of
+bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and
+said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and
+mortification, cried,--
+
+"Yes, fun to you,--to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the
+right side of the fun; but I--we--are disgraced of course with Agnes.
+Oh, we've been just horrid--horrid, and such fools!"
+
+"Well, I--I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,--for it's
+her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling
+laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by
+the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up
+against Agnes."
+
+"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.
+
+"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right
+side of things naturally."
+
+If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it
+in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor
+creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.
+
+Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known
+throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with
+amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their
+slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson,
+was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted
+over her daughter and niece.
+
+"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were
+going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.
+"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"
+
+Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,--Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the
+honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her
+alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of
+the Robsons with these words,--
+
+"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little
+Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating,
+worldly ways of judging people and things?"
+
+And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to
+these bitter, brutal truths,--
+
+"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,--the
+people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't
+know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always
+talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they
+never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong
+to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances
+with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and
+amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,--nothing, nothing,
+nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EGG-BOY.
+
+
+
+
+"Marge, Marge, here is the egg-boy!"
+
+Marge dropped her book and ran to join her sister Elsie, who by this
+time was on the back piazza talking to a boy who had just driven up in a
+farm-wagon.
+
+"We want two dozen more,--all nice big ones, and by to-morrow, for it is
+only three days before Easter, and they must be boiled and colored to be
+ready in season."
+
+The boy stared. "Colored?" he repeated in a puzzled, questioning tone.
+
+"Yes," answered Elsie, "colored. Don't you color eggs for Easter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How queer! But you know about them, of course?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Not know about Easter eggs? Where in the world have you lived not to
+know about Easter? I thought everybody--"
+
+"I do know about Easter," interrupted the boy, sharply. "All I said was
+that I didn't know about your colored eggs."
+
+"Oh, well, I guess it is Episcopalians mostly who keep that old custom
+going in this part of the country, and I suppose your people are not
+Episcopalians, are they?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, _we_ are, and we've lived in Washington, too, where everybody has
+colored eggs, and all the boys and girls there used to go to the
+egg-rolling party the Monday morning after Easter; and a good many of
+them go now."
+
+"Egg-rolling party?" cried the boy, with such wide-open eyes of
+astonishment that Elsie and Marge both burst out laughing, whereat the
+boy flushed up angrily, and seizing the reins was starting off, when the
+cook called to him to wait until she had the butter-box ready for him to
+take back.
+
+"Oh!" whispered Marge, "we've hurt his feelings, Elsie; it is too bad."
+Then she ran forward, and said gently: "'Tisn't anything at all strange
+that you didn't know about the rolling. Elsie and I didn't until we went
+to Washington to live, and saw the game ourselves, and had it explained
+to us; and I'll explain it to you. We had a lot of eggs boiled hard, and
+dyed all sorts of pretty flower colors and patterns; and these we took
+to the top of a little hill near the White House, and each one, or each
+party, started two or three or more eggs of different colors, and made
+guesses as to which color would beat. After the game was over, we
+exchanged the eggs we had, and gave away a good many to the poor
+children. Oh, it was great fun."
+
+The boy laughed. "Fun! I should call it baby play!" he said derisively.
+
+"Well, _you_ can call it baby play if you like," returned Marge, with
+great dignity; "but the 'baby play' has come down through a good many
+years. It is an old Easter custom that was brought over from England by
+one of the early settlers at Washington."
+
+"I--I didn't mean--I'm sorry--" began Royal, stammeringly; when--
+
+"Royal! Royal Purcel!" called out a voice; and a little fellow scarcely
+more than six or seven years old came running up the driveway, and made
+a flying leap into the wagon.
+
+"Do you belong to a circus?" cried Elsie.
+
+"No; wish I did. I belong to Royal."
+
+"Who is Royal?"
+
+"Who is Royal?" repeated the child, making a cunning, impudent face at
+her.
+
+"He means me. My name is Royal,--Royal Purcel; and he," nodding towards
+the child, "is my brother."
+
+"Royal Purcel! _What_ a funny name! It sounds--"
+
+"Don't, Elsie," remonstrated Marge.
+
+"It sounds just like Royal Purple," giggled Elsie, regardless of her
+sister's remonstrance.
+
+Rhoda Davis, the cook, coming out just then with the butter-box, Royal
+thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word
+or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace.
+
+"Well, I never saw such a tempery boy as that in my life," said Elsie.
+"A boy that can't take a joke I don't think is much of a boy."
+
+"Them Purcels allers was pretty peppery, and I guess they're more'n
+ever so now," said Rhoda.
+
+"Why?" asked Marge.
+
+"Why? Because they used to be the richest farmers about here. They owned
+pretty nigh all Lime Ridge once. Now they hain't got nothin' but that
+little Ridge farm. It's a stony little place, and how they manage to get
+a livin' off of it beats me."
+
+"How'd they happen to lose so much?"
+
+"Oh, the boy's father took to spekerlatin', and then some banks they had
+money in bust up."
+
+"Well, he needn't fly up at everything because he isn't rich," said
+Elsie. "That's regular cry-baby fashion. He's a royal purple cry-baby,
+that's what he is, and I mean to call him that, see if I don't;" and
+Elsie laughed in high glee as this mischievous idea struck her. And
+while she and her sister were discussing Royal and his temper, Royal was
+discussing that very temper with himself.
+
+"To think of my being such a fool as to show mad before those girls. I'm
+a regular sissy," was his final conclusion as he drove down the road.
+
+The next morning, bright and early, he was up at the Lloyds' with two
+dozen fine big eggs. "As handsome a lot of eggs as I ever see,"
+commented Rhoda, as she took them in.
+
+"Are they going to color them all?" asked Royal.
+
+"I s'pose so. Here are some of their old ones. They've been b'iled as
+hard as stones. They'll keep forever;" and Rhoda handed out of the open
+window a little basket of colored eggs.
+
+"But some of these are painted," said the boy, taking up an egg with a
+pattern of flowers on it.
+
+"No, they ain't; they're jest colored in a dye-pot. Them that looks as
+if they was painted were tied up in a bit of figgered calico and b'iled,
+and when they come out of the b'iling they took the calico off, and
+there was the figgers set on the eggs. See?"
+
+"Yes, I see;" and Royal turned the egg round thoughtfully for a moment,
+then suddenly put it down, and started off towards his wagon on a run.
+
+"Land sakes!" called out Rhoda; "what's come to you all at once to set
+off like that?"
+
+"Muskrats!" shouted Royal, with a laugh as he jumped into the wagon.
+
+"Ben a-settin' traps for 'em, eh?"
+
+Royal nodded as he went rattling down the driveway.
+
+"Did Royal Purple bring the eggs?" asked Elsie Lloyd, a little later.
+
+"His name ain't Purple; it's Purcel," corrected Rhoda, innocently.
+
+Elsie giggled. "Well, did Royal _Purcel_ bring the eggs?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, there they be."
+
+"Oh, oh! aren't they beauties?"
+
+"They be; that's a fact," agreed Rhoda. "Royal, he's done his best for
+ye now, anyway. He's kind o' quick, like all the Purcels, but he's real
+accommodatin'."
+
+"So he is, Rhoda, and I'll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn
+out for being so 'accommodatin';' and we are going to have some extra
+pretty ones this time. See this now, and this, and this!" and Elsie
+whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico. One was a
+pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.
+
+"The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will
+be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern," said Marge,
+enthusiastically.
+
+By Saturday afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns
+were "ready for company," as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on
+Saturday night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three
+days' visit. It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and
+they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a
+box was brought in by one of the servants. It was neatly tied, and
+directed in a bold round handwriting to "Miss Elsie and Miss Marge
+Lloyd."
+
+"What _can_ it be?" said Marge, wonderingly.
+
+"We'll open it and see," cried Elsie. And suiting her action to her
+word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six
+eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design. On one
+was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch
+of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple
+blossoms. On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,--a
+palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings,
+soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub
+head with a soft halo about it.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, "Who _could_ have
+painted them?" wondered Marge; and, "Who _could_ have sent them?" cried
+Elsie.
+
+In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor. They could find
+nothing to give them the slightest clew.
+
+"Perhaps, papa, it is Mr. Archer," said Marge at last, turning to her
+father. Mr. Archer was an artist friend.
+
+"Oh, no, this isn't Archer's work; it's a novice's work, though very
+promising," her father replied.
+
+"Cousin Tom's, then?"
+
+"And too strong for Tom."
+
+"Then it must be Jimmy Barrows."
+
+"Well, it may be Jimmy. We shall know when he comes with Tom on Monday.
+It's bold enough for Jimmy, but I didn't think he had so much fancy."
+
+And finally it was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows.
+Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an
+amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to be a professional one.
+
+"It's such fun to have Jimmy do these, and send them without a word,"
+said Elsie to her sister.
+
+"Such a generous thing to do, too! I wonder if he would like some of
+_our_ eggs as specimens? We might give him one of each kind."
+
+"Oh, Marge, don't think of offering him those calico-colored
+things,--anybody who can paint like this!"
+
+"Very well; but, Elsie, which one are you going to give to Royal
+Purcel?"
+
+"To Royal Purcel?"
+
+"Yes; don't you remember you told Rhoda you were going to give him one
+for being so accommodating?"
+
+"Oh, I'd forgotten. Well, here, I'll give him this,--it's the very
+thing;" and Elsie snatched up a bright purple one.
+
+"Oh, Elsie, don't!"
+
+But Elsie fairly danced with glee as she cried, "I will, I will; it's
+the very thing,--royal purple to Royal Purple!"
+
+The young visitors, when all this was explained to them, joined in the
+merriment; but Marge--kind, tender little Marge--hid away one of the
+blue and white lily eggs, to get the advantage of Elsie's mischief by
+bestowing _that_ upon Royal.
+
+But Royal was quite out of Elsie's thoughts by Monday morning. It was a
+beautiful morning; and by nine o'clock, when Tom and Jimmy Barrows
+arrived, the lawn and sloping knoll at the east of it were bright and
+dry with sunshine. On the piazza the various baskets of eggs were
+standing; only "Jimmy Barrows's gift" had been set aside as "too good to
+use."
+
+"My! haven't you got a lot, though?" cried Tom, as he surveyed them.
+"But what are these in the box here?"
+
+"Yes, what are they?" sparkled Elsie. "Ask Jimmy Barrows."
+
+Jimmy, with a wondering expression on his face at this remark, came over
+and looked down at the treasured eggs. "Who did these?" he asked
+quickly.
+
+"'Who did these?'" mimicked Elsie. "Oh, you needn't try that. We found
+you out at once, or _I_ did."
+
+"You think I painted 'em--I sent 'em?" queried Jimmy.
+
+"Of course I do. Now, Master Jimmy--"
+
+"Miss Elsie, just as true as I'm standing here, I never saw them
+before."
+
+Elsie shook her head at him, but Jimmy did not see her. He was lifting
+the eggs and examining them.
+
+"No, honest, I didn't paint 'em, Miss Elsie. I wish I had; but I can't
+do things like that--yet. I can draw as well, am a better draughtsman,
+maybe, but I haven't got the ideas. The fellow who did these has got a
+lot of original ideas."
+
+Mr. Lloyd came forward here with great interest. "Did any of you,"
+turning to Elsie and Marge, "ask who brought the box?"
+
+"Yes," answered Elsie. "I asked Ann, and she said 'a bit of a boy
+brought 'em;' she didn't know who he was."
+
+"Ask Rhoda to come here. She knows the neighborhood."
+
+Rhoda came, and Mr. Lloyd put the matter before her. Had she any idea
+who the "bit of a boy" was?
+
+"I didn't see him, but it might be Bert Purcel," answered Rhoda. "Folks
+get him to do errands sometimes. He's just drove up with his brother to
+bring the chickens. I'll send him 'round, and you can ask him."
+
+"Did you leave a box here Saturday night?" Mr. Lloyd inquired
+pleasantly, when the boy stood before him.
+
+The red lips began to frame a "No," then closed tightly together, while
+the slim little figure whirled about and made an attempt to leap over
+the piazza railing,--an attempt that would have been successful if one
+foot had not caught in a stout vine.
+
+Royal, waiting in the wagon at the back porch, heard a sudden cry, and
+hurried to see what had happened. He found Bert scrambling to his feet,
+brisk and angry. The child made a dash towards his brother, and seized
+his hand.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Royal. No answer, but a renewed tug at his
+hand to draw him away.
+
+"The little fellow tried to jump the piazza railing and fell," explained
+Mr. Lloyd, laughingly.
+
+"Papa just asked him a question,--if he brought us a box Saturday night;
+and as he didn't want to answer, he ran," spoke up Elsie.
+
+"I didn't, I jumped!" cried the child.
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"Can't _you_ tell us?" asked Marge, looking at Royal. "_Did_ your
+brother bring it?"
+
+"Yes," answered Royal, flushing up.
+
+"And who sent it?" asked Elsie, impatiently. She waited a moment for an
+answer. As none came, she asked still more impatiently, "Do you _know_
+the person who sent it?"
+
+"Yes," in a hesitating voice.
+
+"Did the person tell you not to tell?"
+
+"No," in the same hesitating voice.
+
+"Then why in the world _don't_ you tell? You've no right to keep it back
+like this. It is our affair, not yours, and so it is our right to know
+who it is. Don't you understand that we don't want people to send us
+things--presents--and not know anything about who it is?"
+
+Royal looked startled, and the flush on his face deepened. Elsie thought
+she had conquered him, and chirped out an encouraging, "Come, now, who
+was it?" But to her surprise the boy flung up his head with an angry
+movement, and with a defiant glance at her said stubbornly,--
+
+"I've a perfect right _not_ to answer your question, and I sha'n't!"
+
+"Well, of all the brazen--"
+
+"Elsie!" warned her father, "don't say anything more."
+
+"You'll let me say one thing more, papa. Rhoda told us that this boy was
+very accommodating, and he brought me such nice big eggs, I thought he
+was, and meant to give him something to show my appreciation, and I'd
+like to give it to him now. Here," taking something from her pocket,
+"give this to your brother," she said to little Bert, who stood eying
+her curiously. The child's hand opened involuntarily. Into it dropped a
+_royal purple_ egg.
+
+Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.
+
+Bert, feeling the passion in his brother's voice, drew off, and _flung_
+the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim
+and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond
+her.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and,"
+running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the shell
+is all cracked to pieces!"
+
+"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.
+
+But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's
+recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was
+now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his
+action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the
+result of it.
+
+"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to
+tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.
+
+"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who
+had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.
+
+"Purcel."
+
+"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade
+Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had
+hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound
+in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.
+
+"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a
+right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.
+
+"But it was Royal's present, whatever relation he got to paint the eggs
+for him, for it was only Royal who knew about _our_ eggs; and this is
+the way we've paid him!" cried Marge, with a glance of indignant
+reproach at Elsie.
+
+"I don't think he got anybody to do it for him; I--I think he did it
+himself," spoke up Jimmy.
+
+"Royal Purcel! that--that farm-boy?" shrieked Elsie.
+
+"Yes," answered Jimmy. "I thought so all the time, when you--when he
+was standing under--under your questioning fire." And Jimmy laughed.
+
+"But how did he learn?" cried Elsie, in astonishment.
+
+"I don't think the boy has had much instruction," said Jimmy. "I think
+he has great natural talent, and has had very little opportunity to
+study." Jimmy was now peering at the palm and tent egg, and, "See,
+here's the name again, in this thready grass," he said, "and he has
+probably marked all the eggs in this cunning way."
+
+Jimmy was right. On the bird's wing, amid the lily leaves, and on the
+apple bough, they also found "R. Purcel" hidden deftly from casual
+observation.
+
+Elsie was silent as, one after another, these discoveries were made.
+Finally she could contain herself no longer, and burst out,--
+
+"To think of his painting all these beautiful things and giving them to
+us,--to me, when I've been such a horrid little cat to him! Oh, papa, I
+must do something,--I just must!"
+
+"Well, I should think it would become you to say you are sorry and to
+thank him," said Mr. Lloyd, smiling.
+
+"But, papa, I want to take the pony-carriage and go after him, and ask
+him to come back to the egg-rolling; and if Jimmy Barrows will go with
+me--"
+
+"I'd be delighted, Miss Elsie."
+
+"He'd make it easier,--he'd know what to say, and Royal would know what
+to say to him. The others will excuse us; we won't be long. Oh, may
+I--may we, papa?"
+
+"Well, as you seem to have settled everything, I don't see but I must--"
+
+But Elsie did not wait to hear more. She knew she had not only her
+father's consent, but his approval, and was off like a flash to order
+the carriage.
+
+If the Lloyds had been better acquainted in Lime Ridge, Royal's work
+would not have been such a great surprise to them. A good many of the
+Lime Ridge people could have told them of the boy's talent, and how it
+had been discouraged by his family. There was no money now to support
+and educate him in that direction, and it had been arranged with an old
+friend who was in the wool business that the boy should go into his
+employ as soon as he had graduated from the Lime Ridge High School. This
+was considered a very lucky prospect for him, but Royal hated it. From
+a little fellow he had shown a great love for pictures, and had covered
+every scrap of paper he could find with crude drawings.
+
+When he was eight years old, a visitor had given him a box of paints and
+brushes. Two years later he had become acquainted with an artist who was
+staying a few weeks at Lime Ridge, and went with him on his
+sketching-tramps. With him he learned something about an artist's
+methods, and received from him as a parting gift, various artist's
+materials that he had made industrious use of.
+
+The whim of painting the eggs and sending them to the sisters had come
+to him as a sort of apology to them for his exhibition of temper, and he
+had no idea that his name, so palpable to his artist eye, would escape
+their observation as it did. He expected his gift and its motives to be
+recognized at once. Instead, he was questioned as if he were nothing but
+an ignorant errand-boy; and, bitterest of all, even when he had
+confessed to a knowledge of the giver, the possibility of his being the
+painter himself was not for a moment suspected. But while he stood
+leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout
+little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever
+going amongst 'em again,--an overbearing lot of city folks," he was
+saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the
+road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a
+movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and stood
+in front of him.
+
+"I've come to ask you to go back with us, and forgive me for being such
+a horrid little cat to you. I didn't understand. I thought--" and then
+in a perfect jumble of words Elsie went on, and poured forth her
+contrition and explanation, at the same time introducing Jimmy Barrows,
+who knew just what to say, and said it with such effect that Royal's
+spirits went up with a bound, and almost before he knew to what he had
+consented, he was sitting on the little back seat of the phaeton,
+talking with these "city folks" as if they were his best friends, as
+they turned out to be.
+
+All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you
+suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing? In Mr.
+Carr's mills, learning to pick and buy wool?
+
+Not he. He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting
+himself by making business illustrations for various newspapers. It is
+humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for
+higher things; and the "higher things" are not far off, for two or three
+of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and
+he has furnished a set of drawings for a child's book that has been well
+paid for and well spoken of. And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd
+the other day,--
+
+"Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but
+what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this
+possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking! But I guess they
+began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them
+last week that he'd paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.
+Houp-la!"
+
+"'A howling success'! And it's all through me," laughed Elsie, as she
+read this portion of Jimmy's letter; "for if I hadn't eaten humble-pie,
+and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy
+Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day. Yes; it's all
+through me and my humble-pie. Houp-la!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Never had a Christmas present?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Why, it's just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,--you _shall_ have one
+this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas
+muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could
+scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor
+laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She
+was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,--a
+charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a
+thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon. Molly
+Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling
+face,--a beauty, though she _was_ an Indian. Yes, this charming little
+maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful
+tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far
+Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had
+thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly
+was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post,
+for her father had been an army officer until the three years before,
+when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his
+brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was
+an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time
+been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether
+unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons. Molly thought they were very
+welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life,
+she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only
+pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded
+gladly to Molly's friendly advances.
+
+"But to think that you've never had a Christmas present!" exclaimed
+Molly again, as Wallula's laugh rippled out. "If I'd _only_ known you
+the first year we came! But I'll make it up _this_ year, you'll see; and
+oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know--I know what
+I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped _her_ hands and cried, "Oh, tell
+me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole.
+Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do.
+It is all a secret until Christmas eve or Christmas morning."
+
+"Yes, I know,--Metalka told me; but I forgot."
+
+"Of course your sister must have known all about Christmas after she
+came back from school. Why didn't _she_ make you a Christmas present,
+then, Lula?"
+
+"Metalka?" A cloud came over the little bright face. "Metalka didn't
+stay long after she came back. She didn't stay till Christmas; she went
+'way--to--to heaven."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"If Metalka had stayed, I might have gone to school this year."
+
+"I thought you _had_ been to school, Lula."
+
+"Oh, no! only to little school out here summers,--little school some
+ladies made; and Metalka tole me--taught me--showed me ev'ry day after
+she came back--ev'ry day, till--til she--went 'way. I can read and
+write and talk, talk, talk, all day in English,"--smiling roguishly,
+then more seriously and anxiously. "Is it pretty fair English,--white
+English,--Major Molly?"
+
+"'White English'!" laughed back Major Molly. "You are such fun, Lula.
+Yes, it's pretty fair--white English."
+
+Lula dimpled with pleasure, then sighed as she said, "If I could go 'way
+off East to Metalka's school, two, three, four, five year, as Metalka
+did, then I could talk splen'id English, and I could make heap--no, all
+sort things, and help keep house nice, and cook like Metalka."
+
+"But why don't you go, Lula?"
+
+"Why don't I? Listen!" and Wallula bent forward eagerly. "I don't go
+because my father won't have me go. Metalka went. When she first came
+back, she was so happy, so strong. She was going to have everything
+white way, civ--I can't say it, Maje Molly."
+
+"Do you mean civilized?"
+
+"Yes, yes; civ'lized--white way. And she worked, she talked, she tried,
+and nobody'd pay much 'tention but my father. The girls, some o' them,
+wanted to be like her; but the fathers and mothers would n' help, and
+some, good many, were set hard 'gainst it; and then there was no money
+to buy white people's clothes, they said. It took all the money was
+earned to pay big 'counts up at agency store, where Indians bought
+things,--things to eat, you know; so what's the use, they said, to try
+to live white ways when everything was 'gainst them, and they stopped
+trying; and Metalka was so dis'pointed, for she was going do so
+much,--going help civ-civ'lize. She was so dis'pointed, she by-'n'-by
+got sick--homesick, and just after the first snow came, she--she went
+'way to heaven. And that's why my father won't have me go to the school.
+He say it killed Metalka. He say if she'd stayed home, she'd been happy
+Indian and lived long time. He say Indian got hurt; spoiled going off
+into white man's country."
+
+"How came he to let your sister go, Lula?"
+
+"Metalka wanted to go so bad. She'd heard so much 'bout the 'way-off
+schools from some white ladies up at the fort one summer, and my father
+heard too. A white off'cer tole him if Indian wanted to know how to have
+plenty to eat, plenty ev'rything like white peoples, they must learn to
+do bus'ness white ways, be edg'cated. So he let Metalka go; _he_ could
+n' go, he too old; but Metalka could go and learn to read all the books
+and the papers and keep 'counts for him, so 't he'd know how to deal
+with white men. When Metalka first took 'count for him, after she came
+back, my father so pleased. He'd worked hard all winter hauling wood,
+and killing elk and deer for the skins; and my mother 'n' I had made
+bewt'ful moccasins and gloves out o' the skins, all worked with beads;
+and so he'd earned good deal money, and he 'd kept 'count of it
+all,--_his_ way, and 't was honest way; and kept 'count, too, what he'd
+had out of agency store; and Metalka understood and reckoned it all up,
+and said he 'd have good lot money left after he'd paid what he owed at
+the store. But, Maje Molly, he didn't! he didn't! They tole him he owed
+_all_ his money, and when he said they'd made mistake, and showed 'em
+Metalka's 'counts, they laughed at him, and showed him big book of
+_their_ 'counts, and tole him Metalka didn't know 'bout prices o'
+things. Then he came home and said: 'What's the use going to white
+people's schools to learn white people's ways, when white people can
+come out to Indian country and tell lies 'bout prices o' things?' And
+that's the way 't is ev'ry time, my father say; the way 't was before
+Metalka went to school. The bad white trader comes out to Indian country
+to cheat Indians. _He_ knows white prices, but he don't tell Indian
+white prices; he tell Indian two, three time more price. That's what my
+father say. And Metalka, when she see it all, she so disjointed, she
+never get over it, and my father say it killed her, like arrow shot at
+her."
+
+"But your father doesn't think all white people bad; he doesn't dislike
+all their ways?"
+
+"No; it's only white traders he thinks bad, and the white big chiefs who
+break promises 'bout lands. He like white ways that Metalka brought
+back, and he built nice log house to live in instead of tepee, 'cause
+Metalka wanted it; and he like all you here, Maje Molly, 'cause you good
+to me. But, Maje Molly"--and here the little bright face clouded
+over--"my mother say _all_ white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians."
+
+"No, no, they don't, Lula; they don't, you'll see. _I_ sha'n't forget;
+_I_ sha'n't break _my_ promise, you'll see,--you'll see, Lula. On
+Christmas eve I shall send you a Christmas present, sure,--now
+remember!" answered Molly, vehemently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+It was the day before Christmas,--a beautiful, mild day, very unlike the
+usual winter weather in the far West. At the Ellistons' windows hung
+wreaths of pine, and all about on tables and chairs tempting-looking
+packages were lying. Some of these were from their military friends, and
+most of them were directed to "Major Molly," the name that had been
+given to Molly when she was a little tot of a thing, and the pet of the
+fort where she lived. On this Christmas day, as she watched her mother
+fold up the pretty bright tartan dress that was to be her Christmas
+present to Wallula, she said gleefully,--
+
+"Don't forget, mamma, to write on the box, 'Wallula's Christmas present
+from Major Molly.'"
+
+It had been Molly's intention to have Wallula to tea on Christmas eve,
+and then and there to bestow upon her the pretty gift. But invitations
+to dine at the fort had frustrated this plan, and so it was arranged
+that Barney McGuire, one of the ranchmen, should come up and carry the
+box over to the reservation late that afternoon; and as the short winter
+day progressed, and Molly found that she must have a little more time to
+finish off the table-cover she wanted to take up to the Colonel's wife,
+she said to her mother,--
+
+"Instead of going on with you and papa at five o'clock, let Barney
+escort me to the fort after he leaves Wallula's present; that will give
+me plenty of time to finish the cover, and plenty of time to get to the
+dinner in season."
+
+"Very well," answered Mrs. Elliston; "but you must promise me to start
+with Barney as soon as he comes back for you, whether the cover is
+finished or not. You mustn't be late."
+
+At five o'clock, when Captain Elliston and his wife rode off, Molly was
+working away at her cover with the greatest industry. Now and then, as
+she worked on, she glanced up at the clock. If everything went
+smoothly,--if the silk didn't knot or the lace didn't pucker,--she would
+be through long before Barney came back for her. But presently she
+thought, where _was_ Barney. He ought to be there for the box by this
+time. She worked on a little longer, her ear alert for the sound of
+Barney's horse. At last she went to an upper window and looked out. She
+could see, even in the gathering dusk, a great distance from that
+window, away across toward the sheep-corrals and cattle-pens; but nobody
+was in sight. What did it mean? Barney was punctuality itself.
+
+Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes more she worked with flying fingers,
+and still there was no sight or sound of Barney; but her work was
+finished, and now--now, what then?
+
+There was only Hannah and John, the two house-servants, at hand. Hannah
+couldn't go, and John had strict orders never to leave the premises in
+Captain Elliston's absence. She looked at the clock; every second seemed
+an age. If Barney didn't come, if _no one was sent in his place_, her
+promise to Wallula would be broken, and Molly remembered Wallula's
+words, "My mother say all white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians;" and her own vehement reply, "_I_ sha'n't forget; I sha'n't
+break _my_ promise, you'll see, you'll see, Lula!" Break her promise
+after that! Never, never! Her father himself would say she must
+not,--would say that _somebody_ must go in Barney's place, and there
+was nobody,--nobody to go but--herself!
+
+"Yer goin' alone, yer mean, over to the Injuns!" demanded John, as Molly
+told him to bring her pony, Tam o' Shanter, to the door.
+
+"Yes, yes, and right away, John; so hurry as fast as you can."
+
+"Do yer think yer'd orter, Major Molly? Do yer think the Cap'n would
+like it?" asked John, disapprovingly.
+
+"John, if you don't bring Tam 'round this minute, I'll go for him
+myself."
+
+"'T ain't safe fur yer to go over there alone!" cried Hannah.
+
+"Safe! I know the way, every inch of it, with my eyes shut, and so does
+Tam; and I know the Indians, and Wallula is my friend; and I told her
+she should have her present Christmas eve, sure, and I'm going to keep
+my promise. Now bring Tam 'round just as quick as you can."
+
+John obeyed, though with evident reluctance, and Hannah showed her
+disapproval by scolding and protesting; but they had both of them lived
+on the frontier for years, and their disapproval therefore was not what
+it might have been under different circumstances. Molly, they knew,
+could ride as well as a little Indian, and was familiar with every inch
+of the way, as she had said, and Wallula was her friend.
+
+"And 't wouldn't 'a' done the least bit o' good to hev set myself any
+more against her. If I had, just as like as not the Cap'n would 'a'
+sided with her and been mad at me, for he thinks the Major's ekal to
+'most anything," John confided to Hannah, as he brought the pony round.
+
+The pony shied a little as Wallula's Christmas present was strapped to
+his back. But at Molly's whispered, "Tam! Tam! be a good boy. We're
+going to see Wallula,--to carry her something nice, just as quick as we
+can go," the little fellow whinnied softly, as if in response; and the
+next moment, at Molly's "Now, Tam," he started forward at his best
+pace,--a pace that Molly knew so well, and knew she could trust,--firm
+and even and assured, and gaining, gaining, gaining at every step.
+
+"Good boy, good boy!" she said to him as he sped along. But as he began
+to hasten his pace, it occurred to her that it was only about half an
+hour's easy riding to the reservation, and that after leaving there she
+could easily reach the fort in another half-hour,--so easily that there
+was no need of hurrying Tam as she was doing; and she pulled him up with
+a "Take it easy, Tam dear." As she spoke, Tam flung up his head, pricked
+up his ears, and made a sudden plunge forward. What was it? What was the
+matter? What had he heard? He had heard what Molly herself heard in the
+next instant,--the beat of a horse's hoofs. But the minute it struck
+upon Molly's ear she said to herself, "It's Barney; for that's old
+Ranger's step, I know." Ranger was an old troop horse of her father's
+that Barney often rode. But in vain she tried to rein Tam in. In vain
+she said to him, "Wait, wait! It's Ranger and Barney, Tam!"
+
+The pony snorted, as if in scorn, and held on his way. What _was_ the
+matter with him? He was usually such a wise little fellow, and always
+knew his friends and his enemies. _And he knew them now_! He was wiser
+than she was, and he scented on the wind something that spurred him on.
+
+But, hark! What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal
+that Barney was trying? Was it--Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped
+Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to
+escape the danger he had scented,--the danger of a lariat flung by a
+practised hand.
+
+Oh, Tam, Tam! fly now with all your speed, your mistress understands at
+last. She is a frontier-bred girl. She knows now that it is no friendly
+person following her, but some one who means mischief; and that mischief
+she has no doubt is the proposed capture of Tam, who is well known for
+miles and miles about the country as a wonderful little racer. Yes,
+Molly understands at last. She has _seen in the starlight_ the lariat as
+it missed Tam's head, and she knows perfectly well that only Tam's speed
+and sure-footedness can save them. Her heart beats like a trip-hammer;
+but she keeps a firm hold upon the rein, with a watchful eye for any
+sudden inequalities of the road, while her ears are strained to catch
+every sound. Tam's leap forward had given him a moment's advantage, and
+he keeps it up bravely, his dainty feet almost spurning the ground as he
+goes on, gaining, gaining, gaining at every step. In a few minutes more
+they will be out of the reach of any lariat, then in another minute safe
+at Wallula's door.
+
+In a few minutes! As this thought flashes through Molly's mind, wh-irr,
+s-st! cuts the still air again. Tam drops his head, and plunges forward.
+
+Though the starlight is brighter than ever, Molly does not _see_ the
+lariat, but there is something, something,--what is it?--that prompts
+her to fling herself forward face downwards upon Tam's mane; and the
+lariat that was about to drop over her head once more falls harmless to
+the ground, and Tam once more seems to know what danger has been
+escaped, and starts forward again with an exultant bound. They are
+almost there! Molly sees the smoke from the tepees of the reservation,
+and a light from a log cabin, and draws a breath of relief. But not yet,
+O brave little frontier girl, O gallant little steed, is the race won
+and the danger passed! Not yet, oh, not yet! for just ahead there is a
+treacherous pitfall which neither Tam nor his mistress sees,--a hollow
+that some little animal has burrowed out, and into this Tam plunges a
+forefoot, stumbles, and falls!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"She _said_, 'I sha'n't forget; I sha'n't break _my_ promise. You'll
+see, on Christmas eve, I shall send you a Christmas present, sure. Now
+remember.' On Christmas eve! And to-night is Christmas eve!"
+
+Wallula had said this over and over to herself ever since the sun went
+down. She had kept count of the days from the day that Molly had made
+her that vehement promise. That promise meant so much to Wallula. It
+meant not merely a gift, but keeping faith, holding on, making real
+friends with an Indian girl. And her mother had said, "_She'll_ forget,
+like the rest. White peoples always forget what they say to Indians."
+And her father had nodded his head when her mother said this. But
+Wallula had shaken _her_ head, and declared with passionate emphasis
+more than once,--
+
+"Major Molly will never forget,--never! You'll see, you'll see!"
+
+Wallula had awakened very early that morning, and the minute she opened
+her eyes she thought, "This is the day before Christ's day. To-night,
+'bout sundown, Major Molly'll keep her promise." All through the day
+this happy thought was uppermost. In the afternoon she followed Major
+Molly's instructions, and hung pine wreaths about the cabin.
+
+The short afternoon sped on, and sundown came, and the gray dusk, and
+then the stars came out.
+
+"Where's your Major Molly now?" asked the mother. There was a sharp
+accent in the Indian woman's voice, and a bitter expression on her face.
+But it was not for Wallula; it was for the white girl,--the Major Molly
+who, in breaking her promise to Wallula, had brought suffering upon her;
+for on Wallula's face the mother could see by this time the shadow of
+disappointment gathering. It made her think of Metalka. Metalka had gone
+amongst the white people. She had come back full of belief in them, and
+it was the white people's white traders with their lies and their broken
+promises that had hurt Metalka to death. There was only little Wallula
+left now. Was it going the same way with Wallula? These were some of
+the Indian mother's bitter resentful thoughts as she watched Wallula's
+face.
+
+Wallula found it very hard to bear this watchfulness. She felt as if her
+mother were glad that her prophecy had proved true, that the white girl
+had broken her promise; but Wallula was wrong. Her mother's bitterness
+and resentment were the outcome of her anxiety. She would have given
+anything, have done anything, to have saved Wallula this suffering. If
+something would only happen to rouse Wallula, she thought, as she
+watched her. There had come a visitor to their cabin the other day,--the
+chief of a neighboring tribe. When he saw Wallula, he said he would come
+again and bring his little daughter. If he would only come soon! If he
+would only--But, hark! what was that? Was it an answer to her wish,--her
+prayer? Was he coming now--_now_? And, jumping to her feet, the woman
+ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her
+prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards
+her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned
+and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo
+Wallula leaped up, and sped past her mother with the fleetness of a
+fawn, calling as she did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant
+the wondering woman saw her child running, as only an Indian can run, by
+the side of a jet-black pony whose coat was flecked with foam, and whose
+breath was well-nigh spent. As they came nearer into the pathway of
+light that the pine blaze sent forth from the open door, something that
+looked like a pennon of gold streamed out, and a clear but rather shaken
+voice cried, "Lula, Lula, I've kept my promise; I've kept my promise!"
+
+The next moment the owner of the voice had slid from the pony's back
+into Wallula's arms, and Wallula was stroking the streaming golden hair,
+and crying jubilantly, "She's kept her promise, she's kept her promise!"
+
+"Yes, I've kept my promise. I've brought your Christmas present. There
+it is in that box strapped across Tam. If somebody'll unstrap it and see
+to Tam, we'll go into the house, and I'll tell you what a race I've had.
+I can only stay a few minutes, for I must get to the fort if your
+father'll go with me. I don't dare to go alone now."
+
+"To the fort?" asked Wallula, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, I'm going there to dinner; but let's go in. I'm so tired I can
+hardly stand; and Tam--"
+
+But as a glance showed her that Tam was being cared for, and that
+Wallula's mother was carrying the box into the house, Major Molly
+followed on with a sigh of relief, and, doffing the riding-suit that
+covered her dress, flung herself down before the blazing fire, and began
+to tell her story. When she came to the point where Tam stumbled and
+fell forward, she burst out excitedly,--
+
+"Oh, Lula, Lula! I thought then I should never get here, and I don't
+know how we did it, Tam and I; I don't know how we did it, but I kept my
+seat, and I gave a great pull. I felt as strong as a man, and I cried,
+'Tam! Tam! Tam!' and Tam,--oh, I don't know how he did it,--Tam got to
+his feet again, and then he flew, flew, _flew_ over the ground. We'd
+lost a minute, and I expected every second the lariat would catch us
+sure after that, but it didn't, it didn't, and I'm here safe and sound.
+I've kept my promise, I've kept my promise, Lula."
+
+"Yes, she kep' her promise, she kep' her promise!" repeated Wallula in
+glad triumphant accents, glancing at her mother, and at the tall gaunt
+figure of her father standing in the shadow of the doorway.
+
+[Illustration: Wallula clapped her hands with delight]
+
+Wallula was a young girl, and this mystery of a Christmas-box was full
+of delight to her; but just then a greater delight--the joy of Major
+Molly's fidelity--made her forget everything else. But Molly did not
+forget. The minute she had finished her story she sprang to her feet,
+and produced the contents of the box. Wallula clapped her hands with
+delight when the pretty bright dress was held up before her.
+
+"Just like Major Molly's,--just like Major Molly's! See! see!" she
+called out to her father and mother.
+
+The mother nodded and smiled. The father's eyes lighted with an
+expression of deep gratification; then he leaned forward eagerly, and
+said to Molly,--
+
+"Tell 'gain 'bout where you saw--heard--lar'yet."
+
+"Just as we got to the little pine-trees where the old Sioux trail
+stops," answered Molly, promptly.
+
+"Yah!" ejaculated the Indian, grimly, in a tone of conviction. Then,
+turning, he took down a Winchester rifle, slung it over his shoulder,
+and started towards the door, saying to Molly as he did so: "You stay
+here with Wallula. I go up to fort and tell 'em 'bout you."
+
+"Oh, take me with you, take me with you!" cried Molly, jumping up.
+
+The Indian shook his head. When Molly insisted, he said tersely: "No,
+not safe for little white girl yet. Maje Molly stay here till I come
+back."
+
+Molly's face fell. Wallula stole up to her. "I got bewt'ful Chris'mas
+present for Maje Molly," she said softly. "Maje Molly stay see it with
+Wallula."
+
+"You dear!" cried Molly, flinging her arm round Wallula.
+
+The Indian father nodded his head vigorously, and his face shone with
+satisfaction. "Yes, yes!" he said. "Wallula take care you. You stay till
+I come back."
+
+In looking at and trying on the "bewt'ful Chris'mas present,"--a pair of
+elaborately embroidered moccasins lined and bordered with rabbit
+fur,--and in dressing Wallula up in the tartan dress, the time flew so
+rapidly that long before Molly expected it the cabin door opened again,
+and the tall gaunt figure reappeared.
+
+Behind it followed another figure. Molly ran forward as she saw it,
+and, "Papa, papa!" she cried, "I waited and waited for Barney, and he
+didn't come; and I couldn't bear for Lula not to have her Christmas
+present to-night, for I'd promised it to her to-night. She told me, when
+I promised, that white people always broke their promises to Indians,
+and I said over and over that _I_ wouldn't break _my_ promise; and I
+couldn't--I couldn't break it, papa."
+
+"You did quite right, my little daughter,--quite right."
+
+There was something in her father's manner as he said this, a
+seriousness in his voice and in his eyes, that surprised Molly. She was
+still more surprised when the Indian suddenly said,--
+
+"She little brave; she come all 'way 'lone to keep promise, so she not
+hurt my Wallula. She make me believe more good in white peoples; so I go
+to fort,--I keep friends."
+
+"You've been a friend indeed. I sha'n't forget it; we'll none of us
+forget it, Washo," said Captain Elliston; and he put out his hand as he
+spoke, and grasped the brown hand of the Indian in a warm friendly
+clasp.
+
+At the fort everything was literally "up in _arms_,"--that is, set in
+order for business, and that meant ready for resistance or attack. Molly
+had lived most of her fourteen years at some Western military post, and
+she recognized at once this "order" as she rode in.
+
+"What _did_ it mean?" she asked again, as the Colonel himself met her
+and hurried her into the dining-room; and the Colonel himself answered
+her,--
+
+"It means, my dear, that Major Molly has saved us from being surprised
+by the enemy, and that means that she has saved us from a bloody fight."
+
+"I--I--" faltered Molly. Then like a flash her mind cleared, and she
+struck her little hand on the table and cried,--
+
+"It was an Indian, an unfriendly Indian, who followed me, and Washo knew
+it when I told my story!"
+
+"Yes, Washo knew it, and, more than that, he had known for some days
+that those particular Indians had been planning a raid upon us, and he
+didn't interfere; he didn't warn us because he had begun to think that
+we were all bad white traders, and he wouldn't meddle with these braves
+who proposed to punish us, though he wouldn't go on the war-path with
+them. But, Major Molly, when he heard your story, when he saw how one of
+us could be a little white brave in keeping a promise to an Indian, _for
+your sake_ he relented towards the rest of us."
+
+"And when he asked me to tell him where I first heard the lariat--"
+
+"When he asked you that, he was making sure that it was his Sioux
+friends,--for he knew they were to send out a scout who would take
+exactly that direction."
+
+"But why--why did the scout chase _me_?"
+
+"He was after Tam, no doubt,--for this Sioux band is probably short of
+ponies, and Tam, you know, is a famous fellow,--and the moment the scout
+caught sight of him he would give chase."
+
+"Did he get Ranger that way? And where, oh, where is poor Barney?"
+
+"The probability is that the scout visited the corral first, and
+captured Ranger, who is almost as famous as Tam."
+
+"But, Barney--oh, oh, _do_ you think Barney has been killed?"
+
+"We don't know yet, my dear. Your father has gone off to the ranch with
+a squad of men. He'll soon find out what's happened to Barney. And
+don't fret, my dear, about your father," seeing a new anxiety on Molly's
+face. "The raiders by this time have seen our signals, and have found
+out we're up and doing, and more than a match for them; so don't
+fret,--don't fret, any of you," turning to his wife and Mrs. Elliston.
+"I don't think there'll be so much as a skirmish."
+
+And the Colonel was right. When the Indians saw the signals and the
+other signs of activity, they knew that their only chance of overcoming
+the whites by taking them unawares was gone. There were a few shots
+fired, but no skirmish; and by the time the moon rose, the fort scouts
+brought in word that the whole band had departed over the mountains. A
+few minutes after, when Captain Elliston rode in, the satisfaction was
+complete, for he brought with him the news of Barney's safety. Ranger,
+however, was gone. The Indian--or Indians, for there were two of them at
+that point--had succeeded in capturing him just as Barney had started
+out from the corral. A stealthy step, a skilful use of the lariat, and
+Barney was bound and gagged, that he might give no alarm; and all this
+with such quiet Indian alertness that a ranchman farther down the
+corral heard nothing.
+
+So harmlessly ended this raid, that might have been a bloody battle but
+for Major Molly's Christmas promise!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POLLY'S VALENTINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Polly was seven years old before she knew anything about valentines.
+This may seem very strange to most girls, for most girls have heard all
+about Valentine's Day by the time they are three or four, and have had
+no end of fun sending and receiving these friendly favors. But Polly
+didn't know a thing about them until she was seven. I'll tell you why.
+Polly was one of a number of children who lived in an Orphan's Home, and
+Polly herself was the youngest of the orphans.
+
+One morning as she looked out of the window, she saw the postman
+suddenly surrounded by a whole flock of little girls, and heard one of
+them say, "Oh, _haven't_ you got a valentine for me?" And then the whole
+flock cried, "And for me? and for me?" And the postman laughed
+good-naturedly, and, looking through his pack of letters, took out two
+or three quite big square envelopes, and handed them to one and another
+of the clamorous little crowd.
+
+Polly, hearing and seeing all this, wondered what a valentine could be.
+She did not ask anybody the question, however, just then; but when the
+postman came around at noon, and she saw the same scene repeated, her
+curiosity could not be restrained any longer, and she started off to
+find Jane McClane,--for Jane was fourteen years old and knew everything,
+Polly thought.
+
+Jane was in the linen-room mending a sheet when Polly found her, and
+being rather lonesome was quite willing to enter into conversation with
+any one who came along. But Polly's question made her open her eyes with
+surprise.
+
+"A valentine?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say, Polly, you never
+heard of a valentine before?"
+
+"No, never," answered Polly, feeling very small and ignorant.
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Jane, "you're very little, and ain't 'round
+much, but I _should_ have thought you'd have heard _somebody_ say
+something about valentines before this; but you ain't much for listening
+and asking, I know."
+
+"No," echoed Polly; "but I'm listening now."
+
+Jane laughed. "Yes, I see you are. Well, a valentine is just a piece of
+poetry, with a picture to it, that anybody sends to a person on
+Valentine's Day."
+
+"What's Valentine's Day?"
+
+"Why, it's the day you send valentines, to be sure,--the 14th of
+February."
+
+"Is it like Christmas? Was Valentine very good, and is it his birthday
+as Christmas is Christ's birthday?"
+
+"Mercy, no! What queer things you do ask when you get going, Polly!
+Valentine's Day is just Valentine's Day, when folks send these poetry
+and picture things for fun, and don't sign their own names, only 'Your
+Valentine,' and that means somebody who has chosen--chosen to be
+your--well, your beau, maybe."
+
+"What's a beau?" asked innocent Polly.
+
+"Polly, you don't know _anything_!" cried Jane, in an exasperated tone.
+"A beau is--is somebody who likes you better 'n anybody else."
+
+"Oh, I wish I had one!"
+
+"Had one--what?" asked Jane.
+
+"A beau to like me like that; to send me a valentine."
+
+"Oh, oh! you are such a baby," laughed Jane.
+
+"I ain't a baby!" cried Polly, indignantly; and then her lip quivered,
+and she began to cry.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Jane; "if Mrs. Banks hears you, she'll send you out
+of here quicker 'n a wink."
+
+But Polly could not "hush" all at once, and continued to sob and sniff
+behind her apron; Jane trying in the mean time to soothe her, but not
+succeeding very well, until she thought to say,--
+
+"If you won't cry any more, Polly, I'll get Martha"--Martha was the
+chambermaid--"to show you _her_ valentine; it's a beauty."
+
+Polly dropped her apron and began to swallow her sobs, while Jane ran to
+Martha, who was very proud of her valentine, and very glad to show it
+even to little Polly Price; and the valentine _was_ a beauty, as Jane
+had said. Polly, looking through the tears that still hung on her
+lashes at the group of little cherubs that were dancing out of lily-cups
+and roses, cried, "Angels, angels!" winding up with, "Oh, I _wish_
+somebody 'd send me a valentine!"
+
+"She didn't know a thing about valentines; never heard of them till just
+now," Jane explained to Martha.
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Martha, "she is the greenest little thing; but
+then she ain't never been to school like the rest of ye, and things is
+very quiet and out-of-the-way like in the Home here, and she's nothin'
+but a baby."
+
+"I ain't a baby! I ain't, I ain't!" screamed Polly.
+
+"Polly, Polly!" warned Jane. But Polly only burst out afresh in loud
+sobs and cries. Jane was a good-natured girl, but she could not stand
+this, and, reaching forward, she gave Polly a little shake, and said,
+"Now, Polly Price, you just stop and be a good girl, or I'll never have
+anything more to do with you."
+
+Polly gasped. Three years ago, when she was first brought to the Home,
+she had been assigned to a little bed next the one that Jane occupied,
+and had been more or less under the elder girl's care. Jane had been
+very good to the child, and with her womanly ways and superior
+knowledge she stood to Polly for both mother and sister. No wonder,
+then, that she gasped at Jane's threat. What would she do if that threat
+were carried out, and Jane had nothing more to do with her? What would
+life be in the Home without Jane?
+
+Polly did not ask herself these questions in exactly these words, but
+she felt the desolate possibility that had been suggested to her; and it
+was so appalling that it quite overpowered her flare of temper, and
+stopped her sobs and cries as effectually as Jane could have desired.
+But Jane herself, busy with her darning, did not notice the expression
+of Polly's face, and had no idea how deeply her words had penetrated the
+child's mind until hours afterwards, when, as she was preparing to go to
+bed, Polly's voice called softly,--
+
+"Jane, haven't I been a good girl since?"
+
+Jane started. "What in the world are you awake for now, Polly Price?"
+she asked. "It's nine o'clock. You ought to have been asleep long ago."
+
+"I couldn't go to sleep, I felt so bad," answered Polly.
+
+"You felt so bad; where? Have you got a sore throat?" inquired Jane,
+remembering that a good many of the children's illnesses began with sore
+throat.
+
+"No, 'tisn't my throat."
+
+"Where is it, then--your stomach?"
+
+"No, it's--it's my feelin's. I felt bad 'cause--'cause you said if I
+didn't stop cryin' and be a good girl, you wouldn' ever have anythin' to
+do with me any more. But I did stop, and I _have_ been a good girl
+since, haven't I?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes, you've been good since," bending down to tuck Polly in.
+As she stooped, Polly flung her arms around Jane's neck, and
+whispered,--
+
+"Do you love me just the same, Jane?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so," replied Jane, smiling.
+
+"I love you better 'n anybody in the world, Jane."
+
+"And you'd choose me to be your valentine, then, wouldn't you?" laughed
+Jane.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes; and if I could only send you one of those po'try picture
+things, I'd send you the most bewt'f'lest I could find. Don't you wish I
+could, Jane?"
+
+"Yes, of course I do."
+
+"Did you ever have a valentine, Jane?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Those girls 'cross the street had 'em, and Martha had one. Why don't
+you and I have 'em, Jane?"
+
+"You 'n' I? Those girls across the street know girls and boys who have
+fathers and mothers to give them money to buy valentines with."
+
+"Why don't we know such girls and boys?"
+
+"'Cause we don't. We're poor, and live in an Orphans' Home. Those girls
+only know folks that live like themselves."
+
+"But Martha lives right here, just where we do, and Martha had a
+valentine."
+
+"Martha's different. She's only paid for staying here to work. She's got
+folks outside that she belongs to. It was a cousin of hers sent her that
+valentine."
+
+"Oh," and Polly gave a soft sigh, "I wish _we_ had folks that we
+belonged to! Don't you, Jane?"
+
+"_Don't_ I!" and as Jane said this, she dropped down upon Polly's little
+bed, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Oh, Jane, Janey! what's the matter? Has somebody hurted your feelings?"
+
+"No, no," answered Jane, brokenly; "nobody in particular. I--I felt
+lonesome. I do sometimes when I get to thinking I don't belong to
+anybody and nobody belongs to me."
+
+"Janey, _I_ belongs to you, don't I?" And around Jane's neck two little
+arms pressed lovingly.
+
+"You don't belong to me as a relation does. You ain't a sister or a
+cousin, you know."
+
+"Can't you 'dopt me, Jane?"
+
+Jane laughed through her tears. "What do you know about adopting?" she
+asked.
+
+"Martha tole me 'bout it. She said folks of'n 'dopted children to be
+their very own, and that mebbe some time somebody'd 'dopt me; and I tole
+her then I didn' want anybody to 'dopt me, but--I'd like you to 'dopt
+me, Jane. Couldn't you?" with great earnestness.
+
+"Of course not, Polly. Folks who adopt children are older 'n I am, and
+have money to take care of 'em. But I do wish some nice lady would adopt
+you,--some nice lady with a nice home."
+
+"But I'd rather stay here 'long o' you, Jane. I don't want to go 'way
+from you; I'd be lonesome. But mebbe they'd 'dopt you too. Would you
+like to be 'dopted, Jane?"
+
+"I don't know's I would. I'm too old now; I couldn't get to feel as if
+they were own folks, as if I really belonged to them, as you could.
+But, Polly," suddenly sitting up and looking very seriously at Polly,
+"you mustn't think I'm finding fault with the Home here. It's a very
+comfortable place, and we are treated well. I only feel kind of lonesome
+sometimes when I see girls like those across the street, who have
+mother-and-father homes."
+
+"And valentines," cried Polly.
+
+"Oh, Polly, Polly! you'll dream of valentines to-night," laughed Jane;
+"and mind you send me one in your dream, and the very prettiest you can
+find."
+
+"I will, I will!" exclaimed Polly, flinging her arms again about Jane's
+neck, and giving her a good-night hug and kiss. "The very prettiest I
+can find! the very prettiest I can find!" And saying this over and over,
+Polly drifted away into the land of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+And sure enough, when it was well on towards morning, she did dream of
+valentines,--piles and piles of them, and out of them all she was
+hunting for the prettiest, when she heard a strangely familiar voice,
+calling,--
+
+"Come, come, Polly! It's time to get up if you want any breakfast."
+
+Polly opened her eyes to see Martha looking down at her. "Oh, Martha,
+Martha," she cried, "if you hadn't waked me, I should have got it. I'd
+_almost_ found it, and in a little minute I'd 'a' had it sure."
+
+"Had what?" asked Martha.
+
+"Janey's valentine;" and, sitting up, Polly told her dream.
+
+Martha laughed till the tears came. "You _are_ the funniest young one we
+ever had here," was her comment, when she caught her breath. "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting out your money to
+buy valentines with."
+
+"What's an heiress?" inquired Polly.
+
+"Oh, a girl that has a bankful of money," replied Martha, carelessly.
+
+Polly gave one of her long-drawn "O--hs," then slipped out of bed, and
+began to dress so slowly that Martha said to her,--
+
+"What are you dreaming about now, Polly?"
+
+But Polly didn't answer. She was too busy pulling on her stockings, and
+thinking of something else that Martha had said, and this "something"
+was "a girl with a bankful of money." Martha little suspected what
+effect her words had had, little thought what a fine scheme she had set
+going. If she had, the scheme would certainly never have been carried
+out, or never have been carried out as Polly planned it. And Polly knew
+this perfectly well, and kept as still as a mouse all through
+breakfast,--so still that the matron, Mrs. Banks, asked, "Don't you feel
+well, Polly?" whereat Polly choked over her oatmeal as she confusedly
+answered, "Yes, 'm."
+
+If it had been any other child, Mrs. Banks would have suspected that
+there was some mischief brewing behind this stillness; but Polly had
+never been given to mischief, so she was not further questioned or
+observed, and thus left to herself she scampered back to the dormitory
+after the chamber-work was done, and, going straight to a small bureau
+that stood between Jane's bed and her own, she cautiously pulled out the
+lower drawer, and took from it a little toy house. This pretty toy house
+was nothing more nor less than a child's bank that had been given to
+Polly one Christmas, and into which she had dropped the pennies that had
+been bestowed upon her from time to time. Polly had long yearned for a
+paint-box; and whenever she went out, she used to stop at a certain
+shop-window where these tempting things were displayed, and wonder how
+much they cost. One day she summoned up courage to go in and ask the
+price of the smallest.
+
+"Twenty-five cents," the clerk told her. Polly at first was dismayed.
+Twenty-five cents seemed a vast sum to her. But it was a long time yet
+to next Christmas, and perhaps by then she _might_ find even as much as
+that in her bank. This hope had warmed her heart for weeks, so that when
+she was smarting under the first sense of disappointment about the
+valentines, she consoled herself with the thought of the little
+paint-box that might soon be hers. But when Martha had said, "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting your money out,"
+and had told her an heiress meant a girl with a bankful of money, like a
+flash of lightning came another thought into Polly's mind,--the thought
+that then and there from _her_ little bank she might count the money to
+buy a valentine for her dear Jane; and once this thought had entered
+Polly's head there was no putting it out. Over and above everything it
+kept gaining, until it sent her to tugging at that red chimney. Then
+suddenly the chimney that had stuck so fast gave way.
+
+Polly nearly fell backward, it was so sudden; but righting herself, she
+shook the treasure into her lap, and fell to counting it. She counted up
+to ten; that was as far as her knowledge of arithmetic went. Putting
+aside the ten pennies into a little pile, she began to count the rest.
+"One, two, three," she went on until--why, there was another pile of
+ten, and more yet; and the "more yet" counted up to five. Polly couldn't
+"do sums." She couldn't add these two piles of ten and the "more yet,"
+and she couldn't ask Jane or any one else in the house to do it for her.
+But what she _could_ do, what she _would_ do, was to slip the whole
+treasure back into the bank, and take it around to the shop on the
+corner, the shop where she had seen the paint-boxes, and where she was
+sure she should also find plenty of valentines. So getting into her
+little coat and hood, she scampered out and off, unseen and unheard by
+any of the household. It was rather terrifying to find several other
+customers in the shop, but she had no time to wait until they had left,
+and, going bravely forward, she called out, "Please, I want a
+valentine." But the clerk was busy, and paid no attention to her; so she
+pressed a little nearer, and piped out again in a louder tone, "Please,
+I want a valentine."
+
+But even this did not succeed in getting his attention. Oh, what
+_should_ she do! Perhaps in another minute Jane or Martha or Mrs. Banks
+would have missed her, and be hunting for her; perhaps they would be
+sending a policeman after her. Oh dear! oh dear! And summoning up all
+her courage, she cried out in a voice full of sobs and tears, "Oh,
+please, _please_, I want a valentine right off now this minute!"
+
+"Don't you see I'm busy now?" said the clerk, sharply.
+
+But the lady he was waiting upon had turned and looked at Polly as she
+spoke, and immediately said to the clerk,--
+
+"Oh, do attend to the child now. Her mother has probably told her to
+make haste."
+
+"She hasn't any mother. She's one of the children at the Orphans' Home,"
+replied the clerk in a lower tone.
+
+"Oh!" And the lady started and looked at Polly with new interest, and
+then insisted still more earnestly that she should be attended to at
+once, at the same time beckoning Polly to come forward.
+
+Polly obeyed her; but as she glanced at the cheap little five-cent
+valentines the clerk put before her, she shook her head disdainfully. "I
+want a bigger one; I want the bewt'f'lest there is," she informed him.
+
+The young man laughed. "How much money have you got?" he asked.
+
+Polly produced her bank, and triumphantly shook out its contents.
+
+"Oh,"--laughing again,--"all that? How much is it?"
+
+"I don't know jus' exac'ly. I can count up to ten, and there's two ten
+piles, and--and--five cents more."
+
+"Oh, two tens and five. Yes, I see,"--running his fingers over the
+little heap,--"that makes twenty-five. You've got twenty-five cents.
+Here are the twenty-five-cent valentines;" and he uncovered another box,
+and left her to make her choice.
+
+"Twenty-five cents!" echoed Polly. Why, why, why, that was enough to buy
+the little paint-box! She glanced down at the twenty-five-cent
+valentines. They presented a dazzling sight of cherubs' heads and wings
+and flowery garlands. She lifted her chin a little higher, and there,
+staring her in the face, was the very little paint-box, with its two
+brushes and porcelain color plate, and it seemed to say to her: "Come,
+buy me now; come, buy me now. If you don't, somebody else will get me."
+And she _could_ buy it now, if only--she gave up the valentine--Jane's
+valentine; and--why shouldn't she? She hadn't told Jane anything about
+it; Jane didn't expect it; Jane wouldn't ever know about it. Why
+shouldn't she? And Polly drew a deep sigh of perplexity as she asked
+herself this question.
+
+"What is it?" a soft voice said to her here. "What is it that troubles
+you? Tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+Polly started, and turned to see the lady who had made way for her
+standing beside her. The lady smiled reassuringly as she met Polly's
+perplexed glance, and said again,--
+
+"What is it? Tell me."
+
+And Polly, looking up into the kind sweet face, told the whole
+story,--all about the long saving for the little paint-box, Jane's
+valentine, and everything, winding up eagerly with the appeal,--"And
+wouldn't _you_ buy the paint-box now 'stead of the valentine, 'cos the
+paint-box mebbe'll be gone when I get more money?"
+
+"Wouldn't I? Well, I don't know what I should have done when I was a
+little girl like you. I dare say, though, that I should have felt just
+as you do--have done just as you, I see, are going to do now."
+
+"Bought the paint-box!" cried Polly.
+
+"Yes, bought the paint-box," laughed the lady.
+
+Polly beamed with smiles, and gave a rapturous look at the treasure that
+was so soon to be hers. But presently the rapture faded, and a new
+expression came into her face. The lady was watching her very
+attentively.
+
+"Well, what now?" she inquired. "Doesn't the paint-box suit you?"
+
+Polly gave an emphatic nod. Perhaps it was that nod that sent two little
+tears to her eyes.
+
+"Then, if it suits you, shall I speak to the clerk, and tell him you've
+changed your mind about the valentine, and will buy the paint-box?"
+
+Polly shook her head, and two more tears followed the first ones.
+
+"You're not going to buy the paint-box?"
+
+"N-o, I--I gu-ess not. I guess I'll buy the valentine. Jane didn't ever
+get a valentine, and she hasn't got anybody to give her one but me."
+
+The blurring tears made Polly's eyes so dim here, she could scarcely
+see; but through the dimness she sent one last good-by look at the dear
+paint-box, and then resolutely turned to the valentines, from which she
+selected the biggest and "bewt'f'lest" she could find, the lady crowning
+her kindness by stamping and directing it, and finally mailing it in the
+letterbox just outside the shop door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"What yer watchin' for, Polly?"
+
+Polly didn't answer.
+
+"Guess I know," said Martha, laughing; "yer watchin' for the postman to
+bring yer a valentine."
+
+"I ain't," said Polly.
+
+Just then the postman crossed the street, and ring, ring, went the Home
+bell.
+
+"I told you so," said Martha, as she ran down to answer it. In a minute
+she was back again holding out a big square envelope, and saying again,
+"I told you so."
+
+"'T ain't for me," cried Polly.
+
+"Ain't your name Polly Price?"
+
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+
+"Well, here 's 'Polly Price' written as plain as print. Just look now!"
+and Martha held forth the missive.
+
+Polly looked. She could read her own name in writing; and there it was,
+sure enough, plain as print,--Polly Price, and it was written on an
+envelope exactly like the one she had chosen to send to Jane. A fearful
+thought came into Polly's mind. She had told the lady her own
+name,--Polly Price,--and it was Polly Price she had written on the
+envelope instead of Jane McClane. Oh! oh! oh! and then Polly burst
+out,--
+
+"It ain't mine, it ain't mine, it's Jane's. The lady made a mistake."
+
+"What lady?"
+
+"The lady in the shop."
+
+"What shop?"
+
+And then Polly had to tell the whole story.
+
+"And that's where you were after breakfast, you little monkey, breaking
+a bank, and running away with it, to buy Jane McClane a valentine. Well,
+if this isn't the funniest thing I ever heard of. Jane! Jane! come up
+here and show Polly _your_ valentine!" And up came Jane, her face
+beaming with smiles, holding in one hand a big square envelope, and in
+the other an open sheet all covered with lilies and roses and cherubs'
+faces; that very "bewt'f'lest valentine" that had been chosen for her.
+
+Polly, staring at it in amazement, cried out, "Why, she's got it! she's
+got it!" And then, pulling open the envelope addressed to Polly Price,
+she stared in amazement again, and cried out, "Why, this is just like
+_that_ one,--the one I bought for you, Janey!"
+
+And then it was Jane's turn to cry out in amazement, to say, "_You_
+bought it; how did _you_ buy it, Polly?"
+
+"She broke a bank and ran away with the money," laughed Martha.
+
+"I didn't, either. The chimney's made to come out, and the bank's my
+bank," retorted Polly, indignantly.
+
+"You took _your_ money,--your money you've been saving to buy the
+paint-box with, to buy this valentine for me?" asked Jane.
+
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+
+"And gave up the paint-box! Oh, Polly, Polly, you're a dear;" and Jane
+swooped down upon Polly with a tremendous hug. Polly returned the
+embrace with ardor, and then, "Who d' you s'pose," she asked, "who d'
+you s'pose sent _me_ one jus' exactly like yours? It must be somebody
+that likes me jus' as I like you, Janey."
+
+"Mrs. Banks wants you to go down to the parlor, Polly. There's some one
+to see you," a voice interrupted here.
+
+"To see _me_?" cried Polly.
+
+"Yes,--don't stop to bother,--run along." And Polly ran along as fast
+as her feet could carry her, wondering as she went who had come to see
+_her_, who had never in her life had a visitor before. At the foot of
+the stairs she stopped in shy alarm. Then she tiptoed across the hallway
+to the parlor threshold, and there she saw the lady who had been so kind
+to her in the shop.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed Polly, joyfully.
+
+The lady laughed, and held out her hand. "Yes, it's I," she said. "Did
+Jane get the valentine all right, and did she like it?"
+
+Polly nodded, and then burst out with the story of her own
+valentine,--"Jus' like Janey's!"
+
+"And who d' you s'pose sent it?" she asked confidingly, nestling against
+the lady's knee.
+
+"I think it must have been one of the good Saint Valentine's
+messengers," answered the lady.
+
+Polly's eyes opened very wide. "Saint Valentine! Tell me 'bout him," she
+said.
+
+"A very wise man has told about him,--a man by the name of
+Wheatley,--and he says that this Valentine was a good bishop who lived
+long ago, and so famous for his love and charity that after he died he
+was called Saint Valentine, and a festival was held on his birthday,
+when all the people would send love tokens to their friends."
+
+Polly's face was radiant. "Oh, I _thought_ Valentine was a somebody very
+good, and that Valentine's Day was his birthday. I asked Jane if 't
+wasn't. Oh, Janey, Janey!" running to the foot of the stairs in her
+excitement, "come down and hear 'bout Saint Valentine!"
+
+"Polly!" said Mrs. Banks, reprovingly.
+
+"Oh, don't stop her," cried the lady. "I like to hear her, and I want to
+see Janey." After this there was nothing for Mrs. Banks to do but to
+send for Jane. As the strong, womanly-looking girl entered the room, a
+new idea entered the lady's mind. "It's the very thing," she said to
+herself,--"the very thing." At that instant carriage wheels were heard
+at the door, and the bell was rung sharply and impatiently. "Oh, it must
+be my Elise," said the lady.
+
+The next instant the door was opened, and in hopped--that is the only
+word to use--a little lame girl of ten or eleven, lifting herself along
+by a crutch. She was very pale, and her eyes were sunken with suffering;
+but she looked about her with a smile, and said in a quick, lively
+way,--
+
+"I got tired of driving 'round the square waiting for you, mamma; so I
+thought I'd come in."
+
+"I'm glad you did; I wanted you to see--"
+
+"I know--Polly! Mamma 's told me all about you, Polly, you and Jane and
+the valentine; and that's Jane. How do you do, Polly? how do you do,
+Jane?" nodding and laughing at them in a way that made Polly and Jane
+laugh too, whereupon this odd little girl exclaimed, "That's right,
+laugh, do! I like laughy folks;" and then, as she said this, her little
+figure swayed and would have fallen, if Jane, who was very quick of
+motion, hadn't sprung forward and caught her in her arms. The girl's
+face was all puckered up into little wrinkles of pain; but as soon as
+she could speak, she said, "Aren't you strong, though, Jane!"
+
+Jane couldn't say a word, but Polly piped out, "If I let you have my
+valentine to look at a little while, do you think you'd feel better?"
+
+"Lots, Polly, lots. Mamma told me about you; and when you come to stay
+with us, you'll be a regular treat."
+
+"Stay with you?" cried Polly, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes; what," turning to her mother, "haven't you asked her yet, mamma?"
+
+"No; I've only talked with Mrs. Banks."
+
+"Well, I'll talk to Polly. Polly, we've been looking for a nice little
+girl like you to come and stay at our house. I'm lame, and I can't do
+much. When mamma came home and told me about you and the bank and the
+paint-box and the valentine, I said, 'That's the girl for me; let's go
+and ask her to come.' And _won't_ you come, Polly?"
+
+"I--I'd like to if--if Jane can come too."
+
+"Don't. Polly. I can't--I can't!" whispered Jane.
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried the lame Elise, entreatingly.
+
+"Mamma" turned to Mrs. Banks. "If she _would_ only come and help
+us,--come and try us, at least,--I'm sure we could make satisfactory
+arrangements."
+
+Mrs. Banks nodded, and smiled approval. "Of course Jane can go if she
+chooses."
+
+"And you _will_ choose,--you will, won't you, Jane?"
+
+"Course she will," cried Polly; and then everybody laughed, and
+everything was as good as settled from that moment. Then it was that
+Polly burst out, "I should be puffickly happy now if I only knew jus'
+who that mess'nger was that sent my valentine."
+
+"Tell her, mamma, tell her!" called out Elise; and "mamma" bent down,
+and said to Polly,--
+
+"It was somebody who saw what a loving heart a certain little girl had
+when she chose to give up her paint-box to buy her dear Jane a
+valentine."
+
+"'Twas you, 'twas you!" cried Polly, joyfully. "Oh, I jus' love
+Valentine's Day, and I knew it must be Somebody's birfday,--some very
+good Somebody!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIBYL'S SLIPPER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When Sir William Howe succeeded General Gage as governor and military
+commander of the New England province, he at once set to work to make
+himself and the King's cause popular in a social way by giving a series
+of fine entertainments in the stately Province House.
+
+To these entertainments were bidden all the Boston townsfolk who were
+loyal to the British crown. Amongst such, none were more prominent or
+made more welcome than Mr. Jeffrey Merridew and his pretty young niece,
+Sibyl.
+
+Mr. Merridew was a stanch royalist, though he was by no means a violent
+hater of the rebels. Many of them were his old friends and neighbors;
+and his only brother, Dr. Ephraim Merridew,--Sibyl's father,--was a
+rebel at heart, though in far-away Barbadoes, where he was at that time
+engaged in business, he could not serve the rebel cause in person, as he
+would gladly have done. But he left behind him a son who, in full
+sympathy with his father's views, ranged himself boldly on the rebel
+side, as part and parcel of the American army.
+
+A rebel relative in Barbadoes was not a matter to trouble oneself about
+greatly, but a rebel relative on the spot, so to speak,--for young
+Ephraim was only four miles away at the Cambridge rallying-ground,--was
+a different thing; and, amiable and easy-going as Mr. Jeffrey Merridew
+was disposed to be, his nephew's close proximity could not, under the
+peculiar circumstances, but be embarrassing and disturbing on occasions;
+for the young man, besides being his nephew, was Sibyl's brother, and
+Sibyl, as a member of a royalist's family,--for her father on his
+departure for Barbadoes had left his motherless girl in her uncle's
+charge,--could not, of course, be allowed free intercourse with one who
+had placed himself in an attitude of active hostility to the royal
+cause.
+
+When Sibyl was apprised of this dictum, she at once made passionate
+protest against it. "What harm do the King's soldiers think poor Eph can
+do them by now and then paying a visit to his sister?" she asked her
+uncle scornfully.
+
+"Harm? You are very young, Sibyl, and don't understand these things.
+Your brother has chosen very foolishly to join the rebel forces, and so
+has made himself one of our acknowledged enemies; and I never heard of
+declared enemies in time of war walking in and out of each other's
+houses like tame cats," answered Mr. Merridew, sarcastically.
+
+"But Eph, such a boy as Eph, only nineteen, only two years older than I!
+What harm could he do now, more than he has ever done, by coming to his
+uncle's house as a visitor?" still persisted Sibyl, rather foolishly.
+
+"What harm!" exclaimed Mr. Merridew, impatiently. "What a child you are,
+Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal
+government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that
+he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to
+see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if reported to his
+officers?"
+
+"You think Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in
+high indignation.
+
+"Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with
+irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting
+of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war
+tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'"
+
+"And would you--would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a
+visitor,--would you--"
+
+"Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything
+worth telling,--anything that I thought would save the cause I believed
+to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be
+my duty to do it."
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business."
+
+"Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious
+business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels,
+like--"
+
+"Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew
+hesitated.
+
+"Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded
+her uncle, gravely.
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame.
+They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play.
+It is the King's folk who are to blame,--the King's folk who want to
+oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater
+grandeur."
+
+Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst.
+Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he
+said,--
+
+"So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these
+are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none
+too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong
+boy."
+
+"But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother.
+They are his principles, and they are my principles too!"
+
+"Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely
+tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an
+assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great
+laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy,
+to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see
+if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have
+those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her
+principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew."
+
+"Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that."
+
+"You will not promise? But you _have_ promised."
+
+"_Have_ promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting
+yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a
+little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant
+beauty.
+
+But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little
+provincial,--not he; and so, lifting up _his_ head with an air of
+hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,--
+
+"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a
+moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged
+her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her
+to-night."
+
+Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at
+her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,--
+
+"But I never reflect."
+
+"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but
+perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance
+upon this"--and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted
+card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was
+written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised
+to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if
+they are to be had in the town!"
+
+Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers--Sir Harry's
+roses--to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said,
+with a gleam of fun in her eyes,--
+
+"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for _him_ to recall his friends
+and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an
+untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about
+with her, to charge _her_ mind unaided."
+
+"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath
+extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration
+of her ready wit,--"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss
+Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As
+I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he
+held out his hand to her.
+
+[Illustration: A very pretty pair]
+
+"A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as
+the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as
+the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his
+post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,--
+
+"Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they
+would stand a test."
+
+Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his
+one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about
+"our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the
+test against a full regiment of regulars."
+
+"Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great
+interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge
+have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in
+a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us
+successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth
+if they attempt it."
+
+"And you--the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl.
+
+"We--well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions
+of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a
+vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah,"
+with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of
+this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a
+prize!"
+
+"But there is no possibility of this?"
+
+"Not the slightest. But you are pale,--don't be alarmed; there is no
+danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are
+certain."
+
+"But if they had?"
+
+"Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business
+better than their landsmen."
+
+All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the
+music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way
+at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his
+companion falter.
+
+"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she
+spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel
+of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night.
+For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not
+_he_ do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a
+slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must
+be hammered and fitted on.
+
+But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. _Something could_ be
+done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She
+needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry--on his
+way to his quarters that night--would he think it beneath his dignity to
+leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there
+by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the
+shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box
+by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon
+it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish
+job, she knew.
+
+Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her
+bidding.
+
+And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to
+the cloak-room for a moment?
+
+Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles.
+Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her
+pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken
+cord that had held her fan.
+
+"And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry,
+smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later.
+
+"Perhaps, if I may depend upon you--and Anthony Styles," she answered.
+Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like
+red twin roses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+  Robe of satin and Brussels lace,
+    Knots of flowers and ribbons too,
+  Scattered about in every place,
+    For the revel is through.
+
+And there, in the midst of all this pretty disorder of satin and lace
+and flowers, sits Sibyl, far into the night, or rather morning, turning
+over and over in her mind something that effectually banishes sleep.
+
+By and by, as she turns it over for the twentieth time, she says aloud
+to herself: "To think that it should be given to _me_ to do,--made _my_
+duty! Uncle Jeffrey taught me that, as he has taught me many things
+these past months,--to keep my own counsel, for one thing.
+
+"Ah, Uncle Jeffrey, you have fancied me all these months naught but a
+vain little puppet who could be led to forget anything in a round of
+routs and balls. Well, I like the routs and balls dearly, dearly, but I
+like something else better. I like what my father has taught us, what
+my dear Eph is going to fight for, and perhaps die for, far, far better.
+Yet I felt like a cheat to-night as I led Sir Harry on to tell me what
+he did,--Sir Harry, who thinks me, as all the rest do, a stanch little
+Tory, for I have kept my counsel indeed, and no one suspects. But oh, it
+is odious, it is odious, this war business; yet I have been taught how
+to do my duty, and I have done it. Yes, I have done my duty, for 'the
+reporting of important facts, however gained, in times of war, is part
+of war tactics.' Yes, these are your words, Uncle Jeffrey, and oh, how
+they flashed up to me to-night when Sir Harry told me of the British
+vessel, and how they fairly rung in my ears like an order, when it
+suddenly came to me how I could get this important fact that I had
+gained sent to the right quarter by means of good Anthony Styles and
+that parcel-box of his, through which so many messages have gone safely.
+
+"Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh, if I didn't shiver so, when I think
+of it! Sir Harry, Sir Harry of all persons, dropping that message into
+Anthony Styles's hands,--Anthony Styles, the stanch rebel whom they
+think a stanch Tory! Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh! And now if
+everything goes well,--if everything goes well, my dear rebels will not
+be swept off the earth by British arms quite yet!
+
+[Illustration: Sibyl's reflections]
+
+"But, hark! that is the clock; it is striking one, and I out of bed and
+gabbling to myself in this foolish way of mine, 'like a play-acting
+woman,' as Uncle Jeffrey would say of me. But I will not stay up a
+minute longer. So good-night, good-night, my dear rebels, g--ood-night!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clock was striking four the next afternoon when a weather-beaten
+man, who had a look as if he had once been a seaman, knocked at the side
+door of Mr. Jeffrey Merridew's mansion and asked to see young Mistress
+Merridew.
+
+"It's Shoemaker Styles," the maid informed Sibyl, "and he says you must
+come down and try on the slipper he has brought; he's not sure about the
+heel. He's in the hall-room, mem."
+
+It was with a wildly beating heart that Sibyl, obeying this summons, ran
+down to the little hall-room where Anthony Styles awaited her.
+
+He stood with the slipper in his hand as she entered the room; and
+before he could close the door behind her, he called out in a frank,
+loud voice: "I thought you had better try on the shoe, miss; I wasn't
+sure of the heel."
+
+The moment the door was closed, however, he came forward eagerly, and in
+a low tone said: "It's all right, little mistress. I heard the click of
+the tunnel-box last night, for I hadn't turned in, and afore many
+minutes I was up and off in my boat with the message in my head; I burnt
+the paper! There was a stiff breeze, and I reached the cutter in the
+quickest time I ever made, and got back afore daylight with nobody the
+wiser. Shoemaker Styles understands his old sailor business better than
+shoemaking," with a grim laugh, "and no Tory knows these waters as I
+do."
+
+"And it's all right, and the end will be all right?" faltered Sibyl,
+anxiously.
+
+"All right! You'll know for yourself by nightfall, perhaps; and now God
+bless you, little mistress. You've done a great service; and if ever
+Anthony Styles can sarve you, he'll do it with a whole heart,--God bless
+you, God bless you!" and with these words Shoemaker Styles hurried off,
+leaving Sibyl with the slipper still in her hand, and both of them quite
+oblivious of that important trying-on process.
+
+The day after the ball was a busy one for Sir Harry Willing, and it was
+not until late in the afternoon that he felt himself at liberty to take
+his accustomed saunter about town.
+
+As he came in sight of the gilded boot, he smilingly thought: "I wonder
+if Shoemaker Styles has done his duty by the little slipper; if he has,
+I shall dance with my lady Sibyl at Madame Boutineau's this evening."
+
+But Sir Harry did not dance at Madame Boutineau's that evening, for when
+at nightfall he returned to his quarters, he was met by the disastrous
+tidings that the long-looked for, eagerly expected British brig, loaded
+with supplies for the King's army, had been captured off Lechmere's
+Point by the Yankee rebels.
+
+It was not many months after this capture that the British evacuated
+Boston. When Sir Harry Willing took leave of Sibyl Merridew, he pleaded
+for some token of remembrance.
+
+"You will not promise yourself to me," he said in reproachful accents,
+"but give me some token of yourself, some gage of amity at least."
+
+"But what--what can I give you, Sir Harry?" asked Sibyl, not a little
+touched and troubled.
+
+"Give me the little slipper you wore that night we danced together at
+the Province House."
+
+"That--that slipper?" and Sibyl blushed and paled.
+
+"Yes--ah, you will, you will."
+
+A moment's hesitation; then with a strange smile, half grave, half gay,
+Sibyl answered, "I will."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+It was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in
+their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their
+lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke,
+with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and
+exclaimed, "We _can't_ be good as they were in those Bible days, no
+matter _what_ anybody says; things are different."
+
+"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"
+
+Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who
+had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and
+bound up his wounds and took care of him.
+
+"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.
+
+"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of
+a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those
+particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to
+people who are in trouble,--people who need things done for them."
+
+"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have
+now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable
+societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see
+them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."
+
+"We can do some things in vacations,--get up fairs and things of that
+kind, and give the money to the poor."
+
+"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the
+money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that
+all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our
+eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was
+keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected _me_ to
+do."
+
+"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any
+more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,--five
+minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid
+is so frowzely."
+
+"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you
+used to?"
+
+"I told you why yesterday,--because that Burr girl has made me sick of
+curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd
+make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came
+out with that fiery thing of hers. _Isn't_ it horrid?"
+
+"Yes, horrid!"
+
+A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the
+supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the
+dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a
+heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied
+back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery
+red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could
+have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside
+her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls,
+her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every
+movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the
+reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to
+go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she
+crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer.
+Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey
+tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the
+end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat,
+tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This
+was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up
+with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a
+little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so
+careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.
+
+"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this
+term; but there's _one_ thing I'm not going to do any more,--I'm not
+going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she _does_ dress
+so!" concluded Janey.
+
+"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She
+chooses her things herself," said Eva.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Janey.
+
+"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what
+she likes."
+
+"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things!
+Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"
+
+"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She _has_ lived 'way off
+out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army
+officer of some kind."
+
+"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a
+voice outside the door.
+
+"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night,
+good-night."
+
+The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great
+hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered
+as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that
+seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in
+her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little
+Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled
+when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice
+went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her
+age,--their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that
+Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,--Miss Vincent,
+in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,--
+
+"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do--oh, so much!
+You are thinking of only one way of doing,--helping the poor, visiting
+people in need. I _don't_ think you can do much of that. I think that
+_is_ mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your
+own,--a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day
+and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through
+such suffering once,--was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let
+me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was
+between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent
+to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So
+when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst
+themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly
+way and laughing at _me_, and I immediately straightened up and put on a
+stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only
+prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became
+very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided
+way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a
+while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to
+conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still
+misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at
+this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other
+girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the
+whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were
+down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't
+stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to
+worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them
+like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,--forgot everything but my
+desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even
+conflict,--thirty girls against one; and at length I did something
+dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my
+ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three
+of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against
+them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that,
+and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated
+me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that
+I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the
+ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the
+details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening
+of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the
+dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers
+to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all
+of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not
+even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was
+natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't
+remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me
+away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."
+
+"They were horrid girls,--horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.
+
+"No; they were like any ordinary girls who _don't think_. But you see
+how different everything might have been if only _one_ of them had
+thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been
+suffering, and"--smiling down upon Eva--"been a good Samaritan to me."
+
+"They were horrid, or they _would_ have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm
+sure _I_ don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."
+
+"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was
+silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head,
+Eva; and you never get things right,--never!"
+
+"I think you are very unkind."
+
+"Well, you can think so. _I_ think--"
+
+"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;"
+then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller
+entered.
+
+"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.
+
+"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.
+
+"Cordelia Burr?"
+
+"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with
+her."
+
+"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her.
+When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking
+of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with _her_, as
+those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."
+
+"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.
+
+Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it
+into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we
+are like those horrid girls."
+
+"Not like them; not as bad as they were, _yet_; but we might be if we
+kept on, maybe."
+
+"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet,
+pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and
+we--I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like
+Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls
+do."
+
+"But you--we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't
+dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of
+things that we were in, a good many times."
+
+"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so
+disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never
+in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in
+everything else it's just the same."
+
+"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."
+
+"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.
+
+"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and
+independent as she can be."
+
+"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe--"
+
+"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.
+
+"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are
+not on the wrong track with her; and I--"
+
+"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take
+notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be
+pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just
+one thing more: I'll say, if you _do_ begin this, you'll have to do it
+alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of
+the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and
+a nice time you'll have of it."
+
+Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for
+she was choking with tears,--tears that presently found vent in "a good
+cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.
+
+What should she do? What _could_ she do with all the girls against her?
+If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss
+Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.
+
+Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very
+sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that
+could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the
+same impression upon Alice,--that Alice had not seen in it, as she had,
+a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was
+Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest
+of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might--it might
+make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more,
+to--to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter
+would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her
+task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss
+Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."
+
+About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the
+other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.
+
+"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this
+time; she is so fond of the gym."
+
+"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day,"
+whispered Janey.
+
+"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have--But there
+she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here
+and try the bars with us."
+
+Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this
+pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody,
+and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward
+and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment
+everything that was unpleasant.
+
+There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined
+plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung
+down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track,
+as they called it.
+
+They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came
+in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried
+forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice
+gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and,
+pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who
+had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even
+to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was
+accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track
+there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem
+enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and
+heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a
+different aspect. But what--what ought she to do? What _could_ she do
+then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls,
+and Alice--Alice specially--would be _so_ angry. Oh, no, no, she
+couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came
+to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face
+flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.
+
+"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed
+again through Eva's mind.
+
+"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace
+faltered here.
+
+Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was
+going towards the door.
+
+"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.
+
+But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and
+dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"
+
+Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.
+
+Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia!
+Cordelia!"
+
+The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What
+was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and
+Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,--even they
+wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant
+she cried breathlessly, "We--I--didn't mean to crowd you out; it--it
+wasn't fair; and--and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia,
+won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot
+everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary
+admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did--_against them
+all_! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and
+her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to
+start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take
+place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most
+unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn
+with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish,
+independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer.
+Instead of that--instead of coldness and haughty independence--they saw
+her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then,
+dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of
+tears,--not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that,
+like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart
+after long repression.
+
+"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia,
+"don't, don't cry."
+
+Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but
+as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her
+head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching
+saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe
+away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!
+don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning
+sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking
+voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret
+gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and
+one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed
+fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they
+passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to
+Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what
+they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately,
+"Oh, girls, I should think--" and then broke down completely, and bowed
+her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody
+else took up her words,--the very words she had used a second
+ago,--somebody else whispered,--
+
+"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder,
+and she looked up to see--Alice King standing beside her. And then it
+seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of
+them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly
+piped out,--
+
+"We--we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."
+
+And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered
+out: "Care? How--how could I hel--help caring?"
+
+"But we thought--we thought you didn't like us," said another,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"And I--I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise
+me more if--if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little
+sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.
+
+"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and
+then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong
+track."
+
+Just here a bell in the hall--the signal to those in the gymnasium that
+their half-hour was up--rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and
+repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses
+and prepare for dinner.
+
+"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms
+around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.
+
+"Good? Don't--don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.
+
+"But you _were_. I--I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I--"
+
+Alice now flung _her_ arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug,
+as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I--I've been--a
+little fiend, I suppose, and I _was_ horridly angry at first; but when
+I--I saw how--that Cordelia really was--that she really felt what she
+did, I--oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood
+mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, _there's_ a little
+Samaritan."
+
+"Oh, Alice!"
+
+"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by
+liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though
+I'm going to behave myself, and _bear_ with her, I shall never come up
+to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she _does_ dress so! I'm
+going to behave myself, though, I am,--I am; but I hope she won't expect
+too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."
+
+"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's
+too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress
+and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but
+she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if
+she doesn't."
+
+And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much
+in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like
+another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her
+self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and
+apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a
+girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere,
+and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so
+far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by
+it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She _does_ dress
+so!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ESTHER BODN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Oh, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and
+dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and
+papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told
+me to ask you."
+
+"If it was any other evening."
+
+"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"
+
+"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."
+
+"Esther Bodn!"
+
+"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I
+fixed Thursday,--to-morrow."
+
+"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,--that mamma and
+papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I
+shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"
+
+"I don't want to do that, Kitty."
+
+"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"
+
+"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't
+want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."
+
+"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very
+ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a
+visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,--that
+you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,--and
+Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."
+
+"But that was different, Kitty."
+
+"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."
+
+"Oh, Kitty, you _know_."
+
+"But I _don't_ know."
+
+Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation
+she said: "Esther is--is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she
+doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,--quite poor, Kitty."
+
+"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately
+responded Kitty.
+
+"Now, Kitty, you _do_ see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't
+visit the people that we do."
+
+"She doesn't visit _anybody_, so far as I know."
+
+"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when
+she and her mother have made preparations for company--even one
+person--it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience
+to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to
+do it."
+
+"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?"
+asked Kitty, sarcastically.
+
+Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way,
+but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that
+Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother
+wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."
+
+"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor,
+like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in
+a wondering tone.
+
+"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with
+decision.
+
+"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should be sent to Miss
+Milwood's school. I shouldn't think they could afford it," went on
+Kitty; "why, the place for her is a public school."
+
+"But, Kitty, don't you know that Esther assists Miss Milwood,--that it
+is Esther who looks over all the French and German exercises, and makes
+the first corrections before mademoiselle takes them?"
+
+"Esther Bodn?"
+
+"Yes,--why, Esther, you must have noticed, is very proficient in French
+and German. She and her mother have lived abroad and here, in French and
+German families, to prepare her for being a teacher. She has a great
+natural aptitude, too, for languages."
+
+"How in the world did you find all this out, Laura?"
+
+"I didn't _find it out_, as you call it,--there is no secret about
+it,--Esther would no doubt have told you as much, if you had got as well
+acquainted with her as I have."
+
+"I don't see how you came to get so well acquainted with her. She's nice
+enough, but I could always see that she wasn't like the rest of us,--of
+our set."
+
+"Like the rest of us! She's just as good as the rest of us, and better
+than some of us."
+
+"Oh, I dare say," said Kitty, in a patronizing tone.
+
+"She may not be of our set, as you say, Kitty; but when I think of how
+Maud and Florence Aplin talk sometimes, I don't feel very proud of
+belonging to 'our set.'"
+
+"Yes, I know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are
+nice girls, and it is a nice family, mamma says."
+
+"Every one seems to say that about them, and I've often wondered what
+they meant. I'm sure Mr. Aplin isn't very nice. He has no end of money,
+I know, but he can be so rude, and Mrs. Aplin is so patronizing. Now,
+why should they be called such 'nice people'?"
+
+Kitty straightened herself up, put on a very knowing look, and repeated
+parrot-like what she had heard older persons say,--
+
+"Mrs. Aplin was a Windlow."
+
+"What in the world is a Windlow?" asked Laura, rather sarcastically.
+
+Kitty was a worldly young woman, but she was also full of fun; and this
+question of Laura's amused her mightily, and with a suppressed giggle
+she answered demurely: "I think it has something to do with windows. The
+Windlows were English, and I believe their business was to open and shut
+the windows in the king's palaces,--perhaps to wash them. This all began
+ages ago, and it was considered a great honor, a tip-top thing to do,
+especially when the windows were high up. The honor has descended from
+generation to generation, and the name with it, I believe. They had some
+very ordinary name at the start."
+
+The giggle, that had been suppressed up to this point, now burst forth
+in a shout of laughter, wherein Laura herself joined, exclaiming, as she
+did so, "Oh, Kitty, you are so ridiculous!"
+
+"Why don't you make a rhyme and say, 'Oh, Kitty, you're so witty'? But,
+Laura, it is you who are odd and ridiculous, to pretend that you don't
+know that Windlow is one of the oldest names of one of the oldest
+families who came over to America in the Mayflower,--regular old
+aristocrats."
+
+"Now, Kitty, I'm up in my history, if I'm not on this society stuff, and
+just let me tell you that those first settlers of America who came over
+in the Mayflower were _not_ aristocrats."
+
+"Oh, Laura, when everybody who can, brags of a Mayflower ancestor! I
+heard Mrs. Arkwright say to mamma, the other day that the Aplins were of
+the real old Mayflower blue blood."
+
+"Then Mrs. Arkwright, with the 'everybody' you tell of, doesn't know
+what history says."
+
+"Why, I'm sure I thought that was history."
+
+"Well, it isn't. Last year I went with my father to Plymouth, and he
+took me to the famous rock where the Mayflower pilgrims landed, and
+afterward he gave me a lovely book called 'The Olden Time,' by Edmund
+Sears, that told me all about the pilgrims,--who they were, and why they
+came over, and everything, and I remember it said in this book that the
+Plymouth pilgrims were constantly confounded--those were the very
+words--with the Puritans who came over nine years later to
+Massachusetts."
+
+"But Plymouth is in Massachusetts."
+
+"Yes, I know, but it wasn't in that day. It was simply Plymouth Colony.
+The Mayflower sailed by Cape Cod into Plymouth Bay. They named the bay
+Plymouth, as they named the town Plymouth, for the old Plymouth in
+England."
+
+"Did they name Cape Cod too?"
+
+"No; that name was given years before by Captain Gosnold, an early
+voyager."
+
+"Oh, I know, he caught such a lot of codfish there. I wish he'd never
+discovered the place; I hate codfish. But go on with your history
+lesson, Miss Brooks. I haven't any Mayflower ancestors, and so I'm more
+than resigned to have them taken down from their aristocratic peg."
+
+"But they were lovely people,--lovely; kind and good to everybody,
+whether they believed as they did or not, for they had been persecuted
+themselves in the old country they had left for their opinions, and they
+meant that every one in the new country should worship as they pleased.
+They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says,
+'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who
+came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the
+aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the
+Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and
+interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of
+strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of
+'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was
+bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New
+England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think
+that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."
+
+Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's
+astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls
+were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura
+looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call
+out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, "_What_ is
+such larks?"
+
+Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have
+pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful
+little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only--what does
+your history book say? Oh, I have it--'from the middle and humbler walks
+of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors--can't you see
+that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little
+bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these
+Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"
+
+"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"
+
+"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought,
+and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,--that if it wasn't for
+that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now--and now, Brooksie, I
+shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of
+perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed
+full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact,
+even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"
+
+"I haven't neglected you."
+
+"Well, snubbed me, then."
+
+"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther;
+that's all."
+
+"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura--Esther
+Bodn--Bodn?"
+
+"I don't think it's horrid at all. I like it."
+
+"B-o-d-n--Bodn--it sounds awfully common."
+
+"Why, Kitty, it's spelled B-o-w-d-o-i-n, the same as our Bowdoin Street,
+and pronounced Bod'n, as that is!"
+
+"Is it, really? I didn't know that."
+
+"I'm sure Bowdoin Street sounds well enough."
+
+"Well, yes, I've always rather liked the sound of it; but then, you
+know, I always _saw_ and _felt_ the spelling, when I saw it. What in the
+world was the pronunciation ever snipped off like that for? It ought to
+be pronounced just as it is spelled. I've a good mind to pronounce it so
+the next time I speak to Esther."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that; but you might _think_ of her as Miss Bowdoin,"
+answered Laura, dryly.
+
+"Oh, Laura, what a head full of wisdom you've got! I don't see how I
+ever lived without you. But--see here, tell me what street Miss Bowdoin
+lives in."
+
+Laura hesitated a moment; then answered, "McVane Street."
+
+"Where is McVane Street, for pity's sake? I never heard of it,--one of
+those horrid South End streets, I suppose?"
+
+"No, it is at the West End, beyond Cambridge Street, down by the
+Massachusetts Hospital."
+
+"No, no, Laura Brooks, you _don't_ mean that she lives down there by the
+wharves?"
+
+"It isn't by the wharves," cried Laura, indignantly.
+
+"Well, it isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets,
+given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going
+to take tea with a girl who lives in that frowsy, dirty place!"
+
+"It isn't frowsy and dirty. It's only an old, unfashionable street, but
+not frowsy or dirty. It's quite clean and quiet, and has shade-trees and
+little grass plots to some of the houses. Why, it used to be the court
+end of the town years ago."
+
+"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now
+it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,--Russian Jews, and every
+other kind of a foreigner,--and look here!" suddenly interrupting
+herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this
+Esther Bodn is a foreigner,--an emigrant herself of some sort."
+
+"Kitty!"
+
+"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,--eight-buttoned ones,--and I don't
+believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe
+they--her mother and she--spell it that way _to suit themselves_. I
+believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I--"
+
+"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,--it's
+slander."
+
+Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little
+undertone,--
+
+  "Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief
+   Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."
+
+Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the
+laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,--
+
+"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't--"
+
+"Laura, how _did_ it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?"
+interrupted Kitty.
+
+"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston
+Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out
+with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying
+some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my
+offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon
+Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books,
+and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'
+
+"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with
+you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I
+didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with
+her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a
+mistake,--that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how
+to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my
+insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge
+Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,--she felt
+sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder--"
+
+"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.
+
+"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so
+sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take
+no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to
+me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she
+went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and
+second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so
+thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over
+and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds
+of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I
+said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the
+street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country
+there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked
+old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly
+painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one
+of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over
+the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I
+felt,--that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there,
+and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking
+the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second,
+as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to
+come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,--that they were
+very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come
+very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for--"
+
+"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty,
+laughing.
+
+"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set
+the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but
+she is a very interesting girl,--my mother thinks she is too."
+
+"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"
+
+"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see
+the pictures,--she's very fond of pictures,--and mamma asked her to stay
+to luncheon, but she couldn't."
+
+"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to
+sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"
+
+"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her
+brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute
+she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was
+calling after her mischievously,--
+
+"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl
+who lives on McVane Street!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so
+completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything
+else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the
+"Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean
+by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"
+
+"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,--Esther Bodn."
+
+"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's
+school?"
+
+"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's
+assistance in the way of the French and German.
+
+"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this,
+as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject
+from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while
+Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her
+brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might
+find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I
+shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says
+that I may."
+
+But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next
+day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the
+young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter
+altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little
+journey to McVane Street.
+
+Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she
+was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might
+be in time for her own dinner hour,--had laughed and said, "Oh, a
+regular 'four-to-six,'--a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on
+'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish _I_ could go with you,--I
+never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a
+little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone
+on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself,
+Laura had retorted,--
+
+"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't
+appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if
+the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane
+Street didn't happen to please your taste."
+
+These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of
+the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a
+chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when
+she followed Esther up the stairs,--for it was Esther who had answered
+her ring,--and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought
+pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal
+fashion."
+
+It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the
+stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a
+door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura,
+turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that
+by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for
+it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with
+the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up
+a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils,
+and two or three fine etchings,--all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly
+dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still
+brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples
+and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in
+the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness
+stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned
+tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups
+and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a
+'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could
+see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't
+mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she _does_ live on
+McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more
+absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,--a little
+New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the
+Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation
+of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the
+country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know
+where to choose a home."
+
+Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had
+chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more
+completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the
+windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs
+of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,--bits of
+coral and ivory and mosses,--things grew plainer than ever, and she
+began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and
+pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little
+women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just
+when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard
+Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,--
+
+[Illustration: A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting]
+
+"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and
+Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little
+person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her
+daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that
+she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who--who was
+it she suggested?
+
+All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where
+_had_ she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her
+again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little
+third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where _had_ she
+seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as
+the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the
+question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face,
+and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated
+expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura
+answered eagerly,--
+
+"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by
+some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his
+library, and it is so like you, _so_ like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I
+saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the
+sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was
+its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, _do_ you know the picture,
+Mrs. Bodn?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not
+painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is
+now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."
+
+"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"
+
+"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was
+painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,--I was the
+model."
+
+"You were a--a--the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, I was a--a--the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own
+halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm.
+Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in
+Munich."
+
+"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.
+
+"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and
+see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being
+introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"--a tall, good-looking boy of
+fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next
+moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.
+Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying
+through Laura's mind,--
+
+"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her
+daughter's and her nephew's names,--Esther, David,--these also Hebrew
+names!" What did it signify? Kitty--Kitty would say that it proved _she_
+was right,--that they _were_ the very people she had said they were.
+But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
+classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother _had_ been a model years
+ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
+ashamed of it; and Esther,--Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
+be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
+no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
+would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
+foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
+as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
+Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
+the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
+carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
+when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
+walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
+happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
+friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
+words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
+passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
+like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.
+
+What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
+exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
+was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
+brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
+by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
+Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
+little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
+of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
+disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
+injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
+heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
+often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
+fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly,
+that you seemed to like most of all,--
+
+  "'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
+    May bear the prize and a' that;'
+
+"and yet now, now--"
+
+"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,--"my
+dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,--it is because we don't
+know anything about them."
+
+"I--I think it is because you _do_ know that--that they live on McVane
+Street," faltered Laura.
+
+"Well, that _is_ to know nothing about them, in the sense that father
+means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that
+they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,--people
+that we don't _want_ to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other
+day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your
+teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks
+who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."
+
+"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than
+Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."
+
+"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering
+little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish
+face."
+
+"He has _not_," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It
+was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind
+that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that
+of her nephew rose before her! If they--if they--her brother, her
+father, could see these faces,--these faces so fine and intelligent, and
+saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's
+library,--would they feel differently,--would they do justice to Esther
+and her relations, though they _were_ Jews,--would they admit that they
+were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no,
+she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind,
+and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive
+answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one
+class,--the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the
+lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the
+lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That
+great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there,
+Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the
+Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels
+Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and
+'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius--"
+
+"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted
+her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of
+your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush
+into any intimacy with such strangers."
+
+There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very
+plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that
+henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All
+her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming
+her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with
+the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be
+good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to
+her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She
+would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind
+and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in
+spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.
+Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got
+interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But,
+alas, for this scheme!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She
+had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in
+near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then
+"made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura,
+airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn,
+in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the
+listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that
+every girl had passed from indifference to an active prejudice against
+Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed,
+Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,--"making
+fun;" and when the girls, relishing this "fun," laughed and applauded,
+she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura,
+however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther
+subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the
+person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon
+Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was
+apparently hard at work.
+
+"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.
+
+Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower;
+and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the
+exercises upon the desk.
+
+"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always
+knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not
+unkind. Now--they--seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy,
+but--but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and--and
+sometimes they seem to avoid me, and--I'm just the same as ever,
+except--except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been
+rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some
+money,--not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have
+anything new; and--and there's another thing--one morning I overheard
+one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'
+They must have been talking about me and where I live. Nobody else here
+lives on McVane Street, and we--mother and I--wouldn't live there if we
+could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and
+this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could
+pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it _isn't_ bad,
+it _isn't_ low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I
+thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd
+always heard that Boston girls--"
+
+"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of
+any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick--sick of girls. Girls
+will do things and say things--little, mean, petty things--that boys
+would be ashamed to do or say."
+
+"Then you _do_ think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live
+that--that has made them--these girls so--so different; but why should
+they--all at once? I can't understand."
+
+"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them--they don't
+mean--they don't know--they are not worth your notice. You are a long,
+long way above them!"
+
+"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John
+Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,--he died in Munich; he
+was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my
+father's death,--we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew
+some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He
+didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious,
+hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and _he
+knew_, for _he_ hadn't made a success any more than my father
+had,--and--and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane
+Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But _I_ wanted to come
+from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was
+sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and
+high-minded, and--" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at
+this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with,
+"and then I knew my father's people had once--" But at this point,
+"Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises
+into my room, and we'll finish them together."
+
+Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle,
+calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art
+Club?"
+
+"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."
+
+"Well, we'll go together, then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice,
+"Laura, what _is_ the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What
+have I done?"
+
+"You've done a very cruel thing."
+
+"Laura!"
+
+"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,--you have done a very cruel thing."
+
+"For pity's sake, what do you mean?"
+
+"You may well say 'for _pity's_ sake;'" and then Laura burst forth and
+repeated, word for word, the conversation that had transpired between
+Esther and herself, concluding with, "And you--_you_, Kitty, are to
+blame for this, for it is you who have prejudiced the girls against
+Esther with your talk about McVane Street and the foreigners in that
+neighborhood."
+
+"I? Just my little fun about McVane Street and your sunset tea there?"
+
+"Yes, just your little fun! I know what your fun is! Oh, Kitty, Kitty,
+I _did_ think you had a kind heart! But to be the means of hurting
+anybody, as you have hurt Esther,--it is--it is--"
+
+"Laura, Laura, don't," as Laura here broke down in a little fit of
+sobbing. "Of course I didn't know--I didn't think. Oh, dear, I'll tell
+the girls I didn't mean a word I said,--that I'm the biggest liar in
+town; that Esther is an heiress; that--that--oh, I'll do or say
+anything, if you'll only stop crying, Laura. There, there," as Laura
+tried to stifle a fresh sob, "that's right, take my handkerchief,--yours
+is sopping wet, and--My goodness, there comes Maud Aplin--she _must_ not
+see us sniffing and sobbing like this, she'll say we've had a quarrel.
+Here, let us go into the little recitation-room, quick now, before she
+sees us."
+
+And into the little recitation-room Laura was very willing to go and
+hide her tear-stained face from inquisitive eyes, while Kitty, penitent
+and overcome more by the spectacle of these tears than by a sense of her
+own shortcomings, followed briskly after, with this cheerful little
+running fire of remarks, anent the Art Club lecturer: "I'm just
+crazy--_crazy_ to see this Monsieur Baudouin; for what do you think Flo
+Aplin says? That he is a real viscomte or marquis, or something of that
+sort, but that he came into his title only a year or two ago, and is
+much prouder of his reputation as an art authority and critic and his
+name, Pierre Baudouin,--it's his own name, you know,--and he won his
+reputation under that. The Aplins met him last year in Paris. Windlow
+Aplin, who is studying art there, just swears by him, and says the
+artists dote on him, and Flo says he is perfectly elegant. Etching is
+his great fad now, and he is going to lecture this afternoon on etching
+and etchers. Oh, I'm just crazy to see and hear him, aren't you?"
+
+Laura had by this time conquered her tears, thanks to Kitty's
+adroitness, and, with a half-humorous, half-grateful appreciation of
+this adroitness, she thought to herself as she walked round to the Art
+Club with Kitty that afternoon, "Kitty _has_ a good heart, after all."
+
+The Art Club hall was quite full as they entered; but there were seats
+well down in front, and there they found most of the school girls under
+Miss Milwood's charge. Esther was one of this party; and Kitty made a
+great point of leaning forward and bowing to her with much graciousness.
+The next moment she was whispering to Laura, "There, didn't I behave
+prettily to Esther this time? You'll see now--" But at that instant a
+slender dark-eyed gentleman, accompanied by one of the artists, was seen
+coming rapidly up the aisle, and, "Look, look, there he is!" cried
+Kitty, "and _isn't_ he elegant?"
+
+And Laura looking, as she was told, found no reason to disagree with
+this comment.
+
+"But I _do_ hope," whispered the irrepressible Kitty again, as Monsieur
+Baudouin ascended the platform,--"I _do_ hope he is as interesting as he
+looks; appearances are deceitful sometimes." But no one of that audience
+found Pierre Baudouin's appearance deceitful. He was more than
+interesting,--he was enthralling as he went on with his almost loving
+consideration of his subject, setting before his hearers, in a melodious
+voice and very good English, some of the results of his great knowledge
+and experience. You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying goes, so
+spell-bound was the audience; and at the end there was a warm outburst
+of applause, and then a gathering about him, as he left the platform,
+of the various artists, and others who were eager to speak with him. He
+was standing with this little group, when Laura, watching and listening
+just outside of it, heard him say, "There is a remarkable etching that I
+wish I could show you, for it proves completely the theory I have just
+placed before you. I saw it but once, in the artist's own studio, as I
+was passing through Munich. When a little later I heard that the artist
+was dead, and his effects for sale, I tried to buy the etching, but was
+told that it had been given to a friend, a Mr. John Wybern. Since then,
+I have learned that Mr. Wybern has also died, and I started again on my
+search; but it has been fruitless so far, though I still hope I may come
+across it, and be able, if not to add it to my collection, to examine it
+again. The artist, by the way, is the same one that painted that
+remarkable picture, 'Rebecca the Jewess.'"
+
+Laura turned hastily around to look for Esther. She had not to look far.
+Esther was just behind her. "Esther, did you hear?" she asked.
+
+Esther nodded.
+
+"Do you know about the etching?"
+
+[Illustration: She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin]
+
+"Yes, it hangs in our parlor. I wish I dared go forward now and tell
+him."
+
+"Oh, Esther, do, do!"
+
+But Esther hung back. Then Laura obeyed an impulse that forever after
+filled her with astonishment. She pressed forward, and, before she had
+time to think twice, was addressing Monsieur Baudouin, and telling him
+what she knew.
+
+"What! you can tell me where this etching is? You can take me to it?" he
+exclaimed, with a sort of joyful incredulity.
+
+Laura answered by turning to Esther and saying. "This young lady can
+tell you more about it. The etching is in the possession of her family."
+
+"Ah, and this young lady is--"
+
+Laura reached back, seized Esther's hand, and pulled her to her side.
+
+"Is Miss Bodn."
+
+"Mees _Bodn_!" he repeated with a start. "Mees _Bodn_! Ah, pardon me, do
+you spell this name B-o-w-d-o-i-n?"
+
+"You do, you do," as Esther answered in the affirmative; "and, pardon
+again, are you related to one Henri--Henry, you call it here--Henry
+Pierre Bowdoin?"
+
+"My father's name was Henry Pierre Bowdoin."
+
+"Then, Mademoiselle," and Monsieur Baudouin stretched out his hand, and
+a smile lit up his face, "you must be a relation of mine; and three
+years ago, when I was in this country, and tried to find the American
+branch of our family that spelled its name Bowdoin and was called Bodn,
+but which was originally Baudouin, the old Huguenot name, I was told it
+had died out. Where were you then, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"In Munich, where my mother and I had lived with my uncle John Wybern,
+since my father's death, years ago."
+
+"Your uncle! John Wybern was your uncle? So--so is it possible, is it
+possible? And I find the two objects I have been hunting, so far apart,
+together! It is most astonishing and yet most simple. And your
+mother--your mother is living? Yes, and you will give me your address,
+that I may hasten to pay my respects to her;" and Monsieur whipped out a
+little note-book and wrote down, probably with greater satisfaction than
+it had ever been written before, "McVane Street."
+
+"Most astonishing and yet most simple," as Monsieur had truly said; yet
+to the flock of Miss Milwood's girls, who, well down to the front, had
+lost nothing of this surprising interview, it was only "most
+astonishing," and to some of them most humiliating and mortifying. Kitty
+Grant was the first to voice this mortification, by turning upon them
+and saying, as Esther disappeared with Monsieur Baudouin, "Say, girls,
+how do you feel now? _I_ feel like one of Cinderella's sisters. Laura
+now--Laura, where are you?" But Laura had also disappeared. She wanted
+to be by herself and think it over. But what of Esther,--Esther, who had
+been neglected and disregarded and despised? What of Esther, as she
+stood there, and as she walked away with Monsieur Baudouin? Esther was
+the least astonished of them all, for years ago she had been familiar
+with the facts of her paternal family history, and knew that she was a
+descendant of Pierre Baudouin, a French Huguenot, who had fled to
+America to escape religious persecution, and knew that the name Baudouin
+had suffered a change to Bowdoin; knew, too, that as Bowdoin it had been
+made illustrious in America's annals, and worn the honors of the highest
+offices of the State. She knew all this; but she knew also that this was
+long ago, and that her father was the last of his name in America, and
+when he died, after a wasting illness that exhausted his fortune, there
+was little thought given to the fact that the old Huguenot root still
+existed in France, though half-playful, half-serious mention had now and
+then been made of the kinsfolk in France they would sometime go to seek.
+
+All this Esther had stored away in her memory, so that when Monsieur
+Baudouin announced himself as the kinsman from France, it was more like
+a long-anticipated event than a surprise. And all this she told to Laura
+in the days that followed,--those dear, delightful days, when there was
+no difficulty put in the way of going to McVane Street; when McVane
+Street, indeed, according to Kitty, became quite the fashion with the
+artists flocking to see the wonderful etching, and Monsieur Baudouin
+holding forth upon its merits to them as he made himself at home with
+his American kinsfolk, who were now discovered to be such charming folk.
+Laura sometimes in these days blazed up with indignation and disgust as
+she noted the sudden attentions that were bestowed upon Esther and her
+mother. No one now spoke of emigrants and foreigners in connection with
+these dwellers on McVane Street. Jack Brooks himself seemed to forget
+that David Wybern looked like a Jew, even before it was found that David
+and all of his people were of the most unmixed Puritan stock!
+
+"And I, too," thought Laura,--"I, too, muddled and mistook things as I
+shouldn't, if Esther and her mother had lived in a different quarter. If
+they had lived anywhere over the hill, should I have fancied, though
+they _were_ so poor, that Mrs. Bowdoin must have been a professional
+model? No, no, I should have thought at once, what I _know_ now, that
+the artist was her friend, and that she sat to him as a friendly favor,
+like any other lady."
+
+But while Laura thus scourged herself with the rest, Esther and her
+mother had set her apart from all the rest for their special love and
+confidence,--a love and confidence that are as fresh to-day as when the
+mother and daughter sailed away with Monsieur Baudouin, a year ago, to
+visit their French kinsfolk.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BECKY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Number five!" called out shrilly and impatiently the saleswoman at the
+lace counter in a great dry-goods establishment. The call was repeated
+in a still more impatient tone before there was any response; then there
+rushed up a girl of ten or eleven, whose big black eyes looked forth
+fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so
+thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where
+the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."
+
+"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman,
+angrily.
+
+"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.
+
+"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon
+counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.
+
+"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered,
+showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.
+
+A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.
+
+"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big
+for her boots with her impudence."
+
+"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust
+forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for
+it.
+
+Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her,
+seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.
+
+"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after
+her.
+
+The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in
+such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which
+she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie
+admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so
+funny she "just couldn't help laughing."
+
+"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "_I_ call it impudence. She
+ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back
+at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about,
+that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you,
+Lizzie."
+
+"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said
+Lizzie.
+
+This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,--taking people off. She was
+a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in
+the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky
+would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen
+observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie
+called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin
+up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair
+of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of
+cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady
+fashion,--"just like the swells," Lizzie declared. It was quite natural
+then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was "up
+to," in her close attention to the "swell" customers at the ribbon
+counter. "She was studyin' 'em, just as actresses study their
+play-parts," Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she
+met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,--
+
+"Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter."
+
+"Eh?" said Becky.
+
+Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in: "Yes, Becky,
+give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun."
+
+"They warn't funny," answered Becky, shortly.
+
+"Oh! now, Becky, what'd you stand there lis'nin' and lookin' at 'em so
+long for?"
+
+"'Cause they were sayin' somethin' I wanted to hear."
+
+"Of course they were. What was it about, Becky?"
+
+"May-day, flowers and queens and baskets."
+
+"Oh, my! Well, tell us how they said it, Becky."
+
+"I tole yer they warn't funny; they warn't o' that kind that peeks
+through them long stick glasses and puckers up their lips. They talked
+straight 'long, and said very int'restin' things," said Becky.
+
+"Well, tell us; tell us what 'twas," exclaimed Lizzie.
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't care for what they's talkin' 'bout. They warn't sayin'
+anythin' 'bout beaux or clothes," Becky replied with a grin.
+
+A shout of laughter went up from the rest of the company, who all knew
+the lively Lizzie's favorite topics. Lizzie joined in the laugh, and
+cried good-naturedly,--
+
+"Never mind, Becky, if I'm not up to your ribbon swells talk; tell us
+about it."
+
+"Oh, yes! tell us, tell us!" echoed the others.
+
+Becky took a bite out of a slice of bread, and munching it slowly,
+said,--
+
+"I tole yer once 't was 'bout May-day and flowers and queens and
+baskets."
+
+"What May-day? There's thirty-one of 'em, Becky."
+
+Becky looked staggered for a moment. In her little hard-worked life she
+had had small opportunity to learn much out of books, and she had never
+happened to hear this rhyming bit:--
+
+  "Thirty days hath September,
+   April, June, and November,
+   All the rest have thirty-one,
+   Excepting February alone."
+
+Recovering her wits, however, very speedily, she said coolly,--
+
+"The first pleasant one."
+
+"Well, what were they telling about it? What were they going to do the
+first pleasant day in May?"
+
+"They didn't say as _they_ was goin' to do anythin'; they was
+tellin'--or one of 'em was tellin' t' other one--what folks did when
+they's little, and afore that, hundreds o' years ago, how the folks then
+used to get all the children together and go out in the country and put
+up a great big high pole, and put a lot o' flowers on a string and wind
+'em roun' the pole; and then all the children would take hold o' han's
+and dance roun' the pole, and one o' the children was chose to be queen,
+and had a crown made o' flowers on her head, and the rest o' the
+children minded her."
+
+"You'd like _that_,--to be queen and have the rest mind you, Becky,
+wouldn't you?" laughed one of the company.
+
+"I bet I would," owned Becky, frankly.
+
+"But what about the baskets?" asked somebody else.
+
+"Oh, the kids," said Becky, forgetting in her present absorbed interest
+the term "children,"--which she had learned to use since she had come up
+daily from the poor neighborhood where she lived,--"the kids use to fill
+a basket with flowers and hang it on the door-knob of somebody's
+house,--somebody they knew,--and then ring the bell and run. Golly!
+guess _I_ should hev to hang it _inside_ where I lives. I couldn't hang
+it on no outside door and hev it stay there long,--them thieves o' alley
+boys would git it 'fore yer could turn. I guess, though, they was
+country kids who used to hang 'em; but the lady said she was goin' to
+try to start 'em up again here in the city."
+
+"What kind o' baskets were they?" asked Lizzie, suddenly sitting up with
+a new air of attention.
+
+"Oh, ho!" laughed one of the girls; "Lizzie wants to hang a basket for
+somebody _she_ knows!"
+
+"Hush up!" said Lizzie, turning rather red. Then, addressing Becky
+again: "Did the lady who was telling about 'em have a basket with her?
+Did you see it?"
+
+"No, but she hed a piece o' that pretty wrinkly paper jes' like the
+lamp-shades in the winders, and she said the baskets was made o' that,
+and she was buyin' some ribbon to match for handles and bows."
+
+"Oh, I _wish_ I could see one of 'em," said Lizzie.
+
+"I went to a kinnergarden school wonst when I was a little kid," struck
+in Becky here, "and we was put up there to makin' baskets out o' paper."
+
+"Could you do it now?" asked Lizzie, eagerly.
+
+"Mebbe I could," answered Becky, warily; "but it's a good bit ago."
+
+"When you were young," cried one of the company with a giggle.
+
+"Yes, when I was young," repeated Becky, in exact imitation of the
+speaker, whose voice was very flat and nasal.
+
+Everybody laughed, and one of the girls cried: "Becky'll get the best of
+you any time." They were all of them impressed with this fact, when, a
+few minutes after, the wary Becky agreed to show Lizzie what she knew of
+"kinnergarden" basket-making, if Lizzie would agree to pay her for her
+trouble by giving her materials enough to make a basket for herself.
+
+"Ain't she a sharp one?" commented one of the girls to another when they
+had left the lunch-room.
+
+"Ain't she, though? She'll get what she can, and hold on to what she's
+got every time."
+
+"But she's awful good fun. Didn't she take off Matty Kelley's flat
+nose-y way of talkin' to a T?"
+
+"Didn't she!" and the two girls laughed anew at the recollection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Becky was the only one of the parcel-girls who was in the lunch-room
+when this talk about May-day took place. The others lived nearer to the
+store, and had gone home to their dinners. They were all a trifle older
+than Becky, and a good deal larger. For these reasons, as well as for
+the fact that they had been in the establishment quite a while when
+Becky entered it, they had put on a great many disagreeable airs toward
+the pale-faced little girl when she first appeared, and attempted, as
+Becky put it, to "boss" her. They soon found, however, that the
+new-comer was too much for them. They expected her to be afraid of
+them,--to "stand round" for them. But Miss Becky was not in the least
+afraid of them, or, for that matter, of anybody; and as soon as she
+understood what they meant, she turned upon them the whole force of that
+inimitable mimicry of hers, and "took off" their airs in a manner that
+soon set the small army of salesmen and saleswomen into such fits of
+laughter that the tables were completely turned upon the tormentors,
+and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the
+respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus
+constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they
+gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph
+over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her.
+Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to
+her,--when they told her that Becky Hawkins was nothin' but one o' that
+low lot who lived down amongst that thieving set by the East Cove
+alleys,--that jus' as like as not she was a thief herself; that she was
+awful close and stingy, anyway, and saved up every scrap she could find;
+that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such
+duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively
+heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and
+didn't care if it _was_, there were others not so good-natured as
+Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready
+to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something
+lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the
+street,--"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,--the
+lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in
+spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect
+in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an
+outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.
+
+"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and
+when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company
+gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of
+pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky
+knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now
+present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday,
+and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with
+mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.
+
+"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's
+waitin', and so are we."
+
+"What _yer_ waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.
+
+"To see how you make the baskets."
+
+"Well, yer'll hev to wait."
+
+"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"
+
+"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free
+kinnergarden. These are private lessons."
+
+A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,--
+
+"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"
+
+"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.
+
+"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the
+parcel-girls with a wink at the other.
+
+"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and
+running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned
+to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.
+
+"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed
+her teacher.
+
+"And you didn't get ahead o' me _this_ time, either!" called out Becky,
+as she bolted the door upon herself and companion.
+
+"You're too sharp for any of _us_, Becky," called back one of the
+saleswomen.
+
+"_Ain't_ she sharp?" agreed one and another; and "I told you so," said
+still another. "She's a regular little cove-sharper, as Lotty said."
+Lotty was the older parcel-girl.
+
+And thus, though most of them laughed at Becky's last "move," they were
+prejudiced against her for it, and thought it another evidence of her
+stinginess and sharpness. They all agreed, however, that she had "got
+'round' Lizzie to that extent that that young woman would stand up for
+her, anyway, no matter what she'd do or didn't do.
+
+"An' I'll bet yer," said the younger parcel-girl, "she'll lie out o'
+that basket bizness, an' get a lot o' paper too. _She_ know how to make
+baskets! Not much. You see now when they come out o' the fitting-room
+there'll be some excuse that 't ain't done, an' they can't show it
+now,--you see."
+
+This prophecy was received in silence, but without much sign of
+disagreement; and when the fitting-room door finally opened, it was
+funny to watch the looks of astonishment that were bestowed upon the
+pretty little basket of green and white paper that Lizzie held swung
+upon her finger.
+
+"Well, I never! She _did_ know how, didn't she?" exclaimed one of the
+party.
+
+[Illustration: the pretty little basket of green and white paper]
+
+"Of course she did," answered Lizzie.
+
+Becky only shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+
+"Bet yer she hooked it out o' some shop, and had it in that bag she
+carried in," whispered Lotty Riker, the parcel-girl.
+
+"Hush!" warned one of the company.
+
+But it was too late. Becky had heard, and for the first time since she
+had been in the store, those about her saw hot wrath blazing from her
+eyes as she burst forth savagely,--
+
+"Yer mean low-lived thing yer, yer must be up to sech tricks yerself to
+think that!"
+
+"What is it? What did she say?" asked Lizzie.
+
+Becky repeated Lotty's words, her wrath increasing as she did so.
+
+"Hooked it! You know better, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Lotty Riker," said Lizzie. "Becky and I made the basket ourselves. See
+here now!" and, opening one hand, she displayed the ends of the paper
+strips as they had been cut off, and where they fitted the protruding
+ends on the basket. "But," turning to Becky, "Lotty knows better; she
+only wanted to bother you."
+
+"She wanted to bully me! She's been at it ever since I come here,--she
+and t' other one. I made 'em stop it wonst, an' I'll make 'em ag'in. I
+can stan' a good deal, but I ain't a-goin' to stan' bein' called a
+thief, I ain't. I ain't no more a thief 'n they be, if I do live down
+Cove way, and don't wear quite so good clo'es as they does. _Hooked
+it_!" going a step nearer to the two girls. "I wish we was boys.
+I'd--I'd lick yer, I would, the minit I got yer out on the street; but,"
+with a disgusted sigh, "I'm a girl, and I carn't. 'Tain't 'spectable for
+girls, Tim says, an' I mus'n't. But lemme jes' hear any more sech talk,
+an'--I'll _forgit I'm a girl for 'bout five minutes_!"
+
+This conclusion was too much for Lizzie's gravity, and she burst into
+one of her infectious laughs. Several of the others joined in, and then
+Becky herself gave a sudden little grin.
+
+Lotty Riker and her sister, who had been thoroughly frightened, felt
+immensely relieved at this, and for the moment everything seemed the
+same as before the outbreak; but it was only seeming. The majority of
+the company, without taking into consideration the provocation Becky had
+received, thought to themselves: "_What_ a temper!" Becky's wild little
+threats, and the way she expressed herself, had made a strong
+impression; and when presently Lizzie laughingly asked, "Who's Tim,
+Becky?" and Becky had answered in that lawless manner of hers: "Oh, he's
+a fren' o' mine,--a great big fightin' gentleman what lives in the house
+where we do," there was a general exchange of glances, and a general
+conviction that the Riker girls had not been altogether wrong in some of
+their statements. And when the next day they heard Miss Becky confide to
+Lizzie that she had made "a splendid basket," and was going to hang it
+for Tim on that "fust pleasant day of May," they whispered to each
+other, "A May-basket for a prize-fighter!"
+
+But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She
+was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from
+her fun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and
+sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth
+Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and
+wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She
+would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got
+to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow
+on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;"
+but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
+
+"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
+
+"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for
+the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
+
+Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything
+else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to
+her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where _could_ she be? She had
+always been punctual to a minute.
+
+The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was
+forgotten. It was not until the closing hour--five o'clock--that Lizzie
+thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly,
+as they were leaving the store together,--
+
+"Where _do_ you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day,
+and she's _always_ here, and so punctual."
+
+"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would
+be just like her; she's that independent."
+
+"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's
+pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do
+that," put in Josie, laughing,
+
+"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
+
+"Sick! _her_ kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough.
+Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that
+basket?"
+
+"Why, what I agreed to give,--enough to make a basket for herself; and
+last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my
+Mayflowers,--I had plenty."
+
+"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
+
+"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
+
+"Yes, _Becky's_ bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the
+rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the
+rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking
+about private lessons!"
+
+"Oh, that was only her fun."
+
+"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid
+for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you
+think that was only fun?"
+
+"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little
+something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove
+Street."
+
+"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the
+other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends
+she was working alongside of."
+
+"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
+
+"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's
+exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she _sold_ her basket, and very
+likely to that prize-fighter,--that Tim."
+
+"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I
+hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things
+of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster
+down--' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
+
+"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street
+tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she
+cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,--in one of those
+tenements."
+
+"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six
+o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had
+for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and,
+owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such
+headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only
+the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours
+of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought
+under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the
+wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries
+and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought
+to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives
+in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means
+small.'"
+
+"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here,
+breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
+
+"But, Lizzie--"
+
+"You needn't try to stop me, I'm _going_. Becky's down there somewhere,
+and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to
+see. _You_ needn't come if you're afraid, but _I'm_ going!"
+
+The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and
+the three went on together toward the burned district.
+
+"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove
+Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business
+here."
+
+"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,--one of the girls in our store,"
+answered Lizzie.
+
+"Becky Hawkins?"
+
+"Yes; do you know her?"
+
+"Should think I did. This is my beat,--known her all her life pretty
+much."
+
+"Did she get out,--is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
+
+"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend
+Tim."
+
+The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,--a
+smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what
+the Riker girls had said she was,--a little Cove Street hoodlum,--while
+Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family
+that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner
+house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's
+sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman
+had advised, adding,--
+
+"We are decent girls, and--it's a disgrace to have anything to do with
+such a lot as Becky and her family and--"
+
+"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,--"what yer
+talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see
+what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled
+around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow
+him.
+
+They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with
+smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the
+flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of
+the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were
+huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open
+door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a
+familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
+
+But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
+
+"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it
+Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie
+stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room;
+but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes,
+and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the
+store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt,
+and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you;
+but I'm so glad you are all right--But," coming nearer and finding that
+Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table,
+"you're _not_ all right, are you?"
+
+"No, I--I guess--I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little
+smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
+
+"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,--a
+little thing like you!"
+
+"'Twas _she_ was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women
+in the room.
+
+"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd
+got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back
+for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she
+saved him for me,--she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the
+roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the
+'scape; but Becky--Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she
+made a jump--and fell--oh, Becky! Becky!"
+
+"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry
+her, and it's no use."
+
+"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in
+dumb amazement.
+
+"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
+
+Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing
+down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
+
+Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
+
+"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
+
+"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
+
+"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He
+didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I
+could make another--"
+
+"_I'll_ make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
+
+"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
+
+"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone,
+roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old
+mischief she said,--
+
+"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
+
+There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and
+then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body,
+wasted and shrunken,--the body of a child of seven with a shapely head
+and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
+
+"That's him,--that's Tim,--the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"
+said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and
+how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on
+Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,--
+
+"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,--the girls in the store,--how I played it on
+'em; and when I git back--I'll--"
+
+"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
+
+The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open,
+letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks
+beyond the Cove.
+
+"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
+
+"I--I feel fus' rate--all well, Jake, and--I--I smell the Mayflowers.
+They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
+jolly! Tim, Tim!"
+
+"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
+
+"Wait for me here Tim,--I--I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,--ther,
+ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by--I'm
+goin'--to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
+anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
+her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
+
+The two women--and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
+always lived--broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
+radiant face, she said suddenly,--
+
+"She's well out of it all."
+
+"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
+'t ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' _him_," nodding towards Jake,
+who was slipping quietly out of the room,--"it's the like o' him. They
+looked up to her, they did,--bit of a thing as she was. She was that
+straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
+Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
+
+And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
+room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
+furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
+and Josie still waiting for her.
+
+"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time--have you seen--have
+you heard--"
+
+They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,--
+
+"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
+don't know."
+
+"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ALLY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"
+
+"Put 'em away."
+
+"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
+wear 'em down town."
+
+But Ally didn't move.
+
+"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.
+
+"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
+you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
+your foot is bigger than mine."
+
+"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."
+
+"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
+'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."
+
+"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
+raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
+than lend me your new rubbers."
+
+"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"
+
+"Because they leak."
+
+"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally,
+scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my
+things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is
+threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as
+shabby--and--there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no
+better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"
+
+"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to _me_! I should like to
+know who buys your things for you? Isn't it _my father_ and Uncle John?
+I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for
+Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and
+everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours
+again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the
+rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back
+here,--I do!"
+
+"I wish so too. Nobody in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as
+to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."
+
+"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here
+that she dreaded the winter on your account,--there!"
+
+"Aunt Kate--said that?"
+
+"Yes, she did; I heard her."
+
+A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded
+from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,--
+
+"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll
+have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these
+words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst
+into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.
+
+"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's
+mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.
+
+"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,--so coolly, so calmly, that it
+was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the
+present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking,
+Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one
+girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and
+in consequence said rather sharply,--
+
+"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"
+and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter
+Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately
+overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to
+be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some
+other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any
+peace while--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it
+was--"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears
+shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh
+gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes,
+it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It
+would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan;
+yes, indeed, very different. If I was a _rich_ orphan, if papa and mamma
+had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things
+would be different,--I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and
+her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to _me_ then, and I
+guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of
+me,--no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some
+other arrangement _could_ be made away from 'em all. They don't any of
+'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd
+rather--I'd rather--oh, I'd rather go to _jail_ than to _them_!" and
+down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little
+hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor
+little beggar of an orphan."
+
+The facts of the case were these: Ally's father and mother had both died
+when she was seven years old, leaving her to the care of her two nearest
+relatives,--her father's two brothers,--Mr. Tom and Mr. John Fleming. As
+her father had little or nothing to leave her, he had requested that the
+burden of her maintenance should be equally divided between the uncles,
+the child to live alternately with each family, six months with one and
+six with the other. She had been old enough when she was thus
+transplanted from her own home to realize more or less the peculiar
+condition of things; and as she was quick-tempered and sensitive, she
+very soon began to take note of any comment or remark regarding herself
+that was dropped in her hearing, and very often misunderstood or made
+too much of it. But there was no denying, whichever way you looked at
+it, that it was rather a difficult situation for both sides, and that
+the Fleming aunts and uncles and cousins had something to put up with,
+as well as Ally. But that Ally was the most to be pitied there was also
+no denying, for she could remember with unfading vividness being the
+centre of love, the one special darling in _one_ home, and now she
+hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
+bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
+many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
+For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
+be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one _too_ many.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
+live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
+Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
+both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
+deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
+as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,--
+
+"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
+temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
+your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
+who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
+with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
+with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
+and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.
+
+"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
+before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
+outside the car.
+
+"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.
+
+His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.
+
+Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
+going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."
+
+"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
+Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.
+
+"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
+she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
+good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
+death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
+wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I _am_ hard to live with; but I don't
+play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
+mine never loved me--any of 'em--from the first."
+
+As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
+of the car window, and there, why, there was her aunt Ann and uncle Tom
+outside on the platform, standing at another car window farther down,
+talking and laughing in the liveliest manner with some friends they had
+met. Uncle Tom didn't seem in the least haste now, and ever so many
+minutes ago he had said to her, "Well, good-by, Ally!" and rushed off as
+if there wasn't another minute to spare,--not another minute; and here
+was a gentleman in front of her, saying to a friend of his at that very
+instant, "There's plenty of time; it's ten minutes before the cars
+start;" and then she heard a lady say to another lady, "There's no need
+of my leaving you yet; we've got oceans of time;" and all about her,
+Ally now noticed various groups of friends and relations lingering
+lovingly together until the last moment; and noting all this, a bitter
+little look came into Miss Ally's face, and a bitter little thought came
+into her heart,--a thought that said tauntingly, "There, this shows you,
+Ally Fleming, what kind of relations you've got; this shows you how much
+they care for you!"
+
+And by and by, as the cars started up and sped along, this bitter little
+thought also sped along, carrying in its wake all the bitter little
+thoughts of yesterday and to-day. Ally was quite accustomed to
+travelling by herself on this trip to and from New York. It was a
+perfectly simple thing to sit in the car-seat where she had been placed
+by one uncle, until at the end of the trip she was met by the other
+uncle, and taken charge of,--a perfectly simple, easy matter, and Ally
+had heretofore quite enjoyed it; but now, looking about her, and seeing
+the groups of other people's relations going home to Thanksgiving, she
+began to think it was a very lonesome thing to be travelling all alone
+by herself; and just as this occurred to her, what should happen but
+that one of these groups should turn inquisitively to her and ask, "Are
+you travelling all by yourself, little girl?" and when Ally had
+answered, "Yes," this inquisitive person commented upon her being such a
+little girl to travel all by herself; and then, when Ally told her
+rather proudly that she was ten years old, the inquisitive person had
+said, "Well, I don't know what _my_ little ten-year-old girl would think
+to be sent off to travel all alone. I shall tell her when I get home
+what a brave little girl I met."
+
+Ally thought all this was said out of pity and wonder, and that the lady
+thought her very much neglected and forlorn. But instead of that, the
+lady meant only to praise and compliment her; and thus, in this way and
+that way, the bitter little thoughts kept growing and growing, as the
+cars sped on, until long before the end of her journey came, poor Ally
+felt that there never was a much more friendless girl than she was; and
+when the cars steamed into the Boston station, she said to herself, "I
+wonder if Uncle John is dreading the winter on my account, as Aunt Kate
+is?" and with this thought she stepped out on the platform. But where
+_was_ Uncle John? She expected to see him at once, coming forward to
+lift her from the steps. Where _was_ he now? and Ally looked at the
+faces before her with wondering scrutiny. She jumped down--for people
+were pressing behind her--and moved on, scanning the face of every
+gentleman she saw with anxious eyes. No one of them, however, was that
+of Uncle John. What _was_ the matter? Didn't he know the train she was
+to take? Of course he did, for Uncle Tom had told her that he had
+telegraphed that he would meet her at the Boston station at five
+o'clock. Of course he knew, so he must have forgotten her. Yes, that was
+it,--he had forgotten all about her! Ally was not a specially timid
+child; but as she stood in the big station-building, and realized that
+there was not a soul she knew there to look out for her, a feeling of
+dismay overtook her. If it were in the morning or at noonday, it
+wouldn't have seemed so dreadful; but though the electric lights flashed
+everything into brilliance, it was a November day, and half-past five
+o'clock was after nightfall. What _should_ she do? There was no sign of
+Uncle John, and the passengers who had arrived with her were fast
+disappearing. Very soon the people in the station would begin to notice
+her, to ask questions, and then perhaps some police-officer would take
+her to the police-station, as a lost child. She'd heard that that was
+what they always did. It was just as this thought came into her head
+that she caught sight of one of those very big burly blue-coated
+individuals. He had his hand on the collar of a boy about her own age,
+and she heard him say to him in a big burly voice,--
+
+"What yer hangin' 'round here for? Lost, eh? That's a likely story.
+Come, off with yer, if yer don't want ter be locked up!"
+
+Poor little Ally didn't stop to reason,--to think of the difference in
+the outward appearance of herself and the boy,--to see that the
+policeman knew the boy perfectly well for a mischievous young scamp who
+was up to no good. She didn't stop to consider anything; but with those
+words, "If yer don't want ter be locked up," ringing in her ears, she
+turned and ran from the station-building as fast as her legs could carry
+her. As she came out upon the sidewalk, she saw the colored lights of a
+street car. Oh, joy, it was the very up-town car that would take her
+close to Beacon Street! But oh, horror! She suddenly recollected that
+Uncle John no longer lived on Beacon Street. He had moved last month
+into a new house on Marlborough Street, and oh, what _was_ the number?
+She "had heard Uncle Tom read it from a letter. It had a lot of 9's in
+it. Nine hundred and--why--99--999, three 9's; yes, yes, that was it;"
+and with this conviction, Ally gave a hop skip and a jump into the car,
+just as it was about to start off, for this very car she knew would take
+her nearer to Marlborough Street than to Beacon Street. Her spirits rose
+as she felt herself carried along; and in due time she found the three
+9's, and tripped up the steps of the house in Marlborough Street bearing
+that number. Her heart beat very fast with a sense of relief and injury,
+mixed with a certain elation at her own enterprise, as she rang the
+bell. Wouldn't they be surprised, and wouldn't Uncle John--But some one
+opening the door scattered her questioning thoughts; and--why, who was
+this somebody? It must be a new servant with the new house, and a
+manservant too. Uncle John must be getting better off,--they had had
+only two maids before. It never entered Ally's head to ask the strange
+servant if Mr. Fleming lived there. Why should she ask what she was so
+sure of? She simply asked, "Where's Uncle John and Aunt Kate and the
+rest of them?"
+
+The man looked bewildered, and repeated, "Uncle John?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle John and Aunt Kate. I'm Ally, and Uncle John telegraphed
+that he would meet me at the five-o'clock train, and he wasn't there,
+and I came up all alone. Where are they? In the parlor?" and Ally
+stepped in over the threshold.
+
+"I guess there's some mistake," said the man; "I guess your uncle
+John--"
+
+"No, there wasn't any mistake, for he telegraphed to Uncle Tom. He must
+have forgotten."
+
+"But your uncle doesn't--"
+
+"What is it, James? What is wanted?" interrupted some one here. The
+"some one" was a big, tall gentleman coming down the stairs, whom Ally,
+as she looked up in the rather confusing half light of the lower hall,
+at once took for her uncle, and rushing forward she ran up to meet him,
+crying,--
+
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John! I was so scared not to find you at the
+station, and I came up here all alone on the street car!"
+
+But in the very next instant she started back and gasped: "But--but it
+isn't--you're not--you're not Uncle John! Where is he, oh, where is he?"
+
+"You've made a mistake, my little girl!" exclaimed the gentleman,--"a
+mistake in the house. This isn't your uncle John's, but--"
+
+"Not Uncle John's? Why--why--this is 999!" interrupted Ally,
+tremulously.
+
+"Yes; but--"
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried poor Ally, as a fresh flash of memory overcame her,
+"that must be the--the--" She was going to say, "the old Beacon Street
+number," when, confused and dismayed, she gave another step backward,
+her foot slipped, and she fell headlong to the foot of the stairs, where
+she lay white and motionless, not a sigh or moan escaping her as she was
+lifted and carried into the parlor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The sun was shining brightly into the pretty new dining-room on
+Marlborough Street where Uncle John lived, and swinging in its beams a
+great gray parrot named Peter kept calling out, "Ally's come, Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+
+The room was empty when the parrot began; but presently Uncle John and
+Aunt Kate came in. At sight of them the parrot screamed, "Hello! hello!"
+and then repeated louder than ever, "Ally's come! Ally's come! give her
+a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+
+"For pity's sake, put the bird out!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I can't
+stand _that now_!"
+
+"Yes, put him out, do!" said Aunt Kate to the servant who was just then
+bringing in the coffee.
+
+In a few moments the three daughters of the family--Laura and Maud and
+Mary--appeared.
+
+"Have you heard anything about her this morning?" asked the
+eldest,--Laura,--as she took her seat at table.
+
+Uncle John shook his head.
+
+"And the police haven't got a clew yet?"
+
+"No, nor the detectives."
+
+"What I _can't_ understand is why she didn't wait in the ladies' room
+until you came, papa. She might have known you _would_ come _sometime_."
+
+"We don't know yet that she got as far as Boston," said Mrs. Fleming.
+
+"Why, Uncle Tom's telegram in answer to papa's that he saw her off on
+the 11.30 train proves that."
+
+"It doesn't prove that she came through to Boston."
+
+"'Came through'! Why, upon earth, should she leave the cars before she
+reached Boston?"
+
+"She might have made the acquaintance of some young people, and stepped
+off at a restaurant station with them to buy fruit, and so got left."
+
+"But she would have taken a later train then, and papa has been to the
+later ones."
+
+"Don't--don't wonder and speculate any more why a little girl of ten
+years didn't do exactly as a grown-up person would have done," burst
+forth Uncle John. "The whole blame lies with us, or with Tom and me. We
+should never have allowed such a child to be sent off alone like that."
+
+"But, papa, it isn't an uncommon thing for a child of her age to travel
+like that."
+
+"It isn't very _common_, and it ought not to be."
+
+"Maybe she's run away," suddenly exclaimed the youngest of the
+daughters,--a girl of fourteen.
+
+"Mary!" cried the other two; and "How can you make fun like that _now_?"
+said Mrs. Fleming, reprovingly.
+
+"I didn't say it to make fun," protested Mary,--"I didn't, truly;
+but--but Ally was very queer sometimes. She took up everything so, and
+got offended, or thought you didn't care for her. One day I asked her
+why she didn't take things as _I_ did,--spat, and forget it the next
+minute, and she said, 'Because I'm not like you, _I only happened
+here_'! Wasn't that droll?"
+
+"Droll!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I think it's the most pathetic thing I
+ever heard. What have we all been doing that she should feel like this?"
+
+"But she liked being _here_ better than at Uncle Tom's. Florence was
+always tormenting her one way and another."
+
+"The trouble with her is that she was an only child, and, transplanted
+suddenly into two large families, she couldn't fit herself to the new
+circumstances," said Mrs. Fleming.
+
+"And the trouble with _us_ has been," spoke up Uncle John, "that we
+didn't take that fact into consideration enough, and try to help her to
+fit into the new circumstances. Poor little soul, if we ever get her
+back again--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't talk like that,--'if we ever get her back again!' as
+if she were a Charley Ross child that had been kidnapped," burst forth
+Mary, with a breaking voice. "_I_ meant to be good to Ally, and that's
+why I taught Peter to say, 'Ally's come, Ally's come! give her a kiss!
+give her a kiss!' I thought it would be such a pretty welcome, and
+Ally'd be so pleased, she'd believe we _did_ care for her when she heard
+that."
+
+"You're a little trump, Mary," declared her father, with a suspicious
+moisture in his eyes. "I only hope if--_when_ Ally comes back--But,
+hark, there's the door-bell!" as a sharp peal rang through the house.
+"It may be one of the detectives."
+
+"A gentleman to see you in the parlor, sir," said the maid a moment
+later, as she brought in a card.
+
+Uncle John glanced at the card, and then, uttering an exclamation of
+surprise, passed it over to his wife, and, jumping up hastily, left the
+room.
+
+"Is it the chief of the detectives?" asked Laura, animatedly.
+
+"It isn't a detective at all; it's Dr. Phillips."
+
+"You don't mean _the_ Dr. Phillips,--_Bernard_ Phillips?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How strange, and at this hour in the morning! It must be something
+about Thanksgiving exercises," interposed Maud.
+
+"But we're not _his_ parishioners. We don't go to _his_ church!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mary; "I'm _so_ disappointed. I did hope it was the
+detective bringing Ally back."
+
+"Kate!" called Uncle John's voice here, "will you come into the parlor?"
+and Mrs. Fleming, obeying this call, found herself a minute after
+exchanging greetings with the unexpected visitor.
+
+"I want you to tell her, Doctor, just what you've told me exactly,"
+said Uncle John. "It's about Ally, my dear," to his wife. "She's found,
+and--and--"
+
+"She is at my house," took up the Doctor; and then he told of the little
+girl who had come to his house the night before, of her grievous
+disappointment, and the accident that had befallen her,--an accident
+that had robbed her of consciousness for a time, and from which she had
+only sufficiently recovered within the last few hours to answer the
+questions that were put to her in regard to her relations, that steps
+might be taken to restore her to them.
+
+"And she is seriously hurt,--she couldn't come with you?" broke in Aunt
+Kate, breathlessly.
+
+"No, she was not seriously hurt," he assured her; and then came that
+most delicate and difficult part of the Doctor's task,--to tell, in what
+gentle phrase he could, that this wilful child refused to accompany him;
+that she had taken a foolish fancy into her head that her relations did
+not care for her,--a fancy that had been strengthened into positive
+belief when she failed to find her uncle at the station, and had
+suggested to her a wild little plan of going away from them altogether,
+into some orphans' home that she had heard of, where she was sure a
+place could be found for her. Very gentle, indeed, was the phrasing of
+all this,--so gentle and full of sweet human consideration for
+everybody's shortcomings and mistakes that Aunt Kate forgot that the
+Doctor was a stranger; and with this forgetfulness the sharp pang of
+humiliation at a stranger's knowledge of such a family difficulty, and
+the little sting of resentment at Ally's attitude towards them all, was
+overborne to such an extent that she could frankly admit that her
+husband was right, and that none of them had had love and patience
+enough to help the child to fit into the new circumstances of her life.
+
+It was an added pang, but there was no resentment in it, when she saw
+Ally's sudden shrinking from her as she entered the Doctor's parlor with
+him a little later.
+
+To think that they had, though unwittingly, hurt and estranged the child
+like this, was Mrs. Fleming's first thought; and the tears came to her
+eyes, and her voice broke as she cried impulsively, "Oh, my little girl,
+my little girl!"
+
+Ally started at the sight of these tears, at the sound of this tenderly
+breaking voice. And there was Uncle John; and _he_ was crying too, and
+_his_ voice was breaking as he said something. What was it he was
+saying?--that it was not forgetfulness, it was not neglect of her, that
+had made him fail to meet her at the station, but an untoward accident
+to the streetcar he was in that had delayed him. And what was that Aunt
+Kate was saying? That they _did_ care for her, that they _did_ want her,
+and that they had set the telegraphic wires all over the country to hunt
+for her and bring her back to them.
+
+"But--but--Florence told me," faltered Ally, "that you dreaded the
+winter on my account,--I was so--so bad-tempered--so hard to live with."
+
+"Dreaded the winter on your account! Florence told you I said that?"
+cried Mrs. Fleming, in amazement.
+
+"She said she heard you say it to her mother."
+
+A light broke over Mrs. Fleming's face. "Oh, I remember now perfectly.
+It was just after you were so ill with that bad throat, and I was
+speaking to your aunt Ann about it, and I said to her, 'I dread the
+winter on Ally's account.' How could--how _could_ Florence put such a
+mischievous meaning to my words?"
+
+"Perhaps she only heard just those words," replied Ally, who would never
+take advantage of anybody.
+
+"But why should she want to tell you what would hurt you like that?"
+
+"We'd been quarrelling," answered Ally, with an honest brevity that was
+very edifying.
+
+"But, as you see now it was for your bad throat, and not for your bad
+temper, that I dreaded the winter," said Aunt Kate, with a smile, "you
+will come back with us, and let us both try again. We meant to be good
+to you, dear; but we did not think enough that you had been unused to a
+big family,--that you were a little ewe lamb that had been transplanted
+into a great crowded fold, and left to find your place with the crowd;
+and you misunderstood this, and took us too hardly; but we're going to
+do better. We're going to be more thoughtful of one another, and you'll
+come home with us now, and we'll have our Thanksgiving dinner together,
+won't we?"
+
+Childish and ignorant of the world's ways, as her wild idea in regard to
+her right to a place in an orphans' home proved her, Ally had a great
+deal of sense in other directions, and she began to perceive that she
+had not been the wilfully neglected and abused person she had thought
+herself, and to think, too, that perhaps Aunt Kate _might_ have had
+something to bear from _her_. At any rate, her good sense made her see
+that her aunt had come to her with kind and generous intentions, and
+that the least she could do was to respond with what grace was in her
+power; and so with a little smile that had something pathetic in it to
+those who saw it, it was so tremulous with that pitiful doubt that had
+been born of the last three unhappy years, she put her hand into Mrs.
+Fleming's, and signified her readiness to go with her. And then and
+there, as she met that smile, Kate Fleming vowed to herself that never
+again through fault of hers should this child suffer for lack of loving
+care; and with this resolve warm in her heart, she clasped the little
+hand in hers more closely, and said brightly,--
+
+"You'll see how glad the girls will be to see you, Ally, when we get
+home."
+
+But Ally had no response to make to this. A great dread had seized her
+as she felt herself going to meet them. Uncle John's and Aunt Kate's
+assurance of regard was one thing, but Uncle John and Aunt Kate were
+not the girls, and poor Ally was quite sure that no one of them had ever
+cared very much for her, though Mary had alternately petted and laughed
+at her, and now--why, now, they might dislike her for making such a
+fuss, for Laura had often said she did dislike people so who made a
+fuss, and Maud would agree with Laura, and Mary would laugh at her more
+than ever. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if she could only go back! if she could
+only get that dear good Doctor to find her a place in--But, "Here we
+are, Ally!" said Uncle John; and "Here she is!" exclaimed three girlish
+voices; and there, standing in the doorway, were Laura and Maud and
+Mary; and at sight of their faces, at sound of their voices, Ally's
+dread began to vanish. And then, just then, it was that Peter, who had
+been banished to the hall, called out uproariously, "Ally's come! Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!" and Mary called out after him,
+"I taught him to say that; I taught him more 'n a month ago."
+
+"'More 'n a month ago'! Oh!" breathed Ally under her breath, "she liked
+me well enough for this _more 'n a month ago_!"
+
+Uncle John and Aunt Kate and Laura and Maud and Mary were looking on,
+and they knew what Ally was thinking of,--the very words of it,--by that
+sudden radiant smile upon her face; and Mary was so pleased thereat, she
+had to cry out,--
+
+"Oh, what a jolly Thanksgiving this is! Could anything be added to make
+it jollier?"
+
+But something _was_ added. When they were all at the dinner-table that
+night,--mother and father and girls and the three boys who had just come
+up from their boarding-school that very morning,--this telegram was
+brought in from Uncle Tom,--
+
+"Thanks for word of Ally's safety. All send love. Florence is writing to
+her."
+
+Ally's eyes opened wide with astonishment at this conclusion. Florence!
+Aunt Kate read the meaning of that astonished look, and sent a glance to
+Ally that said as plainly as _words_ could say, "You see, even Florence
+didn't mean as badly as you thought."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN APRIL FOOL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Have you written it, Nelly?"
+
+"Yes, I have it here in my pocket. I'll show it to you when I get a
+chance."
+
+"Oh, show it now! There's as good a chance now as you'll have, for the
+rest of the girls are all on the other side of the room. Come;" and
+Lizzy Ryder held out her hand coaxingly.
+
+Nelly sent a quick glance around the school-room, and then took from her
+pocket a small square envelope. The envelope was directed to Miss Angela
+Jocelyn. Lizzy Ryder gave a little giggle as she read this name; but as
+she drew forth the note-sheet and read written upon it in a slender
+pointed handwriting, "Miss Marian Selwyn requests the pleasure of Miss
+Angela Jocelyn's company on the evening of April 1st," her giggle became
+a smothered shriek, and she said to her cousin,--
+
+"Oh, Nelly, it's perfect; she'll never suspect. It looks just like
+Marian Selwyn's writing. Wouldn't it be too good if we could somehow get
+hold of Angela's acceptance and keep it back, and have her actually _go_
+to the party. What _do_ you suppose Marian would say to her when she
+walked in?"
+
+"She wouldn't _say_ anything, but she'd _look_ so astonished, and she'd
+be so stiff that Miss Angela would very soon find out she wasn't very
+welcome. But we can't keep back the note very well, even if we could get
+hold of it,--it might get us into trouble, for it would be against the
+law; but there's no law against an April Fool letter of our own, and
+'twill be just as good fun in the end, for Marian Selwyn, of course,
+will set Miss Angela right in double quick time after she receives her
+note. Oh, I can just imagine the top-lofty style in which she will
+inform Miss Angela that there must be some mistake."
+
+"And then, of course, they'll both find out that somebody's been
+April-fooling them."
+
+"Of course. But that isn't going to interfere with our fun. Miss Angela
+will be set down by that time just where I want her, when she discovers
+that her invitation is nothing but an April fool on her. I wish--But,
+hush, somebody's coming this way;" and in an instant Nelly had whisked
+into her pocket the note she had written, and the cousins were walking
+down the room, talking in a loud tone about their lessons. The "somebody
+coming" was a very quiet but a very observing girl, who, as she saw the
+sudden start of Lizzy and Nelly, also caught sight of the little white
+missive as it was whisked into Nelly's pocket, and immediately
+thought,--
+
+"There's some mischief going on. I wonder what it is."
+
+"That sly Mary Marcy, she's always spying 'round," whispered Nelly to
+her companion, as they passed along. Then in a high voice, thinking to
+mislead Mary, she cried, "Oh, Lizzy, now I've shown you _my_ composition
+you must show me yours."
+
+Mary Marcy was a shrewd girl as well as an observant one, and she
+laughed in her sleeve as she heard this.
+
+"Composition! that was no school composition", she said to herself; and
+when a few minutes later the bell rang for the close of recess, and she
+saw Nelly send a significant glance to Lizzy as the two hurried to their
+seats, this shrewd, observant Mary was surer than ever that there was
+mischief going on, and when she went home that afternoon she told her
+mother what she had seen and heard, and how she felt about it,--for Mary
+was very confidential with her mother, and told her most of her school
+secrets. Mrs. Marcy listened to this telling with that placid Quaker way
+of hers, and remarked in her quaint Quaker phrase, "Thee mustn't be too
+suspicious, my dear; it maybe harmless mischief, after all." And then
+Mary had replied, "I shouldn't be suspicious of any of the other girls,
+mother; but Lizzy and Nelly Ryder are always doing and saying the
+mischievous things that have a sting in them;" and Mrs. Marcy, spite of
+her Quaker charity, then admitted that she had never quite liked the
+ways of those girls, and had often been sorry that they were in the
+Westboro' High School; "but, poor things," she added the moment she had
+made this admission, "they are more to be pitied than the persons they
+hurt, for _they_ can get over the hurt, but these poor girls can't get
+over their own wrong-doing so easily. It makes a black mark on them
+every time, and black marks are hard to rub off; and thee'll see if they
+are up to any wrong-doing now, it will leave a mark, and so they'll get
+the worst of it in the long run."
+
+"But it's always _such_ a long run before a mark of that kind shows,"
+laughed Mary. "Girls of that sort seem to succeed in making everybody
+but themselves uncomfortable, and these two specially always appear to
+be so gay and full of good times with their giggle and chatter."
+
+"But the Bible says, Mary, 'for as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
+so is the laughter of the fool;' and thee can think of this the next
+time thee hears the chatter, and then thee can say to thyself, 'It _may_
+be nothing but foolish folly, after all.'"
+
+"Yes, it _may_ be nothing but that," Mary allowed; but when the next
+morning she heard it again, her first doubts and suspicions returned in
+full force, and she said to herself, "I'm perfectly sure that there's
+something more than mere foolishness in this crackling of thorns. I'm
+perfectly sure there's mischief with a sting in it. I feel it in the
+air, and I'm just going to watch out and see if I can't stop it as I did
+that horrid St. Valentine business last winter."
+
+And while good kind Mary was thus "watching out" for this mischief,
+there, only two or three seats away from her, sat Angela Jocelyn, about
+whom all the mischief was gathering as a dark cloud gathers over a fair
+sky. And Angela's sky was particularly fair to her just then, for she
+had been made very happy by the invitation she had received that
+morning,--so happy that she had said to her elder sister, Martha
+Jocelyn, "To think of Marian Selwyn's inviting _me_. Isn't it beautiful
+of her?" and Martha had answered back rather tartly, "I don't see why
+you should put such an emphasis on 'me,' as if you were so inferior.
+You're as good as Marian Selwyn."
+
+"Yes, Martha, I know--it isn't that I feel inferior in--in myself,"
+Angela exclaimed; "but the Selwyns have always had money and
+everything--always, and we are poor and have lived so out of the way
+that I say it's beautiful and kind of Marian, when she knows me so
+little. Why, Martha, I never see her anywhere but on the street and at
+Sunday-school."
+
+"Well, she likes you, I suppose. She's taken a fancy to you, and she's
+independent enough, I should hope, to invite any girl she likes, if the
+girl _is_ poor and lives out of the way," was Martha's cool reply.
+
+Liked her! Taken a fancy to her! How Angela's heart jumped at this
+suggestion! Could it be possible that this lovely fortunate Marian
+Selwyn, that she had always admired from afar off, had taken a fancy to
+_her_,--poor, plain little Angela Jocelyn,--was her thought. And it was
+with this thought quickening her pulses that she wrote a cordial
+acceptance to the note of invitation; and it was this thought that sent
+such a bright look into her face that morning, that Mary Marcy said to
+her friend and seat-mate, Anna Richards, "Look at Angela Jocelyn, she is
+really growing pretty;" and a little later at the recess that followed
+directly after a recitation where Angela had easily led, as usual, Mary,
+catching sight of the frowning faces of Lizzy and Nelly Ryder,
+exclaimed: "Anna, if Angela Jocelyn is going to add good looks to her
+braininess, those Ryder girls will be more jealous of her than ever."
+
+"And they pretend to look down on Angela because she is poor and her
+mother and sister take in sewing," responded Anna.
+
+"All the same they don't look down on what Angela really _is_. She is
+superior to them in brains, and they know it, and that makes them want
+to pull her down," answered Mary.
+
+"Yes, I heard Nelly Ryder say last week that Angela was altogether too
+conceited, and ought to be 'taken down'; and it would be just like Nelly
+Ryder to try to do it sometime."
+
+"_Sometime_! I believe she is trying to do it now. I believe that that
+is the mischief she and her cousin Lizzy are planning this moment,"
+cried Mary.
+
+"What _do_ you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you;" and Mary related, as she had related to her mother,
+what she had seen and heard.
+
+"Nelly Ryder has never forgiven Angela for getting the history prize;
+Nelly thought herself sure of it,--she as good as told me so," was
+Anna's only remark upon this.
+
+"And now she's going to play some trick on Angela to take her down, as
+she calls it; that's what you think, isn't it? And that's what _I_
+think. Oh, Anna, I wish I could ferret out the mischief and stop it. It
+will be something hateful and mortifying to poor Angela, I know. If I
+could only get some clew to what it is, so as to warn her."
+
+"Yes; but as we are not sure that there _is_ any mischief, after all,
+you mustn't say anything to anybody yet."
+
+"No, of course not; but I'll keep a sharp lookout, and I _may_ hear or
+see something that will give me a hint. What fun it would be to outwit
+one of the Ryder schemes!"
+
+"Mary! with all your Quaker bringing-up, I do believe you are just
+pining for what our Jack would call 'a scrimmage.'"
+
+"Well, I am, if that means getting the better of mischief-makers," Mary
+confessed with a laugh.
+
+"But you won't succeed, if the mischief-makers are Nelly and Lizzy
+Ryder, Those, girls seem to get the best of everything and everybody.
+Think now, for one thing, of their being acquaintances of Marian
+Selwyn's, and invited to her birthday party!"
+
+"Oh, well, that is family acquaintance, Anna. The Ryders have always
+known the Selwyns, just as we have. The Selwyns and Ryders and Marcys
+have lived in Westboro', and visited each other for ages."
+
+"I wish _I_ had, and then I might have been invited to this wonderful
+birthday party," exclaimed Anna, with a certain earnestness of tone that
+belied her gay little laugh, and made Mary say regretfully,--
+
+"I wish I'd known you felt like this last week, I would have had you and
+Marian 'round to tea, and then you would have got acquainted, and she'd
+have been sure to have invited you; but it's too late now, for the party
+comes off Thursday, you know."
+
+"Thursday! Why, Thursday is the first of April.. How funny that one's
+birthday should come on the first of April!"
+
+"Funny--why?"
+
+"Why? Because it's April-fool's day."
+
+"Oh, I see; but I'm so used to Marian's birthdays, I don't always stop
+to think of that."
+
+"But don't some people think of it? Don't they sometimes play--Oh, oh,
+Mary, Mary, mayn't this be your clew? Don't you believe that Nelly
+Ryder has been planning an April-fool trick upon Angela in connection
+with this party?"
+
+Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the
+recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of:
+"Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it _is_ the clew. Why _didn't_ I
+think of April-fool's day,--that it would be just the opportunity Nelly
+Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw
+it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in
+it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or
+other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to
+Marian,--sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night
+of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a
+silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified
+Tilly dreadfully."
+
+"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than
+Tilly."
+
+"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest
+persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very
+innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm
+going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I
+suspect."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our
+suspicion, and we _may_ be on the wrong track altogether."
+
+"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on
+that I might stop?"
+
+"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had
+got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her
+birthday,--upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know
+_what_ the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion
+that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on
+her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."
+
+"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'
+and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to
+Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a
+word more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna
+had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year
+older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,--a
+year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of
+Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to
+Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so
+experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that
+that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and as a
+consequence made such a boggle of what she had to say, that Marian,
+entirely misunderstanding, exclaimed in amazement,--
+
+"You want me to get up an April joke on my birthday, Mary? I couldn't
+think of such a thing; I hate April jokes."
+
+"No, no, you misunderstand," burst forth Mary; and then, forgetting all
+her awkwardness, she made her little statement over again, and this
+time succinctly and clearly. And now it was _her_ turn to be amazed; for
+before she had got entirely to the end of her statement, Marian starting
+up pulled a note from her pocket and cried, "Read this, Mary! read
+this!"
+
+It was Angela's cordial note of acceptance.
+
+"And she had no invitation from _me_. I never invited her, I scarcely
+knew her," went on Marian.
+
+"She had no invitation from _you_, but she thought she had. It isn't
+Angela who is playing a trick upon _you_. Somebody has played a trick
+upon _her_,--has written in your name. Oh, don't you see? _She_ is the
+innocent person I meant."
+
+"But who--who is the guilty one,--the one who has _dared_ to do this?"
+cried Marian.
+
+"I can't tell you yet whom I think it is, because I haven't any proof,
+and it wouldn't be fair to call names unless I had sure proof."
+
+"Well, look here. All my notes were sealed with my monogram seal, but I
+used a variety of colored wax. Everybody is interested in comparing
+seals now, and so can't you make an excuse to Angela that you want to
+compare the seals in the different colors, and borrow her note of
+invitation, and then bring it to me? If I could see that note, I might
+know the handwriting, and then I'd know who played this shabby, cruel
+trick. And I ought to know, that I mayn't suspect an innocent person."
+
+"But the note that Angela received may not be sealed with wax."
+
+"Oh, yes, it will. Whoever sent that note had seen mine, I am certain,
+and of course would use wax, as I did. Now, won't you do this little
+service for me, Mary?" urged Marian, entreatingly.
+
+Mary laughed. "Yes, I'll do it," she answered, "though I'm not very
+clever at playing theatre. I've too much Quaker blood in me for that;
+but it's a good cause, and I'll do the best I can, and I'll do it now,
+for Angela's sure to be at home now;" and suiting her action to her
+word, Mary started off then and there upon her errand.
+
+And so surely and swiftly did she do her best on this errand that Marian
+gave a little scream of surprise as she saw her coming back, and,
+"You've not got it already?" she cried, running to meet her.
+
+"Yes, here it is. Angela gave it to me at once."
+
+"Just the size of _my_ paper, and the wax--you see I was right. There
+_is_ wax, and a seal-stamp that looks like _my_ stamp, but isn't,"
+exclaimed Marian. "Now for the handwriting!" One glance at the address
+on the envelope; then, pulling out the note, she bent breathlessly over
+it for a moment. In another moment she was calling out triumphantly: "I
+know it! I know it! She tried to imitate mine, but I know these M's and
+r's and A's. They're Nelly Ryder's! they're Nelly Ryder's! Look here;"
+and running to her desk, the excited girl produced another note, and
+placed it beside the one that Angela had received. It was Nelly Ryder's
+acceptance of her invitation; and Mary, looking at the peculiar M's and
+r's and A's saw as clearly as Marian herself the proof of the same hand
+in each note.
+
+"And I should know her 'hand' anywhere, for I've had hundreds of notes
+from her, first and last," Marian went on. "But to think of her playing
+such a trick as this! I never had any admiration for her, or her cousin
+either; but I _didn't_ think either one of them could do such a
+mischievous, vulgar thing. But _you_ did, Mary, for this is the girl you
+suspected."
+
+"Yes, because I had known more of her than you had,--going to school
+with her every day;" and then Mary told what she had known, and what
+she had seen herself, winding up with, "But I didn't like to tell you
+all this before I had certain proof, for I wanted to be fair, you know."
+
+"And you _have_ been fair, more than fair; and now--"
+
+"Well, go on, what do you stop for--now what?"
+
+"Wait and see;" and Marian nodded her head, and compressed her lips into
+a firm, resolute line.
+
+"Oh, Marian, are you going to punish Nelly?" cried Mary, a little
+alarmed at these indications.
+
+Marian nodded again.
+
+"Yes, I'm going to punish her."
+
+"Oh, how, when, where?"
+
+"When? On Thursday night. Where? At the birthday party. How? Wait and
+see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+It was the evening of the first of April,--a beautiful, still, starry
+evening, with all the chill and frost of early spring blown out of it by
+the friendly winds of March, and all the lovely promises of summer
+buddings and flowerings wafting into it from waiting May and June.
+
+A "just perfect evening," said more than one girl delightedly, as she
+set out arrayed in all her furbelows for the birthday party. A "just
+perfect evening." And no one said this more emphatically, and felt it
+more emphatically, than Mary Marcy and Angela Jocelyn,--Mary in her
+pretty and becoming if rather plain white gown of China silk, and Angela
+in her old white cambric that had been 'done over' for the hundredth
+time, perhaps, and was neither pretty nor becoming, with its skimp skirt
+and sleeves and shrunken waist. But a new gown had been out of the
+question just then with the Jocelyns, and Angela had to make the best of
+the old one; and it did not seem at all hard to make a very good 'best'
+of it, when she stood in her own little bedroom, with Martha tying the
+well-worn blue sash around the shrunken waist, and her mother looking on
+and saying, "It really looks very nice, and that sash _does_ wash so
+well."
+
+But when she went up into the great brilliantly lighted bedchamber at
+the Selwyns', and saw Mary Marcy in her perfectly fitting gown drawing
+on her delicate gloves, and talking with several young ladies
+beautifully dressed in fresh muslin and silk, the skimp skirt and
+sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very
+mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when
+two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness;
+and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk
+and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela
+suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness.
+This feeling increased as she noticed the unmistakable start that the
+cousins gave as they caught sight of her, and heard Nelly's astonished
+exclamation, "What! _you_ here?"
+
+It was a bitter moment; but a bitterer was yet to come, when Lizzy
+Ryder, with that innocent little way of hers, said,--
+
+"Oh, if you've come to help take our things off, _do_ help me with this
+scarf, Angela!"
+
+If Angela could but have known then and there that this was only a petty
+stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the
+words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think
+I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused
+feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation
+to her shabby gown, she started back with all her confusion merging into
+one thought to get away out of the sight of these well-dressed happy
+girls. But as she started back, Mary Marcy, who had heard Lizzy Ryder's
+speech, started forward and called out: "Oh, Angela, how do you do? I
+didn't see you when you came in. I--I've been expecting to see you,
+though; and now shall we go down together?"
+
+Angela couldn't speak. She could only give a little nod of assent, and
+yield herself to kind Mary's guidance, with a deep breath of relief. It
+was only a partial relief, however. She had yet to go down into the
+brilliant parlor with its crowd of Selwyn cousins, yet to face, in that
+old shrunken gown with its washed sash, all those critical eyes. Oh,
+what if all those eyes should look at her with a stare of astonishment,
+such as Lizzy and Nelly Ryder had bestowed upon her? What if Marian
+herself should give a glance of surprise at the old shabby gown? These
+were some of the troubled questions that whirled through Angela's head
+as she went down the stairs with Mary Marcy. And down behind them,
+following closely, though Angela did not know it, came the two Ryder
+girls, full of eager curiosity, for they were both of them now quite
+certain that Marian had received no note of any sort from Angela. "She
+didn't know enough to write an acceptance. How should she? I don't
+suppose she's ever had an invitation to a party in her life," whispered
+Nelly to her cousin in the first shock of surprise at seeing Angela in
+the dressing-room.
+
+"No, of course not," whispered back Lizzy; and so, confident and secure
+in this belief, and in the anticipation of "fun," as they called the
+displeased astonishment they expected to see Marian express at the sight
+of her uninvited guest, and the guest's mortification thereat, the
+conspirators stepped softly along down the stairs and across the great
+hall into the beautiful brilliant parlor.
+
+[Illustration: As the fresh arrivals appeared]
+
+Marian was standing at the farther end of the parlor facing the doorway,
+with two of the Selwyn cousins beside her, as the fresh arrivals
+appeared. She was laughing joyously as they entered; but at her very
+first glimpse of the approaching group, the laugh ceased, and a look of
+sudden resolve flashed into her face,--a look that the Selwyn cousins,
+who had been told the whole story of the fraudulent invitation,
+understood at once to mean, "Here is my opportunity and I'll make the
+most of it!" But to the others--to the four who were approaching--this
+sudden change in their hostess's face was thus variously interpreted:
+"She has seen Angela," thought the Ryder girls, triumphantly. "She has
+seen the Ryder girls, and she is going to punish them," thought Mary,
+nervously. "She is looking at my dreadful old gown," thought Angela,
+miserably.
+
+And moved thus differently by such different anticipations, the little
+group came down the room, Mary's nervousness increasing at every
+step,--for her shyness and the Quaker love of peace rose up within her
+at the sight of Marian's face, that seemed to her to betoken a plan of
+punishment for the approaching offenders more in accordance with the
+fiery Selwyn spirit than any spirit of peace.
+
+Just what Mary feared she could not have told; but she knew something of
+this Selwyn spirit, and had often heard it said that the Selwyn tongue
+could cut like a lash when once started. That the Ryders deserved the
+sharpest cut of this lash she fully believed; but, "Oh, I _do_ hope
+Marian won't say anything sharp _now_," she thought to herself. And it
+was then, just then, at that very moment, that she saw Marian's face
+change again, as the softest, sweetest, kindest of smiles beamed from
+lips and eyes, and the softest, sweetest, kindest of voices said,--
+
+"How do you do, Mary? I'm very glad to see you,--you know my cousins,
+Bertie and Laura;" and in the next breath, "How do you do, Miss Jocelyn?
+It's very nice to see you here.--Bertie, Laura, this is my friend Angela
+Jocelyn, who is going to make one of our charade party next month if I
+can persuade her."
+
+One of that May-day charade party! Mary opened her eyes very wide at
+this, and Angela wondered if she were awake. But the charming voice was
+now speaking to some one else,--was saying very politely without a
+touch of sharpness, but with a world of meaning to those who had the
+clew, and those only,--
+
+"How do you do, Lizzy? How do you do, Nelly? And, Nelly, I want to thank
+you for a real service in connection with my birthday invitations. But
+for you I should have missed a very welcome guest. I shall never forget
+this, you may be sure."
+
+"I--I--" But for once Nelly Ryder's ready speech failed her. Her cousin
+tried to take up her words, tried to say something about April fun,
+tried to smile, to laugh; but the laugh died upon her lips, and she was
+only too glad to move on with Nelly into the room beyond, and there, out
+of the range of observation for a moment, the two expressed their
+astonishment and dismay at Marian's knowledge, and wondered how she came
+by it.
+
+"But to think of her taking an April joke so seriously as to make much
+of Angela Jocelyn just to come up with _me_!" burst out Nelly.
+
+"And to think," burst out Lizzy, with a sly laugh, "that it is _you_ who
+have introduced Angela to Marian's good graces, and that it is _you_,
+after all, who have been made the April fool, and not Angela!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE THANKSGIVING GUEST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"It is such a lovely idea, such a truly Christian idea, Mrs. Lambert.
+How did you ever happen to think of it?"
+
+"Oh, _I_ did not think of it; it wasn't _my_ idea. Didn't you ever hear
+how it came about?"
+
+"No; do tell me!"
+
+"Well, my husband, you know, was always looking out for ways of doing
+good,--lending a helping hand,--and he used to talk with the children a
+great deal of such things. One day he came across a beautiful little
+story that he read to them. It was the story of a child who made the
+acquaintance of a poor, half-starved student and brought him home with
+her to share her Thanksgiving dinner. It made a deep impression on the
+children. They talked about it continually, and acted it out in their
+play. But they were in the habit of doing that with any fresh story that
+pleased them, so it was nothing new to us, and we hadn't a thought of
+their carrying it further. But the next week was Thanksgiving week; and
+when Thanksgiving Day came, what do you think those little things
+did,--for they were quite little things then,--what do you think they
+did but bring in just before dinner the half-blind old apple-pedler who
+had a stand on the corner of the street?
+
+"They were so happy about it, and they thought we should be so happy
+too, that we couldn't say a word of discouragement in the way of advice
+then; but later, when we had given the old fellow his dinner, and he had
+gone, we had a talk with the dear little souls, when we tried to show
+them that it would be better to let us know when they wanted to invite
+any one to dinner or to tea,--that that was the way other girls and boys
+always did. They were rather crestfallen at our suggestions; for, with
+the keen, sensitive instinct of children, they felt that their
+beautiful plan, as they thought it, had somewhere failed, and, though
+they promised readily enough to consult us 'next time,' we could see
+that they were puzzled and depressed over all this _regulation_, when we
+had seemed to have nothing but admiring appreciation for the similar act
+of the child in the story. My husband, seeing this, was very much
+troubled to know just what to say or do; for he thought, as I did, that
+it might be a serious injury to them to say or do anything to chill or
+check their first independent attempt to lend a helping hand to others.
+Then all at once out of his perplexity came this idea of allowing the
+children from that time forward to have the privilege of inviting a
+guest of their own choosing every Thanksgiving Day, and that this guest
+should be some one who needed, in some way or other, home-cherishing and
+kindness. They should have the privilege of choosing, but they must tell
+us the one they had chosen, that we might send the invitation for them.
+This plan delighted them; and from this start, five years ago, the thing
+has gone on until it has grown into the present 'guest day,' where _each
+one_ of the children may invite his or her particular guest. It has got
+to be a very pleasant thing now, though at first we had some queer
+times. But as the children grew older, they learned better how to
+regulate matters, and to make necessary discriminations, and a year ago
+we found we could trust them to invite their guests without any older
+supervision, and they are very proud of this liberty, and very happy in
+the whole thing; and such an education as it has been. You've no idea
+how they have learned to think of others, to look about them to find
+those who are in need not merely of food or clothing but of loving
+attention and kindness."
+
+"Well, it is beautiful, Mrs. Lambert, and what a Thanksgiving ought to
+be,--what it was in the old pilgrim days at Plymouth, when those who had
+more than others invited the less fortunate to share with them. It's
+beautiful, and I wish everybody who could afford it would go and do
+likewise."
+
+"Speaking of affording it, I thought, when my husband died last spring,
+I should have to give up our guest day with most other things, for you
+know that railroad business that my husband entered into with his
+half-brother John nearly ruined him. I think the worry and fret of it
+killed him, anyway, and I told John so, and he has never forgiven me.
+But I have never forgiven him, and never shall; for if it hadn't been
+for John's representations, his continual urging, Charles would never
+have gone into the business. Oh, I shall always hold John responsible
+for his death, and I told him so."
+
+"You told him so? How did he take that? What did he say?"
+
+"Oh, you know John. He flew into a rage, and said he loved his brother
+as well as _I_ did. As well as _I_ did! Think of that; and that he had
+urged him into that business, thinking that it was for his
+benefit,--that no one could have foreseen what happened, and that if
+Charles lost, he also had lost, and much more heavily. But, as I was
+saying, I thought at first I should have to give up our guest day; but
+when matters came to be settled, I found there were other things I would
+rather economize on."
+
+"Where _is_ John now, Mrs. Lambert?"
+
+"He is in--" But just at that moment a tall pretty girl of fourteen
+entered the room. It was Elsie, the eldest of the Lambert children.
+
+"Why, Elsie, how you have grown!" cried Mrs. Mason, who hadn't seen
+Elsie for some months, "and you've quite lost the look of your mother."
+
+"Yes, Elsie is getting to look like the Lamberts," remarked the mother.
+
+"Everybody says I look just like Uncle John," spoke up Elsie.
+
+"Oh, you were asking me where John was now," said Mrs. Lambert, turning
+to Mrs. Mason. "He is in New York, dabbling in railroads, as usual, and
+getting poorer and poorer by this obstinate folly, I heard last week.
+_We_ don't see him, of course; for, as I told you, we don't forgive each
+other. Oh!" as her visitor cast a questioning glance toward Elsie, who
+had suddenly given a little start here, "Elsie knows all about it. Elsie
+is my big girl now. But what is it, my dear?--you came in to ask me
+something,--what is it?"
+
+"It's about Tommy. He has told me who he is going to invite for next
+week,"--next week was Thanksgiving week,--"and I knew you would not like
+it, and I felt that I ought to tell you; it is that horrid Marchant
+boy."
+
+"Like it,--I should think not! Why, what in the world has put Tommy up
+to that?"
+
+"He says that Joe Marchant hasn't any home of his own this
+Thanksgiving, because his father has gone out West on business, and left
+Joe all alone with those people that his father and he boarded with just
+after his mother died; and Tommy pities Joe so, he says he is going to
+invite him here for next Thursday, and I knew you wouldn't want him."
+
+"Of course not; the boy is ill-mannered and disagreeable, and he is
+always quarrelling with Tommy."
+
+"I told Tommy that," laughed Elsie, "and he said he guessed he'd done
+_his_ share of the quarrelling, and that, anyway, Joe Marchant was the
+under dog now, and he was going to forgive and forget."
+
+"Dear little Tommy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lambert, admiringly.
+
+"And he said, too, mother, that he knew you wouldn't object; that you
+always told him that Thanksgiving Day was the very day to make up with
+folks and be good to 'em, but I knew you _would_ object to Joe Marchant,
+and so--"
+
+"I--I don't know about it, Elsie. If Tommy feels like that, I--I don't
+believe it would be wise for me to check him. No, I don't believe I can.
+Tommy is nearer right than I am. He is doing a fine, generous thing,
+and it _is_ the right thing, and I think we must put up with Joe
+Marchant, Elsie, after all."
+
+"Oh, _I_ don't mind, if _you_ don't, mamma; but I thought you wouldn't
+like it, and it would spoil the day."
+
+"No, nothing done in that spirit _could_ spoil the day; and, Elsie, I
+hope the rest of you will make your choice of guests with as good reason
+as Tommy has."
+
+Elsie looked at her mother with an odd, eager expression, as if she were
+about to speak. Then she suddenly lifted up her head with a little air
+of resolution, and starting forward hurriedly left the room.
+
+Mrs. Lambert laughed as the door closed.
+
+"I think I know what Elsie is going to do," she said smilingly to Mrs.
+Mason. "There is a young teacher in her school, Miss Matthews, who is
+seldom invited anywhere, she is so unpopular. I've often asked Elsie to
+bring her home, and she has always put it off; but I believe that this
+act of Tommy's and what I've said about it has made such an impression
+upon her that she has gone now to invite Miss Matthews to be her guest
+next week. She was going to tell me about it at first, then she thought
+better of it. They've all had this liberty for the last year--not to
+tell--it's so much more fun for them; and I can always trust Elsie to
+look out for things, she has such good sense with her good heart."
+
+"Yes, and you _all_ seem to have such good sense and such good hearts,
+Mrs. Lambert," said Mrs. Mason, as she rose to go; but as she walked
+down the street she said to herself, "Such good sense and such good
+hearts, overflowing with charity and forgiveness for everybody but John
+Lambert!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+It was Thanksgiving Day, and just three minutes to the dinner-hour at
+the Lamberts', and all the guests had arrived except the one that Elsie
+had bidden.
+
+"Don't fret, Elsie," whispered Mrs. Lambert to her, as she noted the two
+red spots burning in her cheeks and her anxious glances toward the
+clock,--"don't fret; she's probably going to be fashionably exact on the
+stroke of the hour."
+
+Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to
+talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.
+
+"We'll wait five minutes for her," thought Mrs. Lambert. "If there
+hasn't been an accident to detain her, she's very rude, and certainly
+not fit to be a teacher of _manners_, and I don't wonder she's unpopular
+with the girls."
+
+The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did
+not appear. To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs.
+Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served. It was seemingly a
+very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but
+there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each
+one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger's
+feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day. Mrs.
+Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses
+and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her
+five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the
+dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other
+relations. But she must not dwell on these memories with all these
+guests to serve. She must put her own needs aside to see that little
+Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and
+that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry
+sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.
+
+It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was
+laughing a little at Joe's clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling
+him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one
+guest was missing,--while she was doing this, there came a great crunch
+of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell,
+and, "There she is! there she is!" thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added
+thought: "It's rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage
+when she is at such a little distance from us,--rather putting on airs,
+but--What _are_ you jumping up for?" she calls out to Elsie, who has
+suddenly sprung from her seat. "What are you jumping up for? Ellen will
+attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed
+her wraps. Sit down, Elsie; don't be so fidgety. I will--" But the
+dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw
+coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with
+a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of
+this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt
+her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,--
+
+"I am so glad to come to you,--to see you and the children again,
+Caroline. I was away when Elsie's letter arrived; but as soon as I got
+into New York yesterday, I started off, and I am so glad to come, so
+glad to come;" and here Mrs. Lambert heard the eager voice falter, and
+saw the glisten of tears in the eyes that were regarding her and in the
+next instant felt them against her cheek as a tender kiss was pressed
+upon it. It was all in a moment, the strange surprise of look and word
+and tone and touch, the joyful cries of "It's Uncle John, it's Uncle
+John!" from some one of the children. Then all in a moment the
+strangeness seemed to have passed, and John Lambert was taking his place
+amongst them with the fond belief that he was his sister-in-law's chosen
+guest. And she, with those warm, manly words of thanks, those joyful
+cries of childish welcome in her ears, could she undeceive him,--could
+she say to him: "It was not I who sent for you; I am the same as ever,
+as full of wild regrets and bitter resentments"? Could she say this to
+him? How could she, how could she, when over the wild regrets and bitter
+resentments there kept rising and rising a flood of earlier memories of
+an earlier time when this guest had been a welcome guest indeed, and she
+had heard again and again those very words, "I'm so glad to come"? Those
+very words, but with what a difference of accent, and what a difference
+in the speaker himself,--only a year and his face so worn, his hair so
+white, she had not known him! He must have suffered,--yes, and she--she
+had suffered; but she had her children, and he had no one!
+
+The dinner was over. They had all risen from the table, and were going
+into the parlor, and Uncle John had his namesake Johnny on one side of
+him and little Archie on the other. They had taken possession of him
+from the first, when Elsie, hanging back, clung to her mother and
+whispered agitatedly,--
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, it was what you said last week about Tommy's
+invitation that made me think of--of inviting Uncle John; but perhaps I
+ought to have told you--have asked you."
+
+"No, no, it is better as it is. Don't fret, dear, it--it is all right.
+But there is Ann bringing the coffee into the parlor. Go and light your
+little teakettle, Elsie, and make your uncle a cup of tea as you used to
+do; he can't drink coffee, you know."
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10433 ***
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Flock of Girls and Boys, by Nora Perry</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+Title: A Flock of Girls and Boys
+
+Author: Nora Perry
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2003  [eBook #10433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
+
+</pre>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Wilson,<br>
+            and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3></center>
+<br>
+<hr class="full">
+<h1 style="margin-top: 2em">A FLOCK</h1>
+<h4>OF</h4>
+<h1>GIRLS AND BOYS.</h1>
+
+<h2>by Nora Perry,</h2>
+
+<h5>Author Of "Hope Benham," "Lyrics And Legends,"
+      "A Rosebud Garden Of Girls," Etc.</h5>
+
+
+<h3 style="margin-top: 1.5em">Illustrated by</h3>
+<h2>Charlotte Tiffany Parker.</h2>
+
+<h4 style="margin-top:5em">                  1895.</h4>
+
+<hr>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0328" href="images/Illus0328s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0328t.jpg"
+ alt="Frontispiece: That little Smith girl" width="262" height="351"></a><br>
+<i>Frontispiece: That little Smith girl</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+
+<p class="bigillus"><a href="images/Illus003.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus003s.png"
+ alt="CONTENTS." width="297" height="278" ></a>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<ul>
+  <li><a href="#Smith">THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Egg">THE EGG BOY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Molly">MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Valentine">POLLY'S VALENTINE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Sibyl">SIBYL'S SLIPPER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Samaritan">A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Esther">ESTHER BODN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Becky">BECKY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Ally">ALLY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#April">AN APRIL FOOL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Guest">THE THANKSGIVING GUEST</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<p class="bigillus"><a href="images/Illus004.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus004s.png"
+ alt="Illustration" width="391" height="302"></a></p>
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+  <li><a href="#I0328">THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0330">MISS PELHAM! MISS MARGARET PELHAM!"</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0332">WALLULA CLAPPED HER HANDS WITH DELIGHT</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0334">A VERY PRETTY PAIR</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0336">SIBYL'S REFLECTIONS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0338">A TALL, HANDSOME WOMAN SMILED A GREETING</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0340">SHE WAS ADDRESSING MONSIEUR BAUDOUIN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0342">THE PRETTY LITTLE BASKET OF GREEN AND WHITE PAPER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0344">AS THE FRESH ARRIVALS APPEARED</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Smith">THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="chapone">
+<a href="images/Illus005.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus005a.png"
+ alt="T" width="375" height="194" border="0"><br>
+<img src="images/Illus005b.png" alt="T" width="121" height="42" border="0"></a>he Pelhams are coming next month."
+</p><p>
+"Who are the Pelhams?"
+</p><p>
+Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as
+she exclaimed:
+</p><p>
+"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the Pelhams
+are?"
+</p><p>
+Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up <i>her</i> nose as she replied,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I do mean to say just that."
+</p><p>
+"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.
+</p><p>
+"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson,
+with a laugh.
+</p><p>
+"But the Pelhams,&mdash;I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at
+least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a
+doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further
+irritated, cried impulsively,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done, pray
+tell, that everybody should know of them?"
+</p><p>
+"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They
+are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one of
+the oldest families of Boston."
+</p><p>
+"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until
+it bumped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat
+Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"
+</p><p>
+Then another girl giggled,&mdash;it was another of the Robsons,&mdash;Dora's
+Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her
+'Crack Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."
+</p><p>
+"You'd better call her L.H.,&mdash;'Level Head,'" a voice&mdash;a boy's
+voice&mdash;called out here.
+</p><p>
+The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.
+"Who&mdash;what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing,
+exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie, by
+hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our
+secrets?"
+</p><p>
+"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or
+more when you girls came to this end of the piazza."
+</p><p>
+"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I
+didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let
+me see it."
+</p><p>
+"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."
+</p><p>
+"Let me see it."
+</p><p>
+Will held up the book.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"
+</p><p>
+"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of
+boy's sports," returned Will.
+</p><p>
+"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her
+head.
+</p><p>
+"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.
+</p><p>
+"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."
+</p><p>
+Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and
+prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the
+hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read
+it twice."
+</p><p>
+Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he ejaculated in
+pleased astonishment,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, I say now!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever
+read,&mdash;that part about the boat-race I've read over three or four
+times."
+</p><p>
+"Well, your head <i>is</i> level," cried Will, sitting up still straighter
+in the hammock, and regarding Tilly with a look of respect.
+</p><p>
+"Because I don't care anything for Boston's grand folks and do care for
+'Jack Hall'?" laughed Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, that's about it," responded Will, with a little grin. "I'm so sick
+and tired," he went on, "hearing about 'swells' and money. The best
+fellow I know at school is quite poor; and one of the worst of the lot
+is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."
+</p><p>
+"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly
+well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.
+</p><p>
+"I don't!" growled Will.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to
+that."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.
+</p><p>
+"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I do think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I
+want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of
+'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There
+wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have
+cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and
+sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that
+showed his approval of this trait in his ancestors.
+</p><p>
+Dora looked at him curiously; then with a faint smile she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Your cousin Frances is so proud of those old Wentworths. She's often
+told me how grandly they lived, and she's so pleased that her name
+Frances is the name of one of the prettiest of the Governor's wives."
+</p><p>
+"Yes; and one of the prettiest, and I dare say one of the best of 'em,
+was a servant-girl in Governor Benning Wentworth's kitchen, and he
+married her out of it. Did Fan ever tell you that?" and Will chuckled.
+</p><p>
+Amy Robson stared at Will with amazement as she exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never saw such a queer boy as you are,&mdash;to run your own family
+down."
+</p><p>
+"I'm not running 'em down. 'Tisn't running 'em down to say that one of
+'em married Martha Hilton. Martha Hilton was a nice girl, though she was
+poor and had to work in a kitchen. Plenty of nice girls&mdash;farmers'
+daughters&mdash;worked in that way in those old times; the New England
+histories tell you that."
+</p><p>
+Not one of the girls made any comment or criticism upon this statement,
+for Will Wentworth was known to be well up in history; but after a
+moment or two of silence, Dora burst forth in this wise,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You may talk as you like. Will Wentworth, but you know perfectly well
+that you don't think a servant-girl is as good as you are."
+</p><p>
+"If you mean that I don't think she is of the same class, of course I
+don't. She may be a great deal better than I am in other ways, for all
+that. In those old days, though, the servant-girls weren't the kind we
+have now; they were Americans,&mdash;farmers' daughters,&mdash;most of 'em."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, you may talk and talk in this grand way, Willie Wentworth;
+but you know where you belong, and when the Pelhams come, Tilly'll see
+for herself that you are one of the same sort."
+</p><p>
+"As the Pelhams?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, what have you got to say about the Pelhams in that scornful way?"
+asked Amy, rather indignantly.
+</p><p>
+"I'm not scornful. I was only going to set you right, and say that the
+Pelhams are fashionable folks and the Wentworths are not."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I'd like to have your cousin Fanny hear you say that. Fanny thinks
+the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."
+</p><p>
+"They are."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths
+were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the
+Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that
+way,&mdash;in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of
+people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,&mdash;they
+don't like it."
+</p><p>
+"Your cousin Fanny says&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she
+were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em
+when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so
+nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,&mdash;what you call
+'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."
+</p><p>
+"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with
+sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little
+wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we
+shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly
+dear,"&mdash;the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,&mdash;"you can't,
+for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,&mdash;how incapable
+of such meanness!"
+</p><p>
+"I wouldn't trust this high-mindedness," retorted Tilly, wrinkling up
+her forehead.
+</p><p>
+"Now, Tilly, you don't mean that,&mdash;you don't mean that you've come all
+the way from naughty New York to find such dreadful faults in nice,
+primmy New England. The very dogs here are above such things. Look at
+Punch there making friends with that little plebeian yellow dog."
+</p><p>
+"And look at Dandy barking at everybody who isn't well dressed," laughed
+Tilly, pointing to a handsome collie, who was vigorously giving voice to
+his displeasure at the approach of a workman in shabby clothing.
+</p><p>
+The Robson girls and Will Wentworth joined in Tilly's laugh; but Agnes
+Brendon, who could never see a joke, looked disgusted, and glancing at
+the little yellow dog, asked petulantly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Whose dog is it?"
+</p><p>
+"It belongs to the girl who sits at the corner table," answered Will
+Wentworth, "and its name is Pete. I heard the girl call him this
+morning."
+</p><p>
+"What a horrid, vulgar name!" exclaimed Agnes. "It suits the dog,
+though; and the people, I suppose, are&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Agnes, look at that horrid worm on your dress!"
+</p><p>
+Agnes jumped up in a panic, screaming, "Where, where?"
+</p><p>
+Dora, bending down to brush off the smallest of small caterpillars,
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"The girl who owns the yellow dog is in the other hammock. I just saw
+her, and she can hear every word you say."
+</p><p>
+"I don't care if she does hear," said Agnes, without troubling herself
+to lower her voice. "You needn't have frightened me with your horrid
+worm story, just for that."
+</p><p>
+Will Wentworth, as he heard this, fell backward into his reclining
+position, with an explosive laugh. The next minute he sprang out of the
+hammock, and, tucking "Jack Hall" under his arm, was up and off, giving
+a sidelong look as he went at the other hammock, which, though only a
+few rods away, was half hidden by the foliage of the two low-growing
+trees between which it hung. Meeting Tilly and the Robson girls as he
+ran around the corner of the house, he said breathlessly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Look here; that girl must have heard everything that we've said."
+</p><p>
+"Well, there wasn't anything said that concerned her, until Agnes began
+about the yellow dog; and I stopped that," said Dora, gleefully.
+</p><p>
+"She may be acquainted with the Pelhams,&mdash;how do we know?" exclaimed
+Will, ruefully.
+</p><p>
+"The Pelhams!" cried Dora and Amy, in one breath.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, how do we know?" repeated Will.
+</p><p>
+"That girl who sits over at the corner table with that stuffy old woman,
+acquainted with the Pelhams! Oh, Will, if Agnes could hear you!" cried
+Dora, with a shout of laughter.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I can't see what there is to laugh at," broke in Will, huffily.
+"Why shouldn't she and the stuffy old woman, as you call her, know the
+Pelhams? She's a nice-looking girl, a first-rate looking girl. What's
+the matter with her?"
+</p><p>
+"Matter? I don't know that anything is the matter, except that she
+doesn't look like the sort of girl who would be an acquaintance of the
+Pelhams. She doesn't look like their kind, you know. She wears the
+plainest sort of dresses,&mdash;just little straight up and down frocks of
+brown or drab, or those white cambric things,&mdash;they are more like
+baby-slips than anything; and her hats are just the same,&mdash;great flat
+all-round hats, not a bit of style to them; and she's a girl of fourteen
+or fifteen certainly. Do you suppose people of the Pelhams' kind dress
+like that?"
+</p><p>
+Will gave a gruff little sound half under his breath, as he asked
+sarcastically,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"How do people of the Pelham kind dress?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, like Dora and Amy, and especially like Agnes,&mdash;in the height of the
+fashion, you know," Tilly cried laughingly.
+</p><p>
+"Now, Tilly," expostulated Dora, "neither Amy nor I overdress. We wear
+what all girls of our age&mdash;girls who are almost young ladies&mdash;wear, and
+I'm sure you wear the same kind of things."
+</p><p>
+"Not quite, Dora. I'll own, though, I would if I could; but there's such
+a lot of us at home that the money gives out before it goes all 'round,"
+said Tilly, frankly, yet rather ruefully.
+</p><p>
+"I'm sure you look very nice," said Dora, politely. Amy echoed the
+polite remark, while Will, eying the three with an attempt at a critical
+estimate, thought to himself, "They don't look a bit nicer than that
+girl at the corner table."
+</p><p>
+But Will was too wise to give utterance to this thought. He knew how it
+would be received; he knew that the three would laugh at him and say,
+"What does a boy know about girl's clothes?"
+</p><p>
+In the mean time, while all this was going on, what was that girl who
+had suggested the talk, that girl who sat at the corner table in the
+dining room and who was now lying in a hammock,&mdash;what was she doing,
+what was she thinking?
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+She was lying looking up through the green branches of the trees. She
+had been reading, but her book was now closed, and she was lying quietly
+looking up at the blue sky between the branches. Her thoughts were not
+quite so quiet as her position would seem to indicate. She had, as Will
+Wentworth had said, heard all that talk about the Pelhams. Whatever her
+class in life, she was certainly a delicate and honorable young girl;
+for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party
+of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood,
+she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various
+little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and
+readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these
+demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared
+whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably
+back again into her place, and opened her book.
+</p><p>
+But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age,
+and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said,
+she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she
+found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would
+dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her
+lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little
+yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she
+quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's
+little device to make it unfinished.
+</p><p>
+It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of
+her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this
+knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed
+down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of
+laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.
+</p><p>
+All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way
+across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she
+jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran
+into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person
+she was going in search of,&mdash;the person that Dora Robson had called
+"that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow
+dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone
+like satin.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his
+young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.
+</p><p>
+"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"
+cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.
+</p><p>
+"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.
+</p><p>
+"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to
+tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.
+Let's go in here, where we shall be all by ourselves," turning towards a
+small unoccupied reception-room.
+</p><p>
+There, cosily ensconced beside her aunt, with the little yellow dog at
+her feet, the dog's mistress told her story, with various exclamations
+and interjections of, "Now wasn't it horrid of them?" and "Did you ever
+know anything so ridiculous?" while auntie listened with great
+interest, her only comment at the end being,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, they're not worth minding, Peggy, and I wouldn't act as if I'd
+heard what they said when you meet them. I wouldn't take any notice of
+them."
+</p><p>
+"I? Why, it's they who won't take any notice of me, auntie. I'm like my
+little dog,&mdash;a vulgar plebeian. What would they say, what would they
+think, if they could hear you call me Peggy?&mdash;that's as bad as Pete,
+isn't it?"
+</p><p>
+"I'm afraid it is;" and auntie laughed a little as she spoke.
+</p><p>
+The great summer hotel was not nearly full yet, for it was only the last
+of June; and as Peggy went down to luncheon, her hand closely clasped in
+"auntie's," whom should she meet face to face in the rather
+deserted-looking hall but "those girls"? It was a little embarrassing
+all round, and they all colored up very rosily as they met.
+</p><p>
+"I wonder where the boy is?" thought Peggy; "he and that New York girl
+were nice." She glanced over her shoulder at this thought. There was the
+boy; and&mdash;yes, he was standing at the office desk, carefully examining
+the hotel register. "He's looking for our names!" flashed into Peggy's
+mind, "and those girls set him up to it. I wonder what they'll say to
+'Mrs. Smith and niece'? I know; they'll say, or the girl they call Agnes
+will say, 'Smith, of course! I knew they had some such common name as
+that.'"
+</p><p>
+Something very like this comment did take place when Master Will, in
+obedience to Dora Robson's request, brought the information that the
+people at the corner table were Mrs. Smith and her niece. But if Peggy
+could only have heard Will flash out upon this comment the further
+information that very distinguished people had borne the name of
+Smith,&mdash;could have heard him quote the famous English clergyman Sydney
+Smith, whose wit and humor were so charming,&mdash;if Peggy could have heard
+Will going on in this fashion, she would have thought he was very nice
+indeed, and been quite delighted with his independent outspokenness.
+</p><p>
+Agnes, however, was anything but delighted. She was, in fact, very angry
+with Will by this time, and what she called his meddlesome, domineering
+airs, and quite determined to let him know at the very first opportunity
+that she was not in the least to be influenced by his opinions.
+</p><p>
+The opportunity presented itself sooner than she expected. It was just
+after luncheon, and a couple of Indians had come up from their
+neighboring summer camp with a load of baskets for sale.
+</p><p>
+Dora and Tilly, with Mrs. Brendon and Agnes and Amy, went out to them at
+once. Others soon followed, and a brisk bargaining began. When the
+Indian woman held up a beautiful little basket skilfully woven to
+imitate shells, there was a general exclamation of pleasure, and one
+voice cried out with enthusiasm, "Oh, how lovely!" and the owner of the
+voice reached forth to take the basket in her hand. Agnes Brendon,
+turning quickly, saw that it was Mrs. Smith's niece.
+</p><p>
+"The idea of that girl pushing herself forward like this!" was Agnes's
+whispered remark to Amy.
+</p><p>
+"Hush: she'll hear you," whispered back Amy.
+</p><p>
+"I don't care," answered Agnes, at the same time crowding herself to the
+front and inquiring the price of the basket, with the determination to
+get possession of it before any one else had a chance. But when the
+price&mdash;two dollars&mdash;was named, Mrs. Brendon pronounced it exorbitant,
+and offered half the sum, never doubting its acceptance. The Indian
+woman, however, shook her head with an air of grim decision; and at that
+very moment, catching sight of Mrs. Smith and her niece, she nodded
+smilingly, repeated the price, and held the basket up again;
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, I'll take it," called out Peggy, nodding and smiling
+responsively; and the next instant the basket was in her hands.
+</p><p>
+Agnes, not only disappointed, but deeply mortified and angry, turned
+hastily to Dora Robson, and gave vent to her feelings by remarking in a
+perfectly clear undertone,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"The worst of a place like this is that you meet such common people,
+with nothing to recommend them but their money."
+</p><p>
+Dora and Amy flushed with annoyance at this speech; but Tilly was so
+disgusted and indignant that she broke away from them all with an
+impatient exclamation, and started off across the lawn towards the
+house. Halfway across she met Will Wentworth, with Tom Raymond,&mdash;a great
+chum of his, who had just arrived by the noon boat.
+</p><p>
+"Hullo, what's up, what's the matter?" asked Will, as he perceived the
+expression of Tilly's face.
+</p><p>
+Tilly stopped, and in a few graphic words told her story, winding up
+with, "Wasn't it horrid of Agnes?"
+</p><p>
+"Horrid? It was beastly," sputtered Will. "<i>She</i> to call people common!"
+</p><p>
+"But that girl is not common," said Tilly. "She may belong to people who
+have just made a lot of money,&mdash;for that's what Agnes meant to fling
+out,&mdash;but there isn't any vulgar common show of it. Look at her, how
+plainly she's dressed, and how quiet she is."
+</p><p>
+"Wonder what Agnes is up to now? Let's go and see," said Will, wheeling
+about and nodding to Tilly and Tom to follow.
+</p><p>
+As they came along together, Will a little ahead, Tom Raymond was quite
+silent until they approached the group collected around the Indians;
+then he suddenly ejaculated, "Well, I never!"
+</p><p>
+"What? What do you mean?&mdash;what&mdash;who do you see?" asked Tilly, very much
+surprised at this outbreak.
+</p><p>
+"Is that the girl&mdash;the Smith girl you were telling about&mdash;there by the
+tree&mdash;holding a basket?" asked Tom.
+</p><p>
+"Yes; why&mdash;do you know her?"
+</p><p>
+"N&#8209;o&mdash;but&mdash;I was thinking&mdash;she doesn't look common, does she?"
+</p><p>
+"Of course she doesn't, only plainly dressed."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, that's all;" and Tom gave a little odd chuckling laugh.
+</p><p>
+"How queer Tom Raymond is!" thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer
+still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl.
+Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom with
+rather a puzzled observation.
+</p><p>
+"I see how it is," reflected Miss Tilly; "they have met before
+somewhere, and Tom doesn't want to know her now. He thinks she isn't
+fine enough for this Boston set, though he owns that she doesn't look
+common. Oh, I do believe that Will Wentworth is the only one here who
+has any sense or heart."
+</p><p>
+As Tilly arrived at this conclusion of her reflections, Will came
+running up to her.
+</p><p>
+"Come," he said, "there's no fun here. Let's go and have a game of
+tennis."
+</p><p>
+"But where's Agnes? I thought you wanted to see what she was doing."
+</p><p>
+"She's gone off in a huff because I asked her if she'd bought any
+baskets," answered Will, grinning. Tilly laughed, and Tom Raymond gave
+another odd little chuckle. Then the three strolled away to the tennis
+ground. As they were passing the rustic bench under the tree where Mrs.
+Smith and her niece were sitting, Tilly took a sudden resolution, and,
+stopping abruptly, said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"We're going to have a game of tennis; won't you join us, Miss&mdash;Miss
+Smith?"
+</p><p>
+The girl looked up with a smile, hesitated a moment, and then accepted
+the invitation. Will, nodding to Tilly a surprised and pleased approval
+of her action, started off ahead of the others to see if the tennis
+ground was occupied. As he turned the corner, he met Dora Robson with a
+racket in her hand.
+</p><p>
+"Oh," she cried, "here you are! I was just coming after you, for Amy and
+I have got to go in,&mdash;mamma has sent for us, and Agnes was so
+disappointed,&mdash;now it's all right, for there's Tilly, and&mdash;what
+luck&mdash;Tom Raymond; he's such a splendid player, and you can&mdash;" But Dora
+stopped, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Who&mdash;who was that behind Tilly?
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+As Agnes, standing waiting upon the tennis-ground where Dora had left
+her, suddenly caught sight of Tom Raymond, her heart gave a little throb
+of exultation. Tom Raymond was the best tennis-player she knew. To have
+him for her partner would be delightful, and she went forward with the
+most gracious welcome to him. So absorbed was she, so pleased at Tom's
+appearance, at his polite response to her, she did not observe Miss
+Smith,&mdash;did not see Tilly draw back, did not hear her say, "No, I don't
+care to play, Miss Smith, I want you to play with Will; this is my
+friend Will Wentworth, Miss Smith," by way of introduction.
+</p><p>
+No; Agnes saw and heard nothing of all this, or of Will's polite
+arrangements with the newcomer. She saw nothing, she thought of nothing,
+but that her own little arrangement to have Tom for a partner was
+successful; and so, blithely and triumphantly, she took her place and
+lifted her racket. Whizz! she sent the ball flying over the netting,
+and whizz! it came flying back again, to be returned by Tom Raymond's
+vigorous stroke. Agnes regarded this stroke with due admiration.
+"Neither Will nor Tilly can match that," she thought; and at the thought
+she looked over and across the netting, to see a girl's uplifted arm
+swinging easily forward, the racket hitting the ball lightly with a
+swift, sure, upward, and onward motion. Where had Tilly learned to
+strike out like that, all at once? Tilly! The uplifted arm that had
+partially hidden the player's face was lowered. What&mdash;what&mdash;it was not
+Tilly, but&mdash;but&mdash;that girl! How did she come there? A glance at Will's
+face drawn up into a most exasperating grin, at Will's eyes darting
+forth gleams of fun, was enough for Agnes.
+</p><p>
+Yes, this was Will Wentworth's doing,&mdash;this hateful plot to humiliate
+her and triumph over her. Stung by this thought, she lost sight for that
+moment of everything else, and the ball sent so surely back to her
+dropped to the ground before her partner could rescue it. An exclamation
+of disappointment from Tom added to her discomfiture; and when Will, the
+next instant, cried, "Wait a minute, till I get another racket, Miss
+Smith has broken hers," Agnes, flinging down her own, exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Miss Smith can have my racket; I'm not going to play any longer!"
+</p><p>
+"Not going to play? What do you mean?" shouted Will.
+</p><p>
+"I mean that I am not used to a surprise-party and to playing with
+strangers," was the rude and angry answer.
+</p><p>
+"You&mdash;you ought to&mdash;" But Will controlled himself and stopped. He was
+about to say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+</p><p>
+Agnes, however, understood by the tone of his voice something of what he
+meant, and turned scornfully away, her head up, and with a glance at Tom
+that plainly showed she expected him to follow her.
+</p><p>
+But Tom made no movement of that kind. He stood where he was, looking
+across at Will, who, red and ashamed, had approached Miss Smith, and was
+evidently making some sort of apology to her for the insult that had
+been offered to her; and Miss Smith was listening to this apology with
+the coolest little face imaginable.
+</p><p>
+Tom, taking all this in, gave another of his odd little chuckles. Agnes
+heard it, and flushed scarlet. So he was taking sides with Will
+Wentworth, was he? And what&mdash;what&mdash;was that&mdash;Tilly? Yes, it was
+Tilly,&mdash;Tilly with the racket she, Agnes, had flung down,&mdash;Tilly
+standing in her place and&mdash;and&mdash;serving the ball back to that girl! So
+Tilly was with them too? Well, she would see, they would all see, that
+Agnes Brendon was not a person to be snubbed and disregarded in this
+fashion, nor a person to be forced to make acquaintances with vulgar or
+common people against her will. Oh, they would see, they would see! And
+bracing herself up with these indignant resolutions, Agnes betook
+herself to the hotel.
+</p><p>
+Before the end of the week there were two distinct parties in the house,
+where heretofore there had been but one,&mdash;two distinct opposing forces.
+</p><p>
+On one side were Agnes and Dora and Amy; on the other side were Tilly
+and Tom and Will. Dora and Amy were not naturally ill-natured girls, but
+they were inclined to be worldly and were greatly under Agnes's
+influence. She had been a sort of authority with them for a good while,
+perforce of her dominant disposition and the knowledge she seemed to
+possess of the worldly matters that were of so much interest to them.
+</p><p>
+"But I should think you would feel ashamed to side with Agnes Brendon in
+persecuting a poor little stranger," said honest Tilly, a day or two
+after the tennis affair; for Agnes had at once set to work to carry out
+her plan of showing that she was not to be forced, as she expressed it,
+into making acquaintances she didn't like, and had thus lost no
+opportunity of being disagreeable.
+</p><p>
+Dora flushed at Tilly's words, but she answered coolly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Persecuting! I don't call it persecuting to avoid a person one doesn't
+want to know."
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but how does Agnes avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls
+her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating
+about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith
+was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and
+made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in pretending to hunt
+up one of her own music-books; and when I asked her to be quieter, she
+said something horrid about 'low common songs,' and 'Mrs. Brady' isn't
+a low common song; and the other morning, when Pete, the little dog, ran
+up to her on the piazza, she pushed him away from her in such a
+disagreeable manner&mdash;and so it has gone on every day, and I think it's a
+shame, and such a nice girl as Miss Smith is too. I told grandmother all
+about it,&mdash;the whole story,&mdash;and she says it is Agnes who is vulgar and
+not Miss Smith, and that she never would have brought me here if she had
+known that a girl who could behave like that was to be in the house; and
+you can tell Miss Agnes Brendon this, if you like, and you can tell her
+too that she'll only make us stand by Miss Smith stancher than ever by
+persecuting her as she does."
+</p><p>
+"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, and there's no such thing as
+persecution anyway,&mdash;that's ridiculous. Agnes is very exclusive,&mdash;the
+Brendons all are,&mdash;and she doesn't like to make acquaintances with
+common people, that's all."
+</p><p>
+"Common people! Miss Smith isn't any more common than you or I. She's a
+very ladylike girl.&mdash;much more ladylike and nice, and nicer-looking too,
+than Agnes."
+</p><p>
+"Nicer looking with those plain frocky dresses, and her hair all pulled
+back without the sign of a crimp or curl!" and Dora burst into a jeering
+laugh.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, she isn't all fussed up, I know, as most of us girls are; but her
+clothes are of the very finest materials,&mdash;I've noticed that."
+</p><p>
+"And that stuffy old aunt's clothes are of the finest material, I
+suppose; and the little yellow dog's coat is as fine as a King Charles
+spaniel's," jeered Dora.
+</p><p>
+"Stuffy old aunt! She isn't stuffy in the least. She's a little
+old-fashioned; that's all. Grandmother has taken quite a fancy to her."
+</p><p>
+Dora smiled a very provoking smile as she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps the Pelhams, when they come, will take a fancy to her too, and
+to that pretty name of Peggy."
+</p><p>
+The hot color rushed to Tilly's cheeks and the tears to her eyes as she
+turned away. She knew perfectly well that Dora was thinking: "Oh, your
+grandmother is only another old woman a good deal like Mrs. Smith,&mdash;what
+is her judgment worth?"
+</p><p>
+Dora was a little ashamed of herself as Tilly left her. Indeed, she had
+been a little ashamed of herself for some time,&mdash;ever since, in fact,
+she had ranged herself on Agnes's side after the tennis affair; but
+once having taken that side she was determined to stick to it, and to
+believe that it was the right side, in spite of some qualms of
+conscience.
+</p><p>
+Her cousin Amy followed in the same path, and Agnes spared no pains to
+keep them there. She felt that she could not afford to lose her only
+allies. Every minute that had elapsed since she had flung down her
+tennis racket in such anger and mortification had but increased this
+mortification, and strengthened her resolve to show those boys and Tilly
+Morris that she was right and they were wrong about "that girl."
+</p><p>
+Of course, when she set her face in this direction, she was on the
+lookout for everything unfavorable; and everything, pretty nearly, was
+turned into something unfavorable, so perverted and distorted had her
+vision become. It was "Dora, did you notice this?" and "Amy, did you see
+that?" until the two began to find the incessant harping upon one
+subject rather wearisome, especially as the particular details thus
+pointed out had never yet developed into matters of any importance.
+</p><p>
+"I wish Agnes wouldn't keep talking about that Smith girl all the time,
+unless there was something more worth while to talk about," broke forth
+Dora impatiently to Amy just after the interview with Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"So do I," Amy responded emphatically; then, laughing a little, "unless
+there was some real big thing to tell."
+</p><p>
+"But I don't wonder Agnes doesn't like the girl, with Tilly and Will
+taking up for her and making such a fuss;" and Dora indignantly repeated
+Tilly's accusations. Amy caught at the word "persecution," as Dora had
+done, and together they defended themselves against these accusations
+with a zeal and ingenuity worthy of a better cause.
+</p><p>
+They were in the full tide of this talk when, as they rounded the curve
+of the shore where they were walking, they came upon Agnes herself,
+coming rapidly towards them.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, girls, I've been looking for you everywhere. I've got something I
+want to show you," she exclaimed excitedly. "Come up here and sit down;"
+and she led the way to a little cluster of rocks.
+</p><p>
+Dora and Amy glanced at each other rather apprehensively. Was Agnes
+going to tell them something else about the Smith girl,&mdash;going to say.
+"Did you notice this?" or "Did you see that?" in reference to some
+detail that displeased her? They had worked themselves up into quite a
+state of indignation against Tilly and the boys, and of increased
+sympathy with Agnes; but they were so tired of hearing, "Did you notice
+this?" "Did you see that?" when there had been such uninteresting little
+things to "notice," to "see."
+</p><p>
+With these apprehensions flitting through their minds, the two girls
+seated themselves to listen with very languid interest. But what was
+that Agnes was unfolding,&mdash;a newspaper? And what was it she was saying
+as she pointed to a certain column? She wanted them to read that! The
+cousins looked at each other in a dazed, inquiring fashion; and Agnes,
+starting forward, impatiently thrust the paper into Dora's hand and
+cried sharply,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Read that; read that!"
+</p><p>
+Dora in a bewildered way read aloud this sentence, which in big black
+letters stared her in the face,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Smithson, alias Smith."
+</p><p>
+"Well, go on, go on; read what is underneath," urged Agnes, as Dora
+stopped; and Dora went on and read,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It seems that that arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got
+himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains
+from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too
+notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of
+Smith. His wife and young son are with him, and the three are living
+luxuriously in the suburbs of Rio, where Smithson has rented a villa. An
+older child, a daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was left behind in this
+country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the name of
+Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston."
+</p><p>
+The bewildered look on Dora's face did not disappear as she came to the
+end of this statement.
+</p><p>
+"What did you want me to read this for?" she asked Agnes.
+</p><p>
+"What did I want you to read it for? Is it possible that you don't
+see,&mdash;that you don't understand?"
+</p><p>
+"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."
+</p><p>
+"But we do know these&mdash;Smiths."
+</p><p>
+"Agnes, you don't mean&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I do mean that I believe&mdash;that I am sure that these Smiths are
+those very identical Smithsons."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Agnes, what makes you think so? Smith is such a very common name,
+you know."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know it; but here is a girl whose name is Smith, and she is with
+a Mrs. Smith, her aunt, and they are staying at a summer resort near
+Boston. How does that fit?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Agnes, it does look like&mdash;as if it must be, doesn't it?" cried
+Dora, in a sort of shuddering enjoyment of the sensational situation.
+</p><p>
+"Of course it does. I knew I was right about those people. I knew there
+was something queer and mysterious about them. And what do you
+think,&mdash;only yesterday I happened to go into the little parlor, where
+there are writing-materials, and there sat this very Peggy Smith
+directing a letter; and when she went out, I happened to cast my eyes at
+the blotting-pad she had used, and I couldn't help reading&mdash;for it was
+just as plain as print&mdash;the last part of the address, and it was&mdash;'South
+America'!"
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" said Tilly Morris,
+indignantly, as Dora wound up her recital of the Smithson-Smith story.
+</p><p>
+"Well, you can believe it or not; but I don't see how you can help
+believing, when you remember that their name is Smith, and that they are
+aunt and niece, and that the niece is fourteen or fifteen,&mdash;just as the
+paper said,&mdash;and that they are staying at a summer resort not far from
+Boston, and&mdash;that the niece writes to some one in South America,&mdash;think
+of that!"
+</p><p>
+Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't care, I don't care. I'm not going to talk about it,
+either. How many people have you&mdash;has Amy&mdash;has Agnes told?"
+</p><p>
+"I haven't told anybody but you yet. I've just come from Agnes."
+</p><p>
+"Yet! Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora. My father, you
+know, is a lawyer, and I've heard him talk a great deal when we've had
+company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,&mdash;queer
+things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits. One of the things that I
+particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had
+heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the
+neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and
+they had a horrid time. The woman's daughters had to go into court and
+be examined as witnesses. Oh, it was horrid; and the worst of it was
+that even though there was some truth in the stories, there were things
+that were not true,&mdash;exaggerations, you know,&mdash;and so the woman was
+declared guilty, and her husband had to pay a lot of money to keep her
+out of prison. There was ever so much more that I've forgotten; but I
+recollect papa's turning to us children at the end, and saying, 'Now,
+children, remember when you are repeating things that you have heard
+against people, that the next thing you'll know you may be prosecuted
+for what you've said, and have to answer for it in the law courts.'"
+</p><p>
+Dora looked scared. "Well, I'm sure," she began, "I haven't repeated
+this to anybody but you; and if Agnes&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"What's that about me?" suddenly interrupted Agnes herself, as she came
+up behind the two girls. Dora began to explain, and then called upon
+Tilly to repeat her story of the lawsuit.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, fiddlesticks!" cried Agnes, angrily, after hearing this story; "you
+can't frighten me that way, Tilly Morris. We can't be prosecuted for
+telling facts that are already in the newspapers."
+</p><p>
+"But we can be for what isn't. It isn't in the newspapers that this Mrs.
+Smith and her niece are these Smithsons."
+</p><p>
+"Well, Tilly Morris, I should think it was in the newspapers about as
+plain as could be. What do you say to this sentence?" And Agnes pulled
+from her pocket the Smithson article she had cut out, and read aloud:
+"'An older child&mdash;a daughter of fourteen or fifteen&mdash;was left behind in
+this country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the
+name of Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston;'
+and what do you say to that letter addressed to some place in South
+America?"
+</p><p>
+"I say that&mdash;that&mdash;all this might mean somebody else, and not&mdash;not
+these&mdash;our&mdash;my Smiths. What did your mother say when you told her, and
+showed the paper to her?"
+</p><p>
+"I didn't tell her; I didn't show her the paper. We never tell mamma
+such things; she is a nervous invalid, and it would fret her to death,"
+Agnes responded snappishly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't believe it's my Smiths; I believe it's somebody else,"
+flashed back Tilly, with tears in her eyes and in her voice.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, very well; you can stand up for your Smiths, if you like; but
+you'll find they are&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Hullo! What's the little Smith girl done now? Agnes, I should think
+you'd get tired of rattling about the Smiths," interposed a voice here.
+</p><p>
+It was Will Wentworth's voice; he had come out on the piazza just as the
+girls were passing the hall door.
+</p><p>
+Agnes started back nervously at the sight of him. "I think you are very
+rude to listen and spring at anybody like this," she said.
+</p><p>
+Will looked at her in astonishment. "I haven't been listening, and I
+didn't spring at you," he responded indignantly. "I simply met you as I
+came out, and heard you say something about the Smiths."
+</p><p>
+"What did you hear?" asked Agnes, quickly.
+</p><p>
+"I heard you say to Tilly, 'Stand up for your Smiths if you like;' and I
+knew by that you'd been going for Miss Peggy, and Tilly had been
+defending her." Will's bright eyes, as he said this, suddenly observed
+that there was something unusually serious in the girl's face. "What's
+the matter?" he inquired; "what's up now?"
+</p><p>
+Agnes put her hand into her pocket, and Tilly drew in her breath with a
+little gasp, and braced herself to come to the defence again when Agnes
+should answer this question, as she fully expected her to do, by
+producing the cutting from the newspaper and repeating her accusations.
+But when Agnes drew her hand forth, there was no slip of paper in it,
+and all the answer that she made to Will's question was to say in a
+mocking tone,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Ask Tilly; she knows all the delightful facts now about Miss Peggy and
+her highly respectable family."
+</p><p>
+The decisive tone in which this was said, the significant expression of
+the speaker's face as she glanced at Tilly, and Tilly's own silence at
+the moment impressed Will very strongly, as Agnes fully intended; and
+when a minute later she slipped her hand over Dora's arm, and went off
+with her toward the tennis ground, and Tilly refused to tell him what
+this something that was "up" was, honest Will felt convinced that the
+"something" must be very queer indeed.
+</p><p>
+Poor Tilly saw and understood at once the nature of the impression that
+Will had received; but what could she do? It was certainly better to
+keep silence than to speak and tell that dreadful, dreadful story of
+"Smithson, alias Smith." Even, yes, even if it was true,&mdash;for Tilly,
+spite of her vehement defence, her stout declaration of disbelief at the
+first, had a shuddering fear at her heart as she thought of that last
+paragraph about the girl of fourteen or fifteen, and of that letter to
+South America,&mdash;a shuddering fear that the story might be true; but even
+then she would not be one of those to point a finger at poor innocent
+Peggy; for, whatever her father might have done, Peggy was innocent.
+</p><p>
+There was one person, however, that Tilly could speak to, could ask
+counsel of, and that, of course, was her grandmother. Grandmother, she
+was quite sure, would agree with her that the story was not to be
+chattered about; and even if it were true that Mrs. Smith and Peggy
+were those very Smithsons, neither was to blame, but only, as she had
+heard her father say once of the family of a man who had proved a
+defaulter, "innocent victims who were very much to be pitied."
+</p><p>
+But perhaps&mdash;perhaps grandmother would not believe that Mrs. Smith and
+Peggy were "those Smithsons," and perhaps she would find some careful
+way to investigate the matter and prove that they were not. With this
+hope springing up over her fears, Tilly flew along the corridor to her
+grandmother's room.
+</p><p>
+"What! what! what!" cried grandmother, as she listened to the story; "I
+don't believe a word of Agnes's suspicions. There are millions of Smiths
+in the world."
+</p><p>
+"But did you hear what I said about that last paragraph,&mdash;the girl of
+fourteen or fifteen, and&mdash;and the letter,&mdash;the letter to South America?"
+asked Tilly, tremulously.
+</p><p>
+"In what paper was it that Agnes found the statement?"
+</p><p>
+"It was some morning paper: I don't know which one,&mdash;I only remember
+seeing the date."
+</p><p>
+Grandmother rang the bell, and sent for all the morning papers. When
+they were brought her, she put on her spectacles and began the search
+for "Smithson, alias Smith." One, two, three papers she searched
+through; and at last there it was,&mdash;"Smithson, alias Smith!"
+</p><p>
+Tilly watched her grandmother as she read with breathless anxiety, and
+her heart sank as she noticed how serious was the expression on the
+reader's face as she came to the last paragraph.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, grandmother," she cried, "you do believe it may be our Smiths."
+</p><p>
+"Well, yes, my dear, I believe that it may possibly be, that's all; but
+it may not be, just as possibly."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, grandmother, couldn't you inquire&mdash;carefully, you know."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, my dear. If it isn't our Smiths, think what an outrage any
+inquiries would be; and if it is, how cruel to stir the matter up! No,
+we must say nothing. The girl is an innocent creature; and if this
+Smithson is her father, I doubt if she has been told by anybody the
+facts of the case,&mdash;probably there was some very different reason given
+her for dropping that last syllable of the name. However it may be, it
+would be cruel for us to show by our manner or speech any knowledge of
+the story; for either way, whether they are those Smithsons or not,
+Agnes has made a very unpleasant situation for them, and we must be good
+to them."
+</p><p>
+"But, grandmother, when Agnes tells other people&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"She won't. Your little warning, by your description of the way she took
+it, convinces me that she won't."
+</p><p>
+"But other people read the papers, and they&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"May not take any more notice than I did, if Agnes's spiteful suspicions
+are held in check."
+</p><p>
+"But if poor Peggy herself&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Peggy probably doesn't read the newspapers any more than you do. But we
+needn't waste time in thinking what if this or that; the clear duty for
+us is to take no notice, and, as I said, be good to them."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, grandmother, you are such a dear! I knew you'd feel like this."
+</p><p>
+There was to be an early little dance that night for the young people,
+and Tilly put on her prettiest gown,&mdash;a white mull with rose-colored
+ribbons,&mdash;and went down to dinner in it, for the dance was an informal
+affair that was to follow very soon after dinner on account of the
+youth of most of the dancers. Her heart beat more quickly as she looked
+across at the corner table and saw Peggy and her aunt in their places,
+and that Peggy was also dressed for the occasion in something white,
+embroidered with rosebuds, and with ribbon loops of pale blue and a
+broad sash of the same color.
+</p><p>
+"Of course, she expects to dance," thought Tilly, "and Agnes will be
+horrid to her about it in some way or other; but I shall stand by Peggy
+anyway, whatever anybody else may do."
+</p><p>
+It was with this kind intention that Tilly hurried through her dinner
+and hastened out to join Peggy and her aunt when they left the
+dining-room. But the kind intention was arrested for the moment by
+Dora's voice calling out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Tilly, Tilly, wait a minute."
+</p><p>
+The next thing Dora had her hand over Tilly's arm. Amy and Agnes were
+just behind, and there was nothing to do but to follow the general
+movement with them to the piazza. That it was a planned movement to
+separate her from Peggy, Tilly did not doubt; for once out on the
+piazza, Agnes, with a whispered word to Amy, turned sharply about in the
+opposite direction to that where Mrs. Smith and her niece were sitting.
+</p><p>
+A color like a red rose sprang to Tilly's cheeks as she glanced across
+at Peggy, and bowed to her with a swift little smile. Then, "How pretty
+Peggy Smith looks!" and "What a lovely gown she has on!" she said,
+turning a brave and half-defiant glance upon Agnes.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, it is pretty. It's made of that South American embroidered
+muslin,&mdash;convent work, you know," answered Agnes, casting a fleeting
+look at Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"No, I didn't know," answered Tilly, trying to seem calm and
+indifferent, but failing miserably.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," went on Agnes, "I know, because my cousins have had several of
+those dresses, and I'm quite familiar with them."
+</p><p>
+Peggy, sitting there in her odd pretty dress, saw with pity the distress
+in her friend Tilly's face.
+</p><p>
+"Those girls are worrying poor Tilly, auntie, see,&mdash;and I dare say it's
+on my account, for I was sure when she came out that she was intending
+to join us, and that they prevented her,&mdash;and, auntie, I'm going to
+brave the lions in their dens, and going over to her."
+</p><p>
+"They are ill-bred girls, and they may do or say something rude,"
+replied auntie, regarding Peggy with a slightly anxious expression.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I don't care for that now. Tilly is such a darling in sticking to
+me, in spite of their disapproval," laughing a little, "that I think I
+ought to stick to her;" and, nodding to her auntie, Peggy started on her
+friendly errand.
+</p><p>
+"What impudence! She's actually coming over to us uninvited. Well, I
+must say she has nerve!" muttered Agnes, as she observed Peggy's
+movements.
+</p><p>
+Coming forward, Peggy nodded to the whole group of girls; but it was to
+Tilly she addressed herself, and by Tilly's side she seated herself. It
+was in doing this that the delicate material of her dress caught in a
+protruding nail in the splint piazza chair with an ominous sound.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, your pretty gown! it's torn!" cried Tilly.
+</p><p>
+The two sprang up to examine it, and found an ugly little rent that had
+nearly pulled out one of the wrought rosebuds.
+</p><p>
+"It's too bad,&mdash;too bad!" sympathized Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"But it's easily mended, and it won't show," answered Peggy, cheerfully.
+</p><p>
+"It isn't easy to mend that South American stuff so that it won't show,"
+remarked Agnes, coolly.
+</p><p>
+"I know it isn't usually," answered Peggy, as coolly; "but auntie can
+mend almost anything."
+</p><p>
+"It is a perfectly beautiful dress. I wish I had one just like it,"
+broke forth Tilly, hurriedly, hardly knowing what she was saying in the
+desire to say something kind.
+</p><p>
+"You could easily send for one like it," spoke up Agnes, "if you knew
+anybody out there, or what shop or convent address to send to."
+</p><p>
+"We could send for you," said Peggy, turning to Tilly. Tilly looked
+startled.
+</p><p>
+"Have you friends out there?" asked Agnes, with an impertinent stare at
+Peggy.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Peggy, curtly, meeting Agnes's stare with a look of
+sudden haughtiness.
+</p><p>
+Tilly turned hot and cold, but through all her perturbation was one
+feeling of satisfaction. Peggy could stand her ground, it seemed, and
+resent impertinence; but, "Oh, dear!" said this poor Tilly to herself,
+"that South American gown, I suppose, proves that she must be that
+Smithson man's daughter; but grandmother was right,&mdash;she is innocent of
+the facts of the case, of that there can be no doubt,&mdash;and we must be
+good to her, and now is the time to begin,&mdash;this very minute, when Agnes
+is planning what hateful thing she can do next."
+</p><p>
+Fired by this thought, Tilly sprang to her feet, and, casting a glance
+of scorn and contempt at Agnes, slipped her hand over Peggy's arm and
+said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, Peggy, let's go over to the other end of the piazza and walk up
+and down; it's much pleasanter there."
+</p><p>
+Warm-hearted Tilly's intentions were excellent; but her look of
+contempt, her meaning words, instead of cowing and controlling Agnes,
+only roused her to deeper anger, which resulted in an action that
+probably had not been premeditated even by her jealous and bitter
+spirit. Tilly will never forget that action. It was just as she was
+turning away with Peggy, when she saw that angry face barring her way,
+when she heard those ominous words, "Miss Smithson," and then&mdash;and then
+that outstretched hand thrusting forth to Peggy that fluttering,
+dreadful slip of paper!
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<p>
+But another hand than Peggy's snatched at the fluttering paper. "What is
+it, what does it mean?" demanded Peggy, as a gusty breeze tore the paper
+from Tilly's trembling fingers.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and what do you mean, Miss Tilly Morris, by snatching what doesn't
+belong to you?" cried Agnes, shrilly, as she started off to capture the
+flying paper, that, eluding her, blew hither and thither in a
+tantalizing way, and at last, falling at the feet of Will Wentworth, was
+picked up by him as he came out of the hall.
+</p><p>
+"It is mine, it is mine," shrieked Agnes; "keep it for me."
+</p><p>
+But Tilly, who was nearer to him, whispered agitatedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"No, no, Will; don't give it to her,&mdash;she is&mdash;she means&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Mischief, I see," whispered back Will, with a swift, intelligent glance
+at Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"And if you wouldn't read it until&mdash;until I see you&mdash;oh, if you
+wouldn't!"
+</p><p>
+Will looked at Tilly with wonder. This was certainly something more
+serious than common. What was it,&mdash;what was the trouble?
+</p><p>
+But Agnes was by this time close upon him, reaching up her hand and
+crying, "Give it to me, Will, give it to me!"
+</p><p>
+But Will laughingly thrust the paper into his pocket, and answered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"No, I'll keep it for you, and give it to you later; I don't think it
+would be safe now. There's so much thunder in the air it might be struck
+by lightning."
+</p><p>
+"It might be snatched or stolen, I dare say," said Agnes, with a
+significant look at Tilly; "and you may keep it for me until later in
+the evening, and&mdash;read it at your leisure. It's a very interesting
+collection of facts."
+</p><p>
+"Tum, tum, ti tum," suddenly struck up the band in the hall.
+</p><p>
+"Eight o'clock!" cried Agnes, in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, the ball's begun," said Will, nodding and smiling; "and if you'll
+excuse me," lifting his cap, "I'll go and get into my dancing shoes."
+</p><p>
+Agnes tried to smile in response; but a little pang of disappointment
+thrilled her as he left her without asking her for a dance. But he
+would later, of course,&mdash;later, when he would hand her her property,
+that collection of "facts," and by that time he would have read these
+"facts." She wouldn't need to risk any words of her own in accusation
+after that,&mdash;which conclusion shows very plainly that Miss Agnes had
+been sufficiently impressed with Tilly's warning to hold her peace.
+</p><p>
+That she had not flaunted the newspaper cutting before the eyes of
+others in the house also shows that the accident of the moment and her
+hot anger had, in the one instance only, overcome her caution.
+</p><p>
+But Tilly did not know all this, and her anxiety increased after she had
+heard those words to Will, "Read it at your leisure."
+</p><p>
+Peggy, too, had heard those words, though it was quite clear she had not
+heard that other word,&mdash;that dreadful name of Smithson; for, "What is it
+all about, that bit of paper?" she asked Tilly innocently, as Agnes and
+Will disappeared in the hallway; and Tilly said to her imploringly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Don't ask me now, Peggy,&mdash;don't, that's a dear; I can't stand any more
+now."
+</p><p>
+And then and there Peggy answered, "I won't, I won't, you dear Tilly; I
+won't say another thing about it, and we won't think about it&mdash;" And
+then and there "Tum, tum, ti tum" burst forth the band in Strauss's
+"Morgen Blaetter" waltzes.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, how I love the 'Morgen Blaetter!'" cried Peggy. "Come, let us get
+into the dancing-hall as soon as possible. Where's auntie? Oh, there she
+is, talking with your pretty grandmother."
+</p><p>
+The next minute auntie and grandmother were sitting side by side in the
+dancing-hall, watching the two girls as they kept step to that perfect
+waltz music.
+</p><p>
+"Isn't it just lovely!" sighed Peggy.
+</p><p>
+"Lovely!" echoed Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"And how we suit each other! our steps are just alike."
+</p><p>
+"Just alike," echoed Tilly; whereat they both laughed, and a little
+silence between them followed, and then&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"There's Agnes dancing with Tom Raymond," suddenly exclaimed Tilly. "I
+wonder&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Don't wonder or worry about Agnes now, when we are tuned to the 'Morgen
+Blaetter' music," said Peggy. "'Music has charms to soothe the savage
+breast,' somebody has written, you know; and&mdash;and," with a soft little
+laugh, "it may soothe the breast of this savage Agnes."
+</p><p>
+Tilly echoed the soft little laugh, but she could not dismiss Agnes from
+her mind. She could not cease to wonder what it was she was talking
+about so earnestly with Tom Raymond,&mdash;to wonder if she had told, or was
+telling him at that very moment, of "Smithson, alias Smith."
+</p><p>
+And while poor Tilly wondered and worried, there was Peggy, the
+unconscious centre of all the wonder and worry, lifting up a radiant
+face of enjoyment as she floated along to the music of the "Morgen
+Blaetter." Tom Raymond, catching sight of this radiant face, said to
+himself,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I wonder if she's engaged for the next dance. I'll ask her the minute
+this is over."
+</p><p>
+The two girls were standing near their two chaperones when Tom came up,
+and with an odd sort of shyness, asked,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss&mdash;Miss Smith?"
+</p><p>
+Tilly's heart gave a jump as she noted Tom's sudden confusion and
+hesitation at this "Miss Smith," for it brought back to her his strange
+expression at the first sight of Peggy, and his question, "Is that the
+girl&mdash;the Miss Smith you were talking about?" and then his odd,
+chuckling laugh.
+</p><p>
+Peggy, too, had regarded Tom at that moment with a puzzled observation,
+as if she wondered if she had seen him before; and now, as Tom hesitated
+and bungled at the "Miss Smith," Peggy's own manner showed signs of
+consciousness, if not of embarrassment. Oh, oh! what could it all mean
+but that he had known everything from the first? "And I fancied at the
+first he acted as he did because he thought she wasn't quite fine
+enough; and all the time he knew she was this Miss Smithson, and was
+keeping it to himself, and, knowing that, he's going to ask her to dance
+with him now! Oh, what a good fellow he is, and what injustice I've done
+him!" concluded Tilly. "If only Will now, when he finds out&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+It was just then that a voice called softly from the open window behind
+her, "Miss Tilly, Miss Tilly!" and there was Will beckoning to her.
+"What shall I do with that paper?" he whispered, as Tilly turned. "I
+expect Agnes to be after me for it as quick as she catches sight of me
+again."
+</p><p>
+The window was a long French window, and Tilly stepped out and joined
+him upon the piazza. "Come around here where nobody can see or overhear
+us," she said. He followed her down the steps to a sheltered rustic
+seat.
+</p><p>
+"You haven't read it?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+"Read it? No!" Will answered a little huffily. "You asked me not to
+until I had seen you."
+</p><p>
+Tilly colored, and then, "You are a gentleman!" she burst out
+vehemently.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I hope so," Will answered.
+</p><p>
+"And so is Tom Raymond. I had done him such an injustice; but he's
+turned out so different from what I supposed he was. Oh, he's just
+splendid! and if you&mdash;" But here&mdash;I'm half ashamed to record it of my
+plucky little Tilly&mdash;here, suddenly overcome by all the excitement she
+had been through, Tilly broke down and began to cry.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, don't! I wish you wouldn't, now! Oh, I say!" cried Will, in boyish
+embarrassment.
+</p><p>
+Poor Tilly checked her sobs by a vigorous effort; but tears continued to
+flow, and she fumbled vainly for her handkerchief to dry them.
+</p><p>
+"Here, here, take mine," said Will, hastily thrusting the cambric into
+her hand; "and don't you bother another bit about Agnes and her
+tantrums. I'll burn her old paper if you say so, and I won't read it at
+all."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes, yes, you'll have to read it now. She'll ask you,&mdash;she'll tell
+you. Yes, read it, read it, Will. I know you'll pity Peggy, as
+grandmother and I do."
+</p><p>
+Thus adjured, Will drew the bit of paper from his pocket.
+</p><p>
+Tilly forgot her tears as she watched Will's face. He read it twice. At
+first there was an entire lack of comprehension; at the second reading a
+look of shocked understanding, and, bringing his fist down upon his
+knee, he exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"And Agnes was going to fling this bombshell straight at that poor
+thing!"
+</p><p>
+Then Tilly knew that Will was on the right side; that he pitied Peggy,
+and that he would agree with all that grandmother had said about her and
+her innocence and ignorance of real facts. This estimate of Master
+Will's sympathy was not a mistaken one. He not only agreed with
+grandmother about Peggy's innocence and ignorance, but in grandmother's
+kind conclusion "that they must be good to her."
+</p><p>
+"But what did you mean about Tom? What has he done to make you think so
+much better of him?" Will asked curiously.
+</p><p>
+While Tilly was enlightening him upon this point, Tom's voice was heard
+saying, "Oh, here they are," and Tom himself came round the clump of
+sheltering bushes accompanied by Peggy. And "We've been looking for you
+everywhere," said Peggy. "We've just had another of the Strauss waltzes,
+and the next thing is the 'Lancers;' and we want you and Tilly&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Will Wentworth, I want my property, if you please; that paper I gave
+you to keep for me," a very different voice&mdash;a high, sharp voice that
+the whole four recognized at once&mdash;interrupted here.
+</p><p>
+Tilly started, and turned pale.
+</p><p>
+"Don't be frightened, Tilly, she sha'n't have it," whispered Will.
+</p><p>
+Agnes flushed resentfully as she came forward and saw the confidential
+friendliness of the little group. For "that girl" she had been neglected
+and disregarded like this! Not a moment longer would she bear such
+insults. It was all nonsense,&mdash;all that stuff about being prosecuted
+for showing up facts. She would be stopped by that foolishness no
+longer. She would first take her stand boldly, and let everybody know
+what a fraud this Miss Smith was. These were some of the wild thoughts
+that leaped up out of the bitter fountain in Agnes's distorted mind at
+that instant, and her voice was sharper than ever as she again said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I want my property,&mdash;the paper I gave you to keep for me."
+</p><p>
+Will had risen to his feet, and answered very coolly, "I can't give it
+to you."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean? Have you lost it?"
+</p><p>
+"No, but I can't give it to you."
+</p><p>
+"Have you read it?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and that's the reason I don't give it to you. I know if I should
+you would&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Probably give it to Miss Smithson," cried Agnes, shrilly. "Miss
+Smithson," going toward Peggy, "I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, come with me. We're all your friends,&mdash;grandmother
+and I and Will and Tom; and we know how sweet and innocent you are. Oh,
+Peggy, come, come, and don't listen to her!" burst forth Tilly, in an
+agony of pity and horror, as she put an arm around Peggy to draw her
+away.
+</p><p>
+But Peggy was not to be drawn away.
+</p><p>
+"What in the world is the matter? What is it all about? What do you
+mean, Tilly, dear, by 'innocent'? What has she," glancing at Agnes
+disdainfully "been getting up against me?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, don't!" moaned Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, this is rich," laughed Agnes, jeeringly. "Nobody has been getting
+up anything against you, Miss Smithson."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean by calling me Miss Smithson? That isn't my name."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, isn't it?" derisively. "How long since did you change it for
+Smith?"
+</p><p>
+"I have never changed it for Smith."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I believe that 'Miss Smith' is down on the hotel register, and you
+answer to that name."
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"I beg your pardon," said Peggy, looking at Agnes with great scorn.
+"'Mrs. Smith and niece' are down on the register. It was the clerk who
+registered us in that way, and all of you seemed to take it for granted
+that <i>my</i> name must be Smith also. Perhaps I ought to have corrected the
+mistake at once; but after I overheard that conversation on the piazza,
+and&mdash;saw somebody examining the register a few minutes later" glancing
+away from Agnes with a smile at Will, who looked rather sheepish&mdash;"after
+that I thought I'd let the mistake go until the rest of the family
+arrived, it was so amusing."
+</p><p>
+"Oh," retorted Agnes, "this all sounds very straight and pretty, but I
+dare say you've got used to telling such stories. Perhaps you'll tell us
+now what name you do call your own, and if it is by that those South
+American friends you write to are known."
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps Mr. Tom Raymond will tell you," answered Peggy, quickly. "I've
+thought for some time that he might be one of the Tennis Club that came
+out to Fairview at my brother's invitation last summer, and I thought he
+suspected who I was, and&mdash;and wouldn't tell because&mdash;because he saw,
+just as I did, what fun the mistake was. But now, if he will, he can
+introduce me&mdash;to my friends, Tilly and Will Wentworth, as&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0330" href="images/Illus0330s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0330t.jpg"
+ alt="Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" width="344" height="260"></a><br>
+<i>"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!"</i></p>
+<p>
+"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" shouted Tom, before Peggy could go
+any further.
+</p><p>
+"Pelham!" cried Tilly, in a dazed way.
+</p><p>
+"Pelham!" repeated Will.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Pelham! Pelham!" exclaimed Tom, exultantly, flinging up his cap
+with a chuckle of delighted laughter.
+</p><p>
+"And you're not&mdash;you're not the daughter of that dreadful Smithson?"
+burst forth Tilly, in a little transport of happy relief.
+</p><p>
+"'That dreadful Smithson'? Who is he, and who said I was his daughter?"
+</p><p>
+"<i>She</i> said it," roared Will, darting a furious look at Agnes; "and she
+cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his
+pocket.
+</p><p>
+"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to snatch
+the paper from his hand.
+</p><p>
+"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now
+I'll give it to&mdash;Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to
+circulate about the house," answered Will.
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;if I happened to notice it before the rest of you&mdash;and&mdash;and
+thought that it might be this Miss Smith&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"That it <i>must</i> be! you insisted," broke in Will.
+</p><p>
+"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South
+American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,&mdash;"if I happened to be
+before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be;
+and&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's
+clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper
+slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as
+in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they
+thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"
+with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it <i>must</i> be, because you wanted
+it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all
+now,&mdash;everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to
+that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my
+uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying
+and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all
+for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for
+I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,&mdash;oh,
+Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful
+little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite
+of&mdash;even this&mdash;this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to
+shield me."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever
+might just possibly have happened to&mdash;to&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Mr. Smithson&mdash;" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in
+something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's
+shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes
+had disappeared.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped
+your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there
+wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully,
+though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had so long
+manfully repressed.
+</p><p>
+"Finished off! I should say so!" cried Will, joining in Tom's laughter.
+</p><p>
+"And to think that you were a Pelham,&mdash;one of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams
+all the time," put in Tilly, still with an air of bewilderment.
+</p><p>
+"And am now," laughed Peggy. "Oh, Tilly, you are such a dear!"
+</p><p>
+"One of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams!" shouted Tom. "Guess she won't be in
+a hurry to set up a claim to 'em now!" and Tom burst out again in wild
+chuckles of hilarity.
+</p><p>
+"And I never saw her, and I don't believe she ever met one of us
+before," cried Peggy.
+</p><p>
+"She told Amy that she didn't know the Pelhams yet, but that her Aunt
+Ann did, and her aunt was coming next month and would introduce her to
+them when they arrived," said Tilly, with a demure smile.
+</p><p>
+"Well, she'll probably like my sister Isabel's Skye terrier, with its
+fine name of Prince, much better than she does my poor little plebeian
+doggie, with its vulgar name of Pete," remarked Peggy, her eyes
+twinkling with fun.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Peggy, to think of your hearing all that talk about the dog and
+everything."
+</p><p>
+"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking
+rather red as he recalled his own words.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and everything,&mdash;all about the dogs and the difference between the
+Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I say now," began Will.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,&mdash;I liked it.
+It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think
+that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a
+maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the
+register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and
+never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,&mdash;when I think of all
+this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this
+minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in
+her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from
+whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."
+</p><p>
+But what was that sound,&mdash;that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly
+rang over and above the dance music?
+</p><p>
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra&#8209;a&#8209;a&#8209;a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out
+from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see
+that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,&mdash;a coaching-party.
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra&#8209;a&#8209;a&#8209;a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage
+drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The
+long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party
+atop of the coach.
+</p><p>
+"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins,"
+said a bystander.
+</p><p>
+Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the
+dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was passing them; and Dora
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Are they the Pelhams,&mdash;Agnes's Pelhams?"
+</p><p>
+"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed
+laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She
+ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."
+</p><p>
+"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking
+dreadfully a few minutes ago."
+</p><p>
+"I should think she might; she had had a blow."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that
+Smith girl."
+</p><p>
+"No, they're not."
+</p><p>
+"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss
+Pelham speaking to&mdash;Miss Peggy Pelham."
+</p><p>
+Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought;
+but&mdash;but&mdash;what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down
+from her top seat on the coach was saying?
+</p><p>
+"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance,
+Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little
+waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine
+time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and
+away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with
+auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."
+</p><p>
+"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.
+</p><p>
+"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid
+fact,&mdash;so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake
+again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the
+crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll
+see what a blow Agnes has had."
+</p><p>
+Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and
+never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but
+though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of
+bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and
+said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and
+mortification, cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yes, fun to you,&mdash;to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the
+right side of the fun; but I&mdash;we&mdash;are disgraced of course with Agnes.
+Oh, we've been just horrid&mdash;horrid, and such fools!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, I&mdash;I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,&mdash;for it's
+her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling
+laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by
+the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up
+against Agnes."
+</p><p>
+"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right
+side of things naturally."
+</p><p>
+If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it
+in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor
+creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.
+</p><p>
+Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known
+throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with
+amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their
+slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson,
+was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted
+over her daughter and niece.
+</p><p>
+"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were
+going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.
+"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"
+</p><p>
+Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,&mdash;Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the
+honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her
+alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of
+the Robsons with these words,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little
+Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating,
+worldly ways of judging people and things?"
+</p><p>
+And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to
+these bitter, brutal truths,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,&mdash;the
+people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't
+know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always
+talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they
+never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong
+to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances
+with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and
+amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,&mdash;nothing, nothing,
+nothing!"
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Egg">THE EGG-BOY.</a></h2>
+<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus077.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus077s.png"
+ alt="M" width="227" height="128" align="left"></a><br><br>
+arge, Marge, here is the egg-boy!"
+</p><p>
+Marge dropped her book and ran to join her sister Elsie, who by this
+time was on the back piazza talking to a boy who had just driven up in a
+farm-wagon.
+</p><p>
+"We want two dozen more,&mdash;all nice big ones, and by to-morrow, for it is
+only three days before Easter, and they must be boiled and colored to be
+ready in season."
+</p><p>
+The boy stared. "Colored?" he repeated in a puzzled, questioning tone.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Elsie, "colored. Don't you color eggs for Easter?"
+</p><p>
+"No."
+</p><p>
+"How queer! But you know about them, of course?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I don't."
+</p><p>
+"Not know about Easter eggs? Where in the world have you lived not to
+know about Easter? I thought everybody&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I do know about Easter," interrupted the boy, sharply. "All I said was
+that I didn't know about your colored eggs."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, I guess it is Episcopalians mostly who keep that old custom
+going in this part of the country, and I suppose your people are not
+Episcopalians, are they?"
+</p><p>
+"No."
+</p><p>
+"Well, <i>we</i> are, and we've lived in Washington, too, where everybody has
+colored eggs, and all the boys and girls there used to go to the
+egg-rolling party the Monday morning after Easter; and a good many of
+them go now."
+</p><p>
+"Egg-rolling party?" cried the boy, with such wide-open eyes of
+astonishment that Elsie and Marge both burst out laughing, whereat the
+boy flushed up angrily, and seizing the reins was starting off, when the
+cook called to him to wait until she had the butter-box ready for him to
+take back.
+</p><p>
+"Oh!" whispered Marge, "we've hurt his feelings, Elsie; it is too bad."
+Then she ran forward, and said gently: "'Tisn't anything at all strange
+that you didn't know about the rolling. Elsie and I didn't until we went
+to Washington to live, and saw the game ourselves, and had it explained
+to us; and I'll explain it to you. We had a lot of eggs boiled hard, and
+dyed all sorts of pretty flower colors and patterns; and these we took
+to the top of a little hill near the White House, and each one, or each
+party, started two or three or more eggs of different colors, and made
+guesses as to which color would beat. After the game was over, we
+exchanged the eggs we had, and gave away a good many to the poor
+children. Oh, it was great fun."
+</p><p>
+The boy laughed. "Fun! I should call it baby play!" he said derisively.
+</p><p>
+"Well, <i>you</i> can call it baby play if you like," returned Marge, with
+great dignity; "but the 'baby play' has come down through a good many
+years. It is an old Easter custom that was brought over from England by
+one of the early settlers at Washington."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I didn't mean&mdash;I'm sorry&mdash;" began Royal, stammeringly; when&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Royal! Royal Purcel!" called out a voice; and a little fellow scarcely
+more than six or seven years old came running up the driveway, and made
+a flying leap into the wagon.
+</p><p>
+"Do you belong to a circus?" cried Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"No; wish I did. I belong to Royal."
+</p><p>
+"Who is Royal?"
+</p><p>
+"Who is Royal?" repeated the child, making a cunning, impudent face at
+her.
+</p><p>
+"He means me. My name is Royal,&mdash;Royal Purcel; and he," nodding towards
+the child, "is my brother."
+</p><p>
+"Royal Purcel! <i>What</i> a funny name! It sounds&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Don't, Elsie," remonstrated Marge.
+</p><p>
+"It sounds just like Royal Purple," giggled Elsie, regardless of her
+sister's remonstrance.
+</p><p>
+Rhoda Davis, the cook, coming out just then with the butter-box, Royal
+thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word
+or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never saw such a tempery boy as that in my life," said Elsie.
+"A boy that can't take a joke I don't think is much of a boy."
+</p><p>
+"Them Purcels allers was pretty peppery, and I guess they're more'n
+ever so now," said Rhoda.
+</p><p>
+"Why?" asked Marge.
+</p><p>
+"Why? Because they used to be the richest farmers about here. They owned
+pretty nigh all Lime Ridge once. Now they hain't got nothin' but that
+little Ridge farm. It's a stony little place, and how they manage to get
+a livin' off of it beats me."
+</p><p>
+"How'd they happen to lose so much?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, the boy's father took to spekerlatin', and then some banks they had
+money in bust up."
+</p><p>
+"Well, he needn't fly up at everything because he isn't rich," said
+Elsie. "That's regular cry-baby fashion. He's a royal purple cry-baby,
+that's what he is, and I mean to call him that, see if I don't;" and
+Elsie laughed in high glee as this mischievous idea struck her. And
+while she and her sister were discussing Royal and his temper, Royal was
+discussing that very temper with himself.
+</p><p>
+"To think of my being such a fool as to show mad before those girls. I'm
+a regular sissy," was his final conclusion as he drove down the road.
+</p><p>
+The next morning, bright and early, he was up at the Lloyds' with two
+dozen fine big eggs. "As handsome a lot of eggs as I ever see,"
+commented Rhoda, as she took them in.
+</p><p>
+"Are they going to color them all?" asked Royal.
+</p><p>
+"I s'pose so. Here are some of their old ones. They've been b'iled as
+hard as stones. They'll keep forever;" and Rhoda handed out of the open
+window a little basket of colored eggs.
+</p><p>
+"But some of these are painted," said the boy, taking up an egg with a
+pattern of flowers on it.
+</p><p>
+"No, they ain't; they're jest colored in a dye-pot. Them that looks as
+if they was painted were tied up in a bit of figgered calico and b'iled,
+and when they come out of the b'iling they took the calico off, and
+there was the figgers set on the eggs. See?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I see;" and Royal turned the egg round thoughtfully for a moment,
+then suddenly put it down, and started off towards his wagon on a run.
+</p><p>
+"Land sakes!" called out Rhoda; "what's come to you all at once to set
+off like that?"
+</p><p>
+"Muskrats!" shouted Royal, with a laugh as he jumped into the wagon.
+</p><p>
+"Ben a-settin' traps for 'em, eh?"
+</p><p>
+Royal nodded as he went rattling down the driveway.
+</p><p>
+"Did Royal Purple bring the eggs?" asked Elsie Lloyd, a little later.
+</p><p>
+"His name ain't Purple; it's Purcel," corrected Rhoda, innocently.
+</p><p>
+Elsie giggled. "Well, did Royal <i>Purcel</i> bring the eggs?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, there they be."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, oh! aren't they beauties?"
+</p><p>
+"They be; that's a fact," agreed Rhoda. "Royal, he's done his best for
+ye now, anyway. He's kind o' quick, like all the Purcels, but he's real
+accommodatin'."
+</p><p>
+"So he is, Rhoda, and I'll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn
+out for being so 'accommodatin';' and we are going to have some extra
+pretty ones this time. See this now, and this, and this!" and Elsie
+whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico. One was a
+pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.
+</p><p>
+"The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will
+be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern," said Marge,
+enthusiastically.
+</p><p>
+By Saturday afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns
+were "ready for company," as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on
+Saturday night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three
+days' visit. It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and
+they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a
+box was brought in by one of the servants. It was neatly tied, and
+directed in a bold round handwriting to "Miss Elsie and Miss Marge
+Lloyd."
+</p><p>
+"What <i>can</i> it be?" said Marge, wonderingly.
+</p><p>
+"We'll open it and see," cried Elsie. And suiting her action to her
+word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six
+eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design. On one
+was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch
+of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple
+blossoms. On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,&mdash;a
+palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings,
+soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub
+head with a soft halo about it.
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, "Who <i>could</i> have
+painted them?" wondered Marge; and, "Who <i>could</i> have sent them?" cried
+Elsie.
+</p><p>
+In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor. They could find
+nothing to give them the slightest clew.
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps, papa, it is Mr. Archer," said Marge at last, turning to her
+father. Mr. Archer was an artist friend.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, no, this isn't Archer's work; it's a novice's work, though very
+promising," her father replied.
+</p><p>
+"Cousin Tom's, then?"
+</p><p>
+"And too strong for Tom."
+</p><p>
+"Then it must be Jimmy Barrows."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it may be Jimmy. We shall know when he comes with Tom on Monday.
+It's bold enough for Jimmy, but I didn't think he had so much fancy."
+</p><p>
+And finally it was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows.
+Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an
+amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to be a professional one.
+</p><p>
+"It's such fun to have Jimmy do these, and send them without a word,"
+said Elsie to her sister.
+</p><p>
+"Such a generous thing to do, too! I wonder if he would like some of
+<i>our</i> eggs as specimens? We might give him one of each kind."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Marge, don't think of offering him those calico-colored
+things,&mdash;anybody who can paint like this!"
+</p><p>
+"Very well; but, Elsie, which one are you going to give to Royal
+Purcel?"
+</p><p>
+"To Royal Purcel?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes; don't you remember you told Rhoda you were going to give him one
+for being so accommodating?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I'd forgotten. Well, here, I'll give him this,&mdash;it's the very
+thing;" and Elsie snatched up a bright purple one.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Elsie, don't!"
+</p><p>
+But Elsie fairly danced with glee as she cried, "I will, I will; it's
+the very thing,&mdash;royal purple to Royal Purple!"
+</p><p>
+The young visitors, when all this was explained to them, joined in the
+merriment; but Marge&mdash;kind, tender little Marge&mdash;hid away one of the
+blue and white lily eggs, to get the advantage of Elsie's mischief by
+bestowing <i>that</i> upon Royal.
+</p><p>
+But Royal was quite out of Elsie's thoughts by Monday morning. It was a
+beautiful morning; and by nine o'clock, when Tom and Jimmy Barrows
+arrived, the lawn and sloping knoll at the east of it were bright and
+dry with sunshine. On the piazza the various baskets of eggs were
+standing; only "Jimmy Barrows's gift" had been set aside as "too good to
+use."
+</p><p>
+"My! haven't you got a lot, though?" cried Tom, as he surveyed them.
+"But what are these in the box here?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, what are they?" sparkled Elsie. "Ask Jimmy Barrows."
+</p><p>
+Jimmy, with a wondering expression on his face at this remark, came over
+and looked down at the treasured eggs. "Who did these?" he asked
+quickly.
+</p><p>
+"'Who did these?'" mimicked Elsie. "Oh, you needn't try that. We found
+you out at once, or <i>I</i> did."
+</p><p>
+"You think I painted 'em&mdash;I sent 'em?" queried Jimmy.
+</p><p>
+"Of course I do. Now, Master Jimmy&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Miss Elsie, just as true as I'm standing here, I never saw them
+before."
+</p><p>
+Elsie shook her head at him, but Jimmy did not see her. He was lifting
+the eggs and examining them.
+</p><p>
+"No, honest, I didn't paint 'em, Miss Elsie. I wish I had; but I can't
+do things like that&mdash;yet. I can draw as well, am a better draughtsman,
+maybe, but I haven't got the ideas. The fellow who did these has got a
+lot of original ideas."
+</p><p>
+Mr. Lloyd came forward here with great interest. "Did any of you,"
+turning to Elsie and Marge, "ask who brought the box?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Elsie. "I asked Ann, and she said 'a bit of a boy
+brought 'em;' she didn't know who he was."
+</p><p>
+"Ask Rhoda to come here. She knows the neighborhood."
+</p><p>
+Rhoda came, and Mr. Lloyd put the matter before her. Had she any idea
+who the "bit of a boy" was?
+</p><p>
+"I didn't see him, but it might be Bert Purcel," answered Rhoda. "Folks
+get him to do errands sometimes. He's just drove up with his brother to
+bring the chickens. I'll send him 'round, and you can ask him."
+</p><p>
+"Did you leave a box here Saturday night?" Mr. Lloyd inquired
+pleasantly, when the boy stood before him.
+</p><p>
+The red lips began to frame a "No," then closed tightly together, while
+the slim little figure whirled about and made an attempt to leap over
+the piazza railing,&mdash;an attempt that would have been successful if one
+foot had not caught in a stout vine.
+</p><p>
+Royal, waiting in the wagon at the back porch, heard a sudden cry, and
+hurried to see what had happened. He found Bert scrambling to his feet,
+brisk and angry. The child made a dash towards his brother, and seized
+his hand.
+</p><p>
+"What's the matter?" asked Royal. No answer, but a renewed tug at his
+hand to draw him away.
+</p><p>
+"The little fellow tried to jump the piazza railing and fell," explained
+Mr. Lloyd, laughingly.
+</p><p>
+"Papa just asked him a question,&mdash;if he brought us a box Saturday night;
+and as he didn't want to answer, he ran," spoke up Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"I didn't, I jumped!" cried the child.
+</p><p>
+Everybody laughed.
+</p><p>
+"Can't <i>you</i> tell us?" asked Marge, looking at Royal. "<i>Did</i> your
+brother bring it?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Royal, flushing up.
+</p><p>
+"And who sent it?" asked Elsie, impatiently. She waited a moment for an
+answer. As none came, she asked still more impatiently, "Do you <i>know</i>
+the person who sent it?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," in a hesitating voice.
+</p><p>
+"Did the person tell you not to tell?"
+</p><p>
+"No," in the same hesitating voice.
+</p><p>
+"Then why in the world <i>don't</i> you tell? You've no right to keep it back
+like this. It is our affair, not yours, and so it is our right to know
+who it is. Don't you understand that we don't want people to send us
+things&mdash;presents&mdash;and not know anything about who it is?"
+</p><p>
+Royal looked startled, and the flush on his face deepened. Elsie thought
+she had conquered him, and chirped out an encouraging, "Come, now, who
+was it?" But to her surprise the boy flung up his head with an angry
+movement, and with a defiant glance at her said stubbornly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I've a perfect right <i>not</i> to answer your question, and I sha'n't!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, of all the brazen&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Elsie!" warned her father, "don't say anything more."
+</p><p>
+"You'll let me say one thing more, papa. Rhoda told us that this boy was
+very accommodating, and he brought me such nice big eggs, I thought he
+was, and meant to give him something to show my appreciation, and I'd
+like to give it to him now. Here," taking something from her pocket,
+"give this to your brother," she said to little Bert, who stood eying
+her curiously. The child's hand opened involuntarily. Into it dropped a
+<i>royal purple</i> egg.
+</p><p>
+Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.
+</p><p>
+Bert, feeling the passion in his brother's voice, drew off, and <i>flung</i>
+the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim
+and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond
+her.
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and,"
+running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the shell
+is all cracked to pieces!"
+</p><p>
+"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.
+</p><p>
+But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's
+recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was
+now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his
+action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the
+result of it.
+</p><p>
+"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to
+tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.
+</p><p>
+"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who
+had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.
+</p><p>
+"Purcel."
+</p><p>
+"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade
+Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had
+hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound
+in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.
+</p><p>
+"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a
+right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.
+</p><p>
+"But it was Royal's present, whatever relation he got to paint the eggs
+for him, for it was only Royal who knew about <i>our</i> eggs; and this is
+the way we've paid him!" cried Marge, with a glance of indignant
+reproach at Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"I don't think he got anybody to do it for him; I&mdash;I think he did it
+himself," spoke up Jimmy.
+</p><p>
+"Royal Purcel! that&mdash;that farm-boy?" shrieked Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Jimmy. "I thought so all the time, when you&mdash;when he
+was standing under&mdash;under your questioning fire." And Jimmy laughed.
+</p><p>
+"But how did he learn?" cried Elsie, in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"I don't think the boy has had much instruction," said Jimmy. "I think
+he has great natural talent, and has had very little opportunity to
+study." Jimmy was now peering at the palm and tent egg, and, "See,
+here's the name again, in this thready grass," he said, "and he has
+probably marked all the eggs in this cunning way."
+</p><p>
+Jimmy was right. On the bird's wing, amid the lily leaves, and on the
+apple bough, they also found "R. Purcel" hidden deftly from casual
+observation.
+</p><p>
+Elsie was silent as, one after another, these discoveries were made.
+Finally she could contain herself no longer, and burst out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"To think of his painting all these beautiful things and giving them to
+us,&mdash;to me, when I've been such a horrid little cat to him! Oh, papa, I
+must do something,&mdash;I just must!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, I should think it would become you to say you are sorry and to
+thank him," said Mr. Lloyd, smiling.
+</p><p>
+"But, papa, I want to take the pony-carriage and go after him, and ask
+him to come back to the egg-rolling; and if Jimmy Barrows will go with
+me&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I'd be delighted, Miss Elsie."
+</p><p>
+"He'd make it easier,&mdash;he'd know what to say, and Royal would know what
+to say to him. The others will excuse us; we won't be long. Oh, may
+I&mdash;may we, papa?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, as you seem to have settled everything, I don't see but I must&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+But Elsie did not wait to hear more. She knew she had not only her
+father's consent, but his approval, and was off like a flash to order
+the carriage.
+</p><p>
+If the Lloyds had been better acquainted in Lime Ridge, Royal's work
+would not have been such a great surprise to them. A good many of the
+Lime Ridge people could have told them of the boy's talent, and how it
+had been discouraged by his family. There was no money now to support
+and educate him in that direction, and it had been arranged with an old
+friend who was in the wool business that the boy should go into his
+employ as soon as he had graduated from the Lime Ridge High School. This
+was considered a very lucky prospect for him, but Royal hated it. From
+a little fellow he had shown a great love for pictures, and had covered
+every scrap of paper he could find with crude drawings.
+</p><p>
+When he was eight years old, a visitor had given him a box of paints and
+brushes. Two years later he had become acquainted with an artist who was
+staying a few weeks at Lime Ridge, and went with him on his
+sketching-tramps. With him he learned something about an artist's
+methods, and received from him as a parting gift, various artist's
+materials that he had made industrious use of.
+</p><p>
+The whim of painting the eggs and sending them to the sisters had come
+to him as a sort of apology to them for his exhibition of temper, and he
+had no idea that his name, so palpable to his artist eye, would escape
+their observation as it did. He expected his gift and its motives to be
+recognized at once. Instead, he was questioned as if he were nothing but
+an ignorant errand-boy; and, bitterest of all, even when he had
+confessed to a knowledge of the giver, the possibility of his being the
+painter himself was not for a moment suspected. But while he stood
+leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout
+little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever
+going amongst 'em again,&mdash;an overbearing lot of city folks," he was
+saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the
+road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a
+movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and stood
+in front of him.
+</p><p>
+"I've come to ask you to go back with us, and forgive me for being such
+a horrid little cat to you. I didn't understand. I thought&mdash;" and then
+in a perfect jumble of words Elsie went on, and poured forth her
+contrition and explanation, at the same time introducing Jimmy Barrows,
+who knew just what to say, and said it with such effect that Royal's
+spirits went up with a bound, and almost before he knew to what he had
+consented, he was sitting on the little back seat of the phaeton,
+talking with these "city folks" as if they were his best friends, as
+they turned out to be.
+</p><p>
+All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you
+suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing? In Mr.
+Carr's mills, learning to pick and buy wool?
+</p><p>
+Not he. He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting
+himself by making business illustrations for various newspapers. It is
+humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for
+higher things; and the "higher things" are not far off, for two or three
+of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and
+he has furnished a set of drawings for a child's book that has been well
+paid for and well spoken of. And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd
+the other day,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but
+what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this
+possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking! But I guess they
+began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them
+last week that he'd paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.
+Houp-la!"
+</p><p>
+"'A howling success'! And it's all through me," laughed Elsie, as she
+read this portion of Jimmy's letter; "for if I hadn't eaten humble-pie,
+and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy
+Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day. Yes; it's all
+through me and my humble-pie. Houp-la!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Molly">MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus098.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus098s.png"
+ alt="N" width="210" height="218" align="left"></a><br><br>
+ever had a Christmas present?"
+</p><p>
+"No, never."
+</p><p>
+"Why, it's just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,&mdash;you <i>shall</i> have one
+this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas
+muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could
+scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor
+laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She
+was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,&mdash;a
+charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a
+thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon. Molly
+Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling
+face,&mdash;a beauty, though she <i>was</i> an Indian. Yes, this charming little
+maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful
+tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far
+Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had
+thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly
+was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post,
+for her father had been an army officer until the three years before,
+when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his
+brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was
+an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time
+been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether
+unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons. Molly thought they were very
+welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life,
+she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only
+pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded
+gladly to Molly's friendly advances.
+</p><p>
+"But to think that you've never had a Christmas present!" exclaimed
+Molly again, as Wallula's laugh rippled out. "If I'd <i>only</i> known you
+the first year we came! But I'll make it up <i>this</i> year, you'll see; and
+oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know&mdash;I know what
+I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped <i>her</i> hands and cried, "Oh, tell
+me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole.
+Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do.
+It is all a secret until Christmas eve or Christmas morning."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know,&mdash;Metalka told me; but I forgot."
+</p><p>
+"Of course your sister must have known all about Christmas after she
+came back from school. Why didn't <i>she</i> make you a Christmas present,
+then, Lula?"
+</p><p>
+"Metalka?" A cloud came over the little bright face. "Metalka didn't
+stay long after she came back. She didn't stay till Christmas; she went
+'way&mdash;to&mdash;to heaven."
+</p><p>
+"Oh!"
+</p><p>
+"If Metalka had stayed, I might have gone to school this year."
+</p><p>
+"I thought you <i>had</i> been to school, Lula."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, no! only to little school out here summers,&mdash;little school some
+ladies made; and Metalka tole me&mdash;taught me&mdash;showed me ev'ry day after
+she came back&mdash;ev'ry day, till&mdash;til she&mdash;went 'way. I can read and
+write and talk, talk, talk, all day in English,"&mdash;smiling roguishly,
+then more seriously and anxiously. "Is it pretty fair English,&mdash;white
+English,&mdash;Major Molly?"
+</p><p>
+"'White English'!" laughed back Major Molly. "You are such fun, Lula.
+Yes, it's pretty fair&mdash;white English."
+</p><p>
+Lula dimpled with pleasure, then sighed as she said, "If I could go 'way
+off East to Metalka's school, two, three, four, five year, as Metalka
+did, then I could talk splen'id English, and I could make heap&mdash;no, all
+sort things, and help keep house nice, and cook like Metalka."
+</p><p>
+"But why don't you go, Lula?"
+</p><p>
+"Why don't I? Listen!" and Wallula bent forward eagerly. "I don't go
+because my father won't have me go. Metalka went. When she first came
+back, she was so happy, so strong. She was going to have everything
+white way, civ&mdash;I can't say it, Maje Molly."
+</p><p>
+"Do you mean civilized?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes; civ'lized&mdash;white way. And she worked, she talked, she tried,
+and nobody'd pay much 'tention but my father. The girls, some o' them,
+wanted to be like her; but the fathers and mothers would n' help, and
+some, good many, were set hard 'gainst it; and then there was no money
+to buy white people's clothes, they said. It took all the money was
+earned to pay big 'counts up at agency store, where Indians bought
+things,&mdash;things to eat, you know; so what's the use, they said, to try
+to live white ways when everything was 'gainst them, and they stopped
+trying; and Metalka was so dis'pointed, for she was going do so
+much,&mdash;going help civ-civ'lize. She was so dis'pointed, she by-'n'-by
+got sick&mdash;homesick, and just after the first snow came, she&mdash;she went
+'way to heaven. And that's why my father won't have me go to the school.
+He say it killed Metalka. He say if she'd stayed home, she'd been happy
+Indian and lived long time. He say Indian got hurt; spoiled going off
+into white man's country."
+</p><p>
+"How came he to let your sister go, Lula?"
+</p><p>
+"Metalka wanted to go so bad. She'd heard so much 'bout the 'way-off
+schools from some white ladies up at the fort one summer, and my father
+heard too. A white off'cer tole him if Indian wanted to know how to have
+plenty to eat, plenty ev'rything like white peoples, they must learn to
+do bus'ness white ways, be edg'cated. So he let Metalka go; <i>he</i> could
+n' go, he too old; but Metalka could go and learn to read all the books
+and the papers and keep 'counts for him, so 't he'd know how to deal
+with white men. When Metalka first took 'count for him, after she came
+back, my father so pleased. He'd worked hard all winter hauling wood,
+and killing elk and deer for the skins; and my mother 'n' I had made
+bewt'ful moccasins and gloves out o' the skins, all worked with beads;
+and so he'd earned good deal money, and he 'd kept 'count of it
+all,&mdash;<i>his</i> way, and 't was honest way; and kept 'count, too, what he'd
+had out of agency store; and Metalka understood and reckoned it all up,
+and said he 'd have good lot money left after he'd paid what he owed at
+the store. But, Maje Molly, he didn't! he didn't! They tole him he owed
+<i>all</i> his money, and when he said they'd made mistake, and showed 'em
+Metalka's 'counts, they laughed at him, and showed him big book of
+<i>their</i> 'counts, and tole him Metalka didn't know 'bout prices o'
+things. Then he came home and said: 'What's the use going to white
+people's schools to learn white people's ways, when white people can
+come out to Indian country and tell lies 'bout prices o' things?' And
+that's the way 't is ev'ry time, my father say; the way 't was before
+Metalka went to school. The bad white trader comes out to Indian country
+to cheat Indians. <i>He</i> knows white prices, but he don't tell Indian
+white prices; he tell Indian two, three time more price. That's what my
+father say. And Metalka, when she see it all, she so disjointed, she
+never get over it, and my father say it killed her, like arrow shot at
+her."
+</p><p>
+"But your father doesn't think all white people bad; he doesn't dislike
+all their ways?"
+</p><p>
+"No; it's only white traders he thinks bad, and the white big chiefs who
+break promises 'bout lands. He like white ways that Metalka brought
+back, and he built nice log house to live in instead of tepee, 'cause
+Metalka wanted it; and he like all you here, Maje Molly, 'cause you good
+to me. But, Maje Molly"&mdash;and here the little bright face clouded
+over&mdash;"my mother say <i>all</i> white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, they don't, Lula; they don't, you'll see. <i>I</i> sha'n't forget;
+<i>I</i> sha'n't break <i>my</i> promise, you'll see,&mdash;you'll see, Lula. On
+Christmas eve I shall send you a Christmas present, sure,&mdash;now
+remember!" answered Molly, vehemently.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was the day before Christmas,&mdash;a beautiful, mild day, very unlike the
+usual winter weather in the far West. At the Ellistons' windows hung
+wreaths of pine, and all about on tables and chairs tempting-looking
+packages were lying. Some of these were from their military friends, and
+most of them were directed to "Major Molly," the name that had been
+given to Molly when she was a little tot of a thing, and the pet of the
+fort where she lived. On this Christmas day, as she watched her mother
+fold up the pretty bright tartan dress that was to be her Christmas
+present to Wallula, she said gleefully,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Don't forget, mamma, to write on the box, 'Wallula's Christmas present
+from Major Molly.'"
+</p><p>
+It had been Molly's intention to have Wallula to tea on Christmas eve,
+and then and there to bestow upon her the pretty gift. But invitations
+to dine at the fort had frustrated this plan, and so it was arranged
+that Barney McGuire, one of the ranchmen, should come up and carry the
+box over to the reservation late that afternoon; and as the short winter
+day progressed, and Molly found that she must have a little more time to
+finish off the table-cover she wanted to take up to the Colonel's wife,
+she said to her mother,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Instead of going on with you and papa at five o'clock, let Barney
+escort me to the fort after he leaves Wallula's present; that will give
+me plenty of time to finish the cover, and plenty of time to get to the
+dinner in season."
+</p><p>
+"Very well," answered Mrs. Elliston; "but you must promise me to start
+with Barney as soon as he comes back for you, whether the cover is
+finished or not. You mustn't be late."
+</p><p>
+At five o'clock, when Captain Elliston and his wife rode off, Molly was
+working away at her cover with the greatest industry. Now and then, as
+she worked on, she glanced up at the clock. If everything went
+smoothly,&mdash;if the silk didn't knot or the lace didn't pucker,&mdash;she would
+be through long before Barney came back for her. But presently she
+thought, where <i>was</i> Barney. He ought to be there for the box by this
+time. She worked on a little longer, her ear alert for the sound of
+Barney's horse. At last she went to an upper window and looked out. She
+could see, even in the gathering dusk, a great distance from that
+window, away across toward the sheep-corrals and cattle-pens; but nobody
+was in sight. What did it mean? Barney was punctuality itself.
+</p><p>
+Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes more she worked with flying fingers,
+and still there was no sight or sound of Barney; but her work was
+finished, and now&mdash;now, what then?
+</p><p>
+There was only Hannah and John, the two house-servants, at hand. Hannah
+couldn't go, and John had strict orders never to leave the premises in
+Captain Elliston's absence. She looked at the clock; every second seemed
+an age. If Barney didn't come, if <i>no one was sent in his place</i>, her
+promise to Wallula would be broken, and Molly remembered Wallula's
+words, "My mother say all white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians;" and her own vehement reply, "<i>I</i> sha'n't forget; I sha'n't
+break <i>my</i> promise, you'll see, you'll see, Lula!" Break her promise
+after that! Never, never! Her father himself would say she must
+not,&mdash;would say that <i>somebody</i> must go in Barney's place, and there
+was nobody,&mdash;nobody to go but&mdash;herself!
+</p><p>
+"Yer goin' alone, yer mean, over to the Injuns!" demanded John, as Molly
+told him to bring her pony, Tam o' Shanter, to the door.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, and right away, John; so hurry as fast as you can."
+</p><p>
+"Do yer think yer'd orter, Major Molly? Do yer think the Cap'n would
+like it?" asked John, disapprovingly.
+</p><p>
+"John, if you don't bring Tam 'round this minute, I'll go for him
+myself."
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't safe fur yer to go over there alone!" cried Hannah.
+</p><p>
+"Safe! I know the way, every inch of it, with my eyes shut, and so does
+Tam; and I know the Indians, and Wallula is my friend; and I told her
+she should have her present Christmas eve, sure, and I'm going to keep
+my promise. Now bring Tam 'round just as quick as you can."
+</p><p>
+John obeyed, though with evident reluctance, and Hannah showed her
+disapproval by scolding and protesting; but they had both of them lived
+on the frontier for years, and their disapproval therefore was not what
+it might have been under different circumstances. Molly, they knew,
+could ride as well as a little Indian, and was familiar with every inch
+of the way, as she had said, and Wallula was her friend.
+</p><p>
+"And 't wouldn't 'a' done the least bit o' good to hev set myself any
+more against her. If I had, just as like as not the Cap'n would 'a'
+sided with her and been mad at me, for he thinks the Major's ekal to
+'most anything," John confided to Hannah, as he brought the pony round.
+</p><p>
+The pony shied a little as Wallula's Christmas present was strapped to
+his back. But at Molly's whispered, "Tam! Tam! be a good boy. We're
+going to see Wallula,&mdash;to carry her something nice, just as quick as we
+can go," the little fellow whinnied softly, as if in response; and the
+next moment, at Molly's "Now, Tam," he started forward at his best
+pace,&mdash;a pace that Molly knew so well, and knew she could trust,&mdash;firm
+and even and assured, and gaining, gaining, gaining at every step.
+</p><p>
+"Good boy, good boy!" she said to him as he sped along. But as he began
+to hasten his pace, it occurred to her that it was only about half an
+hour's easy riding to the reservation, and that after leaving there she
+could easily reach the fort in another half-hour,&mdash;so easily that there
+was no need of hurrying Tam as she was doing; and she pulled him up with
+a "Take it easy, Tam dear." As she spoke, Tam flung up his head, pricked
+up his ears, and made a sudden plunge forward. What was it? What was the
+matter? What had he heard? He had heard what Molly herself heard in the
+next instant,&mdash;the beat of a horse's hoofs. But the minute it struck
+upon Molly's ear she said to herself, "It's Barney; for that's old
+Ranger's step, I know." Ranger was an old troop horse of her father's
+that Barney often rode. But in vain she tried to rein Tam in. In vain
+she said to him, "Wait, wait! It's Ranger and Barney, Tam!"
+</p><p>
+The pony snorted, as if in scorn, and held on his way. What <i>was</i> the
+matter with him? He was usually such a wise little fellow, and always
+knew his friends and his enemies. <i>And he knew them now</i>! He was wiser
+than she was, and he scented on the wind something that spurred him on.
+</p><p>
+But, hark! What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal
+that Barney was trying? Was it&mdash;Whirr, s&#8209;st! Down like a shot dropped
+Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to
+escape the danger he had scented,&mdash;the danger of a lariat flung by a
+practised hand.
+</p><p>
+Oh, Tam, Tam! fly now with all your speed, your mistress understands at
+last. She is a frontier-bred girl. She knows now that it is no friendly
+person following her, but some one who means mischief; and that mischief
+she has no doubt is the proposed capture of Tam, who is well known for
+miles and miles about the country as a wonderful little racer. Yes,
+Molly understands at last. She has <i>seen in the starlight</i> the lariat as
+it missed Tam's head, and she knows perfectly well that only Tam's speed
+and sure-footedness can save them. Her heart beats like a trip-hammer;
+but she keeps a firm hold upon the rein, with a watchful eye for any
+sudden inequalities of the road, while her ears are strained to catch
+every sound. Tam's leap forward had given him a moment's advantage, and
+he keeps it up bravely, his dainty feet almost spurning the ground as he
+goes on, gaining, gaining, gaining at every step. In a few minutes more
+they will be out of the reach of any lariat, then in another minute safe
+at Wallula's door.
+</p><p>
+In a few minutes! As this thought flashes through Molly's mind, wh&#8209;irr,
+s&#8209;st! cuts the still air again. Tam drops his head, and plunges forward.
+</p><p>
+Though the starlight is brighter than ever, Molly does not <i>see</i> the
+lariat, but there is something, something,&mdash;what is it?&mdash;that prompts
+her to fling herself forward face downwards upon Tam's mane; and the
+lariat that was about to drop over her head once more falls harmless to
+the ground, and Tam once more seems to know what danger has been
+escaped, and starts forward again with an exultant bound. They are
+almost there! Molly sees the smoke from the tepees of the reservation,
+and a light from a log cabin, and draws a breath of relief. But not yet,
+O brave little frontier girl, O gallant little steed, is the race won
+and the danger passed! Not yet, oh, not yet! for just ahead there is a
+treacherous pitfall which neither Tam nor his mistress sees,&mdash;a hollow
+that some little animal has burrowed out, and into this Tam plunges a
+forefoot, stumbles, and falls!
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"She <i>said</i>, 'I sha'n't forget; I sha'n't break <i>my</i> promise. You'll
+see, on Christmas eve, I shall send you a Christmas present, sure. Now
+remember.' On Christmas eve! And to-night is Christmas eve!"
+</p><p>
+Wallula had said this over and over to herself ever since the sun went
+down. She had kept count of the days from the day that Molly had made
+her that vehement promise. That promise meant so much to Wallula. It
+meant not merely a gift, but keeping faith, holding on, making real
+friends with an Indian girl. And her mother had said, "<i>She'll</i> forget,
+like the rest. White peoples always forget what they say to Indians."
+And her father had nodded his head when her mother said this. But
+Wallula had shaken <i>her</i> head, and declared with passionate emphasis
+more than once,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Major Molly will never forget,&mdash;never! You'll see, you'll see!"
+</p><p>
+Wallula had awakened very early that morning, and the minute she opened
+her eyes she thought, "This is the day before Christ's day. To-night,
+'bout sundown, Major Molly'll keep her promise." All through the day
+this happy thought was uppermost. In the afternoon she followed Major
+Molly's instructions, and hung pine wreaths about the cabin.
+</p><p>
+The short afternoon sped on, and sundown came, and the gray dusk, and
+then the stars came out.
+</p><p>
+"Where's your Major Molly now?" asked the mother. There was a sharp
+accent in the Indian woman's voice, and a bitter expression on her face.
+But it was not for Wallula; it was for the white girl,&mdash;the Major Molly
+who, in breaking her promise to Wallula, had brought suffering upon her;
+for on Wallula's face the mother could see by this time the shadow of
+disappointment gathering. It made her think of Metalka. Metalka had gone
+amongst the white people. She had come back full of belief in them, and
+it was the white people's white traders with their lies and their broken
+promises that had hurt Metalka to death. There was only little Wallula
+left now. Was it going the same way with Wallula? These were some of
+the Indian mother's bitter resentful thoughts as she watched Wallula's
+face.
+</p><p>
+Wallula found it very hard to bear this watchfulness. She felt as if her
+mother were glad that her prophecy had proved true, that the white girl
+had broken her promise; but Wallula was wrong. Her mother's bitterness
+and resentment were the outcome of her anxiety. She would have given
+anything, have done anything, to have saved Wallula this suffering. If
+something would only happen to rouse Wallula, she thought, as she
+watched her. There had come a visitor to their cabin the other day,&mdash;the
+chief of a neighboring tribe. When he saw Wallula, he said he would come
+again and bring his little daughter. If he would only come soon! If he
+would only&mdash;But, hark! what was that? Was it an answer to her wish,&mdash;her
+prayer? Was he coming now&mdash;<i>now</i>? And, jumping to her feet, the woman
+ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her
+prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards
+her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned
+and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo
+Wallula leaped up, and sped past her mother with the fleetness of a
+fawn, calling as she did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant
+the wondering woman saw her child running, as only an Indian can run, by
+the side of a jet-black pony whose coat was flecked with foam, and whose
+breath was well-nigh spent. As they came nearer into the pathway of
+light that the pine blaze sent forth from the open door, something that
+looked like a pennon of gold streamed out, and a clear but rather shaken
+voice cried, "Lula, Lula, I've kept my promise; I've kept my promise!"
+</p><p>
+The next moment the owner of the voice had slid from the pony's back
+into Wallula's arms, and Wallula was stroking the streaming golden hair,
+and crying jubilantly, "She's kept her promise, she's kept her promise!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I've kept my promise. I've brought your Christmas present. There
+it is in that box strapped across Tam. If somebody'll unstrap it and see
+to Tam, we'll go into the house, and I'll tell you what a race I've had.
+I can only stay a few minutes, for I must get to the fort if your
+father'll go with me. I don't dare to go alone now."
+</p><p>
+"To the fort?" asked Wallula, wonderingly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I'm going there to dinner; but let's go in. I'm so tired I can
+hardly stand; and Tam&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+But as a glance showed her that Tam was being cared for, and that
+Wallula's mother was carrying the box into the house, Major Molly
+followed on with a sigh of relief, and, doffing the riding-suit that
+covered her dress, flung herself down before the blazing fire, and began
+to tell her story. When she came to the point where Tam stumbled and
+fell forward, she burst out excitedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Lula, Lula! I thought then I should never get here, and I don't
+know how we did it, Tam and I; I don't know how we did it, but I kept my
+seat, and I gave a great pull. I felt as strong as a man, and I cried,
+'Tam! Tam! Tam!' and Tam,&mdash;oh, I don't know how he did it,&mdash;Tam got to
+his feet again, and then he flew, flew, <i>flew</i> over the ground. We'd
+lost a minute, and I expected every second the lariat would catch us
+sure after that, but it didn't, it didn't, and I'm here safe and sound.
+I've kept my promise, I've kept my promise, Lula."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she kep' her promise, she kep' her promise!" repeated Wallula in
+glad triumphant accents, glancing at her mother, and at the tall gaunt
+figure of her father standing in the shadow of the doorway.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0332" href="images/Illus0332s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0332t.jpg"
+ alt="Wallula clapped her hands with delight" width="331" height="262"></a><br>
+<i>Wallula clapped her hands with delight</i></p>
+<p>
+Wallula was a young girl, and this mystery of a Christmas-box was full
+of delight to her; but just then a greater delight&mdash;the joy of Major
+Molly's fidelity&mdash;made her forget everything else. But Molly did not
+forget. The minute she had finished her story she sprang to her feet,
+and produced the contents of the box. Wallula clapped her hands with
+delight when the pretty bright dress was held up before her.
+</p><p>
+"Just like Major Molly's,&mdash;just like Major Molly's! See! see!" she
+called out to her father and mother.
+</p><p>
+The mother nodded and smiled. The father's eyes lighted with an
+expression of deep gratification; then he leaned forward eagerly, and
+said to Molly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Tell 'gain 'bout where you saw&mdash;heard&mdash;lar'yet."
+</p><p>
+"Just as we got to the little pine-trees where the old Sioux trail
+stops," answered Molly, promptly.
+</p><p>
+"Yah!" ejaculated the Indian, grimly, in a tone of conviction. Then,
+turning, he took down a Winchester rifle, slung it over his shoulder,
+and started towards the door, saying to Molly as he did so: "You stay
+here with Wallula. I go up to fort and tell 'em 'bout you."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, take me with you, take me with you!" cried Molly, jumping up.
+</p><p>
+The Indian shook his head. When Molly insisted, he said tersely: "No,
+not safe for little white girl yet. Maje Molly stay here till I come
+back."
+</p><p>
+Molly's face fell. Wallula stole up to her. "I got bewt'ful Chris'mas
+present for Maje Molly," she said softly. "Maje Molly stay see it with
+Wallula."
+</p><p>
+"You dear!" cried Molly, flinging her arm round Wallula.
+</p><p>
+The Indian father nodded his head vigorously, and his face shone with
+satisfaction. "Yes, yes!" he said. "Wallula take care you. You stay till
+I come back."
+</p><p>
+In looking at and trying on the "bewt'ful Chris'mas present,"&mdash;a pair of
+elaborately embroidered moccasins lined and bordered with rabbit
+fur,&mdash;and in dressing Wallula up in the tartan dress, the time flew so
+rapidly that long before Molly expected it the cabin door opened again,
+and the tall gaunt figure reappeared.
+</p><p>
+Behind it followed another figure. Molly ran forward as she saw it,
+and, "Papa, papa!" she cried, "I waited and waited for Barney, and he
+didn't come; and I couldn't bear for Lula not to have her Christmas
+present to-night, for I'd promised it to her to-night. She told me, when
+I promised, that white people always broke their promises to Indians,
+and I said over and over that <i>I</i> wouldn't break <i>my</i> promise; and I
+couldn't&mdash;I couldn't break it, papa."
+</p><p>
+"You did quite right, my little daughter,&mdash;quite right."
+</p><p>
+There was something in her father's manner as he said this, a
+seriousness in his voice and in his eyes, that surprised Molly. She was
+still more surprised when the Indian suddenly said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"She little brave; she come all 'way 'lone to keep promise, so she not
+hurt my Wallula. She make me believe more good in white peoples; so I go
+to fort,&mdash;I keep friends."
+</p><p>
+"You've been a friend indeed. I sha'n't forget it; we'll none of us
+forget it, Washo," said Captain Elliston; and he put out his hand as he
+spoke, and grasped the brown hand of the Indian in a warm friendly
+clasp.
+</p><p>
+At the fort everything was literally "up in <i>arms</i>,"&mdash;that is, set in
+order for business, and that meant ready for resistance or attack. Molly
+had lived most of her fourteen years at some Western military post, and
+she recognized at once this "order" as she rode in.
+</p><p>
+"What <i>did</i> it mean?" she asked again, as the Colonel himself met her
+and hurried her into the dining-room; and the Colonel himself answered
+her,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It means, my dear, that Major Molly has saved us from being surprised
+by the enemy, and that means that she has saved us from a bloody fight."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;" faltered Molly. Then like a flash her mind cleared, and she
+struck her little hand on the table and cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It was an Indian, an unfriendly Indian, who followed me, and Washo knew
+it when I told my story!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Washo knew it, and, more than that, he had known for some days
+that those particular Indians had been planning a raid upon us, and he
+didn't interfere; he didn't warn us because he had begun to think that
+we were all bad white traders, and he wouldn't meddle with these braves
+who proposed to punish us, though he wouldn't go on the war-path with
+them. But, Major Molly, when he heard your story, when he saw how one of
+us could be a little white brave in keeping a promise to an Indian, <i>for
+your sake</i> he relented towards the rest of us."
+</p><p>
+"And when he asked me to tell him where I first heard the lariat&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"When he asked you that, he was making sure that it was his Sioux
+friends,&mdash;for he knew they were to send out a scout who would take
+exactly that direction."
+</p><p>
+"But why&mdash;why did the scout chase <i>me</i>?"
+</p><p>
+"He was after Tam, no doubt,&mdash;for this Sioux band is probably short of
+ponies, and Tam, you know, is a famous fellow,&mdash;and the moment the scout
+caught sight of him he would give chase."
+</p><p>
+"Did he get Ranger that way? And where, oh, where is poor Barney?"
+</p><p>
+"The probability is that the scout visited the corral first, and
+captured Ranger, who is almost as famous as Tam."
+</p><p>
+"But, Barney&mdash;oh, oh, <i>do</i> you think Barney has been killed?"
+</p><p>
+"We don't know yet, my dear. Your father has gone off to the ranch with
+a squad of men. He'll soon find out what's happened to Barney. And
+don't fret, my dear, about your father," seeing a new anxiety on Molly's
+face. "The raiders by this time have seen our signals, and have found
+out we're up and doing, and more than a match for them; so don't
+fret,&mdash;don't fret, any of you," turning to his wife and Mrs. Elliston.
+"I don't think there'll be so much as a skirmish."
+</p><p>
+And the Colonel was right. When the Indians saw the signals and the
+other signs of activity, they knew that their only chance of overcoming
+the whites by taking them unawares was gone. There were a few shots
+fired, but no skirmish; and by the time the moon rose, the fort scouts
+brought in word that the whole band had departed over the mountains. A
+few minutes after, when Captain Elliston rode in, the satisfaction was
+complete, for he brought with him the news of Barney's safety. Ranger,
+however, was gone. The Indian&mdash;or Indians, for there were two of them at
+that point&mdash;had succeeded in capturing him just as Barney had started
+out from the corral. A stealthy step, a skilful use of the lariat, and
+Barney was bound and gagged, that he might give no alarm; and all this
+with such quiet Indian alertness that a ranchman farther down the
+corral heard nothing.
+</p><p>
+So harmlessly ended this raid, that might have been a bloody battle but
+for Major Molly's Christmas promise!
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Valentine">POLLY'S VALENTINE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus125.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus125s.png"
+ alt="P" width="215" height="328" align="left"></a><br><br><br><br>
+olly was seven years old before she knew anything about valentines.
+This may seem very strange to most girls, for most girls have heard all
+about Valentine's Day by the time they are three or four, and have had
+no end of fun sending and receiving these friendly favors. But Polly
+didn't know a thing about them until she was seven. I'll tell you why.
+Polly was one of a number of children who lived in an Orphan's Home, and
+Polly herself was the youngest of the orphans.
+</p><p>
+One morning as she looked out of the window, she saw the postman
+suddenly surrounded by a whole flock of little girls, and heard one of
+them say, "Oh, <i>haven't</i> you got a valentine for me?" And then the whole
+flock cried, "And for me? and for me?" And the postman laughed
+good-naturedly, and, looking through his pack of letters, took out two
+or three quite big square envelopes, and handed them to one and another
+of the clamorous little crowd.
+</p><p>
+Polly, hearing and seeing all this, wondered what a valentine could be.
+She did not ask anybody the question, however, just then; but when the
+postman came around at noon, and she saw the same scene repeated, her
+curiosity could not be restrained any longer, and she started off to
+find Jane McClane,&mdash;for Jane was fourteen years old and knew everything,
+Polly thought.
+</p><p>
+Jane was in the linen-room mending a sheet when Polly found her, and
+being rather lonesome was quite willing to enter into conversation with
+any one who came along. But Polly's question made her open her eyes with
+surprise.
+</p><p>
+"A valentine?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say, Polly, you never
+heard of a valentine before?"
+</p><p>
+"No, never," answered Polly, feeling very small and ignorant.
+</p><p>
+"Well, to be sure," said Jane, "you're very little, and ain't 'round
+much, but I <i>should</i> have thought you'd have heard <i>somebody</i> say
+something about valentines before this; but you ain't much for listening
+and asking, I know."
+</p><p>
+"No," echoed Polly; "but I'm listening now."
+</p><p>
+Jane laughed. "Yes, I see you are. Well, a valentine is just a piece of
+poetry, with a picture to it, that anybody sends to a person on
+Valentine's Day."
+</p><p>
+"What's Valentine's Day?"
+</p><p>
+"Why, it's the day you send valentines, to be sure,&mdash;the 14th of
+February."
+</p><p>
+"Is it like Christmas? Was Valentine very good, and is it his birthday
+as Christmas is Christ's birthday?"
+</p><p>
+"Mercy, no! What queer things you do ask when you get going, Polly!
+Valentine's Day is just Valentine's Day, when folks send these poetry
+and picture things for fun, and don't sign their own names, only 'Your
+Valentine,' and that means somebody who has chosen&mdash;chosen to be
+your&mdash;well, your beau, maybe."
+</p><p>
+"What's a beau?" asked innocent Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Polly, you don't know <i>anything</i>!" cried Jane, in an exasperated tone.
+"A beau is&mdash;is somebody who likes you better 'n anybody else."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I wish I had one!"
+</p><p>
+"Had one&mdash;what?" asked Jane.
+</p><p>
+"A beau to like me like that; to send me a valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, oh! you are such a baby," laughed Jane.
+</p><p>
+"I ain't a baby!" cried Polly, indignantly; and then her lip quivered,
+and she began to cry.
+</p><p>
+"Hush, hush!" said Jane; "if Mrs. Banks hears you, she'll send you out
+of here quicker 'n a wink."
+</p><p>
+But Polly could not "hush" all at once, and continued to sob and sniff
+behind her apron; Jane trying in the mean time to soothe her, but not
+succeeding very well, until she thought to say,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"If you won't cry any more, Polly, I'll get Martha"&mdash;Martha was the
+chambermaid&mdash;"to show you <i>her</i> valentine; it's a beauty."
+</p><p>
+Polly dropped her apron and began to swallow her sobs, while Jane ran to
+Martha, who was very proud of her valentine, and very glad to show it
+even to little Polly Price; and the valentine <i>was</i> a beauty, as Jane
+had said. Polly, looking through the tears that still hung on her
+lashes at the group of little cherubs that were dancing out of lily-cups
+and roses, cried, "Angels, angels!" winding up with, "Oh, I <i>wish</i>
+somebody 'd send me a valentine!"
+</p><p>
+"She didn't know a thing about valentines; never heard of them till just
+now," Jane explained to Martha.
+</p><p>
+"Well, to be sure," said Martha, "she is the greenest little thing; but
+then she ain't never been to school like the rest of ye, and things is
+very quiet and out-of-the-way like in the Home here, and she's nothin'
+but a baby."
+</p><p>
+"I ain't a baby! I ain't, I ain't!" screamed Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Polly, Polly!" warned Jane. But Polly only burst out afresh in loud
+sobs and cries. Jane was a good-natured girl, but she could not stand
+this, and, reaching forward, she gave Polly a little shake, and said,
+"Now, Polly Price, you just stop and be a good girl, or I'll never have
+anything more to do with you."
+</p><p>
+Polly gasped. Three years ago, when she was first brought to the Home,
+she had been assigned to a little bed next the one that Jane occupied,
+and had been more or less under the elder girl's care. Jane had been
+very good to the child, and with her womanly ways and superior
+knowledge she stood to Polly for both mother and sister. No wonder,
+then, that she gasped at Jane's threat. What would she do if that threat
+were carried out, and Jane had nothing more to do with her? What would
+life be in the Home without Jane?
+</p><p>
+Polly did not ask herself these questions in exactly these words, but
+she felt the desolate possibility that had been suggested to her; and it
+was so appalling that it quite overpowered her flare of temper, and
+stopped her sobs and cries as effectually as Jane could have desired.
+But Jane herself, busy with her darning, did not notice the expression
+of Polly's face, and had no idea how deeply her words had penetrated the
+child's mind until hours afterwards, when, as she was preparing to go to
+bed, Polly's voice called softly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Jane, haven't I been a good girl since?"
+</p><p>
+Jane started. "What in the world are you awake for now, Polly Price?"
+she asked. "It's nine o'clock. You ought to have been asleep long ago."
+</p><p>
+"I couldn't go to sleep, I felt so bad," answered Polly.
+</p><p>
+"You felt so bad; where? Have you got a sore throat?" inquired Jane,
+remembering that a good many of the children's illnesses began with sore
+throat.
+</p><p>
+"No, 'tisn't my throat."
+</p><p>
+"Where is it, then&mdash;your stomach?"
+</p><p>
+"No, it's&mdash;it's my feelin's. I felt bad 'cause&mdash;'cause you said if I
+didn't stop cryin' and be a good girl, you wouldn' ever have anythin' to
+do with me any more. But I did stop, and I <i>have</i> been a good girl
+since, haven't I?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, oh, yes, you've been good since," bending down to tuck Polly in.
+As she stooped, Polly flung her arms around Jane's neck, and
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Do you love me just the same, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I guess so," replied Jane, smiling.
+</p><p>
+"I love you better 'n anybody in the world, Jane."
+</p><p>
+"And you'd choose me to be your valentine, then, wouldn't you?" laughed
+Jane.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes, yes; and if I could only send you one of those po'try picture
+things, I'd send you the most bewt'f'lest I could find. Don't you wish I
+could, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, of course I do."
+</p><p>
+"Did you ever have a valentine, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"No, never."
+</p><p>
+"Those girls 'cross the street had 'em, and Martha had one. Why don't
+you and I have 'em, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"You 'n' I? Those girls across the street know girls and boys who have
+fathers and mothers to give them money to buy valentines with."
+</p><p>
+"Why don't we know such girls and boys?"
+</p><p>
+"'Cause we don't. We're poor, and live in an Orphans' Home. Those girls
+only know folks that live like themselves."
+</p><p>
+"But Martha lives right here, just where we do, and Martha had a
+valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Martha's different. She's only paid for staying here to work. She's got
+folks outside that she belongs to. It was a cousin of hers sent her that
+valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Oh," and Polly gave a soft sigh, "I wish <i>we</i> had folks that we
+belonged to! Don't you, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"<i>Don't</i> I!" and as Jane said this, she dropped down upon Polly's little
+bed, and covered her face with her hands.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Jane, Janey! what's the matter? Has somebody hurted your feelings?"
+</p><p>
+"No, no," answered Jane, brokenly; "nobody in particular. I&mdash;I felt
+lonesome. I do sometimes when I get to thinking I don't belong to
+anybody and nobody belongs to me."
+</p><p>
+"Janey, <i>I</i> belongs to you, don't I?" And around Jane's neck two little
+arms pressed lovingly.
+</p><p>
+"You don't belong to me as a relation does. You ain't a sister or a
+cousin, you know."
+</p><p>
+"Can't you 'dopt me, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+Jane laughed through her tears. "What do you know about adopting?" she
+asked.
+</p><p>
+"Martha tole me 'bout it. She said folks of'n 'dopted children to be
+their very own, and that mebbe some time somebody'd 'dopt me; and I tole
+her then I didn' want anybody to 'dopt me, but&mdash;I'd like you to 'dopt
+me, Jane. Couldn't you?" with great earnestness.
+</p><p>
+"Of course not, Polly. Folks who adopt children are older 'n I am, and
+have money to take care of 'em. But I do wish some nice lady would adopt
+you,&mdash;some nice lady with a nice home."
+</p><p>
+"But I'd rather stay here 'long o' you, Jane. I don't want to go 'way
+from you; I'd be lonesome. But mebbe they'd 'dopt you too. Would you
+like to be 'dopted, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't know's I would. I'm too old now; I couldn't get to feel as if
+they were own folks, as if I really belonged to them, as you could.
+But, Polly," suddenly sitting up and looking very seriously at Polly,
+"you mustn't think I'm finding fault with the Home here. It's a very
+comfortable place, and we are treated well. I only feel kind of lonesome
+sometimes when I see girls like those across the street, who have
+mother-and-father homes."
+</p><p>
+"And valentines," cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Polly, Polly! you'll dream of valentines to-night," laughed Jane;
+"and mind you send me one in your dream, and the very prettiest you can
+find."
+</p><p>
+"I will, I will!" exclaimed Polly, flinging her arms again about Jane's
+neck, and giving her a good-night hug and kiss. "The very prettiest I
+can find! the very prettiest I can find!" And saying this over and over,
+Polly drifted away into the land of sleep.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+And sure enough, when it was well on towards morning, she did dream of
+valentines,&mdash;piles and piles of them, and out of them all she was
+hunting for the prettiest, when she heard a strangely familiar voice,
+calling,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, come, Polly! It's time to get up if you want any breakfast."
+</p><p>
+Polly opened her eyes to see Martha looking down at her. "Oh, Martha,
+Martha," she cried, "if you hadn't waked me, I should have got it. I'd
+<i>almost</i> found it, and in a little minute I'd 'a' had it sure."
+</p><p>
+"Had what?" asked Martha.
+</p><p>
+"Janey's valentine;" and, sitting up, Polly told her dream.
+</p><p>
+Martha laughed till the tears came. "You <i>are</i> the funniest young one we
+ever had here," was her comment, when she caught her breath. "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting out your money to
+buy valentines with."
+</p><p>
+"What's an heiress?" inquired Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, a girl that has a bankful of money," replied Martha, carelessly.
+</p><p>
+Polly gave one of her long-drawn "O&mdash;hs," then slipped out of bed, and
+began to dress so slowly that Martha said to her,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"What are you dreaming about now, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+But Polly didn't answer. She was too busy pulling on her stockings, and
+thinking of something else that Martha had said, and this "something"
+was "a girl with a bankful of money." Martha little suspected what
+effect her words had had, little thought what a fine scheme she had set
+going. If she had, the scheme would certainly never have been carried
+out, or never have been carried out as Polly planned it. And Polly knew
+this perfectly well, and kept as still as a mouse all through
+breakfast,&mdash;so still that the matron, Mrs. Banks, asked, "Don't you feel
+well, Polly?" whereat Polly choked over her oatmeal as she confusedly
+answered, "Yes, 'm."
+</p><p>
+If it had been any other child, Mrs. Banks would have suspected that
+there was some mischief brewing behind this stillness; but Polly had
+never been given to mischief, so she was not further questioned or
+observed, and thus left to herself she scampered back to the dormitory
+after the chamber-work was done, and, going straight to a small bureau
+that stood between Jane's bed and her own, she cautiously pulled out the
+lower drawer, and took from it a little toy house. This pretty toy house
+was nothing more nor less than a child's bank that had been given to
+Polly one Christmas, and into which she had dropped the pennies that had
+been bestowed upon her from time to time. Polly had long yearned for a
+paint-box; and whenever she went out, she used to stop at a certain
+shop-window where these tempting things were displayed, and wonder how
+much they cost. One day she summoned up courage to go in and ask the
+price of the smallest.
+</p><p>
+"Twenty-five cents," the clerk told her. Polly at first was dismayed.
+Twenty-five cents seemed a vast sum to her. But it was a long time yet
+to next Christmas, and perhaps by then she <i>might</i> find even as much as
+that in her bank. This hope had warmed her heart for weeks, so that when
+she was smarting under the first sense of disappointment about the
+valentines, she consoled herself with the thought of the little
+paint-box that might soon be hers. But when Martha had said, "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting your money out,"
+and had told her an heiress meant a girl with a bankful of money, like a
+flash of lightning came another thought into Polly's mind,&mdash;the thought
+that then and there from <i>her</i> little bank she might count the money to
+buy a valentine for her dear Jane; and once this thought had entered
+Polly's head there was no putting it out. Over and above everything it
+kept gaining, until it sent her to tugging at that red chimney. Then
+suddenly the chimney that had stuck so fast gave way.
+</p><p>
+Polly nearly fell backward, it was so sudden; but righting herself, she
+shook the treasure into her lap, and fell to counting it. She counted up
+to ten; that was as far as her knowledge of arithmetic went. Putting
+aside the ten pennies into a little pile, she began to count the rest.
+"One, two, three," she went on until&mdash;why, there was another pile of
+ten, and more yet; and the "more yet" counted up to five. Polly couldn't
+"do sums." She couldn't add these two piles of ten and the "more yet,"
+and she couldn't ask Jane or any one else in the house to do it for her.
+But what she <i>could</i> do, what she <i>would</i> do, was to slip the whole
+treasure back into the bank, and take it around to the shop on the
+corner, the shop where she had seen the paint-boxes, and where she was
+sure she should also find plenty of valentines. So getting into her
+little coat and hood, she scampered out and off, unseen and unheard by
+any of the household. It was rather terrifying to find several other
+customers in the shop, but she had no time to wait until they had left,
+and, going bravely forward, she called out, "Please, I want a
+valentine." But the clerk was busy, and paid no attention to her; so she
+pressed a little nearer, and piped out again in a louder tone, "Please,
+I want a valentine."
+</p><p>
+But even this did not succeed in getting his attention. Oh, what
+<i>should</i> she do! Perhaps in another minute Jane or Martha or Mrs. Banks
+would have missed her, and be hunting for her; perhaps they would be
+sending a policeman after her. Oh dear! oh dear! And summoning up all
+her courage, she cried out in a voice full of sobs and tears, "Oh,
+please, <i>please</i>, I want a valentine right off now this minute!"
+</p><p>
+"Don't you see I'm busy now?" said the clerk, sharply.
+</p><p>
+But the lady he was waiting upon had turned and looked at Polly as she
+spoke, and immediately said to the clerk,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, do attend to the child now. Her mother has probably told her to
+make haste."
+</p><p>
+"She hasn't any mother. She's one of the children at the Orphans' Home,"
+replied the clerk in a lower tone.
+</p><p>
+"Oh!" And the lady started and looked at Polly with new interest, and
+then insisted still more earnestly that she should be attended to at
+once, at the same time beckoning Polly to come forward.
+</p><p>
+Polly obeyed her; but as she glanced at the cheap little five-cent
+valentines the clerk put before her, she shook her head disdainfully. "I
+want a bigger one; I want the bewt'f'lest there is," she informed him.
+</p><p>
+The young man laughed. "How much money have you got?" he asked.
+</p><p>
+Polly produced her bank, and triumphantly shook out its contents.
+</p><p>
+"Oh,"&mdash;laughing again,&mdash;"all that? How much is it?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't know jus' exac'ly. I can count up to ten, and there's two ten
+piles, and&mdash;and&mdash;five cents more."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, two tens and five. Yes, I see,"&mdash;running his fingers over the
+little heap,&mdash;"that makes twenty-five. You've got twenty-five cents.
+Here are the twenty-five-cent valentines;" and he uncovered another box,
+and left her to make her choice.
+</p><p>
+"Twenty-five cents!" echoed Polly. Why, why, why, that was enough to buy
+the little paint-box! She glanced down at the twenty-five-cent
+valentines. They presented a dazzling sight of cherubs' heads and wings
+and flowery garlands. She lifted her chin a little higher, and there,
+staring her in the face, was the very little paint-box, with its two
+brushes and porcelain color plate, and it seemed to say to her: "Come,
+buy me now; come, buy me now. If you don't, somebody else will get me."
+And she <i>could</i> buy it now, if only&mdash;she gave up the valentine&mdash;Jane's
+valentine; and&mdash;why shouldn't she? She hadn't told Jane anything about
+it; Jane didn't expect it; Jane wouldn't ever know about it. Why
+shouldn't she? And Polly drew a deep sigh of perplexity as she asked
+herself this question.
+</p><p>
+"What is it?" a soft voice said to her here. "What is it that troubles
+you? Tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+</p><p>
+Polly started, and turned to see the lady who had made way for her
+standing beside her. The lady smiled reassuringly as she met Polly's
+perplexed glance, and said again,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"What is it? Tell me."
+</p><p>
+And Polly, looking up into the kind sweet face, told the whole
+story,&mdash;all about the long saving for the little paint-box, Jane's
+valentine, and everything, winding up eagerly with the appeal,&mdash;"And
+wouldn't <i>you</i> buy the paint-box now 'stead of the valentine, 'cos the
+paint-box mebbe'll be gone when I get more money?"
+</p><p>
+"Wouldn't I? Well, I don't know what I should have done when I was a
+little girl like you. I dare say, though, that I should have felt just
+as you do&mdash;have done just as you, I see, are going to do now."
+</p><p>
+"Bought the paint-box!" cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, bought the paint-box," laughed the lady.
+</p><p>
+Polly beamed with smiles, and gave a rapturous look at the treasure that
+was so soon to be hers. But presently the rapture faded, and a new
+expression came into her face. The lady was watching her very
+attentively.
+</p><p>
+"Well, what now?" she inquired. "Doesn't the paint-box suit you?"
+</p><p>
+Polly gave an emphatic nod. Perhaps it was that nod that sent two little
+tears to her eyes.
+</p><p>
+"Then, if it suits you, shall I speak to the clerk, and tell him you've
+changed your mind about the valentine, and will buy the paint-box?"
+</p><p>
+Polly shook her head, and two more tears followed the first ones.
+</p><p>
+"You're not going to buy the paint-box?"
+</p><p>
+"N&#8209;o, I&mdash;I gu&#8209;ess not. I guess I'll buy the valentine. Jane didn't ever
+get a valentine, and she hasn't got anybody to give her one but me."
+</p><p>
+The blurring tears made Polly's eyes so dim here, she could scarcely
+see; but through the dimness she sent one last good-by look at the dear
+paint-box, and then resolutely turned to the valentines, from which she
+selected the biggest and "bewt'f'lest" she could find, the lady crowning
+her kindness by stamping and directing it, and finally mailing it in the
+letterbox just outside the shop door.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"What yer watchin' for, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+Polly didn't answer.
+</p><p>
+"Guess I know," said Martha, laughing; "yer watchin' for the postman to
+bring yer a valentine."
+</p><p>
+"I ain't," said Polly.
+</p><p>
+Just then the postman crossed the street, and ring, ring, went the Home
+bell.
+</p><p>
+"I told you so," said Martha, as she ran down to answer it. In a minute
+she was back again holding out a big square envelope, and saying again,
+"I told you so."
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't for me," cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't your name Polly Price?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, here 's 'Polly Price' written as plain as print. Just look now!"
+and Martha held forth the missive.
+</p><p>
+Polly looked. She could read her own name in writing; and there it was,
+sure enough, plain as print,&mdash;Polly Price, and it was written on an
+envelope exactly like the one she had chosen to send to Jane. A fearful
+thought came into Polly's mind. She had told the lady her own
+name,&mdash;Polly Price,&mdash;and it was Polly Price she had written on the
+envelope instead of Jane McClane. Oh! oh! oh! and then Polly burst
+out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It ain't mine, it ain't mine, it's Jane's. The lady made a mistake."
+</p><p>
+"What lady?"
+</p><p>
+"The lady in the shop."
+</p><p>
+"What shop?"
+</p><p>
+And then Polly had to tell the whole story.
+</p><p>
+"And that's where you were after breakfast, you little monkey, breaking
+a bank, and running away with it, to buy Jane McClane a valentine. Well,
+if this isn't the funniest thing I ever heard of. Jane! Jane! come up
+here and show Polly <i>your</i> valentine!" And up came Jane, her face
+beaming with smiles, holding in one hand a big square envelope, and in
+the other an open sheet all covered with lilies and roses and cherubs'
+faces; that very "bewt'f'lest valentine" that had been chosen for her.
+</p><p>
+Polly, staring at it in amazement, cried out, "Why, she's got it! she's
+got it!" And then, pulling open the envelope addressed to Polly Price,
+she stared in amazement again, and cried out, "Why, this is just like
+<i>that</i> one,&mdash;the one I bought for you, Janey!"
+</p><p>
+And then it was Jane's turn to cry out in amazement, to say, "<i>You</i>
+bought it; how did <i>you</i> buy it, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+"She broke a bank and ran away with the money," laughed Martha.
+</p><p>
+"I didn't, either. The chimney's made to come out, and the bank's my
+bank," retorted Polly, indignantly.
+</p><p>
+"You took <i>your</i> money,&mdash;your money you've been saving to buy the
+paint-box with, to buy this valentine for me?" asked Jane.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+</p><p>
+"And gave up the paint-box! Oh, Polly, Polly, you're a dear;" and Jane
+swooped down upon Polly with a tremendous hug. Polly returned the
+embrace with ardor, and then, "Who d' you s'pose," she asked, "who d'
+you s'pose sent <i>me</i> one jus' exactly like yours? It must be somebody
+that likes me jus' as I like you, Janey."
+</p><p>
+"Mrs. Banks wants you to go down to the parlor, Polly. There's some one
+to see you," a voice interrupted here.
+</p><p>
+"To see <i>me</i>?" cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes,&mdash;don't stop to bother,&mdash;run along." And Polly ran along as fast
+as her feet could carry her, wondering as she went who had come to see
+<i>her</i>, who had never in her life had a visitor before. At the foot of
+the stairs she stopped in shy alarm. Then she tiptoed across the hallway
+to the parlor threshold, and there she saw the lady who had been so kind
+to her in the shop.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed Polly, joyfully.
+</p><p>
+The lady laughed, and held out her hand. "Yes, it's I," she said. "Did
+Jane get the valentine all right, and did she like it?"
+</p><p>
+Polly nodded, and then burst out with the story of her own
+valentine,&mdash;"Jus' like Janey's!"
+</p><p>
+"And who d' you s'pose sent it?" she asked confidingly, nestling against
+the lady's knee.
+</p><p>
+"I think it must have been one of the good Saint Valentine's
+messengers," answered the lady.
+</p><p>
+Polly's eyes opened very wide. "Saint Valentine! Tell me 'bout him," she
+said.
+</p><p>
+"A very wise man has told about him,&mdash;a man by the name of
+Wheatley,&mdash;and he says that this Valentine was a good bishop who lived
+long ago, and so famous for his love and charity that after he died he
+was called Saint Valentine, and a festival was held on his birthday,
+when all the people would send love tokens to their friends."
+</p><p>
+Polly's face was radiant. "Oh, I <i>thought</i> Valentine was a somebody very
+good, and that Valentine's Day was his birthday. I asked Jane if 't
+wasn't. Oh, Janey, Janey!" running to the foot of the stairs in her
+excitement, "come down and hear 'bout Saint Valentine!"
+</p><p>
+"Polly!" said Mrs. Banks, reprovingly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, don't stop her," cried the lady. "I like to hear her, and I want to
+see Janey." After this there was nothing for Mrs. Banks to do but to
+send for Jane. As the strong, womanly-looking girl entered the room, a
+new idea entered the lady's mind. "It's the very thing," she said to
+herself,&mdash;"the very thing." At that instant carriage wheels were heard
+at the door, and the bell was rung sharply and impatiently. "Oh, it must
+be my Elise," said the lady.
+</p><p>
+The next instant the door was opened, and in hopped&mdash;that is the only
+word to use&mdash;a little lame girl of ten or eleven, lifting herself along
+by a crutch. She was very pale, and her eyes were sunken with suffering;
+but she looked about her with a smile, and said in a quick, lively
+way,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I got tired of driving 'round the square waiting for you, mamma; so I
+thought I'd come in."
+</p><p>
+"I'm glad you did; I wanted you to see&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I know&mdash;Polly! Mamma 's told me all about you, Polly, you and Jane and
+the valentine; and that's Jane. How do you do, Polly? how do you do,
+Jane?" nodding and laughing at them in a way that made Polly and Jane
+laugh too, whereupon this odd little girl exclaimed, "That's right,
+laugh, do! I like laughy folks;" and then, as she said this, her little
+figure swayed and would have fallen, if Jane, who was very quick of
+motion, hadn't sprung forward and caught her in her arms. The girl's
+face was all puckered up into little wrinkles of pain; but as soon as
+she could speak, she said, "Aren't you strong, though, Jane!"
+</p><p>
+Jane couldn't say a word, but Polly piped out, "If I let you have my
+valentine to look at a little while, do you think you'd feel better?"
+</p><p>
+"Lots, Polly, lots. Mamma told me about you; and when you come to stay
+with us, you'll be a regular treat."
+</p><p>
+"Stay with you?" cried Polly, wonderingly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes; what," turning to her mother, "haven't you asked her yet, mamma?"
+</p><p>
+"No; I've only talked with Mrs. Banks."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I'll talk to Polly. Polly, we've been looking for a nice little
+girl like you to come and stay at our house. I'm lame, and I can't do
+much. When mamma came home and told me about you and the bank and the
+paint-box and the valentine, I said, 'That's the girl for me; let's go
+and ask her to come.' And <i>won't</i> you come, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I'd like to if&mdash;if Jane can come too."
+</p><p>
+"Don't. Polly. I can't&mdash;I can't!" whispered Jane.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried the lame Elise, entreatingly.
+</p><p>
+"Mamma" turned to Mrs. Banks. "If she <i>would</i> only come and help
+us,&mdash;come and try us, at least,&mdash;I'm sure we could make satisfactory
+arrangements."
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Banks nodded, and smiled approval. "Of course Jane can go if she
+chooses."
+</p><p>
+"And you <i>will</i> choose,&mdash;you will, won't you, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"Course she will," cried Polly; and then everybody laughed, and
+everything was as good as settled from that moment. Then it was that
+Polly burst out, "I should be puffickly happy now if I only knew jus'
+who that mess'nger was that sent my valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Tell her, mamma, tell her!" called out Elise; and "mamma" bent down,
+and said to Polly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It was somebody who saw what a loving heart a certain little girl had
+when she chose to give up her paint-box to buy her dear Jane a
+valentine."
+</p><p>
+"'Twas you, 'twas you!" cried Polly, joyfully. "Oh, I jus' love
+Valentine's Day, and I knew it must be Somebody's birfday,&mdash;some very
+good Somebody!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Sibyl">SIBYL'S SLIPPER.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus152.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus152s.png"
+ alt="W" width="165" height="137" align="left"></a><br>
+hen Sir William Howe succeeded General Gage as governor and military
+commander of the New England province, he at once set to work to make
+himself and the King's cause popular in a social way by giving a series
+of fine entertainments in the stately Province House.
+</p><p>
+To these entertainments were bidden all the Boston townsfolk who were
+loyal to the British crown. Amongst such, none were more prominent or
+made more welcome than Mr. Jeffrey Merridew and his pretty young niece,
+Sibyl.
+</p><p>
+Mr. Merridew was a stanch royalist, though he was by no means a violent
+hater of the rebels. Many of them were his old friends and neighbors;
+and his only brother, Dr. Ephraim Merridew,&mdash;Sibyl's father,&mdash;was a
+rebel at heart, though in far-away Barbadoes, where he was at that time
+engaged in business, he could not serve the rebel cause in person, as he
+would gladly have done. But he left behind him a son who, in full
+sympathy with his father's views, ranged himself boldly on the rebel
+side, as part and parcel of the American army.
+</p><p>
+A rebel relative in Barbadoes was not a matter to trouble oneself about
+greatly, but a rebel relative on the spot, so to speak,&mdash;for young
+Ephraim was only four miles away at the Cambridge rallying-ground,&mdash;was
+a different thing; and, amiable and easy-going as Mr. Jeffrey Merridew
+was disposed to be, his nephew's close proximity could not, under the
+peculiar circumstances, but be embarrassing and disturbing on occasions;
+for the young man, besides being his nephew, was Sibyl's brother, and
+Sibyl, as a member of a royalist's family,&mdash;for her father on his
+departure for Barbadoes had left his motherless girl in her uncle's
+charge,&mdash;could not, of course, be allowed free intercourse with one who
+had placed himself in an attitude of active hostility to the royal
+cause.
+</p><p>
+When Sibyl was apprised of this dictum, she at once made passionate
+protest against it. "What harm do the King's soldiers think poor Eph can
+do them by now and then paying a visit to his sister?" she asked her
+uncle scornfully.
+</p><p>
+"Harm? You are very young, Sibyl, and don't understand these things.
+Your brother has chosen very foolishly to join the rebel forces, and so
+has made himself one of our acknowledged enemies; and I never heard of
+declared enemies in time of war walking in and out of each other's
+houses like tame cats," answered Mr. Merridew, sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+"But Eph, such a boy as Eph, only nineteen, only two years older than I!
+What harm could he do now, more than he has ever done, by coming to his
+uncle's house as a visitor?" still persisted Sibyl, rather foolishly.
+</p><p>
+"What harm!" exclaimed Mr. Merridew, impatiently. "What a child you are,
+Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal
+government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that
+he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to
+see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if reported to his
+officers?"
+</p><p>
+"You think Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in
+high indignation.
+</p><p>
+"Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with
+irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting
+of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war
+tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'"
+</p><p>
+"And would you&mdash;would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a
+visitor,&mdash;would you&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything
+worth telling,&mdash;anything that I thought would save the cause I believed
+to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be
+my duty to do it."
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious
+business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels,
+like&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew
+hesitated.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded
+her uncle, gravely.
+</p><p>
+"No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame.
+They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play.
+It is the King's folk who are to blame,&mdash;the King's folk who want to
+oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater
+grandeur."
+</p><p>
+Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst.
+Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he
+said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these
+are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none
+too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong
+boy."
+</p><p>
+"But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother.
+They are his principles, and they are my principles too!"
+</p><p>
+"Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely
+tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an
+assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great
+laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy,
+to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see
+if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have
+those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her
+principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew."
+</p><p>
+"Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that."
+</p><p>
+"You will not promise? But you <i>have</i> promised."
+</p><p>
+"<i>Have</i> promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting
+yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a
+little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant
+beauty.
+</p><p>
+But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little
+provincial,&mdash;not he; and so, lifting up <i>his</i> head with an air of
+hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a
+moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged
+her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her
+to-night."
+</p><p>
+Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at
+her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"But I never reflect."
+</p><p>
+"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but
+perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance
+upon this"&mdash;and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted
+card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was
+written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised
+to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if
+they are to be had in the town!"
+</p><p>
+Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers&mdash;Sir Harry's
+roses&mdash;to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said,
+with a gleam of fun in her eyes,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for <i>him</i> to recall his friends
+and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an
+untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about
+with her, to charge <i>her</i> mind unaided."
+</p><p>
+"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath
+extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration
+of her ready wit,&mdash;"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss
+Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As
+I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he
+held out his hand to her.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0334" href="images/Illus0334s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0334t.jpg"
+ alt="A very pretty pair" width="261" height="335"></a><br>
+<i>A very pretty pair</i></p>
+<p>
+"A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as
+the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as
+the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his
+post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they
+would stand a test."
+</p><p>
+Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his
+one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about
+"our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the
+test against a full regiment of regulars."
+</p><p>
+"Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great
+interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge
+have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in
+a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us
+successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth
+if they attempt it."
+</p><p>
+"And you&mdash;the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl.
+</p><p>
+"We&mdash;well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions
+of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a
+vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah,"
+with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of
+this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a
+prize!"
+</p><p>
+"But there is no possibility of this?"
+</p><p>
+"Not the slightest. But you are pale,&mdash;don't be alarmed; there is no
+danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are
+certain."
+</p><p>
+"But if they had?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business
+better than their landsmen."
+</p><p>
+All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the
+music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way
+at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his
+companion falter.
+</p><p>
+"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
+</p><p>
+"My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she
+spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel
+of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night.
+For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not
+<i>he</i> do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a
+slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must
+be hammered and fitted on.
+</p><p>
+But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. <i>Something could</i> be
+done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She
+needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry&mdash;on his
+way to his quarters that night&mdash;would he think it beneath his dignity to
+leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there
+by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the
+shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box
+by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon
+it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish
+job, she knew.
+</p><p>
+Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her
+bidding.
+</p><p>
+And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to
+the cloak-room for a moment?
+</p><p>
+Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles.
+Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her
+pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken
+cord that had held her fan.
+</p><p>
+"And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry,
+smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later.
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps, if I may depend upon you&mdash;and Anthony Styles," she answered.
+Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like
+red twin roses.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<blockquote style="font-size:10pt; margin-left:40%;">
+  Robe of satin and Brussels lace,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">    Knots of flowers and ribbons too,</span><br>
+  Scattered about in every place,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">    For the revel is through.</span>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+And there, in the midst of all this pretty disorder of satin and lace
+and flowers, sits Sibyl, far into the night, or rather morning, turning
+over and over in her mind something that effectually banishes sleep.
+</p><p>
+By and by, as she turns it over for the twentieth time, she says aloud
+to herself: "To think that it should be given to <i>me</i> to do,&mdash;made <i>my</i>
+duty! Uncle Jeffrey taught me that, as he has taught me many things
+these past months,&mdash;to keep my own counsel, for one thing.
+</p><p>
+"Ah, Uncle Jeffrey, you have fancied me all these months naught but a
+vain little puppet who could be led to forget anything in a round of
+routs and balls. Well, I like the routs and balls dearly, dearly, but I
+like something else better. I like what my father has taught us, what
+my dear Eph is going to fight for, and perhaps die for, far, far better.
+Yet I felt like a cheat to-night as I led Sir Harry on to tell me what
+he did,&mdash;Sir Harry, who thinks me, as all the rest do, a stanch little
+Tory, for I have kept my counsel indeed, and no one suspects. But oh, it
+is odious, it is odious, this war business; yet I have been taught how
+to do my duty, and I have done it. Yes, I have done my duty, for 'the
+reporting of important facts, however gained, in times of war, is part
+of war tactics.' Yes, these are your words, Uncle Jeffrey, and oh, how
+they flashed up to me to-night when Sir Harry told me of the British
+vessel, and how they fairly rung in my ears like an order, when it
+suddenly came to me how I could get this important fact that I had
+gained sent to the right quarter by means of good Anthony Styles and
+that parcel-box of his, through which so many messages have gone safely.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh, if I didn't shiver so, when I think
+of it! Sir Harry, Sir Harry of all persons, dropping that message into
+Anthony Styles's hands,&mdash;Anthony Styles, the stanch rebel whom they
+think a stanch Tory! Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh! And now if
+everything goes well,&mdash;if everything goes well, my dear rebels will not
+be swept off the earth by British arms quite yet!
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0336" href="images/Illus0336s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0336t.jpg"
+ alt="Sibyl's reflections" width="358" height="259"></a><br>
+<i>Sibyl's reflections</i></p>
+<p>
+"But, hark! that is the clock; it is striking one, and I out of bed and
+gabbling to myself in this foolish way of mine, 'like a play-acting
+woman,' as Uncle Jeffrey would say of me. But I will not stay up a
+minute longer. So good-night, good-night, my dear rebels, g&mdash;ood-night!"
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 30%;">
+<p>
+The clock was striking four the next afternoon when a weather-beaten
+man, who had a look as if he had once been a seaman, knocked at the side
+door of Mr. Jeffrey Merridew's mansion and asked to see young Mistress
+Merridew.
+</p><p>
+"It's Shoemaker Styles," the maid informed Sibyl, "and he says you must
+come down and try on the slipper he has brought; he's not sure about the
+heel. He's in the hall-room, mem."
+</p><p>
+It was with a wildly beating heart that Sibyl, obeying this summons, ran
+down to the little hall-room where Anthony Styles awaited her.
+</p><p>
+He stood with the slipper in his hand as she entered the room; and
+before he could close the door behind her, he called out in a frank,
+loud voice: "I thought you had better try on the shoe, miss; I wasn't
+sure of the heel."
+</p><p>
+The moment the door was closed, however, he came forward eagerly, and in
+a low tone said: "It's all right, little mistress. I heard the click of
+the tunnel-box last night, for I hadn't turned in, and afore many
+minutes I was up and off in my boat with the message in my head; I burnt
+the paper! There was a stiff breeze, and I reached the cutter in the
+quickest time I ever made, and got back afore daylight with nobody the
+wiser. Shoemaker Styles understands his old sailor business better than
+shoemaking," with a grim laugh, "and no Tory knows these waters as I
+do."
+</p><p>
+"And it's all right, and the end will be all right?" faltered Sibyl,
+anxiously.
+</p><p>
+"All right! You'll know for yourself by nightfall, perhaps; and now God
+bless you, little mistress. You've done a great service; and if ever
+Anthony Styles can sarve you, he'll do it with a whole heart,&mdash;God bless
+you, God bless you!" and with these words Shoemaker Styles hurried off,
+leaving Sibyl with the slipper still in her hand, and both of them quite
+oblivious of that important trying-on process.
+</p><p>
+The day after the ball was a busy one for Sir Harry Willing, and it was
+not until late in the afternoon that he felt himself at liberty to take
+his accustomed saunter about town.
+</p><p>
+As he came in sight of the gilded boot, he smilingly thought: "I wonder
+if Shoemaker Styles has done his duty by the little slipper; if he has,
+I shall dance with my lady Sibyl at Madame Boutineau's this evening."
+</p><p>
+But Sir Harry did not dance at Madame Boutineau's that evening, for when
+at nightfall he returned to his quarters, he was met by the disastrous
+tidings that the long-looked for, eagerly expected British brig, loaded
+with supplies for the King's army, had been captured off Lechmere's
+Point by the Yankee rebels.
+</p><p>
+It was not many months after this capture that the British evacuated
+Boston. When Sir Harry Willing took leave of Sibyl Merridew, he pleaded
+for some token of remembrance.
+</p><p>
+"You will not promise yourself to me," he said in reproachful accents,
+"but give me some token of yourself, some gage of amity at least."
+</p><p>
+"But what&mdash;what can I give you, Sir Harry?" asked Sibyl, not a little
+touched and troubled.
+</p><p>
+"Give me the little slipper you wore that night we danced together at
+the Province House."
+</p><p>
+"That&mdash;that slipper?" and Sibyl blushed and paled.
+</p><p>
+"Yes&mdash;ah, you will, you will."
+</p><p>
+A moment's hesitation; then with a strange smile, half grave, half gay,
+Sibyl answered, "I will."
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Samaritan">A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus170.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus170s.png"
+ alt="I" width="191" height="225" align="left"></a><br><br>
+t was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in
+their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their
+lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke,
+with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and
+exclaimed, "We <i>can't</i> be good as they were in those Bible days, no
+matter <i>what</i> anybody says; things are different."
+</p><p>
+"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"
+</p><p>
+Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who
+had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and
+bound up his wounds and took care of him.
+</p><p>
+"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of
+a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those
+particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to
+people who are in trouble,&mdash;people who need things done for them."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have
+now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable
+societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see
+them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."
+</p><p>
+"We can do some things in vacations,&mdash;get up fairs and things of that
+kind, and give the money to the poor."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the
+money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that
+all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our
+eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was
+keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected <i>me</i> to
+do."
+</p><p>
+"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any
+more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,&mdash;five
+minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid
+is so frowzely."
+</p><p>
+"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you
+used to?"
+</p><p>
+"I told you why yesterday,&mdash;because that Burr girl has made me sick of
+curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd
+make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came
+out with that fiery thing of hers. <i>Isn't</i> it horrid?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, horrid!"
+</p><p>
+A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the
+supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the
+dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a
+heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied
+back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery
+red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could
+have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside
+her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls,
+her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every
+movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the
+reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to
+go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she
+crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer.
+Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey
+tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the
+end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat,
+tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This
+was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up
+with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a
+little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so
+careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.
+</p><p>
+"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this
+term; but there's <i>one</i> thing I'm not going to do any more,&mdash;I'm not
+going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she <i>does</i> dress
+so!" concluded Janey.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She
+chooses her things herself," said Eva.
+</p><p>
+"No!" exclaimed Janey.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what
+she likes."
+</p><p>
+"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things!
+Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"
+</p><p>
+"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She <i>has</i> lived 'way off
+out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army
+officer of some kind."
+</p><p>
+"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a
+voice outside the door.
+</p><p>
+"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night,
+good-night."
+</p><p>
+The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great
+hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered
+as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that
+seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in
+her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little
+Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled
+when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice
+went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her
+age,&mdash;their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that
+Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,&mdash;Miss Vincent,
+in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do&mdash;oh, so much!
+You are thinking of only one way of doing,&mdash;helping the poor, visiting
+people in need. I <i>don't</i> think you can do much of that. I think that
+<i>is</i> mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your
+own,&mdash;a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day
+and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through
+such suffering once,&mdash;was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let
+me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was
+between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent
+to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So
+when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst
+themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly
+way and laughing at <i>me</i>, and I immediately straightened up and put on a
+stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only
+prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became
+very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided
+way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a
+while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to
+conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still
+misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at
+this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other
+girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the
+whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were
+down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't
+stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to
+worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them
+like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,&mdash;forgot everything but my
+desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even
+conflict,&mdash;thirty girls against one; and at length I did something
+dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my
+ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three
+of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against
+them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that,
+and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated
+me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that
+I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the
+ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the
+details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening
+of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the
+dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers
+to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all
+of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not
+even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was
+natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't
+remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me
+away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."
+</p><p>
+"They were horrid girls,&mdash;horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.
+</p><p>
+"No; they were like any ordinary girls who <i>don't think</i>. But you see
+how different everything might have been if only <i>one</i> of them had
+thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been
+suffering, and"&mdash;smiling down upon Eva&mdash;"been a good Samaritan to me."
+</p><p>
+"They were horrid, or they <i>would</i> have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm
+sure <i>I</i> don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."
+</p><p>
+"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was
+silent.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head,
+Eva; and you never get things right,&mdash;never!"
+</p><p>
+"I think you are very unkind."
+</p><p>
+"Well, you can think so. <i>I</i> think&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;"
+then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller
+entered.
+</p><p>
+"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.
+</p><p>
+"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.
+</p><p>
+"Cordelia Burr?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with
+her."
+</p><p>
+"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her.
+When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking
+of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with <i>her</i>, as
+those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."
+</p><p>
+"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.
+</p><p>
+Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it
+into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we
+are like those horrid girls."
+</p><p>
+"Not like them; not as bad as they were, <i>yet</i>; but we might be if we
+kept on, maybe."
+</p><p>
+"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet,
+pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and
+we&mdash;I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like
+Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls
+do."
+</p><p>
+"But you&mdash;we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't
+dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of
+things that we were in, a good many times."
+</p><p>
+"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so
+disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never
+in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in
+everything else it's just the same."
+</p><p>
+"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."
+</p><p>
+"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.
+</p><p>
+"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and
+independent as she can be."
+</p><p>
+"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are
+not on the wrong track with her; and I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take
+notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be
+pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just
+one thing more: I'll say, if you <i>do</i> begin this, you'll have to do it
+alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of
+the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and
+a nice time you'll have of it."
+</p><p>
+Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for
+she was choking with tears,&mdash;tears that presently found vent in "a good
+cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.
+</p><p>
+What should she do? What <i>could</i> she do with all the girls against her?
+If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss
+Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.
+</p><p>
+Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very
+sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that
+could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the
+same impression upon Alice,&mdash;that Alice had not seen in it, as she had,
+a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was
+Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest
+of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might&mdash;it might
+make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more,
+to&mdash;to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter
+would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her
+task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss
+Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."
+</p><p>
+About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the
+other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.
+</p><p>
+"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this
+time; she is so fond of the gym."
+</p><p>
+"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day,"
+whispered Janey.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have&mdash;But there
+she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here
+and try the bars with us."
+</p><p>
+Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this
+pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody,
+and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward
+and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment
+everything that was unpleasant.
+</p><p>
+There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined
+plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung
+down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track,
+as they called it.
+</p><p>
+They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came
+in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried
+forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice
+gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and,
+pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who
+had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even
+to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was
+accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track
+there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem
+enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and
+heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a
+different aspect. But what&mdash;what ought she to do? What <i>could</i> she do
+then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls,
+and Alice&mdash;Alice specially&mdash;would be <i>so</i> angry. Oh, no, no, she
+couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came
+to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face
+flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.
+</p><p>
+"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed
+again through Eva's mind.
+</p><p>
+"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace
+faltered here.
+</p><p>
+Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was
+going towards the door.
+</p><p>
+"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.
+</p><p>
+But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and
+dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"
+</p><p>
+Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.
+</p><p>
+Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia!
+Cordelia!"
+</p><p>
+The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What
+was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and
+Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,&mdash;even they
+wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant
+she cried breathlessly, "We&mdash;I&mdash;didn't mean to crowd you out; it&mdash;it
+wasn't fair; and&mdash;and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia,
+won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot
+everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary
+admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did&mdash;<i>against them
+all</i>! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and
+her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to
+start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take
+place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most
+unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn
+with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish,
+independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer.
+Instead of that&mdash;instead of coldness and haughty independence&mdash;they saw
+her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then,
+dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of
+tears,&mdash;not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that,
+like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart
+after long repression.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia,
+"don't, don't cry."
+</p><p>
+Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but
+as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her
+head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching
+saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe
+away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!
+don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning
+sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking
+voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret
+gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and
+one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed
+fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they
+passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to
+Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what
+they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately,
+"Oh, girls, I should think&mdash;" and then broke down completely, and bowed
+her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody
+else took up her words,&mdash;the very words she had used a second
+ago,&mdash;somebody else whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder,
+and she looked up to see&mdash;Alice King standing beside her. And then it
+seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of
+them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly
+piped out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"We&mdash;we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."
+</p><p>
+And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered
+out: "Care? How&mdash;how could I hel&mdash;help caring?"
+</p><p>
+"But we thought&mdash;we thought you didn't like us," said another,
+hesitatingly.
+</p><p>
+"And I&mdash;I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise
+me more if&mdash;if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little
+sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and
+then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong
+track."
+</p><p>
+Just here a bell in the hall&mdash;the signal to those in the gymnasium that
+their half-hour was up&mdash;rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and
+repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses
+and prepare for dinner.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms
+around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.
+</p><p>
+"Good? Don't&mdash;don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.
+</p><p>
+"But you <i>were</i>. I&mdash;I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+Alice now flung <i>her</i> arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug,
+as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I&mdash;I've been&mdash;a
+little fiend, I suppose, and I <i>was</i> horridly angry at first; but when
+I&mdash;I saw how&mdash;that Cordelia really was&mdash;that she really felt what she
+did, I&mdash;oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood
+mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, <i>there's</i> a little
+Samaritan."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Alice!"
+</p><p>
+"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by
+liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though
+I'm going to behave myself, and <i>bear</i> with her, I shall never come up
+to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she <i>does</i> dress so! I'm
+going to behave myself, though, I am,&mdash;I am; but I hope she won't expect
+too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's
+too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress
+and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but
+she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if
+she doesn't."
+</p><p>
+And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much
+in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like
+another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her
+self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and
+apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a
+girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere,
+and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so
+far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by
+it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She <i>does</i> dress
+so!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Esther">ESTHER BODN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus191.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus191s.png"
+ alt="O" width="182" height="292" align="left"></a><br><br><br>
+h, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and
+dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and
+papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told
+me to ask you."
+</p><p>
+"If it was any other evening."
+</p><p>
+"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"
+</p><p>
+"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."
+</p><p>
+"Esther Bodn!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I
+fixed Thursday,&mdash;to-morrow."
+</p><p>
+"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,&mdash;that mamma and
+papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I
+shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't want to do that, Kitty."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"
+</p><p>
+"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't
+want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very
+ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a
+visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,&mdash;that
+you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,&mdash;and
+Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."
+</p><p>
+"But that was different, Kitty."
+</p><p>
+"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Kitty, you <i>know</i>."
+</p><p>
+"But I <i>don't</i> know."
+</p><p>
+Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation
+she said: "Esther is&mdash;is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she
+doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,&mdash;quite poor, Kitty."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately
+responded Kitty.
+</p><p>
+"Now, Kitty, you <i>do</i> see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't
+visit the people that we do."
+</p><p>
+"She doesn't visit <i>anybody</i>, so far as I know."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when
+she and her mother have made preparations for company&mdash;even one
+person&mdash;it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience
+to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to
+do it."
+</p><p>
+"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?"
+asked Kitty, sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way,
+but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that
+Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother
+wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."
+</p><p>
+"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor,
+like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in
+a wondering tone.
+</p><p>
+"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with
+decision.
+</p><p>
+"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should be sent to Miss
+Milwood's school. I shouldn't think they could afford it," went on
+Kitty; "why, the place for her is a public school."
+</p><p>
+"But, Kitty, don't you know that Esther assists Miss Milwood,&mdash;that it
+is Esther who looks over all the French and German exercises, and makes
+the first corrections before mademoiselle takes them?"
+</p><p>
+"Esther Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes,&mdash;why, Esther, you must have noticed, is very proficient in French
+and German. She and her mother have lived abroad and here, in French and
+German families, to prepare her for being a teacher. She has a great
+natural aptitude, too, for languages."
+</p><p>
+"How in the world did you find all this out, Laura?"
+</p><p>
+"I didn't <i>find it out</i>, as you call it,&mdash;there is no secret about
+it,&mdash;Esther would no doubt have told you as much, if you had got as well
+acquainted with her as I have."
+</p><p>
+"I don't see how you came to get so well acquainted with her. She's nice
+enough, but I could always see that she wasn't like the rest of us,&mdash;of
+our set."
+</p><p>
+"Like the rest of us! She's just as good as the rest of us, and better
+than some of us."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I dare say," said Kitty, in a patronizing tone.
+</p><p>
+"She may not be of our set, as you say, Kitty; but when I think of how
+Maud and Florence Aplin talk sometimes, I don't feel very proud of
+belonging to 'our set.'"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are
+nice girls, and it is a nice family, mamma says."
+</p><p>
+"Every one seems to say that about them, and I've often wondered what
+they meant. I'm sure Mr. Aplin isn't very nice. He has no end of money,
+I know, but he can be so rude, and Mrs. Aplin is so patronizing. Now,
+why should they be called such 'nice people'?"
+</p><p>
+Kitty straightened herself up, put on a very knowing look, and repeated
+parrot-like what she had heard older persons say,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Mrs. Aplin was a Windlow."
+</p><p>
+"What in the world is a Windlow?" asked Laura, rather sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+Kitty was a worldly young woman, but she was also full of fun; and this
+question of Laura's amused her mightily, and with a suppressed giggle
+she answered demurely: "I think it has something to do with windows. The
+Windlows were English, and I believe their business was to open and shut
+the windows in the king's palaces,&mdash;perhaps to wash them. This all began
+ages ago, and it was considered a great honor, a tip-top thing to do,
+especially when the windows were high up. The honor has descended from
+generation to generation, and the name with it, I believe. They had some
+very ordinary name at the start."
+</p><p>
+The giggle, that had been suppressed up to this point, now burst forth
+in a shout of laughter, wherein Laura herself joined, exclaiming, as she
+did so, "Oh, Kitty, you are so ridiculous!"
+</p><p>
+"Why don't you make a rhyme and say, 'Oh, Kitty, you're so witty'? But,
+Laura, it is you who are odd and ridiculous, to pretend that you don't
+know that Windlow is one of the oldest names of one of the oldest
+families who came over to America in the Mayflower,&mdash;regular old
+aristocrats."
+</p><p>
+"Now, Kitty, I'm up in my history, if I'm not on this society stuff, and
+just let me tell you that those first settlers of America who came over
+in the Mayflower were <i>not</i> aristocrats."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Laura, when everybody who can, brags of a Mayflower ancestor! I
+heard Mrs. Arkwright say to mamma, the other day that the Aplins were of
+the real old Mayflower blue blood."
+</p><p>
+"Then Mrs. Arkwright, with the 'everybody' you tell of, doesn't know
+what history says."
+</p><p>
+"Why, I'm sure I thought that was history."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it isn't. Last year I went with my father to Plymouth, and he
+took me to the famous rock where the Mayflower pilgrims landed, and
+afterward he gave me a lovely book called 'The Olden Time,' by Edmund
+Sears, that told me all about the pilgrims,&mdash;who they were, and why they
+came over, and everything, and I remember it said in this book that the
+Plymouth pilgrims were constantly confounded&mdash;those were the very
+words&mdash;with the Puritans who came over nine years later to
+Massachusetts."
+</p><p>
+"But Plymouth is in Massachusetts."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know, but it wasn't in that day. It was simply Plymouth Colony.
+The Mayflower sailed by Cape Cod into Plymouth Bay. They named the bay
+Plymouth, as they named the town Plymouth, for the old Plymouth in
+England."
+</p><p>
+"Did they name Cape Cod too?"
+</p><p>
+"No; that name was given years before by Captain Gosnold, an early
+voyager."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I know, he caught such a lot of codfish there. I wish he'd never
+discovered the place; I hate codfish. But go on with your history
+lesson, Miss Brooks. I haven't any Mayflower ancestors, and so I'm more
+than resigned to have them taken down from their aristocratic peg."
+</p><p>
+"But they were lovely people,&mdash;lovely; kind and good to everybody,
+whether they believed as they did or not, for they had been persecuted
+themselves in the old country they had left for their opinions, and they
+meant that every one in the new country should worship as they pleased.
+They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says,
+'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who
+came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the
+aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the
+Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and
+interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of
+strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of
+'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was
+bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New
+England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think
+that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."
+</p><p>
+Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's
+astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls
+were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura
+looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call
+out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, "<i>What</i> is
+such larks?"
+</p><p>
+Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have
+pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful
+little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only&mdash;what does
+your history book say? Oh, I have it&mdash;'from the middle and humbler walks
+of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors&mdash;can't you see
+that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little
+bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these
+Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"
+</p><p>
+"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"
+</p><p>
+"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought,
+and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,&mdash;that if it wasn't for
+that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now&mdash;and now, Brooksie, I
+shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of
+perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed
+full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact,
+even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"
+</p><p>
+"I haven't neglected you."
+</p><p>
+"Well, snubbed me, then."
+</p><p>
+"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther;
+that's all."
+</p><p>
+"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura&mdash;Esther
+Bodn&mdash;Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't think it's horrid at all. I like it."
+</p><p>
+"B-o-d-n&mdash;Bodn&mdash;it sounds awfully common."
+</p><p>
+"Why, Kitty, it's spelled B-o-w-d-o-i-n, the same as our Bowdoin Street,
+and pronounced Bod'n, as that is!"
+</p><p>
+"Is it, really? I didn't know that."
+</p><p>
+"I'm sure Bowdoin Street sounds well enough."
+</p><p>
+"Well, yes, I've always rather liked the sound of it; but then, you
+know, I always <i>saw</i> and <i>felt</i> the spelling, when I saw it. What in the
+world was the pronunciation ever snipped off like that for? It ought to
+be pronounced just as it is spelled. I've a good mind to pronounce it so
+the next time I speak to Esther."
+</p><p>
+"No, I wouldn't do that; but you might <i>think</i> of her as Miss Bowdoin,"
+answered Laura, dryly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Laura, what a head full of wisdom you've got! I don't see how I
+ever lived without you. But&mdash;see here, tell me what street Miss Bowdoin
+lives in."
+</p><p>
+Laura hesitated a moment; then answered, "McVane Street."
+</p><p>
+"Where is McVane Street, for pity's sake? I never heard of it,&mdash;one of
+those horrid South End streets, I suppose?"
+</p><p>
+"No, it is at the West End, beyond Cambridge Street, down by the
+Massachusetts Hospital."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, Laura Brooks, you <i>don't</i> mean that she lives down there by the
+wharves?"
+</p><p>
+"It isn't by the wharves," cried Laura, indignantly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, it isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets,
+given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going
+to take tea with a girl who lives in that frowsy, dirty place!"
+</p><p>
+"It isn't frowsy and dirty. It's only an old, unfashionable street, but
+not frowsy or dirty. It's quite clean and quiet, and has shade-trees and
+little grass plots to some of the houses. Why, it used to be the court
+end of the town years ago."
+</p><p>
+"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now
+it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,&mdash;Russian Jews, and every
+other kind of a foreigner,&mdash;and look here!" suddenly interrupting
+herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this
+Esther Bodn is a foreigner,&mdash;an emigrant herself of some sort."
+</p><p>
+"Kitty!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,&mdash;eight-buttoned ones,&mdash;and I don't
+believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe
+they&mdash;her mother and she&mdash;spell it that way <i>to suit themselves</i>. I
+believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,&mdash;it's
+slander."
+</p><p>
+Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little
+undertone,&mdash;
+</p>
+<blockquote>
+  "Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief<br>
+   Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."
+</blockquote>
+<p class="cont">Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the
+laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Laura, how <i>did</i> it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?"
+interrupted Kitty.
+</p><p>
+"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston
+Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out
+with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying
+some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my
+offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon
+Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books,
+and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'
+</p><p>
+"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with
+you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I
+didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with
+her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a
+mistake,&mdash;that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how
+to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my
+insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge
+Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,&mdash;she felt
+sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.
+</p><p>
+"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so
+sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take
+no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to
+me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she
+went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and
+second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so
+thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over
+and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds
+of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I
+said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the
+street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country
+there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked
+old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly
+painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one
+of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over
+the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I
+felt,&mdash;that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there,
+and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking
+the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second,
+as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to
+come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,&mdash;that they were
+very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come
+very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty,
+laughing.
+</p><p>
+"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set
+the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but
+she is a very interesting girl,&mdash;my mother thinks she is too."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"
+</p><p>
+"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see
+the pictures,&mdash;she's very fond of pictures,&mdash;and mamma asked her to stay
+to luncheon, but she couldn't."
+</p><p>
+"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to
+sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"
+</p><p>
+"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her
+brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute
+she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was
+calling after her mischievously,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl
+who lives on McVane Street!"
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so
+completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything
+else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the
+"Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean
+by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"
+</p><p>
+"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,&mdash;Esther Bodn."
+</p><p>
+"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's
+school?"
+</p><p>
+"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's
+assistance in the way of the French and German.
+</p><p>
+"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this,
+as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject
+from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while
+Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her
+brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might
+find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I
+shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says
+that I may."
+</p><p>
+But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next
+day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the
+young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter
+altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little
+journey to McVane Street.
+</p><p>
+Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she
+was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might
+be in time for her own dinner hour,&mdash;had laughed and said, "Oh, a
+regular 'four-to-six,'&mdash;a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on
+'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish <i>I</i> could go with you,&mdash;I
+never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a
+little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone
+on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself,
+Laura had retorted,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't
+appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if
+the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane
+Street didn't happen to please your taste."
+</p><p>
+These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of
+the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a
+chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when
+she followed Esther up the stairs,&mdash;for it was Esther who had answered
+her ring,&mdash;and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought
+pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal
+fashion."
+</p><p>
+It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the
+stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a
+door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura,
+turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that
+by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for
+it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with
+the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up
+a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils,
+and two or three fine etchings,&mdash;all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly
+dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still
+brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples
+and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in
+the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness
+stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned
+tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups
+and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a
+'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could
+see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't
+mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she <i>does</i> live on
+McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more
+absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,&mdash;a little
+New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the
+Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation
+of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the
+country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know
+where to choose a home."
+</p><p>
+Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had
+chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more
+completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the
+windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs
+of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,&mdash;bits of
+coral and ivory and mosses,&mdash;things grew plainer than ever, and she
+began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and
+pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little
+women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just
+when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard
+Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0338" href="images/Illus0338s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0338t.jpg"
+ alt="A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting" width="360" height="258"></a><br>
+<i>A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting</i></p>
+<p>
+"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and
+Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little
+person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her
+daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that
+she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who&mdash;who was
+it she suggested?
+</p><p>
+All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where
+<i>had</i> she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her
+again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little
+third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where <i>had</i> she
+seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as
+the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the
+question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face,
+and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated
+expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura
+answered eagerly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by
+some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his
+library, and it is so like you, <i>so</i> like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I
+saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the
+sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was
+its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, <i>do</i> you know the picture,
+Mrs. Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not
+painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is
+now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."
+</p><p>
+"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was
+painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,&mdash;I was the
+model."
+</p><p>
+"You were a&mdash;a&mdash;the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I was a&mdash;a&mdash;the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own
+halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm.
+Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in
+Munich."
+</p><p>
+"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.
+</p><p>
+"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and
+see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being
+introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"&mdash;a tall, good-looking boy of
+fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next
+moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.
+Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying
+through Laura's mind,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her
+daughter's and her nephew's names,&mdash;Esther, David,&mdash;these also Hebrew
+names!" What did it signify? Kitty&mdash;Kitty would say that it proved <i>she</i>
+was right,&mdash;that they <i>were</i> the very people she had said they were.
+But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
+classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother <i>had</i> been a model years
+ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
+ashamed of it; and Esther,&mdash;Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
+be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
+no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
+would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
+foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
+as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
+Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
+the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
+carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
+when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
+walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
+happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
+friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
+words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
+passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
+like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.
+</p><p>
+What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
+exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
+was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
+brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
+by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
+Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
+little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
+of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
+disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
+injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
+heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
+often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
+fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly,
+that you seemed to like most of all,&mdash;
+</p><blockquote>
+  "'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth<br>
+    May bear the prize and a' that;'
+</blockquote>
+<p class="cont">"and yet now, now&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,&mdash;"my
+dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,&mdash;it is because we don't
+know anything about them."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I think it is because you <i>do</i> know that&mdash;that they live on McVane
+Street," faltered Laura.
+</p><p>
+"Well, that <i>is</i> to know nothing about them, in the sense that father
+means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that
+they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,&mdash;people
+that we don't <i>want</i> to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other
+day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your
+teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks
+who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."
+</p><p>
+"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than
+Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."
+</p><p>
+"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering
+little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish
+face."
+</p><p>
+"He has <i>not</i>," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It
+was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind
+that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that
+of her nephew rose before her! If they&mdash;if they&mdash;her brother, her
+father, could see these faces,&mdash;these faces so fine and intelligent, and
+saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's
+library,&mdash;would they feel differently,&mdash;would they do justice to Esther
+and her relations, though they <i>were</i> Jews,&mdash;would they admit that they
+were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no,
+she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind,
+and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive
+answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one
+class,&mdash;the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the
+lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the
+lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That
+great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there,
+Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the
+Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels
+Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and
+'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted
+her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of
+your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush
+into any intimacy with such strangers."
+</p><p>
+There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very
+plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that
+henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All
+her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming
+her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with
+the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be
+good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to
+her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She
+would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind
+and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in
+spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.
+Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got
+interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But,
+alas, for this scheme!
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She
+had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in
+near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then
+"made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura,
+airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn,
+in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the
+listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that
+every girl had passed from indifference to an active prejudice against
+Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed,
+Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,&mdash;"making
+fun;" and when the girls, relishing this "fun," laughed and applauded,
+she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura,
+however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther
+subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the
+person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon
+Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was
+apparently hard at work.
+</p><p>
+"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower;
+and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the
+exercises upon the desk.
+</p><p>
+"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always
+knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not
+unkind. Now&mdash;they&mdash;seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy,
+but&mdash;but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and&mdash;and
+sometimes they seem to avoid me, and&mdash;I'm just the same as ever,
+except&mdash;except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been
+rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some
+money,&mdash;not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have
+anything new; and&mdash;and there's another thing&mdash;one morning I overheard
+one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'
+They must have been talking about me and where I live. Nobody else here
+lives on McVane Street, and we&mdash;mother and I&mdash;wouldn't live there if we
+could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and
+this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could
+pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it <i>isn't</i> bad,
+it <i>isn't</i> low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I
+thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd
+always heard that Boston girls&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of
+any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick&mdash;sick of girls. Girls
+will do things and say things&mdash;little, mean, petty things&mdash;that boys
+would be ashamed to do or say."
+</p><p>
+"Then you <i>do</i> think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live
+that&mdash;that has made them&mdash;these girls so&mdash;so different; but why should
+they&mdash;all at once? I can't understand."
+</p><p>
+"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them&mdash;they don't
+mean&mdash;they don't know&mdash;they are not worth your notice. You are a long,
+long way above them!"
+</p><p>
+"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John
+Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,&mdash;he died in Munich; he
+was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my
+father's death,&mdash;we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew
+some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He
+didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious,
+hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and <i>he
+knew</i>, for <i>he</i> hadn't made a success any more than my father
+had,&mdash;and&mdash;and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane
+Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But <i>I</i> wanted to come
+from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was
+sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and
+high-minded, and&mdash;" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at
+this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with,
+"and then I knew my father's people had once&mdash;" But at this point,
+"Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises
+into my room, and we'll finish them together."
+</p><p>
+Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle,
+calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art
+Club?"
+</p><p>
+"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."
+</p><p>
+"Well, we'll go together, then."
+</p><p>
+"Very well."
+</p><p>
+"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice,
+"Laura, what <i>is</i> the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What
+have I done?"
+</p><p>
+"You've done a very cruel thing."
+</p><p>
+"Laura!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,&mdash;you have done a very cruel thing."
+</p><p>
+"For pity's sake, what do you mean?"
+</p><p>
+"You may well say 'for <i>pity's</i> sake;'" and then Laura burst forth and
+repeated, word for word, the conversation that had transpired between
+Esther and herself, concluding with, "And you&mdash;<i>you</i>, Kitty, are to
+blame for this, for it is you who have prejudiced the girls against
+Esther with your talk about McVane Street and the foreigners in that
+neighborhood."
+</p><p>
+"I? Just my little fun about McVane Street and your sunset tea there?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, just your little fun! I know what your fun is! Oh, Kitty, Kitty,
+I <i>did</i> think you had a kind heart! But to be the means of hurting
+anybody, as you have hurt Esther,&mdash;it is&mdash;it is&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Laura, Laura, don't," as Laura here broke down in a little fit of
+sobbing. "Of course I didn't know&mdash;I didn't think. Oh, dear, I'll tell
+the girls I didn't mean a word I said,&mdash;that I'm the biggest liar in
+town; that Esther is an heiress; that&mdash;that&mdash;oh, I'll do or say
+anything, if you'll only stop crying, Laura. There, there," as Laura
+tried to stifle a fresh sob, "that's right, take my handkerchief,&mdash;yours
+is sopping wet, and&mdash;My goodness, there comes Maud Aplin&mdash;she <i>must</i> not
+see us sniffing and sobbing like this, she'll say we've had a quarrel.
+Here, let us go into the little recitation-room, quick now, before she
+sees us."
+</p><p>
+And into the little recitation-room Laura was very willing to go and
+hide her tear-stained face from inquisitive eyes, while Kitty, penitent
+and overcome more by the spectacle of these tears than by a sense of her
+own shortcomings, followed briskly after, with this cheerful little
+running fire of remarks, anent the Art Club lecturer: "I'm just
+crazy&mdash;<i>crazy</i> to see this Monsieur Baudouin; for what do you think Flo
+Aplin says? That he is a real viscomte or marquis, or something of that
+sort, but that he came into his title only a year or two ago, and is
+much prouder of his reputation as an art authority and critic and his
+name, Pierre Baudouin,&mdash;it's his own name, you know,&mdash;and he won his
+reputation under that. The Aplins met him last year in Paris. Windlow
+Aplin, who is studying art there, just swears by him, and says the
+artists dote on him, and Flo says he is perfectly elegant. Etching is
+his great fad now, and he is going to lecture this afternoon on etching
+and etchers. Oh, I'm just crazy to see and hear him, aren't you?"
+</p><p>
+Laura had by this time conquered her tears, thanks to Kitty's
+adroitness, and, with a half-humorous, half-grateful appreciation of
+this adroitness, she thought to herself as she walked round to the Art
+Club with Kitty that afternoon, "Kitty <i>has</i> a good heart, after all."
+</p><p>
+The Art Club hall was quite full as they entered; but there were seats
+well down in front, and there they found most of the school girls under
+Miss Milwood's charge. Esther was one of this party; and Kitty made a
+great point of leaning forward and bowing to her with much graciousness.
+The next moment she was whispering to Laura, "There, didn't I behave
+prettily to Esther this time? You'll see now&mdash;" But at that instant a
+slender dark-eyed gentleman, accompanied by one of the artists, was seen
+coming rapidly up the aisle, and, "Look, look, there he is!" cried
+Kitty, "and <i>isn't</i> he elegant?"
+</p><p>
+And Laura looking, as she was told, found no reason to disagree with
+this comment.
+</p><p>
+"But I <i>do</i> hope," whispered the irrepressible Kitty again, as Monsieur
+Baudouin ascended the platform,&mdash;"I <i>do</i> hope he is as interesting as he
+looks; appearances are deceitful sometimes." But no one of that audience
+found Pierre Baudouin's appearance deceitful. He was more than
+interesting,&mdash;he was enthralling as he went on with his almost loving
+consideration of his subject, setting before his hearers, in a melodious
+voice and very good English, some of the results of his great knowledge
+and experience. You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying goes, so
+spell-bound was the audience; and at the end there was a warm outburst
+of applause, and then a gathering about him, as he left the platform,
+of the various artists, and others who were eager to speak with him. He
+was standing with this little group, when Laura, watching and listening
+just outside of it, heard him say, "There is a remarkable etching that I
+wish I could show you, for it proves completely the theory I have just
+placed before you. I saw it but once, in the artist's own studio, as I
+was passing through Munich. When a little later I heard that the artist
+was dead, and his effects for sale, I tried to buy the etching, but was
+told that it had been given to a friend, a Mr. John Wybern. Since then,
+I have learned that Mr. Wybern has also died, and I started again on my
+search; but it has been fruitless so far, though I still hope I may come
+across it, and be able, if not to add it to my collection, to examine it
+again. The artist, by the way, is the same one that painted that
+remarkable picture, 'Rebecca the Jewess.'"
+</p><p>
+Laura turned hastily around to look for Esther. She had not to look far.
+Esther was just behind her. "Esther, did you hear?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+Esther nodded.
+</p><p>
+"Do you know about the etching?"
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0340" href="images/Illus0340s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0340t.jpg"
+ alt="She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin" width="404" height="255"></a><br>
+<i>She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin</i></p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it hangs in our parlor. I wish I dared go forward now and tell
+him."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Esther, do, do!"
+</p><p>
+But Esther hung back. Then Laura obeyed an impulse that forever after
+filled her with astonishment. She pressed forward, and, before she had
+time to think twice, was addressing Monsieur Baudouin, and telling him
+what she knew.
+</p><p>
+"What! you can tell me where this etching is? You can take me to it?" he
+exclaimed, with a sort of joyful incredulity.
+</p><p>
+Laura answered by turning to Esther and saying. "This young lady can
+tell you more about it. The etching is in the possession of her family."
+</p><p>
+"Ah, and this young lady is&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+Laura reached back, seized Esther's hand, and pulled her to her side.
+</p><p>
+"Is Miss Bodn."
+</p><p>
+"Mees <i>Bodn</i>!" he repeated with a start. "Mees <i>Bodn</i>! Ah, pardon me, do
+you spell this name B-o-w-d-o-i-n?"
+</p><p>
+"You do, you do," as Esther answered in the affirmative; "and, pardon
+again, are you related to one Henri&mdash;Henry, you call it here&mdash;Henry
+Pierre Bowdoin?"
+</p><p>
+"My father's name was Henry Pierre Bowdoin."
+</p><p>
+"Then, Mademoiselle," and Monsieur Baudouin stretched out his hand, and
+a smile lit up his face, "you must be a relation of mine; and three
+years ago, when I was in this country, and tried to find the American
+branch of our family that spelled its name Bowdoin and was called Bodn,
+but which was originally Baudouin, the old Huguenot name, I was told it
+had died out. Where were you then, Mademoiselle?"
+</p><p>
+"In Munich, where my mother and I had lived with my uncle John Wybern,
+since my father's death, years ago."
+</p><p>
+"Your uncle! John Wybern was your uncle? So&mdash;so is it possible, is it
+possible? And I find the two objects I have been hunting, so far apart,
+together! It is most astonishing and yet most simple. And your
+mother&mdash;your mother is living? Yes, and you will give me your address,
+that I may hasten to pay my respects to her;" and Monsieur whipped out a
+little note-book and wrote down, probably with greater satisfaction than
+it had ever been written before, "McVane Street."
+</p><p>
+"Most astonishing and yet most simple," as Monsieur had truly said; yet
+to the flock of Miss Milwood's girls, who, well down to the front, had
+lost nothing of this surprising interview, it was only "most
+astonishing," and to some of them most humiliating and mortifying. Kitty
+Grant was the first to voice this mortification, by turning upon them
+and saying, as Esther disappeared with Monsieur Baudouin, "Say, girls,
+how do you feel now? <i>I</i> feel like one of Cinderella's sisters. Laura
+now&mdash;Laura, where are you?" But Laura had also disappeared. She wanted
+to be by herself and think it over. But what of Esther,&mdash;Esther, who had
+been neglected and disregarded and despised? What of Esther, as she
+stood there, and as she walked away with Monsieur Baudouin? Esther was
+the least astonished of them all, for years ago she had been familiar
+with the facts of her paternal family history, and knew that she was a
+descendant of Pierre Baudouin, a French Huguenot, who had fled to
+America to escape religious persecution, and knew that the name Baudouin
+had suffered a change to Bowdoin; knew, too, that as Bowdoin it had been
+made illustrious in America's annals, and worn the honors of the highest
+offices of the State. She knew all this; but she knew also that this was
+long ago, and that her father was the last of his name in America, and
+when he died, after a wasting illness that exhausted his fortune, there
+was little thought given to the fact that the old Huguenot root still
+existed in France, though half-playful, half-serious mention had now and
+then been made of the kinsfolk in France they would sometime go to seek.
+</p><p>
+All this Esther had stored away in her memory, so that when Monsieur
+Baudouin announced himself as the kinsman from France, it was more like
+a long-anticipated event than a surprise. And all this she told to Laura
+in the days that followed,&mdash;those dear, delightful days, when there was
+no difficulty put in the way of going to McVane Street; when McVane
+Street, indeed, according to Kitty, became quite the fashion with the
+artists flocking to see the wonderful etching, and Monsieur Baudouin
+holding forth upon its merits to them as he made himself at home with
+his American kinsfolk, who were now discovered to be such charming folk.
+Laura sometimes in these days blazed up with indignation and disgust as
+she noted the sudden attentions that were bestowed upon Esther and her
+mother. No one now spoke of emigrants and foreigners in connection with
+these dwellers on McVane Street. Jack Brooks himself seemed to forget
+that David Wybern looked like a Jew, even before it was found that David
+and all of his people were of the most unmixed Puritan stock!
+</p><p>
+"And I, too," thought Laura,&mdash;"I, too, muddled and mistook things as I
+shouldn't, if Esther and her mother had lived in a different quarter. If
+they had lived anywhere over the hill, should I have fancied, though
+they <i>were</i> so poor, that Mrs. Bowdoin must have been a professional
+model? No, no, I should have thought at once, what I <i>know</i> now, that
+the artist was her friend, and that she sat to him as a friendly favor,
+like any other lady."
+</p><p>
+But while Laura thus scourged herself with the rest, Esther and her
+mother had set her apart from all the rest for their special love and
+confidence,&mdash;a love and confidence that are as fresh to-day as when the
+mother and daughter sailed away with Monsieur Baudouin, a year ago, to
+visit their French kinsfolk.
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Becky">BECKY.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus235.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus235s.png"
+ alt="N" width="190" height="167" align="left"></a><br>
+umber five!" called out shrilly and impatiently the saleswoman at the
+lace counter in a great dry-goods establishment. The call was repeated
+in a still more impatient tone before there was any response; then there
+rushed up a girl of ten or eleven, whose big black eyes looked forth
+fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so
+thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where
+the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."
+</p><p>
+"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman,
+angrily.
+</p><p>
+"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.
+</p><p>
+"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon
+counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered,
+showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.
+</p><p>
+A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.
+</p><p>
+"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big
+for her boots with her impudence."
+</p><p>
+"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust
+forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for
+it.
+</p><p>
+Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her,
+seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.
+</p><p>
+"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after
+her.
+</p><p>
+The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in
+such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which
+she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie
+admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so
+funny she "just couldn't help laughing."
+</p><p>
+"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "<i>I</i> call it impudence. She
+ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back
+at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about,
+that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you,
+Lizzie."
+</p><p>
+"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said
+Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,&mdash;taking people off. She was
+a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in
+the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky
+would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen
+observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie
+called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin
+up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair
+of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of
+cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady
+fashion,&mdash;"just like the swells," Lizzie declared. It was quite natural
+then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was "up
+to," in her close attention to the "swell" customers at the ribbon
+counter. "She was studyin' 'em, just as actresses study their
+play-parts," Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she
+met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter."
+</p><p>
+"Eh?" said Becky.
+</p><p>
+Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in: "Yes, Becky,
+give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun."
+</p><p>
+"They warn't funny," answered Becky, shortly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh! now, Becky, what'd you stand there lis'nin' and lookin' at 'em so
+long for?"
+</p><p>
+"'Cause they were sayin' somethin' I wanted to hear."
+</p><p>
+"Of course they were. What was it about, Becky?"
+</p><p>
+"May-day, flowers and queens and baskets."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, my! Well, tell us how they said it, Becky."
+</p><p>
+"I tole yer they warn't funny; they warn't o' that kind that peeks
+through them long stick glasses and puckers up their lips. They talked
+straight 'long, and said very int'restin' things," said Becky.
+</p><p>
+"Well, tell us; tell us what 'twas," exclaimed Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you wouldn't care for what they's talkin' 'bout. They warn't sayin'
+anythin' 'bout beaux or clothes," Becky replied with a grin.
+</p><p>
+A shout of laughter went up from the rest of the company, who all knew
+the lively Lizzie's favorite topics. Lizzie joined in the laugh, and
+cried good-naturedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Never mind, Becky, if I'm not up to your ribbon swells talk; tell us
+about it."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes! tell us, tell us!" echoed the others.
+</p><p>
+Becky took a bite out of a slice of bread, and munching it slowly,
+said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I tole yer once 't was 'bout May-day and flowers and queens and
+baskets."
+</p><p>
+"What May-day? There's thirty-one of 'em, Becky."
+</p><p>
+Becky looked staggered for a moment. In her little hard-worked life she
+had had small opportunity to learn much out of books, and she had never
+happened to hear this rhyming bit:&mdash;
+</p><blockquote>
+  "Thirty days hath September,<br>
+   April, June, and November,<br>
+   All the rest have thirty-one,<br>
+   Excepting February alone."
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+Recovering her wits, however, very speedily, she said coolly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"The first pleasant one."
+</p><p>
+"Well, what were they telling about it? What were they going to do the
+first pleasant day in May?"
+</p><p>
+"They didn't say as <i>they</i> was goin' to do anythin'; they was
+tellin'&mdash;or one of 'em was tellin' t' other one&mdash;what folks did when
+they's little, and afore that, hundreds o' years ago, how the folks then
+used to get all the children together and go out in the country and put
+up a great big high pole, and put a lot o' flowers on a string and wind
+'em roun' the pole; and then all the children would take hold o' han's
+and dance roun' the pole, and one o' the children was chose to be queen,
+and had a crown made o' flowers on her head, and the rest o' the
+children minded her."
+</p><p>
+"You'd like <i>that</i>,&mdash;to be queen and have the rest mind you, Becky,
+wouldn't you?" laughed one of the company.
+</p><p>
+"I bet I would," owned Becky, frankly.
+</p><p>
+"But what about the baskets?" asked somebody else.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, the kids," said Becky, forgetting in her present absorbed interest
+the term "children,"&mdash;which she had learned to use since she had come up
+daily from the poor neighborhood where she lived,&mdash;"the kids use to fill
+a basket with flowers and hang it on the door-knob of somebody's
+house,&mdash;somebody they knew,&mdash;and then ring the bell and run. Golly!
+guess <i>I</i> should hev to hang it <i>inside</i> where I lives. I couldn't hang
+it on no outside door and hev it stay there long,&mdash;them thieves o' alley
+boys would git it 'fore yer could turn. I guess, though, they was
+country kids who used to hang 'em; but the lady said she was goin' to
+try to start 'em up again here in the city."
+</p><p>
+"What kind o' baskets were they?" asked Lizzie, suddenly sitting up with
+a new air of attention.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, ho!" laughed one of the girls; "Lizzie wants to hang a basket for
+somebody <i>she</i> knows!"
+</p><p>
+"Hush up!" said Lizzie, turning rather red. Then, addressing Becky
+again: "Did the lady who was telling about 'em have a basket with her?
+Did you see it?"
+</p><p>
+"No, but she hed a piece o' that pretty wrinkly paper jes' like the
+lamp-shades in the winders, and she said the baskets was made o' that,
+and she was buyin' some ribbon to match for handles and bows."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I <i>wish</i> I could see one of 'em," said Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"I went to a kinnergarden school wonst when I was a little kid," struck
+in Becky here, "and we was put up there to makin' baskets out o' paper."
+</p><p>
+"Could you do it now?" asked Lizzie, eagerly.
+</p><p>
+"Mebbe I could," answered Becky, warily; "but it's a good bit ago."
+</p><p>
+"When you were young," cried one of the company with a giggle.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, when I was young," repeated Becky, in exact imitation of the
+speaker, whose voice was very flat and nasal.
+</p><p>
+Everybody laughed, and one of the girls cried: "Becky'll get the best of
+you any time." They were all of them impressed with this fact, when, a
+few minutes after, the wary Becky agreed to show Lizzie what she knew of
+"kinnergarden" basket-making, if Lizzie would agree to pay her for her
+trouble by giving her materials enough to make a basket for herself.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't she a sharp one?" commented one of the girls to another when they
+had left the lunch-room.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't she, though? She'll get what she can, and hold on to what she's
+got every time."
+</p><p>
+"But she's awful good fun. Didn't she take off Matty Kelley's flat
+nose&#8209;y way of talkin' to a T?"
+</p><p>
+"Didn't she!" and the two girls laughed anew at the recollection.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Becky was the only one of the parcel-girls who was in the lunch-room
+when this talk about May-day took place. The others lived nearer to the
+store, and had gone home to their dinners. They were all a trifle older
+than Becky, and a good deal larger. For these reasons, as well as for
+the fact that they had been in the establishment quite a while when
+Becky entered it, they had put on a great many disagreeable airs toward
+the pale-faced little girl when she first appeared, and attempted, as
+Becky put it, to "boss" her. They soon found, however, that the
+new-comer was too much for them. They expected her to be afraid of
+them,&mdash;to "stand round" for them. But Miss Becky was not in the least
+afraid of them, or, for that matter, of anybody; and as soon as she
+understood what they meant, she turned upon them the whole force of that
+inimitable mimicry of hers, and "took off" their airs in a manner that
+soon set the small army of salesmen and saleswomen into such fits of
+laughter that the tables were completely turned upon the tormentors,
+and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the
+respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus
+constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they
+gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph
+over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her.
+Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to
+her,&mdash;when they told her that Becky Hawkins was nothin' but one o' that
+low lot who lived down amongst that thieving set by the East Cove
+alleys,&mdash;that jus' as like as not she was a thief herself; that she was
+awful close and stingy, anyway, and saved up every scrap she could find;
+that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such
+duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively
+heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and
+didn't care if it <i>was</i>, there were others not so good-natured as
+Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready
+to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something
+lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the
+street,&mdash;"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,&mdash;the
+lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in
+spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect
+in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an
+outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.
+</p><p>
+"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and
+when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company
+gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of
+pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky
+knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now
+present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday,
+and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with
+mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's
+waitin', and so are we."
+</p><p>
+"What <i>yer</i> waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.
+</p><p>
+"To see how you make the baskets."
+</p><p>
+"Well, yer'll hev to wait."
+</p><p>
+"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"
+</p><p>
+"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free
+kinnergarden. These are private lessons."
+</p><p>
+A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"
+</p><p>
+"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.
+</p><p>
+"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the
+parcel-girls with a wink at the other.
+</p><p>
+"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and
+running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned
+to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.
+</p><p>
+"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed
+her teacher.
+</p><p>
+"And you didn't get ahead o' me <i>this</i> time, either!" called out Becky,
+as she bolted the door upon herself and companion.
+</p><p>
+"You're too sharp for any of <i>us</i>, Becky," called back one of the
+saleswomen.
+</p><p>
+"<i>Ain't</i> she sharp?" agreed one and another; and "I told you so," said
+still another. "She's a regular little cove-sharper, as Lotty said."
+Lotty was the older parcel-girl.
+</p><p>
+And thus, though most of them laughed at Becky's last "move," they were
+prejudiced against her for it, and thought it another evidence of her
+stinginess and sharpness. They all agreed, however, that she had "got
+'round' Lizzie to that extent that that young woman would stand up for
+her, anyway, no matter what she'd do or didn't do.
+</p><p>
+"An' I'll bet yer," said the younger parcel-girl, "she'll lie out o'
+that basket bizness, an' get a lot o' paper too. <i>She</i> know how to make
+baskets! Not much. You see now when they come out o' the fitting-room
+there'll be some excuse that 't ain't done, an' they can't show it
+now,&mdash;you see."
+</p><p>
+This prophecy was received in silence, but without much sign of
+disagreement; and when the fitting-room door finally opened, it was
+funny to watch the looks of astonishment that were bestowed upon the
+pretty little basket of green and white paper that Lizzie held swung
+upon her finger.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never! She <i>did</i> know how, didn't she?" exclaimed one of the
+party.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0342" href="images/Illus0342s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0342t.jpg"
+ alt="The pretty little basket of green and white paper" width="259" height="313"></a><br>
+<i>The pretty little basket of green and white paper</i></p>
+<p>
+"Of course she did," answered Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+Becky only shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+</p><p>
+"Bet yer she hooked it out o' some shop, and had it in that bag she
+carried in," whispered Lotty Riker, the parcel-girl.
+</p><p>
+"Hush!" warned one of the company.
+</p><p>
+But it was too late. Becky had heard, and for the first time since she
+had been in the store, those about her saw hot wrath blazing from her
+eyes as she burst forth savagely,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yer mean low-lived thing yer, yer must be up to sech tricks yerself to
+think that!"
+</p><p>
+"What is it? What did she say?" asked Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+Becky repeated Lotty's words, her wrath increasing as she did so.
+</p><p>
+"Hooked it! You know better, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Lotty Riker," said Lizzie. "Becky and I made the basket ourselves. See
+here now!" and, opening one hand, she displayed the ends of the paper
+strips as they had been cut off, and where they fitted the protruding
+ends on the basket. "But," turning to Becky, "Lotty knows better; she
+only wanted to bother you."
+</p><p>
+"She wanted to bully me! She's been at it ever since I come here,&mdash;she
+and t' other one. I made 'em stop it wonst, an' I'll make 'em ag'in. I
+can stan' a good deal, but I ain't a-goin' to stan' bein' called a
+thief, I ain't. I ain't no more a thief 'n they be, if I do live down
+Cove way, and don't wear quite so good clo'es as they does. <i>Hooked
+it</i>!" going a step nearer to the two girls. "I wish we was boys.
+I'd&mdash;I'd lick yer, I would, the minit I got yer out on the street; but,"
+with a disgusted sigh, "I'm a girl, and I carn't. 'Tain't 'spectable for
+girls, Tim says, an' I mus'n't. But lemme jes' hear any more sech talk,
+an'&mdash;I'll <i>forgit I'm a girl for 'bout five minutes</i>!"
+</p><p>
+This conclusion was too much for Lizzie's gravity, and she burst into
+one of her infectious laughs. Several of the others joined in, and then
+Becky herself gave a sudden little grin.
+</p><p>
+Lotty Riker and her sister, who had been thoroughly frightened, felt
+immensely relieved at this, and for the moment everything seemed the
+same as before the outbreak; but it was only seeming. The majority of
+the company, without taking into consideration the provocation Becky had
+received, thought to themselves: "<i>What</i> a temper!" Becky's wild little
+threats, and the way she expressed herself, had made a strong
+impression; and when presently Lizzie laughingly asked, "Who's Tim,
+Becky?" and Becky had answered in that lawless manner of hers: "Oh, he's
+a fren' o' mine,&mdash;a great big fightin' gentleman what lives in the house
+where we do," there was a general exchange of glances, and a general
+conviction that the Riker girls had not been altogether wrong in some of
+their statements. And when the next day they heard Miss Becky confide to
+Lizzie that she had made "a splendid basket," and was going to hang it
+for Tim on that "fust pleasant day of May," they whispered to each
+other, "A May-basket for a prize-fighter!"
+</p><p>
+But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She
+was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from
+her fun.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and
+sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth
+Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and
+wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She
+would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got
+to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow
+on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;"
+but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
+</p><p>
+"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for
+the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
+</p><p>
+Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything
+else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to
+her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where <i>could</i> she be? She had
+always been punctual to a minute.
+</p><p>
+The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was
+forgotten. It was not until the closing hour&mdash;five o'clock&mdash;that Lizzie
+thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly,
+as they were leaving the store together,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Where <i>do</i> you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day,
+and she's <i>always</i> here, and so punctual."
+</p><p>
+"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would
+be just like her; she's that independent."
+</p><p>
+"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's
+pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do
+that," put in Josie, laughing,
+</p><p>
+"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Sick! <i>her</i> kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough.
+Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that
+basket?"
+</p><p>
+"Why, what I agreed to give,&mdash;enough to make a basket for herself; and
+last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my
+Mayflowers,&mdash;I had plenty."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
+</p><p>
+"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, <i>Becky's</i> bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the
+rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the
+rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking
+about private lessons!"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, that was only her fun."
+</p><p>
+"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid
+for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you
+think that was only fun?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little
+something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove
+Street."
+</p><p>
+"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the
+other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends
+she was working alongside of."
+</p><p>
+"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's
+exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she <i>sold</i> her basket, and very
+likely to that prize-fighter,&mdash;that Tim."
+</p><p>
+"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I
+hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things
+of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster
+down&mdash;' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street
+tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she
+cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,&mdash;in one of those
+tenements."
+</p><p>
+"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six
+o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had
+for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and,
+owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such
+headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only
+the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours
+of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought
+under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the
+wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries
+and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought
+to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives
+in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means
+small.'"
+</p><p>
+"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here,
+breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
+</p><p>
+"But, Lizzie&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"You needn't try to stop me, I'm <i>going</i>. Becky's down there somewhere,
+and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to
+see. <i>You</i> needn't come if you're afraid, but <i>I'm</i> going!"
+</p><p>
+The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and
+the three went on together toward the burned district.
+</p><p>
+"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove
+Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business
+here."
+</p><p>
+"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,&mdash;one of the girls in our store,"
+answered Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Becky Hawkins?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes; do you know her?"
+</p><p>
+"Should think I did. This is my beat,&mdash;known her all her life pretty
+much."
+</p><p>
+"Did she get out,&mdash;is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend
+Tim."
+</p><p>
+The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,&mdash;a
+smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what
+the Riker girls had said she was,&mdash;a little Cove Street hoodlum,&mdash;while
+Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family
+that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner
+house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's
+sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman
+had advised, adding,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"We are decent girls, and&mdash;it's a disgrace to have anything to do with
+such a lot as Becky and her family and&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,&mdash;"what yer
+talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see
+what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled
+around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow
+him.
+</p><p>
+They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with
+smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the
+flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of
+the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were
+huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open
+door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a
+familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
+</p><p>
+But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
+</p><p>
+"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it
+Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie
+stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room;
+but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes,
+and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the
+store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt,
+and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you;
+but I'm so glad you are all right&mdash;But," coming nearer and finding that
+Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table,
+"you're <i>not</i> all right, are you?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I&mdash;I guess&mdash;I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little
+smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,&mdash;a
+little thing like you!"
+</p><p>
+"'Twas <i>she</i> was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women
+in the room.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd
+got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back
+for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she
+saved him for me,&mdash;she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the
+roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the
+'scape; but Becky&mdash;Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she
+made a jump&mdash;and fell&mdash;oh, Becky! Becky!"
+</p><p>
+"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry
+her, and it's no use."
+</p><p>
+"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in
+dumb amazement.
+</p><p>
+"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
+</p><p>
+Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing
+down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
+</p><p>
+Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
+</p><p>
+"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
+</p><p>
+"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
+</p><p>
+"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He
+didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I
+could make another&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"<i>I'll</i> make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
+</p><p>
+"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone,
+roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old
+mischief she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
+</p><p>
+There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and
+then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body,
+wasted and shrunken,&mdash;the body of a child of seven with a shapely head
+and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
+</p><p>
+"That's him,&mdash;that's Tim,&mdash;the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"
+said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and
+how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on
+Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,&mdash;the girls in the store,&mdash;how I played it on
+'em; and when I git back&mdash;I'll&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
+</p><p>
+The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open,
+letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks
+beyond the Cove.
+</p><p>
+"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I feel fus' rate&mdash;all well, Jake, and&mdash;I&mdash;I smell the Mayflowers.
+They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
+jolly! Tim, Tim!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
+</p><p>
+"Wait for me here Tim,&mdash;I&mdash;I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,&mdash;ther,
+ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by&mdash;I'm
+goin'&mdash;to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
+anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
+her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
+</p><p>
+The two women&mdash;and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
+always lived&mdash;broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
+radiant face, she said suddenly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"She's well out of it all."
+</p><p>
+"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
+'t ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' <i>him</i>," nodding towards Jake,
+who was slipping quietly out of the room,&mdash;"it's the like o' him. They
+looked up to her, they did,&mdash;bit of a thing as she was. She was that
+straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
+Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
+</p><p>
+And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
+room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
+furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
+and Josie still waiting for her.
+</p><p>
+"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time&mdash;have you seen&mdash;have
+you heard&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
+don't know."
+</p><p>
+"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Ally">ALLY.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus263.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus263s.png"
+ alt="W" width="202" height="228" align="left"></a><br><br>
+hat have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"
+</p><p>
+"Put 'em away."
+</p><p>
+"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
+wear 'em down town."
+</p><p>
+But Ally didn't move.
+</p><p>
+"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
+you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
+your foot is bigger than mine."
+</p><p>
+"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
+'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
+raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
+than lend me your new rubbers."
+</p><p>
+"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"
+</p><p>
+"Because they leak."
+</p><p>
+"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally,
+scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my
+things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is
+threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as
+shabby&mdash;and&mdash;there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no
+better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"
+</p><p>
+"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to <i>me</i>! I should like to
+know who buys your things for you? Isn't it <i>my father</i> and Uncle John?
+I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for
+Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and
+everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours
+again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the
+rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back
+here,&mdash;I do!"
+</p><p>
+"I wish so too. Nobody in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as
+to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."
+</p><p>
+"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here
+that she dreaded the winter on your account,&mdash;there!"
+</p><p>
+"Aunt Kate&mdash;said that?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she did; I heard her."
+</p><p>
+A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded
+from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll
+have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these
+words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst
+into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.
+</p><p>
+"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's
+mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.
+</p><p>
+"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,&mdash;so coolly, so calmly, that it
+was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the
+present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking,
+Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one
+girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and
+in consequence said rather sharply,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"
+and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter
+Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately
+overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to
+be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some
+other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any
+peace while&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it
+was&mdash;"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears
+shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh
+gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes,
+it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It
+would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan;
+yes, indeed, very different. If I was a <i>rich</i> orphan, if papa and mamma
+had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things
+would be different,&mdash;I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and
+her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to <i>me</i> then, and I
+guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of
+me,&mdash;no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some
+other arrangement <i>could</i> be made away from 'em all. They don't any of
+'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd
+rather&mdash;I'd rather&mdash;oh, I'd rather go to <i>jail</i> than to <i>them</i>!" and
+down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little
+hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor
+little beggar of an orphan."
+</p><p>
+The facts of the case were these: Ally's father and mother had both died
+when she was seven years old, leaving her to the care of her two nearest
+relatives,&mdash;her father's two brothers,&mdash;Mr. Tom and Mr. John Fleming. As
+her father had little or nothing to leave her, he had requested that the
+burden of her maintenance should be equally divided between the uncles,
+the child to live alternately with each family, six months with one and
+six with the other. She had been old enough when she was thus
+transplanted from her own home to realize more or less the peculiar
+condition of things; and as she was quick-tempered and sensitive, she
+very soon began to take note of any comment or remark regarding herself
+that was dropped in her hearing, and very often misunderstood or made
+too much of it. But there was no denying, whichever way you looked at
+it, that it was rather a difficult situation for both sides, and that
+the Fleming aunts and uncles and cousins had something to put up with,
+as well as Ally. But that Ally was the most to be pitied there was also
+no denying, for she could remember with unfading vividness being the
+centre of love, the one special darling in <i>one</i> home, and now she
+hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
+bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
+many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
+For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
+be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one <i>too</i> many.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
+live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
+Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
+both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
+deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
+as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
+temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
+your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
+who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
+with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
+with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
+and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.
+</p><p>
+"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
+before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
+outside the car.
+</p><p>
+"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.
+</p><p>
+His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.
+</p><p>
+Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
+going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."
+</p><p>
+"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
+Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.
+</p><p>
+"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
+she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
+good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
+death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
+wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I <i>am</i> hard to live with; but I don't
+play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
+mine never loved me&mdash;any of 'em&mdash;from the first."
+</p><p>
+As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
+of the car window, and there, why, there was her aunt Ann and uncle Tom
+outside on the platform, standing at another car window farther down,
+talking and laughing in the liveliest manner with some friends they had
+met. Uncle Tom didn't seem in the least haste now, and ever so many
+minutes ago he had said to her, "Well, good-by, Ally!" and rushed off as
+if there wasn't another minute to spare,&mdash;not another minute; and here
+was a gentleman in front of her, saying to a friend of his at that very
+instant, "There's plenty of time; it's ten minutes before the cars
+start;" and then she heard a lady say to another lady, "There's no need
+of my leaving you yet; we've got oceans of time;" and all about her,
+Ally now noticed various groups of friends and relations lingering
+lovingly together until the last moment; and noting all this, a bitter
+little look came into Miss Ally's face, and a bitter little thought came
+into her heart,&mdash;a thought that said tauntingly, "There, this shows you,
+Ally Fleming, what kind of relations you've got; this shows you how much
+they care for you!"
+</p><p>
+And by and by, as the cars started up and sped along, this bitter little
+thought also sped along, carrying in its wake all the bitter little
+thoughts of yesterday and to-day. Ally was quite accustomed to
+travelling by herself on this trip to and from New York. It was a
+perfectly simple thing to sit in the car-seat where she had been placed
+by one uncle, until at the end of the trip she was met by the other
+uncle, and taken charge of,&mdash;a perfectly simple, easy matter, and Ally
+had heretofore quite enjoyed it; but now, looking about her, and seeing
+the groups of other people's relations going home to Thanksgiving, she
+began to think it was a very lonesome thing to be travelling all alone
+by herself; and just as this occurred to her, what should happen but
+that one of these groups should turn inquisitively to her and ask, "Are
+you travelling all by yourself, little girl?" and when Ally had
+answered, "Yes," this inquisitive person commented upon her being such a
+little girl to travel all by herself; and then, when Ally told her
+rather proudly that she was ten years old, the inquisitive person had
+said, "Well, I don't know what <i>my</i> little ten-year-old girl would think
+to be sent off to travel all alone. I shall tell her when I get home
+what a brave little girl I met."
+</p><p>
+Ally thought all this was said out of pity and wonder, and that the lady
+thought her very much neglected and forlorn. But instead of that, the
+lady meant only to praise and compliment her; and thus, in this way and
+that way, the bitter little thoughts kept growing and growing, as the
+cars sped on, until long before the end of her journey came, poor Ally
+felt that there never was a much more friendless girl than she was; and
+when the cars steamed into the Boston station, she said to herself, "I
+wonder if Uncle John is dreading the winter on my account, as Aunt Kate
+is?" and with this thought she stepped out on the platform. But where
+<i>was</i> Uncle John? She expected to see him at once, coming forward to
+lift her from the steps. Where <i>was</i> he now? and Ally looked at the
+faces before her with wondering scrutiny. She jumped down&mdash;for people
+were pressing behind her&mdash;and moved on, scanning the face of every
+gentleman she saw with anxious eyes. No one of them, however, was that
+of Uncle John. What <i>was</i> the matter? Didn't he know the train she was
+to take? Of course he did, for Uncle Tom had told her that he had
+telegraphed that he would meet her at the Boston station at five
+o'clock. Of course he knew, so he must have forgotten her. Yes, that was
+it,&mdash;he had forgotten all about her! Ally was not a specially timid
+child; but as she stood in the big station-building, and realized that
+there was not a soul she knew there to look out for her, a feeling of
+dismay overtook her. If it were in the morning or at noonday, it
+wouldn't have seemed so dreadful; but though the electric lights flashed
+everything into brilliance, it was a November day, and half-past five
+o'clock was after nightfall. What <i>should</i> she do? There was no sign of
+Uncle John, and the passengers who had arrived with her were fast
+disappearing. Very soon the people in the station would begin to notice
+her, to ask questions, and then perhaps some police-officer would take
+her to the police-station, as a lost child. She'd heard that that was
+what they always did. It was just as this thought came into her head
+that she caught sight of one of those very big burly blue-coated
+individuals. He had his hand on the collar of a boy about her own age,
+and she heard him say to him in a big burly voice,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"What yer hangin' 'round here for? Lost, eh? That's a likely story.
+Come, off with yer, if yer don't want ter be locked up!"
+</p><p>
+Poor little Ally didn't stop to reason,&mdash;to think of the difference in
+the outward appearance of herself and the boy,&mdash;to see that the
+policeman knew the boy perfectly well for a mischievous young scamp who
+was up to no good. She didn't stop to consider anything; but with those
+words, "If yer don't want ter be locked up," ringing in her ears, she
+turned and ran from the station-building as fast as her legs could carry
+her. As she came out upon the sidewalk, she saw the colored lights of a
+street car. Oh, joy, it was the very up-town car that would take her
+close to Beacon Street! But oh, horror! She suddenly recollected that
+Uncle John no longer lived on Beacon Street. He had moved last month
+into a new house on Marlborough Street, and oh, what <i>was</i> the number?
+She "had heard Uncle Tom read it from a letter. It had a lot of 9's in
+it. Nine hundred and&mdash;why&mdash;99&mdash;999, three 9's; yes, yes, that was it;"
+and with this conviction, Ally gave a hop skip and a jump into the car,
+just as it was about to start off, for this very car she knew would take
+her nearer to Marlborough Street than to Beacon Street. Her spirits rose
+as she felt herself carried along; and in due time she found the three
+9's, and tripped up the steps of the house in Marlborough Street bearing
+that number. Her heart beat very fast with a sense of relief and injury,
+mixed with a certain elation at her own enterprise, as she rang the
+bell. Wouldn't they be surprised, and wouldn't Uncle John&mdash;But some one
+opening the door scattered her questioning thoughts; and&mdash;why, who was
+this somebody? It must be a new servant with the new house, and a
+manservant too. Uncle John must be getting better off,&mdash;they had had
+only two maids before. It never entered Ally's head to ask the strange
+servant if Mr. Fleming lived there. Why should she ask what she was so
+sure of? She simply asked, "Where's Uncle John and Aunt Kate and the
+rest of them?"
+</p><p>
+The man looked bewildered, and repeated, "Uncle John?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Uncle John and Aunt Kate. I'm Ally, and Uncle John telegraphed
+that he would meet me at the five-o'clock train, and he wasn't there,
+and I came up all alone. Where are they? In the parlor?" and Ally
+stepped in over the threshold.
+</p><p>
+"I guess there's some mistake," said the man; "I guess your uncle
+John&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"No, there wasn't any mistake, for he telegraphed to Uncle Tom. He must
+have forgotten."
+</p><p>
+"But your uncle doesn't&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"What is it, James? What is wanted?" interrupted some one here. The
+"some one" was a big, tall gentleman coming down the stairs, whom Ally,
+as she looked up in the rather confusing half light of the lower hall,
+at once took for her uncle, and rushing forward she ran up to meet him,
+crying,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John! I was so scared not to find you at the
+station, and I came up here all alone on the street car!"
+</p><p>
+But in the very next instant she started back and gasped: "But&mdash;but it
+isn't&mdash;you're not&mdash;you're not Uncle John! Where is he, oh, where is he?"
+</p><p>
+"You've made a mistake, my little girl!" exclaimed the gentleman,&mdash;"a
+mistake in the house. This isn't your uncle John's, but&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Not Uncle John's? Why&mdash;why&mdash;this is 999!" interrupted Ally,
+tremulously.
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh!" cried poor Ally, as a fresh flash of memory overcame her,
+"that must be the&mdash;the&mdash;" She was going to say, "the old Beacon Street
+number," when, confused and dismayed, she gave another step backward,
+her foot slipped, and she fell headlong to the foot of the stairs, where
+she lay white and motionless, not a sigh or moan escaping her as she was
+lifted and carried into the parlor.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The sun was shining brightly into the pretty new dining-room on
+Marlborough Street where Uncle John lived, and swinging in its beams a
+great gray parrot named Peter kept calling out, "Ally's come, Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+</p><p>
+The room was empty when the parrot began; but presently Uncle John and
+Aunt Kate came in. At sight of them the parrot screamed, "Hello! hello!"
+and then repeated louder than ever, "Ally's come! Ally's come! give her
+a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+</p><p>
+"For pity's sake, put the bird out!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I can't
+stand <i>that now</i>!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, put him out, do!" said Aunt Kate to the servant who was just then
+bringing in the coffee.
+</p><p>
+In a few moments the three daughters of the family&mdash;Laura and Maud and
+Mary&mdash;appeared.
+</p><p>
+"Have you heard anything about her this morning?" asked the
+eldest,&mdash;Laura,&mdash;as she took her seat at table.
+</p><p>
+Uncle John shook his head.
+</p><p>
+"And the police haven't got a clew yet?"
+</p><p>
+"No, nor the detectives."
+</p><p>
+"What I <i>can't</i> understand is why she didn't wait in the ladies' room
+until you came, papa. She might have known you <i>would</i> come <i>sometime</i>."
+</p><p>
+"We don't know yet that she got as far as Boston," said Mrs. Fleming.
+</p><p>
+"Why, Uncle Tom's telegram in answer to papa's that he saw her off on
+the 11.30 train proves that."
+</p><p>
+"It doesn't prove that she came through to Boston."
+</p><p>
+"'Came through'! Why, upon earth, should she leave the cars before she
+reached Boston?"
+</p><p>
+"She might have made the acquaintance of some young people, and stepped
+off at a restaurant station with them to buy fruit, and so got left."
+</p><p>
+"But she would have taken a later train then, and papa has been to the
+later ones."
+</p><p>
+"Don't&mdash;don't wonder and speculate any more why a little girl of ten
+years didn't do exactly as a grown-up person would have done," burst
+forth Uncle John. "The whole blame lies with us, or with Tom and me. We
+should never have allowed such a child to be sent off alone like that."
+</p><p>
+"But, papa, it isn't an uncommon thing for a child of her age to travel
+like that."
+</p><p>
+"It isn't very <i>common</i>, and it ought not to be."
+</p><p>
+"Maybe she's run away," suddenly exclaimed the youngest of the
+daughters,&mdash;a girl of fourteen.
+</p><p>
+"Mary!" cried the other two; and "How can you make fun like that <i>now</i>?"
+said Mrs. Fleming, reprovingly.
+</p><p>
+"I didn't say it to make fun," protested Mary,&mdash;"I didn't, truly;
+but&mdash;but Ally was very queer sometimes. She took up everything so, and
+got offended, or thought you didn't care for her. One day I asked her
+why she didn't take things as <i>I</i> did,&mdash;spat, and forget it the next
+minute, and she said, 'Because I'm not like you, <i>I only happened
+here</i>'! Wasn't that droll?"
+</p><p>
+"Droll!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I think it's the most pathetic thing I
+ever heard. What have we all been doing that she should feel like this?"
+</p><p>
+"But she liked being <i>here</i> better than at Uncle Tom's. Florence was
+always tormenting her one way and another."
+</p><p>
+"The trouble with her is that she was an only child, and, transplanted
+suddenly into two large families, she couldn't fit herself to the new
+circumstances," said Mrs. Fleming.
+</p><p>
+"And the trouble with <i>us</i> has been," spoke up Uncle John, "that we
+didn't take that fact into consideration enough, and try to help her to
+fit into the new circumstances. Poor little soul, if we ever get her
+back again&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, don't, don't talk like that,&mdash;'if we ever get her back again!' as
+if she were a Charley Ross child that had been kidnapped," burst forth
+Mary, with a breaking voice. "<i>I</i> meant to be good to Ally, and that's
+why I taught Peter to say, 'Ally's come, Ally's come! give her a kiss!
+give her a kiss!' I thought it would be such a pretty welcome, and
+Ally'd be so pleased, she'd believe we <i>did</i> care for her when she heard
+that."
+</p><p>
+"You're a little trump, Mary," declared her father, with a suspicious
+moisture in his eyes. "I only hope if&mdash;<i>when</i> Ally comes back&mdash;But,
+hark, there's the door-bell!" as a sharp peal rang through the house.
+"It may be one of the detectives."
+</p><p>
+"A gentleman to see you in the parlor, sir," said the maid a moment
+later, as she brought in a card.
+</p><p>
+Uncle John glanced at the card, and then, uttering an exclamation of
+surprise, passed it over to his wife, and, jumping up hastily, left the
+room.
+</p><p>
+"Is it the chief of the detectives?" asked Laura, animatedly.
+</p><p>
+"It isn't a detective at all; it's Dr. Phillips."
+</p><p>
+"You don't mean <i>the</i> Dr. Phillips,&mdash;<i>Bernard</i> Phillips?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes."
+</p><p>
+"How strange, and at this hour in the morning! It must be something
+about Thanksgiving exercises," interposed Maud.
+</p><p>
+"But we're not <i>his</i> parishioners. We don't go to <i>his</i> church!"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mary; "I'm <i>so</i> disappointed. I did hope it was the
+detective bringing Ally back."
+</p><p>
+"Kate!" called Uncle John's voice here, "will you come into the parlor?"
+and Mrs. Fleming, obeying this call, found herself a minute after
+exchanging greetings with the unexpected visitor.
+</p><p>
+"I want you to tell her, Doctor, just what you've told me exactly,"
+said Uncle John. "It's about Ally, my dear," to his wife. "She's found,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"She is at my house," took up the Doctor; and then he told of the little
+girl who had come to his house the night before, of her grievous
+disappointment, and the accident that had befallen her,&mdash;an accident
+that had robbed her of consciousness for a time, and from which she had
+only sufficiently recovered within the last few hours to answer the
+questions that were put to her in regard to her relations, that steps
+might be taken to restore her to them.
+</p><p>
+"And she is seriously hurt,&mdash;she couldn't come with you?" broke in Aunt
+Kate, breathlessly.
+</p><p>
+"No, she was not seriously hurt," he assured her; and then came that
+most delicate and difficult part of the Doctor's task,&mdash;to tell, in what
+gentle phrase he could, that this wilful child refused to accompany him;
+that she had taken a foolish fancy into her head that her relations did
+not care for her,&mdash;a fancy that had been strengthened into positive
+belief when she failed to find her uncle at the station, and had
+suggested to her a wild little plan of going away from them altogether,
+into some orphans' home that she had heard of, where she was sure a
+place could be found for her. Very gentle, indeed, was the phrasing of
+all this,&mdash;so gentle and full of sweet human consideration for
+everybody's shortcomings and mistakes that Aunt Kate forgot that the
+Doctor was a stranger; and with this forgetfulness the sharp pang of
+humiliation at a stranger's knowledge of such a family difficulty, and
+the little sting of resentment at Ally's attitude towards them all, was
+overborne to such an extent that she could frankly admit that her
+husband was right, and that none of them had had love and patience
+enough to help the child to fit into the new circumstances of her life.
+</p><p>
+It was an added pang, but there was no resentment in it, when she saw
+Ally's sudden shrinking from her as she entered the Doctor's parlor with
+him a little later.
+</p><p>
+To think that they had, though unwittingly, hurt and estranged the child
+like this, was Mrs. Fleming's first thought; and the tears came to her
+eyes, and her voice broke as she cried impulsively, "Oh, my little girl,
+my little girl!"
+</p><p>
+Ally started at the sight of these tears, at the sound of this tenderly
+breaking voice. And there was Uncle John; and <i>he</i> was crying too, and
+<i>his</i> voice was breaking as he said something. What was it he was
+saying?&mdash;that it was not forgetfulness, it was not neglect of her, that
+had made him fail to meet her at the station, but an untoward accident
+to the streetcar he was in that had delayed him. And what was that Aunt
+Kate was saying? That they <i>did</i> care for her, that they <i>did</i> want her,
+and that they had set the telegraphic wires all over the country to hunt
+for her and bring her back to them.
+</p><p>
+"But&mdash;but&mdash;Florence told me," faltered Ally, "that you dreaded the
+winter on my account,&mdash;I was so&mdash;so bad-tempered&mdash;so hard to live with."
+</p><p>
+"Dreaded the winter on your account! Florence told you I said that?"
+cried Mrs. Fleming, in amazement.
+</p><p>
+"She said she heard you say it to her mother."
+</p><p>
+A light broke over Mrs. Fleming's face. "Oh, I remember now perfectly.
+It was just after you were so ill with that bad throat, and I was
+speaking to your aunt Ann about it, and I said to her, 'I dread the
+winter on Ally's account.' How could&mdash;how <i>could</i> Florence put such a
+mischievous meaning to my words?"
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps she only heard just those words," replied Ally, who would never
+take advantage of anybody.
+</p><p>
+"But why should she want to tell you what would hurt you like that?"
+</p><p>
+"We'd been quarrelling," answered Ally, with an honest brevity that was
+very edifying.
+</p><p>
+"But, as you see now it was for your bad throat, and not for your bad
+temper, that I dreaded the winter," said Aunt Kate, with a smile, "you
+will come back with us, and let us both try again. We meant to be good
+to you, dear; but we did not think enough that you had been unused to a
+big family,&mdash;that you were a little ewe lamb that had been transplanted
+into a great crowded fold, and left to find your place with the crowd;
+and you misunderstood this, and took us too hardly; but we're going to
+do better. We're going to be more thoughtful of one another, and you'll
+come home with us now, and we'll have our Thanksgiving dinner together,
+won't we?"
+</p><p>
+Childish and ignorant of the world's ways, as her wild idea in regard to
+her right to a place in an orphans' home proved her, Ally had a great
+deal of sense in other directions, and she began to perceive that she
+had not been the wilfully neglected and abused person she had thought
+herself, and to think, too, that perhaps Aunt Kate <i>might</i> have had
+something to bear from <i>her</i>. At any rate, her good sense made her see
+that her aunt had come to her with kind and generous intentions, and
+that the least she could do was to respond with what grace was in her
+power; and so with a little smile that had something pathetic in it to
+those who saw it, it was so tremulous with that pitiful doubt that had
+been born of the last three unhappy years, she put her hand into Mrs.
+Fleming's, and signified her readiness to go with her. And then and
+there, as she met that smile, Kate Fleming vowed to herself that never
+again through fault of hers should this child suffer for lack of loving
+care; and with this resolve warm in her heart, she clasped the little
+hand in hers more closely, and said brightly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You'll see how glad the girls will be to see you, Ally, when we get
+home."
+</p><p>
+But Ally had no response to make to this. A great dread had seized her
+as she felt herself going to meet them. Uncle John's and Aunt Kate's
+assurance of regard was one thing, but Uncle John and Aunt Kate were
+not the girls, and poor Ally was quite sure that no one of them had ever
+cared very much for her, though Mary had alternately petted and laughed
+at her, and now&mdash;why, now, they might dislike her for making such a
+fuss, for Laura had often said she did dislike people so who made a
+fuss, and Maud would agree with Laura, and Mary would laugh at her more
+than ever. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if she could only go back! if she could
+only get that dear good Doctor to find her a place in&mdash;But, "Here we
+are, Ally!" said Uncle John; and "Here she is!" exclaimed three girlish
+voices; and there, standing in the doorway, were Laura and Maud and
+Mary; and at sight of their faces, at sound of their voices, Ally's
+dread began to vanish. And then, just then, it was that Peter, who had
+been banished to the hall, called out uproariously, "Ally's come! Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!" and Mary called out after him,
+"I taught him to say that; I taught him more 'n a month ago."
+</p><p>
+"'More 'n a month ago'! Oh!" breathed Ally under her breath, "she liked
+me well enough for this <i>more 'n a month ago</i>!"
+</p><p>
+Uncle John and Aunt Kate and Laura and Maud and Mary were looking on,
+and they knew what Ally was thinking of,&mdash;the very words of it,&mdash;by that
+sudden radiant smile upon her face; and Mary was so pleased thereat, she
+had to cry out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, what a jolly Thanksgiving this is! Could anything be added to make
+it jollier?"
+</p><p>
+But something <i>was</i> added. When they were all at the dinner-table that
+night,&mdash;mother and father and girls and the three boys who had just come
+up from their boarding-school that very morning,&mdash;this telegram was
+brought in from Uncle Tom,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Thanks for word of Ally's safety. All send love. Florence is writing to
+her."
+</p><p>
+Ally's eyes opened wide with astonishment at this conclusion. Florence!
+Aunt Kate read the meaning of that astonished look, and sent a glance to
+Ally that said as plainly as <i>words</i> could say, "You see, even Florence
+didn't mean as badly as you thought."
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="April">AN APRIL FOOL.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus290.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus290s.png"
+ alt="H" width="198" height="263" align="left"></a><br><br>
+ave you written it, Nelly?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I have it here in my pocket. I'll show it to you when I get a
+chance."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, show it now! There's as good a chance now as you'll have, for the
+rest of the girls are all on the other side of the room. Come;" and
+Lizzy Ryder held out her hand coaxingly.
+</p><p>
+Nelly sent a quick glance around the school-room, and then took from her
+pocket a small square envelope. The envelope was directed to Miss Angela
+Jocelyn. Lizzy Ryder gave a little giggle as she read this name; but as
+she drew forth the note-sheet and read written upon it in a slender
+pointed handwriting, "Miss Marian Selwyn requests the pleasure of Miss
+Angela Jocelyn's company on the evening of April 1st," her giggle became
+a smothered shriek, and she said to her cousin,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Nelly, it's perfect; she'll never suspect. It looks just like
+Marian Selwyn's writing. Wouldn't it be too good if we could somehow get
+hold of Angela's acceptance and keep it back, and have her actually <i>go</i>
+to the party. What <i>do</i> you suppose Marian would say to her when she
+walked in?"
+</p><p>
+"She wouldn't <i>say</i> anything, but she'd <i>look</i> so astonished, and she'd
+be so stiff that Miss Angela would very soon find out she wasn't very
+welcome. But we can't keep back the note very well, even if we could get
+hold of it,&mdash;it might get us into trouble, for it would be against the
+law; but there's no law against an April Fool letter of our own, and
+'twill be just as good fun in the end, for Marian Selwyn, of course,
+will set Miss Angela right in double quick time after she receives her
+note. Oh, I can just imagine the top-lofty style in which she will
+inform Miss Angela that there must be some mistake."
+</p><p>
+"And then, of course, they'll both find out that somebody's been
+April-fooling them."
+</p><p>
+"Of course. But that isn't going to interfere with our fun. Miss Angela
+will be set down by that time just where I want her, when she discovers
+that her invitation is nothing but an April fool on her. I wish&mdash;But,
+hush, somebody's coming this way;" and in an instant Nelly had whisked
+into her pocket the note she had written, and the cousins were walking
+down the room, talking in a loud tone about their lessons. The "somebody
+coming" was a very quiet but a very observing girl, who, as she saw the
+sudden start of Lizzy and Nelly, also caught sight of the little white
+missive as it was whisked into Nelly's pocket, and immediately
+thought,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"There's some mischief going on. I wonder what it is."
+</p><p>
+"That sly Mary Marcy, she's always spying 'round," whispered Nelly to
+her companion, as they passed along. Then in a high voice, thinking to
+mislead Mary, she cried, "Oh, Lizzy, now I've shown you <i>my</i> composition
+you must show me yours."
+</p><p>
+Mary Marcy was a shrewd girl as well as an observant one, and she
+laughed in her sleeve as she heard this.
+</p><p>
+"Composition! that was no school composition", she said to herself; and
+when a few minutes later the bell rang for the close of recess, and she
+saw Nelly send a significant glance to Lizzy as the two hurried to their
+seats, this shrewd, observant Mary was surer than ever that there was
+mischief going on, and when she went home that afternoon she told her
+mother what she had seen and heard, and how she felt about it,&mdash;for Mary
+was very confidential with her mother, and told her most of her school
+secrets. Mrs. Marcy listened to this telling with that placid Quaker way
+of hers, and remarked in her quaint Quaker phrase, "Thee mustn't be too
+suspicious, my dear; it maybe harmless mischief, after all." And then
+Mary had replied, "I shouldn't be suspicious of any of the other girls,
+mother; but Lizzy and Nelly Ryder are always doing and saying the
+mischievous things that have a sting in them;" and Mrs. Marcy, spite of
+her Quaker charity, then admitted that she had never quite liked the
+ways of those girls, and had often been sorry that they were in the
+Westboro' High School; "but, poor things," she added the moment she had
+made this admission, "they are more to be pitied than the persons they
+hurt, for <i>they</i> can get over the hurt, but these poor girls can't get
+over their own wrong-doing so easily. It makes a black mark on them
+every time, and black marks are hard to rub off; and thee'll see if they
+are up to any wrong-doing now, it will leave a mark, and so they'll get
+the worst of it in the long run."
+</p><p>
+"But it's always <i>such</i> a long run before a mark of that kind shows,"
+laughed Mary. "Girls of that sort seem to succeed in making everybody
+but themselves uncomfortable, and these two specially always appear to
+be so gay and full of good times with their giggle and chatter."
+</p><p>
+"But the Bible says, Mary, 'for as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
+so is the laughter of the fool;' and thee can think of this the next
+time thee hears the chatter, and then thee can say to thyself, 'It <i>may</i>
+be nothing but foolish folly, after all.'"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, it <i>may</i> be nothing but that," Mary allowed; but when the next
+morning she heard it again, her first doubts and suspicions returned in
+full force, and she said to herself, "I'm perfectly sure that there's
+something more than mere foolishness in this crackling of thorns. I'm
+perfectly sure there's mischief with a sting in it. I feel it in the
+air, and I'm just going to watch out and see if I can't stop it as I did
+that horrid St. Valentine business last winter."
+</p><p>
+And while good kind Mary was thus "watching out" for this mischief,
+there, only two or three seats away from her, sat Angela Jocelyn, about
+whom all the mischief was gathering as a dark cloud gathers over a fair
+sky. And Angela's sky was particularly fair to her just then, for she
+had been made very happy by the invitation she had received that
+morning,&mdash;so happy that she had said to her elder sister, Martha
+Jocelyn, "To think of Marian Selwyn's inviting <i>me</i>. Isn't it beautiful
+of her?" and Martha had answered back rather tartly, "I don't see why
+you should put such an emphasis on 'me,' as if you were so inferior.
+You're as good as Marian Selwyn."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Martha, I know&mdash;it isn't that I feel inferior in&mdash;in myself,"
+Angela exclaimed; "but the Selwyns have always had money and
+everything&mdash;always, and we are poor and have lived so out of the way
+that I say it's beautiful and kind of Marian, when she knows me so
+little. Why, Martha, I never see her anywhere but on the street and at
+Sunday-school."
+</p><p>
+"Well, she likes you, I suppose. She's taken a fancy to you, and she's
+independent enough, I should hope, to invite any girl she likes, if the
+girl <i>is</i> poor and lives out of the way," was Martha's cool reply.
+</p><p>
+Liked her! Taken a fancy to her! How Angela's heart jumped at this
+suggestion! Could it be possible that this lovely fortunate Marian
+Selwyn, that she had always admired from afar off, had taken a fancy to
+<i>her</i>,&mdash;poor, plain little Angela Jocelyn,&mdash;was her thought. And it was
+with this thought quickening her pulses that she wrote a cordial
+acceptance to the note of invitation; and it was this thought that sent
+such a bright look into her face that morning, that Mary Marcy said to
+her friend and seat-mate, Anna Richards, "Look at Angela Jocelyn, she is
+really growing pretty;" and a little later at the recess that followed
+directly after a recitation where Angela had easily led, as usual, Mary,
+catching sight of the frowning faces of Lizzy and Nelly Ryder,
+exclaimed: "Anna, if Angela Jocelyn is going to add good looks to her
+braininess, those Ryder girls will be more jealous of her than ever."
+</p><p>
+"And they pretend to look down on Angela because she is poor and her
+mother and sister take in sewing," responded Anna.
+</p><p>
+"All the same they don't look down on what Angela really <i>is</i>. She is
+superior to them in brains, and they know it, and that makes them want
+to pull her down," answered Mary.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I heard Nelly Ryder say last week that Angela was altogether too
+conceited, and ought to be 'taken down'; and it would be just like Nelly
+Ryder to try to do it sometime."
+</p><p>
+"<i>Sometime</i>! I believe she is trying to do it now. I believe that that
+is the mischief she and her cousin Lizzy are planning this moment,"
+cried Mary.
+</p><p>
+"What <i>do</i> you mean?"
+</p><p>
+"I'll tell you;" and Mary related, as she had related to her mother,
+what she had seen and heard.
+</p><p>
+"Nelly Ryder has never forgiven Angela for getting the history prize;
+Nelly thought herself sure of it,&mdash;she as good as told me so," was
+Anna's only remark upon this.
+</p><p>
+"And now she's going to play some trick on Angela to take her down, as
+she calls it; that's what you think, isn't it? And that's what <i>I</i>
+think. Oh, Anna, I wish I could ferret out the mischief and stop it. It
+will be something hateful and mortifying to poor Angela, I know. If I
+could only get some clew to what it is, so as to warn her."
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but as we are not sure that there <i>is</i> any mischief, after all,
+you mustn't say anything to anybody yet."
+</p><p>
+"No, of course not; but I'll keep a sharp lookout, and I <i>may</i> hear or
+see something that will give me a hint. What fun it would be to outwit
+one of the Ryder schemes!"
+</p><p>
+"Mary! with all your Quaker bringing-up, I do believe you are just
+pining for what our Jack would call 'a scrimmage.'"
+</p><p>
+"Well, I am, if that means getting the better of mischief-makers," Mary
+confessed with a laugh.
+</p><p>
+"But you won't succeed, if the mischief-makers are Nelly and Lizzy
+Ryder, Those, girls seem to get the best of everything and everybody.
+Think now, for one thing, of their being acquaintances of Marian
+Selwyn's, and invited to her birthday party!"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, that is family acquaintance, Anna. The Ryders have always
+known the Selwyns, just as we have. The Selwyns and Ryders and Marcys
+have lived in Westboro', and visited each other for ages."
+</p><p>
+"I wish <i>I</i> had, and then I might have been invited to this wonderful
+birthday party," exclaimed Anna, with a certain earnestness of tone that
+belied her gay little laugh, and made Mary say regretfully,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I wish I'd known you felt like this last week, I would have had you and
+Marian 'round to tea, and then you would have got acquainted, and she'd
+have been sure to have invited you; but it's too late now, for the party
+comes off Thursday, you know."
+</p><p>
+"Thursday! Why, Thursday is the first of April.. How funny that one's
+birthday should come on the first of April!"
+</p><p>
+"Funny&mdash;why?"
+</p><p>
+"Why? Because it's April-fool's day."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I see; but I'm so used to Marian's birthdays, I don't always stop
+to think of that."
+</p><p>
+"But don't some people think of it? Don't they sometimes play&mdash;Oh, oh,
+Mary, Mary, mayn't this be your clew? Don't you believe that Nelly
+Ryder has been planning an April-fool trick upon Angela in connection
+with this party?"
+</p><p>
+Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the
+recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of:
+"Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it <i>is</i> the clew. Why <i>didn't</i> I
+think of April-fool's day,&mdash;that it would be just the opportunity Nelly
+Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw
+it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in
+it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or
+other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to
+Marian,&mdash;sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night
+of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a
+silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified
+Tilly dreadfully."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than
+Tilly."
+</p><p>
+"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest
+persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very
+innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm
+going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I
+suspect."
+</p><p>
+"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our
+suspicion, and we <i>may</i> be on the wrong track altogether."
+</p><p>
+"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on
+that I might stop?"
+</p><p>
+"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had
+got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her
+birthday,&mdash;upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know
+<i>what</i> the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion
+that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on
+her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'
+and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to
+Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a
+word more."
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna
+had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year
+older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,&mdash;a
+year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of
+Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to
+Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so
+experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that
+that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and as a
+consequence made such a boggle of what she had to say, that Marian,
+entirely misunderstanding, exclaimed in amazement,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You want me to get up an April joke on my birthday, Mary? I couldn't
+think of such a thing; I hate April jokes."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, you misunderstand," burst forth Mary; and then, forgetting all
+her awkwardness, she made her little statement over again, and this
+time succinctly and clearly. And now it was <i>her</i> turn to be amazed; for
+before she had got entirely to the end of her statement, Marian starting
+up pulled a note from her pocket and cried, "Read this, Mary! read
+this!"
+</p><p>
+It was Angela's cordial note of acceptance.
+</p><p>
+"And she had no invitation from <i>me</i>. I never invited her, I scarcely
+knew her," went on Marian.
+</p><p>
+"She had no invitation from <i>you</i>, but she thought she had. It isn't
+Angela who is playing a trick upon <i>you</i>. Somebody has played a trick
+upon <i>her</i>,&mdash;has written in your name. Oh, don't you see? <i>She</i> is the
+innocent person I meant."
+</p><p>
+"But who&mdash;who is the guilty one,&mdash;the one who has <i>dared</i> to do this?"
+cried Marian.
+</p><p>
+"I can't tell you yet whom I think it is, because I haven't any proof,
+and it wouldn't be fair to call names unless I had sure proof."
+</p><p>
+"Well, look here. All my notes were sealed with my monogram seal, but I
+used a variety of colored wax. Everybody is interested in comparing
+seals now, and so can't you make an excuse to Angela that you want to
+compare the seals in the different colors, and borrow her note of
+invitation, and then bring it to me? If I could see that note, I might
+know the handwriting, and then I'd know who played this shabby, cruel
+trick. And I ought to know, that I mayn't suspect an innocent person."
+</p><p>
+"But the note that Angela received may not be sealed with wax."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes, it will. Whoever sent that note had seen mine, I am certain,
+and of course would use wax, as I did. Now, won't you do this little
+service for me, Mary?" urged Marian, entreatingly.
+</p><p>
+Mary laughed. "Yes, I'll do it," she answered, "though I'm not very
+clever at playing theatre. I've too much Quaker blood in me for that;
+but it's a good cause, and I'll do the best I can, and I'll do it now,
+for Angela's sure to be at home now;" and suiting her action to her
+word, Mary started off then and there upon her errand.
+</p><p>
+And so surely and swiftly did she do her best on this errand that Marian
+gave a little scream of surprise as she saw her coming back, and,
+"You've not got it already?" she cried, running to meet her.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, here it is. Angela gave it to me at once."
+</p><p>
+"Just the size of <i>my</i> paper, and the wax&mdash;you see I was right. There
+<i>is</i> wax, and a seal-stamp that looks like <i>my</i> stamp, but isn't,"
+exclaimed Marian. "Now for the handwriting!" One glance at the address
+on the envelope; then, pulling out the note, she bent breathlessly over
+it for a moment. In another moment she was calling out triumphantly: "I
+know it! I know it! She tried to imitate mine, but I know these M's and
+r's and A's. They're Nelly Ryder's! they're Nelly Ryder's! Look here;"
+and running to her desk, the excited girl produced another note, and
+placed it beside the one that Angela had received. It was Nelly Ryder's
+acceptance of her invitation; and Mary, looking at the peculiar M's and
+r's and A's saw as clearly as Marian herself the proof of the same hand
+in each note.
+</p><p>
+"And I should know her 'hand' anywhere, for I've had hundreds of notes
+from her, first and last," Marian went on. "But to think of her playing
+such a trick as this! I never had any admiration for her, or her cousin
+either; but I <i>didn't</i> think either one of them could do such a
+mischievous, vulgar thing. But <i>you</i> did, Mary, for this is the girl you
+suspected."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, because I had known more of her than you had,&mdash;going to school
+with her every day;" and then Mary told what she had known, and what
+she had seen herself, winding up with, "But I didn't like to tell you
+all this before I had certain proof, for I wanted to be fair, you know."
+</p><p>
+"And you <i>have</i> been fair, more than fair; and now&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Well, go on, what do you stop for&mdash;now what?"
+</p><p>
+"Wait and see;" and Marian nodded her head, and compressed her lips into
+a firm, resolute line.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Marian, are you going to punish Nelly?" cried Mary, a little
+alarmed at these indications.
+</p><p>
+Marian nodded again.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I'm going to punish her."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, how, when, where?"
+</p><p>
+"When? On Thursday night. Where? At the birthday party. How? Wait and
+see."
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was the evening of the first of April,&mdash;a beautiful, still, starry
+evening, with all the chill and frost of early spring blown out of it by
+the friendly winds of March, and all the lovely promises of summer
+buddings and flowerings wafting into it from waiting May and June.
+</p><p>
+A "just perfect evening," said more than one girl delightedly, as she
+set out arrayed in all her furbelows for the birthday party. A "just
+perfect evening." And no one said this more emphatically, and felt it
+more emphatically, than Mary Marcy and Angela Jocelyn,&mdash;Mary in her
+pretty and becoming if rather plain white gown of China silk, and Angela
+in her old white cambric that had been 'done over' for the hundredth
+time, perhaps, and was neither pretty nor becoming, with its skimp skirt
+and sleeves and shrunken waist. But a new gown had been out of the
+question just then with the Jocelyns, and Angela had to make the best of
+the old one; and it did not seem at all hard to make a very good 'best'
+of it, when she stood in her own little bedroom, with Martha tying the
+well-worn blue sash around the shrunken waist, and her mother looking on
+and saying, "It really looks very nice, and that sash <i>does</i> wash so
+well."
+</p><p>
+But when she went up into the great brilliantly lighted bedchamber at
+the Selwyns', and saw Mary Marcy in her perfectly fitting gown drawing
+on her delicate gloves, and talking with several young ladies
+beautifully dressed in fresh muslin and silk, the skimp skirt and
+sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very
+mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when
+two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness;
+and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk
+and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela
+suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness.
+This feeling increased as she noticed the unmistakable start that the
+cousins gave as they caught sight of her, and heard Nelly's astonished
+exclamation, "What! <i>you</i> here?"
+</p><p>
+It was a bitter moment; but a bitterer was yet to come, when Lizzy
+Ryder, with that innocent little way of hers, said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, if you've come to help take our things off, <i>do</i> help me with this
+scarf, Angela!"
+</p><p>
+If Angela could but have known then and there that this was only a petty
+stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the
+words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think
+I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused
+feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation
+to her shabby gown, she started back with all her confusion merging into
+one thought to get away out of the sight of these well-dressed happy
+girls. But as she started back, Mary Marcy, who had heard Lizzy Ryder's
+speech, started forward and called out: "Oh, Angela, how do you do? I
+didn't see you when you came in. I&mdash;I've been expecting to see you,
+though; and now shall we go down together?"
+</p><p>
+Angela couldn't speak. She could only give a little nod of assent, and
+yield herself to kind Mary's guidance, with a deep breath of relief. It
+was only a partial relief, however. She had yet to go down into the
+brilliant parlor with its crowd of Selwyn cousins, yet to face, in that
+old shrunken gown with its washed sash, all those critical eyes. Oh,
+what if all those eyes should look at her with a stare of astonishment,
+such as Lizzy and Nelly Ryder had bestowed upon her? What if Marian
+herself should give a glance of surprise at the old shabby gown? These
+were some of the troubled questions that whirled through Angela's head
+as she went down the stairs with Mary Marcy. And down behind them,
+following closely, though Angela did not know it, came the two Ryder
+girls, full of eager curiosity, for they were both of them now quite
+certain that Marian had received no note of any sort from Angela. "She
+didn't know enough to write an acceptance. How should she? I don't
+suppose she's ever had an invitation to a party in her life," whispered
+Nelly to her cousin in the first shock of surprise at seeing Angela in
+the dressing-room.
+</p><p>
+"No, of course not," whispered back Lizzy; and so, confident and secure
+in this belief, and in the anticipation of "fun," as they called the
+displeased astonishment they expected to see Marian express at the sight
+of her uninvited guest, and the guest's mortification thereat, the
+conspirators stepped softly along down the stairs and across the great
+hall into the beautiful brilliant parlor.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0344" href="images/Illus0344s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0344t.jpg"
+ alt="As the fresh arrivals appeared" width="322" height="260"></a><br>
+<i>As the fresh arrivals appeared</i></p>
+<p>
+Marian was standing at the farther end of the parlor facing the doorway,
+with two of the Selwyn cousins beside her, as the fresh arrivals
+appeared. She was laughing joyously as they entered; but at her very
+first glimpse of the approaching group, the laugh ceased, and a look of
+sudden resolve flashed into her face,&mdash;a look that the Selwyn cousins,
+who had been told the whole story of the fraudulent invitation,
+understood at once to mean, "Here is my opportunity and I'll make the
+most of it!" But to the others&mdash;to the four who were approaching&mdash;this
+sudden change in their hostess's face was thus variously interpreted:
+"She has seen Angela," thought the Ryder girls, triumphantly. "She has
+seen the Ryder girls, and she is going to punish them," thought Mary,
+nervously. "She is looking at my dreadful old gown," thought Angela,
+miserably.
+</p><p>
+And moved thus differently by such different anticipations, the little
+group came down the room, Mary's nervousness increasing at every
+step,&mdash;for her shyness and the Quaker love of peace rose up within her
+at the sight of Marian's face, that seemed to her to betoken a plan of
+punishment for the approaching offenders more in accordance with the
+fiery Selwyn spirit than any spirit of peace.
+</p><p>
+Just what Mary feared she could not have told; but she knew something of
+this Selwyn spirit, and had often heard it said that the Selwyn tongue
+could cut like a lash when once started. That the Ryders deserved the
+sharpest cut of this lash she fully believed; but, "Oh, I <i>do</i> hope
+Marian won't say anything sharp <i>now</i>," she thought to herself. And it
+was then, just then, at that very moment, that she saw Marian's face
+change again, as the softest, sweetest, kindest of smiles beamed from
+lips and eyes, and the softest, sweetest, kindest of voices said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"How do you do, Mary? I'm very glad to see you,&mdash;you know my cousins,
+Bertie and Laura;" and in the next breath, "How do you do, Miss Jocelyn?
+It's very nice to see you here.&mdash;Bertie, Laura, this is my friend Angela
+Jocelyn, who is going to make one of our charade party next month if I
+can persuade her."
+</p><p>
+One of that May-day charade party! Mary opened her eyes very wide at
+this, and Angela wondered if she were awake. But the charming voice was
+now speaking to some one else,&mdash;was saying very politely without a
+touch of sharpness, but with a world of meaning to those who had the
+clew, and those only,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"How do you do, Lizzy? How do you do, Nelly? And, Nelly, I want to thank
+you for a real service in connection with my birthday invitations. But
+for you I should have missed a very welcome guest. I shall never forget
+this, you may be sure."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;" But for once Nelly Ryder's ready speech failed her. Her cousin
+tried to take up her words, tried to say something about April fun,
+tried to smile, to laugh; but the laugh died upon her lips, and she was
+only too glad to move on with Nelly into the room beyond, and there, out
+of the range of observation for a moment, the two expressed their
+astonishment and dismay at Marian's knowledge, and wondered how she came
+by it.
+</p><p>
+"But to think of her taking an April joke so seriously as to make much
+of Angela Jocelyn just to come up with <i>me</i>!" burst out Nelly.
+</p><p>
+"And to think," burst out Lizzy, with a sly laugh, "that it is <i>you</i> who
+have introduced Angela to Marian's good graces, and that it is <i>you</i>,
+after all, who have been made the April fool, and not Angela!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Guest">THE THANKSGIVING GUEST.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus314.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus314s.png"
+ alt="I" width="165" height="188" align="left"></a><br><br>
+t is such a lovely idea, such a truly Christian idea, Mrs. Lambert.
+How did you ever happen to think of it?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, <i>I</i> did not think of it; it wasn't <i>my</i> idea. Didn't you ever hear
+how it came about?"
+</p><p>
+"No; do tell me!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, my husband, you know, was always looking out for ways of doing
+good,&mdash;lending a helping hand,&mdash;and he used to talk with the children a
+great deal of such things. One day he came across a beautiful little
+story that he read to them. It was the story of a child who made the
+acquaintance of a poor, half-starved student and brought him home with
+her to share her Thanksgiving dinner. It made a deep impression on the
+children. They talked about it continually, and acted it out in their
+play. But they were in the habit of doing that with any fresh story that
+pleased them, so it was nothing new to us, and we hadn't a thought of
+their carrying it further. But the next week was Thanksgiving week; and
+when Thanksgiving Day came, what do you think those little things
+did,&mdash;for they were quite little things then,&mdash;what do you think they
+did but bring in just before dinner the half-blind old apple-pedler who
+had a stand on the corner of the street?
+</p><p>
+"They were so happy about it, and they thought we should be so happy
+too, that we couldn't say a word of discouragement in the way of advice
+then; but later, when we had given the old fellow his dinner, and he had
+gone, we had a talk with the dear little souls, when we tried to show
+them that it would be better to let us know when they wanted to invite
+any one to dinner or to tea,&mdash;that that was the way other girls and boys
+always did. They were rather crestfallen at our suggestions; for, with
+the keen, sensitive instinct of children, they felt that their
+beautiful plan, as they thought it, had somewhere failed, and, though
+they promised readily enough to consult us 'next time,' we could see
+that they were puzzled and depressed over all this <i>regulation</i>, when we
+had seemed to have nothing but admiring appreciation for the similar act
+of the child in the story. My husband, seeing this, was very much
+troubled to know just what to say or do; for he thought, as I did, that
+it might be a serious injury to them to say or do anything to chill or
+check their first independent attempt to lend a helping hand to others.
+Then all at once out of his perplexity came this idea of allowing the
+children from that time forward to have the privilege of inviting a
+guest of their own choosing every Thanksgiving Day, and that this guest
+should be some one who needed, in some way or other, home-cherishing and
+kindness. They should have the privilege of choosing, but they must tell
+us the one they had chosen, that we might send the invitation for them.
+This plan delighted them; and from this start, five years ago, the thing
+has gone on until it has grown into the present 'guest day,' where <i>each
+one</i> of the children may invite his or her particular guest. It has got
+to be a very pleasant thing now, though at first we had some queer
+times. But as the children grew older, they learned better how to
+regulate matters, and to make necessary discriminations, and a year ago
+we found we could trust them to invite their guests without any older
+supervision, and they are very proud of this liberty, and very happy in
+the whole thing; and such an education as it has been. You've no idea
+how they have learned to think of others, to look about them to find
+those who are in need not merely of food or clothing but of loving
+attention and kindness."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it is beautiful, Mrs. Lambert, and what a Thanksgiving ought to
+be,&mdash;what it was in the old pilgrim days at Plymouth, when those who had
+more than others invited the less fortunate to share with them. It's
+beautiful, and I wish everybody who could afford it would go and do
+likewise."
+</p><p>
+"Speaking of affording it, I thought, when my husband died last spring,
+I should have to give up our guest day with most other things, for you
+know that railroad business that my husband entered into with his
+half-brother John nearly ruined him. I think the worry and fret of it
+killed him, anyway, and I told John so, and he has never forgiven me.
+But I have never forgiven him, and never shall; for if it hadn't been
+for John's representations, his continual urging, Charles would never
+have gone into the business. Oh, I shall always hold John responsible
+for his death, and I told him so."
+</p><p>
+"You told him so? How did he take that? What did he say?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you know John. He flew into a rage, and said he loved his brother
+as well as <i>I</i> did. As well as <i>I</i> did! Think of that; and that he had
+urged him into that business, thinking that it was for his
+benefit,&mdash;that no one could have foreseen what happened, and that if
+Charles lost, he also had lost, and much more heavily. But, as I was
+saying, I thought at first I should have to give up our guest day; but
+when matters came to be settled, I found there were other things I would
+rather economize on."
+</p><p>
+"Where <i>is</i> John now, Mrs. Lambert?"
+</p><p>
+"He is in&mdash;" But just at that moment a tall pretty girl of fourteen
+entered the room. It was Elsie, the eldest of the Lambert children.
+</p><p>
+"Why, Elsie, how you have grown!" cried Mrs. Mason, who hadn't seen
+Elsie for some months, "and you've quite lost the look of your mother."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Elsie is getting to look like the Lamberts," remarked the mother.
+</p><p>
+"Everybody says I look just like Uncle John," spoke up Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you were asking me where John was now," said Mrs. Lambert, turning
+to Mrs. Mason. "He is in New York, dabbling in railroads, as usual, and
+getting poorer and poorer by this obstinate folly, I heard last week.
+<i>We</i> don't see him, of course; for, as I told you, we don't forgive each
+other. Oh!" as her visitor cast a questioning glance toward Elsie, who
+had suddenly given a little start here, "Elsie knows all about it. Elsie
+is my big girl now. But what is it, my dear?&mdash;you came in to ask me
+something,&mdash;what is it?"
+</p><p>
+"It's about Tommy. He has told me who he is going to invite for next
+week,"&mdash;next week was Thanksgiving week,&mdash;"and I knew you would not like
+it, and I felt that I ought to tell you; it is that horrid Marchant
+boy."
+</p><p>
+"Like it,&mdash;I should think not! Why, what in the world has put Tommy up
+to that?"
+</p><p>
+"He says that Joe Marchant hasn't any home of his own this
+Thanksgiving, because his father has gone out West on business, and left
+Joe all alone with those people that his father and he boarded with just
+after his mother died; and Tommy pities Joe so, he says he is going to
+invite him here for next Thursday, and I knew you wouldn't want him."
+</p><p>
+"Of course not; the boy is ill-mannered and disagreeable, and he is
+always quarrelling with Tommy."
+</p><p>
+"I told Tommy that," laughed Elsie, "and he said he guessed he'd done
+<i>his</i> share of the quarrelling, and that, anyway, Joe Marchant was the
+under dog now, and he was going to forgive and forget."
+</p><p>
+"Dear little Tommy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lambert, admiringly.
+</p><p>
+"And he said, too, mother, that he knew you wouldn't object; that you
+always told him that Thanksgiving Day was the very day to make up with
+folks and be good to 'em, but I knew you <i>would</i> object to Joe Marchant,
+and so&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I don't know about it, Elsie. If Tommy feels like that, I&mdash;I don't
+believe it would be wise for me to check him. No, I don't believe I can.
+Tommy is nearer right than I am. He is doing a fine, generous thing,
+and it <i>is</i> the right thing, and I think we must put up with Joe
+Marchant, Elsie, after all."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, <i>I</i> don't mind, if <i>you</i> don't, mamma; but I thought you wouldn't
+like it, and it would spoil the day."
+</p><p>
+"No, nothing done in that spirit <i>could</i> spoil the day; and, Elsie, I
+hope the rest of you will make your choice of guests with as good reason
+as Tommy has."
+</p><p>
+Elsie looked at her mother with an odd, eager expression, as if she were
+about to speak. Then she suddenly lifted up her head with a little air
+of resolution, and starting forward hurriedly left the room.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Lambert laughed as the door closed.
+</p><p>
+"I think I know what Elsie is going to do," she said smilingly to Mrs.
+Mason. "There is a young teacher in her school, Miss Matthews, who is
+seldom invited anywhere, she is so unpopular. I've often asked Elsie to
+bring her home, and she has always put it off; but I believe that this
+act of Tommy's and what I've said about it has made such an impression
+upon her that she has gone now to invite Miss Matthews to be her guest
+next week. She was going to tell me about it at first, then she thought
+better of it. They've all had this liberty for the last year&mdash;not to
+tell&mdash;it's so much more fun for them; and I can always trust Elsie to
+look out for things, she has such good sense with her good heart."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and you <i>all</i> seem to have such good sense and such good hearts,
+Mrs. Lambert," said Mrs. Mason, as she rose to go; but as she walked
+down the street she said to herself, "Such good sense and such good
+hearts, overflowing with charity and forgiveness for everybody but John
+Lambert!"
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was Thanksgiving Day, and just three minutes to the dinner-hour at
+the Lamberts', and all the guests had arrived except the one that Elsie
+had bidden.
+</p><p>
+"Don't fret, Elsie," whispered Mrs. Lambert to her, as she noted the two
+red spots burning in her cheeks and her anxious glances toward the
+clock,&mdash;"don't fret; she's probably going to be fashionably exact on the
+stroke of the hour."
+</p><p>
+Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to
+talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.
+</p><p>
+"We'll wait five minutes for her," thought Mrs. Lambert. "If there
+hasn't been an accident to detain her, she's very rude, and certainly
+not fit to be a teacher of <i>manners</i>, and I don't wonder she's unpopular
+with the girls."
+</p><p>
+The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did
+not appear. To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs.
+Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served. It was seemingly a
+very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but
+there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each
+one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger's
+feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day. Mrs.
+Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses
+and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her
+five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the
+dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other
+relations. But she must not dwell on these memories with all these
+guests to serve. She must put her own needs aside to see that little
+Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and
+that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry
+sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.
+</p><p>
+It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was
+laughing a little at Joe's clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling
+him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one
+guest was missing,&mdash;while she was doing this, there came a great crunch
+of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell,
+and, "There she is! there she is!" thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added
+thought: "It's rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage
+when she is at such a little distance from us,&mdash;rather putting on airs,
+but&mdash;What <i>are</i> you jumping up for?" she calls out to Elsie, who has
+suddenly sprung from her seat. "What are you jumping up for? Ellen will
+attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed
+her wraps. Sit down, Elsie; don't be so fidgety. I will&mdash;" But the
+dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw
+coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with
+a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of
+this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt
+her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I am so glad to come to you,&mdash;to see you and the children again,
+Caroline. I was away when Elsie's letter arrived; but as soon as I got
+into New York yesterday, I started off, and I am so glad to come, so
+glad to come;" and here Mrs. Lambert heard the eager voice falter, and
+saw the glisten of tears in the eyes that were regarding her and in the
+next instant felt them against her cheek as a tender kiss was pressed
+upon it. It was all in a moment, the strange surprise of look and word
+and tone and touch, the joyful cries of "It's Uncle John, it's Uncle
+John!" from some one of the children. Then all in a moment the
+strangeness seemed to have passed, and John Lambert was taking his place
+amongst them with the fond belief that he was his sister-in-law's chosen
+guest. And she, with those warm, manly words of thanks, those joyful
+cries of childish welcome in her ears, could she undeceive him,&mdash;could
+she say to him: "It was not I who sent for you; I am the same as ever,
+as full of wild regrets and bitter resentments"? Could she say this to
+him? How could she, how could she, when over the wild regrets and bitter
+resentments there kept rising and rising a flood of earlier memories of
+an earlier time when this guest had been a welcome guest indeed, and she
+had heard again and again those very words, "I'm so glad to come"? Those
+very words, but with what a difference of accent, and what a difference
+in the speaker himself,&mdash;only a year and his face so worn, his hair so
+white, she had not known him! He must have suffered,&mdash;yes, and she&mdash;she
+had suffered; but she had her children, and he had no one!
+</p><p>
+The dinner was over. They had all risen from the table, and were going
+into the parlor, and Uncle John had his namesake Johnny on one side of
+him and little Archie on the other. They had taken possession of him
+from the first, when Elsie, hanging back, clung to her mother and
+whispered agitatedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, it was what you said last week about Tommy's
+invitation that made me think of&mdash;of inviting Uncle John; but perhaps I
+ought to have told you&mdash;have asked you."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, it is better as it is. Don't fret, dear, it&mdash;it is all right.
+But there is Ann bringing the coffee into the parlor. Go and light your
+little teakettle, Elsie, and make your uncle a cup of tea as you used to
+do; he can't drink coffee, you know."
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<pre>
+
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,7804 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Flock of Girls and Boys, by Nora Perry
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Flock of Girls and Boys
+
+Author: Nora Perry
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2003  [eBook #10433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Wilson, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+A FLOCK
+
+of
+
+GIRLS AND BOYS.
+
+by NORA PERRY,
+
+Author Of "Hope Benham," "Lyrics And Legends,"
+"A Rosebud Garden Of Girls," Etc.
+
+
+Illustrated by
+CHARLOTTE TIFFANY PARKER.
+
+1895.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: That little Smith girl]
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
+
+THE EGG BOY
+
+MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE
+
+POLLY'S VALENTINE
+
+SIBYL'S SLIPPER
+
+A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN
+
+ESTHER BODN
+
+BECKY
+
+ALLY
+
+AN APRIL FOOL
+
+THE THANKSGIVING GUEST
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
+
+"MISS PELHAM! MISS MARGARET PELHAM!"
+
+WALLULA CLAPPED HER HANDS WITH DELIGHT
+
+A VERY PRETTY PAIR
+
+SIBYL'S REFLECTIONS
+
+A TALL, HANDSOME WOMAN SMILED A GREETING
+
+SHE WAS ADDRESSING MONSIEUR BAUDOUIN
+
+THE PRETTY LITTLE BASKET OF GREEN AND WHITE PAPER
+
+AS THE FRESH ARRIVALS APPEARED
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"The Pelhams are coming next month."
+
+"Who are the Pelhams?"
+
+Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as
+she exclaimed:
+
+"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the Pelhams
+are?"
+
+Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up _her_ nose as she replied,--
+
+"I do mean to say just that."
+
+"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.
+
+"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.
+
+"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson,
+with a laugh.
+
+"But the Pelhams,--I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at
+least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a
+doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further
+irritated, cried impulsively,--
+
+"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done, pray
+tell, that everybody should know of them?"
+
+"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They
+are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one of
+the oldest families of Boston."
+
+"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until
+it bumped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat
+Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,--
+
+"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"
+
+Then another girl giggled,--it was another of the Robsons,--Dora's
+Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,--
+
+"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her
+'Crack Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."
+
+"You'd better call her L.H.,--'Level Head,'" a voice--a boy's
+voice--called out here.
+
+The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.
+"Who--what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie, by
+hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our
+secrets?"
+
+"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or
+more when you girls came to this end of the piazza."
+
+"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I
+didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let
+me see it."
+
+"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+Will held up the book.
+
+"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"
+
+"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of
+boy's sports," returned Will.
+
+"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her
+head.
+
+"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.
+
+"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.
+
+"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."
+
+Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and
+prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."
+
+"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.
+
+"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the
+hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read
+it twice."
+
+Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he ejaculated in
+pleased astonishment,--
+
+"Come, I say now!"
+
+"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever
+read,--that part about the boat-race I've read over three or four
+times."
+
+"Well, your head _is_ level," cried Will, sitting up still straighter
+in the hammock, and regarding Tilly with a look of respect.
+
+"Because I don't care anything for Boston's grand folks and do care for
+'Jack Hall'?" laughed Tilly.
+
+"Yes, that's about it," responded Will, with a little grin. "I'm so sick
+and tired," he went on, "hearing about 'swells' and money. The best
+fellow I know at school is quite poor; and one of the worst of the lot
+is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."
+
+"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly
+well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.
+
+"I don't!" growled Will.
+
+"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to
+that."
+
+"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.
+
+"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name--"
+
+"I do think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I
+want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of
+'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There
+wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have
+cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and
+sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that
+showed his approval of this trait in his ancestors.
+
+Dora looked at him curiously; then with a faint smile she said,--
+
+"Your cousin Frances is so proud of those old Wentworths. She's often
+told me how grandly they lived, and she's so pleased that her name
+Frances is the name of one of the prettiest of the Governor's wives."
+
+"Yes; and one of the prettiest, and I dare say one of the best of 'em,
+was a servant-girl in Governor Benning Wentworth's kitchen, and he
+married her out of it. Did Fan ever tell you that?" and Will chuckled.
+
+Amy Robson stared at Will with amazement as she exclaimed,--
+
+"Well, I never saw such a queer boy as you are,--to run your own family
+down."
+
+"I'm not running 'em down. 'Tisn't running 'em down to say that one of
+'em married Martha Hilton. Martha Hilton was a nice girl, though she was
+poor and had to work in a kitchen. Plenty of nice girls--farmers'
+daughters--worked in that way in those old times; the New England
+histories tell you that."
+
+Not one of the girls made any comment or criticism upon this statement,
+for Will Wentworth was known to be well up in history; but after a
+moment or two of silence, Dora burst forth in this wise,--
+
+"You may talk as you like. Will Wentworth, but you know perfectly well
+that you don't think a servant-girl is as good as you are."
+
+"If you mean that I don't think she is of the same class, of course I
+don't. She may be a great deal better than I am in other ways, for all
+that. In those old days, though, the servant-girls weren't the kind we
+have now; they were Americans,--farmers' daughters,--most of 'em."
+
+"Oh, well, you may talk and talk in this grand way, Willie Wentworth;
+but you know where you belong, and when the Pelhams come, Tilly'll see
+for herself that you are one of the same sort."
+
+"As the Pelhams?"
+
+"Well, what have you got to say about the Pelhams in that scornful way?"
+asked Amy, rather indignantly.
+
+"I'm not scornful. I was only going to set you right, and say that the
+Pelhams are fashionable folks and the Wentworths are not."
+
+"Oh, I'd like to have your cousin Fanny hear you say that. Fanny thinks
+the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."
+
+"They are."
+
+"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said--"
+
+"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths
+were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the
+Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that
+way,--in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of
+people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,--they
+don't like it."
+
+"Your cousin Fanny says--"
+
+"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she
+were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em
+when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so
+nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,--what you call
+'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."
+
+"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with
+sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.
+
+"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little
+wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we
+shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly
+dear,"--the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,--"you can't,
+for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,--how incapable
+of such meanness!"
+
+"I wouldn't trust this high-mindedness," retorted Tilly, wrinkling up
+her forehead.
+
+"Now, Tilly, you don't mean that,--you don't mean that you've come all
+the way from naughty New York to find such dreadful faults in nice,
+primmy New England. The very dogs here are above such things. Look at
+Punch there making friends with that little plebeian yellow dog."
+
+"And look at Dandy barking at everybody who isn't well dressed," laughed
+Tilly, pointing to a handsome collie, who was vigorously giving voice to
+his displeasure at the approach of a workman in shabby clothing.
+
+The Robson girls and Will Wentworth joined in Tilly's laugh; but Agnes
+Brendon, who could never see a joke, looked disgusted, and glancing at
+the little yellow dog, asked petulantly,--
+
+"Whose dog is it?"
+
+"It belongs to the girl who sits at the corner table," answered Will
+Wentworth, "and its name is Pete. I heard the girl call him this
+morning."
+
+"What a horrid, vulgar name!" exclaimed Agnes. "It suits the dog,
+though; and the people, I suppose, are--"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, look at that horrid worm on your dress!"
+
+Agnes jumped up in a panic, screaming, "Where, where?"
+
+Dora, bending down to brush off the smallest of small caterpillars,
+whispered,--
+
+"The girl who owns the yellow dog is in the other hammock. I just saw
+her, and she can hear every word you say."
+
+"I don't care if she does hear," said Agnes, without troubling herself
+to lower her voice. "You needn't have frightened me with your horrid
+worm story, just for that."
+
+Will Wentworth, as he heard this, fell backward into his reclining
+position, with an explosive laugh. The next minute he sprang out of the
+hammock, and, tucking "Jack Hall" under his arm, was up and off, giving
+a sidelong look as he went at the other hammock, which, though only a
+few rods away, was half hidden by the foliage of the two low-growing
+trees between which it hung. Meeting Tilly and the Robson girls as he
+ran around the corner of the house, he said breathlessly,--
+
+"Look here; that girl must have heard everything that we've said."
+
+"Well, there wasn't anything said that concerned her, until Agnes began
+about the yellow dog; and I stopped that," said Dora, gleefully.
+
+"She may be acquainted with the Pelhams,--how do we know?" exclaimed
+Will, ruefully.
+
+"The Pelhams!" cried Dora and Amy, in one breath.
+
+"Yes, how do we know?" repeated Will.
+
+"That girl who sits over at the corner table with that stuffy old woman,
+acquainted with the Pelhams! Oh, Will, if Agnes could hear you!" cried
+Dora, with a shout of laughter.
+
+"Well, I can't see what there is to laugh at," broke in Will, huffily.
+"Why shouldn't she and the stuffy old woman, as you call her, know the
+Pelhams? She's a nice-looking girl, a first-rate looking girl. What's
+the matter with her?"
+
+"Matter? I don't know that anything is the matter, except that she
+doesn't look like the sort of girl who would be an acquaintance of the
+Pelhams. She doesn't look like their kind, you know. She wears the
+plainest sort of dresses,--just little straight up and down frocks of
+brown or drab, or those white cambric things,--they are more like
+baby-slips than anything; and her hats are just the same,--great flat
+all-round hats, not a bit of style to them; and she's a girl of fourteen
+or fifteen certainly. Do you suppose people of the Pelhams' kind dress
+like that?"
+
+Will gave a gruff little sound half under his breath, as he asked
+sarcastically,--
+
+"How do people of the Pelham kind dress?"
+
+"Oh, like Dora and Amy, and especially like Agnes,--in the height of the
+fashion, you know," Tilly cried laughingly.
+
+"Now, Tilly," expostulated Dora, "neither Amy nor I overdress. We wear
+what all girls of our age--girls who are almost young ladies--wear, and
+I'm sure you wear the same kind of things."
+
+"Not quite, Dora. I'll own, though, I would if I could; but there's such
+a lot of us at home that the money gives out before it goes all 'round,"
+said Tilly, frankly, yet rather ruefully.
+
+"I'm sure you look very nice," said Dora, politely. Amy echoed the
+polite remark, while Will, eying the three with an attempt at a critical
+estimate, thought to himself, "They don't look a bit nicer than that
+girl at the corner table."
+
+But Will was too wise to give utterance to this thought. He knew how it
+would be received; he knew that the three would laugh at him and say,
+"What does a boy know about girl's clothes?"
+
+In the mean time, while all this was going on, what was that girl who
+had suggested the talk, that girl who sat at the corner table in the
+dining room and who was now lying in a hammock,--what was she doing,
+what was she thinking?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+She was lying looking up through the green branches of the trees. She
+had been reading, but her book was now closed, and she was lying quietly
+looking up at the blue sky between the branches. Her thoughts were not
+quite so quiet as her position would seem to indicate. She had, as Will
+Wentworth had said, heard all that talk about the Pelhams. Whatever her
+class in life, she was certainly a delicate and honorable young girl;
+for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party
+of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood,
+she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various
+little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and
+readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these
+demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared
+whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably
+back again into her place, and opened her book.
+
+But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age,
+and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said,
+she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she
+found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would
+dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her
+lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little
+yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she
+quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's
+little device to make it unfinished.
+
+It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of
+her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this
+knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed
+down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of
+laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.
+
+All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way
+across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she
+jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran
+into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person
+she was going in search of,--the person that Dora Robson had called
+"that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow
+dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone
+like satin.
+
+"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his
+young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.
+
+"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"
+cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.
+
+"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.
+
+"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to
+tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.
+Let's go in here, where we shall be all by ourselves," turning towards a
+small unoccupied reception-room.
+
+There, cosily ensconced beside her aunt, with the little yellow dog at
+her feet, the dog's mistress told her story, with various exclamations
+and interjections of, "Now wasn't it horrid of them?" and "Did you ever
+know anything so ridiculous?" while auntie listened with great
+interest, her only comment at the end being,--
+
+"Well, they're not worth minding, Peggy, and I wouldn't act as if I'd
+heard what they said when you meet them. I wouldn't take any notice of
+them."
+
+"I? Why, it's they who won't take any notice of me, auntie. I'm like my
+little dog,--a vulgar plebeian. What would they say, what would they
+think, if they could hear you call me Peggy?--that's as bad as Pete,
+isn't it?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is;" and auntie laughed a little as she spoke.
+
+The great summer hotel was not nearly full yet, for it was only the last
+of June; and as Peggy went down to luncheon, her hand closely clasped in
+"auntie's," whom should she meet face to face in the rather
+deserted-looking hall but "those girls"? It was a little embarrassing
+all round, and they all colored up very rosily as they met.
+
+"I wonder where the boy is?" thought Peggy; "he and that New York girl
+were nice." She glanced over her shoulder at this thought. There was the
+boy; and--yes, he was standing at the office desk, carefully examining
+the hotel register. "He's looking for our names!" flashed into Peggy's
+mind, "and those girls set him up to it. I wonder what they'll say to
+'Mrs. Smith and niece'? I know; they'll say, or the girl they call Agnes
+will say, 'Smith, of course! I knew they had some such common name as
+that.'"
+
+Something very like this comment did take place when Master Will, in
+obedience to Dora Robson's request, brought the information that the
+people at the corner table were Mrs. Smith and her niece. But if Peggy
+could only have heard Will flash out upon this comment the further
+information that very distinguished people had borne the name of
+Smith,--could have heard him quote the famous English clergyman Sydney
+Smith, whose wit and humor were so charming,--if Peggy could have heard
+Will going on in this fashion, she would have thought he was very nice
+indeed, and been quite delighted with his independent outspokenness.
+
+Agnes, however, was anything but delighted. She was, in fact, very angry
+with Will by this time, and what she called his meddlesome, domineering
+airs, and quite determined to let him know at the very first opportunity
+that she was not in the least to be influenced by his opinions.
+
+The opportunity presented itself sooner than she expected. It was just
+after luncheon, and a couple of Indians had come up from their
+neighboring summer camp with a load of baskets for sale.
+
+Dora and Tilly, with Mrs. Brendon and Agnes and Amy, went out to them at
+once. Others soon followed, and a brisk bargaining began. When the
+Indian woman held up a beautiful little basket skilfully woven to
+imitate shells, there was a general exclamation of pleasure, and one
+voice cried out with enthusiasm, "Oh, how lovely!" and the owner of the
+voice reached forth to take the basket in her hand. Agnes Brendon,
+turning quickly, saw that it was Mrs. Smith's niece.
+
+"The idea of that girl pushing herself forward like this!" was Agnes's
+whispered remark to Amy.
+
+"Hush: she'll hear you," whispered back Amy.
+
+"I don't care," answered Agnes, at the same time crowding herself to the
+front and inquiring the price of the basket, with the determination to
+get possession of it before any one else had a chance. But when the
+price--two dollars--was named, Mrs. Brendon pronounced it exorbitant,
+and offered half the sum, never doubting its acceptance. The Indian
+woman, however, shook her head with an air of grim decision; and at that
+very moment, catching sight of Mrs. Smith and her niece, she nodded
+smilingly, repeated the price, and held the basket up again;
+
+"Yes, yes, I'll take it," called out Peggy, nodding and smiling
+responsively; and the next instant the basket was in her hands.
+
+Agnes, not only disappointed, but deeply mortified and angry, turned
+hastily to Dora Robson, and gave vent to her feelings by remarking in a
+perfectly clear undertone,--
+
+"The worst of a place like this is that you meet such common people,
+with nothing to recommend them but their money."
+
+Dora and Amy flushed with annoyance at this speech; but Tilly was so
+disgusted and indignant that she broke away from them all with an
+impatient exclamation, and started off across the lawn towards the
+house. Halfway across she met Will Wentworth, with Tom Raymond,--a great
+chum of his, who had just arrived by the noon boat.
+
+"Hullo, what's up, what's the matter?" asked Will, as he perceived the
+expression of Tilly's face.
+
+Tilly stopped, and in a few graphic words told her story, winding up
+with, "Wasn't it horrid of Agnes?"
+
+"Horrid? It was beastly," sputtered Will. "_She_ to call people common!"
+
+"But that girl is not common," said Tilly. "She may belong to people who
+have just made a lot of money,--for that's what Agnes meant to fling
+out,--but there isn't any vulgar common show of it. Look at her, how
+plainly she's dressed, and how quiet she is."
+
+"Wonder what Agnes is up to now? Let's go and see," said Will, wheeling
+about and nodding to Tilly and Tom to follow.
+
+As they came along together, Will a little ahead, Tom Raymond was quite
+silent until they approached the group collected around the Indians;
+then he suddenly ejaculated, "Well, I never!"
+
+"What? What do you mean?--what--who do you see?" asked Tilly, very much
+surprised at this outbreak.
+
+"Is that the girl--the Smith girl you were telling about--there by the
+tree--holding a basket?" asked Tom.
+
+"Yes; why--do you know her?"
+
+"N-o--but--I was thinking--she doesn't look common, does she?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't, only plainly dressed."
+
+"Yes, that's all;" and Tom gave a little odd chuckling laugh.
+
+"How queer Tom Raymond is!" thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer
+still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl.
+Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom with
+rather a puzzled observation.
+
+"I see how it is," reflected Miss Tilly; "they have met before
+somewhere, and Tom doesn't want to know her now. He thinks she isn't
+fine enough for this Boston set, though he owns that she doesn't look
+common. Oh, I do believe that Will Wentworth is the only one here who
+has any sense or heart."
+
+As Tilly arrived at this conclusion of her reflections, Will came
+running up to her.
+
+"Come," he said, "there's no fun here. Let's go and have a game of
+tennis."
+
+"But where's Agnes? I thought you wanted to see what she was doing."
+
+"She's gone off in a huff because I asked her if she'd bought any
+baskets," answered Will, grinning. Tilly laughed, and Tom Raymond gave
+another odd little chuckle. Then the three strolled away to the tennis
+ground. As they were passing the rustic bench under the tree where Mrs.
+Smith and her niece were sitting, Tilly took a sudden resolution, and,
+stopping abruptly, said,--
+
+"We're going to have a game of tennis; won't you join us, Miss--Miss
+Smith?"
+
+The girl looked up with a smile, hesitated a moment, and then accepted
+the invitation. Will, nodding to Tilly a surprised and pleased approval
+of her action, started off ahead of the others to see if the tennis
+ground was occupied. As he turned the corner, he met Dora Robson with a
+racket in her hand.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "here you are! I was just coming after you, for Amy and
+I have got to go in,--mamma has sent for us, and Agnes was so
+disappointed,--now it's all right, for there's Tilly, and--what
+luck--Tom Raymond; he's such a splendid player, and you can--" But Dora
+stopped, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Who--who was that behind Tilly?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+As Agnes, standing waiting upon the tennis-ground where Dora had left
+her, suddenly caught sight of Tom Raymond, her heart gave a little throb
+of exultation. Tom Raymond was the best tennis-player she knew. To have
+him for her partner would be delightful, and she went forward with the
+most gracious welcome to him. So absorbed was she, so pleased at Tom's
+appearance, at his polite response to her, she did not observe Miss
+Smith,--did not see Tilly draw back, did not hear her say, "No, I don't
+care to play, Miss Smith, I want you to play with Will; this is my
+friend Will Wentworth, Miss Smith," by way of introduction.
+
+No; Agnes saw and heard nothing of all this, or of Will's polite
+arrangements with the newcomer. She saw nothing, she thought of nothing,
+but that her own little arrangement to have Tom for a partner was
+successful; and so, blithely and triumphantly, she took her place and
+lifted her racket. Whizz! she sent the ball flying over the netting,
+and whizz! it came flying back again, to be returned by Tom Raymond's
+vigorous stroke. Agnes regarded this stroke with due admiration.
+"Neither Will nor Tilly can match that," she thought; and at the thought
+she looked over and across the netting, to see a girl's uplifted arm
+swinging easily forward, the racket hitting the ball lightly with a
+swift, sure, upward, and onward motion. Where had Tilly learned to
+strike out like that, all at once? Tilly! The uplifted arm that had
+partially hidden the player's face was lowered. What--what--it was not
+Tilly, but--but--that girl! How did she come there? A glance at Will's
+face drawn up into a most exasperating grin, at Will's eyes darting
+forth gleams of fun, was enough for Agnes.
+
+Yes, this was Will Wentworth's doing,--this hateful plot to humiliate
+her and triumph over her. Stung by this thought, she lost sight for that
+moment of everything else, and the ball sent so surely back to her
+dropped to the ground before her partner could rescue it. An exclamation
+of disappointment from Tom added to her discomfiture; and when Will, the
+next instant, cried, "Wait a minute, till I get another racket, Miss
+Smith has broken hers," Agnes, flinging down her own, exclaimed,--
+
+"Miss Smith can have my racket; I'm not going to play any longer!"
+
+"Not going to play? What do you mean?" shouted Will.
+
+"I mean that I am not used to a surprise-party and to playing with
+strangers," was the rude and angry answer.
+
+"You--you ought to--" But Will controlled himself and stopped. He was
+about to say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+Agnes, however, understood by the tone of his voice something of what he
+meant, and turned scornfully away, her head up, and with a glance at Tom
+that plainly showed she expected him to follow her.
+
+But Tom made no movement of that kind. He stood where he was, looking
+across at Will, who, red and ashamed, had approached Miss Smith, and was
+evidently making some sort of apology to her for the insult that had
+been offered to her; and Miss Smith was listening to this apology with
+the coolest little face imaginable.
+
+Tom, taking all this in, gave another of his odd little chuckles. Agnes
+heard it, and flushed scarlet. So he was taking sides with Will
+Wentworth, was he? And what--what--was that--Tilly? Yes, it was
+Tilly,--Tilly with the racket she, Agnes, had flung down,--Tilly
+standing in her place and--and--serving the ball back to that girl! So
+Tilly was with them too? Well, she would see, they would all see, that
+Agnes Brendon was not a person to be snubbed and disregarded in this
+fashion, nor a person to be forced to make acquaintances with vulgar or
+common people against her will. Oh, they would see, they would see! And
+bracing herself up with these indignant resolutions, Agnes betook
+herself to the hotel.
+
+Before the end of the week there were two distinct parties in the house,
+where heretofore there had been but one,--two distinct opposing forces.
+
+On one side were Agnes and Dora and Amy; on the other side were Tilly
+and Tom and Will. Dora and Amy were not naturally ill-natured girls, but
+they were inclined to be worldly and were greatly under Agnes's
+influence. She had been a sort of authority with them for a good while,
+perforce of her dominant disposition and the knowledge she seemed to
+possess of the worldly matters that were of so much interest to them.
+
+"But I should think you would feel ashamed to side with Agnes Brendon in
+persecuting a poor little stranger," said honest Tilly, a day or two
+after the tennis affair; for Agnes had at once set to work to carry out
+her plan of showing that she was not to be forced, as she expressed it,
+into making acquaintances she didn't like, and had thus lost no
+opportunity of being disagreeable.
+
+Dora flushed at Tilly's words, but she answered coolly,--
+
+"Persecuting! I don't call it persecuting to avoid a person one doesn't
+want to know."
+
+"Yes; but how does Agnes avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls
+her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating
+about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith
+was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and
+made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in pretending to hunt
+up one of her own music-books; and when I asked her to be quieter, she
+said something horrid about 'low common songs,' and 'Mrs. Brady' isn't
+a low common song; and the other morning, when Pete, the little dog, ran
+up to her on the piazza, she pushed him away from her in such a
+disagreeable manner--and so it has gone on every day, and I think it's a
+shame, and such a nice girl as Miss Smith is too. I told grandmother all
+about it,--the whole story,--and she says it is Agnes who is vulgar and
+not Miss Smith, and that she never would have brought me here if she had
+known that a girl who could behave like that was to be in the house; and
+you can tell Miss Agnes Brendon this, if you like, and you can tell her
+too that she'll only make us stand by Miss Smith stancher than ever by
+persecuting her as she does."
+
+"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, and there's no such thing as
+persecution anyway,--that's ridiculous. Agnes is very exclusive,--the
+Brendons all are,--and she doesn't like to make acquaintances with
+common people, that's all."
+
+"Common people! Miss Smith isn't any more common than you or I. She's a
+very ladylike girl.--much more ladylike and nice, and nicer-looking too,
+than Agnes."
+
+"Nicer looking with those plain frocky dresses, and her hair all pulled
+back without the sign of a crimp or curl!" and Dora burst into a jeering
+laugh.
+
+"Oh, she isn't all fussed up, I know, as most of us girls are; but her
+clothes are of the very finest materials,--I've noticed that."
+
+"And that stuffy old aunt's clothes are of the finest material, I
+suppose; and the little yellow dog's coat is as fine as a King Charles
+spaniel's," jeered Dora.
+
+"Stuffy old aunt! She isn't stuffy in the least. She's a little
+old-fashioned; that's all. Grandmother has taken quite a fancy to her."
+
+Dora smiled a very provoking smile as she said,--
+
+"Perhaps the Pelhams, when they come, will take a fancy to her too, and
+to that pretty name of Peggy."
+
+The hot color rushed to Tilly's cheeks and the tears to her eyes as she
+turned away. She knew perfectly well that Dora was thinking: "Oh, your
+grandmother is only another old woman a good deal like Mrs. Smith,--what
+is her judgment worth?"
+
+Dora was a little ashamed of herself as Tilly left her. Indeed, she had
+been a little ashamed of herself for some time,--ever since, in fact,
+she had ranged herself on Agnes's side after the tennis affair; but
+once having taken that side she was determined to stick to it, and to
+believe that it was the right side, in spite of some qualms of
+conscience.
+
+Her cousin Amy followed in the same path, and Agnes spared no pains to
+keep them there. She felt that she could not afford to lose her only
+allies. Every minute that had elapsed since she had flung down her
+tennis racket in such anger and mortification had but increased this
+mortification, and strengthened her resolve to show those boys and Tilly
+Morris that she was right and they were wrong about "that girl."
+
+Of course, when she set her face in this direction, she was on the
+lookout for everything unfavorable; and everything, pretty nearly, was
+turned into something unfavorable, so perverted and distorted had her
+vision become. It was "Dora, did you notice this?" and "Amy, did you see
+that?" until the two began to find the incessant harping upon one
+subject rather wearisome, especially as the particular details thus
+pointed out had never yet developed into matters of any importance.
+
+"I wish Agnes wouldn't keep talking about that Smith girl all the time,
+unless there was something more worth while to talk about," broke forth
+Dora impatiently to Amy just after the interview with Tilly.
+
+"So do I," Amy responded emphatically; then, laughing a little, "unless
+there was some real big thing to tell."
+
+"But I don't wonder Agnes doesn't like the girl, with Tilly and Will
+taking up for her and making such a fuss;" and Dora indignantly repeated
+Tilly's accusations. Amy caught at the word "persecution," as Dora had
+done, and together they defended themselves against these accusations
+with a zeal and ingenuity worthy of a better cause.
+
+They were in the full tide of this talk when, as they rounded the curve
+of the shore where they were walking, they came upon Agnes herself,
+coming rapidly towards them.
+
+"Oh, girls, I've been looking for you everywhere. I've got something I
+want to show you," she exclaimed excitedly. "Come up here and sit down;"
+and she led the way to a little cluster of rocks.
+
+Dora and Amy glanced at each other rather apprehensively. Was Agnes
+going to tell them something else about the Smith girl,--going to say.
+"Did you notice this?" or "Did you see that?" in reference to some
+detail that displeased her? They had worked themselves up into quite a
+state of indignation against Tilly and the boys, and of increased
+sympathy with Agnes; but they were so tired of hearing, "Did you notice
+this?" "Did you see that?" when there had been such uninteresting little
+things to "notice," to "see."
+
+With these apprehensions flitting through their minds, the two girls
+seated themselves to listen with very languid interest. But what was
+that Agnes was unfolding,--a newspaper? And what was it she was saying
+as she pointed to a certain column? She wanted them to read that! The
+cousins looked at each other in a dazed, inquiring fashion; and Agnes,
+starting forward, impatiently thrust the paper into Dora's hand and
+cried sharply,--
+
+"Read that; read that!"
+
+Dora in a bewildered way read aloud this sentence, which in big black
+letters stared her in the face,--
+
+"Smithson, alias Smith."
+
+"Well, go on, go on; read what is underneath," urged Agnes, as Dora
+stopped; and Dora went on and read,--
+
+"It seems that that arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got
+himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains
+from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too
+notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of
+Smith. His wife and young son are with him, and the three are living
+luxuriously in the suburbs of Rio, where Smithson has rented a villa. An
+older child, a daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was left behind in this
+country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the name of
+Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston."
+
+The bewildered look on Dora's face did not disappear as she came to the
+end of this statement.
+
+"What did you want me to read this for?" she asked Agnes.
+
+"What did I want you to read it for? Is it possible that you don't
+see,--that you don't understand?"
+
+"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."
+
+"But we do know these--Smiths."
+
+"Agnes, you don't mean--"
+
+"Yes, I do mean that I believe--that I am sure that these Smiths are
+those very identical Smithsons."
+
+"Oh, Agnes, what makes you think so? Smith is such a very common name,
+you know."
+
+"Yes, I know it; but here is a girl whose name is Smith, and she is with
+a Mrs. Smith, her aunt, and they are staying at a summer resort near
+Boston. How does that fit?"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, it does look like--as if it must be, doesn't it?" cried
+Dora, in a sort of shuddering enjoyment of the sensational situation.
+
+"Of course it does. I knew I was right about those people. I knew there
+was something queer and mysterious about them. And what do you
+think,--only yesterday I happened to go into the little parlor, where
+there are writing-materials, and there sat this very Peggy Smith
+directing a letter; and when she went out, I happened to cast my eyes at
+the blotting-pad she had used, and I couldn't help reading--for it was
+just as plain as print--the last part of the address, and it was--'South
+America'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" said Tilly Morris,
+indignantly, as Dora wound up her recital of the Smithson-Smith story.
+
+"Well, you can believe it or not; but I don't see how you can help
+believing, when you remember that their name is Smith, and that they are
+aunt and niece, and that the niece is fourteen or fifteen,--just as the
+paper said,--and that they are staying at a summer resort not far from
+Boston, and--that the niece writes to some one in South America,--think
+of that!"
+
+Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,--
+
+"Well, I don't care, I don't care. I'm not going to talk about it,
+either. How many people have you--has Amy--has Agnes told?"
+
+"I haven't told anybody but you yet. I've just come from Agnes."
+
+"Yet! Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora. My father, you
+know, is a lawyer, and I've heard him talk a great deal when we've had
+company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,--queer
+things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits. One of the things that I
+particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had
+heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the
+neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and
+they had a horrid time. The woman's daughters had to go into court and
+be examined as witnesses. Oh, it was horrid; and the worst of it was
+that even though there was some truth in the stories, there were things
+that were not true,--exaggerations, you know,--and so the woman was
+declared guilty, and her husband had to pay a lot of money to keep her
+out of prison. There was ever so much more that I've forgotten; but I
+recollect papa's turning to us children at the end, and saying, 'Now,
+children, remember when you are repeating things that you have heard
+against people, that the next thing you'll know you may be prosecuted
+for what you've said, and have to answer for it in the law courts.'"
+
+Dora looked scared. "Well, I'm sure," she began, "I haven't repeated
+this to anybody but you; and if Agnes--"
+
+"What's that about me?" suddenly interrupted Agnes herself, as she came
+up behind the two girls. Dora began to explain, and then called upon
+Tilly to repeat her story of the lawsuit.
+
+"Oh, fiddlesticks!" cried Agnes, angrily, after hearing this story; "you
+can't frighten me that way, Tilly Morris. We can't be prosecuted for
+telling facts that are already in the newspapers."
+
+"But we can be for what isn't. It isn't in the newspapers that this Mrs.
+Smith and her niece are these Smithsons."
+
+"Well, Tilly Morris, I should think it was in the newspapers about as
+plain as could be. What do you say to this sentence?" And Agnes pulled
+from her pocket the Smithson article she had cut out, and read aloud:
+"'An older child--a daughter of fourteen or fifteen--was left behind in
+this country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the
+name of Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston;'
+and what do you say to that letter addressed to some place in South
+America?"
+
+"I say that--that--all this might mean somebody else, and not--not
+these--our--my Smiths. What did your mother say when you told her, and
+showed the paper to her?"
+
+"I didn't tell her; I didn't show her the paper. We never tell mamma
+such things; she is a nervous invalid, and it would fret her to death,"
+Agnes responded snappishly.
+
+"Well, I don't believe it's my Smiths; I believe it's somebody else,"
+flashed back Tilly, with tears in her eyes and in her voice.
+
+"Oh, very well; you can stand up for your Smiths, if you like; but
+you'll find they are--"
+
+"Hullo! What's the little Smith girl done now? Agnes, I should think
+you'd get tired of rattling about the Smiths," interposed a voice here.
+
+It was Will Wentworth's voice; he had come out on the piazza just as the
+girls were passing the hall door.
+
+Agnes started back nervously at the sight of him. "I think you are very
+rude to listen and spring at anybody like this," she said.
+
+Will looked at her in astonishment. "I haven't been listening, and I
+didn't spring at you," he responded indignantly. "I simply met you as I
+came out, and heard you say something about the Smiths."
+
+"What did you hear?" asked Agnes, quickly.
+
+"I heard you say to Tilly, 'Stand up for your Smiths if you like;' and I
+knew by that you'd been going for Miss Peggy, and Tilly had been
+defending her." Will's bright eyes, as he said this, suddenly observed
+that there was something unusually serious in the girl's face. "What's
+the matter?" he inquired; "what's up now?"
+
+Agnes put her hand into her pocket, and Tilly drew in her breath with a
+little gasp, and braced herself to come to the defence again when Agnes
+should answer this question, as she fully expected her to do, by
+producing the cutting from the newspaper and repeating her accusations.
+But when Agnes drew her hand forth, there was no slip of paper in it,
+and all the answer that she made to Will's question was to say in a
+mocking tone,--
+
+"Ask Tilly; she knows all the delightful facts now about Miss Peggy and
+her highly respectable family."
+
+The decisive tone in which this was said, the significant expression of
+the speaker's face as she glanced at Tilly, and Tilly's own silence at
+the moment impressed Will very strongly, as Agnes fully intended; and
+when a minute later she slipped her hand over Dora's arm, and went off
+with her toward the tennis ground, and Tilly refused to tell him what
+this something that was "up" was, honest Will felt convinced that the
+"something" must be very queer indeed.
+
+Poor Tilly saw and understood at once the nature of the impression that
+Will had received; but what could she do? It was certainly better to
+keep silence than to speak and tell that dreadful, dreadful story of
+"Smithson, alias Smith." Even, yes, even if it was true,--for Tilly,
+spite of her vehement defence, her stout declaration of disbelief at the
+first, had a shuddering fear at her heart as she thought of that last
+paragraph about the girl of fourteen or fifteen, and of that letter to
+South America,--a shuddering fear that the story might be true; but even
+then she would not be one of those to point a finger at poor innocent
+Peggy; for, whatever her father might have done, Peggy was innocent.
+
+There was one person, however, that Tilly could speak to, could ask
+counsel of, and that, of course, was her grandmother. Grandmother, she
+was quite sure, would agree with her that the story was not to be
+chattered about; and even if it were true that Mrs. Smith and Peggy
+were those very Smithsons, neither was to blame, but only, as she had
+heard her father say once of the family of a man who had proved a
+defaulter, "innocent victims who were very much to be pitied."
+
+But perhaps--perhaps grandmother would not believe that Mrs. Smith and
+Peggy were "those Smithsons," and perhaps she would find some careful
+way to investigate the matter and prove that they were not. With this
+hope springing up over her fears, Tilly flew along the corridor to her
+grandmother's room.
+
+"What! what! what!" cried grandmother, as she listened to the story; "I
+don't believe a word of Agnes's suspicions. There are millions of Smiths
+in the world."
+
+"But did you hear what I said about that last paragraph,--the girl of
+fourteen or fifteen, and--and the letter,--the letter to South America?"
+asked Tilly, tremulously.
+
+"In what paper was it that Agnes found the statement?"
+
+"It was some morning paper: I don't know which one,--I only remember
+seeing the date."
+
+Grandmother rang the bell, and sent for all the morning papers. When
+they were brought her, she put on her spectacles and began the search
+for "Smithson, alias Smith." One, two, three papers she searched
+through; and at last there it was,--"Smithson, alias Smith!"
+
+Tilly watched her grandmother as she read with breathless anxiety, and
+her heart sank as she noticed how serious was the expression on the
+reader's face as she came to the last paragraph.
+
+"Oh, grandmother," she cried, "you do believe it may be our Smiths."
+
+"Well, yes, my dear, I believe that it may possibly be, that's all; but
+it may not be, just as possibly."
+
+"Oh, grandmother, couldn't you inquire--carefully, you know."
+
+"No, no, my dear. If it isn't our Smiths, think what an outrage any
+inquiries would be; and if it is, how cruel to stir the matter up! No,
+we must say nothing. The girl is an innocent creature; and if this
+Smithson is her father, I doubt if she has been told by anybody the
+facts of the case,--probably there was some very different reason given
+her for dropping that last syllable of the name. However it may be, it
+would be cruel for us to show by our manner or speech any knowledge of
+the story; for either way, whether they are those Smithsons or not,
+Agnes has made a very unpleasant situation for them, and we must be good
+to them."
+
+"But, grandmother, when Agnes tells other people--"
+
+"She won't. Your little warning, by your description of the way she took
+it, convinces me that she won't."
+
+"But other people read the papers, and they--"
+
+"May not take any more notice than I did, if Agnes's spiteful suspicions
+are held in check."
+
+"But if poor Peggy herself--"
+
+"Peggy probably doesn't read the newspapers any more than you do. But we
+needn't waste time in thinking what if this or that; the clear duty for
+us is to take no notice, and, as I said, be good to them."
+
+"Oh, grandmother, you are such a dear! I knew you'd feel like this."
+
+There was to be an early little dance that night for the young people,
+and Tilly put on her prettiest gown,--a white mull with rose-colored
+ribbons,--and went down to dinner in it, for the dance was an informal
+affair that was to follow very soon after dinner on account of the
+youth of most of the dancers. Her heart beat more quickly as she looked
+across at the corner table and saw Peggy and her aunt in their places,
+and that Peggy was also dressed for the occasion in something white,
+embroidered with rosebuds, and with ribbon loops of pale blue and a
+broad sash of the same color.
+
+"Of course, she expects to dance," thought Tilly, "and Agnes will be
+horrid to her about it in some way or other; but I shall stand by Peggy
+anyway, whatever anybody else may do."
+
+It was with this kind intention that Tilly hurried through her dinner
+and hastened out to join Peggy and her aunt when they left the
+dining-room. But the kind intention was arrested for the moment by
+Dora's voice calling out,--
+
+"Tilly, Tilly, wait a minute."
+
+The next thing Dora had her hand over Tilly's arm. Amy and Agnes were
+just behind, and there was nothing to do but to follow the general
+movement with them to the piazza. That it was a planned movement to
+separate her from Peggy, Tilly did not doubt; for once out on the
+piazza, Agnes, with a whispered word to Amy, turned sharply about in the
+opposite direction to that where Mrs. Smith and her niece were sitting.
+
+A color like a red rose sprang to Tilly's cheeks as she glanced across
+at Peggy, and bowed to her with a swift little smile. Then, "How pretty
+Peggy Smith looks!" and "What a lovely gown she has on!" she said,
+turning a brave and half-defiant glance upon Agnes.
+
+"Yes, it is pretty. It's made of that South American embroidered
+muslin,--convent work, you know," answered Agnes, casting a fleeting
+look at Tilly.
+
+"No, I didn't know," answered Tilly, trying to seem calm and
+indifferent, but failing miserably.
+
+"Yes," went on Agnes, "I know, because my cousins have had several of
+those dresses, and I'm quite familiar with them."
+
+Peggy, sitting there in her odd pretty dress, saw with pity the distress
+in her friend Tilly's face.
+
+"Those girls are worrying poor Tilly, auntie, see,--and I dare say it's
+on my account, for I was sure when she came out that she was intending
+to join us, and that they prevented her,--and, auntie, I'm going to
+brave the lions in their dens, and going over to her."
+
+"They are ill-bred girls, and they may do or say something rude,"
+replied auntie, regarding Peggy with a slightly anxious expression.
+
+"Oh, I don't care for that now. Tilly is such a darling in sticking to
+me, in spite of their disapproval," laughing a little, "that I think I
+ought to stick to her;" and, nodding to her auntie, Peggy started on her
+friendly errand.
+
+"What impudence! She's actually coming over to us uninvited. Well, I
+must say she has nerve!" muttered Agnes, as she observed Peggy's
+movements.
+
+Coming forward, Peggy nodded to the whole group of girls; but it was to
+Tilly she addressed herself, and by Tilly's side she seated herself. It
+was in doing this that the delicate material of her dress caught in a
+protruding nail in the splint piazza chair with an ominous sound.
+
+"Oh, your pretty gown! it's torn!" cried Tilly.
+
+The two sprang up to examine it, and found an ugly little rent that had
+nearly pulled out one of the wrought rosebuds.
+
+"It's too bad,--too bad!" sympathized Tilly.
+
+"But it's easily mended, and it won't show," answered Peggy, cheerfully.
+
+"It isn't easy to mend that South American stuff so that it won't show,"
+remarked Agnes, coolly.
+
+"I know it isn't usually," answered Peggy, as coolly; "but auntie can
+mend almost anything."
+
+"It is a perfectly beautiful dress. I wish I had one just like it,"
+broke forth Tilly, hurriedly, hardly knowing what she was saying in the
+desire to say something kind.
+
+"You could easily send for one like it," spoke up Agnes, "if you knew
+anybody out there, or what shop or convent address to send to."
+
+"We could send for you," said Peggy, turning to Tilly. Tilly looked
+startled.
+
+"Have you friends out there?" asked Agnes, with an impertinent stare at
+Peggy.
+
+"Yes," answered Peggy, curtly, meeting Agnes's stare with a look of
+sudden haughtiness.
+
+Tilly turned hot and cold, but through all her perturbation was one
+feeling of satisfaction. Peggy could stand her ground, it seemed, and
+resent impertinence; but, "Oh, dear!" said this poor Tilly to herself,
+"that South American gown, I suppose, proves that she must be that
+Smithson man's daughter; but grandmother was right,--she is innocent of
+the facts of the case, of that there can be no doubt,--and we must be
+good to her, and now is the time to begin,--this very minute, when Agnes
+is planning what hateful thing she can do next."
+
+Fired by this thought, Tilly sprang to her feet, and, casting a glance
+of scorn and contempt at Agnes, slipped her hand over Peggy's arm and
+said,--
+
+"Come, Peggy, let's go over to the other end of the piazza and walk up
+and down; it's much pleasanter there."
+
+Warm-hearted Tilly's intentions were excellent; but her look of
+contempt, her meaning words, instead of cowing and controlling Agnes,
+only roused her to deeper anger, which resulted in an action that
+probably had not been premeditated even by her jealous and bitter
+spirit. Tilly will never forget that action. It was just as she was
+turning away with Peggy, when she saw that angry face barring her way,
+when she heard those ominous words, "Miss Smithson," and then--and then
+that outstretched hand thrusting forth to Peggy that fluttering,
+dreadful slip of paper!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+But another hand than Peggy's snatched at the fluttering paper. "What is
+it, what does it mean?" demanded Peggy, as a gusty breeze tore the paper
+from Tilly's trembling fingers.
+
+"Yes, and what do you mean, Miss Tilly Morris, by snatching what doesn't
+belong to you?" cried Agnes, shrilly, as she started off to capture the
+flying paper, that, eluding her, blew hither and thither in a
+tantalizing way, and at last, falling at the feet of Will Wentworth, was
+picked up by him as he came out of the hall.
+
+"It is mine, it is mine," shrieked Agnes; "keep it for me."
+
+But Tilly, who was nearer to him, whispered agitatedly,--
+
+"No, no, Will; don't give it to her,--she is--she means--"
+
+"Mischief, I see," whispered back Will, with a swift, intelligent glance
+at Tilly.
+
+"And if you wouldn't read it until--until I see you--oh, if you
+wouldn't!"
+
+Will looked at Tilly with wonder. This was certainly something more
+serious than common. What was it,--what was the trouble?
+
+But Agnes was by this time close upon him, reaching up her hand and
+crying, "Give it to me, Will, give it to me!"
+
+But Will laughingly thrust the paper into his pocket, and answered,--
+
+"No, I'll keep it for you, and give it to you later; I don't think it
+would be safe now. There's so much thunder in the air it might be struck
+by lightning."
+
+"It might be snatched or stolen, I dare say," said Agnes, with a
+significant look at Tilly; "and you may keep it for me until later in
+the evening, and--read it at your leisure. It's a very interesting
+collection of facts."
+
+"Tum, tum, ti tum," suddenly struck up the band in the hall.
+
+"Eight o'clock!" cried Agnes, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, the ball's begun," said Will, nodding and smiling; "and if you'll
+excuse me," lifting his cap, "I'll go and get into my dancing shoes."
+
+Agnes tried to smile in response; but a little pang of disappointment
+thrilled her as he left her without asking her for a dance. But he
+would later, of course,--later, when he would hand her her property,
+that collection of "facts," and by that time he would have read these
+"facts." She wouldn't need to risk any words of her own in accusation
+after that,--which conclusion shows very plainly that Miss Agnes had
+been sufficiently impressed with Tilly's warning to hold her peace.
+
+That she had not flaunted the newspaper cutting before the eyes of
+others in the house also shows that the accident of the moment and her
+hot anger had, in the one instance only, overcome her caution.
+
+But Tilly did not know all this, and her anxiety increased after she had
+heard those words to Will, "Read it at your leisure."
+
+Peggy, too, had heard those words, though it was quite clear she had not
+heard that other word,--that dreadful name of Smithson; for, "What is it
+all about, that bit of paper?" she asked Tilly innocently, as Agnes and
+Will disappeared in the hallway; and Tilly said to her imploringly,--
+
+"Don't ask me now, Peggy,--don't, that's a dear; I can't stand any more
+now."
+
+And then and there Peggy answered, "I won't, I won't, you dear Tilly; I
+won't say another thing about it, and we won't think about it--" And
+then and there "Tum, tum, ti tum" burst forth the band in Strauss's
+"Morgen Blaetter" waltzes.
+
+"Oh, how I love the 'Morgen Blaetter!'" cried Peggy. "Come, let us get
+into the dancing-hall as soon as possible. Where's auntie? Oh, there she
+is, talking with your pretty grandmother."
+
+The next minute auntie and grandmother were sitting side by side in the
+dancing-hall, watching the two girls as they kept step to that perfect
+waltz music.
+
+"Isn't it just lovely!" sighed Peggy.
+
+"Lovely!" echoed Tilly.
+
+"And how we suit each other! our steps are just alike."
+
+"Just alike," echoed Tilly; whereat they both laughed, and a little
+silence between them followed, and then--
+
+"There's Agnes dancing with Tom Raymond," suddenly exclaimed Tilly. "I
+wonder--"
+
+"Don't wonder or worry about Agnes now, when we are tuned to the 'Morgen
+Blaetter' music," said Peggy. "'Music has charms to soothe the savage
+breast,' somebody has written, you know; and--and," with a soft little
+laugh, "it may soothe the breast of this savage Agnes."
+
+Tilly echoed the soft little laugh, but she could not dismiss Agnes from
+her mind. She could not cease to wonder what it was she was talking
+about so earnestly with Tom Raymond,--to wonder if she had told, or was
+telling him at that very moment, of "Smithson, alias Smith."
+
+And while poor Tilly wondered and worried, there was Peggy, the
+unconscious centre of all the wonder and worry, lifting up a radiant
+face of enjoyment as she floated along to the music of the "Morgen
+Blaetter." Tom Raymond, catching sight of this radiant face, said to
+himself,--
+
+"I wonder if she's engaged for the next dance. I'll ask her the minute
+this is over."
+
+The two girls were standing near their two chaperones when Tom came up,
+and with an odd sort of shyness, asked,--
+
+"Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss--Miss Smith?"
+
+Tilly's heart gave a jump as she noted Tom's sudden confusion and
+hesitation at this "Miss Smith," for it brought back to her his strange
+expression at the first sight of Peggy, and his question, "Is that the
+girl--the Miss Smith you were talking about?" and then his odd,
+chuckling laugh.
+
+Peggy, too, had regarded Tom at that moment with a puzzled observation,
+as if she wondered if she had seen him before; and now, as Tom hesitated
+and bungled at the "Miss Smith," Peggy's own manner showed signs of
+consciousness, if not of embarrassment. Oh, oh! what could it all mean
+but that he had known everything from the first? "And I fancied at the
+first he acted as he did because he thought she wasn't quite fine
+enough; and all the time he knew she was this Miss Smithson, and was
+keeping it to himself, and, knowing that, he's going to ask her to dance
+with him now! Oh, what a good fellow he is, and what injustice I've done
+him!" concluded Tilly. "If only Will now, when he finds out--"
+
+It was just then that a voice called softly from the open window behind
+her, "Miss Tilly, Miss Tilly!" and there was Will beckoning to her.
+"What shall I do with that paper?" he whispered, as Tilly turned. "I
+expect Agnes to be after me for it as quick as she catches sight of me
+again."
+
+The window was a long French window, and Tilly stepped out and joined
+him upon the piazza. "Come around here where nobody can see or overhear
+us," she said. He followed her down the steps to a sheltered rustic
+seat.
+
+"You haven't read it?" she asked.
+
+"Read it? No!" Will answered a little huffily. "You asked me not to
+until I had seen you."
+
+Tilly colored, and then, "You are a gentleman!" she burst out
+vehemently.
+
+"Well, I hope so," Will answered.
+
+"And so is Tom Raymond. I had done him such an injustice; but he's
+turned out so different from what I supposed he was. Oh, he's just
+splendid! and if you--" But here--I'm half ashamed to record it of my
+plucky little Tilly--here, suddenly overcome by all the excitement she
+had been through, Tilly broke down and began to cry.
+
+"Oh, don't! I wish you wouldn't, now! Oh, I say!" cried Will, in boyish
+embarrassment.
+
+Poor Tilly checked her sobs by a vigorous effort; but tears continued to
+flow, and she fumbled vainly for her handkerchief to dry them.
+
+"Here, here, take mine," said Will, hastily thrusting the cambric into
+her hand; "and don't you bother another bit about Agnes and her
+tantrums. I'll burn her old paper if you say so, and I won't read it at
+all."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, you'll have to read it now. She'll ask you,--she'll tell
+you. Yes, read it, read it, Will. I know you'll pity Peggy, as
+grandmother and I do."
+
+Thus adjured, Will drew the bit of paper from his pocket.
+
+Tilly forgot her tears as she watched Will's face. He read it twice. At
+first there was an entire lack of comprehension; at the second reading a
+look of shocked understanding, and, bringing his fist down upon his
+knee, he exclaimed,--
+
+"And Agnes was going to fling this bombshell straight at that poor
+thing!"
+
+Then Tilly knew that Will was on the right side; that he pitied Peggy,
+and that he would agree with all that grandmother had said about her and
+her innocence and ignorance of real facts. This estimate of Master
+Will's sympathy was not a mistaken one. He not only agreed with
+grandmother about Peggy's innocence and ignorance, but in grandmother's
+kind conclusion "that they must be good to her."
+
+"But what did you mean about Tom? What has he done to make you think so
+much better of him?" Will asked curiously.
+
+While Tilly was enlightening him upon this point, Tom's voice was heard
+saying, "Oh, here they are," and Tom himself came round the clump of
+sheltering bushes accompanied by Peggy. And "We've been looking for you
+everywhere," said Peggy. "We've just had another of the Strauss waltzes,
+and the next thing is the 'Lancers;' and we want you and Tilly--"
+
+"Will Wentworth, I want my property, if you please; that paper I gave
+you to keep for me," a very different voice--a high, sharp voice that
+the whole four recognized at once--interrupted here.
+
+Tilly started, and turned pale.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Tilly, she sha'n't have it," whispered Will.
+
+Agnes flushed resentfully as she came forward and saw the confidential
+friendliness of the little group. For "that girl" she had been neglected
+and disregarded like this! Not a moment longer would she bear such
+insults. It was all nonsense,--all that stuff about being prosecuted
+for showing up facts. She would be stopped by that foolishness no
+longer. She would first take her stand boldly, and let everybody know
+what a fraud this Miss Smith was. These were some of the wild thoughts
+that leaped up out of the bitter fountain in Agnes's distorted mind at
+that instant, and her voice was sharper than ever as she again said,--
+
+"I want my property,--the paper I gave you to keep for me."
+
+Will had risen to his feet, and answered very coolly, "I can't give it
+to you."
+
+"What do you mean? Have you lost it?"
+
+"No, but I can't give it to you."
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes, and that's the reason I don't give it to you. I know if I should
+you would--"
+
+"Probably give it to Miss Smithson," cried Agnes, shrilly. "Miss
+Smithson," going toward Peggy, "I--"
+
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, come with me. We're all your friends,--grandmother
+and I and Will and Tom; and we know how sweet and innocent you are. Oh,
+Peggy, come, come, and don't listen to her!" burst forth Tilly, in an
+agony of pity and horror, as she put an arm around Peggy to draw her
+away.
+
+But Peggy was not to be drawn away.
+
+"What in the world is the matter? What is it all about? What do you
+mean, Tilly, dear, by 'innocent'? What has she," glancing at Agnes
+disdainfully "been getting up against me?"
+
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, don't!" moaned Tilly.
+
+"Well, this is rich," laughed Agnes, jeeringly. "Nobody has been getting
+up anything against you, Miss Smithson."
+
+"What do you mean by calling me Miss Smithson? That isn't my name."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" derisively. "How long since did you change it for
+Smith?"
+
+"I have never changed it for Smith."
+
+"Oh, I believe that 'Miss Smith' is down on the hotel register, and you
+answer to that name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Peggy, looking at Agnes with great scorn.
+"'Mrs. Smith and niece' are down on the register. It was the clerk who
+registered us in that way, and all of you seemed to take it for granted
+that _my_ name must be Smith also. Perhaps I ought to have corrected the
+mistake at once; but after I overheard that conversation on the piazza,
+and--saw somebody examining the register a few minutes later" glancing
+away from Agnes with a smile at Will, who looked rather sheepish--"after
+that I thought I'd let the mistake go until the rest of the family
+arrived, it was so amusing."
+
+"Oh," retorted Agnes, "this all sounds very straight and pretty, but I
+dare say you've got used to telling such stories. Perhaps you'll tell us
+now what name you do call your own, and if it is by that those South
+American friends you write to are known."
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Tom Raymond will tell you," answered Peggy, quickly. "I've
+thought for some time that he might be one of the Tennis Club that came
+out to Fairview at my brother's invitation last summer, and I thought he
+suspected who I was, and--and wouldn't tell because--because he saw,
+just as I did, what fun the mistake was. But now, if he will, he can
+introduce me--to my friends, Tilly and Will Wentworth, as--"
+
+[Illustration: "Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!"]
+
+"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" shouted Tom, before Peggy could go
+any further.
+
+"Pelham!" cried Tilly, in a dazed way.
+
+"Pelham!" repeated Will.
+
+"Yes, Pelham! Pelham!" exclaimed Tom, exultantly, flinging up his cap
+with a chuckle of delighted laughter.
+
+"And you're not--you're not the daughter of that dreadful Smithson?"
+burst forth Tilly, in a little transport of happy relief.
+
+"'That dreadful Smithson'? Who is he, and who said I was his daughter?"
+
+"_She_ said it," roared Will, darting a furious look at Agnes; "and she
+cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his
+pocket.
+
+"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to snatch
+the paper from his hand.
+
+"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now
+I'll give it to--Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to
+circulate about the house," answered Will.
+
+"I--I--if I happened to notice it before the rest of you--and--and
+thought that it might be this Miss Smith--"
+
+"That it _must_ be! you insisted," broke in Will.
+
+"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl,
+and--and--the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South
+American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,--"if I happened to be
+before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be;
+and--"
+
+"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's
+clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper
+slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as
+in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they
+thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"
+with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it _must_ be, because you wanted
+it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all
+now,--everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to
+that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my
+uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying
+and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all
+for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for
+I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,--oh,
+Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful
+little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite
+of--even this--this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to
+shield me."
+
+"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever
+might just possibly have happened to--to--"
+
+"Mr. Smithson--" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in
+something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's
+shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes
+had disappeared.
+
+"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped
+your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there
+wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully,
+though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had so long
+manfully repressed.
+
+"Finished off! I should say so!" cried Will, joining in Tom's laughter.
+
+"And to think that you were a Pelham,--one of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams
+all the time," put in Tilly, still with an air of bewilderment.
+
+"And am now," laughed Peggy. "Oh, Tilly, you are such a dear!"
+
+"One of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams!" shouted Tom. "Guess she won't be in
+a hurry to set up a claim to 'em now!" and Tom burst out again in wild
+chuckles of hilarity.
+
+"And I never saw her, and I don't believe she ever met one of us
+before," cried Peggy.
+
+"She told Amy that she didn't know the Pelhams yet, but that her Aunt
+Ann did, and her aunt was coming next month and would introduce her to
+them when they arrived," said Tilly, with a demure smile.
+
+"Well, she'll probably like my sister Isabel's Skye terrier, with its
+fine name of Prince, much better than she does my poor little plebeian
+doggie, with its vulgar name of Pete," remarked Peggy, her eyes
+twinkling with fun.
+
+"Oh, Peggy, to think of your hearing all that talk about the dog and
+everything."
+
+"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking
+rather red as he recalled his own words.
+
+"Yes, and everything,--all about the dogs and the difference between the
+Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.
+
+"Oh, I say now," began Will.
+
+"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,--I liked it.
+It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think
+that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a
+maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the
+register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and
+never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,--when I think of all
+this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this
+minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in
+her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from
+whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."
+
+But what was that sound,--that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly
+rang over and above the dance music?
+
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out
+from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see
+that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,--a coaching-party.
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage
+drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The
+long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party
+atop of the coach.
+
+"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins,"
+said a bystander.
+
+Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the
+dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was passing them; and Dora
+whispered,--
+
+"Are they the Pelhams,--Agnes's Pelhams?"
+
+"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed
+laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She
+ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."
+
+"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking
+dreadfully a few minutes ago."
+
+"I should think she might; she had had a blow."
+
+"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that
+Smith girl."
+
+"No, they're not."
+
+"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"
+
+"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss
+Pelham speaking to--Miss Peggy Pelham."
+
+Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought;
+but--but--what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down
+from her top seat on the coach was saying?
+
+"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance,
+Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little
+waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine
+time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and
+away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with
+auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."
+
+"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.
+
+"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid
+fact,--so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake
+again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the
+crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll
+see what a blow Agnes has had."
+
+Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and
+never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but
+though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of
+bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and
+said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and
+mortification, cried,--
+
+"Yes, fun to you,--to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the
+right side of the fun; but I--we--are disgraced of course with Agnes.
+Oh, we've been just horrid--horrid, and such fools!"
+
+"Well, I--I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,--for it's
+her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling
+laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by
+the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up
+against Agnes."
+
+"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.
+
+"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right
+side of things naturally."
+
+If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it
+in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor
+creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.
+
+Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known
+throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with
+amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their
+slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson,
+was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted
+over her daughter and niece.
+
+"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were
+going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.
+"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"
+
+Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,--Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the
+honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her
+alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of
+the Robsons with these words,--
+
+"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little
+Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating,
+worldly ways of judging people and things?"
+
+And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to
+these bitter, brutal truths,--
+
+"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,--the
+people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't
+know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always
+talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they
+never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong
+to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances
+with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and
+amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,--nothing, nothing,
+nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EGG-BOY.
+
+
+
+
+"Marge, Marge, here is the egg-boy!"
+
+Marge dropped her book and ran to join her sister Elsie, who by this
+time was on the back piazza talking to a boy who had just driven up in a
+farm-wagon.
+
+"We want two dozen more,--all nice big ones, and by to-morrow, for it is
+only three days before Easter, and they must be boiled and colored to be
+ready in season."
+
+The boy stared. "Colored?" he repeated in a puzzled, questioning tone.
+
+"Yes," answered Elsie, "colored. Don't you color eggs for Easter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How queer! But you know about them, of course?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Not know about Easter eggs? Where in the world have you lived not to
+know about Easter? I thought everybody--"
+
+"I do know about Easter," interrupted the boy, sharply. "All I said was
+that I didn't know about your colored eggs."
+
+"Oh, well, I guess it is Episcopalians mostly who keep that old custom
+going in this part of the country, and I suppose your people are not
+Episcopalians, are they?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, _we_ are, and we've lived in Washington, too, where everybody has
+colored eggs, and all the boys and girls there used to go to the
+egg-rolling party the Monday morning after Easter; and a good many of
+them go now."
+
+"Egg-rolling party?" cried the boy, with such wide-open eyes of
+astonishment that Elsie and Marge both burst out laughing, whereat the
+boy flushed up angrily, and seizing the reins was starting off, when the
+cook called to him to wait until she had the butter-box ready for him to
+take back.
+
+"Oh!" whispered Marge, "we've hurt his feelings, Elsie; it is too bad."
+Then she ran forward, and said gently: "'Tisn't anything at all strange
+that you didn't know about the rolling. Elsie and I didn't until we went
+to Washington to live, and saw the game ourselves, and had it explained
+to us; and I'll explain it to you. We had a lot of eggs boiled hard, and
+dyed all sorts of pretty flower colors and patterns; and these we took
+to the top of a little hill near the White House, and each one, or each
+party, started two or three or more eggs of different colors, and made
+guesses as to which color would beat. After the game was over, we
+exchanged the eggs we had, and gave away a good many to the poor
+children. Oh, it was great fun."
+
+The boy laughed. "Fun! I should call it baby play!" he said derisively.
+
+"Well, _you_ can call it baby play if you like," returned Marge, with
+great dignity; "but the 'baby play' has come down through a good many
+years. It is an old Easter custom that was brought over from England by
+one of the early settlers at Washington."
+
+"I--I didn't mean--I'm sorry--" began Royal, stammeringly; when--
+
+"Royal! Royal Purcel!" called out a voice; and a little fellow scarcely
+more than six or seven years old came running up the driveway, and made
+a flying leap into the wagon.
+
+"Do you belong to a circus?" cried Elsie.
+
+"No; wish I did. I belong to Royal."
+
+"Who is Royal?"
+
+"Who is Royal?" repeated the child, making a cunning, impudent face at
+her.
+
+"He means me. My name is Royal,--Royal Purcel; and he," nodding towards
+the child, "is my brother."
+
+"Royal Purcel! _What_ a funny name! It sounds--"
+
+"Don't, Elsie," remonstrated Marge.
+
+"It sounds just like Royal Purple," giggled Elsie, regardless of her
+sister's remonstrance.
+
+Rhoda Davis, the cook, coming out just then with the butter-box, Royal
+thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word
+or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace.
+
+"Well, I never saw such a tempery boy as that in my life," said Elsie.
+"A boy that can't take a joke I don't think is much of a boy."
+
+"Them Purcels allers was pretty peppery, and I guess they're more'n
+ever so now," said Rhoda.
+
+"Why?" asked Marge.
+
+"Why? Because they used to be the richest farmers about here. They owned
+pretty nigh all Lime Ridge once. Now they hain't got nothin' but that
+little Ridge farm. It's a stony little place, and how they manage to get
+a livin' off of it beats me."
+
+"How'd they happen to lose so much?"
+
+"Oh, the boy's father took to spekerlatin', and then some banks they had
+money in bust up."
+
+"Well, he needn't fly up at everything because he isn't rich," said
+Elsie. "That's regular cry-baby fashion. He's a royal purple cry-baby,
+that's what he is, and I mean to call him that, see if I don't;" and
+Elsie laughed in high glee as this mischievous idea struck her. And
+while she and her sister were discussing Royal and his temper, Royal was
+discussing that very temper with himself.
+
+"To think of my being such a fool as to show mad before those girls. I'm
+a regular sissy," was his final conclusion as he drove down the road.
+
+The next morning, bright and early, he was up at the Lloyds' with two
+dozen fine big eggs. "As handsome a lot of eggs as I ever see,"
+commented Rhoda, as she took them in.
+
+"Are they going to color them all?" asked Royal.
+
+"I s'pose so. Here are some of their old ones. They've been b'iled as
+hard as stones. They'll keep forever;" and Rhoda handed out of the open
+window a little basket of colored eggs.
+
+"But some of these are painted," said the boy, taking up an egg with a
+pattern of flowers on it.
+
+"No, they ain't; they're jest colored in a dye-pot. Them that looks as
+if they was painted were tied up in a bit of figgered calico and b'iled,
+and when they come out of the b'iling they took the calico off, and
+there was the figgers set on the eggs. See?"
+
+"Yes, I see;" and Royal turned the egg round thoughtfully for a moment,
+then suddenly put it down, and started off towards his wagon on a run.
+
+"Land sakes!" called out Rhoda; "what's come to you all at once to set
+off like that?"
+
+"Muskrats!" shouted Royal, with a laugh as he jumped into the wagon.
+
+"Ben a-settin' traps for 'em, eh?"
+
+Royal nodded as he went rattling down the driveway.
+
+"Did Royal Purple bring the eggs?" asked Elsie Lloyd, a little later.
+
+"His name ain't Purple; it's Purcel," corrected Rhoda, innocently.
+
+Elsie giggled. "Well, did Royal _Purcel_ bring the eggs?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, there they be."
+
+"Oh, oh! aren't they beauties?"
+
+"They be; that's a fact," agreed Rhoda. "Royal, he's done his best for
+ye now, anyway. He's kind o' quick, like all the Purcels, but he's real
+accommodatin'."
+
+"So he is, Rhoda, and I'll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn
+out for being so 'accommodatin';' and we are going to have some extra
+pretty ones this time. See this now, and this, and this!" and Elsie
+whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico. One was a
+pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.
+
+"The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will
+be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern," said Marge,
+enthusiastically.
+
+By Saturday afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns
+were "ready for company," as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on
+Saturday night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three
+days' visit. It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and
+they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a
+box was brought in by one of the servants. It was neatly tied, and
+directed in a bold round handwriting to "Miss Elsie and Miss Marge
+Lloyd."
+
+"What _can_ it be?" said Marge, wonderingly.
+
+"We'll open it and see," cried Elsie. And suiting her action to her
+word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six
+eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design. On one
+was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch
+of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple
+blossoms. On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,--a
+palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings,
+soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub
+head with a soft halo about it.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, "Who _could_ have
+painted them?" wondered Marge; and, "Who _could_ have sent them?" cried
+Elsie.
+
+In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor. They could find
+nothing to give them the slightest clew.
+
+"Perhaps, papa, it is Mr. Archer," said Marge at last, turning to her
+father. Mr. Archer was an artist friend.
+
+"Oh, no, this isn't Archer's work; it's a novice's work, though very
+promising," her father replied.
+
+"Cousin Tom's, then?"
+
+"And too strong for Tom."
+
+"Then it must be Jimmy Barrows."
+
+"Well, it may be Jimmy. We shall know when he comes with Tom on Monday.
+It's bold enough for Jimmy, but I didn't think he had so much fancy."
+
+And finally it was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows.
+Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an
+amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to be a professional one.
+
+"It's such fun to have Jimmy do these, and send them without a word,"
+said Elsie to her sister.
+
+"Such a generous thing to do, too! I wonder if he would like some of
+_our_ eggs as specimens? We might give him one of each kind."
+
+"Oh, Marge, don't think of offering him those calico-colored
+things,--anybody who can paint like this!"
+
+"Very well; but, Elsie, which one are you going to give to Royal
+Purcel?"
+
+"To Royal Purcel?"
+
+"Yes; don't you remember you told Rhoda you were going to give him one
+for being so accommodating?"
+
+"Oh, I'd forgotten. Well, here, I'll give him this,--it's the very
+thing;" and Elsie snatched up a bright purple one.
+
+"Oh, Elsie, don't!"
+
+But Elsie fairly danced with glee as she cried, "I will, I will; it's
+the very thing,--royal purple to Royal Purple!"
+
+The young visitors, when all this was explained to them, joined in the
+merriment; but Marge--kind, tender little Marge--hid away one of the
+blue and white lily eggs, to get the advantage of Elsie's mischief by
+bestowing _that_ upon Royal.
+
+But Royal was quite out of Elsie's thoughts by Monday morning. It was a
+beautiful morning; and by nine o'clock, when Tom and Jimmy Barrows
+arrived, the lawn and sloping knoll at the east of it were bright and
+dry with sunshine. On the piazza the various baskets of eggs were
+standing; only "Jimmy Barrows's gift" had been set aside as "too good to
+use."
+
+"My! haven't you got a lot, though?" cried Tom, as he surveyed them.
+"But what are these in the box here?"
+
+"Yes, what are they?" sparkled Elsie. "Ask Jimmy Barrows."
+
+Jimmy, with a wondering expression on his face at this remark, came over
+and looked down at the treasured eggs. "Who did these?" he asked
+quickly.
+
+"'Who did these?'" mimicked Elsie. "Oh, you needn't try that. We found
+you out at once, or _I_ did."
+
+"You think I painted 'em--I sent 'em?" queried Jimmy.
+
+"Of course I do. Now, Master Jimmy--"
+
+"Miss Elsie, just as true as I'm standing here, I never saw them
+before."
+
+Elsie shook her head at him, but Jimmy did not see her. He was lifting
+the eggs and examining them.
+
+"No, honest, I didn't paint 'em, Miss Elsie. I wish I had; but I can't
+do things like that--yet. I can draw as well, am a better draughtsman,
+maybe, but I haven't got the ideas. The fellow who did these has got a
+lot of original ideas."
+
+Mr. Lloyd came forward here with great interest. "Did any of you,"
+turning to Elsie and Marge, "ask who brought the box?"
+
+"Yes," answered Elsie. "I asked Ann, and she said 'a bit of a boy
+brought 'em;' she didn't know who he was."
+
+"Ask Rhoda to come here. She knows the neighborhood."
+
+Rhoda came, and Mr. Lloyd put the matter before her. Had she any idea
+who the "bit of a boy" was?
+
+"I didn't see him, but it might be Bert Purcel," answered Rhoda. "Folks
+get him to do errands sometimes. He's just drove up with his brother to
+bring the chickens. I'll send him 'round, and you can ask him."
+
+"Did you leave a box here Saturday night?" Mr. Lloyd inquired
+pleasantly, when the boy stood before him.
+
+The red lips began to frame a "No," then closed tightly together, while
+the slim little figure whirled about and made an attempt to leap over
+the piazza railing,--an attempt that would have been successful if one
+foot had not caught in a stout vine.
+
+Royal, waiting in the wagon at the back porch, heard a sudden cry, and
+hurried to see what had happened. He found Bert scrambling to his feet,
+brisk and angry. The child made a dash towards his brother, and seized
+his hand.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Royal. No answer, but a renewed tug at his
+hand to draw him away.
+
+"The little fellow tried to jump the piazza railing and fell," explained
+Mr. Lloyd, laughingly.
+
+"Papa just asked him a question,--if he brought us a box Saturday night;
+and as he didn't want to answer, he ran," spoke up Elsie.
+
+"I didn't, I jumped!" cried the child.
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"Can't _you_ tell us?" asked Marge, looking at Royal. "_Did_ your
+brother bring it?"
+
+"Yes," answered Royal, flushing up.
+
+"And who sent it?" asked Elsie, impatiently. She waited a moment for an
+answer. As none came, she asked still more impatiently, "Do you _know_
+the person who sent it?"
+
+"Yes," in a hesitating voice.
+
+"Did the person tell you not to tell?"
+
+"No," in the same hesitating voice.
+
+"Then why in the world _don't_ you tell? You've no right to keep it back
+like this. It is our affair, not yours, and so it is our right to know
+who it is. Don't you understand that we don't want people to send us
+things--presents--and not know anything about who it is?"
+
+Royal looked startled, and the flush on his face deepened. Elsie thought
+she had conquered him, and chirped out an encouraging, "Come, now, who
+was it?" But to her surprise the boy flung up his head with an angry
+movement, and with a defiant glance at her said stubbornly,--
+
+"I've a perfect right _not_ to answer your question, and I sha'n't!"
+
+"Well, of all the brazen--"
+
+"Elsie!" warned her father, "don't say anything more."
+
+"You'll let me say one thing more, papa. Rhoda told us that this boy was
+very accommodating, and he brought me such nice big eggs, I thought he
+was, and meant to give him something to show my appreciation, and I'd
+like to give it to him now. Here," taking something from her pocket,
+"give this to your brother," she said to little Bert, who stood eying
+her curiously. The child's hand opened involuntarily. Into it dropped a
+_royal purple_ egg.
+
+Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.
+
+Bert, feeling the passion in his brother's voice, drew off, and _flung_
+the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim
+and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond
+her.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and,"
+running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the shell
+is all cracked to pieces!"
+
+"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.
+
+But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's
+recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was
+now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his
+action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the
+result of it.
+
+"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to
+tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.
+
+"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who
+had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.
+
+"Purcel."
+
+"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade
+Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had
+hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound
+in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.
+
+"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a
+right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.
+
+"But it was Royal's present, whatever relation he got to paint the eggs
+for him, for it was only Royal who knew about _our_ eggs; and this is
+the way we've paid him!" cried Marge, with a glance of indignant
+reproach at Elsie.
+
+"I don't think he got anybody to do it for him; I--I think he did it
+himself," spoke up Jimmy.
+
+"Royal Purcel! that--that farm-boy?" shrieked Elsie.
+
+"Yes," answered Jimmy. "I thought so all the time, when you--when he
+was standing under--under your questioning fire." And Jimmy laughed.
+
+"But how did he learn?" cried Elsie, in astonishment.
+
+"I don't think the boy has had much instruction," said Jimmy. "I think
+he has great natural talent, and has had very little opportunity to
+study." Jimmy was now peering at the palm and tent egg, and, "See,
+here's the name again, in this thready grass," he said, "and he has
+probably marked all the eggs in this cunning way."
+
+Jimmy was right. On the bird's wing, amid the lily leaves, and on the
+apple bough, they also found "R. Purcel" hidden deftly from casual
+observation.
+
+Elsie was silent as, one after another, these discoveries were made.
+Finally she could contain herself no longer, and burst out,--
+
+"To think of his painting all these beautiful things and giving them to
+us,--to me, when I've been such a horrid little cat to him! Oh, papa, I
+must do something,--I just must!"
+
+"Well, I should think it would become you to say you are sorry and to
+thank him," said Mr. Lloyd, smiling.
+
+"But, papa, I want to take the pony-carriage and go after him, and ask
+him to come back to the egg-rolling; and if Jimmy Barrows will go with
+me--"
+
+"I'd be delighted, Miss Elsie."
+
+"He'd make it easier,--he'd know what to say, and Royal would know what
+to say to him. The others will excuse us; we won't be long. Oh, may
+I--may we, papa?"
+
+"Well, as you seem to have settled everything, I don't see but I must--"
+
+But Elsie did not wait to hear more. She knew she had not only her
+father's consent, but his approval, and was off like a flash to order
+the carriage.
+
+If the Lloyds had been better acquainted in Lime Ridge, Royal's work
+would not have been such a great surprise to them. A good many of the
+Lime Ridge people could have told them of the boy's talent, and how it
+had been discouraged by his family. There was no money now to support
+and educate him in that direction, and it had been arranged with an old
+friend who was in the wool business that the boy should go into his
+employ as soon as he had graduated from the Lime Ridge High School. This
+was considered a very lucky prospect for him, but Royal hated it. From
+a little fellow he had shown a great love for pictures, and had covered
+every scrap of paper he could find with crude drawings.
+
+When he was eight years old, a visitor had given him a box of paints and
+brushes. Two years later he had become acquainted with an artist who was
+staying a few weeks at Lime Ridge, and went with him on his
+sketching-tramps. With him he learned something about an artist's
+methods, and received from him as a parting gift, various artist's
+materials that he had made industrious use of.
+
+The whim of painting the eggs and sending them to the sisters had come
+to him as a sort of apology to them for his exhibition of temper, and he
+had no idea that his name, so palpable to his artist eye, would escape
+their observation as it did. He expected his gift and its motives to be
+recognized at once. Instead, he was questioned as if he were nothing but
+an ignorant errand-boy; and, bitterest of all, even when he had
+confessed to a knowledge of the giver, the possibility of his being the
+painter himself was not for a moment suspected. But while he stood
+leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout
+little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever
+going amongst 'em again,--an overbearing lot of city folks," he was
+saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the
+road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a
+movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and stood
+in front of him.
+
+"I've come to ask you to go back with us, and forgive me for being such
+a horrid little cat to you. I didn't understand. I thought--" and then
+in a perfect jumble of words Elsie went on, and poured forth her
+contrition and explanation, at the same time introducing Jimmy Barrows,
+who knew just what to say, and said it with such effect that Royal's
+spirits went up with a bound, and almost before he knew to what he had
+consented, he was sitting on the little back seat of the phaeton,
+talking with these "city folks" as if they were his best friends, as
+they turned out to be.
+
+All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you
+suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing? In Mr.
+Carr's mills, learning to pick and buy wool?
+
+Not he. He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting
+himself by making business illustrations for various newspapers. It is
+humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for
+higher things; and the "higher things" are not far off, for two or three
+of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and
+he has furnished a set of drawings for a child's book that has been well
+paid for and well spoken of. And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd
+the other day,--
+
+"Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but
+what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this
+possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking! But I guess they
+began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them
+last week that he'd paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.
+Houp-la!"
+
+"'A howling success'! And it's all through me," laughed Elsie, as she
+read this portion of Jimmy's letter; "for if I hadn't eaten humble-pie,
+and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy
+Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day. Yes; it's all
+through me and my humble-pie. Houp-la!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Never had a Christmas present?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Why, it's just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,--you _shall_ have one
+this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas
+muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could
+scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor
+laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She
+was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,--a
+charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a
+thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon. Molly
+Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling
+face,--a beauty, though she _was_ an Indian. Yes, this charming little
+maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful
+tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far
+Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had
+thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly
+was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post,
+for her father had been an army officer until the three years before,
+when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his
+brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was
+an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time
+been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether
+unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons. Molly thought they were very
+welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life,
+she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only
+pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded
+gladly to Molly's friendly advances.
+
+"But to think that you've never had a Christmas present!" exclaimed
+Molly again, as Wallula's laugh rippled out. "If I'd _only_ known you
+the first year we came! But I'll make it up _this_ year, you'll see; and
+oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know--I know what
+I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped _her_ hands and cried, "Oh, tell
+me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole.
+Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do.
+It is all a secret until Christmas eve or Christmas morning."
+
+"Yes, I know,--Metalka told me; but I forgot."
+
+"Of course your sister must have known all about Christmas after she
+came back from school. Why didn't _she_ make you a Christmas present,
+then, Lula?"
+
+"Metalka?" A cloud came over the little bright face. "Metalka didn't
+stay long after she came back. She didn't stay till Christmas; she went
+'way--to--to heaven."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"If Metalka had stayed, I might have gone to school this year."
+
+"I thought you _had_ been to school, Lula."
+
+"Oh, no! only to little school out here summers,--little school some
+ladies made; and Metalka tole me--taught me--showed me ev'ry day after
+she came back--ev'ry day, till--til she--went 'way. I can read and
+write and talk, talk, talk, all day in English,"--smiling roguishly,
+then more seriously and anxiously. "Is it pretty fair English,--white
+English,--Major Molly?"
+
+"'White English'!" laughed back Major Molly. "You are such fun, Lula.
+Yes, it's pretty fair--white English."
+
+Lula dimpled with pleasure, then sighed as she said, "If I could go 'way
+off East to Metalka's school, two, three, four, five year, as Metalka
+did, then I could talk splen'id English, and I could make heap--no, all
+sort things, and help keep house nice, and cook like Metalka."
+
+"But why don't you go, Lula?"
+
+"Why don't I? Listen!" and Wallula bent forward eagerly. "I don't go
+because my father won't have me go. Metalka went. When she first came
+back, she was so happy, so strong. She was going to have everything
+white way, civ--I can't say it, Maje Molly."
+
+"Do you mean civilized?"
+
+"Yes, yes; civ'lized--white way. And she worked, she talked, she tried,
+and nobody'd pay much 'tention but my father. The girls, some o' them,
+wanted to be like her; but the fathers and mothers would n' help, and
+some, good many, were set hard 'gainst it; and then there was no money
+to buy white people's clothes, they said. It took all the money was
+earned to pay big 'counts up at agency store, where Indians bought
+things,--things to eat, you know; so what's the use, they said, to try
+to live white ways when everything was 'gainst them, and they stopped
+trying; and Metalka was so dis'pointed, for she was going do so
+much,--going help civ-civ'lize. She was so dis'pointed, she by-'n'-by
+got sick--homesick, and just after the first snow came, she--she went
+'way to heaven. And that's why my father won't have me go to the school.
+He say it killed Metalka. He say if she'd stayed home, she'd been happy
+Indian and lived long time. He say Indian got hurt; spoiled going off
+into white man's country."
+
+"How came he to let your sister go, Lula?"
+
+"Metalka wanted to go so bad. She'd heard so much 'bout the 'way-off
+schools from some white ladies up at the fort one summer, and my father
+heard too. A white off'cer tole him if Indian wanted to know how to have
+plenty to eat, plenty ev'rything like white peoples, they must learn to
+do bus'ness white ways, be edg'cated. So he let Metalka go; _he_ could
+n' go, he too old; but Metalka could go and learn to read all the books
+and the papers and keep 'counts for him, so 't he'd know how to deal
+with white men. When Metalka first took 'count for him, after she came
+back, my father so pleased. He'd worked hard all winter hauling wood,
+and killing elk and deer for the skins; and my mother 'n' I had made
+bewt'ful moccasins and gloves out o' the skins, all worked with beads;
+and so he'd earned good deal money, and he 'd kept 'count of it
+all,--_his_ way, and 't was honest way; and kept 'count, too, what he'd
+had out of agency store; and Metalka understood and reckoned it all up,
+and said he 'd have good lot money left after he'd paid what he owed at
+the store. But, Maje Molly, he didn't! he didn't! They tole him he owed
+_all_ his money, and when he said they'd made mistake, and showed 'em
+Metalka's 'counts, they laughed at him, and showed him big book of
+_their_ 'counts, and tole him Metalka didn't know 'bout prices o'
+things. Then he came home and said: 'What's the use going to white
+people's schools to learn white people's ways, when white people can
+come out to Indian country and tell lies 'bout prices o' things?' And
+that's the way 't is ev'ry time, my father say; the way 't was before
+Metalka went to school. The bad white trader comes out to Indian country
+to cheat Indians. _He_ knows white prices, but he don't tell Indian
+white prices; he tell Indian two, three time more price. That's what my
+father say. And Metalka, when she see it all, she so disjointed, she
+never get over it, and my father say it killed her, like arrow shot at
+her."
+
+"But your father doesn't think all white people bad; he doesn't dislike
+all their ways?"
+
+"No; it's only white traders he thinks bad, and the white big chiefs who
+break promises 'bout lands. He like white ways that Metalka brought
+back, and he built nice log house to live in instead of tepee, 'cause
+Metalka wanted it; and he like all you here, Maje Molly, 'cause you good
+to me. But, Maje Molly"--and here the little bright face clouded
+over--"my mother say _all_ white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians."
+
+"No, no, they don't, Lula; they don't, you'll see. _I_ sha'n't forget;
+_I_ sha'n't break _my_ promise, you'll see,--you'll see, Lula. On
+Christmas eve I shall send you a Christmas present, sure,--now
+remember!" answered Molly, vehemently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+It was the day before Christmas,--a beautiful, mild day, very unlike the
+usual winter weather in the far West. At the Ellistons' windows hung
+wreaths of pine, and all about on tables and chairs tempting-looking
+packages were lying. Some of these were from their military friends, and
+most of them were directed to "Major Molly," the name that had been
+given to Molly when she was a little tot of a thing, and the pet of the
+fort where she lived. On this Christmas day, as she watched her mother
+fold up the pretty bright tartan dress that was to be her Christmas
+present to Wallula, she said gleefully,--
+
+"Don't forget, mamma, to write on the box, 'Wallula's Christmas present
+from Major Molly.'"
+
+It had been Molly's intention to have Wallula to tea on Christmas eve,
+and then and there to bestow upon her the pretty gift. But invitations
+to dine at the fort had frustrated this plan, and so it was arranged
+that Barney McGuire, one of the ranchmen, should come up and carry the
+box over to the reservation late that afternoon; and as the short winter
+day progressed, and Molly found that she must have a little more time to
+finish off the table-cover she wanted to take up to the Colonel's wife,
+she said to her mother,--
+
+"Instead of going on with you and papa at five o'clock, let Barney
+escort me to the fort after he leaves Wallula's present; that will give
+me plenty of time to finish the cover, and plenty of time to get to the
+dinner in season."
+
+"Very well," answered Mrs. Elliston; "but you must promise me to start
+with Barney as soon as he comes back for you, whether the cover is
+finished or not. You mustn't be late."
+
+At five o'clock, when Captain Elliston and his wife rode off, Molly was
+working away at her cover with the greatest industry. Now and then, as
+she worked on, she glanced up at the clock. If everything went
+smoothly,--if the silk didn't knot or the lace didn't pucker,--she would
+be through long before Barney came back for her. But presently she
+thought, where _was_ Barney. He ought to be there for the box by this
+time. She worked on a little longer, her ear alert for the sound of
+Barney's horse. At last she went to an upper window and looked out. She
+could see, even in the gathering dusk, a great distance from that
+window, away across toward the sheep-corrals and cattle-pens; but nobody
+was in sight. What did it mean? Barney was punctuality itself.
+
+Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes more she worked with flying fingers,
+and still there was no sight or sound of Barney; but her work was
+finished, and now--now, what then?
+
+There was only Hannah and John, the two house-servants, at hand. Hannah
+couldn't go, and John had strict orders never to leave the premises in
+Captain Elliston's absence. She looked at the clock; every second seemed
+an age. If Barney didn't come, if _no one was sent in his place_, her
+promise to Wallula would be broken, and Molly remembered Wallula's
+words, "My mother say all white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians;" and her own vehement reply, "_I_ sha'n't forget; I sha'n't
+break _my_ promise, you'll see, you'll see, Lula!" Break her promise
+after that! Never, never! Her father himself would say she must
+not,--would say that _somebody_ must go in Barney's place, and there
+was nobody,--nobody to go but--herself!
+
+"Yer goin' alone, yer mean, over to the Injuns!" demanded John, as Molly
+told him to bring her pony, Tam o' Shanter, to the door.
+
+"Yes, yes, and right away, John; so hurry as fast as you can."
+
+"Do yer think yer'd orter, Major Molly? Do yer think the Cap'n would
+like it?" asked John, disapprovingly.
+
+"John, if you don't bring Tam 'round this minute, I'll go for him
+myself."
+
+"'T ain't safe fur yer to go over there alone!" cried Hannah.
+
+"Safe! I know the way, every inch of it, with my eyes shut, and so does
+Tam; and I know the Indians, and Wallula is my friend; and I told her
+she should have her present Christmas eve, sure, and I'm going to keep
+my promise. Now bring Tam 'round just as quick as you can."
+
+John obeyed, though with evident reluctance, and Hannah showed her
+disapproval by scolding and protesting; but they had both of them lived
+on the frontier for years, and their disapproval therefore was not what
+it might have been under different circumstances. Molly, they knew,
+could ride as well as a little Indian, and was familiar with every inch
+of the way, as she had said, and Wallula was her friend.
+
+"And 't wouldn't 'a' done the least bit o' good to hev set myself any
+more against her. If I had, just as like as not the Cap'n would 'a'
+sided with her and been mad at me, for he thinks the Major's ekal to
+'most anything," John confided to Hannah, as he brought the pony round.
+
+The pony shied a little as Wallula's Christmas present was strapped to
+his back. But at Molly's whispered, "Tam! Tam! be a good boy. We're
+going to see Wallula,--to carry her something nice, just as quick as we
+can go," the little fellow whinnied softly, as if in response; and the
+next moment, at Molly's "Now, Tam," he started forward at his best
+pace,--a pace that Molly knew so well, and knew she could trust,--firm
+and even and assured, and gaining, gaining, gaining at every step.
+
+"Good boy, good boy!" she said to him as he sped along. But as he began
+to hasten his pace, it occurred to her that it was only about half an
+hour's easy riding to the reservation, and that after leaving there she
+could easily reach the fort in another half-hour,--so easily that there
+was no need of hurrying Tam as she was doing; and she pulled him up with
+a "Take it easy, Tam dear." As she spoke, Tam flung up his head, pricked
+up his ears, and made a sudden plunge forward. What was it? What was the
+matter? What had he heard? He had heard what Molly herself heard in the
+next instant,--the beat of a horse's hoofs. But the minute it struck
+upon Molly's ear she said to herself, "It's Barney; for that's old
+Ranger's step, I know." Ranger was an old troop horse of her father's
+that Barney often rode. But in vain she tried to rein Tam in. In vain
+she said to him, "Wait, wait! It's Ranger and Barney, Tam!"
+
+The pony snorted, as if in scorn, and held on his way. What _was_ the
+matter with him? He was usually such a wise little fellow, and always
+knew his friends and his enemies. _And he knew them now_! He was wiser
+than she was, and he scented on the wind something that spurred him on.
+
+But, hark! What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal
+that Barney was trying? Was it--Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped
+Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to
+escape the danger he had scented,--the danger of a lariat flung by a
+practised hand.
+
+Oh, Tam, Tam! fly now with all your speed, your mistress understands at
+last. She is a frontier-bred girl. She knows now that it is no friendly
+person following her, but some one who means mischief; and that mischief
+she has no doubt is the proposed capture of Tam, who is well known for
+miles and miles about the country as a wonderful little racer. Yes,
+Molly understands at last. She has _seen in the starlight_ the lariat as
+it missed Tam's head, and she knows perfectly well that only Tam's speed
+and sure-footedness can save them. Her heart beats like a trip-hammer;
+but she keeps a firm hold upon the rein, with a watchful eye for any
+sudden inequalities of the road, while her ears are strained to catch
+every sound. Tam's leap forward had given him a moment's advantage, and
+he keeps it up bravely, his dainty feet almost spurning the ground as he
+goes on, gaining, gaining, gaining at every step. In a few minutes more
+they will be out of the reach of any lariat, then in another minute safe
+at Wallula's door.
+
+In a few minutes! As this thought flashes through Molly's mind, wh-irr,
+s-st! cuts the still air again. Tam drops his head, and plunges forward.
+
+Though the starlight is brighter than ever, Molly does not _see_ the
+lariat, but there is something, something,--what is it?--that prompts
+her to fling herself forward face downwards upon Tam's mane; and the
+lariat that was about to drop over her head once more falls harmless to
+the ground, and Tam once more seems to know what danger has been
+escaped, and starts forward again with an exultant bound. They are
+almost there! Molly sees the smoke from the tepees of the reservation,
+and a light from a log cabin, and draws a breath of relief. But not yet,
+O brave little frontier girl, O gallant little steed, is the race won
+and the danger passed! Not yet, oh, not yet! for just ahead there is a
+treacherous pitfall which neither Tam nor his mistress sees,--a hollow
+that some little animal has burrowed out, and into this Tam plunges a
+forefoot, stumbles, and falls!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"She _said_, 'I sha'n't forget; I sha'n't break _my_ promise. You'll
+see, on Christmas eve, I shall send you a Christmas present, sure. Now
+remember.' On Christmas eve! And to-night is Christmas eve!"
+
+Wallula had said this over and over to herself ever since the sun went
+down. She had kept count of the days from the day that Molly had made
+her that vehement promise. That promise meant so much to Wallula. It
+meant not merely a gift, but keeping faith, holding on, making real
+friends with an Indian girl. And her mother had said, "_She'll_ forget,
+like the rest. White peoples always forget what they say to Indians."
+And her father had nodded his head when her mother said this. But
+Wallula had shaken _her_ head, and declared with passionate emphasis
+more than once,--
+
+"Major Molly will never forget,--never! You'll see, you'll see!"
+
+Wallula had awakened very early that morning, and the minute she opened
+her eyes she thought, "This is the day before Christ's day. To-night,
+'bout sundown, Major Molly'll keep her promise." All through the day
+this happy thought was uppermost. In the afternoon she followed Major
+Molly's instructions, and hung pine wreaths about the cabin.
+
+The short afternoon sped on, and sundown came, and the gray dusk, and
+then the stars came out.
+
+"Where's your Major Molly now?" asked the mother. There was a sharp
+accent in the Indian woman's voice, and a bitter expression on her face.
+But it was not for Wallula; it was for the white girl,--the Major Molly
+who, in breaking her promise to Wallula, had brought suffering upon her;
+for on Wallula's face the mother could see by this time the shadow of
+disappointment gathering. It made her think of Metalka. Metalka had gone
+amongst the white people. She had come back full of belief in them, and
+it was the white people's white traders with their lies and their broken
+promises that had hurt Metalka to death. There was only little Wallula
+left now. Was it going the same way with Wallula? These were some of
+the Indian mother's bitter resentful thoughts as she watched Wallula's
+face.
+
+Wallula found it very hard to bear this watchfulness. She felt as if her
+mother were glad that her prophecy had proved true, that the white girl
+had broken her promise; but Wallula was wrong. Her mother's bitterness
+and resentment were the outcome of her anxiety. She would have given
+anything, have done anything, to have saved Wallula this suffering. If
+something would only happen to rouse Wallula, she thought, as she
+watched her. There had come a visitor to their cabin the other day,--the
+chief of a neighboring tribe. When he saw Wallula, he said he would come
+again and bring his little daughter. If he would only come soon! If he
+would only--But, hark! what was that? Was it an answer to her wish,--her
+prayer? Was he coming now--_now_? And, jumping to her feet, the woman
+ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her
+prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards
+her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned
+and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo
+Wallula leaped up, and sped past her mother with the fleetness of a
+fawn, calling as she did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant
+the wondering woman saw her child running, as only an Indian can run, by
+the side of a jet-black pony whose coat was flecked with foam, and whose
+breath was well-nigh spent. As they came nearer into the pathway of
+light that the pine blaze sent forth from the open door, something that
+looked like a pennon of gold streamed out, and a clear but rather shaken
+voice cried, "Lula, Lula, I've kept my promise; I've kept my promise!"
+
+The next moment the owner of the voice had slid from the pony's back
+into Wallula's arms, and Wallula was stroking the streaming golden hair,
+and crying jubilantly, "She's kept her promise, she's kept her promise!"
+
+"Yes, I've kept my promise. I've brought your Christmas present. There
+it is in that box strapped across Tam. If somebody'll unstrap it and see
+to Tam, we'll go into the house, and I'll tell you what a race I've had.
+I can only stay a few minutes, for I must get to the fort if your
+father'll go with me. I don't dare to go alone now."
+
+"To the fort?" asked Wallula, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, I'm going there to dinner; but let's go in. I'm so tired I can
+hardly stand; and Tam--"
+
+But as a glance showed her that Tam was being cared for, and that
+Wallula's mother was carrying the box into the house, Major Molly
+followed on with a sigh of relief, and, doffing the riding-suit that
+covered her dress, flung herself down before the blazing fire, and began
+to tell her story. When she came to the point where Tam stumbled and
+fell forward, she burst out excitedly,--
+
+"Oh, Lula, Lula! I thought then I should never get here, and I don't
+know how we did it, Tam and I; I don't know how we did it, but I kept my
+seat, and I gave a great pull. I felt as strong as a man, and I cried,
+'Tam! Tam! Tam!' and Tam,--oh, I don't know how he did it,--Tam got to
+his feet again, and then he flew, flew, _flew_ over the ground. We'd
+lost a minute, and I expected every second the lariat would catch us
+sure after that, but it didn't, it didn't, and I'm here safe and sound.
+I've kept my promise, I've kept my promise, Lula."
+
+"Yes, she kep' her promise, she kep' her promise!" repeated Wallula in
+glad triumphant accents, glancing at her mother, and at the tall gaunt
+figure of her father standing in the shadow of the doorway.
+
+[Illustration: Wallula clapped her hands with delight]
+
+Wallula was a young girl, and this mystery of a Christmas-box was full
+of delight to her; but just then a greater delight--the joy of Major
+Molly's fidelity--made her forget everything else. But Molly did not
+forget. The minute she had finished her story she sprang to her feet,
+and produced the contents of the box. Wallula clapped her hands with
+delight when the pretty bright dress was held up before her.
+
+"Just like Major Molly's,--just like Major Molly's! See! see!" she
+called out to her father and mother.
+
+The mother nodded and smiled. The father's eyes lighted with an
+expression of deep gratification; then he leaned forward eagerly, and
+said to Molly,--
+
+"Tell 'gain 'bout where you saw--heard--lar'yet."
+
+"Just as we got to the little pine-trees where the old Sioux trail
+stops," answered Molly, promptly.
+
+"Yah!" ejaculated the Indian, grimly, in a tone of conviction. Then,
+turning, he took down a Winchester rifle, slung it over his shoulder,
+and started towards the door, saying to Molly as he did so: "You stay
+here with Wallula. I go up to fort and tell 'em 'bout you."
+
+"Oh, take me with you, take me with you!" cried Molly, jumping up.
+
+The Indian shook his head. When Molly insisted, he said tersely: "No,
+not safe for little white girl yet. Maje Molly stay here till I come
+back."
+
+Molly's face fell. Wallula stole up to her. "I got bewt'ful Chris'mas
+present for Maje Molly," she said softly. "Maje Molly stay see it with
+Wallula."
+
+"You dear!" cried Molly, flinging her arm round Wallula.
+
+The Indian father nodded his head vigorously, and his face shone with
+satisfaction. "Yes, yes!" he said. "Wallula take care you. You stay till
+I come back."
+
+In looking at and trying on the "bewt'ful Chris'mas present,"--a pair of
+elaborately embroidered moccasins lined and bordered with rabbit
+fur,--and in dressing Wallula up in the tartan dress, the time flew so
+rapidly that long before Molly expected it the cabin door opened again,
+and the tall gaunt figure reappeared.
+
+Behind it followed another figure. Molly ran forward as she saw it,
+and, "Papa, papa!" she cried, "I waited and waited for Barney, and he
+didn't come; and I couldn't bear for Lula not to have her Christmas
+present to-night, for I'd promised it to her to-night. She told me, when
+I promised, that white people always broke their promises to Indians,
+and I said over and over that _I_ wouldn't break _my_ promise; and I
+couldn't--I couldn't break it, papa."
+
+"You did quite right, my little daughter,--quite right."
+
+There was something in her father's manner as he said this, a
+seriousness in his voice and in his eyes, that surprised Molly. She was
+still more surprised when the Indian suddenly said,--
+
+"She little brave; she come all 'way 'lone to keep promise, so she not
+hurt my Wallula. She make me believe more good in white peoples; so I go
+to fort,--I keep friends."
+
+"You've been a friend indeed. I sha'n't forget it; we'll none of us
+forget it, Washo," said Captain Elliston; and he put out his hand as he
+spoke, and grasped the brown hand of the Indian in a warm friendly
+clasp.
+
+At the fort everything was literally "up in _arms_,"--that is, set in
+order for business, and that meant ready for resistance or attack. Molly
+had lived most of her fourteen years at some Western military post, and
+she recognized at once this "order" as she rode in.
+
+"What _did_ it mean?" she asked again, as the Colonel himself met her
+and hurried her into the dining-room; and the Colonel himself answered
+her,--
+
+"It means, my dear, that Major Molly has saved us from being surprised
+by the enemy, and that means that she has saved us from a bloody fight."
+
+"I--I--" faltered Molly. Then like a flash her mind cleared, and she
+struck her little hand on the table and cried,--
+
+"It was an Indian, an unfriendly Indian, who followed me, and Washo knew
+it when I told my story!"
+
+"Yes, Washo knew it, and, more than that, he had known for some days
+that those particular Indians had been planning a raid upon us, and he
+didn't interfere; he didn't warn us because he had begun to think that
+we were all bad white traders, and he wouldn't meddle with these braves
+who proposed to punish us, though he wouldn't go on the war-path with
+them. But, Major Molly, when he heard your story, when he saw how one of
+us could be a little white brave in keeping a promise to an Indian, _for
+your sake_ he relented towards the rest of us."
+
+"And when he asked me to tell him where I first heard the lariat--"
+
+"When he asked you that, he was making sure that it was his Sioux
+friends,--for he knew they were to send out a scout who would take
+exactly that direction."
+
+"But why--why did the scout chase _me_?"
+
+"He was after Tam, no doubt,--for this Sioux band is probably short of
+ponies, and Tam, you know, is a famous fellow,--and the moment the scout
+caught sight of him he would give chase."
+
+"Did he get Ranger that way? And where, oh, where is poor Barney?"
+
+"The probability is that the scout visited the corral first, and
+captured Ranger, who is almost as famous as Tam."
+
+"But, Barney--oh, oh, _do_ you think Barney has been killed?"
+
+"We don't know yet, my dear. Your father has gone off to the ranch with
+a squad of men. He'll soon find out what's happened to Barney. And
+don't fret, my dear, about your father," seeing a new anxiety on Molly's
+face. "The raiders by this time have seen our signals, and have found
+out we're up and doing, and more than a match for them; so don't
+fret,--don't fret, any of you," turning to his wife and Mrs. Elliston.
+"I don't think there'll be so much as a skirmish."
+
+And the Colonel was right. When the Indians saw the signals and the
+other signs of activity, they knew that their only chance of overcoming
+the whites by taking them unawares was gone. There were a few shots
+fired, but no skirmish; and by the time the moon rose, the fort scouts
+brought in word that the whole band had departed over the mountains. A
+few minutes after, when Captain Elliston rode in, the satisfaction was
+complete, for he brought with him the news of Barney's safety. Ranger,
+however, was gone. The Indian--or Indians, for there were two of them at
+that point--had succeeded in capturing him just as Barney had started
+out from the corral. A stealthy step, a skilful use of the lariat, and
+Barney was bound and gagged, that he might give no alarm; and all this
+with such quiet Indian alertness that a ranchman farther down the
+corral heard nothing.
+
+So harmlessly ended this raid, that might have been a bloody battle but
+for Major Molly's Christmas promise!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POLLY'S VALENTINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Polly was seven years old before she knew anything about valentines.
+This may seem very strange to most girls, for most girls have heard all
+about Valentine's Day by the time they are three or four, and have had
+no end of fun sending and receiving these friendly favors. But Polly
+didn't know a thing about them until she was seven. I'll tell you why.
+Polly was one of a number of children who lived in an Orphan's Home, and
+Polly herself was the youngest of the orphans.
+
+One morning as she looked out of the window, she saw the postman
+suddenly surrounded by a whole flock of little girls, and heard one of
+them say, "Oh, _haven't_ you got a valentine for me?" And then the whole
+flock cried, "And for me? and for me?" And the postman laughed
+good-naturedly, and, looking through his pack of letters, took out two
+or three quite big square envelopes, and handed them to one and another
+of the clamorous little crowd.
+
+Polly, hearing and seeing all this, wondered what a valentine could be.
+She did not ask anybody the question, however, just then; but when the
+postman came around at noon, and she saw the same scene repeated, her
+curiosity could not be restrained any longer, and she started off to
+find Jane McClane,--for Jane was fourteen years old and knew everything,
+Polly thought.
+
+Jane was in the linen-room mending a sheet when Polly found her, and
+being rather lonesome was quite willing to enter into conversation with
+any one who came along. But Polly's question made her open her eyes with
+surprise.
+
+"A valentine?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say, Polly, you never
+heard of a valentine before?"
+
+"No, never," answered Polly, feeling very small and ignorant.
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Jane, "you're very little, and ain't 'round
+much, but I _should_ have thought you'd have heard _somebody_ say
+something about valentines before this; but you ain't much for listening
+and asking, I know."
+
+"No," echoed Polly; "but I'm listening now."
+
+Jane laughed. "Yes, I see you are. Well, a valentine is just a piece of
+poetry, with a picture to it, that anybody sends to a person on
+Valentine's Day."
+
+"What's Valentine's Day?"
+
+"Why, it's the day you send valentines, to be sure,--the 14th of
+February."
+
+"Is it like Christmas? Was Valentine very good, and is it his birthday
+as Christmas is Christ's birthday?"
+
+"Mercy, no! What queer things you do ask when you get going, Polly!
+Valentine's Day is just Valentine's Day, when folks send these poetry
+and picture things for fun, and don't sign their own names, only 'Your
+Valentine,' and that means somebody who has chosen--chosen to be
+your--well, your beau, maybe."
+
+"What's a beau?" asked innocent Polly.
+
+"Polly, you don't know _anything_!" cried Jane, in an exasperated tone.
+"A beau is--is somebody who likes you better 'n anybody else."
+
+"Oh, I wish I had one!"
+
+"Had one--what?" asked Jane.
+
+"A beau to like me like that; to send me a valentine."
+
+"Oh, oh! you are such a baby," laughed Jane.
+
+"I ain't a baby!" cried Polly, indignantly; and then her lip quivered,
+and she began to cry.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Jane; "if Mrs. Banks hears you, she'll send you out
+of here quicker 'n a wink."
+
+But Polly could not "hush" all at once, and continued to sob and sniff
+behind her apron; Jane trying in the mean time to soothe her, but not
+succeeding very well, until she thought to say,--
+
+"If you won't cry any more, Polly, I'll get Martha"--Martha was the
+chambermaid--"to show you _her_ valentine; it's a beauty."
+
+Polly dropped her apron and began to swallow her sobs, while Jane ran to
+Martha, who was very proud of her valentine, and very glad to show it
+even to little Polly Price; and the valentine _was_ a beauty, as Jane
+had said. Polly, looking through the tears that still hung on her
+lashes at the group of little cherubs that were dancing out of lily-cups
+and roses, cried, "Angels, angels!" winding up with, "Oh, I _wish_
+somebody 'd send me a valentine!"
+
+"She didn't know a thing about valentines; never heard of them till just
+now," Jane explained to Martha.
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Martha, "she is the greenest little thing; but
+then she ain't never been to school like the rest of ye, and things is
+very quiet and out-of-the-way like in the Home here, and she's nothin'
+but a baby."
+
+"I ain't a baby! I ain't, I ain't!" screamed Polly.
+
+"Polly, Polly!" warned Jane. But Polly only burst out afresh in loud
+sobs and cries. Jane was a good-natured girl, but she could not stand
+this, and, reaching forward, she gave Polly a little shake, and said,
+"Now, Polly Price, you just stop and be a good girl, or I'll never have
+anything more to do with you."
+
+Polly gasped. Three years ago, when she was first brought to the Home,
+she had been assigned to a little bed next the one that Jane occupied,
+and had been more or less under the elder girl's care. Jane had been
+very good to the child, and with her womanly ways and superior
+knowledge she stood to Polly for both mother and sister. No wonder,
+then, that she gasped at Jane's threat. What would she do if that threat
+were carried out, and Jane had nothing more to do with her? What would
+life be in the Home without Jane?
+
+Polly did not ask herself these questions in exactly these words, but
+she felt the desolate possibility that had been suggested to her; and it
+was so appalling that it quite overpowered her flare of temper, and
+stopped her sobs and cries as effectually as Jane could have desired.
+But Jane herself, busy with her darning, did not notice the expression
+of Polly's face, and had no idea how deeply her words had penetrated the
+child's mind until hours afterwards, when, as she was preparing to go to
+bed, Polly's voice called softly,--
+
+"Jane, haven't I been a good girl since?"
+
+Jane started. "What in the world are you awake for now, Polly Price?"
+she asked. "It's nine o'clock. You ought to have been asleep long ago."
+
+"I couldn't go to sleep, I felt so bad," answered Polly.
+
+"You felt so bad; where? Have you got a sore throat?" inquired Jane,
+remembering that a good many of the children's illnesses began with sore
+throat.
+
+"No, 'tisn't my throat."
+
+"Where is it, then--your stomach?"
+
+"No, it's--it's my feelin's. I felt bad 'cause--'cause you said if I
+didn't stop cryin' and be a good girl, you wouldn' ever have anythin' to
+do with me any more. But I did stop, and I _have_ been a good girl
+since, haven't I?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes, you've been good since," bending down to tuck Polly in.
+As she stooped, Polly flung her arms around Jane's neck, and
+whispered,--
+
+"Do you love me just the same, Jane?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so," replied Jane, smiling.
+
+"I love you better 'n anybody in the world, Jane."
+
+"And you'd choose me to be your valentine, then, wouldn't you?" laughed
+Jane.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes; and if I could only send you one of those po'try picture
+things, I'd send you the most bewt'f'lest I could find. Don't you wish I
+could, Jane?"
+
+"Yes, of course I do."
+
+"Did you ever have a valentine, Jane?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Those girls 'cross the street had 'em, and Martha had one. Why don't
+you and I have 'em, Jane?"
+
+"You 'n' I? Those girls across the street know girls and boys who have
+fathers and mothers to give them money to buy valentines with."
+
+"Why don't we know such girls and boys?"
+
+"'Cause we don't. We're poor, and live in an Orphans' Home. Those girls
+only know folks that live like themselves."
+
+"But Martha lives right here, just where we do, and Martha had a
+valentine."
+
+"Martha's different. She's only paid for staying here to work. She's got
+folks outside that she belongs to. It was a cousin of hers sent her that
+valentine."
+
+"Oh," and Polly gave a soft sigh, "I wish _we_ had folks that we
+belonged to! Don't you, Jane?"
+
+"_Don't_ I!" and as Jane said this, she dropped down upon Polly's little
+bed, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Oh, Jane, Janey! what's the matter? Has somebody hurted your feelings?"
+
+"No, no," answered Jane, brokenly; "nobody in particular. I--I felt
+lonesome. I do sometimes when I get to thinking I don't belong to
+anybody and nobody belongs to me."
+
+"Janey, _I_ belongs to you, don't I?" And around Jane's neck two little
+arms pressed lovingly.
+
+"You don't belong to me as a relation does. You ain't a sister or a
+cousin, you know."
+
+"Can't you 'dopt me, Jane?"
+
+Jane laughed through her tears. "What do you know about adopting?" she
+asked.
+
+"Martha tole me 'bout it. She said folks of'n 'dopted children to be
+their very own, and that mebbe some time somebody'd 'dopt me; and I tole
+her then I didn' want anybody to 'dopt me, but--I'd like you to 'dopt
+me, Jane. Couldn't you?" with great earnestness.
+
+"Of course not, Polly. Folks who adopt children are older 'n I am, and
+have money to take care of 'em. But I do wish some nice lady would adopt
+you,--some nice lady with a nice home."
+
+"But I'd rather stay here 'long o' you, Jane. I don't want to go 'way
+from you; I'd be lonesome. But mebbe they'd 'dopt you too. Would you
+like to be 'dopted, Jane?"
+
+"I don't know's I would. I'm too old now; I couldn't get to feel as if
+they were own folks, as if I really belonged to them, as you could.
+But, Polly," suddenly sitting up and looking very seriously at Polly,
+"you mustn't think I'm finding fault with the Home here. It's a very
+comfortable place, and we are treated well. I only feel kind of lonesome
+sometimes when I see girls like those across the street, who have
+mother-and-father homes."
+
+"And valentines," cried Polly.
+
+"Oh, Polly, Polly! you'll dream of valentines to-night," laughed Jane;
+"and mind you send me one in your dream, and the very prettiest you can
+find."
+
+"I will, I will!" exclaimed Polly, flinging her arms again about Jane's
+neck, and giving her a good-night hug and kiss. "The very prettiest I
+can find! the very prettiest I can find!" And saying this over and over,
+Polly drifted away into the land of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+And sure enough, when it was well on towards morning, she did dream of
+valentines,--piles and piles of them, and out of them all she was
+hunting for the prettiest, when she heard a strangely familiar voice,
+calling,--
+
+"Come, come, Polly! It's time to get up if you want any breakfast."
+
+Polly opened her eyes to see Martha looking down at her. "Oh, Martha,
+Martha," she cried, "if you hadn't waked me, I should have got it. I'd
+_almost_ found it, and in a little minute I'd 'a' had it sure."
+
+"Had what?" asked Martha.
+
+"Janey's valentine;" and, sitting up, Polly told her dream.
+
+Martha laughed till the tears came. "You _are_ the funniest young one we
+ever had here," was her comment, when she caught her breath. "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting out your money to
+buy valentines with."
+
+"What's an heiress?" inquired Polly.
+
+"Oh, a girl that has a bankful of money," replied Martha, carelessly.
+
+Polly gave one of her long-drawn "O--hs," then slipped out of bed, and
+began to dress so slowly that Martha said to her,--
+
+"What are you dreaming about now, Polly?"
+
+But Polly didn't answer. She was too busy pulling on her stockings, and
+thinking of something else that Martha had said, and this "something"
+was "a girl with a bankful of money." Martha little suspected what
+effect her words had had, little thought what a fine scheme she had set
+going. If she had, the scheme would certainly never have been carried
+out, or never have been carried out as Polly planned it. And Polly knew
+this perfectly well, and kept as still as a mouse all through
+breakfast,--so still that the matron, Mrs. Banks, asked, "Don't you feel
+well, Polly?" whereat Polly choked over her oatmeal as she confusedly
+answered, "Yes, 'm."
+
+If it had been any other child, Mrs. Banks would have suspected that
+there was some mischief brewing behind this stillness; but Polly had
+never been given to mischief, so she was not further questioned or
+observed, and thus left to herself she scampered back to the dormitory
+after the chamber-work was done, and, going straight to a small bureau
+that stood between Jane's bed and her own, she cautiously pulled out the
+lower drawer, and took from it a little toy house. This pretty toy house
+was nothing more nor less than a child's bank that had been given to
+Polly one Christmas, and into which she had dropped the pennies that had
+been bestowed upon her from time to time. Polly had long yearned for a
+paint-box; and whenever she went out, she used to stop at a certain
+shop-window where these tempting things were displayed, and wonder how
+much they cost. One day she summoned up courage to go in and ask the
+price of the smallest.
+
+"Twenty-five cents," the clerk told her. Polly at first was dismayed.
+Twenty-five cents seemed a vast sum to her. But it was a long time yet
+to next Christmas, and perhaps by then she _might_ find even as much as
+that in her bank. This hope had warmed her heart for weeks, so that when
+she was smarting under the first sense of disappointment about the
+valentines, she consoled herself with the thought of the little
+paint-box that might soon be hers. But when Martha had said, "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting your money out,"
+and had told her an heiress meant a girl with a bankful of money, like a
+flash of lightning came another thought into Polly's mind,--the thought
+that then and there from _her_ little bank she might count the money to
+buy a valentine for her dear Jane; and once this thought had entered
+Polly's head there was no putting it out. Over and above everything it
+kept gaining, until it sent her to tugging at that red chimney. Then
+suddenly the chimney that had stuck so fast gave way.
+
+Polly nearly fell backward, it was so sudden; but righting herself, she
+shook the treasure into her lap, and fell to counting it. She counted up
+to ten; that was as far as her knowledge of arithmetic went. Putting
+aside the ten pennies into a little pile, she began to count the rest.
+"One, two, three," she went on until--why, there was another pile of
+ten, and more yet; and the "more yet" counted up to five. Polly couldn't
+"do sums." She couldn't add these two piles of ten and the "more yet,"
+and she couldn't ask Jane or any one else in the house to do it for her.
+But what she _could_ do, what she _would_ do, was to slip the whole
+treasure back into the bank, and take it around to the shop on the
+corner, the shop where she had seen the paint-boxes, and where she was
+sure she should also find plenty of valentines. So getting into her
+little coat and hood, she scampered out and off, unseen and unheard by
+any of the household. It was rather terrifying to find several other
+customers in the shop, but she had no time to wait until they had left,
+and, going bravely forward, she called out, "Please, I want a
+valentine." But the clerk was busy, and paid no attention to her; so she
+pressed a little nearer, and piped out again in a louder tone, "Please,
+I want a valentine."
+
+But even this did not succeed in getting his attention. Oh, what
+_should_ she do! Perhaps in another minute Jane or Martha or Mrs. Banks
+would have missed her, and be hunting for her; perhaps they would be
+sending a policeman after her. Oh dear! oh dear! And summoning up all
+her courage, she cried out in a voice full of sobs and tears, "Oh,
+please, _please_, I want a valentine right off now this minute!"
+
+"Don't you see I'm busy now?" said the clerk, sharply.
+
+But the lady he was waiting upon had turned and looked at Polly as she
+spoke, and immediately said to the clerk,--
+
+"Oh, do attend to the child now. Her mother has probably told her to
+make haste."
+
+"She hasn't any mother. She's one of the children at the Orphans' Home,"
+replied the clerk in a lower tone.
+
+"Oh!" And the lady started and looked at Polly with new interest, and
+then insisted still more earnestly that she should be attended to at
+once, at the same time beckoning Polly to come forward.
+
+Polly obeyed her; but as she glanced at the cheap little five-cent
+valentines the clerk put before her, she shook her head disdainfully. "I
+want a bigger one; I want the bewt'f'lest there is," she informed him.
+
+The young man laughed. "How much money have you got?" he asked.
+
+Polly produced her bank, and triumphantly shook out its contents.
+
+"Oh,"--laughing again,--"all that? How much is it?"
+
+"I don't know jus' exac'ly. I can count up to ten, and there's two ten
+piles, and--and--five cents more."
+
+"Oh, two tens and five. Yes, I see,"--running his fingers over the
+little heap,--"that makes twenty-five. You've got twenty-five cents.
+Here are the twenty-five-cent valentines;" and he uncovered another box,
+and left her to make her choice.
+
+"Twenty-five cents!" echoed Polly. Why, why, why, that was enough to buy
+the little paint-box! She glanced down at the twenty-five-cent
+valentines. They presented a dazzling sight of cherubs' heads and wings
+and flowery garlands. She lifted her chin a little higher, and there,
+staring her in the face, was the very little paint-box, with its two
+brushes and porcelain color plate, and it seemed to say to her: "Come,
+buy me now; come, buy me now. If you don't, somebody else will get me."
+And she _could_ buy it now, if only--she gave up the valentine--Jane's
+valentine; and--why shouldn't she? She hadn't told Jane anything about
+it; Jane didn't expect it; Jane wouldn't ever know about it. Why
+shouldn't she? And Polly drew a deep sigh of perplexity as she asked
+herself this question.
+
+"What is it?" a soft voice said to her here. "What is it that troubles
+you? Tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+Polly started, and turned to see the lady who had made way for her
+standing beside her. The lady smiled reassuringly as she met Polly's
+perplexed glance, and said again,--
+
+"What is it? Tell me."
+
+And Polly, looking up into the kind sweet face, told the whole
+story,--all about the long saving for the little paint-box, Jane's
+valentine, and everything, winding up eagerly with the appeal,--"And
+wouldn't _you_ buy the paint-box now 'stead of the valentine, 'cos the
+paint-box mebbe'll be gone when I get more money?"
+
+"Wouldn't I? Well, I don't know what I should have done when I was a
+little girl like you. I dare say, though, that I should have felt just
+as you do--have done just as you, I see, are going to do now."
+
+"Bought the paint-box!" cried Polly.
+
+"Yes, bought the paint-box," laughed the lady.
+
+Polly beamed with smiles, and gave a rapturous look at the treasure that
+was so soon to be hers. But presently the rapture faded, and a new
+expression came into her face. The lady was watching her very
+attentively.
+
+"Well, what now?" she inquired. "Doesn't the paint-box suit you?"
+
+Polly gave an emphatic nod. Perhaps it was that nod that sent two little
+tears to her eyes.
+
+"Then, if it suits you, shall I speak to the clerk, and tell him you've
+changed your mind about the valentine, and will buy the paint-box?"
+
+Polly shook her head, and two more tears followed the first ones.
+
+"You're not going to buy the paint-box?"
+
+"N-o, I--I gu-ess not. I guess I'll buy the valentine. Jane didn't ever
+get a valentine, and she hasn't got anybody to give her one but me."
+
+The blurring tears made Polly's eyes so dim here, she could scarcely
+see; but through the dimness she sent one last good-by look at the dear
+paint-box, and then resolutely turned to the valentines, from which she
+selected the biggest and "bewt'f'lest" she could find, the lady crowning
+her kindness by stamping and directing it, and finally mailing it in the
+letterbox just outside the shop door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"What yer watchin' for, Polly?"
+
+Polly didn't answer.
+
+"Guess I know," said Martha, laughing; "yer watchin' for the postman to
+bring yer a valentine."
+
+"I ain't," said Polly.
+
+Just then the postman crossed the street, and ring, ring, went the Home
+bell.
+
+"I told you so," said Martha, as she ran down to answer it. In a minute
+she was back again holding out a big square envelope, and saying again,
+"I told you so."
+
+"'T ain't for me," cried Polly.
+
+"Ain't your name Polly Price?"
+
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+
+"Well, here 's 'Polly Price' written as plain as print. Just look now!"
+and Martha held forth the missive.
+
+Polly looked. She could read her own name in writing; and there it was,
+sure enough, plain as print,--Polly Price, and it was written on an
+envelope exactly like the one she had chosen to send to Jane. A fearful
+thought came into Polly's mind. She had told the lady her own
+name,--Polly Price,--and it was Polly Price she had written on the
+envelope instead of Jane McClane. Oh! oh! oh! and then Polly burst
+out,--
+
+"It ain't mine, it ain't mine, it's Jane's. The lady made a mistake."
+
+"What lady?"
+
+"The lady in the shop."
+
+"What shop?"
+
+And then Polly had to tell the whole story.
+
+"And that's where you were after breakfast, you little monkey, breaking
+a bank, and running away with it, to buy Jane McClane a valentine. Well,
+if this isn't the funniest thing I ever heard of. Jane! Jane! come up
+here and show Polly _your_ valentine!" And up came Jane, her face
+beaming with smiles, holding in one hand a big square envelope, and in
+the other an open sheet all covered with lilies and roses and cherubs'
+faces; that very "bewt'f'lest valentine" that had been chosen for her.
+
+Polly, staring at it in amazement, cried out, "Why, she's got it! she's
+got it!" And then, pulling open the envelope addressed to Polly Price,
+she stared in amazement again, and cried out, "Why, this is just like
+_that_ one,--the one I bought for you, Janey!"
+
+And then it was Jane's turn to cry out in amazement, to say, "_You_
+bought it; how did _you_ buy it, Polly?"
+
+"She broke a bank and ran away with the money," laughed Martha.
+
+"I didn't, either. The chimney's made to come out, and the bank's my
+bank," retorted Polly, indignantly.
+
+"You took _your_ money,--your money you've been saving to buy the
+paint-box with, to buy this valentine for me?" asked Jane.
+
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+
+"And gave up the paint-box! Oh, Polly, Polly, you're a dear;" and Jane
+swooped down upon Polly with a tremendous hug. Polly returned the
+embrace with ardor, and then, "Who d' you s'pose," she asked, "who d'
+you s'pose sent _me_ one jus' exactly like yours? It must be somebody
+that likes me jus' as I like you, Janey."
+
+"Mrs. Banks wants you to go down to the parlor, Polly. There's some one
+to see you," a voice interrupted here.
+
+"To see _me_?" cried Polly.
+
+"Yes,--don't stop to bother,--run along." And Polly ran along as fast
+as her feet could carry her, wondering as she went who had come to see
+_her_, who had never in her life had a visitor before. At the foot of
+the stairs she stopped in shy alarm. Then she tiptoed across the hallway
+to the parlor threshold, and there she saw the lady who had been so kind
+to her in the shop.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed Polly, joyfully.
+
+The lady laughed, and held out her hand. "Yes, it's I," she said. "Did
+Jane get the valentine all right, and did she like it?"
+
+Polly nodded, and then burst out with the story of her own
+valentine,--"Jus' like Janey's!"
+
+"And who d' you s'pose sent it?" she asked confidingly, nestling against
+the lady's knee.
+
+"I think it must have been one of the good Saint Valentine's
+messengers," answered the lady.
+
+Polly's eyes opened very wide. "Saint Valentine! Tell me 'bout him," she
+said.
+
+"A very wise man has told about him,--a man by the name of
+Wheatley,--and he says that this Valentine was a good bishop who lived
+long ago, and so famous for his love and charity that after he died he
+was called Saint Valentine, and a festival was held on his birthday,
+when all the people would send love tokens to their friends."
+
+Polly's face was radiant. "Oh, I _thought_ Valentine was a somebody very
+good, and that Valentine's Day was his birthday. I asked Jane if 't
+wasn't. Oh, Janey, Janey!" running to the foot of the stairs in her
+excitement, "come down and hear 'bout Saint Valentine!"
+
+"Polly!" said Mrs. Banks, reprovingly.
+
+"Oh, don't stop her," cried the lady. "I like to hear her, and I want to
+see Janey." After this there was nothing for Mrs. Banks to do but to
+send for Jane. As the strong, womanly-looking girl entered the room, a
+new idea entered the lady's mind. "It's the very thing," she said to
+herself,--"the very thing." At that instant carriage wheels were heard
+at the door, and the bell was rung sharply and impatiently. "Oh, it must
+be my Elise," said the lady.
+
+The next instant the door was opened, and in hopped--that is the only
+word to use--a little lame girl of ten or eleven, lifting herself along
+by a crutch. She was very pale, and her eyes were sunken with suffering;
+but she looked about her with a smile, and said in a quick, lively
+way,--
+
+"I got tired of driving 'round the square waiting for you, mamma; so I
+thought I'd come in."
+
+"I'm glad you did; I wanted you to see--"
+
+"I know--Polly! Mamma 's told me all about you, Polly, you and Jane and
+the valentine; and that's Jane. How do you do, Polly? how do you do,
+Jane?" nodding and laughing at them in a way that made Polly and Jane
+laugh too, whereupon this odd little girl exclaimed, "That's right,
+laugh, do! I like laughy folks;" and then, as she said this, her little
+figure swayed and would have fallen, if Jane, who was very quick of
+motion, hadn't sprung forward and caught her in her arms. The girl's
+face was all puckered up into little wrinkles of pain; but as soon as
+she could speak, she said, "Aren't you strong, though, Jane!"
+
+Jane couldn't say a word, but Polly piped out, "If I let you have my
+valentine to look at a little while, do you think you'd feel better?"
+
+"Lots, Polly, lots. Mamma told me about you; and when you come to stay
+with us, you'll be a regular treat."
+
+"Stay with you?" cried Polly, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes; what," turning to her mother, "haven't you asked her yet, mamma?"
+
+"No; I've only talked with Mrs. Banks."
+
+"Well, I'll talk to Polly. Polly, we've been looking for a nice little
+girl like you to come and stay at our house. I'm lame, and I can't do
+much. When mamma came home and told me about you and the bank and the
+paint-box and the valentine, I said, 'That's the girl for me; let's go
+and ask her to come.' And _won't_ you come, Polly?"
+
+"I--I'd like to if--if Jane can come too."
+
+"Don't. Polly. I can't--I can't!" whispered Jane.
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried the lame Elise, entreatingly.
+
+"Mamma" turned to Mrs. Banks. "If she _would_ only come and help
+us,--come and try us, at least,--I'm sure we could make satisfactory
+arrangements."
+
+Mrs. Banks nodded, and smiled approval. "Of course Jane can go if she
+chooses."
+
+"And you _will_ choose,--you will, won't you, Jane?"
+
+"Course she will," cried Polly; and then everybody laughed, and
+everything was as good as settled from that moment. Then it was that
+Polly burst out, "I should be puffickly happy now if I only knew jus'
+who that mess'nger was that sent my valentine."
+
+"Tell her, mamma, tell her!" called out Elise; and "mamma" bent down,
+and said to Polly,--
+
+"It was somebody who saw what a loving heart a certain little girl had
+when she chose to give up her paint-box to buy her dear Jane a
+valentine."
+
+"'Twas you, 'twas you!" cried Polly, joyfully. "Oh, I jus' love
+Valentine's Day, and I knew it must be Somebody's birfday,--some very
+good Somebody!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIBYL'S SLIPPER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When Sir William Howe succeeded General Gage as governor and military
+commander of the New England province, he at once set to work to make
+himself and the King's cause popular in a social way by giving a series
+of fine entertainments in the stately Province House.
+
+To these entertainments were bidden all the Boston townsfolk who were
+loyal to the British crown. Amongst such, none were more prominent or
+made more welcome than Mr. Jeffrey Merridew and his pretty young niece,
+Sibyl.
+
+Mr. Merridew was a stanch royalist, though he was by no means a violent
+hater of the rebels. Many of them were his old friends and neighbors;
+and his only brother, Dr. Ephraim Merridew,--Sibyl's father,--was a
+rebel at heart, though in far-away Barbadoes, where he was at that time
+engaged in business, he could not serve the rebel cause in person, as he
+would gladly have done. But he left behind him a son who, in full
+sympathy with his father's views, ranged himself boldly on the rebel
+side, as part and parcel of the American army.
+
+A rebel relative in Barbadoes was not a matter to trouble oneself about
+greatly, but a rebel relative on the spot, so to speak,--for young
+Ephraim was only four miles away at the Cambridge rallying-ground,--was
+a different thing; and, amiable and easy-going as Mr. Jeffrey Merridew
+was disposed to be, his nephew's close proximity could not, under the
+peculiar circumstances, but be embarrassing and disturbing on occasions;
+for the young man, besides being his nephew, was Sibyl's brother, and
+Sibyl, as a member of a royalist's family,--for her father on his
+departure for Barbadoes had left his motherless girl in her uncle's
+charge,--could not, of course, be allowed free intercourse with one who
+had placed himself in an attitude of active hostility to the royal
+cause.
+
+When Sibyl was apprised of this dictum, she at once made passionate
+protest against it. "What harm do the King's soldiers think poor Eph can
+do them by now and then paying a visit to his sister?" she asked her
+uncle scornfully.
+
+"Harm? You are very young, Sibyl, and don't understand these things.
+Your brother has chosen very foolishly to join the rebel forces, and so
+has made himself one of our acknowledged enemies; and I never heard of
+declared enemies in time of war walking in and out of each other's
+houses like tame cats," answered Mr. Merridew, sarcastically.
+
+"But Eph, such a boy as Eph, only nineteen, only two years older than I!
+What harm could he do now, more than he has ever done, by coming to his
+uncle's house as a visitor?" still persisted Sibyl, rather foolishly.
+
+"What harm!" exclaimed Mr. Merridew, impatiently. "What a child you are,
+Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal
+government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that
+he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to
+see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if reported to his
+officers?"
+
+"You think Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in
+high indignation.
+
+"Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with
+irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting
+of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war
+tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'"
+
+"And would you--would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a
+visitor,--would you--"
+
+"Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything
+worth telling,--anything that I thought would save the cause I believed
+to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be
+my duty to do it."
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business."
+
+"Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious
+business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels,
+like--"
+
+"Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew
+hesitated.
+
+"Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded
+her uncle, gravely.
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame.
+They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play.
+It is the King's folk who are to blame,--the King's folk who want to
+oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater
+grandeur."
+
+Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst.
+Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he
+said,--
+
+"So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these
+are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none
+too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong
+boy."
+
+"But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother.
+They are his principles, and they are my principles too!"
+
+"Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely
+tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an
+assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great
+laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy,
+to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see
+if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have
+those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her
+principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew."
+
+"Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that."
+
+"You will not promise? But you _have_ promised."
+
+"_Have_ promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting
+yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a
+little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant
+beauty.
+
+But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little
+provincial,--not he; and so, lifting up _his_ head with an air of
+hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,--
+
+"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a
+moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged
+her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her
+to-night."
+
+Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at
+her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,--
+
+"But I never reflect."
+
+"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but
+perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance
+upon this"--and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted
+card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was
+written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised
+to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if
+they are to be had in the town!"
+
+Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers--Sir Harry's
+roses--to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said,
+with a gleam of fun in her eyes,--
+
+"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for _him_ to recall his friends
+and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an
+untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about
+with her, to charge _her_ mind unaided."
+
+"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath
+extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration
+of her ready wit,--"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss
+Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As
+I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he
+held out his hand to her.
+
+[Illustration: A very pretty pair]
+
+"A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as
+the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as
+the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his
+post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,--
+
+"Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they
+would stand a test."
+
+Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his
+one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about
+"our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the
+test against a full regiment of regulars."
+
+"Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great
+interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge
+have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in
+a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us
+successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth
+if they attempt it."
+
+"And you--the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl.
+
+"We--well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions
+of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a
+vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah,"
+with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of
+this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a
+prize!"
+
+"But there is no possibility of this?"
+
+"Not the slightest. But you are pale,--don't be alarmed; there is no
+danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are
+certain."
+
+"But if they had?"
+
+"Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business
+better than their landsmen."
+
+All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the
+music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way
+at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his
+companion falter.
+
+"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she
+spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel
+of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night.
+For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not
+_he_ do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a
+slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must
+be hammered and fitted on.
+
+But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. _Something could_ be
+done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She
+needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry--on his
+way to his quarters that night--would he think it beneath his dignity to
+leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there
+by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the
+shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box
+by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon
+it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish
+job, she knew.
+
+Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her
+bidding.
+
+And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to
+the cloak-room for a moment?
+
+Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles.
+Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her
+pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken
+cord that had held her fan.
+
+"And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry,
+smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later.
+
+"Perhaps, if I may depend upon you--and Anthony Styles," she answered.
+Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like
+red twin roses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+  Robe of satin and Brussels lace,
+    Knots of flowers and ribbons too,
+  Scattered about in every place,
+    For the revel is through.
+
+And there, in the midst of all this pretty disorder of satin and lace
+and flowers, sits Sibyl, far into the night, or rather morning, turning
+over and over in her mind something that effectually banishes sleep.
+
+By and by, as she turns it over for the twentieth time, she says aloud
+to herself: "To think that it should be given to _me_ to do,--made _my_
+duty! Uncle Jeffrey taught me that, as he has taught me many things
+these past months,--to keep my own counsel, for one thing.
+
+"Ah, Uncle Jeffrey, you have fancied me all these months naught but a
+vain little puppet who could be led to forget anything in a round of
+routs and balls. Well, I like the routs and balls dearly, dearly, but I
+like something else better. I like what my father has taught us, what
+my dear Eph is going to fight for, and perhaps die for, far, far better.
+Yet I felt like a cheat to-night as I led Sir Harry on to tell me what
+he did,--Sir Harry, who thinks me, as all the rest do, a stanch little
+Tory, for I have kept my counsel indeed, and no one suspects. But oh, it
+is odious, it is odious, this war business; yet I have been taught how
+to do my duty, and I have done it. Yes, I have done my duty, for 'the
+reporting of important facts, however gained, in times of war, is part
+of war tactics.' Yes, these are your words, Uncle Jeffrey, and oh, how
+they flashed up to me to-night when Sir Harry told me of the British
+vessel, and how they fairly rung in my ears like an order, when it
+suddenly came to me how I could get this important fact that I had
+gained sent to the right quarter by means of good Anthony Styles and
+that parcel-box of his, through which so many messages have gone safely.
+
+"Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh, if I didn't shiver so, when I think
+of it! Sir Harry, Sir Harry of all persons, dropping that message into
+Anthony Styles's hands,--Anthony Styles, the stanch rebel whom they
+think a stanch Tory! Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh! And now if
+everything goes well,--if everything goes well, my dear rebels will not
+be swept off the earth by British arms quite yet!
+
+[Illustration: Sibyl's reflections]
+
+"But, hark! that is the clock; it is striking one, and I out of bed and
+gabbling to myself in this foolish way of mine, 'like a play-acting
+woman,' as Uncle Jeffrey would say of me. But I will not stay up a
+minute longer. So good-night, good-night, my dear rebels, g--ood-night!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clock was striking four the next afternoon when a weather-beaten
+man, who had a look as if he had once been a seaman, knocked at the side
+door of Mr. Jeffrey Merridew's mansion and asked to see young Mistress
+Merridew.
+
+"It's Shoemaker Styles," the maid informed Sibyl, "and he says you must
+come down and try on the slipper he has brought; he's not sure about the
+heel. He's in the hall-room, mem."
+
+It was with a wildly beating heart that Sibyl, obeying this summons, ran
+down to the little hall-room where Anthony Styles awaited her.
+
+He stood with the slipper in his hand as she entered the room; and
+before he could close the door behind her, he called out in a frank,
+loud voice: "I thought you had better try on the shoe, miss; I wasn't
+sure of the heel."
+
+The moment the door was closed, however, he came forward eagerly, and in
+a low tone said: "It's all right, little mistress. I heard the click of
+the tunnel-box last night, for I hadn't turned in, and afore many
+minutes I was up and off in my boat with the message in my head; I burnt
+the paper! There was a stiff breeze, and I reached the cutter in the
+quickest time I ever made, and got back afore daylight with nobody the
+wiser. Shoemaker Styles understands his old sailor business better than
+shoemaking," with a grim laugh, "and no Tory knows these waters as I
+do."
+
+"And it's all right, and the end will be all right?" faltered Sibyl,
+anxiously.
+
+"All right! You'll know for yourself by nightfall, perhaps; and now God
+bless you, little mistress. You've done a great service; and if ever
+Anthony Styles can sarve you, he'll do it with a whole heart,--God bless
+you, God bless you!" and with these words Shoemaker Styles hurried off,
+leaving Sibyl with the slipper still in her hand, and both of them quite
+oblivious of that important trying-on process.
+
+The day after the ball was a busy one for Sir Harry Willing, and it was
+not until late in the afternoon that he felt himself at liberty to take
+his accustomed saunter about town.
+
+As he came in sight of the gilded boot, he smilingly thought: "I wonder
+if Shoemaker Styles has done his duty by the little slipper; if he has,
+I shall dance with my lady Sibyl at Madame Boutineau's this evening."
+
+But Sir Harry did not dance at Madame Boutineau's that evening, for when
+at nightfall he returned to his quarters, he was met by the disastrous
+tidings that the long-looked for, eagerly expected British brig, loaded
+with supplies for the King's army, had been captured off Lechmere's
+Point by the Yankee rebels.
+
+It was not many months after this capture that the British evacuated
+Boston. When Sir Harry Willing took leave of Sibyl Merridew, he pleaded
+for some token of remembrance.
+
+"You will not promise yourself to me," he said in reproachful accents,
+"but give me some token of yourself, some gage of amity at least."
+
+"But what--what can I give you, Sir Harry?" asked Sibyl, not a little
+touched and troubled.
+
+"Give me the little slipper you wore that night we danced together at
+the Province House."
+
+"That--that slipper?" and Sibyl blushed and paled.
+
+"Yes--ah, you will, you will."
+
+A moment's hesitation; then with a strange smile, half grave, half gay,
+Sibyl answered, "I will."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+It was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in
+their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their
+lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke,
+with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and
+exclaimed, "We _can't_ be good as they were in those Bible days, no
+matter _what_ anybody says; things are different."
+
+"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"
+
+Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who
+had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and
+bound up his wounds and took care of him.
+
+"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.
+
+"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of
+a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those
+particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to
+people who are in trouble,--people who need things done for them."
+
+"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have
+now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable
+societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see
+them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."
+
+"We can do some things in vacations,--get up fairs and things of that
+kind, and give the money to the poor."
+
+"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the
+money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that
+all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our
+eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was
+keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected _me_ to
+do."
+
+"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any
+more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,--five
+minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid
+is so frowzely."
+
+"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you
+used to?"
+
+"I told you why yesterday,--because that Burr girl has made me sick of
+curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd
+make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came
+out with that fiery thing of hers. _Isn't_ it horrid?"
+
+"Yes, horrid!"
+
+A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the
+supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the
+dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a
+heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied
+back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery
+red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could
+have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside
+her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls,
+her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every
+movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the
+reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to
+go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she
+crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer.
+Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey
+tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the
+end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat,
+tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This
+was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up
+with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a
+little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so
+careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.
+
+"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this
+term; but there's _one_ thing I'm not going to do any more,--I'm not
+going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she _does_ dress
+so!" concluded Janey.
+
+"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She
+chooses her things herself," said Eva.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Janey.
+
+"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what
+she likes."
+
+"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things!
+Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"
+
+"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She _has_ lived 'way off
+out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army
+officer of some kind."
+
+"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a
+voice outside the door.
+
+"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night,
+good-night."
+
+The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great
+hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered
+as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that
+seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in
+her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little
+Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled
+when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice
+went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her
+age,--their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that
+Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,--Miss Vincent,
+in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,--
+
+"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do--oh, so much!
+You are thinking of only one way of doing,--helping the poor, visiting
+people in need. I _don't_ think you can do much of that. I think that
+_is_ mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your
+own,--a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day
+and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through
+such suffering once,--was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let
+me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was
+between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent
+to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So
+when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst
+themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly
+way and laughing at _me_, and I immediately straightened up and put on a
+stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only
+prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became
+very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided
+way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a
+while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to
+conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still
+misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at
+this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other
+girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the
+whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were
+down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't
+stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to
+worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them
+like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,--forgot everything but my
+desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even
+conflict,--thirty girls against one; and at length I did something
+dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my
+ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three
+of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against
+them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that,
+and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated
+me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that
+I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the
+ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the
+details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening
+of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the
+dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers
+to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all
+of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not
+even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was
+natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't
+remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me
+away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."
+
+"They were horrid girls,--horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.
+
+"No; they were like any ordinary girls who _don't think_. But you see
+how different everything might have been if only _one_ of them had
+thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been
+suffering, and"--smiling down upon Eva--"been a good Samaritan to me."
+
+"They were horrid, or they _would_ have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm
+sure _I_ don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."
+
+"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was
+silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head,
+Eva; and you never get things right,--never!"
+
+"I think you are very unkind."
+
+"Well, you can think so. _I_ think--"
+
+"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;"
+then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller
+entered.
+
+"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.
+
+"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.
+
+"Cordelia Burr?"
+
+"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with
+her."
+
+"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her.
+When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking
+of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with _her_, as
+those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."
+
+"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.
+
+Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it
+into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we
+are like those horrid girls."
+
+"Not like them; not as bad as they were, _yet_; but we might be if we
+kept on, maybe."
+
+"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet,
+pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and
+we--I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like
+Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls
+do."
+
+"But you--we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't
+dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of
+things that we were in, a good many times."
+
+"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so
+disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never
+in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in
+everything else it's just the same."
+
+"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."
+
+"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.
+
+"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and
+independent as she can be."
+
+"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe--"
+
+"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.
+
+"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are
+not on the wrong track with her; and I--"
+
+"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take
+notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be
+pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just
+one thing more: I'll say, if you _do_ begin this, you'll have to do it
+alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of
+the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and
+a nice time you'll have of it."
+
+Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for
+she was choking with tears,--tears that presently found vent in "a good
+cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.
+
+What should she do? What _could_ she do with all the girls against her?
+If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss
+Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.
+
+Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very
+sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that
+could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the
+same impression upon Alice,--that Alice had not seen in it, as she had,
+a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was
+Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest
+of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might--it might
+make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more,
+to--to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter
+would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her
+task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss
+Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."
+
+About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the
+other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.
+
+"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this
+time; she is so fond of the gym."
+
+"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day,"
+whispered Janey.
+
+"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have--But there
+she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here
+and try the bars with us."
+
+Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this
+pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody,
+and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward
+and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment
+everything that was unpleasant.
+
+There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined
+plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung
+down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track,
+as they called it.
+
+They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came
+in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried
+forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice
+gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and,
+pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who
+had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even
+to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was
+accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track
+there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem
+enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and
+heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a
+different aspect. But what--what ought she to do? What _could_ she do
+then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls,
+and Alice--Alice specially--would be _so_ angry. Oh, no, no, she
+couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came
+to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face
+flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.
+
+"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed
+again through Eva's mind.
+
+"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace
+faltered here.
+
+Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was
+going towards the door.
+
+"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.
+
+But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and
+dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"
+
+Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.
+
+Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia!
+Cordelia!"
+
+The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What
+was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and
+Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,--even they
+wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant
+she cried breathlessly, "We--I--didn't mean to crowd you out; it--it
+wasn't fair; and--and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia,
+won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot
+everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary
+admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did--_against them
+all_! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and
+her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to
+start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take
+place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most
+unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn
+with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish,
+independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer.
+Instead of that--instead of coldness and haughty independence--they saw
+her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then,
+dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of
+tears,--not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that,
+like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart
+after long repression.
+
+"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia,
+"don't, don't cry."
+
+Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but
+as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her
+head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching
+saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe
+away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!
+don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning
+sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking
+voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret
+gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and
+one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed
+fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they
+passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to
+Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what
+they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately,
+"Oh, girls, I should think--" and then broke down completely, and bowed
+her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody
+else took up her words,--the very words she had used a second
+ago,--somebody else whispered,--
+
+"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder,
+and she looked up to see--Alice King standing beside her. And then it
+seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of
+them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly
+piped out,--
+
+"We--we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."
+
+And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered
+out: "Care? How--how could I hel--help caring?"
+
+"But we thought--we thought you didn't like us," said another,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"And I--I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise
+me more if--if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little
+sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.
+
+"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and
+then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong
+track."
+
+Just here a bell in the hall--the signal to those in the gymnasium that
+their half-hour was up--rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and
+repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses
+and prepare for dinner.
+
+"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms
+around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.
+
+"Good? Don't--don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.
+
+"But you _were_. I--I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I--"
+
+Alice now flung _her_ arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug,
+as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I--I've been--a
+little fiend, I suppose, and I _was_ horridly angry at first; but when
+I--I saw how--that Cordelia really was--that she really felt what she
+did, I--oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood
+mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, _there's_ a little
+Samaritan."
+
+"Oh, Alice!"
+
+"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by
+liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though
+I'm going to behave myself, and _bear_ with her, I shall never come up
+to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she _does_ dress so! I'm
+going to behave myself, though, I am,--I am; but I hope she won't expect
+too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."
+
+"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's
+too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress
+and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but
+she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if
+she doesn't."
+
+And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much
+in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like
+another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her
+self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and
+apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a
+girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere,
+and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so
+far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by
+it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She _does_ dress
+so!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ESTHER BODN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Oh, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and
+dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and
+papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told
+me to ask you."
+
+"If it was any other evening."
+
+"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"
+
+"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."
+
+"Esther Bodn!"
+
+"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I
+fixed Thursday,--to-morrow."
+
+"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,--that mamma and
+papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I
+shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"
+
+"I don't want to do that, Kitty."
+
+"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"
+
+"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't
+want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."
+
+"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very
+ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a
+visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,--that
+you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,--and
+Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."
+
+"But that was different, Kitty."
+
+"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."
+
+"Oh, Kitty, you _know_."
+
+"But I _don't_ know."
+
+Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation
+she said: "Esther is--is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she
+doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,--quite poor, Kitty."
+
+"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately
+responded Kitty.
+
+"Now, Kitty, you _do_ see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't
+visit the people that we do."
+
+"She doesn't visit _anybody_, so far as I know."
+
+"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when
+she and her mother have made preparations for company--even one
+person--it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience
+to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to
+do it."
+
+"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?"
+asked Kitty, sarcastically.
+
+Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way,
+but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that
+Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother
+wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."
+
+"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor,
+like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in
+a wondering tone.
+
+"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with
+decision.
+
+"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should be sent to Miss
+Milwood's school. I shouldn't think they could afford it," went on
+Kitty; "why, the place for her is a public school."
+
+"But, Kitty, don't you know that Esther assists Miss Milwood,--that it
+is Esther who looks over all the French and German exercises, and makes
+the first corrections before mademoiselle takes them?"
+
+"Esther Bodn?"
+
+"Yes,--why, Esther, you must have noticed, is very proficient in French
+and German. She and her mother have lived abroad and here, in French and
+German families, to prepare her for being a teacher. She has a great
+natural aptitude, too, for languages."
+
+"How in the world did you find all this out, Laura?"
+
+"I didn't _find it out_, as you call it,--there is no secret about
+it,--Esther would no doubt have told you as much, if you had got as well
+acquainted with her as I have."
+
+"I don't see how you came to get so well acquainted with her. She's nice
+enough, but I could always see that she wasn't like the rest of us,--of
+our set."
+
+"Like the rest of us! She's just as good as the rest of us, and better
+than some of us."
+
+"Oh, I dare say," said Kitty, in a patronizing tone.
+
+"She may not be of our set, as you say, Kitty; but when I think of how
+Maud and Florence Aplin talk sometimes, I don't feel very proud of
+belonging to 'our set.'"
+
+"Yes, I know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are
+nice girls, and it is a nice family, mamma says."
+
+"Every one seems to say that about them, and I've often wondered what
+they meant. I'm sure Mr. Aplin isn't very nice. He has no end of money,
+I know, but he can be so rude, and Mrs. Aplin is so patronizing. Now,
+why should they be called such 'nice people'?"
+
+Kitty straightened herself up, put on a very knowing look, and repeated
+parrot-like what she had heard older persons say,--
+
+"Mrs. Aplin was a Windlow."
+
+"What in the world is a Windlow?" asked Laura, rather sarcastically.
+
+Kitty was a worldly young woman, but she was also full of fun; and this
+question of Laura's amused her mightily, and with a suppressed giggle
+she answered demurely: "I think it has something to do with windows. The
+Windlows were English, and I believe their business was to open and shut
+the windows in the king's palaces,--perhaps to wash them. This all began
+ages ago, and it was considered a great honor, a tip-top thing to do,
+especially when the windows were high up. The honor has descended from
+generation to generation, and the name with it, I believe. They had some
+very ordinary name at the start."
+
+The giggle, that had been suppressed up to this point, now burst forth
+in a shout of laughter, wherein Laura herself joined, exclaiming, as she
+did so, "Oh, Kitty, you are so ridiculous!"
+
+"Why don't you make a rhyme and say, 'Oh, Kitty, you're so witty'? But,
+Laura, it is you who are odd and ridiculous, to pretend that you don't
+know that Windlow is one of the oldest names of one of the oldest
+families who came over to America in the Mayflower,--regular old
+aristocrats."
+
+"Now, Kitty, I'm up in my history, if I'm not on this society stuff, and
+just let me tell you that those first settlers of America who came over
+in the Mayflower were _not_ aristocrats."
+
+"Oh, Laura, when everybody who can, brags of a Mayflower ancestor! I
+heard Mrs. Arkwright say to mamma, the other day that the Aplins were of
+the real old Mayflower blue blood."
+
+"Then Mrs. Arkwright, with the 'everybody' you tell of, doesn't know
+what history says."
+
+"Why, I'm sure I thought that was history."
+
+"Well, it isn't. Last year I went with my father to Plymouth, and he
+took me to the famous rock where the Mayflower pilgrims landed, and
+afterward he gave me a lovely book called 'The Olden Time,' by Edmund
+Sears, that told me all about the pilgrims,--who they were, and why they
+came over, and everything, and I remember it said in this book that the
+Plymouth pilgrims were constantly confounded--those were the very
+words--with the Puritans who came over nine years later to
+Massachusetts."
+
+"But Plymouth is in Massachusetts."
+
+"Yes, I know, but it wasn't in that day. It was simply Plymouth Colony.
+The Mayflower sailed by Cape Cod into Plymouth Bay. They named the bay
+Plymouth, as they named the town Plymouth, for the old Plymouth in
+England."
+
+"Did they name Cape Cod too?"
+
+"No; that name was given years before by Captain Gosnold, an early
+voyager."
+
+"Oh, I know, he caught such a lot of codfish there. I wish he'd never
+discovered the place; I hate codfish. But go on with your history
+lesson, Miss Brooks. I haven't any Mayflower ancestors, and so I'm more
+than resigned to have them taken down from their aristocratic peg."
+
+"But they were lovely people,--lovely; kind and good to everybody,
+whether they believed as they did or not, for they had been persecuted
+themselves in the old country they had left for their opinions, and they
+meant that every one in the new country should worship as they pleased.
+They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says,
+'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who
+came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the
+aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the
+Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and
+interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of
+strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of
+'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was
+bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New
+England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think
+that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."
+
+Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's
+astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls
+were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura
+looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call
+out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, "_What_ is
+such larks?"
+
+Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have
+pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful
+little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only--what does
+your history book say? Oh, I have it--'from the middle and humbler walks
+of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors--can't you see
+that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little
+bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these
+Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"
+
+"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"
+
+"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought,
+and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,--that if it wasn't for
+that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now--and now, Brooksie, I
+shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of
+perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed
+full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact,
+even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"
+
+"I haven't neglected you."
+
+"Well, snubbed me, then."
+
+"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther;
+that's all."
+
+"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura--Esther
+Bodn--Bodn?"
+
+"I don't think it's horrid at all. I like it."
+
+"B-o-d-n--Bodn--it sounds awfully common."
+
+"Why, Kitty, it's spelled B-o-w-d-o-i-n, the same as our Bowdoin Street,
+and pronounced Bod'n, as that is!"
+
+"Is it, really? I didn't know that."
+
+"I'm sure Bowdoin Street sounds well enough."
+
+"Well, yes, I've always rather liked the sound of it; but then, you
+know, I always _saw_ and _felt_ the spelling, when I saw it. What in the
+world was the pronunciation ever snipped off like that for? It ought to
+be pronounced just as it is spelled. I've a good mind to pronounce it so
+the next time I speak to Esther."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that; but you might _think_ of her as Miss Bowdoin,"
+answered Laura, dryly.
+
+"Oh, Laura, what a head full of wisdom you've got! I don't see how I
+ever lived without you. But--see here, tell me what street Miss Bowdoin
+lives in."
+
+Laura hesitated a moment; then answered, "McVane Street."
+
+"Where is McVane Street, for pity's sake? I never heard of it,--one of
+those horrid South End streets, I suppose?"
+
+"No, it is at the West End, beyond Cambridge Street, down by the
+Massachusetts Hospital."
+
+"No, no, Laura Brooks, you _don't_ mean that she lives down there by the
+wharves?"
+
+"It isn't by the wharves," cried Laura, indignantly.
+
+"Well, it isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets,
+given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going
+to take tea with a girl who lives in that frowsy, dirty place!"
+
+"It isn't frowsy and dirty. It's only an old, unfashionable street, but
+not frowsy or dirty. It's quite clean and quiet, and has shade-trees and
+little grass plots to some of the houses. Why, it used to be the court
+end of the town years ago."
+
+"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now
+it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,--Russian Jews, and every
+other kind of a foreigner,--and look here!" suddenly interrupting
+herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this
+Esther Bodn is a foreigner,--an emigrant herself of some sort."
+
+"Kitty!"
+
+"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,--eight-buttoned ones,--and I don't
+believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe
+they--her mother and she--spell it that way _to suit themselves_. I
+believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I--"
+
+"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,--it's
+slander."
+
+Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little
+undertone,--
+
+  "Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief
+   Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."
+
+Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the
+laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,--
+
+"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't--"
+
+"Laura, how _did_ it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?"
+interrupted Kitty.
+
+"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston
+Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out
+with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying
+some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my
+offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon
+Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books,
+and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'
+
+"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with
+you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I
+didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with
+her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a
+mistake,--that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how
+to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my
+insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge
+Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,--she felt
+sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder--"
+
+"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.
+
+"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so
+sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take
+no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to
+me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she
+went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and
+second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so
+thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over
+and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds
+of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I
+said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the
+street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country
+there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked
+old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly
+painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one
+of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over
+the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I
+felt,--that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there,
+and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking
+the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second,
+as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to
+come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,--that they were
+very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come
+very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for--"
+
+"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty,
+laughing.
+
+"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set
+the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but
+she is a very interesting girl,--my mother thinks she is too."
+
+"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"
+
+"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see
+the pictures,--she's very fond of pictures,--and mamma asked her to stay
+to luncheon, but she couldn't."
+
+"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to
+sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"
+
+"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her
+brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute
+she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was
+calling after her mischievously,--
+
+"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl
+who lives on McVane Street!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so
+completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything
+else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the
+"Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean
+by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"
+
+"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,--Esther Bodn."
+
+"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's
+school?"
+
+"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's
+assistance in the way of the French and German.
+
+"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this,
+as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject
+from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while
+Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her
+brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might
+find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I
+shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says
+that I may."
+
+But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next
+day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the
+young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter
+altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little
+journey to McVane Street.
+
+Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she
+was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might
+be in time for her own dinner hour,--had laughed and said, "Oh, a
+regular 'four-to-six,'--a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on
+'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish _I_ could go with you,--I
+never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a
+little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone
+on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself,
+Laura had retorted,--
+
+"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't
+appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if
+the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane
+Street didn't happen to please your taste."
+
+These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of
+the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a
+chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when
+she followed Esther up the stairs,--for it was Esther who had answered
+her ring,--and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought
+pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal
+fashion."
+
+It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the
+stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a
+door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura,
+turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that
+by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for
+it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with
+the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up
+a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils,
+and two or three fine etchings,--all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly
+dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still
+brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples
+and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in
+the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness
+stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned
+tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups
+and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a
+'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could
+see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't
+mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she _does_ live on
+McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more
+absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,--a little
+New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the
+Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation
+of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the
+country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know
+where to choose a home."
+
+Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had
+chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more
+completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the
+windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs
+of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,--bits of
+coral and ivory and mosses,--things grew plainer than ever, and she
+began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and
+pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little
+women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just
+when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard
+Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,--
+
+[Illustration: A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting]
+
+"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and
+Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little
+person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her
+daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that
+she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who--who was
+it she suggested?
+
+All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where
+_had_ she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her
+again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little
+third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where _had_ she
+seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as
+the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the
+question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face,
+and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated
+expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura
+answered eagerly,--
+
+"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by
+some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his
+library, and it is so like you, _so_ like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I
+saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the
+sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was
+its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, _do_ you know the picture,
+Mrs. Bodn?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not
+painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is
+now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."
+
+"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"
+
+"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was
+painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,--I was the
+model."
+
+"You were a--a--the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, I was a--a--the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own
+halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm.
+Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in
+Munich."
+
+"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.
+
+"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and
+see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being
+introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"--a tall, good-looking boy of
+fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next
+moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.
+Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying
+through Laura's mind,--
+
+"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her
+daughter's and her nephew's names,--Esther, David,--these also Hebrew
+names!" What did it signify? Kitty--Kitty would say that it proved _she_
+was right,--that they _were_ the very people she had said they were.
+But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
+classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother _had_ been a model years
+ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
+ashamed of it; and Esther,--Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
+be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
+no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
+would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
+foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
+as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
+Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
+the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
+carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
+when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
+walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
+happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
+friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
+words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
+passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
+like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.
+
+What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
+exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
+was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
+brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
+by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
+Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
+little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
+of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
+disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
+injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
+heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
+often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
+fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly,
+that you seemed to like most of all,--
+
+  "'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
+    May bear the prize and a' that;'
+
+"and yet now, now--"
+
+"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,--"my
+dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,--it is because we don't
+know anything about them."
+
+"I--I think it is because you _do_ know that--that they live on McVane
+Street," faltered Laura.
+
+"Well, that _is_ to know nothing about them, in the sense that father
+means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that
+they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,--people
+that we don't _want_ to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other
+day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your
+teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks
+who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."
+
+"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than
+Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."
+
+"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering
+little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish
+face."
+
+"He has _not_," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It
+was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind
+that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that
+of her nephew rose before her! If they--if they--her brother, her
+father, could see these faces,--these faces so fine and intelligent, and
+saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's
+library,--would they feel differently,--would they do justice to Esther
+and her relations, though they _were_ Jews,--would they admit that they
+were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no,
+she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind,
+and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive
+answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one
+class,--the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the
+lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the
+lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That
+great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there,
+Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the
+Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels
+Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and
+'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius--"
+
+"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted
+her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of
+your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush
+into any intimacy with such strangers."
+
+There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very
+plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that
+henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All
+her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming
+her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with
+the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be
+good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to
+her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She
+would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind
+and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in
+spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.
+Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got
+interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But,
+alas, for this scheme!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She
+had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in
+near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then
+"made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura,
+airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn,
+in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the
+listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that
+every girl had passed from indifference to an active prejudice against
+Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed,
+Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,--"making
+fun;" and when the girls, relishing this "fun," laughed and applauded,
+she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura,
+however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther
+subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the
+person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon
+Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was
+apparently hard at work.
+
+"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.
+
+Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower;
+and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the
+exercises upon the desk.
+
+"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always
+knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not
+unkind. Now--they--seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy,
+but--but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and--and
+sometimes they seem to avoid me, and--I'm just the same as ever,
+except--except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been
+rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some
+money,--not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have
+anything new; and--and there's another thing--one morning I overheard
+one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'
+They must have been talking about me and where I live. Nobody else here
+lives on McVane Street, and we--mother and I--wouldn't live there if we
+could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and
+this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could
+pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it _isn't_ bad,
+it _isn't_ low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I
+thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd
+always heard that Boston girls--"
+
+"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of
+any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick--sick of girls. Girls
+will do things and say things--little, mean, petty things--that boys
+would be ashamed to do or say."
+
+"Then you _do_ think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live
+that--that has made them--these girls so--so different; but why should
+they--all at once? I can't understand."
+
+"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them--they don't
+mean--they don't know--they are not worth your notice. You are a long,
+long way above them!"
+
+"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John
+Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,--he died in Munich; he
+was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my
+father's death,--we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew
+some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He
+didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious,
+hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and _he
+knew_, for _he_ hadn't made a success any more than my father
+had,--and--and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane
+Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But _I_ wanted to come
+from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was
+sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and
+high-minded, and--" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at
+this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with,
+"and then I knew my father's people had once--" But at this point,
+"Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises
+into my room, and we'll finish them together."
+
+Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle,
+calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art
+Club?"
+
+"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."
+
+"Well, we'll go together, then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice,
+"Laura, what _is_ the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What
+have I done?"
+
+"You've done a very cruel thing."
+
+"Laura!"
+
+"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,--you have done a very cruel thing."
+
+"For pity's sake, what do you mean?"
+
+"You may well say 'for _pity's_ sake;'" and then Laura burst forth and
+repeated, word for word, the conversation that had transpired between
+Esther and herself, concluding with, "And you--_you_, Kitty, are to
+blame for this, for it is you who have prejudiced the girls against
+Esther with your talk about McVane Street and the foreigners in that
+neighborhood."
+
+"I? Just my little fun about McVane Street and your sunset tea there?"
+
+"Yes, just your little fun! I know what your fun is! Oh, Kitty, Kitty,
+I _did_ think you had a kind heart! But to be the means of hurting
+anybody, as you have hurt Esther,--it is--it is--"
+
+"Laura, Laura, don't," as Laura here broke down in a little fit of
+sobbing. "Of course I didn't know--I didn't think. Oh, dear, I'll tell
+the girls I didn't mean a word I said,--that I'm the biggest liar in
+town; that Esther is an heiress; that--that--oh, I'll do or say
+anything, if you'll only stop crying, Laura. There, there," as Laura
+tried to stifle a fresh sob, "that's right, take my handkerchief,--yours
+is sopping wet, and--My goodness, there comes Maud Aplin--she _must_ not
+see us sniffing and sobbing like this, she'll say we've had a quarrel.
+Here, let us go into the little recitation-room, quick now, before she
+sees us."
+
+And into the little recitation-room Laura was very willing to go and
+hide her tear-stained face from inquisitive eyes, while Kitty, penitent
+and overcome more by the spectacle of these tears than by a sense of her
+own shortcomings, followed briskly after, with this cheerful little
+running fire of remarks, anent the Art Club lecturer: "I'm just
+crazy--_crazy_ to see this Monsieur Baudouin; for what do you think Flo
+Aplin says? That he is a real viscomte or marquis, or something of that
+sort, but that he came into his title only a year or two ago, and is
+much prouder of his reputation as an art authority and critic and his
+name, Pierre Baudouin,--it's his own name, you know,--and he won his
+reputation under that. The Aplins met him last year in Paris. Windlow
+Aplin, who is studying art there, just swears by him, and says the
+artists dote on him, and Flo says he is perfectly elegant. Etching is
+his great fad now, and he is going to lecture this afternoon on etching
+and etchers. Oh, I'm just crazy to see and hear him, aren't you?"
+
+Laura had by this time conquered her tears, thanks to Kitty's
+adroitness, and, with a half-humorous, half-grateful appreciation of
+this adroitness, she thought to herself as she walked round to the Art
+Club with Kitty that afternoon, "Kitty _has_ a good heart, after all."
+
+The Art Club hall was quite full as they entered; but there were seats
+well down in front, and there they found most of the school girls under
+Miss Milwood's charge. Esther was one of this party; and Kitty made a
+great point of leaning forward and bowing to her with much graciousness.
+The next moment she was whispering to Laura, "There, didn't I behave
+prettily to Esther this time? You'll see now--" But at that instant a
+slender dark-eyed gentleman, accompanied by one of the artists, was seen
+coming rapidly up the aisle, and, "Look, look, there he is!" cried
+Kitty, "and _isn't_ he elegant?"
+
+And Laura looking, as she was told, found no reason to disagree with
+this comment.
+
+"But I _do_ hope," whispered the irrepressible Kitty again, as Monsieur
+Baudouin ascended the platform,--"I _do_ hope he is as interesting as he
+looks; appearances are deceitful sometimes." But no one of that audience
+found Pierre Baudouin's appearance deceitful. He was more than
+interesting,--he was enthralling as he went on with his almost loving
+consideration of his subject, setting before his hearers, in a melodious
+voice and very good English, some of the results of his great knowledge
+and experience. You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying goes, so
+spell-bound was the audience; and at the end there was a warm outburst
+of applause, and then a gathering about him, as he left the platform,
+of the various artists, and others who were eager to speak with him. He
+was standing with this little group, when Laura, watching and listening
+just outside of it, heard him say, "There is a remarkable etching that I
+wish I could show you, for it proves completely the theory I have just
+placed before you. I saw it but once, in the artist's own studio, as I
+was passing through Munich. When a little later I heard that the artist
+was dead, and his effects for sale, I tried to buy the etching, but was
+told that it had been given to a friend, a Mr. John Wybern. Since then,
+I have learned that Mr. Wybern has also died, and I started again on my
+search; but it has been fruitless so far, though I still hope I may come
+across it, and be able, if not to add it to my collection, to examine it
+again. The artist, by the way, is the same one that painted that
+remarkable picture, 'Rebecca the Jewess.'"
+
+Laura turned hastily around to look for Esther. She had not to look far.
+Esther was just behind her. "Esther, did you hear?" she asked.
+
+Esther nodded.
+
+"Do you know about the etching?"
+
+[Illustration: She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin]
+
+"Yes, it hangs in our parlor. I wish I dared go forward now and tell
+him."
+
+"Oh, Esther, do, do!"
+
+But Esther hung back. Then Laura obeyed an impulse that forever after
+filled her with astonishment. She pressed forward, and, before she had
+time to think twice, was addressing Monsieur Baudouin, and telling him
+what she knew.
+
+"What! you can tell me where this etching is? You can take me to it?" he
+exclaimed, with a sort of joyful incredulity.
+
+Laura answered by turning to Esther and saying. "This young lady can
+tell you more about it. The etching is in the possession of her family."
+
+"Ah, and this young lady is--"
+
+Laura reached back, seized Esther's hand, and pulled her to her side.
+
+"Is Miss Bodn."
+
+"Mees _Bodn_!" he repeated with a start. "Mees _Bodn_! Ah, pardon me, do
+you spell this name B-o-w-d-o-i-n?"
+
+"You do, you do," as Esther answered in the affirmative; "and, pardon
+again, are you related to one Henri--Henry, you call it here--Henry
+Pierre Bowdoin?"
+
+"My father's name was Henry Pierre Bowdoin."
+
+"Then, Mademoiselle," and Monsieur Baudouin stretched out his hand, and
+a smile lit up his face, "you must be a relation of mine; and three
+years ago, when I was in this country, and tried to find the American
+branch of our family that spelled its name Bowdoin and was called Bodn,
+but which was originally Baudouin, the old Huguenot name, I was told it
+had died out. Where were you then, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"In Munich, where my mother and I had lived with my uncle John Wybern,
+since my father's death, years ago."
+
+"Your uncle! John Wybern was your uncle? So--so is it possible, is it
+possible? And I find the two objects I have been hunting, so far apart,
+together! It is most astonishing and yet most simple. And your
+mother--your mother is living? Yes, and you will give me your address,
+that I may hasten to pay my respects to her;" and Monsieur whipped out a
+little note-book and wrote down, probably with greater satisfaction than
+it had ever been written before, "McVane Street."
+
+"Most astonishing and yet most simple," as Monsieur had truly said; yet
+to the flock of Miss Milwood's girls, who, well down to the front, had
+lost nothing of this surprising interview, it was only "most
+astonishing," and to some of them most humiliating and mortifying. Kitty
+Grant was the first to voice this mortification, by turning upon them
+and saying, as Esther disappeared with Monsieur Baudouin, "Say, girls,
+how do you feel now? _I_ feel like one of Cinderella's sisters. Laura
+now--Laura, where are you?" But Laura had also disappeared. She wanted
+to be by herself and think it over. But what of Esther,--Esther, who had
+been neglected and disregarded and despised? What of Esther, as she
+stood there, and as she walked away with Monsieur Baudouin? Esther was
+the least astonished of them all, for years ago she had been familiar
+with the facts of her paternal family history, and knew that she was a
+descendant of Pierre Baudouin, a French Huguenot, who had fled to
+America to escape religious persecution, and knew that the name Baudouin
+had suffered a change to Bowdoin; knew, too, that as Bowdoin it had been
+made illustrious in America's annals, and worn the honors of the highest
+offices of the State. She knew all this; but she knew also that this was
+long ago, and that her father was the last of his name in America, and
+when he died, after a wasting illness that exhausted his fortune, there
+was little thought given to the fact that the old Huguenot root still
+existed in France, though half-playful, half-serious mention had now and
+then been made of the kinsfolk in France they would sometime go to seek.
+
+All this Esther had stored away in her memory, so that when Monsieur
+Baudouin announced himself as the kinsman from France, it was more like
+a long-anticipated event than a surprise. And all this she told to Laura
+in the days that followed,--those dear, delightful days, when there was
+no difficulty put in the way of going to McVane Street; when McVane
+Street, indeed, according to Kitty, became quite the fashion with the
+artists flocking to see the wonderful etching, and Monsieur Baudouin
+holding forth upon its merits to them as he made himself at home with
+his American kinsfolk, who were now discovered to be such charming folk.
+Laura sometimes in these days blazed up with indignation and disgust as
+she noted the sudden attentions that were bestowed upon Esther and her
+mother. No one now spoke of emigrants and foreigners in connection with
+these dwellers on McVane Street. Jack Brooks himself seemed to forget
+that David Wybern looked like a Jew, even before it was found that David
+and all of his people were of the most unmixed Puritan stock!
+
+"And I, too," thought Laura,--"I, too, muddled and mistook things as I
+shouldn't, if Esther and her mother had lived in a different quarter. If
+they had lived anywhere over the hill, should I have fancied, though
+they _were_ so poor, that Mrs. Bowdoin must have been a professional
+model? No, no, I should have thought at once, what I _know_ now, that
+the artist was her friend, and that she sat to him as a friendly favor,
+like any other lady."
+
+But while Laura thus scourged herself with the rest, Esther and her
+mother had set her apart from all the rest for their special love and
+confidence,--a love and confidence that are as fresh to-day as when the
+mother and daughter sailed away with Monsieur Baudouin, a year ago, to
+visit their French kinsfolk.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BECKY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Number five!" called out shrilly and impatiently the saleswoman at the
+lace counter in a great dry-goods establishment. The call was repeated
+in a still more impatient tone before there was any response; then there
+rushed up a girl of ten or eleven, whose big black eyes looked forth
+fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so
+thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where
+the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."
+
+"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman,
+angrily.
+
+"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.
+
+"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon
+counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.
+
+"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered,
+showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.
+
+A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.
+
+"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big
+for her boots with her impudence."
+
+"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust
+forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for
+it.
+
+Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her,
+seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.
+
+"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after
+her.
+
+The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in
+such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which
+she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie
+admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so
+funny she "just couldn't help laughing."
+
+"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "_I_ call it impudence. She
+ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back
+at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about,
+that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you,
+Lizzie."
+
+"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said
+Lizzie.
+
+This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,--taking people off. She was
+a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in
+the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky
+would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen
+observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie
+called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin
+up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair
+of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of
+cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady
+fashion,--"just like the swells," Lizzie declared. It was quite natural
+then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was "up
+to," in her close attention to the "swell" customers at the ribbon
+counter. "She was studyin' 'em, just as actresses study their
+play-parts," Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she
+met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,--
+
+"Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter."
+
+"Eh?" said Becky.
+
+Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in: "Yes, Becky,
+give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun."
+
+"They warn't funny," answered Becky, shortly.
+
+"Oh! now, Becky, what'd you stand there lis'nin' and lookin' at 'em so
+long for?"
+
+"'Cause they were sayin' somethin' I wanted to hear."
+
+"Of course they were. What was it about, Becky?"
+
+"May-day, flowers and queens and baskets."
+
+"Oh, my! Well, tell us how they said it, Becky."
+
+"I tole yer they warn't funny; they warn't o' that kind that peeks
+through them long stick glasses and puckers up their lips. They talked
+straight 'long, and said very int'restin' things," said Becky.
+
+"Well, tell us; tell us what 'twas," exclaimed Lizzie.
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't care for what they's talkin' 'bout. They warn't sayin'
+anythin' 'bout beaux or clothes," Becky replied with a grin.
+
+A shout of laughter went up from the rest of the company, who all knew
+the lively Lizzie's favorite topics. Lizzie joined in the laugh, and
+cried good-naturedly,--
+
+"Never mind, Becky, if I'm not up to your ribbon swells talk; tell us
+about it."
+
+"Oh, yes! tell us, tell us!" echoed the others.
+
+Becky took a bite out of a slice of bread, and munching it slowly,
+said,--
+
+"I tole yer once 't was 'bout May-day and flowers and queens and
+baskets."
+
+"What May-day? There's thirty-one of 'em, Becky."
+
+Becky looked staggered for a moment. In her little hard-worked life she
+had had small opportunity to learn much out of books, and she had never
+happened to hear this rhyming bit:--
+
+  "Thirty days hath September,
+   April, June, and November,
+   All the rest have thirty-one,
+   Excepting February alone."
+
+Recovering her wits, however, very speedily, she said coolly,--
+
+"The first pleasant one."
+
+"Well, what were they telling about it? What were they going to do the
+first pleasant day in May?"
+
+"They didn't say as _they_ was goin' to do anythin'; they was
+tellin'--or one of 'em was tellin' t' other one--what folks did when
+they's little, and afore that, hundreds o' years ago, how the folks then
+used to get all the children together and go out in the country and put
+up a great big high pole, and put a lot o' flowers on a string and wind
+'em roun' the pole; and then all the children would take hold o' han's
+and dance roun' the pole, and one o' the children was chose to be queen,
+and had a crown made o' flowers on her head, and the rest o' the
+children minded her."
+
+"You'd like _that_,--to be queen and have the rest mind you, Becky,
+wouldn't you?" laughed one of the company.
+
+"I bet I would," owned Becky, frankly.
+
+"But what about the baskets?" asked somebody else.
+
+"Oh, the kids," said Becky, forgetting in her present absorbed interest
+the term "children,"--which she had learned to use since she had come up
+daily from the poor neighborhood where she lived,--"the kids use to fill
+a basket with flowers and hang it on the door-knob of somebody's
+house,--somebody they knew,--and then ring the bell and run. Golly!
+guess _I_ should hev to hang it _inside_ where I lives. I couldn't hang
+it on no outside door and hev it stay there long,--them thieves o' alley
+boys would git it 'fore yer could turn. I guess, though, they was
+country kids who used to hang 'em; but the lady said she was goin' to
+try to start 'em up again here in the city."
+
+"What kind o' baskets were they?" asked Lizzie, suddenly sitting up with
+a new air of attention.
+
+"Oh, ho!" laughed one of the girls; "Lizzie wants to hang a basket for
+somebody _she_ knows!"
+
+"Hush up!" said Lizzie, turning rather red. Then, addressing Becky
+again: "Did the lady who was telling about 'em have a basket with her?
+Did you see it?"
+
+"No, but she hed a piece o' that pretty wrinkly paper jes' like the
+lamp-shades in the winders, and she said the baskets was made o' that,
+and she was buyin' some ribbon to match for handles and bows."
+
+"Oh, I _wish_ I could see one of 'em," said Lizzie.
+
+"I went to a kinnergarden school wonst when I was a little kid," struck
+in Becky here, "and we was put up there to makin' baskets out o' paper."
+
+"Could you do it now?" asked Lizzie, eagerly.
+
+"Mebbe I could," answered Becky, warily; "but it's a good bit ago."
+
+"When you were young," cried one of the company with a giggle.
+
+"Yes, when I was young," repeated Becky, in exact imitation of the
+speaker, whose voice was very flat and nasal.
+
+Everybody laughed, and one of the girls cried: "Becky'll get the best of
+you any time." They were all of them impressed with this fact, when, a
+few minutes after, the wary Becky agreed to show Lizzie what she knew of
+"kinnergarden" basket-making, if Lizzie would agree to pay her for her
+trouble by giving her materials enough to make a basket for herself.
+
+"Ain't she a sharp one?" commented one of the girls to another when they
+had left the lunch-room.
+
+"Ain't she, though? She'll get what she can, and hold on to what she's
+got every time."
+
+"But she's awful good fun. Didn't she take off Matty Kelley's flat
+nose-y way of talkin' to a T?"
+
+"Didn't she!" and the two girls laughed anew at the recollection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Becky was the only one of the parcel-girls who was in the lunch-room
+when this talk about May-day took place. The others lived nearer to the
+store, and had gone home to their dinners. They were all a trifle older
+than Becky, and a good deal larger. For these reasons, as well as for
+the fact that they had been in the establishment quite a while when
+Becky entered it, they had put on a great many disagreeable airs toward
+the pale-faced little girl when she first appeared, and attempted, as
+Becky put it, to "boss" her. They soon found, however, that the
+new-comer was too much for them. They expected her to be afraid of
+them,--to "stand round" for them. But Miss Becky was not in the least
+afraid of them, or, for that matter, of anybody; and as soon as she
+understood what they meant, she turned upon them the whole force of that
+inimitable mimicry of hers, and "took off" their airs in a manner that
+soon set the small army of salesmen and saleswomen into such fits of
+laughter that the tables were completely turned upon the tormentors,
+and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the
+respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus
+constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they
+gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph
+over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her.
+Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to
+her,--when they told her that Becky Hawkins was nothin' but one o' that
+low lot who lived down amongst that thieving set by the East Cove
+alleys,--that jus' as like as not she was a thief herself; that she was
+awful close and stingy, anyway, and saved up every scrap she could find;
+that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such
+duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively
+heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and
+didn't care if it _was_, there were others not so good-natured as
+Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready
+to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something
+lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the
+street,--"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,--the
+lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in
+spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect
+in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an
+outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.
+
+"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and
+when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company
+gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of
+pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky
+knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now
+present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday,
+and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with
+mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.
+
+"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's
+waitin', and so are we."
+
+"What _yer_ waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.
+
+"To see how you make the baskets."
+
+"Well, yer'll hev to wait."
+
+"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"
+
+"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free
+kinnergarden. These are private lessons."
+
+A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,--
+
+"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"
+
+"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.
+
+"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the
+parcel-girls with a wink at the other.
+
+"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and
+running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned
+to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.
+
+"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed
+her teacher.
+
+"And you didn't get ahead o' me _this_ time, either!" called out Becky,
+as she bolted the door upon herself and companion.
+
+"You're too sharp for any of _us_, Becky," called back one of the
+saleswomen.
+
+"_Ain't_ she sharp?" agreed one and another; and "I told you so," said
+still another. "She's a regular little cove-sharper, as Lotty said."
+Lotty was the older parcel-girl.
+
+And thus, though most of them laughed at Becky's last "move," they were
+prejudiced against her for it, and thought it another evidence of her
+stinginess and sharpness. They all agreed, however, that she had "got
+'round' Lizzie to that extent that that young woman would stand up for
+her, anyway, no matter what she'd do or didn't do.
+
+"An' I'll bet yer," said the younger parcel-girl, "she'll lie out o'
+that basket bizness, an' get a lot o' paper too. _She_ know how to make
+baskets! Not much. You see now when they come out o' the fitting-room
+there'll be some excuse that 't ain't done, an' they can't show it
+now,--you see."
+
+This prophecy was received in silence, but without much sign of
+disagreement; and when the fitting-room door finally opened, it was
+funny to watch the looks of astonishment that were bestowed upon the
+pretty little basket of green and white paper that Lizzie held swung
+upon her finger.
+
+"Well, I never! She _did_ know how, didn't she?" exclaimed one of the
+party.
+
+[Illustration: the pretty little basket of green and white paper]
+
+"Of course she did," answered Lizzie.
+
+Becky only shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+
+"Bet yer she hooked it out o' some shop, and had it in that bag she
+carried in," whispered Lotty Riker, the parcel-girl.
+
+"Hush!" warned one of the company.
+
+But it was too late. Becky had heard, and for the first time since she
+had been in the store, those about her saw hot wrath blazing from her
+eyes as she burst forth savagely,--
+
+"Yer mean low-lived thing yer, yer must be up to sech tricks yerself to
+think that!"
+
+"What is it? What did she say?" asked Lizzie.
+
+Becky repeated Lotty's words, her wrath increasing as she did so.
+
+"Hooked it! You know better, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Lotty Riker," said Lizzie. "Becky and I made the basket ourselves. See
+here now!" and, opening one hand, she displayed the ends of the paper
+strips as they had been cut off, and where they fitted the protruding
+ends on the basket. "But," turning to Becky, "Lotty knows better; she
+only wanted to bother you."
+
+"She wanted to bully me! She's been at it ever since I come here,--she
+and t' other one. I made 'em stop it wonst, an' I'll make 'em ag'in. I
+can stan' a good deal, but I ain't a-goin' to stan' bein' called a
+thief, I ain't. I ain't no more a thief 'n they be, if I do live down
+Cove way, and don't wear quite so good clo'es as they does. _Hooked
+it_!" going a step nearer to the two girls. "I wish we was boys.
+I'd--I'd lick yer, I would, the minit I got yer out on the street; but,"
+with a disgusted sigh, "I'm a girl, and I carn't. 'Tain't 'spectable for
+girls, Tim says, an' I mus'n't. But lemme jes' hear any more sech talk,
+an'--I'll _forgit I'm a girl for 'bout five minutes_!"
+
+This conclusion was too much for Lizzie's gravity, and she burst into
+one of her infectious laughs. Several of the others joined in, and then
+Becky herself gave a sudden little grin.
+
+Lotty Riker and her sister, who had been thoroughly frightened, felt
+immensely relieved at this, and for the moment everything seemed the
+same as before the outbreak; but it was only seeming. The majority of
+the company, without taking into consideration the provocation Becky had
+received, thought to themselves: "_What_ a temper!" Becky's wild little
+threats, and the way she expressed herself, had made a strong
+impression; and when presently Lizzie laughingly asked, "Who's Tim,
+Becky?" and Becky had answered in that lawless manner of hers: "Oh, he's
+a fren' o' mine,--a great big fightin' gentleman what lives in the house
+where we do," there was a general exchange of glances, and a general
+conviction that the Riker girls had not been altogether wrong in some of
+their statements. And when the next day they heard Miss Becky confide to
+Lizzie that she had made "a splendid basket," and was going to hang it
+for Tim on that "fust pleasant day of May," they whispered to each
+other, "A May-basket for a prize-fighter!"
+
+But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She
+was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from
+her fun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and
+sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth
+Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and
+wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She
+would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got
+to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow
+on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;"
+but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
+
+"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
+
+"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for
+the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
+
+Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything
+else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to
+her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where _could_ she be? She had
+always been punctual to a minute.
+
+The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was
+forgotten. It was not until the closing hour--five o'clock--that Lizzie
+thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly,
+as they were leaving the store together,--
+
+"Where _do_ you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day,
+and she's _always_ here, and so punctual."
+
+"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would
+be just like her; she's that independent."
+
+"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's
+pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do
+that," put in Josie, laughing,
+
+"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
+
+"Sick! _her_ kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough.
+Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that
+basket?"
+
+"Why, what I agreed to give,--enough to make a basket for herself; and
+last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my
+Mayflowers,--I had plenty."
+
+"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
+
+"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
+
+"Yes, _Becky's_ bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the
+rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the
+rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking
+about private lessons!"
+
+"Oh, that was only her fun."
+
+"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid
+for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you
+think that was only fun?"
+
+"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little
+something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove
+Street."
+
+"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the
+other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends
+she was working alongside of."
+
+"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
+
+"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's
+exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she _sold_ her basket, and very
+likely to that prize-fighter,--that Tim."
+
+"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I
+hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things
+of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster
+down--' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
+
+"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street
+tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she
+cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,--in one of those
+tenements."
+
+"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six
+o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had
+for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and,
+owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such
+headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only
+the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours
+of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought
+under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the
+wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries
+and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought
+to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives
+in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means
+small.'"
+
+"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here,
+breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
+
+"But, Lizzie--"
+
+"You needn't try to stop me, I'm _going_. Becky's down there somewhere,
+and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to
+see. _You_ needn't come if you're afraid, but _I'm_ going!"
+
+The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and
+the three went on together toward the burned district.
+
+"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove
+Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business
+here."
+
+"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,--one of the girls in our store,"
+answered Lizzie.
+
+"Becky Hawkins?"
+
+"Yes; do you know her?"
+
+"Should think I did. This is my beat,--known her all her life pretty
+much."
+
+"Did she get out,--is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
+
+"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend
+Tim."
+
+The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,--a
+smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what
+the Riker girls had said she was,--a little Cove Street hoodlum,--while
+Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family
+that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner
+house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's
+sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman
+had advised, adding,--
+
+"We are decent girls, and--it's a disgrace to have anything to do with
+such a lot as Becky and her family and--"
+
+"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,--"what yer
+talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see
+what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled
+around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow
+him.
+
+They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with
+smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the
+flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of
+the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were
+huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open
+door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a
+familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
+
+But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
+
+"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it
+Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie
+stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room;
+but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes,
+and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the
+store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt,
+and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you;
+but I'm so glad you are all right--But," coming nearer and finding that
+Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table,
+"you're _not_ all right, are you?"
+
+"No, I--I guess--I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little
+smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
+
+"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,--a
+little thing like you!"
+
+"'Twas _she_ was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women
+in the room.
+
+"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd
+got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back
+for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she
+saved him for me,--she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the
+roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the
+'scape; but Becky--Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she
+made a jump--and fell--oh, Becky! Becky!"
+
+"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry
+her, and it's no use."
+
+"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in
+dumb amazement.
+
+"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
+
+Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing
+down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
+
+Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
+
+"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
+
+"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
+
+"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He
+didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I
+could make another--"
+
+"_I'll_ make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
+
+"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
+
+"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone,
+roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old
+mischief she said,--
+
+"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
+
+There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and
+then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body,
+wasted and shrunken,--the body of a child of seven with a shapely head
+and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
+
+"That's him,--that's Tim,--the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"
+said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and
+how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on
+Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,--
+
+"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,--the girls in the store,--how I played it on
+'em; and when I git back--I'll--"
+
+"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
+
+The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open,
+letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks
+beyond the Cove.
+
+"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
+
+"I--I feel fus' rate--all well, Jake, and--I--I smell the Mayflowers.
+They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
+jolly! Tim, Tim!"
+
+"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
+
+"Wait for me here Tim,--I--I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,--ther,
+ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by--I'm
+goin'--to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
+anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
+her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
+
+The two women--and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
+always lived--broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
+radiant face, she said suddenly,--
+
+"She's well out of it all."
+
+"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
+'t ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' _him_," nodding towards Jake,
+who was slipping quietly out of the room,--"it's the like o' him. They
+looked up to her, they did,--bit of a thing as she was. She was that
+straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
+Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
+
+And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
+room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
+furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
+and Josie still waiting for her.
+
+"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time--have you seen--have
+you heard--"
+
+They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,--
+
+"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
+don't know."
+
+"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ALLY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"
+
+"Put 'em away."
+
+"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
+wear 'em down town."
+
+But Ally didn't move.
+
+"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.
+
+"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
+you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
+your foot is bigger than mine."
+
+"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."
+
+"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
+'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."
+
+"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
+raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
+than lend me your new rubbers."
+
+"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"
+
+"Because they leak."
+
+"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally,
+scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my
+things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is
+threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as
+shabby--and--there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no
+better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"
+
+"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to _me_! I should like to
+know who buys your things for you? Isn't it _my father_ and Uncle John?
+I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for
+Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and
+everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours
+again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the
+rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back
+here,--I do!"
+
+"I wish so too. Nobody in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as
+to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."
+
+"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here
+that she dreaded the winter on your account,--there!"
+
+"Aunt Kate--said that?"
+
+"Yes, she did; I heard her."
+
+A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded
+from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,--
+
+"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll
+have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these
+words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst
+into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.
+
+"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's
+mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.
+
+"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,--so coolly, so calmly, that it
+was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the
+present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking,
+Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one
+girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and
+in consequence said rather sharply,--
+
+"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"
+and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter
+Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately
+overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to
+be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some
+other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any
+peace while--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it
+was--"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears
+shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh
+gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes,
+it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It
+would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan;
+yes, indeed, very different. If I was a _rich_ orphan, if papa and mamma
+had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things
+would be different,--I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and
+her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to _me_ then, and I
+guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of
+me,--no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some
+other arrangement _could_ be made away from 'em all. They don't any of
+'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd
+rather--I'd rather--oh, I'd rather go to _jail_ than to _them_!" and
+down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little
+hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor
+little beggar of an orphan."
+
+The facts of the case were these: Ally's father and mother had both died
+when she was seven years old, leaving her to the care of her two nearest
+relatives,--her father's two brothers,--Mr. Tom and Mr. John Fleming. As
+her father had little or nothing to leave her, he had requested that the
+burden of her maintenance should be equally divided between the uncles,
+the child to live alternately with each family, six months with one and
+six with the other. She had been old enough when she was thus
+transplanted from her own home to realize more or less the peculiar
+condition of things; and as she was quick-tempered and sensitive, she
+very soon began to take note of any comment or remark regarding herself
+that was dropped in her hearing, and very often misunderstood or made
+too much of it. But there was no denying, whichever way you looked at
+it, that it was rather a difficult situation for both sides, and that
+the Fleming aunts and uncles and cousins had something to put up with,
+as well as Ally. But that Ally was the most to be pitied there was also
+no denying, for she could remember with unfading vividness being the
+centre of love, the one special darling in _one_ home, and now she
+hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
+bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
+many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
+For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
+be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one _too_ many.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
+live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
+Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
+both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
+deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
+as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,--
+
+"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
+temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
+your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
+who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
+with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
+with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
+and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.
+
+"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
+before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
+outside the car.
+
+"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.
+
+His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.
+
+Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
+going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."
+
+"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
+Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.
+
+"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
+she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
+good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
+death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
+wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I _am_ hard to live with; but I don't
+play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
+mine never loved me--any of 'em--from the first."
+
+As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
+of the car window, and there, why, there was her aunt Ann and uncle Tom
+outside on the platform, standing at another car window farther down,
+talking and laughing in the liveliest manner with some friends they had
+met. Uncle Tom didn't seem in the least haste now, and ever so many
+minutes ago he had said to her, "Well, good-by, Ally!" and rushed off as
+if there wasn't another minute to spare,--not another minute; and here
+was a gentleman in front of her, saying to a friend of his at that very
+instant, "There's plenty of time; it's ten minutes before the cars
+start;" and then she heard a lady say to another lady, "There's no need
+of my leaving you yet; we've got oceans of time;" and all about her,
+Ally now noticed various groups of friends and relations lingering
+lovingly together until the last moment; and noting all this, a bitter
+little look came into Miss Ally's face, and a bitter little thought came
+into her heart,--a thought that said tauntingly, "There, this shows you,
+Ally Fleming, what kind of relations you've got; this shows you how much
+they care for you!"
+
+And by and by, as the cars started up and sped along, this bitter little
+thought also sped along, carrying in its wake all the bitter little
+thoughts of yesterday and to-day. Ally was quite accustomed to
+travelling by herself on this trip to and from New York. It was a
+perfectly simple thing to sit in the car-seat where she had been placed
+by one uncle, until at the end of the trip she was met by the other
+uncle, and taken charge of,--a perfectly simple, easy matter, and Ally
+had heretofore quite enjoyed it; but now, looking about her, and seeing
+the groups of other people's relations going home to Thanksgiving, she
+began to think it was a very lonesome thing to be travelling all alone
+by herself; and just as this occurred to her, what should happen but
+that one of these groups should turn inquisitively to her and ask, "Are
+you travelling all by yourself, little girl?" and when Ally had
+answered, "Yes," this inquisitive person commented upon her being such a
+little girl to travel all by herself; and then, when Ally told her
+rather proudly that she was ten years old, the inquisitive person had
+said, "Well, I don't know what _my_ little ten-year-old girl would think
+to be sent off to travel all alone. I shall tell her when I get home
+what a brave little girl I met."
+
+Ally thought all this was said out of pity and wonder, and that the lady
+thought her very much neglected and forlorn. But instead of that, the
+lady meant only to praise and compliment her; and thus, in this way and
+that way, the bitter little thoughts kept growing and growing, as the
+cars sped on, until long before the end of her journey came, poor Ally
+felt that there never was a much more friendless girl than she was; and
+when the cars steamed into the Boston station, she said to herself, "I
+wonder if Uncle John is dreading the winter on my account, as Aunt Kate
+is?" and with this thought she stepped out on the platform. But where
+_was_ Uncle John? She expected to see him at once, coming forward to
+lift her from the steps. Where _was_ he now? and Ally looked at the
+faces before her with wondering scrutiny. She jumped down--for people
+were pressing behind her--and moved on, scanning the face of every
+gentleman she saw with anxious eyes. No one of them, however, was that
+of Uncle John. What _was_ the matter? Didn't he know the train she was
+to take? Of course he did, for Uncle Tom had told her that he had
+telegraphed that he would meet her at the Boston station at five
+o'clock. Of course he knew, so he must have forgotten her. Yes, that was
+it,--he had forgotten all about her! Ally was not a specially timid
+child; but as she stood in the big station-building, and realized that
+there was not a soul she knew there to look out for her, a feeling of
+dismay overtook her. If it were in the morning or at noonday, it
+wouldn't have seemed so dreadful; but though the electric lights flashed
+everything into brilliance, it was a November day, and half-past five
+o'clock was after nightfall. What _should_ she do? There was no sign of
+Uncle John, and the passengers who had arrived with her were fast
+disappearing. Very soon the people in the station would begin to notice
+her, to ask questions, and then perhaps some police-officer would take
+her to the police-station, as a lost child. She'd heard that that was
+what they always did. It was just as this thought came into her head
+that she caught sight of one of those very big burly blue-coated
+individuals. He had his hand on the collar of a boy about her own age,
+and she heard him say to him in a big burly voice,--
+
+"What yer hangin' 'round here for? Lost, eh? That's a likely story.
+Come, off with yer, if yer don't want ter be locked up!"
+
+Poor little Ally didn't stop to reason,--to think of the difference in
+the outward appearance of herself and the boy,--to see that the
+policeman knew the boy perfectly well for a mischievous young scamp who
+was up to no good. She didn't stop to consider anything; but with those
+words, "If yer don't want ter be locked up," ringing in her ears, she
+turned and ran from the station-building as fast as her legs could carry
+her. As she came out upon the sidewalk, she saw the colored lights of a
+street car. Oh, joy, it was the very up-town car that would take her
+close to Beacon Street! But oh, horror! She suddenly recollected that
+Uncle John no longer lived on Beacon Street. He had moved last month
+into a new house on Marlborough Street, and oh, what _was_ the number?
+She "had heard Uncle Tom read it from a letter. It had a lot of 9's in
+it. Nine hundred and--why--99--999, three 9's; yes, yes, that was it;"
+and with this conviction, Ally gave a hop skip and a jump into the car,
+just as it was about to start off, for this very car she knew would take
+her nearer to Marlborough Street than to Beacon Street. Her spirits rose
+as she felt herself carried along; and in due time she found the three
+9's, and tripped up the steps of the house in Marlborough Street bearing
+that number. Her heart beat very fast with a sense of relief and injury,
+mixed with a certain elation at her own enterprise, as she rang the
+bell. Wouldn't they be surprised, and wouldn't Uncle John--But some one
+opening the door scattered her questioning thoughts; and--why, who was
+this somebody? It must be a new servant with the new house, and a
+manservant too. Uncle John must be getting better off,--they had had
+only two maids before. It never entered Ally's head to ask the strange
+servant if Mr. Fleming lived there. Why should she ask what she was so
+sure of? She simply asked, "Where's Uncle John and Aunt Kate and the
+rest of them?"
+
+The man looked bewildered, and repeated, "Uncle John?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle John and Aunt Kate. I'm Ally, and Uncle John telegraphed
+that he would meet me at the five-o'clock train, and he wasn't there,
+and I came up all alone. Where are they? In the parlor?" and Ally
+stepped in over the threshold.
+
+"I guess there's some mistake," said the man; "I guess your uncle
+John--"
+
+"No, there wasn't any mistake, for he telegraphed to Uncle Tom. He must
+have forgotten."
+
+"But your uncle doesn't--"
+
+"What is it, James? What is wanted?" interrupted some one here. The
+"some one" was a big, tall gentleman coming down the stairs, whom Ally,
+as she looked up in the rather confusing half light of the lower hall,
+at once took for her uncle, and rushing forward she ran up to meet him,
+crying,--
+
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John! I was so scared not to find you at the
+station, and I came up here all alone on the street car!"
+
+But in the very next instant she started back and gasped: "But--but it
+isn't--you're not--you're not Uncle John! Where is he, oh, where is he?"
+
+"You've made a mistake, my little girl!" exclaimed the gentleman,--"a
+mistake in the house. This isn't your uncle John's, but--"
+
+"Not Uncle John's? Why--why--this is 999!" interrupted Ally,
+tremulously.
+
+"Yes; but--"
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried poor Ally, as a fresh flash of memory overcame her,
+"that must be the--the--" She was going to say, "the old Beacon Street
+number," when, confused and dismayed, she gave another step backward,
+her foot slipped, and she fell headlong to the foot of the stairs, where
+she lay white and motionless, not a sigh or moan escaping her as she was
+lifted and carried into the parlor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The sun was shining brightly into the pretty new dining-room on
+Marlborough Street where Uncle John lived, and swinging in its beams a
+great gray parrot named Peter kept calling out, "Ally's come, Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+
+The room was empty when the parrot began; but presently Uncle John and
+Aunt Kate came in. At sight of them the parrot screamed, "Hello! hello!"
+and then repeated louder than ever, "Ally's come! Ally's come! give her
+a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+
+"For pity's sake, put the bird out!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I can't
+stand _that now_!"
+
+"Yes, put him out, do!" said Aunt Kate to the servant who was just then
+bringing in the coffee.
+
+In a few moments the three daughters of the family--Laura and Maud and
+Mary--appeared.
+
+"Have you heard anything about her this morning?" asked the
+eldest,--Laura,--as she took her seat at table.
+
+Uncle John shook his head.
+
+"And the police haven't got a clew yet?"
+
+"No, nor the detectives."
+
+"What I _can't_ understand is why she didn't wait in the ladies' room
+until you came, papa. She might have known you _would_ come _sometime_."
+
+"We don't know yet that she got as far as Boston," said Mrs. Fleming.
+
+"Why, Uncle Tom's telegram in answer to papa's that he saw her off on
+the 11.30 train proves that."
+
+"It doesn't prove that she came through to Boston."
+
+"'Came through'! Why, upon earth, should she leave the cars before she
+reached Boston?"
+
+"She might have made the acquaintance of some young people, and stepped
+off at a restaurant station with them to buy fruit, and so got left."
+
+"But she would have taken a later train then, and papa has been to the
+later ones."
+
+"Don't--don't wonder and speculate any more why a little girl of ten
+years didn't do exactly as a grown-up person would have done," burst
+forth Uncle John. "The whole blame lies with us, or with Tom and me. We
+should never have allowed such a child to be sent off alone like that."
+
+"But, papa, it isn't an uncommon thing for a child of her age to travel
+like that."
+
+"It isn't very _common_, and it ought not to be."
+
+"Maybe she's run away," suddenly exclaimed the youngest of the
+daughters,--a girl of fourteen.
+
+"Mary!" cried the other two; and "How can you make fun like that _now_?"
+said Mrs. Fleming, reprovingly.
+
+"I didn't say it to make fun," protested Mary,--"I didn't, truly;
+but--but Ally was very queer sometimes. She took up everything so, and
+got offended, or thought you didn't care for her. One day I asked her
+why she didn't take things as _I_ did,--spat, and forget it the next
+minute, and she said, 'Because I'm not like you, _I only happened
+here_'! Wasn't that droll?"
+
+"Droll!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I think it's the most pathetic thing I
+ever heard. What have we all been doing that she should feel like this?"
+
+"But she liked being _here_ better than at Uncle Tom's. Florence was
+always tormenting her one way and another."
+
+"The trouble with her is that she was an only child, and, transplanted
+suddenly into two large families, she couldn't fit herself to the new
+circumstances," said Mrs. Fleming.
+
+"And the trouble with _us_ has been," spoke up Uncle John, "that we
+didn't take that fact into consideration enough, and try to help her to
+fit into the new circumstances. Poor little soul, if we ever get her
+back again--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't talk like that,--'if we ever get her back again!' as
+if she were a Charley Ross child that had been kidnapped," burst forth
+Mary, with a breaking voice. "_I_ meant to be good to Ally, and that's
+why I taught Peter to say, 'Ally's come, Ally's come! give her a kiss!
+give her a kiss!' I thought it would be such a pretty welcome, and
+Ally'd be so pleased, she'd believe we _did_ care for her when she heard
+that."
+
+"You're a little trump, Mary," declared her father, with a suspicious
+moisture in his eyes. "I only hope if--_when_ Ally comes back--But,
+hark, there's the door-bell!" as a sharp peal rang through the house.
+"It may be one of the detectives."
+
+"A gentleman to see you in the parlor, sir," said the maid a moment
+later, as she brought in a card.
+
+Uncle John glanced at the card, and then, uttering an exclamation of
+surprise, passed it over to his wife, and, jumping up hastily, left the
+room.
+
+"Is it the chief of the detectives?" asked Laura, animatedly.
+
+"It isn't a detective at all; it's Dr. Phillips."
+
+"You don't mean _the_ Dr. Phillips,--_Bernard_ Phillips?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How strange, and at this hour in the morning! It must be something
+about Thanksgiving exercises," interposed Maud.
+
+"But we're not _his_ parishioners. We don't go to _his_ church!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mary; "I'm _so_ disappointed. I did hope it was the
+detective bringing Ally back."
+
+"Kate!" called Uncle John's voice here, "will you come into the parlor?"
+and Mrs. Fleming, obeying this call, found herself a minute after
+exchanging greetings with the unexpected visitor.
+
+"I want you to tell her, Doctor, just what you've told me exactly,"
+said Uncle John. "It's about Ally, my dear," to his wife. "She's found,
+and--and--"
+
+"She is at my house," took up the Doctor; and then he told of the little
+girl who had come to his house the night before, of her grievous
+disappointment, and the accident that had befallen her,--an accident
+that had robbed her of consciousness for a time, and from which she had
+only sufficiently recovered within the last few hours to answer the
+questions that were put to her in regard to her relations, that steps
+might be taken to restore her to them.
+
+"And she is seriously hurt,--she couldn't come with you?" broke in Aunt
+Kate, breathlessly.
+
+"No, she was not seriously hurt," he assured her; and then came that
+most delicate and difficult part of the Doctor's task,--to tell, in what
+gentle phrase he could, that this wilful child refused to accompany him;
+that she had taken a foolish fancy into her head that her relations did
+not care for her,--a fancy that had been strengthened into positive
+belief when she failed to find her uncle at the station, and had
+suggested to her a wild little plan of going away from them altogether,
+into some orphans' home that she had heard of, where she was sure a
+place could be found for her. Very gentle, indeed, was the phrasing of
+all this,--so gentle and full of sweet human consideration for
+everybody's shortcomings and mistakes that Aunt Kate forgot that the
+Doctor was a stranger; and with this forgetfulness the sharp pang of
+humiliation at a stranger's knowledge of such a family difficulty, and
+the little sting of resentment at Ally's attitude towards them all, was
+overborne to such an extent that she could frankly admit that her
+husband was right, and that none of them had had love and patience
+enough to help the child to fit into the new circumstances of her life.
+
+It was an added pang, but there was no resentment in it, when she saw
+Ally's sudden shrinking from her as she entered the Doctor's parlor with
+him a little later.
+
+To think that they had, though unwittingly, hurt and estranged the child
+like this, was Mrs. Fleming's first thought; and the tears came to her
+eyes, and her voice broke as she cried impulsively, "Oh, my little girl,
+my little girl!"
+
+Ally started at the sight of these tears, at the sound of this tenderly
+breaking voice. And there was Uncle John; and _he_ was crying too, and
+_his_ voice was breaking as he said something. What was it he was
+saying?--that it was not forgetfulness, it was not neglect of her, that
+had made him fail to meet her at the station, but an untoward accident
+to the streetcar he was in that had delayed him. And what was that Aunt
+Kate was saying? That they _did_ care for her, that they _did_ want her,
+and that they had set the telegraphic wires all over the country to hunt
+for her and bring her back to them.
+
+"But--but--Florence told me," faltered Ally, "that you dreaded the
+winter on my account,--I was so--so bad-tempered--so hard to live with."
+
+"Dreaded the winter on your account! Florence told you I said that?"
+cried Mrs. Fleming, in amazement.
+
+"She said she heard you say it to her mother."
+
+A light broke over Mrs. Fleming's face. "Oh, I remember now perfectly.
+It was just after you were so ill with that bad throat, and I was
+speaking to your aunt Ann about it, and I said to her, 'I dread the
+winter on Ally's account.' How could--how _could_ Florence put such a
+mischievous meaning to my words?"
+
+"Perhaps she only heard just those words," replied Ally, who would never
+take advantage of anybody.
+
+"But why should she want to tell you what would hurt you like that?"
+
+"We'd been quarrelling," answered Ally, with an honest brevity that was
+very edifying.
+
+"But, as you see now it was for your bad throat, and not for your bad
+temper, that I dreaded the winter," said Aunt Kate, with a smile, "you
+will come back with us, and let us both try again. We meant to be good
+to you, dear; but we did not think enough that you had been unused to a
+big family,--that you were a little ewe lamb that had been transplanted
+into a great crowded fold, and left to find your place with the crowd;
+and you misunderstood this, and took us too hardly; but we're going to
+do better. We're going to be more thoughtful of one another, and you'll
+come home with us now, and we'll have our Thanksgiving dinner together,
+won't we?"
+
+Childish and ignorant of the world's ways, as her wild idea in regard to
+her right to a place in an orphans' home proved her, Ally had a great
+deal of sense in other directions, and she began to perceive that she
+had not been the wilfully neglected and abused person she had thought
+herself, and to think, too, that perhaps Aunt Kate _might_ have had
+something to bear from _her_. At any rate, her good sense made her see
+that her aunt had come to her with kind and generous intentions, and
+that the least she could do was to respond with what grace was in her
+power; and so with a little smile that had something pathetic in it to
+those who saw it, it was so tremulous with that pitiful doubt that had
+been born of the last three unhappy years, she put her hand into Mrs.
+Fleming's, and signified her readiness to go with her. And then and
+there, as she met that smile, Kate Fleming vowed to herself that never
+again through fault of hers should this child suffer for lack of loving
+care; and with this resolve warm in her heart, she clasped the little
+hand in hers more closely, and said brightly,--
+
+"You'll see how glad the girls will be to see you, Ally, when we get
+home."
+
+But Ally had no response to make to this. A great dread had seized her
+as she felt herself going to meet them. Uncle John's and Aunt Kate's
+assurance of regard was one thing, but Uncle John and Aunt Kate were
+not the girls, and poor Ally was quite sure that no one of them had ever
+cared very much for her, though Mary had alternately petted and laughed
+at her, and now--why, now, they might dislike her for making such a
+fuss, for Laura had often said she did dislike people so who made a
+fuss, and Maud would agree with Laura, and Mary would laugh at her more
+than ever. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if she could only go back! if she could
+only get that dear good Doctor to find her a place in--But, "Here we
+are, Ally!" said Uncle John; and "Here she is!" exclaimed three girlish
+voices; and there, standing in the doorway, were Laura and Maud and
+Mary; and at sight of their faces, at sound of their voices, Ally's
+dread began to vanish. And then, just then, it was that Peter, who had
+been banished to the hall, called out uproariously, "Ally's come! Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!" and Mary called out after him,
+"I taught him to say that; I taught him more 'n a month ago."
+
+"'More 'n a month ago'! Oh!" breathed Ally under her breath, "she liked
+me well enough for this _more 'n a month ago_!"
+
+Uncle John and Aunt Kate and Laura and Maud and Mary were looking on,
+and they knew what Ally was thinking of,--the very words of it,--by that
+sudden radiant smile upon her face; and Mary was so pleased thereat, she
+had to cry out,--
+
+"Oh, what a jolly Thanksgiving this is! Could anything be added to make
+it jollier?"
+
+But something _was_ added. When they were all at the dinner-table that
+night,--mother and father and girls and the three boys who had just come
+up from their boarding-school that very morning,--this telegram was
+brought in from Uncle Tom,--
+
+"Thanks for word of Ally's safety. All send love. Florence is writing to
+her."
+
+Ally's eyes opened wide with astonishment at this conclusion. Florence!
+Aunt Kate read the meaning of that astonished look, and sent a glance to
+Ally that said as plainly as _words_ could say, "You see, even Florence
+didn't mean as badly as you thought."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN APRIL FOOL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Have you written it, Nelly?"
+
+"Yes, I have it here in my pocket. I'll show it to you when I get a
+chance."
+
+"Oh, show it now! There's as good a chance now as you'll have, for the
+rest of the girls are all on the other side of the room. Come;" and
+Lizzy Ryder held out her hand coaxingly.
+
+Nelly sent a quick glance around the school-room, and then took from her
+pocket a small square envelope. The envelope was directed to Miss Angela
+Jocelyn. Lizzy Ryder gave a little giggle as she read this name; but as
+she drew forth the note-sheet and read written upon it in a slender
+pointed handwriting, "Miss Marian Selwyn requests the pleasure of Miss
+Angela Jocelyn's company on the evening of April 1st," her giggle became
+a smothered shriek, and she said to her cousin,--
+
+"Oh, Nelly, it's perfect; she'll never suspect. It looks just like
+Marian Selwyn's writing. Wouldn't it be too good if we could somehow get
+hold of Angela's acceptance and keep it back, and have her actually _go_
+to the party. What _do_ you suppose Marian would say to her when she
+walked in?"
+
+"She wouldn't _say_ anything, but she'd _look_ so astonished, and she'd
+be so stiff that Miss Angela would very soon find out she wasn't very
+welcome. But we can't keep back the note very well, even if we could get
+hold of it,--it might get us into trouble, for it would be against the
+law; but there's no law against an April Fool letter of our own, and
+'twill be just as good fun in the end, for Marian Selwyn, of course,
+will set Miss Angela right in double quick time after she receives her
+note. Oh, I can just imagine the top-lofty style in which she will
+inform Miss Angela that there must be some mistake."
+
+"And then, of course, they'll both find out that somebody's been
+April-fooling them."
+
+"Of course. But that isn't going to interfere with our fun. Miss Angela
+will be set down by that time just where I want her, when she discovers
+that her invitation is nothing but an April fool on her. I wish--But,
+hush, somebody's coming this way;" and in an instant Nelly had whisked
+into her pocket the note she had written, and the cousins were walking
+down the room, talking in a loud tone about their lessons. The "somebody
+coming" was a very quiet but a very observing girl, who, as she saw the
+sudden start of Lizzy and Nelly, also caught sight of the little white
+missive as it was whisked into Nelly's pocket, and immediately
+thought,--
+
+"There's some mischief going on. I wonder what it is."
+
+"That sly Mary Marcy, she's always spying 'round," whispered Nelly to
+her companion, as they passed along. Then in a high voice, thinking to
+mislead Mary, she cried, "Oh, Lizzy, now I've shown you _my_ composition
+you must show me yours."
+
+Mary Marcy was a shrewd girl as well as an observant one, and she
+laughed in her sleeve as she heard this.
+
+"Composition! that was no school composition", she said to herself; and
+when a few minutes later the bell rang for the close of recess, and she
+saw Nelly send a significant glance to Lizzy as the two hurried to their
+seats, this shrewd, observant Mary was surer than ever that there was
+mischief going on, and when she went home that afternoon she told her
+mother what she had seen and heard, and how she felt about it,--for Mary
+was very confidential with her mother, and told her most of her school
+secrets. Mrs. Marcy listened to this telling with that placid Quaker way
+of hers, and remarked in her quaint Quaker phrase, "Thee mustn't be too
+suspicious, my dear; it maybe harmless mischief, after all." And then
+Mary had replied, "I shouldn't be suspicious of any of the other girls,
+mother; but Lizzy and Nelly Ryder are always doing and saying the
+mischievous things that have a sting in them;" and Mrs. Marcy, spite of
+her Quaker charity, then admitted that she had never quite liked the
+ways of those girls, and had often been sorry that they were in the
+Westboro' High School; "but, poor things," she added the moment she had
+made this admission, "they are more to be pitied than the persons they
+hurt, for _they_ can get over the hurt, but these poor girls can't get
+over their own wrong-doing so easily. It makes a black mark on them
+every time, and black marks are hard to rub off; and thee'll see if they
+are up to any wrong-doing now, it will leave a mark, and so they'll get
+the worst of it in the long run."
+
+"But it's always _such_ a long run before a mark of that kind shows,"
+laughed Mary. "Girls of that sort seem to succeed in making everybody
+but themselves uncomfortable, and these two specially always appear to
+be so gay and full of good times with their giggle and chatter."
+
+"But the Bible says, Mary, 'for as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
+so is the laughter of the fool;' and thee can think of this the next
+time thee hears the chatter, and then thee can say to thyself, 'It _may_
+be nothing but foolish folly, after all.'"
+
+"Yes, it _may_ be nothing but that," Mary allowed; but when the next
+morning she heard it again, her first doubts and suspicions returned in
+full force, and she said to herself, "I'm perfectly sure that there's
+something more than mere foolishness in this crackling of thorns. I'm
+perfectly sure there's mischief with a sting in it. I feel it in the
+air, and I'm just going to watch out and see if I can't stop it as I did
+that horrid St. Valentine business last winter."
+
+And while good kind Mary was thus "watching out" for this mischief,
+there, only two or three seats away from her, sat Angela Jocelyn, about
+whom all the mischief was gathering as a dark cloud gathers over a fair
+sky. And Angela's sky was particularly fair to her just then, for she
+had been made very happy by the invitation she had received that
+morning,--so happy that she had said to her elder sister, Martha
+Jocelyn, "To think of Marian Selwyn's inviting _me_. Isn't it beautiful
+of her?" and Martha had answered back rather tartly, "I don't see why
+you should put such an emphasis on 'me,' as if you were so inferior.
+You're as good as Marian Selwyn."
+
+"Yes, Martha, I know--it isn't that I feel inferior in--in myself,"
+Angela exclaimed; "but the Selwyns have always had money and
+everything--always, and we are poor and have lived so out of the way
+that I say it's beautiful and kind of Marian, when she knows me so
+little. Why, Martha, I never see her anywhere but on the street and at
+Sunday-school."
+
+"Well, she likes you, I suppose. She's taken a fancy to you, and she's
+independent enough, I should hope, to invite any girl she likes, if the
+girl _is_ poor and lives out of the way," was Martha's cool reply.
+
+Liked her! Taken a fancy to her! How Angela's heart jumped at this
+suggestion! Could it be possible that this lovely fortunate Marian
+Selwyn, that she had always admired from afar off, had taken a fancy to
+_her_,--poor, plain little Angela Jocelyn,--was her thought. And it was
+with this thought quickening her pulses that she wrote a cordial
+acceptance to the note of invitation; and it was this thought that sent
+such a bright look into her face that morning, that Mary Marcy said to
+her friend and seat-mate, Anna Richards, "Look at Angela Jocelyn, she is
+really growing pretty;" and a little later at the recess that followed
+directly after a recitation where Angela had easily led, as usual, Mary,
+catching sight of the frowning faces of Lizzy and Nelly Ryder,
+exclaimed: "Anna, if Angela Jocelyn is going to add good looks to her
+braininess, those Ryder girls will be more jealous of her than ever."
+
+"And they pretend to look down on Angela because she is poor and her
+mother and sister take in sewing," responded Anna.
+
+"All the same they don't look down on what Angela really _is_. She is
+superior to them in brains, and they know it, and that makes them want
+to pull her down," answered Mary.
+
+"Yes, I heard Nelly Ryder say last week that Angela was altogether too
+conceited, and ought to be 'taken down'; and it would be just like Nelly
+Ryder to try to do it sometime."
+
+"_Sometime_! I believe she is trying to do it now. I believe that that
+is the mischief she and her cousin Lizzy are planning this moment,"
+cried Mary.
+
+"What _do_ you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you;" and Mary related, as she had related to her mother,
+what she had seen and heard.
+
+"Nelly Ryder has never forgiven Angela for getting the history prize;
+Nelly thought herself sure of it,--she as good as told me so," was
+Anna's only remark upon this.
+
+"And now she's going to play some trick on Angela to take her down, as
+she calls it; that's what you think, isn't it? And that's what _I_
+think. Oh, Anna, I wish I could ferret out the mischief and stop it. It
+will be something hateful and mortifying to poor Angela, I know. If I
+could only get some clew to what it is, so as to warn her."
+
+"Yes; but as we are not sure that there _is_ any mischief, after all,
+you mustn't say anything to anybody yet."
+
+"No, of course not; but I'll keep a sharp lookout, and I _may_ hear or
+see something that will give me a hint. What fun it would be to outwit
+one of the Ryder schemes!"
+
+"Mary! with all your Quaker bringing-up, I do believe you are just
+pining for what our Jack would call 'a scrimmage.'"
+
+"Well, I am, if that means getting the better of mischief-makers," Mary
+confessed with a laugh.
+
+"But you won't succeed, if the mischief-makers are Nelly and Lizzy
+Ryder, Those, girls seem to get the best of everything and everybody.
+Think now, for one thing, of their being acquaintances of Marian
+Selwyn's, and invited to her birthday party!"
+
+"Oh, well, that is family acquaintance, Anna. The Ryders have always
+known the Selwyns, just as we have. The Selwyns and Ryders and Marcys
+have lived in Westboro', and visited each other for ages."
+
+"I wish _I_ had, and then I might have been invited to this wonderful
+birthday party," exclaimed Anna, with a certain earnestness of tone that
+belied her gay little laugh, and made Mary say regretfully,--
+
+"I wish I'd known you felt like this last week, I would have had you and
+Marian 'round to tea, and then you would have got acquainted, and she'd
+have been sure to have invited you; but it's too late now, for the party
+comes off Thursday, you know."
+
+"Thursday! Why, Thursday is the first of April.. How funny that one's
+birthday should come on the first of April!"
+
+"Funny--why?"
+
+"Why? Because it's April-fool's day."
+
+"Oh, I see; but I'm so used to Marian's birthdays, I don't always stop
+to think of that."
+
+"But don't some people think of it? Don't they sometimes play--Oh, oh,
+Mary, Mary, mayn't this be your clew? Don't you believe that Nelly
+Ryder has been planning an April-fool trick upon Angela in connection
+with this party?"
+
+Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the
+recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of:
+"Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it _is_ the clew. Why _didn't_ I
+think of April-fool's day,--that it would be just the opportunity Nelly
+Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw
+it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in
+it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or
+other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to
+Marian,--sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night
+of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a
+silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified
+Tilly dreadfully."
+
+"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than
+Tilly."
+
+"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest
+persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very
+innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm
+going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I
+suspect."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our
+suspicion, and we _may_ be on the wrong track altogether."
+
+"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on
+that I might stop?"
+
+"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had
+got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her
+birthday,--upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know
+_what_ the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion
+that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on
+her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."
+
+"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'
+and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to
+Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a
+word more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna
+had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year
+older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,--a
+year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of
+Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to
+Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so
+experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that
+that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and as a
+consequence made such a boggle of what she had to say, that Marian,
+entirely misunderstanding, exclaimed in amazement,--
+
+"You want me to get up an April joke on my birthday, Mary? I couldn't
+think of such a thing; I hate April jokes."
+
+"No, no, you misunderstand," burst forth Mary; and then, forgetting all
+her awkwardness, she made her little statement over again, and this
+time succinctly and clearly. And now it was _her_ turn to be amazed; for
+before she had got entirely to the end of her statement, Marian starting
+up pulled a note from her pocket and cried, "Read this, Mary! read
+this!"
+
+It was Angela's cordial note of acceptance.
+
+"And she had no invitation from _me_. I never invited her, I scarcely
+knew her," went on Marian.
+
+"She had no invitation from _you_, but she thought she had. It isn't
+Angela who is playing a trick upon _you_. Somebody has played a trick
+upon _her_,--has written in your name. Oh, don't you see? _She_ is the
+innocent person I meant."
+
+"But who--who is the guilty one,--the one who has _dared_ to do this?"
+cried Marian.
+
+"I can't tell you yet whom I think it is, because I haven't any proof,
+and it wouldn't be fair to call names unless I had sure proof."
+
+"Well, look here. All my notes were sealed with my monogram seal, but I
+used a variety of colored wax. Everybody is interested in comparing
+seals now, and so can't you make an excuse to Angela that you want to
+compare the seals in the different colors, and borrow her note of
+invitation, and then bring it to me? If I could see that note, I might
+know the handwriting, and then I'd know who played this shabby, cruel
+trick. And I ought to know, that I mayn't suspect an innocent person."
+
+"But the note that Angela received may not be sealed with wax."
+
+"Oh, yes, it will. Whoever sent that note had seen mine, I am certain,
+and of course would use wax, as I did. Now, won't you do this little
+service for me, Mary?" urged Marian, entreatingly.
+
+Mary laughed. "Yes, I'll do it," she answered, "though I'm not very
+clever at playing theatre. I've too much Quaker blood in me for that;
+but it's a good cause, and I'll do the best I can, and I'll do it now,
+for Angela's sure to be at home now;" and suiting her action to her
+word, Mary started off then and there upon her errand.
+
+And so surely and swiftly did she do her best on this errand that Marian
+gave a little scream of surprise as she saw her coming back, and,
+"You've not got it already?" she cried, running to meet her.
+
+"Yes, here it is. Angela gave it to me at once."
+
+"Just the size of _my_ paper, and the wax--you see I was right. There
+_is_ wax, and a seal-stamp that looks like _my_ stamp, but isn't,"
+exclaimed Marian. "Now for the handwriting!" One glance at the address
+on the envelope; then, pulling out the note, she bent breathlessly over
+it for a moment. In another moment she was calling out triumphantly: "I
+know it! I know it! She tried to imitate mine, but I know these M's and
+r's and A's. They're Nelly Ryder's! they're Nelly Ryder's! Look here;"
+and running to her desk, the excited girl produced another note, and
+placed it beside the one that Angela had received. It was Nelly Ryder's
+acceptance of her invitation; and Mary, looking at the peculiar M's and
+r's and A's saw as clearly as Marian herself the proof of the same hand
+in each note.
+
+"And I should know her 'hand' anywhere, for I've had hundreds of notes
+from her, first and last," Marian went on. "But to think of her playing
+such a trick as this! I never had any admiration for her, or her cousin
+either; but I _didn't_ think either one of them could do such a
+mischievous, vulgar thing. But _you_ did, Mary, for this is the girl you
+suspected."
+
+"Yes, because I had known more of her than you had,--going to school
+with her every day;" and then Mary told what she had known, and what
+she had seen herself, winding up with, "But I didn't like to tell you
+all this before I had certain proof, for I wanted to be fair, you know."
+
+"And you _have_ been fair, more than fair; and now--"
+
+"Well, go on, what do you stop for--now what?"
+
+"Wait and see;" and Marian nodded her head, and compressed her lips into
+a firm, resolute line.
+
+"Oh, Marian, are you going to punish Nelly?" cried Mary, a little
+alarmed at these indications.
+
+Marian nodded again.
+
+"Yes, I'm going to punish her."
+
+"Oh, how, when, where?"
+
+"When? On Thursday night. Where? At the birthday party. How? Wait and
+see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+It was the evening of the first of April,--a beautiful, still, starry
+evening, with all the chill and frost of early spring blown out of it by
+the friendly winds of March, and all the lovely promises of summer
+buddings and flowerings wafting into it from waiting May and June.
+
+A "just perfect evening," said more than one girl delightedly, as she
+set out arrayed in all her furbelows for the birthday party. A "just
+perfect evening." And no one said this more emphatically, and felt it
+more emphatically, than Mary Marcy and Angela Jocelyn,--Mary in her
+pretty and becoming if rather plain white gown of China silk, and Angela
+in her old white cambric that had been 'done over' for the hundredth
+time, perhaps, and was neither pretty nor becoming, with its skimp skirt
+and sleeves and shrunken waist. But a new gown had been out of the
+question just then with the Jocelyns, and Angela had to make the best of
+the old one; and it did not seem at all hard to make a very good 'best'
+of it, when she stood in her own little bedroom, with Martha tying the
+well-worn blue sash around the shrunken waist, and her mother looking on
+and saying, "It really looks very nice, and that sash _does_ wash so
+well."
+
+But when she went up into the great brilliantly lighted bedchamber at
+the Selwyns', and saw Mary Marcy in her perfectly fitting gown drawing
+on her delicate gloves, and talking with several young ladies
+beautifully dressed in fresh muslin and silk, the skimp skirt and
+sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very
+mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when
+two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness;
+and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk
+and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela
+suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness.
+This feeling increased as she noticed the unmistakable start that the
+cousins gave as they caught sight of her, and heard Nelly's astonished
+exclamation, "What! _you_ here?"
+
+It was a bitter moment; but a bitterer was yet to come, when Lizzy
+Ryder, with that innocent little way of hers, said,--
+
+"Oh, if you've come to help take our things off, _do_ help me with this
+scarf, Angela!"
+
+If Angela could but have known then and there that this was only a petty
+stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the
+words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think
+I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused
+feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation
+to her shabby gown, she started back with all her confusion merging into
+one thought to get away out of the sight of these well-dressed happy
+girls. But as she started back, Mary Marcy, who had heard Lizzy Ryder's
+speech, started forward and called out: "Oh, Angela, how do you do? I
+didn't see you when you came in. I--I've been expecting to see you,
+though; and now shall we go down together?"
+
+Angela couldn't speak. She could only give a little nod of assent, and
+yield herself to kind Mary's guidance, with a deep breath of relief. It
+was only a partial relief, however. She had yet to go down into the
+brilliant parlor with its crowd of Selwyn cousins, yet to face, in that
+old shrunken gown with its washed sash, all those critical eyes. Oh,
+what if all those eyes should look at her with a stare of astonishment,
+such as Lizzy and Nelly Ryder had bestowed upon her? What if Marian
+herself should give a glance of surprise at the old shabby gown? These
+were some of the troubled questions that whirled through Angela's head
+as she went down the stairs with Mary Marcy. And down behind them,
+following closely, though Angela did not know it, came the two Ryder
+girls, full of eager curiosity, for they were both of them now quite
+certain that Marian had received no note of any sort from Angela. "She
+didn't know enough to write an acceptance. How should she? I don't
+suppose she's ever had an invitation to a party in her life," whispered
+Nelly to her cousin in the first shock of surprise at seeing Angela in
+the dressing-room.
+
+"No, of course not," whispered back Lizzy; and so, confident and secure
+in this belief, and in the anticipation of "fun," as they called the
+displeased astonishment they expected to see Marian express at the sight
+of her uninvited guest, and the guest's mortification thereat, the
+conspirators stepped softly along down the stairs and across the great
+hall into the beautiful brilliant parlor.
+
+[Illustration: As the fresh arrivals appeared]
+
+Marian was standing at the farther end of the parlor facing the doorway,
+with two of the Selwyn cousins beside her, as the fresh arrivals
+appeared. She was laughing joyously as they entered; but at her very
+first glimpse of the approaching group, the laugh ceased, and a look of
+sudden resolve flashed into her face,--a look that the Selwyn cousins,
+who had been told the whole story of the fraudulent invitation,
+understood at once to mean, "Here is my opportunity and I'll make the
+most of it!" But to the others--to the four who were approaching--this
+sudden change in their hostess's face was thus variously interpreted:
+"She has seen Angela," thought the Ryder girls, triumphantly. "She has
+seen the Ryder girls, and she is going to punish them," thought Mary,
+nervously. "She is looking at my dreadful old gown," thought Angela,
+miserably.
+
+And moved thus differently by such different anticipations, the little
+group came down the room, Mary's nervousness increasing at every
+step,--for her shyness and the Quaker love of peace rose up within her
+at the sight of Marian's face, that seemed to her to betoken a plan of
+punishment for the approaching offenders more in accordance with the
+fiery Selwyn spirit than any spirit of peace.
+
+Just what Mary feared she could not have told; but she knew something of
+this Selwyn spirit, and had often heard it said that the Selwyn tongue
+could cut like a lash when once started. That the Ryders deserved the
+sharpest cut of this lash she fully believed; but, "Oh, I _do_ hope
+Marian won't say anything sharp _now_," she thought to herself. And it
+was then, just then, at that very moment, that she saw Marian's face
+change again, as the softest, sweetest, kindest of smiles beamed from
+lips and eyes, and the softest, sweetest, kindest of voices said,--
+
+"How do you do, Mary? I'm very glad to see you,--you know my cousins,
+Bertie and Laura;" and in the next breath, "How do you do, Miss Jocelyn?
+It's very nice to see you here.--Bertie, Laura, this is my friend Angela
+Jocelyn, who is going to make one of our charade party next month if I
+can persuade her."
+
+One of that May-day charade party! Mary opened her eyes very wide at
+this, and Angela wondered if she were awake. But the charming voice was
+now speaking to some one else,--was saying very politely without a
+touch of sharpness, but with a world of meaning to those who had the
+clew, and those only,--
+
+"How do you do, Lizzy? How do you do, Nelly? And, Nelly, I want to thank
+you for a real service in connection with my birthday invitations. But
+for you I should have missed a very welcome guest. I shall never forget
+this, you may be sure."
+
+"I--I--" But for once Nelly Ryder's ready speech failed her. Her cousin
+tried to take up her words, tried to say something about April fun,
+tried to smile, to laugh; but the laugh died upon her lips, and she was
+only too glad to move on with Nelly into the room beyond, and there, out
+of the range of observation for a moment, the two expressed their
+astonishment and dismay at Marian's knowledge, and wondered how she came
+by it.
+
+"But to think of her taking an April joke so seriously as to make much
+of Angela Jocelyn just to come up with _me_!" burst out Nelly.
+
+"And to think," burst out Lizzy, with a sly laugh, "that it is _you_ who
+have introduced Angela to Marian's good graces, and that it is _you_,
+after all, who have been made the April fool, and not Angela!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE THANKSGIVING GUEST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"It is such a lovely idea, such a truly Christian idea, Mrs. Lambert.
+How did you ever happen to think of it?"
+
+"Oh, _I_ did not think of it; it wasn't _my_ idea. Didn't you ever hear
+how it came about?"
+
+"No; do tell me!"
+
+"Well, my husband, you know, was always looking out for ways of doing
+good,--lending a helping hand,--and he used to talk with the children a
+great deal of such things. One day he came across a beautiful little
+story that he read to them. It was the story of a child who made the
+acquaintance of a poor, half-starved student and brought him home with
+her to share her Thanksgiving dinner. It made a deep impression on the
+children. They talked about it continually, and acted it out in their
+play. But they were in the habit of doing that with any fresh story that
+pleased them, so it was nothing new to us, and we hadn't a thought of
+their carrying it further. But the next week was Thanksgiving week; and
+when Thanksgiving Day came, what do you think those little things
+did,--for they were quite little things then,--what do you think they
+did but bring in just before dinner the half-blind old apple-pedler who
+had a stand on the corner of the street?
+
+"They were so happy about it, and they thought we should be so happy
+too, that we couldn't say a word of discouragement in the way of advice
+then; but later, when we had given the old fellow his dinner, and he had
+gone, we had a talk with the dear little souls, when we tried to show
+them that it would be better to let us know when they wanted to invite
+any one to dinner or to tea,--that that was the way other girls and boys
+always did. They were rather crestfallen at our suggestions; for, with
+the keen, sensitive instinct of children, they felt that their
+beautiful plan, as they thought it, had somewhere failed, and, though
+they promised readily enough to consult us 'next time,' we could see
+that they were puzzled and depressed over all this _regulation_, when we
+had seemed to have nothing but admiring appreciation for the similar act
+of the child in the story. My husband, seeing this, was very much
+troubled to know just what to say or do; for he thought, as I did, that
+it might be a serious injury to them to say or do anything to chill or
+check their first independent attempt to lend a helping hand to others.
+Then all at once out of his perplexity came this idea of allowing the
+children from that time forward to have the privilege of inviting a
+guest of their own choosing every Thanksgiving Day, and that this guest
+should be some one who needed, in some way or other, home-cherishing and
+kindness. They should have the privilege of choosing, but they must tell
+us the one they had chosen, that we might send the invitation for them.
+This plan delighted them; and from this start, five years ago, the thing
+has gone on until it has grown into the present 'guest day,' where _each
+one_ of the children may invite his or her particular guest. It has got
+to be a very pleasant thing now, though at first we had some queer
+times. But as the children grew older, they learned better how to
+regulate matters, and to make necessary discriminations, and a year ago
+we found we could trust them to invite their guests without any older
+supervision, and they are very proud of this liberty, and very happy in
+the whole thing; and such an education as it has been. You've no idea
+how they have learned to think of others, to look about them to find
+those who are in need not merely of food or clothing but of loving
+attention and kindness."
+
+"Well, it is beautiful, Mrs. Lambert, and what a Thanksgiving ought to
+be,--what it was in the old pilgrim days at Plymouth, when those who had
+more than others invited the less fortunate to share with them. It's
+beautiful, and I wish everybody who could afford it would go and do
+likewise."
+
+"Speaking of affording it, I thought, when my husband died last spring,
+I should have to give up our guest day with most other things, for you
+know that railroad business that my husband entered into with his
+half-brother John nearly ruined him. I think the worry and fret of it
+killed him, anyway, and I told John so, and he has never forgiven me.
+But I have never forgiven him, and never shall; for if it hadn't been
+for John's representations, his continual urging, Charles would never
+have gone into the business. Oh, I shall always hold John responsible
+for his death, and I told him so."
+
+"You told him so? How did he take that? What did he say?"
+
+"Oh, you know John. He flew into a rage, and said he loved his brother
+as well as _I_ did. As well as _I_ did! Think of that; and that he had
+urged him into that business, thinking that it was for his
+benefit,--that no one could have foreseen what happened, and that if
+Charles lost, he also had lost, and much more heavily. But, as I was
+saying, I thought at first I should have to give up our guest day; but
+when matters came to be settled, I found there were other things I would
+rather economize on."
+
+"Where _is_ John now, Mrs. Lambert?"
+
+"He is in--" But just at that moment a tall pretty girl of fourteen
+entered the room. It was Elsie, the eldest of the Lambert children.
+
+"Why, Elsie, how you have grown!" cried Mrs. Mason, who hadn't seen
+Elsie for some months, "and you've quite lost the look of your mother."
+
+"Yes, Elsie is getting to look like the Lamberts," remarked the mother.
+
+"Everybody says I look just like Uncle John," spoke up Elsie.
+
+"Oh, you were asking me where John was now," said Mrs. Lambert, turning
+to Mrs. Mason. "He is in New York, dabbling in railroads, as usual, and
+getting poorer and poorer by this obstinate folly, I heard last week.
+_We_ don't see him, of course; for, as I told you, we don't forgive each
+other. Oh!" as her visitor cast a questioning glance toward Elsie, who
+had suddenly given a little start here, "Elsie knows all about it. Elsie
+is my big girl now. But what is it, my dear?--you came in to ask me
+something,--what is it?"
+
+"It's about Tommy. He has told me who he is going to invite for next
+week,"--next week was Thanksgiving week,--"and I knew you would not like
+it, and I felt that I ought to tell you; it is that horrid Marchant
+boy."
+
+"Like it,--I should think not! Why, what in the world has put Tommy up
+to that?"
+
+"He says that Joe Marchant hasn't any home of his own this
+Thanksgiving, because his father has gone out West on business, and left
+Joe all alone with those people that his father and he boarded with just
+after his mother died; and Tommy pities Joe so, he says he is going to
+invite him here for next Thursday, and I knew you wouldn't want him."
+
+"Of course not; the boy is ill-mannered and disagreeable, and he is
+always quarrelling with Tommy."
+
+"I told Tommy that," laughed Elsie, "and he said he guessed he'd done
+_his_ share of the quarrelling, and that, anyway, Joe Marchant was the
+under dog now, and he was going to forgive and forget."
+
+"Dear little Tommy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lambert, admiringly.
+
+"And he said, too, mother, that he knew you wouldn't object; that you
+always told him that Thanksgiving Day was the very day to make up with
+folks and be good to 'em, but I knew you _would_ object to Joe Marchant,
+and so--"
+
+"I--I don't know about it, Elsie. If Tommy feels like that, I--I don't
+believe it would be wise for me to check him. No, I don't believe I can.
+Tommy is nearer right than I am. He is doing a fine, generous thing,
+and it _is_ the right thing, and I think we must put up with Joe
+Marchant, Elsie, after all."
+
+"Oh, _I_ don't mind, if _you_ don't, mamma; but I thought you wouldn't
+like it, and it would spoil the day."
+
+"No, nothing done in that spirit _could_ spoil the day; and, Elsie, I
+hope the rest of you will make your choice of guests with as good reason
+as Tommy has."
+
+Elsie looked at her mother with an odd, eager expression, as if she were
+about to speak. Then she suddenly lifted up her head with a little air
+of resolution, and starting forward hurriedly left the room.
+
+Mrs. Lambert laughed as the door closed.
+
+"I think I know what Elsie is going to do," she said smilingly to Mrs.
+Mason. "There is a young teacher in her school, Miss Matthews, who is
+seldom invited anywhere, she is so unpopular. I've often asked Elsie to
+bring her home, and she has always put it off; but I believe that this
+act of Tommy's and what I've said about it has made such an impression
+upon her that she has gone now to invite Miss Matthews to be her guest
+next week. She was going to tell me about it at first, then she thought
+better of it. They've all had this liberty for the last year--not to
+tell--it's so much more fun for them; and I can always trust Elsie to
+look out for things, she has such good sense with her good heart."
+
+"Yes, and you _all_ seem to have such good sense and such good hearts,
+Mrs. Lambert," said Mrs. Mason, as she rose to go; but as she walked
+down the street she said to herself, "Such good sense and such good
+hearts, overflowing with charity and forgiveness for everybody but John
+Lambert!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+It was Thanksgiving Day, and just three minutes to the dinner-hour at
+the Lamberts', and all the guests had arrived except the one that Elsie
+had bidden.
+
+"Don't fret, Elsie," whispered Mrs. Lambert to her, as she noted the two
+red spots burning in her cheeks and her anxious glances toward the
+clock,--"don't fret; she's probably going to be fashionably exact on the
+stroke of the hour."
+
+Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to
+talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.
+
+"We'll wait five minutes for her," thought Mrs. Lambert. "If there
+hasn't been an accident to detain her, she's very rude, and certainly
+not fit to be a teacher of _manners_, and I don't wonder she's unpopular
+with the girls."
+
+The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did
+not appear. To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs.
+Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served. It was seemingly a
+very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but
+there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each
+one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger's
+feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day. Mrs.
+Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses
+and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her
+five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the
+dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other
+relations. But she must not dwell on these memories with all these
+guests to serve. She must put her own needs aside to see that little
+Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and
+that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry
+sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.
+
+It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was
+laughing a little at Joe's clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling
+him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one
+guest was missing,--while she was doing this, there came a great crunch
+of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell,
+and, "There she is! there she is!" thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added
+thought: "It's rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage
+when she is at such a little distance from us,--rather putting on airs,
+but--What _are_ you jumping up for?" she calls out to Elsie, who has
+suddenly sprung from her seat. "What are you jumping up for? Ellen will
+attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed
+her wraps. Sit down, Elsie; don't be so fidgety. I will--" But the
+dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw
+coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with
+a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of
+this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt
+her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,--
+
+"I am so glad to come to you,--to see you and the children again,
+Caroline. I was away when Elsie's letter arrived; but as soon as I got
+into New York yesterday, I started off, and I am so glad to come, so
+glad to come;" and here Mrs. Lambert heard the eager voice falter, and
+saw the glisten of tears in the eyes that were regarding her and in the
+next instant felt them against her cheek as a tender kiss was pressed
+upon it. It was all in a moment, the strange surprise of look and word
+and tone and touch, the joyful cries of "It's Uncle John, it's Uncle
+John!" from some one of the children. Then all in a moment the
+strangeness seemed to have passed, and John Lambert was taking his place
+amongst them with the fond belief that he was his sister-in-law's chosen
+guest. And she, with those warm, manly words of thanks, those joyful
+cries of childish welcome in her ears, could she undeceive him,--could
+she say to him: "It was not I who sent for you; I am the same as ever,
+as full of wild regrets and bitter resentments"? Could she say this to
+him? How could she, how could she, when over the wild regrets and bitter
+resentments there kept rising and rising a flood of earlier memories of
+an earlier time when this guest had been a welcome guest indeed, and she
+had heard again and again those very words, "I'm so glad to come"? Those
+very words, but with what a difference of accent, and what a difference
+in the speaker himself,--only a year and his face so worn, his hair so
+white, she had not known him! He must have suffered,--yes, and she--she
+had suffered; but she had her children, and he had no one!
+
+The dinner was over. They had all risen from the table, and were going
+into the parlor, and Uncle John had his namesake Johnny on one side of
+him and little Archie on the other. They had taken possession of him
+from the first, when Elsie, hanging back, clung to her mother and
+whispered agitatedly,--
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, it was what you said last week about Tommy's
+invitation that made me think of--of inviting Uncle John; but perhaps I
+ought to have told you--have asked you."
+
+"No, no, it is better as it is. Don't fret, dear, it--it is all right.
+But there is Ann bringing the coffee into the parlor. Go and light your
+little teakettle, Elsie, and make your uncle a cup of tea as you used to
+do; he can't drink coffee, you know."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
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+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+Title: A Flock of Girls and Boys
+
+Author: Nora Perry
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2003  [eBook #10433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
+
+</pre>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Wilson,<br>
+            and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3></center>
+<br>
+<hr class="full">
+<h1 style="margin-top: 2em">A FLOCK</h1>
+<h4>OF</h4>
+<h1>GIRLS AND BOYS.</h1>
+
+<h2>by Nora Perry,</h2>
+
+<h5>Author Of "Hope Benham," "Lyrics And Legends,"
+      "A Rosebud Garden Of Girls," Etc.</h5>
+
+
+<h3 style="margin-top: 1.5em">Illustrated by</h3>
+<h2>Charlotte Tiffany Parker.</h2>
+
+<h4 style="margin-top:5em">                  1895.</h4>
+
+<hr>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0328" href="images/Illus0328s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0328t.jpg"
+ alt="Frontispiece: That little Smith girl" width="262" height="351"></a><br>
+<i>Frontispiece: That little Smith girl</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+
+<p class="bigillus"><a href="images/Illus003.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus003s.png"
+ alt="CONTENTS." width="297" height="278" ></a>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<ul>
+  <li><a href="#Smith">THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Egg">THE EGG BOY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Molly">MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Valentine">POLLY'S VALENTINE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Sibyl">SIBYL'S SLIPPER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Samaritan">A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Esther">ESTHER BODN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Becky">BECKY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Ally">ALLY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#April">AN APRIL FOOL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#Guest">THE THANKSGIVING GUEST</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<p class="bigillus"><a href="images/Illus004.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus004s.png"
+ alt="Illustration" width="391" height="302"></a></p>
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+  <li><a href="#I0328">THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0330">MISS PELHAM! MISS MARGARET PELHAM!"</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0332">WALLULA CLAPPED HER HANDS WITH DELIGHT</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0334">A VERY PRETTY PAIR</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0336">SIBYL'S REFLECTIONS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0338">A TALL, HANDSOME WOMAN SMILED A GREETING</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0340">SHE WAS ADDRESSING MONSIEUR BAUDOUIN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0342">THE PRETTY LITTLE BASKET OF GREEN AND WHITE PAPER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#I0344">AS THE FRESH ARRIVALS APPEARED</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Smith">THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="chapone">
+<a href="images/Illus005.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus005a.png"
+ alt="T" width="375" height="194" border="0"><br>
+<img src="images/Illus005b.png" alt="T" width="121" height="42" border="0"></a>he Pelhams are coming next month."
+</p><p>
+"Who are the Pelhams?"
+</p><p>
+Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as
+she exclaimed:
+</p><p>
+"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the Pelhams
+are?"
+</p><p>
+Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up <i>her</i> nose as she replied,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I do mean to say just that."
+</p><p>
+"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.
+</p><p>
+"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson,
+with a laugh.
+</p><p>
+"But the Pelhams,&mdash;I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at
+least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a
+doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further
+irritated, cried impulsively,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done, pray
+tell, that everybody should know of them?"
+</p><p>
+"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They
+are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one of
+the oldest families of Boston."
+</p><p>
+"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until
+it bumped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat
+Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"
+</p><p>
+Then another girl giggled,&mdash;it was another of the Robsons,&mdash;Dora's
+Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her
+'Crack Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."
+</p><p>
+"You'd better call her L.H.,&mdash;'Level Head,'" a voice&mdash;a boy's
+voice&mdash;called out here.
+</p><p>
+The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.
+"Who&mdash;what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing,
+exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie, by
+hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our
+secrets?"
+</p><p>
+"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or
+more when you girls came to this end of the piazza."
+</p><p>
+"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I
+didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let
+me see it."
+</p><p>
+"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."
+</p><p>
+"Let me see it."
+</p><p>
+Will held up the book.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"
+</p><p>
+"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of
+boy's sports," returned Will.
+</p><p>
+"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her
+head.
+</p><p>
+"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.
+</p><p>
+"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."
+</p><p>
+Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and
+prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the
+hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read
+it twice."
+</p><p>
+Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he ejaculated in
+pleased astonishment,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, I say now!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever
+read,&mdash;that part about the boat-race I've read over three or four
+times."
+</p><p>
+"Well, your head <i>is</i> level," cried Will, sitting up still straighter
+in the hammock, and regarding Tilly with a look of respect.
+</p><p>
+"Because I don't care anything for Boston's grand folks and do care for
+'Jack Hall'?" laughed Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, that's about it," responded Will, with a little grin. "I'm so sick
+and tired," he went on, "hearing about 'swells' and money. The best
+fellow I know at school is quite poor; and one of the worst of the lot
+is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."
+</p><p>
+"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly
+well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.
+</p><p>
+"I don't!" growled Will.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to
+that."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.
+</p><p>
+"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I do think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I
+want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of
+'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There
+wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have
+cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and
+sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that
+showed his approval of this trait in his ancestors.
+</p><p>
+Dora looked at him curiously; then with a faint smile she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Your cousin Frances is so proud of those old Wentworths. She's often
+told me how grandly they lived, and she's so pleased that her name
+Frances is the name of one of the prettiest of the Governor's wives."
+</p><p>
+"Yes; and one of the prettiest, and I dare say one of the best of 'em,
+was a servant-girl in Governor Benning Wentworth's kitchen, and he
+married her out of it. Did Fan ever tell you that?" and Will chuckled.
+</p><p>
+Amy Robson stared at Will with amazement as she exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never saw such a queer boy as you are,&mdash;to run your own family
+down."
+</p><p>
+"I'm not running 'em down. 'Tisn't running 'em down to say that one of
+'em married Martha Hilton. Martha Hilton was a nice girl, though she was
+poor and had to work in a kitchen. Plenty of nice girls&mdash;farmers'
+daughters&mdash;worked in that way in those old times; the New England
+histories tell you that."
+</p><p>
+Not one of the girls made any comment or criticism upon this statement,
+for Will Wentworth was known to be well up in history; but after a
+moment or two of silence, Dora burst forth in this wise,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You may talk as you like. Will Wentworth, but you know perfectly well
+that you don't think a servant-girl is as good as you are."
+</p><p>
+"If you mean that I don't think she is of the same class, of course I
+don't. She may be a great deal better than I am in other ways, for all
+that. In those old days, though, the servant-girls weren't the kind we
+have now; they were Americans,&mdash;farmers' daughters,&mdash;most of 'em."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, you may talk and talk in this grand way, Willie Wentworth;
+but you know where you belong, and when the Pelhams come, Tilly'll see
+for herself that you are one of the same sort."
+</p><p>
+"As the Pelhams?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, what have you got to say about the Pelhams in that scornful way?"
+asked Amy, rather indignantly.
+</p><p>
+"I'm not scornful. I was only going to set you right, and say that the
+Pelhams are fashionable folks and the Wentworths are not."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I'd like to have your cousin Fanny hear you say that. Fanny thinks
+the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."
+</p><p>
+"They are."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths
+were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the
+Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that
+way,&mdash;in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of
+people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,&mdash;they
+don't like it."
+</p><p>
+"Your cousin Fanny says&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she
+were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em
+when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so
+nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,&mdash;what you call
+'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."
+</p><p>
+"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with
+sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little
+wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we
+shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly
+dear,"&mdash;the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,&mdash;"you can't,
+for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,&mdash;how incapable
+of such meanness!"
+</p><p>
+"I wouldn't trust this high-mindedness," retorted Tilly, wrinkling up
+her forehead.
+</p><p>
+"Now, Tilly, you don't mean that,&mdash;you don't mean that you've come all
+the way from naughty New York to find such dreadful faults in nice,
+primmy New England. The very dogs here are above such things. Look at
+Punch there making friends with that little plebeian yellow dog."
+</p><p>
+"And look at Dandy barking at everybody who isn't well dressed," laughed
+Tilly, pointing to a handsome collie, who was vigorously giving voice to
+his displeasure at the approach of a workman in shabby clothing.
+</p><p>
+The Robson girls and Will Wentworth joined in Tilly's laugh; but Agnes
+Brendon, who could never see a joke, looked disgusted, and glancing at
+the little yellow dog, asked petulantly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Whose dog is it?"
+</p><p>
+"It belongs to the girl who sits at the corner table," answered Will
+Wentworth, "and its name is Pete. I heard the girl call him this
+morning."
+</p><p>
+"What a horrid, vulgar name!" exclaimed Agnes. "It suits the dog,
+though; and the people, I suppose, are&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Agnes, look at that horrid worm on your dress!"
+</p><p>
+Agnes jumped up in a panic, screaming, "Where, where?"
+</p><p>
+Dora, bending down to brush off the smallest of small caterpillars,
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"The girl who owns the yellow dog is in the other hammock. I just saw
+her, and she can hear every word you say."
+</p><p>
+"I don't care if she does hear," said Agnes, without troubling herself
+to lower her voice. "You needn't have frightened me with your horrid
+worm story, just for that."
+</p><p>
+Will Wentworth, as he heard this, fell backward into his reclining
+position, with an explosive laugh. The next minute he sprang out of the
+hammock, and, tucking "Jack Hall" under his arm, was up and off, giving
+a sidelong look as he went at the other hammock, which, though only a
+few rods away, was half hidden by the foliage of the two low-growing
+trees between which it hung. Meeting Tilly and the Robson girls as he
+ran around the corner of the house, he said breathlessly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Look here; that girl must have heard everything that we've said."
+</p><p>
+"Well, there wasn't anything said that concerned her, until Agnes began
+about the yellow dog; and I stopped that," said Dora, gleefully.
+</p><p>
+"She may be acquainted with the Pelhams,&mdash;how do we know?" exclaimed
+Will, ruefully.
+</p><p>
+"The Pelhams!" cried Dora and Amy, in one breath.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, how do we know?" repeated Will.
+</p><p>
+"That girl who sits over at the corner table with that stuffy old woman,
+acquainted with the Pelhams! Oh, Will, if Agnes could hear you!" cried
+Dora, with a shout of laughter.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I can't see what there is to laugh at," broke in Will, huffily.
+"Why shouldn't she and the stuffy old woman, as you call her, know the
+Pelhams? She's a nice-looking girl, a first-rate looking girl. What's
+the matter with her?"
+</p><p>
+"Matter? I don't know that anything is the matter, except that she
+doesn't look like the sort of girl who would be an acquaintance of the
+Pelhams. She doesn't look like their kind, you know. She wears the
+plainest sort of dresses,&mdash;just little straight up and down frocks of
+brown or drab, or those white cambric things,&mdash;they are more like
+baby-slips than anything; and her hats are just the same,&mdash;great flat
+all-round hats, not a bit of style to them; and she's a girl of fourteen
+or fifteen certainly. Do you suppose people of the Pelhams' kind dress
+like that?"
+</p><p>
+Will gave a gruff little sound half under his breath, as he asked
+sarcastically,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"How do people of the Pelham kind dress?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, like Dora and Amy, and especially like Agnes,&mdash;in the height of the
+fashion, you know," Tilly cried laughingly.
+</p><p>
+"Now, Tilly," expostulated Dora, "neither Amy nor I overdress. We wear
+what all girls of our age&mdash;girls who are almost young ladies&mdash;wear, and
+I'm sure you wear the same kind of things."
+</p><p>
+"Not quite, Dora. I'll own, though, I would if I could; but there's such
+a lot of us at home that the money gives out before it goes all 'round,"
+said Tilly, frankly, yet rather ruefully.
+</p><p>
+"I'm sure you look very nice," said Dora, politely. Amy echoed the
+polite remark, while Will, eying the three with an attempt at a critical
+estimate, thought to himself, "They don't look a bit nicer than that
+girl at the corner table."
+</p><p>
+But Will was too wise to give utterance to this thought. He knew how it
+would be received; he knew that the three would laugh at him and say,
+"What does a boy know about girl's clothes?"
+</p><p>
+In the mean time, while all this was going on, what was that girl who
+had suggested the talk, that girl who sat at the corner table in the
+dining room and who was now lying in a hammock,&mdash;what was she doing,
+what was she thinking?
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+She was lying looking up through the green branches of the trees. She
+had been reading, but her book was now closed, and she was lying quietly
+looking up at the blue sky between the branches. Her thoughts were not
+quite so quiet as her position would seem to indicate. She had, as Will
+Wentworth had said, heard all that talk about the Pelhams. Whatever her
+class in life, she was certainly a delicate and honorable young girl;
+for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party
+of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood,
+she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various
+little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and
+readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these
+demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared
+whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably
+back again into her place, and opened her book.
+</p><p>
+But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age,
+and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said,
+she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she
+found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would
+dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her
+lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little
+yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she
+quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's
+little device to make it unfinished.
+</p><p>
+It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of
+her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this
+knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed
+down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of
+laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.
+</p><p>
+All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way
+across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she
+jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran
+into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person
+she was going in search of,&mdash;the person that Dora Robson had called
+"that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow
+dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone
+like satin.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his
+young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.
+</p><p>
+"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"
+cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.
+</p><p>
+"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.
+</p><p>
+"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to
+tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.
+Let's go in here, where we shall be all by ourselves," turning towards a
+small unoccupied reception-room.
+</p><p>
+There, cosily ensconced beside her aunt, with the little yellow dog at
+her feet, the dog's mistress told her story, with various exclamations
+and interjections of, "Now wasn't it horrid of them?" and "Did you ever
+know anything so ridiculous?" while auntie listened with great
+interest, her only comment at the end being,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, they're not worth minding, Peggy, and I wouldn't act as if I'd
+heard what they said when you meet them. I wouldn't take any notice of
+them."
+</p><p>
+"I? Why, it's they who won't take any notice of me, auntie. I'm like my
+little dog,&mdash;a vulgar plebeian. What would they say, what would they
+think, if they could hear you call me Peggy?&mdash;that's as bad as Pete,
+isn't it?"
+</p><p>
+"I'm afraid it is;" and auntie laughed a little as she spoke.
+</p><p>
+The great summer hotel was not nearly full yet, for it was only the last
+of June; and as Peggy went down to luncheon, her hand closely clasped in
+"auntie's," whom should she meet face to face in the rather
+deserted-looking hall but "those girls"? It was a little embarrassing
+all round, and they all colored up very rosily as they met.
+</p><p>
+"I wonder where the boy is?" thought Peggy; "he and that New York girl
+were nice." She glanced over her shoulder at this thought. There was the
+boy; and&mdash;yes, he was standing at the office desk, carefully examining
+the hotel register. "He's looking for our names!" flashed into Peggy's
+mind, "and those girls set him up to it. I wonder what they'll say to
+'Mrs. Smith and niece'? I know; they'll say, or the girl they call Agnes
+will say, 'Smith, of course! I knew they had some such common name as
+that.'"
+</p><p>
+Something very like this comment did take place when Master Will, in
+obedience to Dora Robson's request, brought the information that the
+people at the corner table were Mrs. Smith and her niece. But if Peggy
+could only have heard Will flash out upon this comment the further
+information that very distinguished people had borne the name of
+Smith,&mdash;could have heard him quote the famous English clergyman Sydney
+Smith, whose wit and humor were so charming,&mdash;if Peggy could have heard
+Will going on in this fashion, she would have thought he was very nice
+indeed, and been quite delighted with his independent outspokenness.
+</p><p>
+Agnes, however, was anything but delighted. She was, in fact, very angry
+with Will by this time, and what she called his meddlesome, domineering
+airs, and quite determined to let him know at the very first opportunity
+that she was not in the least to be influenced by his opinions.
+</p><p>
+The opportunity presented itself sooner than she expected. It was just
+after luncheon, and a couple of Indians had come up from their
+neighboring summer camp with a load of baskets for sale.
+</p><p>
+Dora and Tilly, with Mrs. Brendon and Agnes and Amy, went out to them at
+once. Others soon followed, and a brisk bargaining began. When the
+Indian woman held up a beautiful little basket skilfully woven to
+imitate shells, there was a general exclamation of pleasure, and one
+voice cried out with enthusiasm, "Oh, how lovely!" and the owner of the
+voice reached forth to take the basket in her hand. Agnes Brendon,
+turning quickly, saw that it was Mrs. Smith's niece.
+</p><p>
+"The idea of that girl pushing herself forward like this!" was Agnes's
+whispered remark to Amy.
+</p><p>
+"Hush: she'll hear you," whispered back Amy.
+</p><p>
+"I don't care," answered Agnes, at the same time crowding herself to the
+front and inquiring the price of the basket, with the determination to
+get possession of it before any one else had a chance. But when the
+price&mdash;two dollars&mdash;was named, Mrs. Brendon pronounced it exorbitant,
+and offered half the sum, never doubting its acceptance. The Indian
+woman, however, shook her head with an air of grim decision; and at that
+very moment, catching sight of Mrs. Smith and her niece, she nodded
+smilingly, repeated the price, and held the basket up again;
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, I'll take it," called out Peggy, nodding and smiling
+responsively; and the next instant the basket was in her hands.
+</p><p>
+Agnes, not only disappointed, but deeply mortified and angry, turned
+hastily to Dora Robson, and gave vent to her feelings by remarking in a
+perfectly clear undertone,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"The worst of a place like this is that you meet such common people,
+with nothing to recommend them but their money."
+</p><p>
+Dora and Amy flushed with annoyance at this speech; but Tilly was so
+disgusted and indignant that she broke away from them all with an
+impatient exclamation, and started off across the lawn towards the
+house. Halfway across she met Will Wentworth, with Tom Raymond,&mdash;a great
+chum of his, who had just arrived by the noon boat.
+</p><p>
+"Hullo, what's up, what's the matter?" asked Will, as he perceived the
+expression of Tilly's face.
+</p><p>
+Tilly stopped, and in a few graphic words told her story, winding up
+with, "Wasn't it horrid of Agnes?"
+</p><p>
+"Horrid? It was beastly," sputtered Will. "<i>She</i> to call people common!"
+</p><p>
+"But that girl is not common," said Tilly. "She may belong to people who
+have just made a lot of money,&mdash;for that's what Agnes meant to fling
+out,&mdash;but there isn't any vulgar common show of it. Look at her, how
+plainly she's dressed, and how quiet she is."
+</p><p>
+"Wonder what Agnes is up to now? Let's go and see," said Will, wheeling
+about and nodding to Tilly and Tom to follow.
+</p><p>
+As they came along together, Will a little ahead, Tom Raymond was quite
+silent until they approached the group collected around the Indians;
+then he suddenly ejaculated, "Well, I never!"
+</p><p>
+"What? What do you mean?&mdash;what&mdash;who do you see?" asked Tilly, very much
+surprised at this outbreak.
+</p><p>
+"Is that the girl&mdash;the Smith girl you were telling about&mdash;there by the
+tree&mdash;holding a basket?" asked Tom.
+</p><p>
+"Yes; why&mdash;do you know her?"
+</p><p>
+"N&#8209;o&mdash;but&mdash;I was thinking&mdash;she doesn't look common, does she?"
+</p><p>
+"Of course she doesn't, only plainly dressed."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, that's all;" and Tom gave a little odd chuckling laugh.
+</p><p>
+"How queer Tom Raymond is!" thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer
+still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl.
+Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom with
+rather a puzzled observation.
+</p><p>
+"I see how it is," reflected Miss Tilly; "they have met before
+somewhere, and Tom doesn't want to know her now. He thinks she isn't
+fine enough for this Boston set, though he owns that she doesn't look
+common. Oh, I do believe that Will Wentworth is the only one here who
+has any sense or heart."
+</p><p>
+As Tilly arrived at this conclusion of her reflections, Will came
+running up to her.
+</p><p>
+"Come," he said, "there's no fun here. Let's go and have a game of
+tennis."
+</p><p>
+"But where's Agnes? I thought you wanted to see what she was doing."
+</p><p>
+"She's gone off in a huff because I asked her if she'd bought any
+baskets," answered Will, grinning. Tilly laughed, and Tom Raymond gave
+another odd little chuckle. Then the three strolled away to the tennis
+ground. As they were passing the rustic bench under the tree where Mrs.
+Smith and her niece were sitting, Tilly took a sudden resolution, and,
+stopping abruptly, said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"We're going to have a game of tennis; won't you join us, Miss&mdash;Miss
+Smith?"
+</p><p>
+The girl looked up with a smile, hesitated a moment, and then accepted
+the invitation. Will, nodding to Tilly a surprised and pleased approval
+of her action, started off ahead of the others to see if the tennis
+ground was occupied. As he turned the corner, he met Dora Robson with a
+racket in her hand.
+</p><p>
+"Oh," she cried, "here you are! I was just coming after you, for Amy and
+I have got to go in,&mdash;mamma has sent for us, and Agnes was so
+disappointed,&mdash;now it's all right, for there's Tilly, and&mdash;what
+luck&mdash;Tom Raymond; he's such a splendid player, and you can&mdash;" But Dora
+stopped, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Who&mdash;who was that behind Tilly?
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+As Agnes, standing waiting upon the tennis-ground where Dora had left
+her, suddenly caught sight of Tom Raymond, her heart gave a little throb
+of exultation. Tom Raymond was the best tennis-player she knew. To have
+him for her partner would be delightful, and she went forward with the
+most gracious welcome to him. So absorbed was she, so pleased at Tom's
+appearance, at his polite response to her, she did not observe Miss
+Smith,&mdash;did not see Tilly draw back, did not hear her say, "No, I don't
+care to play, Miss Smith, I want you to play with Will; this is my
+friend Will Wentworth, Miss Smith," by way of introduction.
+</p><p>
+No; Agnes saw and heard nothing of all this, or of Will's polite
+arrangements with the newcomer. She saw nothing, she thought of nothing,
+but that her own little arrangement to have Tom for a partner was
+successful; and so, blithely and triumphantly, she took her place and
+lifted her racket. Whizz! she sent the ball flying over the netting,
+and whizz! it came flying back again, to be returned by Tom Raymond's
+vigorous stroke. Agnes regarded this stroke with due admiration.
+"Neither Will nor Tilly can match that," she thought; and at the thought
+she looked over and across the netting, to see a girl's uplifted arm
+swinging easily forward, the racket hitting the ball lightly with a
+swift, sure, upward, and onward motion. Where had Tilly learned to
+strike out like that, all at once? Tilly! The uplifted arm that had
+partially hidden the player's face was lowered. What&mdash;what&mdash;it was not
+Tilly, but&mdash;but&mdash;that girl! How did she come there? A glance at Will's
+face drawn up into a most exasperating grin, at Will's eyes darting
+forth gleams of fun, was enough for Agnes.
+</p><p>
+Yes, this was Will Wentworth's doing,&mdash;this hateful plot to humiliate
+her and triumph over her. Stung by this thought, she lost sight for that
+moment of everything else, and the ball sent so surely back to her
+dropped to the ground before her partner could rescue it. An exclamation
+of disappointment from Tom added to her discomfiture; and when Will, the
+next instant, cried, "Wait a minute, till I get another racket, Miss
+Smith has broken hers," Agnes, flinging down her own, exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Miss Smith can have my racket; I'm not going to play any longer!"
+</p><p>
+"Not going to play? What do you mean?" shouted Will.
+</p><p>
+"I mean that I am not used to a surprise-party and to playing with
+strangers," was the rude and angry answer.
+</p><p>
+"You&mdash;you ought to&mdash;" But Will controlled himself and stopped. He was
+about to say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+</p><p>
+Agnes, however, understood by the tone of his voice something of what he
+meant, and turned scornfully away, her head up, and with a glance at Tom
+that plainly showed she expected him to follow her.
+</p><p>
+But Tom made no movement of that kind. He stood where he was, looking
+across at Will, who, red and ashamed, had approached Miss Smith, and was
+evidently making some sort of apology to her for the insult that had
+been offered to her; and Miss Smith was listening to this apology with
+the coolest little face imaginable.
+</p><p>
+Tom, taking all this in, gave another of his odd little chuckles. Agnes
+heard it, and flushed scarlet. So he was taking sides with Will
+Wentworth, was he? And what&mdash;what&mdash;was that&mdash;Tilly? Yes, it was
+Tilly,&mdash;Tilly with the racket she, Agnes, had flung down,&mdash;Tilly
+standing in her place and&mdash;and&mdash;serving the ball back to that girl! So
+Tilly was with them too? Well, she would see, they would all see, that
+Agnes Brendon was not a person to be snubbed and disregarded in this
+fashion, nor a person to be forced to make acquaintances with vulgar or
+common people against her will. Oh, they would see, they would see! And
+bracing herself up with these indignant resolutions, Agnes betook
+herself to the hotel.
+</p><p>
+Before the end of the week there were two distinct parties in the house,
+where heretofore there had been but one,&mdash;two distinct opposing forces.
+</p><p>
+On one side were Agnes and Dora and Amy; on the other side were Tilly
+and Tom and Will. Dora and Amy were not naturally ill-natured girls, but
+they were inclined to be worldly and were greatly under Agnes's
+influence. She had been a sort of authority with them for a good while,
+perforce of her dominant disposition and the knowledge she seemed to
+possess of the worldly matters that were of so much interest to them.
+</p><p>
+"But I should think you would feel ashamed to side with Agnes Brendon in
+persecuting a poor little stranger," said honest Tilly, a day or two
+after the tennis affair; for Agnes had at once set to work to carry out
+her plan of showing that she was not to be forced, as she expressed it,
+into making acquaintances she didn't like, and had thus lost no
+opportunity of being disagreeable.
+</p><p>
+Dora flushed at Tilly's words, but she answered coolly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Persecuting! I don't call it persecuting to avoid a person one doesn't
+want to know."
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but how does Agnes avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls
+her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating
+about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith
+was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and
+made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in pretending to hunt
+up one of her own music-books; and when I asked her to be quieter, she
+said something horrid about 'low common songs,' and 'Mrs. Brady' isn't
+a low common song; and the other morning, when Pete, the little dog, ran
+up to her on the piazza, she pushed him away from her in such a
+disagreeable manner&mdash;and so it has gone on every day, and I think it's a
+shame, and such a nice girl as Miss Smith is too. I told grandmother all
+about it,&mdash;the whole story,&mdash;and she says it is Agnes who is vulgar and
+not Miss Smith, and that she never would have brought me here if she had
+known that a girl who could behave like that was to be in the house; and
+you can tell Miss Agnes Brendon this, if you like, and you can tell her
+too that she'll only make us stand by Miss Smith stancher than ever by
+persecuting her as she does."
+</p><p>
+"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, and there's no such thing as
+persecution anyway,&mdash;that's ridiculous. Agnes is very exclusive,&mdash;the
+Brendons all are,&mdash;and she doesn't like to make acquaintances with
+common people, that's all."
+</p><p>
+"Common people! Miss Smith isn't any more common than you or I. She's a
+very ladylike girl.&mdash;much more ladylike and nice, and nicer-looking too,
+than Agnes."
+</p><p>
+"Nicer looking with those plain frocky dresses, and her hair all pulled
+back without the sign of a crimp or curl!" and Dora burst into a jeering
+laugh.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, she isn't all fussed up, I know, as most of us girls are; but her
+clothes are of the very finest materials,&mdash;I've noticed that."
+</p><p>
+"And that stuffy old aunt's clothes are of the finest material, I
+suppose; and the little yellow dog's coat is as fine as a King Charles
+spaniel's," jeered Dora.
+</p><p>
+"Stuffy old aunt! She isn't stuffy in the least. She's a little
+old-fashioned; that's all. Grandmother has taken quite a fancy to her."
+</p><p>
+Dora smiled a very provoking smile as she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps the Pelhams, when they come, will take a fancy to her too, and
+to that pretty name of Peggy."
+</p><p>
+The hot color rushed to Tilly's cheeks and the tears to her eyes as she
+turned away. She knew perfectly well that Dora was thinking: "Oh, your
+grandmother is only another old woman a good deal like Mrs. Smith,&mdash;what
+is her judgment worth?"
+</p><p>
+Dora was a little ashamed of herself as Tilly left her. Indeed, she had
+been a little ashamed of herself for some time,&mdash;ever since, in fact,
+she had ranged herself on Agnes's side after the tennis affair; but
+once having taken that side she was determined to stick to it, and to
+believe that it was the right side, in spite of some qualms of
+conscience.
+</p><p>
+Her cousin Amy followed in the same path, and Agnes spared no pains to
+keep them there. She felt that she could not afford to lose her only
+allies. Every minute that had elapsed since she had flung down her
+tennis racket in such anger and mortification had but increased this
+mortification, and strengthened her resolve to show those boys and Tilly
+Morris that she was right and they were wrong about "that girl."
+</p><p>
+Of course, when she set her face in this direction, she was on the
+lookout for everything unfavorable; and everything, pretty nearly, was
+turned into something unfavorable, so perverted and distorted had her
+vision become. It was "Dora, did you notice this?" and "Amy, did you see
+that?" until the two began to find the incessant harping upon one
+subject rather wearisome, especially as the particular details thus
+pointed out had never yet developed into matters of any importance.
+</p><p>
+"I wish Agnes wouldn't keep talking about that Smith girl all the time,
+unless there was something more worth while to talk about," broke forth
+Dora impatiently to Amy just after the interview with Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"So do I," Amy responded emphatically; then, laughing a little, "unless
+there was some real big thing to tell."
+</p><p>
+"But I don't wonder Agnes doesn't like the girl, with Tilly and Will
+taking up for her and making such a fuss;" and Dora indignantly repeated
+Tilly's accusations. Amy caught at the word "persecution," as Dora had
+done, and together they defended themselves against these accusations
+with a zeal and ingenuity worthy of a better cause.
+</p><p>
+They were in the full tide of this talk when, as they rounded the curve
+of the shore where they were walking, they came upon Agnes herself,
+coming rapidly towards them.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, girls, I've been looking for you everywhere. I've got something I
+want to show you," she exclaimed excitedly. "Come up here and sit down;"
+and she led the way to a little cluster of rocks.
+</p><p>
+Dora and Amy glanced at each other rather apprehensively. Was Agnes
+going to tell them something else about the Smith girl,&mdash;going to say.
+"Did you notice this?" or "Did you see that?" in reference to some
+detail that displeased her? They had worked themselves up into quite a
+state of indignation against Tilly and the boys, and of increased
+sympathy with Agnes; but they were so tired of hearing, "Did you notice
+this?" "Did you see that?" when there had been such uninteresting little
+things to "notice," to "see."
+</p><p>
+With these apprehensions flitting through their minds, the two girls
+seated themselves to listen with very languid interest. But what was
+that Agnes was unfolding,&mdash;a newspaper? And what was it she was saying
+as she pointed to a certain column? She wanted them to read that! The
+cousins looked at each other in a dazed, inquiring fashion; and Agnes,
+starting forward, impatiently thrust the paper into Dora's hand and
+cried sharply,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Read that; read that!"
+</p><p>
+Dora in a bewildered way read aloud this sentence, which in big black
+letters stared her in the face,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Smithson, alias Smith."
+</p><p>
+"Well, go on, go on; read what is underneath," urged Agnes, as Dora
+stopped; and Dora went on and read,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It seems that that arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got
+himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains
+from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too
+notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of
+Smith. His wife and young son are with him, and the three are living
+luxuriously in the suburbs of Rio, where Smithson has rented a villa. An
+older child, a daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was left behind in this
+country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the name of
+Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston."
+</p><p>
+The bewildered look on Dora's face did not disappear as she came to the
+end of this statement.
+</p><p>
+"What did you want me to read this for?" she asked Agnes.
+</p><p>
+"What did I want you to read it for? Is it possible that you don't
+see,&mdash;that you don't understand?"
+</p><p>
+"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."
+</p><p>
+"But we do know these&mdash;Smiths."
+</p><p>
+"Agnes, you don't mean&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I do mean that I believe&mdash;that I am sure that these Smiths are
+those very identical Smithsons."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Agnes, what makes you think so? Smith is such a very common name,
+you know."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know it; but here is a girl whose name is Smith, and she is with
+a Mrs. Smith, her aunt, and they are staying at a summer resort near
+Boston. How does that fit?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Agnes, it does look like&mdash;as if it must be, doesn't it?" cried
+Dora, in a sort of shuddering enjoyment of the sensational situation.
+</p><p>
+"Of course it does. I knew I was right about those people. I knew there
+was something queer and mysterious about them. And what do you
+think,&mdash;only yesterday I happened to go into the little parlor, where
+there are writing-materials, and there sat this very Peggy Smith
+directing a letter; and when she went out, I happened to cast my eyes at
+the blotting-pad she had used, and I couldn't help reading&mdash;for it was
+just as plain as print&mdash;the last part of the address, and it was&mdash;'South
+America'!"
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" said Tilly Morris,
+indignantly, as Dora wound up her recital of the Smithson-Smith story.
+</p><p>
+"Well, you can believe it or not; but I don't see how you can help
+believing, when you remember that their name is Smith, and that they are
+aunt and niece, and that the niece is fourteen or fifteen,&mdash;just as the
+paper said,&mdash;and that they are staying at a summer resort not far from
+Boston, and&mdash;that the niece writes to some one in South America,&mdash;think
+of that!"
+</p><p>
+Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't care, I don't care. I'm not going to talk about it,
+either. How many people have you&mdash;has Amy&mdash;has Agnes told?"
+</p><p>
+"I haven't told anybody but you yet. I've just come from Agnes."
+</p><p>
+"Yet! Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora. My father, you
+know, is a lawyer, and I've heard him talk a great deal when we've had
+company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,&mdash;queer
+things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits. One of the things that I
+particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had
+heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the
+neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and
+they had a horrid time. The woman's daughters had to go into court and
+be examined as witnesses. Oh, it was horrid; and the worst of it was
+that even though there was some truth in the stories, there were things
+that were not true,&mdash;exaggerations, you know,&mdash;and so the woman was
+declared guilty, and her husband had to pay a lot of money to keep her
+out of prison. There was ever so much more that I've forgotten; but I
+recollect papa's turning to us children at the end, and saying, 'Now,
+children, remember when you are repeating things that you have heard
+against people, that the next thing you'll know you may be prosecuted
+for what you've said, and have to answer for it in the law courts.'"
+</p><p>
+Dora looked scared. "Well, I'm sure," she began, "I haven't repeated
+this to anybody but you; and if Agnes&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"What's that about me?" suddenly interrupted Agnes herself, as she came
+up behind the two girls. Dora began to explain, and then called upon
+Tilly to repeat her story of the lawsuit.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, fiddlesticks!" cried Agnes, angrily, after hearing this story; "you
+can't frighten me that way, Tilly Morris. We can't be prosecuted for
+telling facts that are already in the newspapers."
+</p><p>
+"But we can be for what isn't. It isn't in the newspapers that this Mrs.
+Smith and her niece are these Smithsons."
+</p><p>
+"Well, Tilly Morris, I should think it was in the newspapers about as
+plain as could be. What do you say to this sentence?" And Agnes pulled
+from her pocket the Smithson article she had cut out, and read aloud:
+"'An older child&mdash;a daughter of fourteen or fifteen&mdash;was left behind in
+this country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the
+name of Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston;'
+and what do you say to that letter addressed to some place in South
+America?"
+</p><p>
+"I say that&mdash;that&mdash;all this might mean somebody else, and not&mdash;not
+these&mdash;our&mdash;my Smiths. What did your mother say when you told her, and
+showed the paper to her?"
+</p><p>
+"I didn't tell her; I didn't show her the paper. We never tell mamma
+such things; she is a nervous invalid, and it would fret her to death,"
+Agnes responded snappishly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't believe it's my Smiths; I believe it's somebody else,"
+flashed back Tilly, with tears in her eyes and in her voice.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, very well; you can stand up for your Smiths, if you like; but
+you'll find they are&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Hullo! What's the little Smith girl done now? Agnes, I should think
+you'd get tired of rattling about the Smiths," interposed a voice here.
+</p><p>
+It was Will Wentworth's voice; he had come out on the piazza just as the
+girls were passing the hall door.
+</p><p>
+Agnes started back nervously at the sight of him. "I think you are very
+rude to listen and spring at anybody like this," she said.
+</p><p>
+Will looked at her in astonishment. "I haven't been listening, and I
+didn't spring at you," he responded indignantly. "I simply met you as I
+came out, and heard you say something about the Smiths."
+</p><p>
+"What did you hear?" asked Agnes, quickly.
+</p><p>
+"I heard you say to Tilly, 'Stand up for your Smiths if you like;' and I
+knew by that you'd been going for Miss Peggy, and Tilly had been
+defending her." Will's bright eyes, as he said this, suddenly observed
+that there was something unusually serious in the girl's face. "What's
+the matter?" he inquired; "what's up now?"
+</p><p>
+Agnes put her hand into her pocket, and Tilly drew in her breath with a
+little gasp, and braced herself to come to the defence again when Agnes
+should answer this question, as she fully expected her to do, by
+producing the cutting from the newspaper and repeating her accusations.
+But when Agnes drew her hand forth, there was no slip of paper in it,
+and all the answer that she made to Will's question was to say in a
+mocking tone,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Ask Tilly; she knows all the delightful facts now about Miss Peggy and
+her highly respectable family."
+</p><p>
+The decisive tone in which this was said, the significant expression of
+the speaker's face as she glanced at Tilly, and Tilly's own silence at
+the moment impressed Will very strongly, as Agnes fully intended; and
+when a minute later she slipped her hand over Dora's arm, and went off
+with her toward the tennis ground, and Tilly refused to tell him what
+this something that was "up" was, honest Will felt convinced that the
+"something" must be very queer indeed.
+</p><p>
+Poor Tilly saw and understood at once the nature of the impression that
+Will had received; but what could she do? It was certainly better to
+keep silence than to speak and tell that dreadful, dreadful story of
+"Smithson, alias Smith." Even, yes, even if it was true,&mdash;for Tilly,
+spite of her vehement defence, her stout declaration of disbelief at the
+first, had a shuddering fear at her heart as she thought of that last
+paragraph about the girl of fourteen or fifteen, and of that letter to
+South America,&mdash;a shuddering fear that the story might be true; but even
+then she would not be one of those to point a finger at poor innocent
+Peggy; for, whatever her father might have done, Peggy was innocent.
+</p><p>
+There was one person, however, that Tilly could speak to, could ask
+counsel of, and that, of course, was her grandmother. Grandmother, she
+was quite sure, would agree with her that the story was not to be
+chattered about; and even if it were true that Mrs. Smith and Peggy
+were those very Smithsons, neither was to blame, but only, as she had
+heard her father say once of the family of a man who had proved a
+defaulter, "innocent victims who were very much to be pitied."
+</p><p>
+But perhaps&mdash;perhaps grandmother would not believe that Mrs. Smith and
+Peggy were "those Smithsons," and perhaps she would find some careful
+way to investigate the matter and prove that they were not. With this
+hope springing up over her fears, Tilly flew along the corridor to her
+grandmother's room.
+</p><p>
+"What! what! what!" cried grandmother, as she listened to the story; "I
+don't believe a word of Agnes's suspicions. There are millions of Smiths
+in the world."
+</p><p>
+"But did you hear what I said about that last paragraph,&mdash;the girl of
+fourteen or fifteen, and&mdash;and the letter,&mdash;the letter to South America?"
+asked Tilly, tremulously.
+</p><p>
+"In what paper was it that Agnes found the statement?"
+</p><p>
+"It was some morning paper: I don't know which one,&mdash;I only remember
+seeing the date."
+</p><p>
+Grandmother rang the bell, and sent for all the morning papers. When
+they were brought her, she put on her spectacles and began the search
+for "Smithson, alias Smith." One, two, three papers she searched
+through; and at last there it was,&mdash;"Smithson, alias Smith!"
+</p><p>
+Tilly watched her grandmother as she read with breathless anxiety, and
+her heart sank as she noticed how serious was the expression on the
+reader's face as she came to the last paragraph.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, grandmother," she cried, "you do believe it may be our Smiths."
+</p><p>
+"Well, yes, my dear, I believe that it may possibly be, that's all; but
+it may not be, just as possibly."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, grandmother, couldn't you inquire&mdash;carefully, you know."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, my dear. If it isn't our Smiths, think what an outrage any
+inquiries would be; and if it is, how cruel to stir the matter up! No,
+we must say nothing. The girl is an innocent creature; and if this
+Smithson is her father, I doubt if she has been told by anybody the
+facts of the case,&mdash;probably there was some very different reason given
+her for dropping that last syllable of the name. However it may be, it
+would be cruel for us to show by our manner or speech any knowledge of
+the story; for either way, whether they are those Smithsons or not,
+Agnes has made a very unpleasant situation for them, and we must be good
+to them."
+</p><p>
+"But, grandmother, when Agnes tells other people&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"She won't. Your little warning, by your description of the way she took
+it, convinces me that she won't."
+</p><p>
+"But other people read the papers, and they&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"May not take any more notice than I did, if Agnes's spiteful suspicions
+are held in check."
+</p><p>
+"But if poor Peggy herself&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Peggy probably doesn't read the newspapers any more than you do. But we
+needn't waste time in thinking what if this or that; the clear duty for
+us is to take no notice, and, as I said, be good to them."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, grandmother, you are such a dear! I knew you'd feel like this."
+</p><p>
+There was to be an early little dance that night for the young people,
+and Tilly put on her prettiest gown,&mdash;a white mull with rose-colored
+ribbons,&mdash;and went down to dinner in it, for the dance was an informal
+affair that was to follow very soon after dinner on account of the
+youth of most of the dancers. Her heart beat more quickly as she looked
+across at the corner table and saw Peggy and her aunt in their places,
+and that Peggy was also dressed for the occasion in something white,
+embroidered with rosebuds, and with ribbon loops of pale blue and a
+broad sash of the same color.
+</p><p>
+"Of course, she expects to dance," thought Tilly, "and Agnes will be
+horrid to her about it in some way or other; but I shall stand by Peggy
+anyway, whatever anybody else may do."
+</p><p>
+It was with this kind intention that Tilly hurried through her dinner
+and hastened out to join Peggy and her aunt when they left the
+dining-room. But the kind intention was arrested for the moment by
+Dora's voice calling out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Tilly, Tilly, wait a minute."
+</p><p>
+The next thing Dora had her hand over Tilly's arm. Amy and Agnes were
+just behind, and there was nothing to do but to follow the general
+movement with them to the piazza. That it was a planned movement to
+separate her from Peggy, Tilly did not doubt; for once out on the
+piazza, Agnes, with a whispered word to Amy, turned sharply about in the
+opposite direction to that where Mrs. Smith and her niece were sitting.
+</p><p>
+A color like a red rose sprang to Tilly's cheeks as she glanced across
+at Peggy, and bowed to her with a swift little smile. Then, "How pretty
+Peggy Smith looks!" and "What a lovely gown she has on!" she said,
+turning a brave and half-defiant glance upon Agnes.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, it is pretty. It's made of that South American embroidered
+muslin,&mdash;convent work, you know," answered Agnes, casting a fleeting
+look at Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"No, I didn't know," answered Tilly, trying to seem calm and
+indifferent, but failing miserably.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," went on Agnes, "I know, because my cousins have had several of
+those dresses, and I'm quite familiar with them."
+</p><p>
+Peggy, sitting there in her odd pretty dress, saw with pity the distress
+in her friend Tilly's face.
+</p><p>
+"Those girls are worrying poor Tilly, auntie, see,&mdash;and I dare say it's
+on my account, for I was sure when she came out that she was intending
+to join us, and that they prevented her,&mdash;and, auntie, I'm going to
+brave the lions in their dens, and going over to her."
+</p><p>
+"They are ill-bred girls, and they may do or say something rude,"
+replied auntie, regarding Peggy with a slightly anxious expression.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I don't care for that now. Tilly is such a darling in sticking to
+me, in spite of their disapproval," laughing a little, "that I think I
+ought to stick to her;" and, nodding to her auntie, Peggy started on her
+friendly errand.
+</p><p>
+"What impudence! She's actually coming over to us uninvited. Well, I
+must say she has nerve!" muttered Agnes, as she observed Peggy's
+movements.
+</p><p>
+Coming forward, Peggy nodded to the whole group of girls; but it was to
+Tilly she addressed herself, and by Tilly's side she seated herself. It
+was in doing this that the delicate material of her dress caught in a
+protruding nail in the splint piazza chair with an ominous sound.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, your pretty gown! it's torn!" cried Tilly.
+</p><p>
+The two sprang up to examine it, and found an ugly little rent that had
+nearly pulled out one of the wrought rosebuds.
+</p><p>
+"It's too bad,&mdash;too bad!" sympathized Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"But it's easily mended, and it won't show," answered Peggy, cheerfully.
+</p><p>
+"It isn't easy to mend that South American stuff so that it won't show,"
+remarked Agnes, coolly.
+</p><p>
+"I know it isn't usually," answered Peggy, as coolly; "but auntie can
+mend almost anything."
+</p><p>
+"It is a perfectly beautiful dress. I wish I had one just like it,"
+broke forth Tilly, hurriedly, hardly knowing what she was saying in the
+desire to say something kind.
+</p><p>
+"You could easily send for one like it," spoke up Agnes, "if you knew
+anybody out there, or what shop or convent address to send to."
+</p><p>
+"We could send for you," said Peggy, turning to Tilly. Tilly looked
+startled.
+</p><p>
+"Have you friends out there?" asked Agnes, with an impertinent stare at
+Peggy.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Peggy, curtly, meeting Agnes's stare with a look of
+sudden haughtiness.
+</p><p>
+Tilly turned hot and cold, but through all her perturbation was one
+feeling of satisfaction. Peggy could stand her ground, it seemed, and
+resent impertinence; but, "Oh, dear!" said this poor Tilly to herself,
+"that South American gown, I suppose, proves that she must be that
+Smithson man's daughter; but grandmother was right,&mdash;she is innocent of
+the facts of the case, of that there can be no doubt,&mdash;and we must be
+good to her, and now is the time to begin,&mdash;this very minute, when Agnes
+is planning what hateful thing she can do next."
+</p><p>
+Fired by this thought, Tilly sprang to her feet, and, casting a glance
+of scorn and contempt at Agnes, slipped her hand over Peggy's arm and
+said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, Peggy, let's go over to the other end of the piazza and walk up
+and down; it's much pleasanter there."
+</p><p>
+Warm-hearted Tilly's intentions were excellent; but her look of
+contempt, her meaning words, instead of cowing and controlling Agnes,
+only roused her to deeper anger, which resulted in an action that
+probably had not been premeditated even by her jealous and bitter
+spirit. Tilly will never forget that action. It was just as she was
+turning away with Peggy, when she saw that angry face barring her way,
+when she heard those ominous words, "Miss Smithson," and then&mdash;and then
+that outstretched hand thrusting forth to Peggy that fluttering,
+dreadful slip of paper!
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<p>
+But another hand than Peggy's snatched at the fluttering paper. "What is
+it, what does it mean?" demanded Peggy, as a gusty breeze tore the paper
+from Tilly's trembling fingers.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and what do you mean, Miss Tilly Morris, by snatching what doesn't
+belong to you?" cried Agnes, shrilly, as she started off to capture the
+flying paper, that, eluding her, blew hither and thither in a
+tantalizing way, and at last, falling at the feet of Will Wentworth, was
+picked up by him as he came out of the hall.
+</p><p>
+"It is mine, it is mine," shrieked Agnes; "keep it for me."
+</p><p>
+But Tilly, who was nearer to him, whispered agitatedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"No, no, Will; don't give it to her,&mdash;she is&mdash;she means&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Mischief, I see," whispered back Will, with a swift, intelligent glance
+at Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"And if you wouldn't read it until&mdash;until I see you&mdash;oh, if you
+wouldn't!"
+</p><p>
+Will looked at Tilly with wonder. This was certainly something more
+serious than common. What was it,&mdash;what was the trouble?
+</p><p>
+But Agnes was by this time close upon him, reaching up her hand and
+crying, "Give it to me, Will, give it to me!"
+</p><p>
+But Will laughingly thrust the paper into his pocket, and answered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"No, I'll keep it for you, and give it to you later; I don't think it
+would be safe now. There's so much thunder in the air it might be struck
+by lightning."
+</p><p>
+"It might be snatched or stolen, I dare say," said Agnes, with a
+significant look at Tilly; "and you may keep it for me until later in
+the evening, and&mdash;read it at your leisure. It's a very interesting
+collection of facts."
+</p><p>
+"Tum, tum, ti tum," suddenly struck up the band in the hall.
+</p><p>
+"Eight o'clock!" cried Agnes, in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, the ball's begun," said Will, nodding and smiling; "and if you'll
+excuse me," lifting his cap, "I'll go and get into my dancing shoes."
+</p><p>
+Agnes tried to smile in response; but a little pang of disappointment
+thrilled her as he left her without asking her for a dance. But he
+would later, of course,&mdash;later, when he would hand her her property,
+that collection of "facts," and by that time he would have read these
+"facts." She wouldn't need to risk any words of her own in accusation
+after that,&mdash;which conclusion shows very plainly that Miss Agnes had
+been sufficiently impressed with Tilly's warning to hold her peace.
+</p><p>
+That she had not flaunted the newspaper cutting before the eyes of
+others in the house also shows that the accident of the moment and her
+hot anger had, in the one instance only, overcome her caution.
+</p><p>
+But Tilly did not know all this, and her anxiety increased after she had
+heard those words to Will, "Read it at your leisure."
+</p><p>
+Peggy, too, had heard those words, though it was quite clear she had not
+heard that other word,&mdash;that dreadful name of Smithson; for, "What is it
+all about, that bit of paper?" she asked Tilly innocently, as Agnes and
+Will disappeared in the hallway; and Tilly said to her imploringly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Don't ask me now, Peggy,&mdash;don't, that's a dear; I can't stand any more
+now."
+</p><p>
+And then and there Peggy answered, "I won't, I won't, you dear Tilly; I
+won't say another thing about it, and we won't think about it&mdash;" And
+then and there "Tum, tum, ti tum" burst forth the band in Strauss's
+"Morgen Blaetter" waltzes.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, how I love the 'Morgen Blaetter!'" cried Peggy. "Come, let us get
+into the dancing-hall as soon as possible. Where's auntie? Oh, there she
+is, talking with your pretty grandmother."
+</p><p>
+The next minute auntie and grandmother were sitting side by side in the
+dancing-hall, watching the two girls as they kept step to that perfect
+waltz music.
+</p><p>
+"Isn't it just lovely!" sighed Peggy.
+</p><p>
+"Lovely!" echoed Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"And how we suit each other! our steps are just alike."
+</p><p>
+"Just alike," echoed Tilly; whereat they both laughed, and a little
+silence between them followed, and then&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"There's Agnes dancing with Tom Raymond," suddenly exclaimed Tilly. "I
+wonder&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Don't wonder or worry about Agnes now, when we are tuned to the 'Morgen
+Blaetter' music," said Peggy. "'Music has charms to soothe the savage
+breast,' somebody has written, you know; and&mdash;and," with a soft little
+laugh, "it may soothe the breast of this savage Agnes."
+</p><p>
+Tilly echoed the soft little laugh, but she could not dismiss Agnes from
+her mind. She could not cease to wonder what it was she was talking
+about so earnestly with Tom Raymond,&mdash;to wonder if she had told, or was
+telling him at that very moment, of "Smithson, alias Smith."
+</p><p>
+And while poor Tilly wondered and worried, there was Peggy, the
+unconscious centre of all the wonder and worry, lifting up a radiant
+face of enjoyment as she floated along to the music of the "Morgen
+Blaetter." Tom Raymond, catching sight of this radiant face, said to
+himself,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I wonder if she's engaged for the next dance. I'll ask her the minute
+this is over."
+</p><p>
+The two girls were standing near their two chaperones when Tom came up,
+and with an odd sort of shyness, asked,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss&mdash;Miss Smith?"
+</p><p>
+Tilly's heart gave a jump as she noted Tom's sudden confusion and
+hesitation at this "Miss Smith," for it brought back to her his strange
+expression at the first sight of Peggy, and his question, "Is that the
+girl&mdash;the Miss Smith you were talking about?" and then his odd,
+chuckling laugh.
+</p><p>
+Peggy, too, had regarded Tom at that moment with a puzzled observation,
+as if she wondered if she had seen him before; and now, as Tom hesitated
+and bungled at the "Miss Smith," Peggy's own manner showed signs of
+consciousness, if not of embarrassment. Oh, oh! what could it all mean
+but that he had known everything from the first? "And I fancied at the
+first he acted as he did because he thought she wasn't quite fine
+enough; and all the time he knew she was this Miss Smithson, and was
+keeping it to himself, and, knowing that, he's going to ask her to dance
+with him now! Oh, what a good fellow he is, and what injustice I've done
+him!" concluded Tilly. "If only Will now, when he finds out&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+It was just then that a voice called softly from the open window behind
+her, "Miss Tilly, Miss Tilly!" and there was Will beckoning to her.
+"What shall I do with that paper?" he whispered, as Tilly turned. "I
+expect Agnes to be after me for it as quick as she catches sight of me
+again."
+</p><p>
+The window was a long French window, and Tilly stepped out and joined
+him upon the piazza. "Come around here where nobody can see or overhear
+us," she said. He followed her down the steps to a sheltered rustic
+seat.
+</p><p>
+"You haven't read it?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+"Read it? No!" Will answered a little huffily. "You asked me not to
+until I had seen you."
+</p><p>
+Tilly colored, and then, "You are a gentleman!" she burst out
+vehemently.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I hope so," Will answered.
+</p><p>
+"And so is Tom Raymond. I had done him such an injustice; but he's
+turned out so different from what I supposed he was. Oh, he's just
+splendid! and if you&mdash;" But here&mdash;I'm half ashamed to record it of my
+plucky little Tilly&mdash;here, suddenly overcome by all the excitement she
+had been through, Tilly broke down and began to cry.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, don't! I wish you wouldn't, now! Oh, I say!" cried Will, in boyish
+embarrassment.
+</p><p>
+Poor Tilly checked her sobs by a vigorous effort; but tears continued to
+flow, and she fumbled vainly for her handkerchief to dry them.
+</p><p>
+"Here, here, take mine," said Will, hastily thrusting the cambric into
+her hand; "and don't you bother another bit about Agnes and her
+tantrums. I'll burn her old paper if you say so, and I won't read it at
+all."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes, yes, you'll have to read it now. She'll ask you,&mdash;she'll tell
+you. Yes, read it, read it, Will. I know you'll pity Peggy, as
+grandmother and I do."
+</p><p>
+Thus adjured, Will drew the bit of paper from his pocket.
+</p><p>
+Tilly forgot her tears as she watched Will's face. He read it twice. At
+first there was an entire lack of comprehension; at the second reading a
+look of shocked understanding, and, bringing his fist down upon his
+knee, he exclaimed,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"And Agnes was going to fling this bombshell straight at that poor
+thing!"
+</p><p>
+Then Tilly knew that Will was on the right side; that he pitied Peggy,
+and that he would agree with all that grandmother had said about her and
+her innocence and ignorance of real facts. This estimate of Master
+Will's sympathy was not a mistaken one. He not only agreed with
+grandmother about Peggy's innocence and ignorance, but in grandmother's
+kind conclusion "that they must be good to her."
+</p><p>
+"But what did you mean about Tom? What has he done to make you think so
+much better of him?" Will asked curiously.
+</p><p>
+While Tilly was enlightening him upon this point, Tom's voice was heard
+saying, "Oh, here they are," and Tom himself came round the clump of
+sheltering bushes accompanied by Peggy. And "We've been looking for you
+everywhere," said Peggy. "We've just had another of the Strauss waltzes,
+and the next thing is the 'Lancers;' and we want you and Tilly&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Will Wentworth, I want my property, if you please; that paper I gave
+you to keep for me," a very different voice&mdash;a high, sharp voice that
+the whole four recognized at once&mdash;interrupted here.
+</p><p>
+Tilly started, and turned pale.
+</p><p>
+"Don't be frightened, Tilly, she sha'n't have it," whispered Will.
+</p><p>
+Agnes flushed resentfully as she came forward and saw the confidential
+friendliness of the little group. For "that girl" she had been neglected
+and disregarded like this! Not a moment longer would she bear such
+insults. It was all nonsense,&mdash;all that stuff about being prosecuted
+for showing up facts. She would be stopped by that foolishness no
+longer. She would first take her stand boldly, and let everybody know
+what a fraud this Miss Smith was. These were some of the wild thoughts
+that leaped up out of the bitter fountain in Agnes's distorted mind at
+that instant, and her voice was sharper than ever as she again said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I want my property,&mdash;the paper I gave you to keep for me."
+</p><p>
+Will had risen to his feet, and answered very coolly, "I can't give it
+to you."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean? Have you lost it?"
+</p><p>
+"No, but I can't give it to you."
+</p><p>
+"Have you read it?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and that's the reason I don't give it to you. I know if I should
+you would&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Probably give it to Miss Smithson," cried Agnes, shrilly. "Miss
+Smithson," going toward Peggy, "I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, come with me. We're all your friends,&mdash;grandmother
+and I and Will and Tom; and we know how sweet and innocent you are. Oh,
+Peggy, come, come, and don't listen to her!" burst forth Tilly, in an
+agony of pity and horror, as she put an arm around Peggy to draw her
+away.
+</p><p>
+But Peggy was not to be drawn away.
+</p><p>
+"What in the world is the matter? What is it all about? What do you
+mean, Tilly, dear, by 'innocent'? What has she," glancing at Agnes
+disdainfully "been getting up against me?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, don't!" moaned Tilly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, this is rich," laughed Agnes, jeeringly. "Nobody has been getting
+up anything against you, Miss Smithson."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean by calling me Miss Smithson? That isn't my name."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, isn't it?" derisively. "How long since did you change it for
+Smith?"
+</p><p>
+"I have never changed it for Smith."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I believe that 'Miss Smith' is down on the hotel register, and you
+answer to that name."
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"I beg your pardon," said Peggy, looking at Agnes with great scorn.
+"'Mrs. Smith and niece' are down on the register. It was the clerk who
+registered us in that way, and all of you seemed to take it for granted
+that <i>my</i> name must be Smith also. Perhaps I ought to have corrected the
+mistake at once; but after I overheard that conversation on the piazza,
+and&mdash;saw somebody examining the register a few minutes later" glancing
+away from Agnes with a smile at Will, who looked rather sheepish&mdash;"after
+that I thought I'd let the mistake go until the rest of the family
+arrived, it was so amusing."
+</p><p>
+"Oh," retorted Agnes, "this all sounds very straight and pretty, but I
+dare say you've got used to telling such stories. Perhaps you'll tell us
+now what name you do call your own, and if it is by that those South
+American friends you write to are known."
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps Mr. Tom Raymond will tell you," answered Peggy, quickly. "I've
+thought for some time that he might be one of the Tennis Club that came
+out to Fairview at my brother's invitation last summer, and I thought he
+suspected who I was, and&mdash;and wouldn't tell because&mdash;because he saw,
+just as I did, what fun the mistake was. But now, if he will, he can
+introduce me&mdash;to my friends, Tilly and Will Wentworth, as&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0330" href="images/Illus0330s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0330t.jpg"
+ alt="Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" width="344" height="260"></a><br>
+<i>"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!"</i></p>
+<p>
+"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" shouted Tom, before Peggy could go
+any further.
+</p><p>
+"Pelham!" cried Tilly, in a dazed way.
+</p><p>
+"Pelham!" repeated Will.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Pelham! Pelham!" exclaimed Tom, exultantly, flinging up his cap
+with a chuckle of delighted laughter.
+</p><p>
+"And you're not&mdash;you're not the daughter of that dreadful Smithson?"
+burst forth Tilly, in a little transport of happy relief.
+</p><p>
+"'That dreadful Smithson'? Who is he, and who said I was his daughter?"
+</p><p>
+"<i>She</i> said it," roared Will, darting a furious look at Agnes; "and she
+cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his
+pocket.
+</p><p>
+"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to snatch
+the paper from his hand.
+</p><p>
+"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now
+I'll give it to&mdash;Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to
+circulate about the house," answered Will.
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;if I happened to notice it before the rest of you&mdash;and&mdash;and
+thought that it might be this Miss Smith&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"That it <i>must</i> be! you insisted," broke in Will.
+</p><p>
+"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South
+American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,&mdash;"if I happened to be
+before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be;
+and&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's
+clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper
+slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as
+in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they
+thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"
+with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it <i>must</i> be, because you wanted
+it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all
+now,&mdash;everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to
+that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my
+uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying
+and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all
+for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for
+I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,&mdash;oh,
+Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful
+little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite
+of&mdash;even this&mdash;this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to
+shield me."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever
+might just possibly have happened to&mdash;to&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Mr. Smithson&mdash;" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in
+something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's
+shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes
+had disappeared.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped
+your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there
+wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully,
+though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had so long
+manfully repressed.
+</p><p>
+"Finished off! I should say so!" cried Will, joining in Tom's laughter.
+</p><p>
+"And to think that you were a Pelham,&mdash;one of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams
+all the time," put in Tilly, still with an air of bewilderment.
+</p><p>
+"And am now," laughed Peggy. "Oh, Tilly, you are such a dear!"
+</p><p>
+"One of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams!" shouted Tom. "Guess she won't be in
+a hurry to set up a claim to 'em now!" and Tom burst out again in wild
+chuckles of hilarity.
+</p><p>
+"And I never saw her, and I don't believe she ever met one of us
+before," cried Peggy.
+</p><p>
+"She told Amy that she didn't know the Pelhams yet, but that her Aunt
+Ann did, and her aunt was coming next month and would introduce her to
+them when they arrived," said Tilly, with a demure smile.
+</p><p>
+"Well, she'll probably like my sister Isabel's Skye terrier, with its
+fine name of Prince, much better than she does my poor little plebeian
+doggie, with its vulgar name of Pete," remarked Peggy, her eyes
+twinkling with fun.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Peggy, to think of your hearing all that talk about the dog and
+everything."
+</p><p>
+"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking
+rather red as he recalled his own words.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and everything,&mdash;all about the dogs and the difference between the
+Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I say now," began Will.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,&mdash;I liked it.
+It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think
+that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a
+maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the
+register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and
+never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,&mdash;when I think of all
+this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this
+minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in
+her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from
+whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."
+</p><p>
+But what was that sound,&mdash;that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly
+rang over and above the dance music?
+</p><p>
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra&#8209;a&#8209;a&#8209;a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out
+from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see
+that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,&mdash;a coaching-party.
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra&#8209;a&#8209;a&#8209;a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage
+drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The
+long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party
+atop of the coach.
+</p><p>
+"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins,"
+said a bystander.
+</p><p>
+Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the
+dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was passing them; and Dora
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Are they the Pelhams,&mdash;Agnes's Pelhams?"
+</p><p>
+"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed
+laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She
+ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."
+</p><p>
+"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking
+dreadfully a few minutes ago."
+</p><p>
+"I should think she might; she had had a blow."
+</p><p>
+"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that
+Smith girl."
+</p><p>
+"No, they're not."
+</p><p>
+"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss
+Pelham speaking to&mdash;Miss Peggy Pelham."
+</p><p>
+Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought;
+but&mdash;but&mdash;what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down
+from her top seat on the coach was saying?
+</p><p>
+"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance,
+Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little
+waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine
+time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and
+away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with
+auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."
+</p><p>
+"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.
+</p><p>
+"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid
+fact,&mdash;so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake
+again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the
+crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll
+see what a blow Agnes has had."
+</p><p>
+Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and
+never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but
+though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of
+bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and
+said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and
+mortification, cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yes, fun to you,&mdash;to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the
+right side of the fun; but I&mdash;we&mdash;are disgraced of course with Agnes.
+Oh, we've been just horrid&mdash;horrid, and such fools!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, I&mdash;I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,&mdash;for it's
+her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling
+laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by
+the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up
+against Agnes."
+</p><p>
+"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right
+side of things naturally."
+</p><p>
+If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it
+in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor
+creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.
+</p><p>
+Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known
+throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with
+amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their
+slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson,
+was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted
+over her daughter and niece.
+</p><p>
+"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were
+going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.
+"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"
+</p><p>
+Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,&mdash;Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the
+honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her
+alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of
+the Robsons with these words,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little
+Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating,
+worldly ways of judging people and things?"
+</p><p>
+And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to
+these bitter, brutal truths,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,&mdash;the
+people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't
+know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always
+talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they
+never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong
+to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances
+with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and
+amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,&mdash;nothing, nothing,
+nothing!"
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Egg">THE EGG-BOY.</a></h2>
+<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus077.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus077s.png"
+ alt="M" width="227" height="128" align="left"></a><br><br>
+arge, Marge, here is the egg-boy!"
+</p><p>
+Marge dropped her book and ran to join her sister Elsie, who by this
+time was on the back piazza talking to a boy who had just driven up in a
+farm-wagon.
+</p><p>
+"We want two dozen more,&mdash;all nice big ones, and by to-morrow, for it is
+only three days before Easter, and they must be boiled and colored to be
+ready in season."
+</p><p>
+The boy stared. "Colored?" he repeated in a puzzled, questioning tone.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Elsie, "colored. Don't you color eggs for Easter?"
+</p><p>
+"No."
+</p><p>
+"How queer! But you know about them, of course?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I don't."
+</p><p>
+"Not know about Easter eggs? Where in the world have you lived not to
+know about Easter? I thought everybody&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I do know about Easter," interrupted the boy, sharply. "All I said was
+that I didn't know about your colored eggs."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, I guess it is Episcopalians mostly who keep that old custom
+going in this part of the country, and I suppose your people are not
+Episcopalians, are they?"
+</p><p>
+"No."
+</p><p>
+"Well, <i>we</i> are, and we've lived in Washington, too, where everybody has
+colored eggs, and all the boys and girls there used to go to the
+egg-rolling party the Monday morning after Easter; and a good many of
+them go now."
+</p><p>
+"Egg-rolling party?" cried the boy, with such wide-open eyes of
+astonishment that Elsie and Marge both burst out laughing, whereat the
+boy flushed up angrily, and seizing the reins was starting off, when the
+cook called to him to wait until she had the butter-box ready for him to
+take back.
+</p><p>
+"Oh!" whispered Marge, "we've hurt his feelings, Elsie; it is too bad."
+Then she ran forward, and said gently: "'Tisn't anything at all strange
+that you didn't know about the rolling. Elsie and I didn't until we went
+to Washington to live, and saw the game ourselves, and had it explained
+to us; and I'll explain it to you. We had a lot of eggs boiled hard, and
+dyed all sorts of pretty flower colors and patterns; and these we took
+to the top of a little hill near the White House, and each one, or each
+party, started two or three or more eggs of different colors, and made
+guesses as to which color would beat. After the game was over, we
+exchanged the eggs we had, and gave away a good many to the poor
+children. Oh, it was great fun."
+</p><p>
+The boy laughed. "Fun! I should call it baby play!" he said derisively.
+</p><p>
+"Well, <i>you</i> can call it baby play if you like," returned Marge, with
+great dignity; "but the 'baby play' has come down through a good many
+years. It is an old Easter custom that was brought over from England by
+one of the early settlers at Washington."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I didn't mean&mdash;I'm sorry&mdash;" began Royal, stammeringly; when&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Royal! Royal Purcel!" called out a voice; and a little fellow scarcely
+more than six or seven years old came running up the driveway, and made
+a flying leap into the wagon.
+</p><p>
+"Do you belong to a circus?" cried Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"No; wish I did. I belong to Royal."
+</p><p>
+"Who is Royal?"
+</p><p>
+"Who is Royal?" repeated the child, making a cunning, impudent face at
+her.
+</p><p>
+"He means me. My name is Royal,&mdash;Royal Purcel; and he," nodding towards
+the child, "is my brother."
+</p><p>
+"Royal Purcel! <i>What</i> a funny name! It sounds&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Don't, Elsie," remonstrated Marge.
+</p><p>
+"It sounds just like Royal Purple," giggled Elsie, regardless of her
+sister's remonstrance.
+</p><p>
+Rhoda Davis, the cook, coming out just then with the butter-box, Royal
+thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word
+or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never saw such a tempery boy as that in my life," said Elsie.
+"A boy that can't take a joke I don't think is much of a boy."
+</p><p>
+"Them Purcels allers was pretty peppery, and I guess they're more'n
+ever so now," said Rhoda.
+</p><p>
+"Why?" asked Marge.
+</p><p>
+"Why? Because they used to be the richest farmers about here. They owned
+pretty nigh all Lime Ridge once. Now they hain't got nothin' but that
+little Ridge farm. It's a stony little place, and how they manage to get
+a livin' off of it beats me."
+</p><p>
+"How'd they happen to lose so much?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, the boy's father took to spekerlatin', and then some banks they had
+money in bust up."
+</p><p>
+"Well, he needn't fly up at everything because he isn't rich," said
+Elsie. "That's regular cry-baby fashion. He's a royal purple cry-baby,
+that's what he is, and I mean to call him that, see if I don't;" and
+Elsie laughed in high glee as this mischievous idea struck her. And
+while she and her sister were discussing Royal and his temper, Royal was
+discussing that very temper with himself.
+</p><p>
+"To think of my being such a fool as to show mad before those girls. I'm
+a regular sissy," was his final conclusion as he drove down the road.
+</p><p>
+The next morning, bright and early, he was up at the Lloyds' with two
+dozen fine big eggs. "As handsome a lot of eggs as I ever see,"
+commented Rhoda, as she took them in.
+</p><p>
+"Are they going to color them all?" asked Royal.
+</p><p>
+"I s'pose so. Here are some of their old ones. They've been b'iled as
+hard as stones. They'll keep forever;" and Rhoda handed out of the open
+window a little basket of colored eggs.
+</p><p>
+"But some of these are painted," said the boy, taking up an egg with a
+pattern of flowers on it.
+</p><p>
+"No, they ain't; they're jest colored in a dye-pot. Them that looks as
+if they was painted were tied up in a bit of figgered calico and b'iled,
+and when they come out of the b'iling they took the calico off, and
+there was the figgers set on the eggs. See?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I see;" and Royal turned the egg round thoughtfully for a moment,
+then suddenly put it down, and started off towards his wagon on a run.
+</p><p>
+"Land sakes!" called out Rhoda; "what's come to you all at once to set
+off like that?"
+</p><p>
+"Muskrats!" shouted Royal, with a laugh as he jumped into the wagon.
+</p><p>
+"Ben a-settin' traps for 'em, eh?"
+</p><p>
+Royal nodded as he went rattling down the driveway.
+</p><p>
+"Did Royal Purple bring the eggs?" asked Elsie Lloyd, a little later.
+</p><p>
+"His name ain't Purple; it's Purcel," corrected Rhoda, innocently.
+</p><p>
+Elsie giggled. "Well, did Royal <i>Purcel</i> bring the eggs?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, there they be."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, oh! aren't they beauties?"
+</p><p>
+"They be; that's a fact," agreed Rhoda. "Royal, he's done his best for
+ye now, anyway. He's kind o' quick, like all the Purcels, but he's real
+accommodatin'."
+</p><p>
+"So he is, Rhoda, and I'll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn
+out for being so 'accommodatin';' and we are going to have some extra
+pretty ones this time. See this now, and this, and this!" and Elsie
+whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico. One was a
+pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.
+</p><p>
+"The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will
+be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern," said Marge,
+enthusiastically.
+</p><p>
+By Saturday afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns
+were "ready for company," as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on
+Saturday night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three
+days' visit. It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and
+they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a
+box was brought in by one of the servants. It was neatly tied, and
+directed in a bold round handwriting to "Miss Elsie and Miss Marge
+Lloyd."
+</p><p>
+"What <i>can</i> it be?" said Marge, wonderingly.
+</p><p>
+"We'll open it and see," cried Elsie. And suiting her action to her
+word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six
+eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design. On one
+was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch
+of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple
+blossoms. On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,&mdash;a
+palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings,
+soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub
+head with a soft halo about it.
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, "Who <i>could</i> have
+painted them?" wondered Marge; and, "Who <i>could</i> have sent them?" cried
+Elsie.
+</p><p>
+In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor. They could find
+nothing to give them the slightest clew.
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps, papa, it is Mr. Archer," said Marge at last, turning to her
+father. Mr. Archer was an artist friend.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, no, this isn't Archer's work; it's a novice's work, though very
+promising," her father replied.
+</p><p>
+"Cousin Tom's, then?"
+</p><p>
+"And too strong for Tom."
+</p><p>
+"Then it must be Jimmy Barrows."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it may be Jimmy. We shall know when he comes with Tom on Monday.
+It's bold enough for Jimmy, but I didn't think he had so much fancy."
+</p><p>
+And finally it was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows.
+Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an
+amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to be a professional one.
+</p><p>
+"It's such fun to have Jimmy do these, and send them without a word,"
+said Elsie to her sister.
+</p><p>
+"Such a generous thing to do, too! I wonder if he would like some of
+<i>our</i> eggs as specimens? We might give him one of each kind."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Marge, don't think of offering him those calico-colored
+things,&mdash;anybody who can paint like this!"
+</p><p>
+"Very well; but, Elsie, which one are you going to give to Royal
+Purcel?"
+</p><p>
+"To Royal Purcel?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes; don't you remember you told Rhoda you were going to give him one
+for being so accommodating?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I'd forgotten. Well, here, I'll give him this,&mdash;it's the very
+thing;" and Elsie snatched up a bright purple one.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Elsie, don't!"
+</p><p>
+But Elsie fairly danced with glee as she cried, "I will, I will; it's
+the very thing,&mdash;royal purple to Royal Purple!"
+</p><p>
+The young visitors, when all this was explained to them, joined in the
+merriment; but Marge&mdash;kind, tender little Marge&mdash;hid away one of the
+blue and white lily eggs, to get the advantage of Elsie's mischief by
+bestowing <i>that</i> upon Royal.
+</p><p>
+But Royal was quite out of Elsie's thoughts by Monday morning. It was a
+beautiful morning; and by nine o'clock, when Tom and Jimmy Barrows
+arrived, the lawn and sloping knoll at the east of it were bright and
+dry with sunshine. On the piazza the various baskets of eggs were
+standing; only "Jimmy Barrows's gift" had been set aside as "too good to
+use."
+</p><p>
+"My! haven't you got a lot, though?" cried Tom, as he surveyed them.
+"But what are these in the box here?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, what are they?" sparkled Elsie. "Ask Jimmy Barrows."
+</p><p>
+Jimmy, with a wondering expression on his face at this remark, came over
+and looked down at the treasured eggs. "Who did these?" he asked
+quickly.
+</p><p>
+"'Who did these?'" mimicked Elsie. "Oh, you needn't try that. We found
+you out at once, or <i>I</i> did."
+</p><p>
+"You think I painted 'em&mdash;I sent 'em?" queried Jimmy.
+</p><p>
+"Of course I do. Now, Master Jimmy&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Miss Elsie, just as true as I'm standing here, I never saw them
+before."
+</p><p>
+Elsie shook her head at him, but Jimmy did not see her. He was lifting
+the eggs and examining them.
+</p><p>
+"No, honest, I didn't paint 'em, Miss Elsie. I wish I had; but I can't
+do things like that&mdash;yet. I can draw as well, am a better draughtsman,
+maybe, but I haven't got the ideas. The fellow who did these has got a
+lot of original ideas."
+</p><p>
+Mr. Lloyd came forward here with great interest. "Did any of you,"
+turning to Elsie and Marge, "ask who brought the box?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Elsie. "I asked Ann, and she said 'a bit of a boy
+brought 'em;' she didn't know who he was."
+</p><p>
+"Ask Rhoda to come here. She knows the neighborhood."
+</p><p>
+Rhoda came, and Mr. Lloyd put the matter before her. Had she any idea
+who the "bit of a boy" was?
+</p><p>
+"I didn't see him, but it might be Bert Purcel," answered Rhoda. "Folks
+get him to do errands sometimes. He's just drove up with his brother to
+bring the chickens. I'll send him 'round, and you can ask him."
+</p><p>
+"Did you leave a box here Saturday night?" Mr. Lloyd inquired
+pleasantly, when the boy stood before him.
+</p><p>
+The red lips began to frame a "No," then closed tightly together, while
+the slim little figure whirled about and made an attempt to leap over
+the piazza railing,&mdash;an attempt that would have been successful if one
+foot had not caught in a stout vine.
+</p><p>
+Royal, waiting in the wagon at the back porch, heard a sudden cry, and
+hurried to see what had happened. He found Bert scrambling to his feet,
+brisk and angry. The child made a dash towards his brother, and seized
+his hand.
+</p><p>
+"What's the matter?" asked Royal. No answer, but a renewed tug at his
+hand to draw him away.
+</p><p>
+"The little fellow tried to jump the piazza railing and fell," explained
+Mr. Lloyd, laughingly.
+</p><p>
+"Papa just asked him a question,&mdash;if he brought us a box Saturday night;
+and as he didn't want to answer, he ran," spoke up Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"I didn't, I jumped!" cried the child.
+</p><p>
+Everybody laughed.
+</p><p>
+"Can't <i>you</i> tell us?" asked Marge, looking at Royal. "<i>Did</i> your
+brother bring it?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Royal, flushing up.
+</p><p>
+"And who sent it?" asked Elsie, impatiently. She waited a moment for an
+answer. As none came, she asked still more impatiently, "Do you <i>know</i>
+the person who sent it?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," in a hesitating voice.
+</p><p>
+"Did the person tell you not to tell?"
+</p><p>
+"No," in the same hesitating voice.
+</p><p>
+"Then why in the world <i>don't</i> you tell? You've no right to keep it back
+like this. It is our affair, not yours, and so it is our right to know
+who it is. Don't you understand that we don't want people to send us
+things&mdash;presents&mdash;and not know anything about who it is?"
+</p><p>
+Royal looked startled, and the flush on his face deepened. Elsie thought
+she had conquered him, and chirped out an encouraging, "Come, now, who
+was it?" But to her surprise the boy flung up his head with an angry
+movement, and with a defiant glance at her said stubbornly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I've a perfect right <i>not</i> to answer your question, and I sha'n't!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, of all the brazen&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Elsie!" warned her father, "don't say anything more."
+</p><p>
+"You'll let me say one thing more, papa. Rhoda told us that this boy was
+very accommodating, and he brought me such nice big eggs, I thought he
+was, and meant to give him something to show my appreciation, and I'd
+like to give it to him now. Here," taking something from her pocket,
+"give this to your brother," she said to little Bert, who stood eying
+her curiously. The child's hand opened involuntarily. Into it dropped a
+<i>royal purple</i> egg.
+</p><p>
+Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.
+</p><p>
+Bert, feeling the passion in his brother's voice, drew off, and <i>flung</i>
+the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim
+and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond
+her.
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and,"
+running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the shell
+is all cracked to pieces!"
+</p><p>
+"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.
+</p><p>
+But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's
+recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was
+now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his
+action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the
+result of it.
+</p><p>
+"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to
+tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.
+</p><p>
+"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who
+had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.
+</p><p>
+"Purcel."
+</p><p>
+"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade
+Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had
+hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound
+in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.
+</p><p>
+"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a
+right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.
+</p><p>
+"But it was Royal's present, whatever relation he got to paint the eggs
+for him, for it was only Royal who knew about <i>our</i> eggs; and this is
+the way we've paid him!" cried Marge, with a glance of indignant
+reproach at Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"I don't think he got anybody to do it for him; I&mdash;I think he did it
+himself," spoke up Jimmy.
+</p><p>
+"Royal Purcel! that&mdash;that farm-boy?" shrieked Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Jimmy. "I thought so all the time, when you&mdash;when he
+was standing under&mdash;under your questioning fire." And Jimmy laughed.
+</p><p>
+"But how did he learn?" cried Elsie, in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"I don't think the boy has had much instruction," said Jimmy. "I think
+he has great natural talent, and has had very little opportunity to
+study." Jimmy was now peering at the palm and tent egg, and, "See,
+here's the name again, in this thready grass," he said, "and he has
+probably marked all the eggs in this cunning way."
+</p><p>
+Jimmy was right. On the bird's wing, amid the lily leaves, and on the
+apple bough, they also found "R. Purcel" hidden deftly from casual
+observation.
+</p><p>
+Elsie was silent as, one after another, these discoveries were made.
+Finally she could contain herself no longer, and burst out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"To think of his painting all these beautiful things and giving them to
+us,&mdash;to me, when I've been such a horrid little cat to him! Oh, papa, I
+must do something,&mdash;I just must!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, I should think it would become you to say you are sorry and to
+thank him," said Mr. Lloyd, smiling.
+</p><p>
+"But, papa, I want to take the pony-carriage and go after him, and ask
+him to come back to the egg-rolling; and if Jimmy Barrows will go with
+me&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I'd be delighted, Miss Elsie."
+</p><p>
+"He'd make it easier,&mdash;he'd know what to say, and Royal would know what
+to say to him. The others will excuse us; we won't be long. Oh, may
+I&mdash;may we, papa?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, as you seem to have settled everything, I don't see but I must&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+But Elsie did not wait to hear more. She knew she had not only her
+father's consent, but his approval, and was off like a flash to order
+the carriage.
+</p><p>
+If the Lloyds had been better acquainted in Lime Ridge, Royal's work
+would not have been such a great surprise to them. A good many of the
+Lime Ridge people could have told them of the boy's talent, and how it
+had been discouraged by his family. There was no money now to support
+and educate him in that direction, and it had been arranged with an old
+friend who was in the wool business that the boy should go into his
+employ as soon as he had graduated from the Lime Ridge High School. This
+was considered a very lucky prospect for him, but Royal hated it. From
+a little fellow he had shown a great love for pictures, and had covered
+every scrap of paper he could find with crude drawings.
+</p><p>
+When he was eight years old, a visitor had given him a box of paints and
+brushes. Two years later he had become acquainted with an artist who was
+staying a few weeks at Lime Ridge, and went with him on his
+sketching-tramps. With him he learned something about an artist's
+methods, and received from him as a parting gift, various artist's
+materials that he had made industrious use of.
+</p><p>
+The whim of painting the eggs and sending them to the sisters had come
+to him as a sort of apology to them for his exhibition of temper, and he
+had no idea that his name, so palpable to his artist eye, would escape
+their observation as it did. He expected his gift and its motives to be
+recognized at once. Instead, he was questioned as if he were nothing but
+an ignorant errand-boy; and, bitterest of all, even when he had
+confessed to a knowledge of the giver, the possibility of his being the
+painter himself was not for a moment suspected. But while he stood
+leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout
+little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever
+going amongst 'em again,&mdash;an overbearing lot of city folks," he was
+saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the
+road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a
+movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and stood
+in front of him.
+</p><p>
+"I've come to ask you to go back with us, and forgive me for being such
+a horrid little cat to you. I didn't understand. I thought&mdash;" and then
+in a perfect jumble of words Elsie went on, and poured forth her
+contrition and explanation, at the same time introducing Jimmy Barrows,
+who knew just what to say, and said it with such effect that Royal's
+spirits went up with a bound, and almost before he knew to what he had
+consented, he was sitting on the little back seat of the phaeton,
+talking with these "city folks" as if they were his best friends, as
+they turned out to be.
+</p><p>
+All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you
+suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing? In Mr.
+Carr's mills, learning to pick and buy wool?
+</p><p>
+Not he. He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting
+himself by making business illustrations for various newspapers. It is
+humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for
+higher things; and the "higher things" are not far off, for two or three
+of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and
+he has furnished a set of drawings for a child's book that has been well
+paid for and well spoken of. And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd
+the other day,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but
+what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this
+possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking! But I guess they
+began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them
+last week that he'd paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.
+Houp-la!"
+</p><p>
+"'A howling success'! And it's all through me," laughed Elsie, as she
+read this portion of Jimmy's letter; "for if I hadn't eaten humble-pie,
+and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy
+Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day. Yes; it's all
+through me and my humble-pie. Houp-la!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Molly">MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus098.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus098s.png"
+ alt="N" width="210" height="218" align="left"></a><br><br>
+ever had a Christmas present?"
+</p><p>
+"No, never."
+</p><p>
+"Why, it's just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,&mdash;you <i>shall</i> have one
+this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas
+muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could
+scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor
+laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She
+was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,&mdash;a
+charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a
+thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon. Molly
+Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling
+face,&mdash;a beauty, though she <i>was</i> an Indian. Yes, this charming little
+maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful
+tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far
+Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had
+thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly
+was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post,
+for her father had been an army officer until the three years before,
+when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his
+brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was
+an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time
+been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether
+unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons. Molly thought they were very
+welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life,
+she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only
+pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded
+gladly to Molly's friendly advances.
+</p><p>
+"But to think that you've never had a Christmas present!" exclaimed
+Molly again, as Wallula's laugh rippled out. "If I'd <i>only</i> known you
+the first year we came! But I'll make it up <i>this</i> year, you'll see; and
+oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know&mdash;I know what
+I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped <i>her</i> hands and cried, "Oh, tell
+me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole.
+Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do.
+It is all a secret until Christmas eve or Christmas morning."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know,&mdash;Metalka told me; but I forgot."
+</p><p>
+"Of course your sister must have known all about Christmas after she
+came back from school. Why didn't <i>she</i> make you a Christmas present,
+then, Lula?"
+</p><p>
+"Metalka?" A cloud came over the little bright face. "Metalka didn't
+stay long after she came back. She didn't stay till Christmas; she went
+'way&mdash;to&mdash;to heaven."
+</p><p>
+"Oh!"
+</p><p>
+"If Metalka had stayed, I might have gone to school this year."
+</p><p>
+"I thought you <i>had</i> been to school, Lula."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, no! only to little school out here summers,&mdash;little school some
+ladies made; and Metalka tole me&mdash;taught me&mdash;showed me ev'ry day after
+she came back&mdash;ev'ry day, till&mdash;til she&mdash;went 'way. I can read and
+write and talk, talk, talk, all day in English,"&mdash;smiling roguishly,
+then more seriously and anxiously. "Is it pretty fair English,&mdash;white
+English,&mdash;Major Molly?"
+</p><p>
+"'White English'!" laughed back Major Molly. "You are such fun, Lula.
+Yes, it's pretty fair&mdash;white English."
+</p><p>
+Lula dimpled with pleasure, then sighed as she said, "If I could go 'way
+off East to Metalka's school, two, three, four, five year, as Metalka
+did, then I could talk splen'id English, and I could make heap&mdash;no, all
+sort things, and help keep house nice, and cook like Metalka."
+</p><p>
+"But why don't you go, Lula?"
+</p><p>
+"Why don't I? Listen!" and Wallula bent forward eagerly. "I don't go
+because my father won't have me go. Metalka went. When she first came
+back, she was so happy, so strong. She was going to have everything
+white way, civ&mdash;I can't say it, Maje Molly."
+</p><p>
+"Do you mean civilized?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes; civ'lized&mdash;white way. And she worked, she talked, she tried,
+and nobody'd pay much 'tention but my father. The girls, some o' them,
+wanted to be like her; but the fathers and mothers would n' help, and
+some, good many, were set hard 'gainst it; and then there was no money
+to buy white people's clothes, they said. It took all the money was
+earned to pay big 'counts up at agency store, where Indians bought
+things,&mdash;things to eat, you know; so what's the use, they said, to try
+to live white ways when everything was 'gainst them, and they stopped
+trying; and Metalka was so dis'pointed, for she was going do so
+much,&mdash;going help civ-civ'lize. She was so dis'pointed, she by-'n'-by
+got sick&mdash;homesick, and just after the first snow came, she&mdash;she went
+'way to heaven. And that's why my father won't have me go to the school.
+He say it killed Metalka. He say if she'd stayed home, she'd been happy
+Indian and lived long time. He say Indian got hurt; spoiled going off
+into white man's country."
+</p><p>
+"How came he to let your sister go, Lula?"
+</p><p>
+"Metalka wanted to go so bad. She'd heard so much 'bout the 'way-off
+schools from some white ladies up at the fort one summer, and my father
+heard too. A white off'cer tole him if Indian wanted to know how to have
+plenty to eat, plenty ev'rything like white peoples, they must learn to
+do bus'ness white ways, be edg'cated. So he let Metalka go; <i>he</i> could
+n' go, he too old; but Metalka could go and learn to read all the books
+and the papers and keep 'counts for him, so 't he'd know how to deal
+with white men. When Metalka first took 'count for him, after she came
+back, my father so pleased. He'd worked hard all winter hauling wood,
+and killing elk and deer for the skins; and my mother 'n' I had made
+bewt'ful moccasins and gloves out o' the skins, all worked with beads;
+and so he'd earned good deal money, and he 'd kept 'count of it
+all,&mdash;<i>his</i> way, and 't was honest way; and kept 'count, too, what he'd
+had out of agency store; and Metalka understood and reckoned it all up,
+and said he 'd have good lot money left after he'd paid what he owed at
+the store. But, Maje Molly, he didn't! he didn't! They tole him he owed
+<i>all</i> his money, and when he said they'd made mistake, and showed 'em
+Metalka's 'counts, they laughed at him, and showed him big book of
+<i>their</i> 'counts, and tole him Metalka didn't know 'bout prices o'
+things. Then he came home and said: 'What's the use going to white
+people's schools to learn white people's ways, when white people can
+come out to Indian country and tell lies 'bout prices o' things?' And
+that's the way 't is ev'ry time, my father say; the way 't was before
+Metalka went to school. The bad white trader comes out to Indian country
+to cheat Indians. <i>He</i> knows white prices, but he don't tell Indian
+white prices; he tell Indian two, three time more price. That's what my
+father say. And Metalka, when she see it all, she so disjointed, she
+never get over it, and my father say it killed her, like arrow shot at
+her."
+</p><p>
+"But your father doesn't think all white people bad; he doesn't dislike
+all their ways?"
+</p><p>
+"No; it's only white traders he thinks bad, and the white big chiefs who
+break promises 'bout lands. He like white ways that Metalka brought
+back, and he built nice log house to live in instead of tepee, 'cause
+Metalka wanted it; and he like all you here, Maje Molly, 'cause you good
+to me. But, Maje Molly"&mdash;and here the little bright face clouded
+over&mdash;"my mother say <i>all</i> white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, they don't, Lula; they don't, you'll see. <i>I</i> sha'n't forget;
+<i>I</i> sha'n't break <i>my</i> promise, you'll see,&mdash;you'll see, Lula. On
+Christmas eve I shall send you a Christmas present, sure,&mdash;now
+remember!" answered Molly, vehemently.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was the day before Christmas,&mdash;a beautiful, mild day, very unlike the
+usual winter weather in the far West. At the Ellistons' windows hung
+wreaths of pine, and all about on tables and chairs tempting-looking
+packages were lying. Some of these were from their military friends, and
+most of them were directed to "Major Molly," the name that had been
+given to Molly when she was a little tot of a thing, and the pet of the
+fort where she lived. On this Christmas day, as she watched her mother
+fold up the pretty bright tartan dress that was to be her Christmas
+present to Wallula, she said gleefully,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Don't forget, mamma, to write on the box, 'Wallula's Christmas present
+from Major Molly.'"
+</p><p>
+It had been Molly's intention to have Wallula to tea on Christmas eve,
+and then and there to bestow upon her the pretty gift. But invitations
+to dine at the fort had frustrated this plan, and so it was arranged
+that Barney McGuire, one of the ranchmen, should come up and carry the
+box over to the reservation late that afternoon; and as the short winter
+day progressed, and Molly found that she must have a little more time to
+finish off the table-cover she wanted to take up to the Colonel's wife,
+she said to her mother,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Instead of going on with you and papa at five o'clock, let Barney
+escort me to the fort after he leaves Wallula's present; that will give
+me plenty of time to finish the cover, and plenty of time to get to the
+dinner in season."
+</p><p>
+"Very well," answered Mrs. Elliston; "but you must promise me to start
+with Barney as soon as he comes back for you, whether the cover is
+finished or not. You mustn't be late."
+</p><p>
+At five o'clock, when Captain Elliston and his wife rode off, Molly was
+working away at her cover with the greatest industry. Now and then, as
+she worked on, she glanced up at the clock. If everything went
+smoothly,&mdash;if the silk didn't knot or the lace didn't pucker,&mdash;she would
+be through long before Barney came back for her. But presently she
+thought, where <i>was</i> Barney. He ought to be there for the box by this
+time. She worked on a little longer, her ear alert for the sound of
+Barney's horse. At last she went to an upper window and looked out. She
+could see, even in the gathering dusk, a great distance from that
+window, away across toward the sheep-corrals and cattle-pens; but nobody
+was in sight. What did it mean? Barney was punctuality itself.
+</p><p>
+Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes more she worked with flying fingers,
+and still there was no sight or sound of Barney; but her work was
+finished, and now&mdash;now, what then?
+</p><p>
+There was only Hannah and John, the two house-servants, at hand. Hannah
+couldn't go, and John had strict orders never to leave the premises in
+Captain Elliston's absence. She looked at the clock; every second seemed
+an age. If Barney didn't come, if <i>no one was sent in his place</i>, her
+promise to Wallula would be broken, and Molly remembered Wallula's
+words, "My mother say all white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians;" and her own vehement reply, "<i>I</i> sha'n't forget; I sha'n't
+break <i>my</i> promise, you'll see, you'll see, Lula!" Break her promise
+after that! Never, never! Her father himself would say she must
+not,&mdash;would say that <i>somebody</i> must go in Barney's place, and there
+was nobody,&mdash;nobody to go but&mdash;herself!
+</p><p>
+"Yer goin' alone, yer mean, over to the Injuns!" demanded John, as Molly
+told him to bring her pony, Tam o' Shanter, to the door.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, and right away, John; so hurry as fast as you can."
+</p><p>
+"Do yer think yer'd orter, Major Molly? Do yer think the Cap'n would
+like it?" asked John, disapprovingly.
+</p><p>
+"John, if you don't bring Tam 'round this minute, I'll go for him
+myself."
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't safe fur yer to go over there alone!" cried Hannah.
+</p><p>
+"Safe! I know the way, every inch of it, with my eyes shut, and so does
+Tam; and I know the Indians, and Wallula is my friend; and I told her
+she should have her present Christmas eve, sure, and I'm going to keep
+my promise. Now bring Tam 'round just as quick as you can."
+</p><p>
+John obeyed, though with evident reluctance, and Hannah showed her
+disapproval by scolding and protesting; but they had both of them lived
+on the frontier for years, and their disapproval therefore was not what
+it might have been under different circumstances. Molly, they knew,
+could ride as well as a little Indian, and was familiar with every inch
+of the way, as she had said, and Wallula was her friend.
+</p><p>
+"And 't wouldn't 'a' done the least bit o' good to hev set myself any
+more against her. If I had, just as like as not the Cap'n would 'a'
+sided with her and been mad at me, for he thinks the Major's ekal to
+'most anything," John confided to Hannah, as he brought the pony round.
+</p><p>
+The pony shied a little as Wallula's Christmas present was strapped to
+his back. But at Molly's whispered, "Tam! Tam! be a good boy. We're
+going to see Wallula,&mdash;to carry her something nice, just as quick as we
+can go," the little fellow whinnied softly, as if in response; and the
+next moment, at Molly's "Now, Tam," he started forward at his best
+pace,&mdash;a pace that Molly knew so well, and knew she could trust,&mdash;firm
+and even and assured, and gaining, gaining, gaining at every step.
+</p><p>
+"Good boy, good boy!" she said to him as he sped along. But as he began
+to hasten his pace, it occurred to her that it was only about half an
+hour's easy riding to the reservation, and that after leaving there she
+could easily reach the fort in another half-hour,&mdash;so easily that there
+was no need of hurrying Tam as she was doing; and she pulled him up with
+a "Take it easy, Tam dear." As she spoke, Tam flung up his head, pricked
+up his ears, and made a sudden plunge forward. What was it? What was the
+matter? What had he heard? He had heard what Molly herself heard in the
+next instant,&mdash;the beat of a horse's hoofs. But the minute it struck
+upon Molly's ear she said to herself, "It's Barney; for that's old
+Ranger's step, I know." Ranger was an old troop horse of her father's
+that Barney often rode. But in vain she tried to rein Tam in. In vain
+she said to him, "Wait, wait! It's Ranger and Barney, Tam!"
+</p><p>
+The pony snorted, as if in scorn, and held on his way. What <i>was</i> the
+matter with him? He was usually such a wise little fellow, and always
+knew his friends and his enemies. <i>And he knew them now</i>! He was wiser
+than she was, and he scented on the wind something that spurred him on.
+</p><p>
+But, hark! What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal
+that Barney was trying? Was it&mdash;Whirr, s&#8209;st! Down like a shot dropped
+Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to
+escape the danger he had scented,&mdash;the danger of a lariat flung by a
+practised hand.
+</p><p>
+Oh, Tam, Tam! fly now with all your speed, your mistress understands at
+last. She is a frontier-bred girl. She knows now that it is no friendly
+person following her, but some one who means mischief; and that mischief
+she has no doubt is the proposed capture of Tam, who is well known for
+miles and miles about the country as a wonderful little racer. Yes,
+Molly understands at last. She has <i>seen in the starlight</i> the lariat as
+it missed Tam's head, and she knows perfectly well that only Tam's speed
+and sure-footedness can save them. Her heart beats like a trip-hammer;
+but she keeps a firm hold upon the rein, with a watchful eye for any
+sudden inequalities of the road, while her ears are strained to catch
+every sound. Tam's leap forward had given him a moment's advantage, and
+he keeps it up bravely, his dainty feet almost spurning the ground as he
+goes on, gaining, gaining, gaining at every step. In a few minutes more
+they will be out of the reach of any lariat, then in another minute safe
+at Wallula's door.
+</p><p>
+In a few minutes! As this thought flashes through Molly's mind, wh&#8209;irr,
+s&#8209;st! cuts the still air again. Tam drops his head, and plunges forward.
+</p><p>
+Though the starlight is brighter than ever, Molly does not <i>see</i> the
+lariat, but there is something, something,&mdash;what is it?&mdash;that prompts
+her to fling herself forward face downwards upon Tam's mane; and the
+lariat that was about to drop over her head once more falls harmless to
+the ground, and Tam once more seems to know what danger has been
+escaped, and starts forward again with an exultant bound. They are
+almost there! Molly sees the smoke from the tepees of the reservation,
+and a light from a log cabin, and draws a breath of relief. But not yet,
+O brave little frontier girl, O gallant little steed, is the race won
+and the danger passed! Not yet, oh, not yet! for just ahead there is a
+treacherous pitfall which neither Tam nor his mistress sees,&mdash;a hollow
+that some little animal has burrowed out, and into this Tam plunges a
+forefoot, stumbles, and falls!
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"She <i>said</i>, 'I sha'n't forget; I sha'n't break <i>my</i> promise. You'll
+see, on Christmas eve, I shall send you a Christmas present, sure. Now
+remember.' On Christmas eve! And to-night is Christmas eve!"
+</p><p>
+Wallula had said this over and over to herself ever since the sun went
+down. She had kept count of the days from the day that Molly had made
+her that vehement promise. That promise meant so much to Wallula. It
+meant not merely a gift, but keeping faith, holding on, making real
+friends with an Indian girl. And her mother had said, "<i>She'll</i> forget,
+like the rest. White peoples always forget what they say to Indians."
+And her father had nodded his head when her mother said this. But
+Wallula had shaken <i>her</i> head, and declared with passionate emphasis
+more than once,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Major Molly will never forget,&mdash;never! You'll see, you'll see!"
+</p><p>
+Wallula had awakened very early that morning, and the minute she opened
+her eyes she thought, "This is the day before Christ's day. To-night,
+'bout sundown, Major Molly'll keep her promise." All through the day
+this happy thought was uppermost. In the afternoon she followed Major
+Molly's instructions, and hung pine wreaths about the cabin.
+</p><p>
+The short afternoon sped on, and sundown came, and the gray dusk, and
+then the stars came out.
+</p><p>
+"Where's your Major Molly now?" asked the mother. There was a sharp
+accent in the Indian woman's voice, and a bitter expression on her face.
+But it was not for Wallula; it was for the white girl,&mdash;the Major Molly
+who, in breaking her promise to Wallula, had brought suffering upon her;
+for on Wallula's face the mother could see by this time the shadow of
+disappointment gathering. It made her think of Metalka. Metalka had gone
+amongst the white people. She had come back full of belief in them, and
+it was the white people's white traders with their lies and their broken
+promises that had hurt Metalka to death. There was only little Wallula
+left now. Was it going the same way with Wallula? These were some of
+the Indian mother's bitter resentful thoughts as she watched Wallula's
+face.
+</p><p>
+Wallula found it very hard to bear this watchfulness. She felt as if her
+mother were glad that her prophecy had proved true, that the white girl
+had broken her promise; but Wallula was wrong. Her mother's bitterness
+and resentment were the outcome of her anxiety. She would have given
+anything, have done anything, to have saved Wallula this suffering. If
+something would only happen to rouse Wallula, she thought, as she
+watched her. There had come a visitor to their cabin the other day,&mdash;the
+chief of a neighboring tribe. When he saw Wallula, he said he would come
+again and bring his little daughter. If he would only come soon! If he
+would only&mdash;But, hark! what was that? Was it an answer to her wish,&mdash;her
+prayer? Was he coming now&mdash;<i>now</i>? And, jumping to her feet, the woman
+ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her
+prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards
+her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned
+and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo
+Wallula leaped up, and sped past her mother with the fleetness of a
+fawn, calling as she did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant
+the wondering woman saw her child running, as only an Indian can run, by
+the side of a jet-black pony whose coat was flecked with foam, and whose
+breath was well-nigh spent. As they came nearer into the pathway of
+light that the pine blaze sent forth from the open door, something that
+looked like a pennon of gold streamed out, and a clear but rather shaken
+voice cried, "Lula, Lula, I've kept my promise; I've kept my promise!"
+</p><p>
+The next moment the owner of the voice had slid from the pony's back
+into Wallula's arms, and Wallula was stroking the streaming golden hair,
+and crying jubilantly, "She's kept her promise, she's kept her promise!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I've kept my promise. I've brought your Christmas present. There
+it is in that box strapped across Tam. If somebody'll unstrap it and see
+to Tam, we'll go into the house, and I'll tell you what a race I've had.
+I can only stay a few minutes, for I must get to the fort if your
+father'll go with me. I don't dare to go alone now."
+</p><p>
+"To the fort?" asked Wallula, wonderingly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I'm going there to dinner; but let's go in. I'm so tired I can
+hardly stand; and Tam&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+But as a glance showed her that Tam was being cared for, and that
+Wallula's mother was carrying the box into the house, Major Molly
+followed on with a sigh of relief, and, doffing the riding-suit that
+covered her dress, flung herself down before the blazing fire, and began
+to tell her story. When she came to the point where Tam stumbled and
+fell forward, she burst out excitedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Lula, Lula! I thought then I should never get here, and I don't
+know how we did it, Tam and I; I don't know how we did it, but I kept my
+seat, and I gave a great pull. I felt as strong as a man, and I cried,
+'Tam! Tam! Tam!' and Tam,&mdash;oh, I don't know how he did it,&mdash;Tam got to
+his feet again, and then he flew, flew, <i>flew</i> over the ground. We'd
+lost a minute, and I expected every second the lariat would catch us
+sure after that, but it didn't, it didn't, and I'm here safe and sound.
+I've kept my promise, I've kept my promise, Lula."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she kep' her promise, she kep' her promise!" repeated Wallula in
+glad triumphant accents, glancing at her mother, and at the tall gaunt
+figure of her father standing in the shadow of the doorway.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0332" href="images/Illus0332s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0332t.jpg"
+ alt="Wallula clapped her hands with delight" width="331" height="262"></a><br>
+<i>Wallula clapped her hands with delight</i></p>
+<p>
+Wallula was a young girl, and this mystery of a Christmas-box was full
+of delight to her; but just then a greater delight&mdash;the joy of Major
+Molly's fidelity&mdash;made her forget everything else. But Molly did not
+forget. The minute she had finished her story she sprang to her feet,
+and produced the contents of the box. Wallula clapped her hands with
+delight when the pretty bright dress was held up before her.
+</p><p>
+"Just like Major Molly's,&mdash;just like Major Molly's! See! see!" she
+called out to her father and mother.
+</p><p>
+The mother nodded and smiled. The father's eyes lighted with an
+expression of deep gratification; then he leaned forward eagerly, and
+said to Molly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Tell 'gain 'bout where you saw&mdash;heard&mdash;lar'yet."
+</p><p>
+"Just as we got to the little pine-trees where the old Sioux trail
+stops," answered Molly, promptly.
+</p><p>
+"Yah!" ejaculated the Indian, grimly, in a tone of conviction. Then,
+turning, he took down a Winchester rifle, slung it over his shoulder,
+and started towards the door, saying to Molly as he did so: "You stay
+here with Wallula. I go up to fort and tell 'em 'bout you."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, take me with you, take me with you!" cried Molly, jumping up.
+</p><p>
+The Indian shook his head. When Molly insisted, he said tersely: "No,
+not safe for little white girl yet. Maje Molly stay here till I come
+back."
+</p><p>
+Molly's face fell. Wallula stole up to her. "I got bewt'ful Chris'mas
+present for Maje Molly," she said softly. "Maje Molly stay see it with
+Wallula."
+</p><p>
+"You dear!" cried Molly, flinging her arm round Wallula.
+</p><p>
+The Indian father nodded his head vigorously, and his face shone with
+satisfaction. "Yes, yes!" he said. "Wallula take care you. You stay till
+I come back."
+</p><p>
+In looking at and trying on the "bewt'ful Chris'mas present,"&mdash;a pair of
+elaborately embroidered moccasins lined and bordered with rabbit
+fur,&mdash;and in dressing Wallula up in the tartan dress, the time flew so
+rapidly that long before Molly expected it the cabin door opened again,
+and the tall gaunt figure reappeared.
+</p><p>
+Behind it followed another figure. Molly ran forward as she saw it,
+and, "Papa, papa!" she cried, "I waited and waited for Barney, and he
+didn't come; and I couldn't bear for Lula not to have her Christmas
+present to-night, for I'd promised it to her to-night. She told me, when
+I promised, that white people always broke their promises to Indians,
+and I said over and over that <i>I</i> wouldn't break <i>my</i> promise; and I
+couldn't&mdash;I couldn't break it, papa."
+</p><p>
+"You did quite right, my little daughter,&mdash;quite right."
+</p><p>
+There was something in her father's manner as he said this, a
+seriousness in his voice and in his eyes, that surprised Molly. She was
+still more surprised when the Indian suddenly said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"She little brave; she come all 'way 'lone to keep promise, so she not
+hurt my Wallula. She make me believe more good in white peoples; so I go
+to fort,&mdash;I keep friends."
+</p><p>
+"You've been a friend indeed. I sha'n't forget it; we'll none of us
+forget it, Washo," said Captain Elliston; and he put out his hand as he
+spoke, and grasped the brown hand of the Indian in a warm friendly
+clasp.
+</p><p>
+At the fort everything was literally "up in <i>arms</i>,"&mdash;that is, set in
+order for business, and that meant ready for resistance or attack. Molly
+had lived most of her fourteen years at some Western military post, and
+she recognized at once this "order" as she rode in.
+</p><p>
+"What <i>did</i> it mean?" she asked again, as the Colonel himself met her
+and hurried her into the dining-room; and the Colonel himself answered
+her,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It means, my dear, that Major Molly has saved us from being surprised
+by the enemy, and that means that she has saved us from a bloody fight."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;" faltered Molly. Then like a flash her mind cleared, and she
+struck her little hand on the table and cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It was an Indian, an unfriendly Indian, who followed me, and Washo knew
+it when I told my story!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Washo knew it, and, more than that, he had known for some days
+that those particular Indians had been planning a raid upon us, and he
+didn't interfere; he didn't warn us because he had begun to think that
+we were all bad white traders, and he wouldn't meddle with these braves
+who proposed to punish us, though he wouldn't go on the war-path with
+them. But, Major Molly, when he heard your story, when he saw how one of
+us could be a little white brave in keeping a promise to an Indian, <i>for
+your sake</i> he relented towards the rest of us."
+</p><p>
+"And when he asked me to tell him where I first heard the lariat&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"When he asked you that, he was making sure that it was his Sioux
+friends,&mdash;for he knew they were to send out a scout who would take
+exactly that direction."
+</p><p>
+"But why&mdash;why did the scout chase <i>me</i>?"
+</p><p>
+"He was after Tam, no doubt,&mdash;for this Sioux band is probably short of
+ponies, and Tam, you know, is a famous fellow,&mdash;and the moment the scout
+caught sight of him he would give chase."
+</p><p>
+"Did he get Ranger that way? And where, oh, where is poor Barney?"
+</p><p>
+"The probability is that the scout visited the corral first, and
+captured Ranger, who is almost as famous as Tam."
+</p><p>
+"But, Barney&mdash;oh, oh, <i>do</i> you think Barney has been killed?"
+</p><p>
+"We don't know yet, my dear. Your father has gone off to the ranch with
+a squad of men. He'll soon find out what's happened to Barney. And
+don't fret, my dear, about your father," seeing a new anxiety on Molly's
+face. "The raiders by this time have seen our signals, and have found
+out we're up and doing, and more than a match for them; so don't
+fret,&mdash;don't fret, any of you," turning to his wife and Mrs. Elliston.
+"I don't think there'll be so much as a skirmish."
+</p><p>
+And the Colonel was right. When the Indians saw the signals and the
+other signs of activity, they knew that their only chance of overcoming
+the whites by taking them unawares was gone. There were a few shots
+fired, but no skirmish; and by the time the moon rose, the fort scouts
+brought in word that the whole band had departed over the mountains. A
+few minutes after, when Captain Elliston rode in, the satisfaction was
+complete, for he brought with him the news of Barney's safety. Ranger,
+however, was gone. The Indian&mdash;or Indians, for there were two of them at
+that point&mdash;had succeeded in capturing him just as Barney had started
+out from the corral. A stealthy step, a skilful use of the lariat, and
+Barney was bound and gagged, that he might give no alarm; and all this
+with such quiet Indian alertness that a ranchman farther down the
+corral heard nothing.
+</p><p>
+So harmlessly ended this raid, that might have been a bloody battle but
+for Major Molly's Christmas promise!
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Valentine">POLLY'S VALENTINE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus125.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus125s.png"
+ alt="P" width="215" height="328" align="left"></a><br><br><br><br>
+olly was seven years old before she knew anything about valentines.
+This may seem very strange to most girls, for most girls have heard all
+about Valentine's Day by the time they are three or four, and have had
+no end of fun sending and receiving these friendly favors. But Polly
+didn't know a thing about them until she was seven. I'll tell you why.
+Polly was one of a number of children who lived in an Orphan's Home, and
+Polly herself was the youngest of the orphans.
+</p><p>
+One morning as she looked out of the window, she saw the postman
+suddenly surrounded by a whole flock of little girls, and heard one of
+them say, "Oh, <i>haven't</i> you got a valentine for me?" And then the whole
+flock cried, "And for me? and for me?" And the postman laughed
+good-naturedly, and, looking through his pack of letters, took out two
+or three quite big square envelopes, and handed them to one and another
+of the clamorous little crowd.
+</p><p>
+Polly, hearing and seeing all this, wondered what a valentine could be.
+She did not ask anybody the question, however, just then; but when the
+postman came around at noon, and she saw the same scene repeated, her
+curiosity could not be restrained any longer, and she started off to
+find Jane McClane,&mdash;for Jane was fourteen years old and knew everything,
+Polly thought.
+</p><p>
+Jane was in the linen-room mending a sheet when Polly found her, and
+being rather lonesome was quite willing to enter into conversation with
+any one who came along. But Polly's question made her open her eyes with
+surprise.
+</p><p>
+"A valentine?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say, Polly, you never
+heard of a valentine before?"
+</p><p>
+"No, never," answered Polly, feeling very small and ignorant.
+</p><p>
+"Well, to be sure," said Jane, "you're very little, and ain't 'round
+much, but I <i>should</i> have thought you'd have heard <i>somebody</i> say
+something about valentines before this; but you ain't much for listening
+and asking, I know."
+</p><p>
+"No," echoed Polly; "but I'm listening now."
+</p><p>
+Jane laughed. "Yes, I see you are. Well, a valentine is just a piece of
+poetry, with a picture to it, that anybody sends to a person on
+Valentine's Day."
+</p><p>
+"What's Valentine's Day?"
+</p><p>
+"Why, it's the day you send valentines, to be sure,&mdash;the 14th of
+February."
+</p><p>
+"Is it like Christmas? Was Valentine very good, and is it his birthday
+as Christmas is Christ's birthday?"
+</p><p>
+"Mercy, no! What queer things you do ask when you get going, Polly!
+Valentine's Day is just Valentine's Day, when folks send these poetry
+and picture things for fun, and don't sign their own names, only 'Your
+Valentine,' and that means somebody who has chosen&mdash;chosen to be
+your&mdash;well, your beau, maybe."
+</p><p>
+"What's a beau?" asked innocent Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Polly, you don't know <i>anything</i>!" cried Jane, in an exasperated tone.
+"A beau is&mdash;is somebody who likes you better 'n anybody else."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I wish I had one!"
+</p><p>
+"Had one&mdash;what?" asked Jane.
+</p><p>
+"A beau to like me like that; to send me a valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, oh! you are such a baby," laughed Jane.
+</p><p>
+"I ain't a baby!" cried Polly, indignantly; and then her lip quivered,
+and she began to cry.
+</p><p>
+"Hush, hush!" said Jane; "if Mrs. Banks hears you, she'll send you out
+of here quicker 'n a wink."
+</p><p>
+But Polly could not "hush" all at once, and continued to sob and sniff
+behind her apron; Jane trying in the mean time to soothe her, but not
+succeeding very well, until she thought to say,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"If you won't cry any more, Polly, I'll get Martha"&mdash;Martha was the
+chambermaid&mdash;"to show you <i>her</i> valentine; it's a beauty."
+</p><p>
+Polly dropped her apron and began to swallow her sobs, while Jane ran to
+Martha, who was very proud of her valentine, and very glad to show it
+even to little Polly Price; and the valentine <i>was</i> a beauty, as Jane
+had said. Polly, looking through the tears that still hung on her
+lashes at the group of little cherubs that were dancing out of lily-cups
+and roses, cried, "Angels, angels!" winding up with, "Oh, I <i>wish</i>
+somebody 'd send me a valentine!"
+</p><p>
+"She didn't know a thing about valentines; never heard of them till just
+now," Jane explained to Martha.
+</p><p>
+"Well, to be sure," said Martha, "she is the greenest little thing; but
+then she ain't never been to school like the rest of ye, and things is
+very quiet and out-of-the-way like in the Home here, and she's nothin'
+but a baby."
+</p><p>
+"I ain't a baby! I ain't, I ain't!" screamed Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Polly, Polly!" warned Jane. But Polly only burst out afresh in loud
+sobs and cries. Jane was a good-natured girl, but she could not stand
+this, and, reaching forward, she gave Polly a little shake, and said,
+"Now, Polly Price, you just stop and be a good girl, or I'll never have
+anything more to do with you."
+</p><p>
+Polly gasped. Three years ago, when she was first brought to the Home,
+she had been assigned to a little bed next the one that Jane occupied,
+and had been more or less under the elder girl's care. Jane had been
+very good to the child, and with her womanly ways and superior
+knowledge she stood to Polly for both mother and sister. No wonder,
+then, that she gasped at Jane's threat. What would she do if that threat
+were carried out, and Jane had nothing more to do with her? What would
+life be in the Home without Jane?
+</p><p>
+Polly did not ask herself these questions in exactly these words, but
+she felt the desolate possibility that had been suggested to her; and it
+was so appalling that it quite overpowered her flare of temper, and
+stopped her sobs and cries as effectually as Jane could have desired.
+But Jane herself, busy with her darning, did not notice the expression
+of Polly's face, and had no idea how deeply her words had penetrated the
+child's mind until hours afterwards, when, as she was preparing to go to
+bed, Polly's voice called softly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Jane, haven't I been a good girl since?"
+</p><p>
+Jane started. "What in the world are you awake for now, Polly Price?"
+she asked. "It's nine o'clock. You ought to have been asleep long ago."
+</p><p>
+"I couldn't go to sleep, I felt so bad," answered Polly.
+</p><p>
+"You felt so bad; where? Have you got a sore throat?" inquired Jane,
+remembering that a good many of the children's illnesses began with sore
+throat.
+</p><p>
+"No, 'tisn't my throat."
+</p><p>
+"Where is it, then&mdash;your stomach?"
+</p><p>
+"No, it's&mdash;it's my feelin's. I felt bad 'cause&mdash;'cause you said if I
+didn't stop cryin' and be a good girl, you wouldn' ever have anythin' to
+do with me any more. But I did stop, and I <i>have</i> been a good girl
+since, haven't I?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, oh, yes, you've been good since," bending down to tuck Polly in.
+As she stooped, Polly flung her arms around Jane's neck, and
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Do you love me just the same, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I guess so," replied Jane, smiling.
+</p><p>
+"I love you better 'n anybody in the world, Jane."
+</p><p>
+"And you'd choose me to be your valentine, then, wouldn't you?" laughed
+Jane.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes, yes; and if I could only send you one of those po'try picture
+things, I'd send you the most bewt'f'lest I could find. Don't you wish I
+could, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, of course I do."
+</p><p>
+"Did you ever have a valentine, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"No, never."
+</p><p>
+"Those girls 'cross the street had 'em, and Martha had one. Why don't
+you and I have 'em, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"You 'n' I? Those girls across the street know girls and boys who have
+fathers and mothers to give them money to buy valentines with."
+</p><p>
+"Why don't we know such girls and boys?"
+</p><p>
+"'Cause we don't. We're poor, and live in an Orphans' Home. Those girls
+only know folks that live like themselves."
+</p><p>
+"But Martha lives right here, just where we do, and Martha had a
+valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Martha's different. She's only paid for staying here to work. She's got
+folks outside that she belongs to. It was a cousin of hers sent her that
+valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Oh," and Polly gave a soft sigh, "I wish <i>we</i> had folks that we
+belonged to! Don't you, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"<i>Don't</i> I!" and as Jane said this, she dropped down upon Polly's little
+bed, and covered her face with her hands.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Jane, Janey! what's the matter? Has somebody hurted your feelings?"
+</p><p>
+"No, no," answered Jane, brokenly; "nobody in particular. I&mdash;I felt
+lonesome. I do sometimes when I get to thinking I don't belong to
+anybody and nobody belongs to me."
+</p><p>
+"Janey, <i>I</i> belongs to you, don't I?" And around Jane's neck two little
+arms pressed lovingly.
+</p><p>
+"You don't belong to me as a relation does. You ain't a sister or a
+cousin, you know."
+</p><p>
+"Can't you 'dopt me, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+Jane laughed through her tears. "What do you know about adopting?" she
+asked.
+</p><p>
+"Martha tole me 'bout it. She said folks of'n 'dopted children to be
+their very own, and that mebbe some time somebody'd 'dopt me; and I tole
+her then I didn' want anybody to 'dopt me, but&mdash;I'd like you to 'dopt
+me, Jane. Couldn't you?" with great earnestness.
+</p><p>
+"Of course not, Polly. Folks who adopt children are older 'n I am, and
+have money to take care of 'em. But I do wish some nice lady would adopt
+you,&mdash;some nice lady with a nice home."
+</p><p>
+"But I'd rather stay here 'long o' you, Jane. I don't want to go 'way
+from you; I'd be lonesome. But mebbe they'd 'dopt you too. Would you
+like to be 'dopted, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't know's I would. I'm too old now; I couldn't get to feel as if
+they were own folks, as if I really belonged to them, as you could.
+But, Polly," suddenly sitting up and looking very seriously at Polly,
+"you mustn't think I'm finding fault with the Home here. It's a very
+comfortable place, and we are treated well. I only feel kind of lonesome
+sometimes when I see girls like those across the street, who have
+mother-and-father homes."
+</p><p>
+"And valentines," cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Polly, Polly! you'll dream of valentines to-night," laughed Jane;
+"and mind you send me one in your dream, and the very prettiest you can
+find."
+</p><p>
+"I will, I will!" exclaimed Polly, flinging her arms again about Jane's
+neck, and giving her a good-night hug and kiss. "The very prettiest I
+can find! the very prettiest I can find!" And saying this over and over,
+Polly drifted away into the land of sleep.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+And sure enough, when it was well on towards morning, she did dream of
+valentines,&mdash;piles and piles of them, and out of them all she was
+hunting for the prettiest, when she heard a strangely familiar voice,
+calling,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, come, Polly! It's time to get up if you want any breakfast."
+</p><p>
+Polly opened her eyes to see Martha looking down at her. "Oh, Martha,
+Martha," she cried, "if you hadn't waked me, I should have got it. I'd
+<i>almost</i> found it, and in a little minute I'd 'a' had it sure."
+</p><p>
+"Had what?" asked Martha.
+</p><p>
+"Janey's valentine;" and, sitting up, Polly told her dream.
+</p><p>
+Martha laughed till the tears came. "You <i>are</i> the funniest young one we
+ever had here," was her comment, when she caught her breath. "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting out your money to
+buy valentines with."
+</p><p>
+"What's an heiress?" inquired Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, a girl that has a bankful of money," replied Martha, carelessly.
+</p><p>
+Polly gave one of her long-drawn "O&mdash;hs," then slipped out of bed, and
+began to dress so slowly that Martha said to her,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"What are you dreaming about now, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+But Polly didn't answer. She was too busy pulling on her stockings, and
+thinking of something else that Martha had said, and this "something"
+was "a girl with a bankful of money." Martha little suspected what
+effect her words had had, little thought what a fine scheme she had set
+going. If she had, the scheme would certainly never have been carried
+out, or never have been carried out as Polly planned it. And Polly knew
+this perfectly well, and kept as still as a mouse all through
+breakfast,&mdash;so still that the matron, Mrs. Banks, asked, "Don't you feel
+well, Polly?" whereat Polly choked over her oatmeal as she confusedly
+answered, "Yes, 'm."
+</p><p>
+If it had been any other child, Mrs. Banks would have suspected that
+there was some mischief brewing behind this stillness; but Polly had
+never been given to mischief, so she was not further questioned or
+observed, and thus left to herself she scampered back to the dormitory
+after the chamber-work was done, and, going straight to a small bureau
+that stood between Jane's bed and her own, she cautiously pulled out the
+lower drawer, and took from it a little toy house. This pretty toy house
+was nothing more nor less than a child's bank that had been given to
+Polly one Christmas, and into which she had dropped the pennies that had
+been bestowed upon her from time to time. Polly had long yearned for a
+paint-box; and whenever she went out, she used to stop at a certain
+shop-window where these tempting things were displayed, and wonder how
+much they cost. One day she summoned up courage to go in and ask the
+price of the smallest.
+</p><p>
+"Twenty-five cents," the clerk told her. Polly at first was dismayed.
+Twenty-five cents seemed a vast sum to her. But it was a long time yet
+to next Christmas, and perhaps by then she <i>might</i> find even as much as
+that in her bank. This hope had warmed her heart for weeks, so that when
+she was smarting under the first sense of disappointment about the
+valentines, she consoled herself with the thought of the little
+paint-box that might soon be hers. But when Martha had said, "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting your money out,"
+and had told her an heiress meant a girl with a bankful of money, like a
+flash of lightning came another thought into Polly's mind,&mdash;the thought
+that then and there from <i>her</i> little bank she might count the money to
+buy a valentine for her dear Jane; and once this thought had entered
+Polly's head there was no putting it out. Over and above everything it
+kept gaining, until it sent her to tugging at that red chimney. Then
+suddenly the chimney that had stuck so fast gave way.
+</p><p>
+Polly nearly fell backward, it was so sudden; but righting herself, she
+shook the treasure into her lap, and fell to counting it. She counted up
+to ten; that was as far as her knowledge of arithmetic went. Putting
+aside the ten pennies into a little pile, she began to count the rest.
+"One, two, three," she went on until&mdash;why, there was another pile of
+ten, and more yet; and the "more yet" counted up to five. Polly couldn't
+"do sums." She couldn't add these two piles of ten and the "more yet,"
+and she couldn't ask Jane or any one else in the house to do it for her.
+But what she <i>could</i> do, what she <i>would</i> do, was to slip the whole
+treasure back into the bank, and take it around to the shop on the
+corner, the shop where she had seen the paint-boxes, and where she was
+sure she should also find plenty of valentines. So getting into her
+little coat and hood, she scampered out and off, unseen and unheard by
+any of the household. It was rather terrifying to find several other
+customers in the shop, but she had no time to wait until they had left,
+and, going bravely forward, she called out, "Please, I want a
+valentine." But the clerk was busy, and paid no attention to her; so she
+pressed a little nearer, and piped out again in a louder tone, "Please,
+I want a valentine."
+</p><p>
+But even this did not succeed in getting his attention. Oh, what
+<i>should</i> she do! Perhaps in another minute Jane or Martha or Mrs. Banks
+would have missed her, and be hunting for her; perhaps they would be
+sending a policeman after her. Oh dear! oh dear! And summoning up all
+her courage, she cried out in a voice full of sobs and tears, "Oh,
+please, <i>please</i>, I want a valentine right off now this minute!"
+</p><p>
+"Don't you see I'm busy now?" said the clerk, sharply.
+</p><p>
+But the lady he was waiting upon had turned and looked at Polly as she
+spoke, and immediately said to the clerk,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, do attend to the child now. Her mother has probably told her to
+make haste."
+</p><p>
+"She hasn't any mother. She's one of the children at the Orphans' Home,"
+replied the clerk in a lower tone.
+</p><p>
+"Oh!" And the lady started and looked at Polly with new interest, and
+then insisted still more earnestly that she should be attended to at
+once, at the same time beckoning Polly to come forward.
+</p><p>
+Polly obeyed her; but as she glanced at the cheap little five-cent
+valentines the clerk put before her, she shook her head disdainfully. "I
+want a bigger one; I want the bewt'f'lest there is," she informed him.
+</p><p>
+The young man laughed. "How much money have you got?" he asked.
+</p><p>
+Polly produced her bank, and triumphantly shook out its contents.
+</p><p>
+"Oh,"&mdash;laughing again,&mdash;"all that? How much is it?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't know jus' exac'ly. I can count up to ten, and there's two ten
+piles, and&mdash;and&mdash;five cents more."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, two tens and five. Yes, I see,"&mdash;running his fingers over the
+little heap,&mdash;"that makes twenty-five. You've got twenty-five cents.
+Here are the twenty-five-cent valentines;" and he uncovered another box,
+and left her to make her choice.
+</p><p>
+"Twenty-five cents!" echoed Polly. Why, why, why, that was enough to buy
+the little paint-box! She glanced down at the twenty-five-cent
+valentines. They presented a dazzling sight of cherubs' heads and wings
+and flowery garlands. She lifted her chin a little higher, and there,
+staring her in the face, was the very little paint-box, with its two
+brushes and porcelain color plate, and it seemed to say to her: "Come,
+buy me now; come, buy me now. If you don't, somebody else will get me."
+And she <i>could</i> buy it now, if only&mdash;she gave up the valentine&mdash;Jane's
+valentine; and&mdash;why shouldn't she? She hadn't told Jane anything about
+it; Jane didn't expect it; Jane wouldn't ever know about it. Why
+shouldn't she? And Polly drew a deep sigh of perplexity as she asked
+herself this question.
+</p><p>
+"What is it?" a soft voice said to her here. "What is it that troubles
+you? Tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+</p><p>
+Polly started, and turned to see the lady who had made way for her
+standing beside her. The lady smiled reassuringly as she met Polly's
+perplexed glance, and said again,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"What is it? Tell me."
+</p><p>
+And Polly, looking up into the kind sweet face, told the whole
+story,&mdash;all about the long saving for the little paint-box, Jane's
+valentine, and everything, winding up eagerly with the appeal,&mdash;"And
+wouldn't <i>you</i> buy the paint-box now 'stead of the valentine, 'cos the
+paint-box mebbe'll be gone when I get more money?"
+</p><p>
+"Wouldn't I? Well, I don't know what I should have done when I was a
+little girl like you. I dare say, though, that I should have felt just
+as you do&mdash;have done just as you, I see, are going to do now."
+</p><p>
+"Bought the paint-box!" cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, bought the paint-box," laughed the lady.
+</p><p>
+Polly beamed with smiles, and gave a rapturous look at the treasure that
+was so soon to be hers. But presently the rapture faded, and a new
+expression came into her face. The lady was watching her very
+attentively.
+</p><p>
+"Well, what now?" she inquired. "Doesn't the paint-box suit you?"
+</p><p>
+Polly gave an emphatic nod. Perhaps it was that nod that sent two little
+tears to her eyes.
+</p><p>
+"Then, if it suits you, shall I speak to the clerk, and tell him you've
+changed your mind about the valentine, and will buy the paint-box?"
+</p><p>
+Polly shook her head, and two more tears followed the first ones.
+</p><p>
+"You're not going to buy the paint-box?"
+</p><p>
+"N&#8209;o, I&mdash;I gu&#8209;ess not. I guess I'll buy the valentine. Jane didn't ever
+get a valentine, and she hasn't got anybody to give her one but me."
+</p><p>
+The blurring tears made Polly's eyes so dim here, she could scarcely
+see; but through the dimness she sent one last good-by look at the dear
+paint-box, and then resolutely turned to the valentines, from which she
+selected the biggest and "bewt'f'lest" she could find, the lady crowning
+her kindness by stamping and directing it, and finally mailing it in the
+letterbox just outside the shop door.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"What yer watchin' for, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+Polly didn't answer.
+</p><p>
+"Guess I know," said Martha, laughing; "yer watchin' for the postman to
+bring yer a valentine."
+</p><p>
+"I ain't," said Polly.
+</p><p>
+Just then the postman crossed the street, and ring, ring, went the Home
+bell.
+</p><p>
+"I told you so," said Martha, as she ran down to answer it. In a minute
+she was back again holding out a big square envelope, and saying again,
+"I told you so."
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't for me," cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't your name Polly Price?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, here 's 'Polly Price' written as plain as print. Just look now!"
+and Martha held forth the missive.
+</p><p>
+Polly looked. She could read her own name in writing; and there it was,
+sure enough, plain as print,&mdash;Polly Price, and it was written on an
+envelope exactly like the one she had chosen to send to Jane. A fearful
+thought came into Polly's mind. She had told the lady her own
+name,&mdash;Polly Price,&mdash;and it was Polly Price she had written on the
+envelope instead of Jane McClane. Oh! oh! oh! and then Polly burst
+out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It ain't mine, it ain't mine, it's Jane's. The lady made a mistake."
+</p><p>
+"What lady?"
+</p><p>
+"The lady in the shop."
+</p><p>
+"What shop?"
+</p><p>
+And then Polly had to tell the whole story.
+</p><p>
+"And that's where you were after breakfast, you little monkey, breaking
+a bank, and running away with it, to buy Jane McClane a valentine. Well,
+if this isn't the funniest thing I ever heard of. Jane! Jane! come up
+here and show Polly <i>your</i> valentine!" And up came Jane, her face
+beaming with smiles, holding in one hand a big square envelope, and in
+the other an open sheet all covered with lilies and roses and cherubs'
+faces; that very "bewt'f'lest valentine" that had been chosen for her.
+</p><p>
+Polly, staring at it in amazement, cried out, "Why, she's got it! she's
+got it!" And then, pulling open the envelope addressed to Polly Price,
+she stared in amazement again, and cried out, "Why, this is just like
+<i>that</i> one,&mdash;the one I bought for you, Janey!"
+</p><p>
+And then it was Jane's turn to cry out in amazement, to say, "<i>You</i>
+bought it; how did <i>you</i> buy it, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+"She broke a bank and ran away with the money," laughed Martha.
+</p><p>
+"I didn't, either. The chimney's made to come out, and the bank's my
+bank," retorted Polly, indignantly.
+</p><p>
+"You took <i>your</i> money,&mdash;your money you've been saving to buy the
+paint-box with, to buy this valentine for me?" asked Jane.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+</p><p>
+"And gave up the paint-box! Oh, Polly, Polly, you're a dear;" and Jane
+swooped down upon Polly with a tremendous hug. Polly returned the
+embrace with ardor, and then, "Who d' you s'pose," she asked, "who d'
+you s'pose sent <i>me</i> one jus' exactly like yours? It must be somebody
+that likes me jus' as I like you, Janey."
+</p><p>
+"Mrs. Banks wants you to go down to the parlor, Polly. There's some one
+to see you," a voice interrupted here.
+</p><p>
+"To see <i>me</i>?" cried Polly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes,&mdash;don't stop to bother,&mdash;run along." And Polly ran along as fast
+as her feet could carry her, wondering as she went who had come to see
+<i>her</i>, who had never in her life had a visitor before. At the foot of
+the stairs she stopped in shy alarm. Then she tiptoed across the hallway
+to the parlor threshold, and there she saw the lady who had been so kind
+to her in the shop.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed Polly, joyfully.
+</p><p>
+The lady laughed, and held out her hand. "Yes, it's I," she said. "Did
+Jane get the valentine all right, and did she like it?"
+</p><p>
+Polly nodded, and then burst out with the story of her own
+valentine,&mdash;"Jus' like Janey's!"
+</p><p>
+"And who d' you s'pose sent it?" she asked confidingly, nestling against
+the lady's knee.
+</p><p>
+"I think it must have been one of the good Saint Valentine's
+messengers," answered the lady.
+</p><p>
+Polly's eyes opened very wide. "Saint Valentine! Tell me 'bout him," she
+said.
+</p><p>
+"A very wise man has told about him,&mdash;a man by the name of
+Wheatley,&mdash;and he says that this Valentine was a good bishop who lived
+long ago, and so famous for his love and charity that after he died he
+was called Saint Valentine, and a festival was held on his birthday,
+when all the people would send love tokens to their friends."
+</p><p>
+Polly's face was radiant. "Oh, I <i>thought</i> Valentine was a somebody very
+good, and that Valentine's Day was his birthday. I asked Jane if 't
+wasn't. Oh, Janey, Janey!" running to the foot of the stairs in her
+excitement, "come down and hear 'bout Saint Valentine!"
+</p><p>
+"Polly!" said Mrs. Banks, reprovingly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, don't stop her," cried the lady. "I like to hear her, and I want to
+see Janey." After this there was nothing for Mrs. Banks to do but to
+send for Jane. As the strong, womanly-looking girl entered the room, a
+new idea entered the lady's mind. "It's the very thing," she said to
+herself,&mdash;"the very thing." At that instant carriage wheels were heard
+at the door, and the bell was rung sharply and impatiently. "Oh, it must
+be my Elise," said the lady.
+</p><p>
+The next instant the door was opened, and in hopped&mdash;that is the only
+word to use&mdash;a little lame girl of ten or eleven, lifting herself along
+by a crutch. She was very pale, and her eyes were sunken with suffering;
+but she looked about her with a smile, and said in a quick, lively
+way,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I got tired of driving 'round the square waiting for you, mamma; so I
+thought I'd come in."
+</p><p>
+"I'm glad you did; I wanted you to see&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I know&mdash;Polly! Mamma 's told me all about you, Polly, you and Jane and
+the valentine; and that's Jane. How do you do, Polly? how do you do,
+Jane?" nodding and laughing at them in a way that made Polly and Jane
+laugh too, whereupon this odd little girl exclaimed, "That's right,
+laugh, do! I like laughy folks;" and then, as she said this, her little
+figure swayed and would have fallen, if Jane, who was very quick of
+motion, hadn't sprung forward and caught her in her arms. The girl's
+face was all puckered up into little wrinkles of pain; but as soon as
+she could speak, she said, "Aren't you strong, though, Jane!"
+</p><p>
+Jane couldn't say a word, but Polly piped out, "If I let you have my
+valentine to look at a little while, do you think you'd feel better?"
+</p><p>
+"Lots, Polly, lots. Mamma told me about you; and when you come to stay
+with us, you'll be a regular treat."
+</p><p>
+"Stay with you?" cried Polly, wonderingly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes; what," turning to her mother, "haven't you asked her yet, mamma?"
+</p><p>
+"No; I've only talked with Mrs. Banks."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I'll talk to Polly. Polly, we've been looking for a nice little
+girl like you to come and stay at our house. I'm lame, and I can't do
+much. When mamma came home and told me about you and the bank and the
+paint-box and the valentine, I said, 'That's the girl for me; let's go
+and ask her to come.' And <i>won't</i> you come, Polly?"
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I'd like to if&mdash;if Jane can come too."
+</p><p>
+"Don't. Polly. I can't&mdash;I can't!" whispered Jane.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried the lame Elise, entreatingly.
+</p><p>
+"Mamma" turned to Mrs. Banks. "If she <i>would</i> only come and help
+us,&mdash;come and try us, at least,&mdash;I'm sure we could make satisfactory
+arrangements."
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Banks nodded, and smiled approval. "Of course Jane can go if she
+chooses."
+</p><p>
+"And you <i>will</i> choose,&mdash;you will, won't you, Jane?"
+</p><p>
+"Course she will," cried Polly; and then everybody laughed, and
+everything was as good as settled from that moment. Then it was that
+Polly burst out, "I should be puffickly happy now if I only knew jus'
+who that mess'nger was that sent my valentine."
+</p><p>
+"Tell her, mamma, tell her!" called out Elise; and "mamma" bent down,
+and said to Polly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"It was somebody who saw what a loving heart a certain little girl had
+when she chose to give up her paint-box to buy her dear Jane a
+valentine."
+</p><p>
+"'Twas you, 'twas you!" cried Polly, joyfully. "Oh, I jus' love
+Valentine's Day, and I knew it must be Somebody's birfday,&mdash;some very
+good Somebody!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Sibyl">SIBYL'S SLIPPER.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus152.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus152s.png"
+ alt="W" width="165" height="137" align="left"></a><br>
+hen Sir William Howe succeeded General Gage as governor and military
+commander of the New England province, he at once set to work to make
+himself and the King's cause popular in a social way by giving a series
+of fine entertainments in the stately Province House.
+</p><p>
+To these entertainments were bidden all the Boston townsfolk who were
+loyal to the British crown. Amongst such, none were more prominent or
+made more welcome than Mr. Jeffrey Merridew and his pretty young niece,
+Sibyl.
+</p><p>
+Mr. Merridew was a stanch royalist, though he was by no means a violent
+hater of the rebels. Many of them were his old friends and neighbors;
+and his only brother, Dr. Ephraim Merridew,&mdash;Sibyl's father,&mdash;was a
+rebel at heart, though in far-away Barbadoes, where he was at that time
+engaged in business, he could not serve the rebel cause in person, as he
+would gladly have done. But he left behind him a son who, in full
+sympathy with his father's views, ranged himself boldly on the rebel
+side, as part and parcel of the American army.
+</p><p>
+A rebel relative in Barbadoes was not a matter to trouble oneself about
+greatly, but a rebel relative on the spot, so to speak,&mdash;for young
+Ephraim was only four miles away at the Cambridge rallying-ground,&mdash;was
+a different thing; and, amiable and easy-going as Mr. Jeffrey Merridew
+was disposed to be, his nephew's close proximity could not, under the
+peculiar circumstances, but be embarrassing and disturbing on occasions;
+for the young man, besides being his nephew, was Sibyl's brother, and
+Sibyl, as a member of a royalist's family,&mdash;for her father on his
+departure for Barbadoes had left his motherless girl in her uncle's
+charge,&mdash;could not, of course, be allowed free intercourse with one who
+had placed himself in an attitude of active hostility to the royal
+cause.
+</p><p>
+When Sibyl was apprised of this dictum, she at once made passionate
+protest against it. "What harm do the King's soldiers think poor Eph can
+do them by now and then paying a visit to his sister?" she asked her
+uncle scornfully.
+</p><p>
+"Harm? You are very young, Sibyl, and don't understand these things.
+Your brother has chosen very foolishly to join the rebel forces, and so
+has made himself one of our acknowledged enemies; and I never heard of
+declared enemies in time of war walking in and out of each other's
+houses like tame cats," answered Mr. Merridew, sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+"But Eph, such a boy as Eph, only nineteen, only two years older than I!
+What harm could he do now, more than he has ever done, by coming to his
+uncle's house as a visitor?" still persisted Sibyl, rather foolishly.
+</p><p>
+"What harm!" exclaimed Mr. Merridew, impatiently. "What a child you are,
+Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal
+government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that
+he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to
+see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if reported to his
+officers?"
+</p><p>
+"You think Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in
+high indignation.
+</p><p>
+"Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with
+irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting
+of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war
+tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'"
+</p><p>
+"And would you&mdash;would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a
+visitor,&mdash;would you&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything
+worth telling,&mdash;anything that I thought would save the cause I believed
+to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be
+my duty to do it."
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious
+business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels,
+like&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew
+hesitated.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded
+her uncle, gravely.
+</p><p>
+"No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame.
+They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play.
+It is the King's folk who are to blame,&mdash;the King's folk who want to
+oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater
+grandeur."
+</p><p>
+Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst.
+Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he
+said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these
+are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none
+too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong
+boy."
+</p><p>
+"But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother.
+They are his principles, and they are my principles too!"
+</p><p>
+"Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely
+tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an
+assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great
+laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy,
+to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see
+if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have
+those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her
+principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew."
+</p><p>
+"Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that."
+</p><p>
+"You will not promise? But you <i>have</i> promised."
+</p><p>
+"<i>Have</i> promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting
+yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a
+little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant
+beauty.
+</p><p>
+But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little
+provincial,&mdash;not he; and so, lifting up <i>his</i> head with an air of
+hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a
+moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged
+her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her
+to-night."
+</p><p>
+Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at
+her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"But I never reflect."
+</p><p>
+"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but
+perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance
+upon this"&mdash;and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted
+card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was
+written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised
+to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if
+they are to be had in the town!"
+</p><p>
+Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers&mdash;Sir Harry's
+roses&mdash;to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said,
+with a gleam of fun in her eyes,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for <i>him</i> to recall his friends
+and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an
+untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about
+with her, to charge <i>her</i> mind unaided."
+</p><p>
+"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath
+extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration
+of her ready wit,&mdash;"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss
+Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As
+I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he
+held out his hand to her.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0334" href="images/Illus0334s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0334t.jpg"
+ alt="A very pretty pair" width="261" height="335"></a><br>
+<i>A very pretty pair</i></p>
+<p>
+"A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as
+the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as
+the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his
+post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they
+would stand a test."
+</p><p>
+Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his
+one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about
+"our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the
+test against a full regiment of regulars."
+</p><p>
+"Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great
+interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge
+have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in
+a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us
+successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth
+if they attempt it."
+</p><p>
+"And you&mdash;the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl.
+</p><p>
+"We&mdash;well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions
+of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a
+vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah,"
+with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of
+this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a
+prize!"
+</p><p>
+"But there is no possibility of this?"
+</p><p>
+"Not the slightest. But you are pale,&mdash;don't be alarmed; there is no
+danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are
+certain."
+</p><p>
+"But if they had?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business
+better than their landsmen."
+</p><p>
+All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the
+music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way
+at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his
+companion falter.
+</p><p>
+"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
+</p><p>
+"My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she
+spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel
+of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night.
+For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not
+<i>he</i> do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a
+slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must
+be hammered and fitted on.
+</p><p>
+But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. <i>Something could</i> be
+done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She
+needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry&mdash;on his
+way to his quarters that night&mdash;would he think it beneath his dignity to
+leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there
+by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the
+shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box
+by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon
+it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish
+job, she knew.
+</p><p>
+Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her
+bidding.
+</p><p>
+And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to
+the cloak-room for a moment?
+</p><p>
+Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles.
+Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her
+pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken
+cord that had held her fan.
+</p><p>
+"And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry,
+smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later.
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps, if I may depend upon you&mdash;and Anthony Styles," she answered.
+Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like
+red twin roses.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<blockquote style="font-size:10pt; margin-left:40%;">
+  Robe of satin and Brussels lace,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">    Knots of flowers and ribbons too,</span><br>
+  Scattered about in every place,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">    For the revel is through.</span>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+And there, in the midst of all this pretty disorder of satin and lace
+and flowers, sits Sibyl, far into the night, or rather morning, turning
+over and over in her mind something that effectually banishes sleep.
+</p><p>
+By and by, as she turns it over for the twentieth time, she says aloud
+to herself: "To think that it should be given to <i>me</i> to do,&mdash;made <i>my</i>
+duty! Uncle Jeffrey taught me that, as he has taught me many things
+these past months,&mdash;to keep my own counsel, for one thing.
+</p><p>
+"Ah, Uncle Jeffrey, you have fancied me all these months naught but a
+vain little puppet who could be led to forget anything in a round of
+routs and balls. Well, I like the routs and balls dearly, dearly, but I
+like something else better. I like what my father has taught us, what
+my dear Eph is going to fight for, and perhaps die for, far, far better.
+Yet I felt like a cheat to-night as I led Sir Harry on to tell me what
+he did,&mdash;Sir Harry, who thinks me, as all the rest do, a stanch little
+Tory, for I have kept my counsel indeed, and no one suspects. But oh, it
+is odious, it is odious, this war business; yet I have been taught how
+to do my duty, and I have done it. Yes, I have done my duty, for 'the
+reporting of important facts, however gained, in times of war, is part
+of war tactics.' Yes, these are your words, Uncle Jeffrey, and oh, how
+they flashed up to me to-night when Sir Harry told me of the British
+vessel, and how they fairly rung in my ears like an order, when it
+suddenly came to me how I could get this important fact that I had
+gained sent to the right quarter by means of good Anthony Styles and
+that parcel-box of his, through which so many messages have gone safely.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh, if I didn't shiver so, when I think
+of it! Sir Harry, Sir Harry of all persons, dropping that message into
+Anthony Styles's hands,&mdash;Anthony Styles, the stanch rebel whom they
+think a stanch Tory! Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh! And now if
+everything goes well,&mdash;if everything goes well, my dear rebels will not
+be swept off the earth by British arms quite yet!
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0336" href="images/Illus0336s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0336t.jpg"
+ alt="Sibyl's reflections" width="358" height="259"></a><br>
+<i>Sibyl's reflections</i></p>
+<p>
+"But, hark! that is the clock; it is striking one, and I out of bed and
+gabbling to myself in this foolish way of mine, 'like a play-acting
+woman,' as Uncle Jeffrey would say of me. But I will not stay up a
+minute longer. So good-night, good-night, my dear rebels, g&mdash;ood-night!"
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 30%;">
+<p>
+The clock was striking four the next afternoon when a weather-beaten
+man, who had a look as if he had once been a seaman, knocked at the side
+door of Mr. Jeffrey Merridew's mansion and asked to see young Mistress
+Merridew.
+</p><p>
+"It's Shoemaker Styles," the maid informed Sibyl, "and he says you must
+come down and try on the slipper he has brought; he's not sure about the
+heel. He's in the hall-room, mem."
+</p><p>
+It was with a wildly beating heart that Sibyl, obeying this summons, ran
+down to the little hall-room where Anthony Styles awaited her.
+</p><p>
+He stood with the slipper in his hand as she entered the room; and
+before he could close the door behind her, he called out in a frank,
+loud voice: "I thought you had better try on the shoe, miss; I wasn't
+sure of the heel."
+</p><p>
+The moment the door was closed, however, he came forward eagerly, and in
+a low tone said: "It's all right, little mistress. I heard the click of
+the tunnel-box last night, for I hadn't turned in, and afore many
+minutes I was up and off in my boat with the message in my head; I burnt
+the paper! There was a stiff breeze, and I reached the cutter in the
+quickest time I ever made, and got back afore daylight with nobody the
+wiser. Shoemaker Styles understands his old sailor business better than
+shoemaking," with a grim laugh, "and no Tory knows these waters as I
+do."
+</p><p>
+"And it's all right, and the end will be all right?" faltered Sibyl,
+anxiously.
+</p><p>
+"All right! You'll know for yourself by nightfall, perhaps; and now God
+bless you, little mistress. You've done a great service; and if ever
+Anthony Styles can sarve you, he'll do it with a whole heart,&mdash;God bless
+you, God bless you!" and with these words Shoemaker Styles hurried off,
+leaving Sibyl with the slipper still in her hand, and both of them quite
+oblivious of that important trying-on process.
+</p><p>
+The day after the ball was a busy one for Sir Harry Willing, and it was
+not until late in the afternoon that he felt himself at liberty to take
+his accustomed saunter about town.
+</p><p>
+As he came in sight of the gilded boot, he smilingly thought: "I wonder
+if Shoemaker Styles has done his duty by the little slipper; if he has,
+I shall dance with my lady Sibyl at Madame Boutineau's this evening."
+</p><p>
+But Sir Harry did not dance at Madame Boutineau's that evening, for when
+at nightfall he returned to his quarters, he was met by the disastrous
+tidings that the long-looked for, eagerly expected British brig, loaded
+with supplies for the King's army, had been captured off Lechmere's
+Point by the Yankee rebels.
+</p><p>
+It was not many months after this capture that the British evacuated
+Boston. When Sir Harry Willing took leave of Sibyl Merridew, he pleaded
+for some token of remembrance.
+</p><p>
+"You will not promise yourself to me," he said in reproachful accents,
+"but give me some token of yourself, some gage of amity at least."
+</p><p>
+"But what&mdash;what can I give you, Sir Harry?" asked Sibyl, not a little
+touched and troubled.
+</p><p>
+"Give me the little slipper you wore that night we danced together at
+the Province House."
+</p><p>
+"That&mdash;that slipper?" and Sibyl blushed and paled.
+</p><p>
+"Yes&mdash;ah, you will, you will."
+</p><p>
+A moment's hesitation; then with a strange smile, half grave, half gay,
+Sibyl answered, "I will."
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Samaritan">A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus170.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus170s.png"
+ alt="I" width="191" height="225" align="left"></a><br><br>
+t was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in
+their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their
+lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke,
+with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and
+exclaimed, "We <i>can't</i> be good as they were in those Bible days, no
+matter <i>what</i> anybody says; things are different."
+</p><p>
+"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"
+</p><p>
+Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who
+had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and
+bound up his wounds and took care of him.
+</p><p>
+"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of
+a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those
+particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to
+people who are in trouble,&mdash;people who need things done for them."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have
+now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable
+societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see
+them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."
+</p><p>
+"We can do some things in vacations,&mdash;get up fairs and things of that
+kind, and give the money to the poor."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the
+money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that
+all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our
+eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was
+keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected <i>me</i> to
+do."
+</p><p>
+"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any
+more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,&mdash;five
+minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid
+is so frowzely."
+</p><p>
+"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you
+used to?"
+</p><p>
+"I told you why yesterday,&mdash;because that Burr girl has made me sick of
+curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd
+make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came
+out with that fiery thing of hers. <i>Isn't</i> it horrid?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, horrid!"
+</p><p>
+A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the
+supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the
+dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a
+heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied
+back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery
+red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could
+have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside
+her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls,
+her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every
+movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the
+reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to
+go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she
+crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer.
+Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey
+tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the
+end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat,
+tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This
+was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up
+with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a
+little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so
+careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.
+</p><p>
+"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this
+term; but there's <i>one</i> thing I'm not going to do any more,&mdash;I'm not
+going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she <i>does</i> dress
+so!" concluded Janey.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She
+chooses her things herself," said Eva.
+</p><p>
+"No!" exclaimed Janey.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what
+she likes."
+</p><p>
+"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things!
+Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"
+</p><p>
+"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She <i>has</i> lived 'way off
+out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army
+officer of some kind."
+</p><p>
+"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a
+voice outside the door.
+</p><p>
+"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night,
+good-night."
+</p><p>
+The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great
+hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered
+as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that
+seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in
+her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little
+Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled
+when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice
+went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her
+age,&mdash;their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that
+Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,&mdash;Miss Vincent,
+in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do&mdash;oh, so much!
+You are thinking of only one way of doing,&mdash;helping the poor, visiting
+people in need. I <i>don't</i> think you can do much of that. I think that
+<i>is</i> mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your
+own,&mdash;a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day
+and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through
+such suffering once,&mdash;was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let
+me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was
+between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent
+to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So
+when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst
+themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly
+way and laughing at <i>me</i>, and I immediately straightened up and put on a
+stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only
+prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became
+very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided
+way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a
+while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to
+conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still
+misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at
+this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other
+girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the
+whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were
+down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't
+stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to
+worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them
+like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,&mdash;forgot everything but my
+desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even
+conflict,&mdash;thirty girls against one; and at length I did something
+dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my
+ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three
+of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against
+them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that,
+and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated
+me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that
+I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the
+ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the
+details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening
+of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the
+dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers
+to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all
+of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not
+even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was
+natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't
+remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me
+away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."
+</p><p>
+"They were horrid girls,&mdash;horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.
+</p><p>
+"No; they were like any ordinary girls who <i>don't think</i>. But you see
+how different everything might have been if only <i>one</i> of them had
+thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been
+suffering, and"&mdash;smiling down upon Eva&mdash;"been a good Samaritan to me."
+</p><p>
+"They were horrid, or they <i>would</i> have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm
+sure <i>I</i> don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."
+</p><p>
+"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was
+silent.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head,
+Eva; and you never get things right,&mdash;never!"
+</p><p>
+"I think you are very unkind."
+</p><p>
+"Well, you can think so. <i>I</i> think&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;"
+then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller
+entered.
+</p><p>
+"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.
+</p><p>
+"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.
+</p><p>
+"Cordelia Burr?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with
+her."
+</p><p>
+"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her.
+When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking
+of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with <i>her</i>, as
+those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."
+</p><p>
+"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.
+</p><p>
+Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it
+into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we
+are like those horrid girls."
+</p><p>
+"Not like them; not as bad as they were, <i>yet</i>; but we might be if we
+kept on, maybe."
+</p><p>
+"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet,
+pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and
+we&mdash;I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like
+Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls
+do."
+</p><p>
+"But you&mdash;we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't
+dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of
+things that we were in, a good many times."
+</p><p>
+"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so
+disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never
+in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in
+everything else it's just the same."
+</p><p>
+"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."
+</p><p>
+"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.
+</p><p>
+"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and
+independent as she can be."
+</p><p>
+"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are
+not on the wrong track with her; and I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take
+notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be
+pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just
+one thing more: I'll say, if you <i>do</i> begin this, you'll have to do it
+alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of
+the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and
+a nice time you'll have of it."
+</p><p>
+Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for
+she was choking with tears,&mdash;tears that presently found vent in "a good
+cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.
+</p><p>
+What should she do? What <i>could</i> she do with all the girls against her?
+If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss
+Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.
+</p><p>
+Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very
+sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that
+could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the
+same impression upon Alice,&mdash;that Alice had not seen in it, as she had,
+a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was
+Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest
+of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might&mdash;it might
+make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more,
+to&mdash;to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter
+would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her
+task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss
+Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."
+</p><p>
+About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the
+other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.
+</p><p>
+"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this
+time; she is so fond of the gym."
+</p><p>
+"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day,"
+whispered Janey.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have&mdash;But there
+she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here
+and try the bars with us."
+</p><p>
+Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this
+pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody,
+and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward
+and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment
+everything that was unpleasant.
+</p><p>
+There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined
+plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung
+down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track,
+as they called it.
+</p><p>
+They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came
+in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried
+forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice
+gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and,
+pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who
+had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even
+to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was
+accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track
+there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem
+enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and
+heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a
+different aspect. But what&mdash;what ought she to do? What <i>could</i> she do
+then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls,
+and Alice&mdash;Alice specially&mdash;would be <i>so</i> angry. Oh, no, no, she
+couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came
+to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face
+flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.
+</p><p>
+"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed
+again through Eva's mind.
+</p><p>
+"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace
+faltered here.
+</p><p>
+Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was
+going towards the door.
+</p><p>
+"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.
+</p><p>
+But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and
+dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"
+</p><p>
+Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.
+</p><p>
+Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia!
+Cordelia!"
+</p><p>
+The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What
+was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and
+Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,&mdash;even they
+wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant
+she cried breathlessly, "We&mdash;I&mdash;didn't mean to crowd you out; it&mdash;it
+wasn't fair; and&mdash;and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia,
+won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot
+everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary
+admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did&mdash;<i>against them
+all</i>! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and
+her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to
+start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take
+place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most
+unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn
+with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish,
+independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer.
+Instead of that&mdash;instead of coldness and haughty independence&mdash;they saw
+her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then,
+dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of
+tears,&mdash;not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that,
+like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart
+after long repression.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia,
+"don't, don't cry."
+</p><p>
+Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but
+as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her
+head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching
+saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe
+away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!
+don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning
+sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking
+voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret
+gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and
+one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed
+fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they
+passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to
+Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what
+they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately,
+"Oh, girls, I should think&mdash;" and then broke down completely, and bowed
+her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody
+else took up her words,&mdash;the very words she had used a second
+ago,&mdash;somebody else whispered,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder,
+and she looked up to see&mdash;Alice King standing beside her. And then it
+seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of
+them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly
+piped out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"We&mdash;we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."
+</p><p>
+And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered
+out: "Care? How&mdash;how could I hel&mdash;help caring?"
+</p><p>
+"But we thought&mdash;we thought you didn't like us," said another,
+hesitatingly.
+</p><p>
+"And I&mdash;I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise
+me more if&mdash;if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little
+sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and
+then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong
+track."
+</p><p>
+Just here a bell in the hall&mdash;the signal to those in the gymnasium that
+their half-hour was up&mdash;rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and
+repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses
+and prepare for dinner.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms
+around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.
+</p><p>
+"Good? Don't&mdash;don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.
+</p><p>
+"But you <i>were</i>. I&mdash;I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+Alice now flung <i>her</i> arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug,
+as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I&mdash;I've been&mdash;a
+little fiend, I suppose, and I <i>was</i> horridly angry at first; but when
+I&mdash;I saw how&mdash;that Cordelia really was&mdash;that she really felt what she
+did, I&mdash;oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood
+mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, <i>there's</i> a little
+Samaritan."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Alice!"
+</p><p>
+"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by
+liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though
+I'm going to behave myself, and <i>bear</i> with her, I shall never come up
+to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she <i>does</i> dress so! I'm
+going to behave myself, though, I am,&mdash;I am; but I hope she won't expect
+too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's
+too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress
+and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but
+she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if
+she doesn't."
+</p><p>
+And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much
+in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like
+another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her
+self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and
+apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a
+girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere,
+and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so
+far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by
+it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She <i>does</i> dress
+so!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Esther">ESTHER BODN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus191.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus191s.png"
+ alt="O" width="182" height="292" align="left"></a><br><br><br>
+h, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and
+dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and
+papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told
+me to ask you."
+</p><p>
+"If it was any other evening."
+</p><p>
+"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"
+</p><p>
+"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."
+</p><p>
+"Esther Bodn!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I
+fixed Thursday,&mdash;to-morrow."
+</p><p>
+"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,&mdash;that mamma and
+papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I
+shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't want to do that, Kitty."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"
+</p><p>
+"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't
+want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very
+ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a
+visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,&mdash;that
+you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,&mdash;and
+Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."
+</p><p>
+"But that was different, Kitty."
+</p><p>
+"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Kitty, you <i>know</i>."
+</p><p>
+"But I <i>don't</i> know."
+</p><p>
+Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation
+she said: "Esther is&mdash;is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she
+doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,&mdash;quite poor, Kitty."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately
+responded Kitty.
+</p><p>
+"Now, Kitty, you <i>do</i> see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't
+visit the people that we do."
+</p><p>
+"She doesn't visit <i>anybody</i>, so far as I know."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when
+she and her mother have made preparations for company&mdash;even one
+person&mdash;it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience
+to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to
+do it."
+</p><p>
+"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?"
+asked Kitty, sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way,
+but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that
+Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother
+wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."
+</p><p>
+"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor,
+like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in
+a wondering tone.
+</p><p>
+"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with
+decision.
+</p><p>
+"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should be sent to Miss
+Milwood's school. I shouldn't think they could afford it," went on
+Kitty; "why, the place for her is a public school."
+</p><p>
+"But, Kitty, don't you know that Esther assists Miss Milwood,&mdash;that it
+is Esther who looks over all the French and German exercises, and makes
+the first corrections before mademoiselle takes them?"
+</p><p>
+"Esther Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes,&mdash;why, Esther, you must have noticed, is very proficient in French
+and German. She and her mother have lived abroad and here, in French and
+German families, to prepare her for being a teacher. She has a great
+natural aptitude, too, for languages."
+</p><p>
+"How in the world did you find all this out, Laura?"
+</p><p>
+"I didn't <i>find it out</i>, as you call it,&mdash;there is no secret about
+it,&mdash;Esther would no doubt have told you as much, if you had got as well
+acquainted with her as I have."
+</p><p>
+"I don't see how you came to get so well acquainted with her. She's nice
+enough, but I could always see that she wasn't like the rest of us,&mdash;of
+our set."
+</p><p>
+"Like the rest of us! She's just as good as the rest of us, and better
+than some of us."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I dare say," said Kitty, in a patronizing tone.
+</p><p>
+"She may not be of our set, as you say, Kitty; but when I think of how
+Maud and Florence Aplin talk sometimes, I don't feel very proud of
+belonging to 'our set.'"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are
+nice girls, and it is a nice family, mamma says."
+</p><p>
+"Every one seems to say that about them, and I've often wondered what
+they meant. I'm sure Mr. Aplin isn't very nice. He has no end of money,
+I know, but he can be so rude, and Mrs. Aplin is so patronizing. Now,
+why should they be called such 'nice people'?"
+</p><p>
+Kitty straightened herself up, put on a very knowing look, and repeated
+parrot-like what she had heard older persons say,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Mrs. Aplin was a Windlow."
+</p><p>
+"What in the world is a Windlow?" asked Laura, rather sarcastically.
+</p><p>
+Kitty was a worldly young woman, but she was also full of fun; and this
+question of Laura's amused her mightily, and with a suppressed giggle
+she answered demurely: "I think it has something to do with windows. The
+Windlows were English, and I believe their business was to open and shut
+the windows in the king's palaces,&mdash;perhaps to wash them. This all began
+ages ago, and it was considered a great honor, a tip-top thing to do,
+especially when the windows were high up. The honor has descended from
+generation to generation, and the name with it, I believe. They had some
+very ordinary name at the start."
+</p><p>
+The giggle, that had been suppressed up to this point, now burst forth
+in a shout of laughter, wherein Laura herself joined, exclaiming, as she
+did so, "Oh, Kitty, you are so ridiculous!"
+</p><p>
+"Why don't you make a rhyme and say, 'Oh, Kitty, you're so witty'? But,
+Laura, it is you who are odd and ridiculous, to pretend that you don't
+know that Windlow is one of the oldest names of one of the oldest
+families who came over to America in the Mayflower,&mdash;regular old
+aristocrats."
+</p><p>
+"Now, Kitty, I'm up in my history, if I'm not on this society stuff, and
+just let me tell you that those first settlers of America who came over
+in the Mayflower were <i>not</i> aristocrats."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Laura, when everybody who can, brags of a Mayflower ancestor! I
+heard Mrs. Arkwright say to mamma, the other day that the Aplins were of
+the real old Mayflower blue blood."
+</p><p>
+"Then Mrs. Arkwright, with the 'everybody' you tell of, doesn't know
+what history says."
+</p><p>
+"Why, I'm sure I thought that was history."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it isn't. Last year I went with my father to Plymouth, and he
+took me to the famous rock where the Mayflower pilgrims landed, and
+afterward he gave me a lovely book called 'The Olden Time,' by Edmund
+Sears, that told me all about the pilgrims,&mdash;who they were, and why they
+came over, and everything, and I remember it said in this book that the
+Plymouth pilgrims were constantly confounded&mdash;those were the very
+words&mdash;with the Puritans who came over nine years later to
+Massachusetts."
+</p><p>
+"But Plymouth is in Massachusetts."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I know, but it wasn't in that day. It was simply Plymouth Colony.
+The Mayflower sailed by Cape Cod into Plymouth Bay. They named the bay
+Plymouth, as they named the town Plymouth, for the old Plymouth in
+England."
+</p><p>
+"Did they name Cape Cod too?"
+</p><p>
+"No; that name was given years before by Captain Gosnold, an early
+voyager."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I know, he caught such a lot of codfish there. I wish he'd never
+discovered the place; I hate codfish. But go on with your history
+lesson, Miss Brooks. I haven't any Mayflower ancestors, and so I'm more
+than resigned to have them taken down from their aristocratic peg."
+</p><p>
+"But they were lovely people,&mdash;lovely; kind and good to everybody,
+whether they believed as they did or not, for they had been persecuted
+themselves in the old country they had left for their opinions, and they
+meant that every one in the new country should worship as they pleased.
+They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says,
+'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who
+came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the
+aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the
+Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and
+interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of
+strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of
+'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was
+bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New
+England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think
+that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."
+</p><p>
+Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's
+astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls
+were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura
+looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call
+out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, "<i>What</i> is
+such larks?"
+</p><p>
+Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have
+pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful
+little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only&mdash;what does
+your history book say? Oh, I have it&mdash;'from the middle and humbler walks
+of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors&mdash;can't you see
+that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little
+bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these
+Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"
+</p><p>
+"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"
+</p><p>
+"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought,
+and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,&mdash;that if it wasn't for
+that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now&mdash;and now, Brooksie, I
+shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of
+perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed
+full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact,
+even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"
+</p><p>
+"I haven't neglected you."
+</p><p>
+"Well, snubbed me, then."
+</p><p>
+"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther;
+that's all."
+</p><p>
+"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura&mdash;Esther
+Bodn&mdash;Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"I don't think it's horrid at all. I like it."
+</p><p>
+"B-o-d-n&mdash;Bodn&mdash;it sounds awfully common."
+</p><p>
+"Why, Kitty, it's spelled B-o-w-d-o-i-n, the same as our Bowdoin Street,
+and pronounced Bod'n, as that is!"
+</p><p>
+"Is it, really? I didn't know that."
+</p><p>
+"I'm sure Bowdoin Street sounds well enough."
+</p><p>
+"Well, yes, I've always rather liked the sound of it; but then, you
+know, I always <i>saw</i> and <i>felt</i> the spelling, when I saw it. What in the
+world was the pronunciation ever snipped off like that for? It ought to
+be pronounced just as it is spelled. I've a good mind to pronounce it so
+the next time I speak to Esther."
+</p><p>
+"No, I wouldn't do that; but you might <i>think</i> of her as Miss Bowdoin,"
+answered Laura, dryly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Laura, what a head full of wisdom you've got! I don't see how I
+ever lived without you. But&mdash;see here, tell me what street Miss Bowdoin
+lives in."
+</p><p>
+Laura hesitated a moment; then answered, "McVane Street."
+</p><p>
+"Where is McVane Street, for pity's sake? I never heard of it,&mdash;one of
+those horrid South End streets, I suppose?"
+</p><p>
+"No, it is at the West End, beyond Cambridge Street, down by the
+Massachusetts Hospital."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, Laura Brooks, you <i>don't</i> mean that she lives down there by the
+wharves?"
+</p><p>
+"It isn't by the wharves," cried Laura, indignantly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, it isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets,
+given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going
+to take tea with a girl who lives in that frowsy, dirty place!"
+</p><p>
+"It isn't frowsy and dirty. It's only an old, unfashionable street, but
+not frowsy or dirty. It's quite clean and quiet, and has shade-trees and
+little grass plots to some of the houses. Why, it used to be the court
+end of the town years ago."
+</p><p>
+"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now
+it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,&mdash;Russian Jews, and every
+other kind of a foreigner,&mdash;and look here!" suddenly interrupting
+herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this
+Esther Bodn is a foreigner,&mdash;an emigrant herself of some sort."
+</p><p>
+"Kitty!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,&mdash;eight-buttoned ones,&mdash;and I don't
+believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe
+they&mdash;her mother and she&mdash;spell it that way <i>to suit themselves</i>. I
+believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,&mdash;it's
+slander."
+</p><p>
+Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little
+undertone,&mdash;
+</p>
+<blockquote>
+  "Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief<br>
+   Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."
+</blockquote>
+<p class="cont">Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the
+laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Laura, how <i>did</i> it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?"
+interrupted Kitty.
+</p><p>
+"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston
+Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out
+with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying
+some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my
+offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon
+Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books,
+and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'
+</p><p>
+"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with
+you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I
+didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with
+her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a
+mistake,&mdash;that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how
+to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my
+insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge
+Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,&mdash;she felt
+sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.
+</p><p>
+"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so
+sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take
+no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to
+me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she
+went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and
+second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so
+thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over
+and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds
+of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I
+said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the
+street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country
+there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked
+old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly
+painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one
+of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over
+the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I
+felt,&mdash;that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there,
+and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking
+the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second,
+as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to
+come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,&mdash;that they were
+very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come
+very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty,
+laughing.
+</p><p>
+"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set
+the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but
+she is a very interesting girl,&mdash;my mother thinks she is too."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"
+</p><p>
+"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see
+the pictures,&mdash;she's very fond of pictures,&mdash;and mamma asked her to stay
+to luncheon, but she couldn't."
+</p><p>
+"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to
+sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"
+</p><p>
+"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her
+brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute
+she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was
+calling after her mischievously,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl
+who lives on McVane Street!"
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so
+completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything
+else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the
+"Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean
+by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"
+</p><p>
+"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,&mdash;Esther Bodn."
+</p><p>
+"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's
+school?"
+</p><p>
+"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's
+assistance in the way of the French and German.
+</p><p>
+"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this,
+as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject
+from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while
+Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her
+brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might
+find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I
+shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says
+that I may."
+</p><p>
+But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next
+day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the
+young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter
+altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little
+journey to McVane Street.
+</p><p>
+Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she
+was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might
+be in time for her own dinner hour,&mdash;had laughed and said, "Oh, a
+regular 'four-to-six,'&mdash;a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on
+'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish <i>I</i> could go with you,&mdash;I
+never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a
+little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone
+on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself,
+Laura had retorted,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't
+appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if
+the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane
+Street didn't happen to please your taste."
+</p><p>
+These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of
+the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a
+chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when
+she followed Esther up the stairs,&mdash;for it was Esther who had answered
+her ring,&mdash;and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought
+pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal
+fashion."
+</p><p>
+It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the
+stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a
+door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura,
+turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that
+by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for
+it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with
+the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up
+a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils,
+and two or three fine etchings,&mdash;all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly
+dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still
+brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples
+and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in
+the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness
+stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned
+tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups
+and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a
+'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could
+see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't
+mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she <i>does</i> live on
+McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more
+absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,&mdash;a little
+New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the
+Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation
+of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the
+country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know
+where to choose a home."
+</p><p>
+Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had
+chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more
+completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the
+windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs
+of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,&mdash;bits of
+coral and ivory and mosses,&mdash;things grew plainer than ever, and she
+began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and
+pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little
+women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just
+when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard
+Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0338" href="images/Illus0338s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0338t.jpg"
+ alt="A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting" width="360" height="258"></a><br>
+<i>A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting</i></p>
+<p>
+"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and
+Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little
+person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her
+daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that
+she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who&mdash;who was
+it she suggested?
+</p><p>
+All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where
+<i>had</i> she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her
+again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little
+third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where <i>had</i> she
+seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as
+the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the
+question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face,
+and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated
+expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura
+answered eagerly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by
+some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his
+library, and it is so like you, <i>so</i> like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I
+saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the
+sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was
+its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, <i>do</i> you know the picture,
+Mrs. Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not
+painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is
+now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."
+</p><p>
+"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"
+</p><p>
+"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was
+painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,&mdash;I was the
+model."
+</p><p>
+"You were a&mdash;a&mdash;the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I was a&mdash;a&mdash;the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own
+halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm.
+Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in
+Munich."
+</p><p>
+"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.
+</p><p>
+"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and
+see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being
+introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"&mdash;a tall, good-looking boy of
+fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next
+moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.
+Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying
+through Laura's mind,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her
+daughter's and her nephew's names,&mdash;Esther, David,&mdash;these also Hebrew
+names!" What did it signify? Kitty&mdash;Kitty would say that it proved <i>she</i>
+was right,&mdash;that they <i>were</i> the very people she had said they were.
+But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
+classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother <i>had</i> been a model years
+ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
+ashamed of it; and Esther,&mdash;Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
+be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
+no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
+would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
+foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
+as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
+Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
+the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
+carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
+when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
+walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
+happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
+friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
+words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
+passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
+like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.
+</p><p>
+What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
+exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
+was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
+brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
+by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
+Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
+little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
+of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
+disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
+injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
+heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
+often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
+fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly,
+that you seemed to like most of all,&mdash;
+</p><blockquote>
+  "'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth<br>
+    May bear the prize and a' that;'
+</blockquote>
+<p class="cont">"and yet now, now&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,&mdash;"my
+dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,&mdash;it is because we don't
+know anything about them."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I think it is because you <i>do</i> know that&mdash;that they live on McVane
+Street," faltered Laura.
+</p><p>
+"Well, that <i>is</i> to know nothing about them, in the sense that father
+means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that
+they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,&mdash;people
+that we don't <i>want</i> to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other
+day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your
+teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks
+who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."
+</p><p>
+"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than
+Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."
+</p><p>
+"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering
+little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish
+face."
+</p><p>
+"He has <i>not</i>," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It
+was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind
+that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that
+of her nephew rose before her! If they&mdash;if they&mdash;her brother, her
+father, could see these faces,&mdash;these faces so fine and intelligent, and
+saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's
+library,&mdash;would they feel differently,&mdash;would they do justice to Esther
+and her relations, though they <i>were</i> Jews,&mdash;would they admit that they
+were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no,
+she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind,
+and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive
+answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one
+class,&mdash;the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the
+lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the
+lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That
+great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there,
+Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the
+Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels
+Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and
+'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted
+her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of
+your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush
+into any intimacy with such strangers."
+</p><p>
+There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very
+plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that
+henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All
+her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming
+her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with
+the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be
+good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to
+her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She
+would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind
+and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in
+spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.
+Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got
+interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But,
+alas, for this scheme!
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She
+had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in
+near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then
+"made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura,
+airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn,
+in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the
+listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that
+every girl had passed from indifference to an active prejudice against
+Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed,
+Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,&mdash;"making
+fun;" and when the girls, relishing this "fun," laughed and applauded,
+she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura,
+however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther
+subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the
+person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon
+Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was
+apparently hard at work.
+</p><p>
+"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower;
+and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the
+exercises upon the desk.
+</p><p>
+"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always
+knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not
+unkind. Now&mdash;they&mdash;seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy,
+but&mdash;but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and&mdash;and
+sometimes they seem to avoid me, and&mdash;I'm just the same as ever,
+except&mdash;except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been
+rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some
+money,&mdash;not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have
+anything new; and&mdash;and there's another thing&mdash;one morning I overheard
+one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'
+They must have been talking about me and where I live. Nobody else here
+lives on McVane Street, and we&mdash;mother and I&mdash;wouldn't live there if we
+could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and
+this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could
+pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it <i>isn't</i> bad,
+it <i>isn't</i> low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I
+thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd
+always heard that Boston girls&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of
+any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick&mdash;sick of girls. Girls
+will do things and say things&mdash;little, mean, petty things&mdash;that boys
+would be ashamed to do or say."
+</p><p>
+"Then you <i>do</i> think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live
+that&mdash;that has made them&mdash;these girls so&mdash;so different; but why should
+they&mdash;all at once? I can't understand."
+</p><p>
+"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them&mdash;they don't
+mean&mdash;they don't know&mdash;they are not worth your notice. You are a long,
+long way above them!"
+</p><p>
+"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John
+Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,&mdash;he died in Munich; he
+was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my
+father's death,&mdash;we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew
+some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He
+didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious,
+hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and <i>he
+knew</i>, for <i>he</i> hadn't made a success any more than my father
+had,&mdash;and&mdash;and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane
+Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But <i>I</i> wanted to come
+from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was
+sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and
+high-minded, and&mdash;" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at
+this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with,
+"and then I knew my father's people had once&mdash;" But at this point,
+"Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises
+into my room, and we'll finish them together."
+</p><p>
+Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle,
+calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art
+Club?"
+</p><p>
+"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."
+</p><p>
+"Well, we'll go together, then."
+</p><p>
+"Very well."
+</p><p>
+"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice,
+"Laura, what <i>is</i> the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What
+have I done?"
+</p><p>
+"You've done a very cruel thing."
+</p><p>
+"Laura!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,&mdash;you have done a very cruel thing."
+</p><p>
+"For pity's sake, what do you mean?"
+</p><p>
+"You may well say 'for <i>pity's</i> sake;'" and then Laura burst forth and
+repeated, word for word, the conversation that had transpired between
+Esther and herself, concluding with, "And you&mdash;<i>you</i>, Kitty, are to
+blame for this, for it is you who have prejudiced the girls against
+Esther with your talk about McVane Street and the foreigners in that
+neighborhood."
+</p><p>
+"I? Just my little fun about McVane Street and your sunset tea there?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, just your little fun! I know what your fun is! Oh, Kitty, Kitty,
+I <i>did</i> think you had a kind heart! But to be the means of hurting
+anybody, as you have hurt Esther,&mdash;it is&mdash;it is&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Laura, Laura, don't," as Laura here broke down in a little fit of
+sobbing. "Of course I didn't know&mdash;I didn't think. Oh, dear, I'll tell
+the girls I didn't mean a word I said,&mdash;that I'm the biggest liar in
+town; that Esther is an heiress; that&mdash;that&mdash;oh, I'll do or say
+anything, if you'll only stop crying, Laura. There, there," as Laura
+tried to stifle a fresh sob, "that's right, take my handkerchief,&mdash;yours
+is sopping wet, and&mdash;My goodness, there comes Maud Aplin&mdash;she <i>must</i> not
+see us sniffing and sobbing like this, she'll say we've had a quarrel.
+Here, let us go into the little recitation-room, quick now, before she
+sees us."
+</p><p>
+And into the little recitation-room Laura was very willing to go and
+hide her tear-stained face from inquisitive eyes, while Kitty, penitent
+and overcome more by the spectacle of these tears than by a sense of her
+own shortcomings, followed briskly after, with this cheerful little
+running fire of remarks, anent the Art Club lecturer: "I'm just
+crazy&mdash;<i>crazy</i> to see this Monsieur Baudouin; for what do you think Flo
+Aplin says? That he is a real viscomte or marquis, or something of that
+sort, but that he came into his title only a year or two ago, and is
+much prouder of his reputation as an art authority and critic and his
+name, Pierre Baudouin,&mdash;it's his own name, you know,&mdash;and he won his
+reputation under that. The Aplins met him last year in Paris. Windlow
+Aplin, who is studying art there, just swears by him, and says the
+artists dote on him, and Flo says he is perfectly elegant. Etching is
+his great fad now, and he is going to lecture this afternoon on etching
+and etchers. Oh, I'm just crazy to see and hear him, aren't you?"
+</p><p>
+Laura had by this time conquered her tears, thanks to Kitty's
+adroitness, and, with a half-humorous, half-grateful appreciation of
+this adroitness, she thought to herself as she walked round to the Art
+Club with Kitty that afternoon, "Kitty <i>has</i> a good heart, after all."
+</p><p>
+The Art Club hall was quite full as they entered; but there were seats
+well down in front, and there they found most of the school girls under
+Miss Milwood's charge. Esther was one of this party; and Kitty made a
+great point of leaning forward and bowing to her with much graciousness.
+The next moment she was whispering to Laura, "There, didn't I behave
+prettily to Esther this time? You'll see now&mdash;" But at that instant a
+slender dark-eyed gentleman, accompanied by one of the artists, was seen
+coming rapidly up the aisle, and, "Look, look, there he is!" cried
+Kitty, "and <i>isn't</i> he elegant?"
+</p><p>
+And Laura looking, as she was told, found no reason to disagree with
+this comment.
+</p><p>
+"But I <i>do</i> hope," whispered the irrepressible Kitty again, as Monsieur
+Baudouin ascended the platform,&mdash;"I <i>do</i> hope he is as interesting as he
+looks; appearances are deceitful sometimes." But no one of that audience
+found Pierre Baudouin's appearance deceitful. He was more than
+interesting,&mdash;he was enthralling as he went on with his almost loving
+consideration of his subject, setting before his hearers, in a melodious
+voice and very good English, some of the results of his great knowledge
+and experience. You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying goes, so
+spell-bound was the audience; and at the end there was a warm outburst
+of applause, and then a gathering about him, as he left the platform,
+of the various artists, and others who were eager to speak with him. He
+was standing with this little group, when Laura, watching and listening
+just outside of it, heard him say, "There is a remarkable etching that I
+wish I could show you, for it proves completely the theory I have just
+placed before you. I saw it but once, in the artist's own studio, as I
+was passing through Munich. When a little later I heard that the artist
+was dead, and his effects for sale, I tried to buy the etching, but was
+told that it had been given to a friend, a Mr. John Wybern. Since then,
+I have learned that Mr. Wybern has also died, and I started again on my
+search; but it has been fruitless so far, though I still hope I may come
+across it, and be able, if not to add it to my collection, to examine it
+again. The artist, by the way, is the same one that painted that
+remarkable picture, 'Rebecca the Jewess.'"
+</p><p>
+Laura turned hastily around to look for Esther. She had not to look far.
+Esther was just behind her. "Esther, did you hear?" she asked.
+</p><p>
+Esther nodded.
+</p><p>
+"Do you know about the etching?"
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0340" href="images/Illus0340s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0340t.jpg"
+ alt="She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin" width="404" height="255"></a><br>
+<i>She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin</i></p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it hangs in our parlor. I wish I dared go forward now and tell
+him."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Esther, do, do!"
+</p><p>
+But Esther hung back. Then Laura obeyed an impulse that forever after
+filled her with astonishment. She pressed forward, and, before she had
+time to think twice, was addressing Monsieur Baudouin, and telling him
+what she knew.
+</p><p>
+"What! you can tell me where this etching is? You can take me to it?" he
+exclaimed, with a sort of joyful incredulity.
+</p><p>
+Laura answered by turning to Esther and saying. "This young lady can
+tell you more about it. The etching is in the possession of her family."
+</p><p>
+"Ah, and this young lady is&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+Laura reached back, seized Esther's hand, and pulled her to her side.
+</p><p>
+"Is Miss Bodn."
+</p><p>
+"Mees <i>Bodn</i>!" he repeated with a start. "Mees <i>Bodn</i>! Ah, pardon me, do
+you spell this name B-o-w-d-o-i-n?"
+</p><p>
+"You do, you do," as Esther answered in the affirmative; "and, pardon
+again, are you related to one Henri&mdash;Henry, you call it here&mdash;Henry
+Pierre Bowdoin?"
+</p><p>
+"My father's name was Henry Pierre Bowdoin."
+</p><p>
+"Then, Mademoiselle," and Monsieur Baudouin stretched out his hand, and
+a smile lit up his face, "you must be a relation of mine; and three
+years ago, when I was in this country, and tried to find the American
+branch of our family that spelled its name Bowdoin and was called Bodn,
+but which was originally Baudouin, the old Huguenot name, I was told it
+had died out. Where were you then, Mademoiselle?"
+</p><p>
+"In Munich, where my mother and I had lived with my uncle John Wybern,
+since my father's death, years ago."
+</p><p>
+"Your uncle! John Wybern was your uncle? So&mdash;so is it possible, is it
+possible? And I find the two objects I have been hunting, so far apart,
+together! It is most astonishing and yet most simple. And your
+mother&mdash;your mother is living? Yes, and you will give me your address,
+that I may hasten to pay my respects to her;" and Monsieur whipped out a
+little note-book and wrote down, probably with greater satisfaction than
+it had ever been written before, "McVane Street."
+</p><p>
+"Most astonishing and yet most simple," as Monsieur had truly said; yet
+to the flock of Miss Milwood's girls, who, well down to the front, had
+lost nothing of this surprising interview, it was only "most
+astonishing," and to some of them most humiliating and mortifying. Kitty
+Grant was the first to voice this mortification, by turning upon them
+and saying, as Esther disappeared with Monsieur Baudouin, "Say, girls,
+how do you feel now? <i>I</i> feel like one of Cinderella's sisters. Laura
+now&mdash;Laura, where are you?" But Laura had also disappeared. She wanted
+to be by herself and think it over. But what of Esther,&mdash;Esther, who had
+been neglected and disregarded and despised? What of Esther, as she
+stood there, and as she walked away with Monsieur Baudouin? Esther was
+the least astonished of them all, for years ago she had been familiar
+with the facts of her paternal family history, and knew that she was a
+descendant of Pierre Baudouin, a French Huguenot, who had fled to
+America to escape religious persecution, and knew that the name Baudouin
+had suffered a change to Bowdoin; knew, too, that as Bowdoin it had been
+made illustrious in America's annals, and worn the honors of the highest
+offices of the State. She knew all this; but she knew also that this was
+long ago, and that her father was the last of his name in America, and
+when he died, after a wasting illness that exhausted his fortune, there
+was little thought given to the fact that the old Huguenot root still
+existed in France, though half-playful, half-serious mention had now and
+then been made of the kinsfolk in France they would sometime go to seek.
+</p><p>
+All this Esther had stored away in her memory, so that when Monsieur
+Baudouin announced himself as the kinsman from France, it was more like
+a long-anticipated event than a surprise. And all this she told to Laura
+in the days that followed,&mdash;those dear, delightful days, when there was
+no difficulty put in the way of going to McVane Street; when McVane
+Street, indeed, according to Kitty, became quite the fashion with the
+artists flocking to see the wonderful etching, and Monsieur Baudouin
+holding forth upon its merits to them as he made himself at home with
+his American kinsfolk, who were now discovered to be such charming folk.
+Laura sometimes in these days blazed up with indignation and disgust as
+she noted the sudden attentions that were bestowed upon Esther and her
+mother. No one now spoke of emigrants and foreigners in connection with
+these dwellers on McVane Street. Jack Brooks himself seemed to forget
+that David Wybern looked like a Jew, even before it was found that David
+and all of his people were of the most unmixed Puritan stock!
+</p><p>
+"And I, too," thought Laura,&mdash;"I, too, muddled and mistook things as I
+shouldn't, if Esther and her mother had lived in a different quarter. If
+they had lived anywhere over the hill, should I have fancied, though
+they <i>were</i> so poor, that Mrs. Bowdoin must have been a professional
+model? No, no, I should have thought at once, what I <i>know</i> now, that
+the artist was her friend, and that she sat to him as a friendly favor,
+like any other lady."
+</p><p>
+But while Laura thus scourged herself with the rest, Esther and her
+mother had set her apart from all the rest for their special love and
+confidence,&mdash;a love and confidence that are as fresh to-day as when the
+mother and daughter sailed away with Monsieur Baudouin, a year ago, to
+visit their French kinsfolk.
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Becky">BECKY.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus235.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus235s.png"
+ alt="N" width="190" height="167" align="left"></a><br>
+umber five!" called out shrilly and impatiently the saleswoman at the
+lace counter in a great dry-goods establishment. The call was repeated
+in a still more impatient tone before there was any response; then there
+rushed up a girl of ten or eleven, whose big black eyes looked forth
+fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so
+thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where
+the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."
+</p><p>
+"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman,
+angrily.
+</p><p>
+"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.
+</p><p>
+"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon
+counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered,
+showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.
+</p><p>
+A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.
+</p><p>
+"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big
+for her boots with her impudence."
+</p><p>
+"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust
+forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for
+it.
+</p><p>
+Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her,
+seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.
+</p><p>
+"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after
+her.
+</p><p>
+The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in
+such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which
+she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie
+admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so
+funny she "just couldn't help laughing."
+</p><p>
+"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "<i>I</i> call it impudence. She
+ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back
+at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about,
+that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you,
+Lizzie."
+</p><p>
+"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said
+Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,&mdash;taking people off. She was
+a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in
+the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky
+would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen
+observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie
+called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin
+up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair
+of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of
+cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady
+fashion,&mdash;"just like the swells," Lizzie declared. It was quite natural
+then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was "up
+to," in her close attention to the "swell" customers at the ribbon
+counter. "She was studyin' 'em, just as actresses study their
+play-parts," Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she
+met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter."
+</p><p>
+"Eh?" said Becky.
+</p><p>
+Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in: "Yes, Becky,
+give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun."
+</p><p>
+"They warn't funny," answered Becky, shortly.
+</p><p>
+"Oh! now, Becky, what'd you stand there lis'nin' and lookin' at 'em so
+long for?"
+</p><p>
+"'Cause they were sayin' somethin' I wanted to hear."
+</p><p>
+"Of course they were. What was it about, Becky?"
+</p><p>
+"May-day, flowers and queens and baskets."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, my! Well, tell us how they said it, Becky."
+</p><p>
+"I tole yer they warn't funny; they warn't o' that kind that peeks
+through them long stick glasses and puckers up their lips. They talked
+straight 'long, and said very int'restin' things," said Becky.
+</p><p>
+"Well, tell us; tell us what 'twas," exclaimed Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you wouldn't care for what they's talkin' 'bout. They warn't sayin'
+anythin' 'bout beaux or clothes," Becky replied with a grin.
+</p><p>
+A shout of laughter went up from the rest of the company, who all knew
+the lively Lizzie's favorite topics. Lizzie joined in the laugh, and
+cried good-naturedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Never mind, Becky, if I'm not up to your ribbon swells talk; tell us
+about it."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes! tell us, tell us!" echoed the others.
+</p><p>
+Becky took a bite out of a slice of bread, and munching it slowly,
+said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I tole yer once 't was 'bout May-day and flowers and queens and
+baskets."
+</p><p>
+"What May-day? There's thirty-one of 'em, Becky."
+</p><p>
+Becky looked staggered for a moment. In her little hard-worked life she
+had had small opportunity to learn much out of books, and she had never
+happened to hear this rhyming bit:&mdash;
+</p><blockquote>
+  "Thirty days hath September,<br>
+   April, June, and November,<br>
+   All the rest have thirty-one,<br>
+   Excepting February alone."
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+Recovering her wits, however, very speedily, she said coolly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"The first pleasant one."
+</p><p>
+"Well, what were they telling about it? What were they going to do the
+first pleasant day in May?"
+</p><p>
+"They didn't say as <i>they</i> was goin' to do anythin'; they was
+tellin'&mdash;or one of 'em was tellin' t' other one&mdash;what folks did when
+they's little, and afore that, hundreds o' years ago, how the folks then
+used to get all the children together and go out in the country and put
+up a great big high pole, and put a lot o' flowers on a string and wind
+'em roun' the pole; and then all the children would take hold o' han's
+and dance roun' the pole, and one o' the children was chose to be queen,
+and had a crown made o' flowers on her head, and the rest o' the
+children minded her."
+</p><p>
+"You'd like <i>that</i>,&mdash;to be queen and have the rest mind you, Becky,
+wouldn't you?" laughed one of the company.
+</p><p>
+"I bet I would," owned Becky, frankly.
+</p><p>
+"But what about the baskets?" asked somebody else.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, the kids," said Becky, forgetting in her present absorbed interest
+the term "children,"&mdash;which she had learned to use since she had come up
+daily from the poor neighborhood where she lived,&mdash;"the kids use to fill
+a basket with flowers and hang it on the door-knob of somebody's
+house,&mdash;somebody they knew,&mdash;and then ring the bell and run. Golly!
+guess <i>I</i> should hev to hang it <i>inside</i> where I lives. I couldn't hang
+it on no outside door and hev it stay there long,&mdash;them thieves o' alley
+boys would git it 'fore yer could turn. I guess, though, they was
+country kids who used to hang 'em; but the lady said she was goin' to
+try to start 'em up again here in the city."
+</p><p>
+"What kind o' baskets were they?" asked Lizzie, suddenly sitting up with
+a new air of attention.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, ho!" laughed one of the girls; "Lizzie wants to hang a basket for
+somebody <i>she</i> knows!"
+</p><p>
+"Hush up!" said Lizzie, turning rather red. Then, addressing Becky
+again: "Did the lady who was telling about 'em have a basket with her?
+Did you see it?"
+</p><p>
+"No, but she hed a piece o' that pretty wrinkly paper jes' like the
+lamp-shades in the winders, and she said the baskets was made o' that,
+and she was buyin' some ribbon to match for handles and bows."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I <i>wish</i> I could see one of 'em," said Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"I went to a kinnergarden school wonst when I was a little kid," struck
+in Becky here, "and we was put up there to makin' baskets out o' paper."
+</p><p>
+"Could you do it now?" asked Lizzie, eagerly.
+</p><p>
+"Mebbe I could," answered Becky, warily; "but it's a good bit ago."
+</p><p>
+"When you were young," cried one of the company with a giggle.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, when I was young," repeated Becky, in exact imitation of the
+speaker, whose voice was very flat and nasal.
+</p><p>
+Everybody laughed, and one of the girls cried: "Becky'll get the best of
+you any time." They were all of them impressed with this fact, when, a
+few minutes after, the wary Becky agreed to show Lizzie what she knew of
+"kinnergarden" basket-making, if Lizzie would agree to pay her for her
+trouble by giving her materials enough to make a basket for herself.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't she a sharp one?" commented one of the girls to another when they
+had left the lunch-room.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't she, though? She'll get what she can, and hold on to what she's
+got every time."
+</p><p>
+"But she's awful good fun. Didn't she take off Matty Kelley's flat
+nose&#8209;y way of talkin' to a T?"
+</p><p>
+"Didn't she!" and the two girls laughed anew at the recollection.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Becky was the only one of the parcel-girls who was in the lunch-room
+when this talk about May-day took place. The others lived nearer to the
+store, and had gone home to their dinners. They were all a trifle older
+than Becky, and a good deal larger. For these reasons, as well as for
+the fact that they had been in the establishment quite a while when
+Becky entered it, they had put on a great many disagreeable airs toward
+the pale-faced little girl when she first appeared, and attempted, as
+Becky put it, to "boss" her. They soon found, however, that the
+new-comer was too much for them. They expected her to be afraid of
+them,&mdash;to "stand round" for them. But Miss Becky was not in the least
+afraid of them, or, for that matter, of anybody; and as soon as she
+understood what they meant, she turned upon them the whole force of that
+inimitable mimicry of hers, and "took off" their airs in a manner that
+soon set the small army of salesmen and saleswomen into such fits of
+laughter that the tables were completely turned upon the tormentors,
+and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the
+respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus
+constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they
+gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph
+over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her.
+Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to
+her,&mdash;when they told her that Becky Hawkins was nothin' but one o' that
+low lot who lived down amongst that thieving set by the East Cove
+alleys,&mdash;that jus' as like as not she was a thief herself; that she was
+awful close and stingy, anyway, and saved up every scrap she could find;
+that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such
+duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively
+heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and
+didn't care if it <i>was</i>, there were others not so good-natured as
+Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready
+to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something
+lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the
+street,&mdash;"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,&mdash;the
+lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in
+spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect
+in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an
+outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.
+</p><p>
+"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and
+when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company
+gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of
+pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky
+knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now
+present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday,
+and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with
+mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's
+waitin', and so are we."
+</p><p>
+"What <i>yer</i> waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.
+</p><p>
+"To see how you make the baskets."
+</p><p>
+"Well, yer'll hev to wait."
+</p><p>
+"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"
+</p><p>
+"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free
+kinnergarden. These are private lessons."
+</p><p>
+A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"
+</p><p>
+"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.
+</p><p>
+"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the
+parcel-girls with a wink at the other.
+</p><p>
+"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and
+running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned
+to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.
+</p><p>
+"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed
+her teacher.
+</p><p>
+"And you didn't get ahead o' me <i>this</i> time, either!" called out Becky,
+as she bolted the door upon herself and companion.
+</p><p>
+"You're too sharp for any of <i>us</i>, Becky," called back one of the
+saleswomen.
+</p><p>
+"<i>Ain't</i> she sharp?" agreed one and another; and "I told you so," said
+still another. "She's a regular little cove-sharper, as Lotty said."
+Lotty was the older parcel-girl.
+</p><p>
+And thus, though most of them laughed at Becky's last "move," they were
+prejudiced against her for it, and thought it another evidence of her
+stinginess and sharpness. They all agreed, however, that she had "got
+'round' Lizzie to that extent that that young woman would stand up for
+her, anyway, no matter what she'd do or didn't do.
+</p><p>
+"An' I'll bet yer," said the younger parcel-girl, "she'll lie out o'
+that basket bizness, an' get a lot o' paper too. <i>She</i> know how to make
+baskets! Not much. You see now when they come out o' the fitting-room
+there'll be some excuse that 't ain't done, an' they can't show it
+now,&mdash;you see."
+</p><p>
+This prophecy was received in silence, but without much sign of
+disagreement; and when the fitting-room door finally opened, it was
+funny to watch the looks of astonishment that were bestowed upon the
+pretty little basket of green and white paper that Lizzie held swung
+upon her finger.
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never! She <i>did</i> know how, didn't she?" exclaimed one of the
+party.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0342" href="images/Illus0342s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0342t.jpg"
+ alt="The pretty little basket of green and white paper" width="259" height="313"></a><br>
+<i>The pretty little basket of green and white paper</i></p>
+<p>
+"Of course she did," answered Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+Becky only shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+</p><p>
+"Bet yer she hooked it out o' some shop, and had it in that bag she
+carried in," whispered Lotty Riker, the parcel-girl.
+</p><p>
+"Hush!" warned one of the company.
+</p><p>
+But it was too late. Becky had heard, and for the first time since she
+had been in the store, those about her saw hot wrath blazing from her
+eyes as she burst forth savagely,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yer mean low-lived thing yer, yer must be up to sech tricks yerself to
+think that!"
+</p><p>
+"What is it? What did she say?" asked Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+Becky repeated Lotty's words, her wrath increasing as she did so.
+</p><p>
+"Hooked it! You know better, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Lotty Riker," said Lizzie. "Becky and I made the basket ourselves. See
+here now!" and, opening one hand, she displayed the ends of the paper
+strips as they had been cut off, and where they fitted the protruding
+ends on the basket. "But," turning to Becky, "Lotty knows better; she
+only wanted to bother you."
+</p><p>
+"She wanted to bully me! She's been at it ever since I come here,&mdash;she
+and t' other one. I made 'em stop it wonst, an' I'll make 'em ag'in. I
+can stan' a good deal, but I ain't a-goin' to stan' bein' called a
+thief, I ain't. I ain't no more a thief 'n they be, if I do live down
+Cove way, and don't wear quite so good clo'es as they does. <i>Hooked
+it</i>!" going a step nearer to the two girls. "I wish we was boys.
+I'd&mdash;I'd lick yer, I would, the minit I got yer out on the street; but,"
+with a disgusted sigh, "I'm a girl, and I carn't. 'Tain't 'spectable for
+girls, Tim says, an' I mus'n't. But lemme jes' hear any more sech talk,
+an'&mdash;I'll <i>forgit I'm a girl for 'bout five minutes</i>!"
+</p><p>
+This conclusion was too much for Lizzie's gravity, and she burst into
+one of her infectious laughs. Several of the others joined in, and then
+Becky herself gave a sudden little grin.
+</p><p>
+Lotty Riker and her sister, who had been thoroughly frightened, felt
+immensely relieved at this, and for the moment everything seemed the
+same as before the outbreak; but it was only seeming. The majority of
+the company, without taking into consideration the provocation Becky had
+received, thought to themselves: "<i>What</i> a temper!" Becky's wild little
+threats, and the way she expressed herself, had made a strong
+impression; and when presently Lizzie laughingly asked, "Who's Tim,
+Becky?" and Becky had answered in that lawless manner of hers: "Oh, he's
+a fren' o' mine,&mdash;a great big fightin' gentleman what lives in the house
+where we do," there was a general exchange of glances, and a general
+conviction that the Riker girls had not been altogether wrong in some of
+their statements. And when the next day they heard Miss Becky confide to
+Lizzie that she had made "a splendid basket," and was going to hang it
+for Tim on that "fust pleasant day of May," they whispered to each
+other, "A May-basket for a prize-fighter!"
+</p><p>
+But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She
+was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from
+her fun.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and
+sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth
+Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and
+wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She
+would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got
+to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow
+on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;"
+but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
+</p><p>
+"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for
+the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
+</p><p>
+Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything
+else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to
+her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where <i>could</i> she be? She had
+always been punctual to a minute.
+</p><p>
+The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was
+forgotten. It was not until the closing hour&mdash;five o'clock&mdash;that Lizzie
+thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly,
+as they were leaving the store together,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Where <i>do</i> you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day,
+and she's <i>always</i> here, and so punctual."
+</p><p>
+"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would
+be just like her; she's that independent."
+</p><p>
+"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's
+pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do
+that," put in Josie, laughing,
+</p><p>
+"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Sick! <i>her</i> kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough.
+Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that
+basket?"
+</p><p>
+"Why, what I agreed to give,&mdash;enough to make a basket for herself; and
+last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my
+Mayflowers,&mdash;I had plenty."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
+</p><p>
+"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, <i>Becky's</i> bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the
+rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the
+rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking
+about private lessons!"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, that was only her fun."
+</p><p>
+"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid
+for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you
+think that was only fun?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little
+something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove
+Street."
+</p><p>
+"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the
+other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends
+she was working alongside of."
+</p><p>
+"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's
+exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she <i>sold</i> her basket, and very
+likely to that prize-fighter,&mdash;that Tim."
+</p><p>
+"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I
+hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things
+of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster
+down&mdash;' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street
+tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she
+cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,&mdash;in one of those
+tenements."
+</p><p>
+"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six
+o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had
+for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and,
+owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such
+headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only
+the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours
+of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought
+under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the
+wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries
+and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought
+to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives
+in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means
+small.'"
+</p><p>
+"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here,
+breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
+</p><p>
+"But, Lizzie&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"You needn't try to stop me, I'm <i>going</i>. Becky's down there somewhere,
+and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to
+see. <i>You</i> needn't come if you're afraid, but <i>I'm</i> going!"
+</p><p>
+The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and
+the three went on together toward the burned district.
+</p><p>
+"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove
+Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business
+here."
+</p><p>
+"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,&mdash;one of the girls in our store,"
+answered Lizzie.
+</p><p>
+"Becky Hawkins?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes; do you know her?"
+</p><p>
+"Should think I did. This is my beat,&mdash;known her all her life pretty
+much."
+</p><p>
+"Did she get out,&mdash;is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend
+Tim."
+</p><p>
+The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,&mdash;a
+smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what
+the Riker girls had said she was,&mdash;a little Cove Street hoodlum,&mdash;while
+Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family
+that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner
+house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's
+sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman
+had advised, adding,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"We are decent girls, and&mdash;it's a disgrace to have anything to do with
+such a lot as Becky and her family and&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,&mdash;"what yer
+talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see
+what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled
+around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow
+him.
+</p><p>
+They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with
+smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the
+flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of
+the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were
+huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open
+door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a
+familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
+</p><p>
+But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
+</p><p>
+"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it
+Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie
+stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room;
+but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes,
+and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the
+store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt,
+and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you;
+but I'm so glad you are all right&mdash;But," coming nearer and finding that
+Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table,
+"you're <i>not</i> all right, are you?"
+</p><p>
+"No, I&mdash;I guess&mdash;I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little
+smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,&mdash;a
+little thing like you!"
+</p><p>
+"'Twas <i>she</i> was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women
+in the room.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd
+got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back
+for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she
+saved him for me,&mdash;she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the
+roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the
+'scape; but Becky&mdash;Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she
+made a jump&mdash;and fell&mdash;oh, Becky! Becky!"
+</p><p>
+"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry
+her, and it's no use."
+</p><p>
+"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in
+dumb amazement.
+</p><p>
+"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
+</p><p>
+Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing
+down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
+</p><p>
+Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
+</p><p>
+"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
+</p><p>
+"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
+</p><p>
+"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He
+didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I
+could make another&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"<i>I'll</i> make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
+</p><p>
+"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone,
+roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old
+mischief she said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
+</p><p>
+There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and
+then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body,
+wasted and shrunken,&mdash;the body of a child of seven with a shapely head
+and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
+</p><p>
+"That's him,&mdash;that's Tim,&mdash;the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"
+said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and
+how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on
+Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,&mdash;the girls in the store,&mdash;how I played it on
+'em; and when I git back&mdash;I'll&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
+</p><p>
+The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open,
+letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks
+beyond the Cove.
+</p><p>
+"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I feel fus' rate&mdash;all well, Jake, and&mdash;I&mdash;I smell the Mayflowers.
+They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
+jolly! Tim, Tim!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
+</p><p>
+"Wait for me here Tim,&mdash;I&mdash;I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,&mdash;ther,
+ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by&mdash;I'm
+goin'&mdash;to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
+anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
+her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
+</p><p>
+The two women&mdash;and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
+always lived&mdash;broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
+radiant face, she said suddenly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"She's well out of it all."
+</p><p>
+"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
+'t ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' <i>him</i>," nodding towards Jake,
+who was slipping quietly out of the room,&mdash;"it's the like o' him. They
+looked up to her, they did,&mdash;bit of a thing as she was. She was that
+straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
+Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
+</p><p>
+And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
+room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
+furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
+and Josie still waiting for her.
+</p><p>
+"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time&mdash;have you seen&mdash;have
+you heard&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
+don't know."
+</p><p>
+"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Ally">ALLY.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus263.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus263s.png"
+ alt="W" width="202" height="228" align="left"></a><br><br>
+hat have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"
+</p><p>
+"Put 'em away."
+</p><p>
+"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
+wear 'em down town."
+</p><p>
+But Ally didn't move.
+</p><p>
+"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
+you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
+your foot is bigger than mine."
+</p><p>
+"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
+'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
+raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
+than lend me your new rubbers."
+</p><p>
+"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"
+</p><p>
+"Because they leak."
+</p><p>
+"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally,
+scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my
+things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is
+threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as
+shabby&mdash;and&mdash;there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no
+better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"
+</p><p>
+"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to <i>me</i>! I should like to
+know who buys your things for you? Isn't it <i>my father</i> and Uncle John?
+I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for
+Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and
+everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours
+again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the
+rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back
+here,&mdash;I do!"
+</p><p>
+"I wish so too. Nobody in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as
+to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."
+</p><p>
+"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here
+that she dreaded the winter on your account,&mdash;there!"
+</p><p>
+"Aunt Kate&mdash;said that?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, she did; I heard her."
+</p><p>
+A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded
+from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll
+have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these
+words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst
+into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.
+</p><p>
+"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's
+mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.
+</p><p>
+"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,&mdash;so coolly, so calmly, that it
+was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the
+present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking,
+Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one
+girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and
+in consequence said rather sharply,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"
+and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter
+Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately
+overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to
+be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some
+other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any
+peace while&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it
+was&mdash;"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears
+shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh
+gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes,
+it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It
+would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan;
+yes, indeed, very different. If I was a <i>rich</i> orphan, if papa and mamma
+had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things
+would be different,&mdash;I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and
+her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to <i>me</i> then, and I
+guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of
+me,&mdash;no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some
+other arrangement <i>could</i> be made away from 'em all. They don't any of
+'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd
+rather&mdash;I'd rather&mdash;oh, I'd rather go to <i>jail</i> than to <i>them</i>!" and
+down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little
+hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor
+little beggar of an orphan."
+</p><p>
+The facts of the case were these: Ally's father and mother had both died
+when she was seven years old, leaving her to the care of her two nearest
+relatives,&mdash;her father's two brothers,&mdash;Mr. Tom and Mr. John Fleming. As
+her father had little or nothing to leave her, he had requested that the
+burden of her maintenance should be equally divided between the uncles,
+the child to live alternately with each family, six months with one and
+six with the other. She had been old enough when she was thus
+transplanted from her own home to realize more or less the peculiar
+condition of things; and as she was quick-tempered and sensitive, she
+very soon began to take note of any comment or remark regarding herself
+that was dropped in her hearing, and very often misunderstood or made
+too much of it. But there was no denying, whichever way you looked at
+it, that it was rather a difficult situation for both sides, and that
+the Fleming aunts and uncles and cousins had something to put up with,
+as well as Ally. But that Ally was the most to be pitied there was also
+no denying, for she could remember with unfading vividness being the
+centre of love, the one special darling in <i>one</i> home, and now she
+hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
+bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
+many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
+For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
+be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one <i>too</i> many.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
+live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
+Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
+both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
+deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
+as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
+temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
+your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
+who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
+with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
+with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
+and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.
+</p><p>
+"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
+before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
+outside the car.
+</p><p>
+"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.
+</p><p>
+His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.
+</p><p>
+Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
+going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."
+</p><p>
+"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
+Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.
+</p><p>
+"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
+she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
+good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
+death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
+wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I <i>am</i> hard to live with; but I don't
+play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
+mine never loved me&mdash;any of 'em&mdash;from the first."
+</p><p>
+As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
+of the car window, and there, why, there was her aunt Ann and uncle Tom
+outside on the platform, standing at another car window farther down,
+talking and laughing in the liveliest manner with some friends they had
+met. Uncle Tom didn't seem in the least haste now, and ever so many
+minutes ago he had said to her, "Well, good-by, Ally!" and rushed off as
+if there wasn't another minute to spare,&mdash;not another minute; and here
+was a gentleman in front of her, saying to a friend of his at that very
+instant, "There's plenty of time; it's ten minutes before the cars
+start;" and then she heard a lady say to another lady, "There's no need
+of my leaving you yet; we've got oceans of time;" and all about her,
+Ally now noticed various groups of friends and relations lingering
+lovingly together until the last moment; and noting all this, a bitter
+little look came into Miss Ally's face, and a bitter little thought came
+into her heart,&mdash;a thought that said tauntingly, "There, this shows you,
+Ally Fleming, what kind of relations you've got; this shows you how much
+they care for you!"
+</p><p>
+And by and by, as the cars started up and sped along, this bitter little
+thought also sped along, carrying in its wake all the bitter little
+thoughts of yesterday and to-day. Ally was quite accustomed to
+travelling by herself on this trip to and from New York. It was a
+perfectly simple thing to sit in the car-seat where she had been placed
+by one uncle, until at the end of the trip she was met by the other
+uncle, and taken charge of,&mdash;a perfectly simple, easy matter, and Ally
+had heretofore quite enjoyed it; but now, looking about her, and seeing
+the groups of other people's relations going home to Thanksgiving, she
+began to think it was a very lonesome thing to be travelling all alone
+by herself; and just as this occurred to her, what should happen but
+that one of these groups should turn inquisitively to her and ask, "Are
+you travelling all by yourself, little girl?" and when Ally had
+answered, "Yes," this inquisitive person commented upon her being such a
+little girl to travel all by herself; and then, when Ally told her
+rather proudly that she was ten years old, the inquisitive person had
+said, "Well, I don't know what <i>my</i> little ten-year-old girl would think
+to be sent off to travel all alone. I shall tell her when I get home
+what a brave little girl I met."
+</p><p>
+Ally thought all this was said out of pity and wonder, and that the lady
+thought her very much neglected and forlorn. But instead of that, the
+lady meant only to praise and compliment her; and thus, in this way and
+that way, the bitter little thoughts kept growing and growing, as the
+cars sped on, until long before the end of her journey came, poor Ally
+felt that there never was a much more friendless girl than she was; and
+when the cars steamed into the Boston station, she said to herself, "I
+wonder if Uncle John is dreading the winter on my account, as Aunt Kate
+is?" and with this thought she stepped out on the platform. But where
+<i>was</i> Uncle John? She expected to see him at once, coming forward to
+lift her from the steps. Where <i>was</i> he now? and Ally looked at the
+faces before her with wondering scrutiny. She jumped down&mdash;for people
+were pressing behind her&mdash;and moved on, scanning the face of every
+gentleman she saw with anxious eyes. No one of them, however, was that
+of Uncle John. What <i>was</i> the matter? Didn't he know the train she was
+to take? Of course he did, for Uncle Tom had told her that he had
+telegraphed that he would meet her at the Boston station at five
+o'clock. Of course he knew, so he must have forgotten her. Yes, that was
+it,&mdash;he had forgotten all about her! Ally was not a specially timid
+child; but as she stood in the big station-building, and realized that
+there was not a soul she knew there to look out for her, a feeling of
+dismay overtook her. If it were in the morning or at noonday, it
+wouldn't have seemed so dreadful; but though the electric lights flashed
+everything into brilliance, it was a November day, and half-past five
+o'clock was after nightfall. What <i>should</i> she do? There was no sign of
+Uncle John, and the passengers who had arrived with her were fast
+disappearing. Very soon the people in the station would begin to notice
+her, to ask questions, and then perhaps some police-officer would take
+her to the police-station, as a lost child. She'd heard that that was
+what they always did. It was just as this thought came into her head
+that she caught sight of one of those very big burly blue-coated
+individuals. He had his hand on the collar of a boy about her own age,
+and she heard him say to him in a big burly voice,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"What yer hangin' 'round here for? Lost, eh? That's a likely story.
+Come, off with yer, if yer don't want ter be locked up!"
+</p><p>
+Poor little Ally didn't stop to reason,&mdash;to think of the difference in
+the outward appearance of herself and the boy,&mdash;to see that the
+policeman knew the boy perfectly well for a mischievous young scamp who
+was up to no good. She didn't stop to consider anything; but with those
+words, "If yer don't want ter be locked up," ringing in her ears, she
+turned and ran from the station-building as fast as her legs could carry
+her. As she came out upon the sidewalk, she saw the colored lights of a
+street car. Oh, joy, it was the very up-town car that would take her
+close to Beacon Street! But oh, horror! She suddenly recollected that
+Uncle John no longer lived on Beacon Street. He had moved last month
+into a new house on Marlborough Street, and oh, what <i>was</i> the number?
+She "had heard Uncle Tom read it from a letter. It had a lot of 9's in
+it. Nine hundred and&mdash;why&mdash;99&mdash;999, three 9's; yes, yes, that was it;"
+and with this conviction, Ally gave a hop skip and a jump into the car,
+just as it was about to start off, for this very car she knew would take
+her nearer to Marlborough Street than to Beacon Street. Her spirits rose
+as she felt herself carried along; and in due time she found the three
+9's, and tripped up the steps of the house in Marlborough Street bearing
+that number. Her heart beat very fast with a sense of relief and injury,
+mixed with a certain elation at her own enterprise, as she rang the
+bell. Wouldn't they be surprised, and wouldn't Uncle John&mdash;But some one
+opening the door scattered her questioning thoughts; and&mdash;why, who was
+this somebody? It must be a new servant with the new house, and a
+manservant too. Uncle John must be getting better off,&mdash;they had had
+only two maids before. It never entered Ally's head to ask the strange
+servant if Mr. Fleming lived there. Why should she ask what she was so
+sure of? She simply asked, "Where's Uncle John and Aunt Kate and the
+rest of them?"
+</p><p>
+The man looked bewildered, and repeated, "Uncle John?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Uncle John and Aunt Kate. I'm Ally, and Uncle John telegraphed
+that he would meet me at the five-o'clock train, and he wasn't there,
+and I came up all alone. Where are they? In the parlor?" and Ally
+stepped in over the threshold.
+</p><p>
+"I guess there's some mistake," said the man; "I guess your uncle
+John&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"No, there wasn't any mistake, for he telegraphed to Uncle Tom. He must
+have forgotten."
+</p><p>
+"But your uncle doesn't&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"What is it, James? What is wanted?" interrupted some one here. The
+"some one" was a big, tall gentleman coming down the stairs, whom Ally,
+as she looked up in the rather confusing half light of the lower hall,
+at once took for her uncle, and rushing forward she ran up to meet him,
+crying,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John! I was so scared not to find you at the
+station, and I came up here all alone on the street car!"
+</p><p>
+But in the very next instant she started back and gasped: "But&mdash;but it
+isn't&mdash;you're not&mdash;you're not Uncle John! Where is he, oh, where is he?"
+</p><p>
+"You've made a mistake, my little girl!" exclaimed the gentleman,&mdash;"a
+mistake in the house. This isn't your uncle John's, but&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Not Uncle John's? Why&mdash;why&mdash;this is 999!" interrupted Ally,
+tremulously.
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh! oh!" cried poor Ally, as a fresh flash of memory overcame her,
+"that must be the&mdash;the&mdash;" She was going to say, "the old Beacon Street
+number," when, confused and dismayed, she gave another step backward,
+her foot slipped, and she fell headlong to the foot of the stairs, where
+she lay white and motionless, not a sigh or moan escaping her as she was
+lifted and carried into the parlor.
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The sun was shining brightly into the pretty new dining-room on
+Marlborough Street where Uncle John lived, and swinging in its beams a
+great gray parrot named Peter kept calling out, "Ally's come, Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+</p><p>
+The room was empty when the parrot began; but presently Uncle John and
+Aunt Kate came in. At sight of them the parrot screamed, "Hello! hello!"
+and then repeated louder than ever, "Ally's come! Ally's come! give her
+a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+</p><p>
+"For pity's sake, put the bird out!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I can't
+stand <i>that now</i>!"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, put him out, do!" said Aunt Kate to the servant who was just then
+bringing in the coffee.
+</p><p>
+In a few moments the three daughters of the family&mdash;Laura and Maud and
+Mary&mdash;appeared.
+</p><p>
+"Have you heard anything about her this morning?" asked the
+eldest,&mdash;Laura,&mdash;as she took her seat at table.
+</p><p>
+Uncle John shook his head.
+</p><p>
+"And the police haven't got a clew yet?"
+</p><p>
+"No, nor the detectives."
+</p><p>
+"What I <i>can't</i> understand is why she didn't wait in the ladies' room
+until you came, papa. She might have known you <i>would</i> come <i>sometime</i>."
+</p><p>
+"We don't know yet that she got as far as Boston," said Mrs. Fleming.
+</p><p>
+"Why, Uncle Tom's telegram in answer to papa's that he saw her off on
+the 11.30 train proves that."
+</p><p>
+"It doesn't prove that she came through to Boston."
+</p><p>
+"'Came through'! Why, upon earth, should she leave the cars before she
+reached Boston?"
+</p><p>
+"She might have made the acquaintance of some young people, and stepped
+off at a restaurant station with them to buy fruit, and so got left."
+</p><p>
+"But she would have taken a later train then, and papa has been to the
+later ones."
+</p><p>
+"Don't&mdash;don't wonder and speculate any more why a little girl of ten
+years didn't do exactly as a grown-up person would have done," burst
+forth Uncle John. "The whole blame lies with us, or with Tom and me. We
+should never have allowed such a child to be sent off alone like that."
+</p><p>
+"But, papa, it isn't an uncommon thing for a child of her age to travel
+like that."
+</p><p>
+"It isn't very <i>common</i>, and it ought not to be."
+</p><p>
+"Maybe she's run away," suddenly exclaimed the youngest of the
+daughters,&mdash;a girl of fourteen.
+</p><p>
+"Mary!" cried the other two; and "How can you make fun like that <i>now</i>?"
+said Mrs. Fleming, reprovingly.
+</p><p>
+"I didn't say it to make fun," protested Mary,&mdash;"I didn't, truly;
+but&mdash;but Ally was very queer sometimes. She took up everything so, and
+got offended, or thought you didn't care for her. One day I asked her
+why she didn't take things as <i>I</i> did,&mdash;spat, and forget it the next
+minute, and she said, 'Because I'm not like you, <i>I only happened
+here</i>'! Wasn't that droll?"
+</p><p>
+"Droll!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I think it's the most pathetic thing I
+ever heard. What have we all been doing that she should feel like this?"
+</p><p>
+"But she liked being <i>here</i> better than at Uncle Tom's. Florence was
+always tormenting her one way and another."
+</p><p>
+"The trouble with her is that she was an only child, and, transplanted
+suddenly into two large families, she couldn't fit herself to the new
+circumstances," said Mrs. Fleming.
+</p><p>
+"And the trouble with <i>us</i> has been," spoke up Uncle John, "that we
+didn't take that fact into consideration enough, and try to help her to
+fit into the new circumstances. Poor little soul, if we ever get her
+back again&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, don't, don't talk like that,&mdash;'if we ever get her back again!' as
+if she were a Charley Ross child that had been kidnapped," burst forth
+Mary, with a breaking voice. "<i>I</i> meant to be good to Ally, and that's
+why I taught Peter to say, 'Ally's come, Ally's come! give her a kiss!
+give her a kiss!' I thought it would be such a pretty welcome, and
+Ally'd be so pleased, she'd believe we <i>did</i> care for her when she heard
+that."
+</p><p>
+"You're a little trump, Mary," declared her father, with a suspicious
+moisture in his eyes. "I only hope if&mdash;<i>when</i> Ally comes back&mdash;But,
+hark, there's the door-bell!" as a sharp peal rang through the house.
+"It may be one of the detectives."
+</p><p>
+"A gentleman to see you in the parlor, sir," said the maid a moment
+later, as she brought in a card.
+</p><p>
+Uncle John glanced at the card, and then, uttering an exclamation of
+surprise, passed it over to his wife, and, jumping up hastily, left the
+room.
+</p><p>
+"Is it the chief of the detectives?" asked Laura, animatedly.
+</p><p>
+"It isn't a detective at all; it's Dr. Phillips."
+</p><p>
+"You don't mean <i>the</i> Dr. Phillips,&mdash;<i>Bernard</i> Phillips?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes."
+</p><p>
+"How strange, and at this hour in the morning! It must be something
+about Thanksgiving exercises," interposed Maud.
+</p><p>
+"But we're not <i>his</i> parishioners. We don't go to <i>his</i> church!"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mary; "I'm <i>so</i> disappointed. I did hope it was the
+detective bringing Ally back."
+</p><p>
+"Kate!" called Uncle John's voice here, "will you come into the parlor?"
+and Mrs. Fleming, obeying this call, found herself a minute after
+exchanging greetings with the unexpected visitor.
+</p><p>
+"I want you to tell her, Doctor, just what you've told me exactly,"
+said Uncle John. "It's about Ally, my dear," to his wife. "She's found,
+and&mdash;and&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"She is at my house," took up the Doctor; and then he told of the little
+girl who had come to his house the night before, of her grievous
+disappointment, and the accident that had befallen her,&mdash;an accident
+that had robbed her of consciousness for a time, and from which she had
+only sufficiently recovered within the last few hours to answer the
+questions that were put to her in regard to her relations, that steps
+might be taken to restore her to them.
+</p><p>
+"And she is seriously hurt,&mdash;she couldn't come with you?" broke in Aunt
+Kate, breathlessly.
+</p><p>
+"No, she was not seriously hurt," he assured her; and then came that
+most delicate and difficult part of the Doctor's task,&mdash;to tell, in what
+gentle phrase he could, that this wilful child refused to accompany him;
+that she had taken a foolish fancy into her head that her relations did
+not care for her,&mdash;a fancy that had been strengthened into positive
+belief when she failed to find her uncle at the station, and had
+suggested to her a wild little plan of going away from them altogether,
+into some orphans' home that she had heard of, where she was sure a
+place could be found for her. Very gentle, indeed, was the phrasing of
+all this,&mdash;so gentle and full of sweet human consideration for
+everybody's shortcomings and mistakes that Aunt Kate forgot that the
+Doctor was a stranger; and with this forgetfulness the sharp pang of
+humiliation at a stranger's knowledge of such a family difficulty, and
+the little sting of resentment at Ally's attitude towards them all, was
+overborne to such an extent that she could frankly admit that her
+husband was right, and that none of them had had love and patience
+enough to help the child to fit into the new circumstances of her life.
+</p><p>
+It was an added pang, but there was no resentment in it, when she saw
+Ally's sudden shrinking from her as she entered the Doctor's parlor with
+him a little later.
+</p><p>
+To think that they had, though unwittingly, hurt and estranged the child
+like this, was Mrs. Fleming's first thought; and the tears came to her
+eyes, and her voice broke as she cried impulsively, "Oh, my little girl,
+my little girl!"
+</p><p>
+Ally started at the sight of these tears, at the sound of this tenderly
+breaking voice. And there was Uncle John; and <i>he</i> was crying too, and
+<i>his</i> voice was breaking as he said something. What was it he was
+saying?&mdash;that it was not forgetfulness, it was not neglect of her, that
+had made him fail to meet her at the station, but an untoward accident
+to the streetcar he was in that had delayed him. And what was that Aunt
+Kate was saying? That they <i>did</i> care for her, that they <i>did</i> want her,
+and that they had set the telegraphic wires all over the country to hunt
+for her and bring her back to them.
+</p><p>
+"But&mdash;but&mdash;Florence told me," faltered Ally, "that you dreaded the
+winter on my account,&mdash;I was so&mdash;so bad-tempered&mdash;so hard to live with."
+</p><p>
+"Dreaded the winter on your account! Florence told you I said that?"
+cried Mrs. Fleming, in amazement.
+</p><p>
+"She said she heard you say it to her mother."
+</p><p>
+A light broke over Mrs. Fleming's face. "Oh, I remember now perfectly.
+It was just after you were so ill with that bad throat, and I was
+speaking to your aunt Ann about it, and I said to her, 'I dread the
+winter on Ally's account.' How could&mdash;how <i>could</i> Florence put such a
+mischievous meaning to my words?"
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps she only heard just those words," replied Ally, who would never
+take advantage of anybody.
+</p><p>
+"But why should she want to tell you what would hurt you like that?"
+</p><p>
+"We'd been quarrelling," answered Ally, with an honest brevity that was
+very edifying.
+</p><p>
+"But, as you see now it was for your bad throat, and not for your bad
+temper, that I dreaded the winter," said Aunt Kate, with a smile, "you
+will come back with us, and let us both try again. We meant to be good
+to you, dear; but we did not think enough that you had been unused to a
+big family,&mdash;that you were a little ewe lamb that had been transplanted
+into a great crowded fold, and left to find your place with the crowd;
+and you misunderstood this, and took us too hardly; but we're going to
+do better. We're going to be more thoughtful of one another, and you'll
+come home with us now, and we'll have our Thanksgiving dinner together,
+won't we?"
+</p><p>
+Childish and ignorant of the world's ways, as her wild idea in regard to
+her right to a place in an orphans' home proved her, Ally had a great
+deal of sense in other directions, and she began to perceive that she
+had not been the wilfully neglected and abused person she had thought
+herself, and to think, too, that perhaps Aunt Kate <i>might</i> have had
+something to bear from <i>her</i>. At any rate, her good sense made her see
+that her aunt had come to her with kind and generous intentions, and
+that the least she could do was to respond with what grace was in her
+power; and so with a little smile that had something pathetic in it to
+those who saw it, it was so tremulous with that pitiful doubt that had
+been born of the last three unhappy years, she put her hand into Mrs.
+Fleming's, and signified her readiness to go with her. And then and
+there, as she met that smile, Kate Fleming vowed to herself that never
+again through fault of hers should this child suffer for lack of loving
+care; and with this resolve warm in her heart, she clasped the little
+hand in hers more closely, and said brightly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You'll see how glad the girls will be to see you, Ally, when we get
+home."
+</p><p>
+But Ally had no response to make to this. A great dread had seized her
+as she felt herself going to meet them. Uncle John's and Aunt Kate's
+assurance of regard was one thing, but Uncle John and Aunt Kate were
+not the girls, and poor Ally was quite sure that no one of them had ever
+cared very much for her, though Mary had alternately petted and laughed
+at her, and now&mdash;why, now, they might dislike her for making such a
+fuss, for Laura had often said she did dislike people so who made a
+fuss, and Maud would agree with Laura, and Mary would laugh at her more
+than ever. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if she could only go back! if she could
+only get that dear good Doctor to find her a place in&mdash;But, "Here we
+are, Ally!" said Uncle John; and "Here she is!" exclaimed three girlish
+voices; and there, standing in the doorway, were Laura and Maud and
+Mary; and at sight of their faces, at sound of their voices, Ally's
+dread began to vanish. And then, just then, it was that Peter, who had
+been banished to the hall, called out uproariously, "Ally's come! Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!" and Mary called out after him,
+"I taught him to say that; I taught him more 'n a month ago."
+</p><p>
+"'More 'n a month ago'! Oh!" breathed Ally under her breath, "she liked
+me well enough for this <i>more 'n a month ago</i>!"
+</p><p>
+Uncle John and Aunt Kate and Laura and Maud and Mary were looking on,
+and they knew what Ally was thinking of,&mdash;the very words of it,&mdash;by that
+sudden radiant smile upon her face; and Mary was so pleased thereat, she
+had to cry out,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, what a jolly Thanksgiving this is! Could anything be added to make
+it jollier?"
+</p><p>
+But something <i>was</i> added. When they were all at the dinner-table that
+night,&mdash;mother and father and girls and the three boys who had just come
+up from their boarding-school that very morning,&mdash;this telegram was
+brought in from Uncle Tom,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Thanks for word of Ally's safety. All send love. Florence is writing to
+her."
+</p><p>
+Ally's eyes opened wide with astonishment at this conclusion. Florence!
+Aunt Kate read the meaning of that astonished look, and sent a glance to
+Ally that said as plainly as <i>words</i> could say, "You see, even Florence
+didn't mean as badly as you thought."
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="April">AN APRIL FOOL.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus290.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus290s.png"
+ alt="H" width="198" height="263" align="left"></a><br><br>
+ave you written it, Nelly?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I have it here in my pocket. I'll show it to you when I get a
+chance."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, show it now! There's as good a chance now as you'll have, for the
+rest of the girls are all on the other side of the room. Come;" and
+Lizzy Ryder held out her hand coaxingly.
+</p><p>
+Nelly sent a quick glance around the school-room, and then took from her
+pocket a small square envelope. The envelope was directed to Miss Angela
+Jocelyn. Lizzy Ryder gave a little giggle as she read this name; but as
+she drew forth the note-sheet and read written upon it in a slender
+pointed handwriting, "Miss Marian Selwyn requests the pleasure of Miss
+Angela Jocelyn's company on the evening of April 1st," her giggle became
+a smothered shriek, and she said to her cousin,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Nelly, it's perfect; she'll never suspect. It looks just like
+Marian Selwyn's writing. Wouldn't it be too good if we could somehow get
+hold of Angela's acceptance and keep it back, and have her actually <i>go</i>
+to the party. What <i>do</i> you suppose Marian would say to her when she
+walked in?"
+</p><p>
+"She wouldn't <i>say</i> anything, but she'd <i>look</i> so astonished, and she'd
+be so stiff that Miss Angela would very soon find out she wasn't very
+welcome. But we can't keep back the note very well, even if we could get
+hold of it,&mdash;it might get us into trouble, for it would be against the
+law; but there's no law against an April Fool letter of our own, and
+'twill be just as good fun in the end, for Marian Selwyn, of course,
+will set Miss Angela right in double quick time after she receives her
+note. Oh, I can just imagine the top-lofty style in which she will
+inform Miss Angela that there must be some mistake."
+</p><p>
+"And then, of course, they'll both find out that somebody's been
+April-fooling them."
+</p><p>
+"Of course. But that isn't going to interfere with our fun. Miss Angela
+will be set down by that time just where I want her, when she discovers
+that her invitation is nothing but an April fool on her. I wish&mdash;But,
+hush, somebody's coming this way;" and in an instant Nelly had whisked
+into her pocket the note she had written, and the cousins were walking
+down the room, talking in a loud tone about their lessons. The "somebody
+coming" was a very quiet but a very observing girl, who, as she saw the
+sudden start of Lizzy and Nelly, also caught sight of the little white
+missive as it was whisked into Nelly's pocket, and immediately
+thought,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"There's some mischief going on. I wonder what it is."
+</p><p>
+"That sly Mary Marcy, she's always spying 'round," whispered Nelly to
+her companion, as they passed along. Then in a high voice, thinking to
+mislead Mary, she cried, "Oh, Lizzy, now I've shown you <i>my</i> composition
+you must show me yours."
+</p><p>
+Mary Marcy was a shrewd girl as well as an observant one, and she
+laughed in her sleeve as she heard this.
+</p><p>
+"Composition! that was no school composition", she said to herself; and
+when a few minutes later the bell rang for the close of recess, and she
+saw Nelly send a significant glance to Lizzy as the two hurried to their
+seats, this shrewd, observant Mary was surer than ever that there was
+mischief going on, and when she went home that afternoon she told her
+mother what she had seen and heard, and how she felt about it,&mdash;for Mary
+was very confidential with her mother, and told her most of her school
+secrets. Mrs. Marcy listened to this telling with that placid Quaker way
+of hers, and remarked in her quaint Quaker phrase, "Thee mustn't be too
+suspicious, my dear; it maybe harmless mischief, after all." And then
+Mary had replied, "I shouldn't be suspicious of any of the other girls,
+mother; but Lizzy and Nelly Ryder are always doing and saying the
+mischievous things that have a sting in them;" and Mrs. Marcy, spite of
+her Quaker charity, then admitted that she had never quite liked the
+ways of those girls, and had often been sorry that they were in the
+Westboro' High School; "but, poor things," she added the moment she had
+made this admission, "they are more to be pitied than the persons they
+hurt, for <i>they</i> can get over the hurt, but these poor girls can't get
+over their own wrong-doing so easily. It makes a black mark on them
+every time, and black marks are hard to rub off; and thee'll see if they
+are up to any wrong-doing now, it will leave a mark, and so they'll get
+the worst of it in the long run."
+</p><p>
+"But it's always <i>such</i> a long run before a mark of that kind shows,"
+laughed Mary. "Girls of that sort seem to succeed in making everybody
+but themselves uncomfortable, and these two specially always appear to
+be so gay and full of good times with their giggle and chatter."
+</p><p>
+"But the Bible says, Mary, 'for as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
+so is the laughter of the fool;' and thee can think of this the next
+time thee hears the chatter, and then thee can say to thyself, 'It <i>may</i>
+be nothing but foolish folly, after all.'"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, it <i>may</i> be nothing but that," Mary allowed; but when the next
+morning she heard it again, her first doubts and suspicions returned in
+full force, and she said to herself, "I'm perfectly sure that there's
+something more than mere foolishness in this crackling of thorns. I'm
+perfectly sure there's mischief with a sting in it. I feel it in the
+air, and I'm just going to watch out and see if I can't stop it as I did
+that horrid St. Valentine business last winter."
+</p><p>
+And while good kind Mary was thus "watching out" for this mischief,
+there, only two or three seats away from her, sat Angela Jocelyn, about
+whom all the mischief was gathering as a dark cloud gathers over a fair
+sky. And Angela's sky was particularly fair to her just then, for she
+had been made very happy by the invitation she had received that
+morning,&mdash;so happy that she had said to her elder sister, Martha
+Jocelyn, "To think of Marian Selwyn's inviting <i>me</i>. Isn't it beautiful
+of her?" and Martha had answered back rather tartly, "I don't see why
+you should put such an emphasis on 'me,' as if you were so inferior.
+You're as good as Marian Selwyn."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Martha, I know&mdash;it isn't that I feel inferior in&mdash;in myself,"
+Angela exclaimed; "but the Selwyns have always had money and
+everything&mdash;always, and we are poor and have lived so out of the way
+that I say it's beautiful and kind of Marian, when she knows me so
+little. Why, Martha, I never see her anywhere but on the street and at
+Sunday-school."
+</p><p>
+"Well, she likes you, I suppose. She's taken a fancy to you, and she's
+independent enough, I should hope, to invite any girl she likes, if the
+girl <i>is</i> poor and lives out of the way," was Martha's cool reply.
+</p><p>
+Liked her! Taken a fancy to her! How Angela's heart jumped at this
+suggestion! Could it be possible that this lovely fortunate Marian
+Selwyn, that she had always admired from afar off, had taken a fancy to
+<i>her</i>,&mdash;poor, plain little Angela Jocelyn,&mdash;was her thought. And it was
+with this thought quickening her pulses that she wrote a cordial
+acceptance to the note of invitation; and it was this thought that sent
+such a bright look into her face that morning, that Mary Marcy said to
+her friend and seat-mate, Anna Richards, "Look at Angela Jocelyn, she is
+really growing pretty;" and a little later at the recess that followed
+directly after a recitation where Angela had easily led, as usual, Mary,
+catching sight of the frowning faces of Lizzy and Nelly Ryder,
+exclaimed: "Anna, if Angela Jocelyn is going to add good looks to her
+braininess, those Ryder girls will be more jealous of her than ever."
+</p><p>
+"And they pretend to look down on Angela because she is poor and her
+mother and sister take in sewing," responded Anna.
+</p><p>
+"All the same they don't look down on what Angela really <i>is</i>. She is
+superior to them in brains, and they know it, and that makes them want
+to pull her down," answered Mary.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I heard Nelly Ryder say last week that Angela was altogether too
+conceited, and ought to be 'taken down'; and it would be just like Nelly
+Ryder to try to do it sometime."
+</p><p>
+"<i>Sometime</i>! I believe she is trying to do it now. I believe that that
+is the mischief she and her cousin Lizzy are planning this moment,"
+cried Mary.
+</p><p>
+"What <i>do</i> you mean?"
+</p><p>
+"I'll tell you;" and Mary related, as she had related to her mother,
+what she had seen and heard.
+</p><p>
+"Nelly Ryder has never forgiven Angela for getting the history prize;
+Nelly thought herself sure of it,&mdash;she as good as told me so," was
+Anna's only remark upon this.
+</p><p>
+"And now she's going to play some trick on Angela to take her down, as
+she calls it; that's what you think, isn't it? And that's what <i>I</i>
+think. Oh, Anna, I wish I could ferret out the mischief and stop it. It
+will be something hateful and mortifying to poor Angela, I know. If I
+could only get some clew to what it is, so as to warn her."
+</p><p>
+"Yes; but as we are not sure that there <i>is</i> any mischief, after all,
+you mustn't say anything to anybody yet."
+</p><p>
+"No, of course not; but I'll keep a sharp lookout, and I <i>may</i> hear or
+see something that will give me a hint. What fun it would be to outwit
+one of the Ryder schemes!"
+</p><p>
+"Mary! with all your Quaker bringing-up, I do believe you are just
+pining for what our Jack would call 'a scrimmage.'"
+</p><p>
+"Well, I am, if that means getting the better of mischief-makers," Mary
+confessed with a laugh.
+</p><p>
+"But you won't succeed, if the mischief-makers are Nelly and Lizzy
+Ryder, Those, girls seem to get the best of everything and everybody.
+Think now, for one thing, of their being acquaintances of Marian
+Selwyn's, and invited to her birthday party!"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, that is family acquaintance, Anna. The Ryders have always
+known the Selwyns, just as we have. The Selwyns and Ryders and Marcys
+have lived in Westboro', and visited each other for ages."
+</p><p>
+"I wish <i>I</i> had, and then I might have been invited to this wonderful
+birthday party," exclaimed Anna, with a certain earnestness of tone that
+belied her gay little laugh, and made Mary say regretfully,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I wish I'd known you felt like this last week, I would have had you and
+Marian 'round to tea, and then you would have got acquainted, and she'd
+have been sure to have invited you; but it's too late now, for the party
+comes off Thursday, you know."
+</p><p>
+"Thursday! Why, Thursday is the first of April.. How funny that one's
+birthday should come on the first of April!"
+</p><p>
+"Funny&mdash;why?"
+</p><p>
+"Why? Because it's April-fool's day."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I see; but I'm so used to Marian's birthdays, I don't always stop
+to think of that."
+</p><p>
+"But don't some people think of it? Don't they sometimes play&mdash;Oh, oh,
+Mary, Mary, mayn't this be your clew? Don't you believe that Nelly
+Ryder has been planning an April-fool trick upon Angela in connection
+with this party?"
+</p><p>
+Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the
+recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of:
+"Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it <i>is</i> the clew. Why <i>didn't</i> I
+think of April-fool's day,&mdash;that it would be just the opportunity Nelly
+Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw
+it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in
+it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or
+other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to
+Marian,&mdash;sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night
+of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a
+silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified
+Tilly dreadfully."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than
+Tilly."
+</p><p>
+"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest
+persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very
+innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm
+going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I
+suspect."
+</p><p>
+"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our
+suspicion, and we <i>may</i> be on the wrong track altogether."
+</p><p>
+"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on
+that I might stop?"
+</p><p>
+"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had
+got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her
+birthday,&mdash;upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know
+<i>what</i> the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion
+that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on
+her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'
+and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to
+Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a
+word more."
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna
+had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year
+older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,&mdash;a
+year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of
+Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to
+Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so
+experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that
+that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and as a
+consequence made such a boggle of what she had to say, that Marian,
+entirely misunderstanding, exclaimed in amazement,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"You want me to get up an April joke on my birthday, Mary? I couldn't
+think of such a thing; I hate April jokes."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, you misunderstand," burst forth Mary; and then, forgetting all
+her awkwardness, she made her little statement over again, and this
+time succinctly and clearly. And now it was <i>her</i> turn to be amazed; for
+before she had got entirely to the end of her statement, Marian starting
+up pulled a note from her pocket and cried, "Read this, Mary! read
+this!"
+</p><p>
+It was Angela's cordial note of acceptance.
+</p><p>
+"And she had no invitation from <i>me</i>. I never invited her, I scarcely
+knew her," went on Marian.
+</p><p>
+"She had no invitation from <i>you</i>, but she thought she had. It isn't
+Angela who is playing a trick upon <i>you</i>. Somebody has played a trick
+upon <i>her</i>,&mdash;has written in your name. Oh, don't you see? <i>She</i> is the
+innocent person I meant."
+</p><p>
+"But who&mdash;who is the guilty one,&mdash;the one who has <i>dared</i> to do this?"
+cried Marian.
+</p><p>
+"I can't tell you yet whom I think it is, because I haven't any proof,
+and it wouldn't be fair to call names unless I had sure proof."
+</p><p>
+"Well, look here. All my notes were sealed with my monogram seal, but I
+used a variety of colored wax. Everybody is interested in comparing
+seals now, and so can't you make an excuse to Angela that you want to
+compare the seals in the different colors, and borrow her note of
+invitation, and then bring it to me? If I could see that note, I might
+know the handwriting, and then I'd know who played this shabby, cruel
+trick. And I ought to know, that I mayn't suspect an innocent person."
+</p><p>
+"But the note that Angela received may not be sealed with wax."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, yes, it will. Whoever sent that note had seen mine, I am certain,
+and of course would use wax, as I did. Now, won't you do this little
+service for me, Mary?" urged Marian, entreatingly.
+</p><p>
+Mary laughed. "Yes, I'll do it," she answered, "though I'm not very
+clever at playing theatre. I've too much Quaker blood in me for that;
+but it's a good cause, and I'll do the best I can, and I'll do it now,
+for Angela's sure to be at home now;" and suiting her action to her
+word, Mary started off then and there upon her errand.
+</p><p>
+And so surely and swiftly did she do her best on this errand that Marian
+gave a little scream of surprise as she saw her coming back, and,
+"You've not got it already?" she cried, running to meet her.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, here it is. Angela gave it to me at once."
+</p><p>
+"Just the size of <i>my</i> paper, and the wax&mdash;you see I was right. There
+<i>is</i> wax, and a seal-stamp that looks like <i>my</i> stamp, but isn't,"
+exclaimed Marian. "Now for the handwriting!" One glance at the address
+on the envelope; then, pulling out the note, she bent breathlessly over
+it for a moment. In another moment she was calling out triumphantly: "I
+know it! I know it! She tried to imitate mine, but I know these M's and
+r's and A's. They're Nelly Ryder's! they're Nelly Ryder's! Look here;"
+and running to her desk, the excited girl produced another note, and
+placed it beside the one that Angela had received. It was Nelly Ryder's
+acceptance of her invitation; and Mary, looking at the peculiar M's and
+r's and A's saw as clearly as Marian herself the proof of the same hand
+in each note.
+</p><p>
+"And I should know her 'hand' anywhere, for I've had hundreds of notes
+from her, first and last," Marian went on. "But to think of her playing
+such a trick as this! I never had any admiration for her, or her cousin
+either; but I <i>didn't</i> think either one of them could do such a
+mischievous, vulgar thing. But <i>you</i> did, Mary, for this is the girl you
+suspected."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, because I had known more of her than you had,&mdash;going to school
+with her every day;" and then Mary told what she had known, and what
+she had seen herself, winding up with, "But I didn't like to tell you
+all this before I had certain proof, for I wanted to be fair, you know."
+</p><p>
+"And you <i>have</i> been fair, more than fair; and now&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"Well, go on, what do you stop for&mdash;now what?"
+</p><p>
+"Wait and see;" and Marian nodded her head, and compressed her lips into
+a firm, resolute line.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Marian, are you going to punish Nelly?" cried Mary, a little
+alarmed at these indications.
+</p><p>
+Marian nodded again.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, I'm going to punish her."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, how, when, where?"
+</p><p>
+"When? On Thursday night. Where? At the birthday party. How? Wait and
+see."
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was the evening of the first of April,&mdash;a beautiful, still, starry
+evening, with all the chill and frost of early spring blown out of it by
+the friendly winds of March, and all the lovely promises of summer
+buddings and flowerings wafting into it from waiting May and June.
+</p><p>
+A "just perfect evening," said more than one girl delightedly, as she
+set out arrayed in all her furbelows for the birthday party. A "just
+perfect evening." And no one said this more emphatically, and felt it
+more emphatically, than Mary Marcy and Angela Jocelyn,&mdash;Mary in her
+pretty and becoming if rather plain white gown of China silk, and Angela
+in her old white cambric that had been 'done over' for the hundredth
+time, perhaps, and was neither pretty nor becoming, with its skimp skirt
+and sleeves and shrunken waist. But a new gown had been out of the
+question just then with the Jocelyns, and Angela had to make the best of
+the old one; and it did not seem at all hard to make a very good 'best'
+of it, when she stood in her own little bedroom, with Martha tying the
+well-worn blue sash around the shrunken waist, and her mother looking on
+and saying, "It really looks very nice, and that sash <i>does</i> wash so
+well."
+</p><p>
+But when she went up into the great brilliantly lighted bedchamber at
+the Selwyns', and saw Mary Marcy in her perfectly fitting gown drawing
+on her delicate gloves, and talking with several young ladies
+beautifully dressed in fresh muslin and silk, the skimp skirt and
+sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very
+mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when
+two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness;
+and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk
+and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela
+suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness.
+This feeling increased as she noticed the unmistakable start that the
+cousins gave as they caught sight of her, and heard Nelly's astonished
+exclamation, "What! <i>you</i> here?"
+</p><p>
+It was a bitter moment; but a bitterer was yet to come, when Lizzy
+Ryder, with that innocent little way of hers, said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, if you've come to help take our things off, <i>do</i> help me with this
+scarf, Angela!"
+</p><p>
+If Angela could but have known then and there that this was only a petty
+stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the
+words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think
+I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused
+feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation
+to her shabby gown, she started back with all her confusion merging into
+one thought to get away out of the sight of these well-dressed happy
+girls. But as she started back, Mary Marcy, who had heard Lizzy Ryder's
+speech, started forward and called out: "Oh, Angela, how do you do? I
+didn't see you when you came in. I&mdash;I've been expecting to see you,
+though; and now shall we go down together?"
+</p><p>
+Angela couldn't speak. She could only give a little nod of assent, and
+yield herself to kind Mary's guidance, with a deep breath of relief. It
+was only a partial relief, however. She had yet to go down into the
+brilliant parlor with its crowd of Selwyn cousins, yet to face, in that
+old shrunken gown with its washed sash, all those critical eyes. Oh,
+what if all those eyes should look at her with a stare of astonishment,
+such as Lizzy and Nelly Ryder had bestowed upon her? What if Marian
+herself should give a glance of surprise at the old shabby gown? These
+were some of the troubled questions that whirled through Angela's head
+as she went down the stairs with Mary Marcy. And down behind them,
+following closely, though Angela did not know it, came the two Ryder
+girls, full of eager curiosity, for they were both of them now quite
+certain that Marian had received no note of any sort from Angela. "She
+didn't know enough to write an acceptance. How should she? I don't
+suppose she's ever had an invitation to a party in her life," whispered
+Nelly to her cousin in the first shock of surprise at seeing Angela in
+the dressing-room.
+</p><p>
+"No, of course not," whispered back Lizzy; and so, confident and secure
+in this belief, and in the anticipation of "fun," as they called the
+displeased astonishment they expected to see Marian express at the sight
+of her uninvited guest, and the guest's mortification thereat, the
+conspirators stepped softly along down the stairs and across the great
+hall into the beautiful brilliant parlor.
+</p>
+<p class="bigillus"><a name="I0344" href="images/Illus0344s.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus0344t.jpg"
+ alt="As the fresh arrivals appeared" width="322" height="260"></a><br>
+<i>As the fresh arrivals appeared</i></p>
+<p>
+Marian was standing at the farther end of the parlor facing the doorway,
+with two of the Selwyn cousins beside her, as the fresh arrivals
+appeared. She was laughing joyously as they entered; but at her very
+first glimpse of the approaching group, the laugh ceased, and a look of
+sudden resolve flashed into her face,&mdash;a look that the Selwyn cousins,
+who had been told the whole story of the fraudulent invitation,
+understood at once to mean, "Here is my opportunity and I'll make the
+most of it!" But to the others&mdash;to the four who were approaching&mdash;this
+sudden change in their hostess's face was thus variously interpreted:
+"She has seen Angela," thought the Ryder girls, triumphantly. "She has
+seen the Ryder girls, and she is going to punish them," thought Mary,
+nervously. "She is looking at my dreadful old gown," thought Angela,
+miserably.
+</p><p>
+And moved thus differently by such different anticipations, the little
+group came down the room, Mary's nervousness increasing at every
+step,&mdash;for her shyness and the Quaker love of peace rose up within her
+at the sight of Marian's face, that seemed to her to betoken a plan of
+punishment for the approaching offenders more in accordance with the
+fiery Selwyn spirit than any spirit of peace.
+</p><p>
+Just what Mary feared she could not have told; but she knew something of
+this Selwyn spirit, and had often heard it said that the Selwyn tongue
+could cut like a lash when once started. That the Ryders deserved the
+sharpest cut of this lash she fully believed; but, "Oh, I <i>do</i> hope
+Marian won't say anything sharp <i>now</i>," she thought to herself. And it
+was then, just then, at that very moment, that she saw Marian's face
+change again, as the softest, sweetest, kindest of smiles beamed from
+lips and eyes, and the softest, sweetest, kindest of voices said,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"How do you do, Mary? I'm very glad to see you,&mdash;you know my cousins,
+Bertie and Laura;" and in the next breath, "How do you do, Miss Jocelyn?
+It's very nice to see you here.&mdash;Bertie, Laura, this is my friend Angela
+Jocelyn, who is going to make one of our charade party next month if I
+can persuade her."
+</p><p>
+One of that May-day charade party! Mary opened her eyes very wide at
+this, and Angela wondered if she were awake. But the charming voice was
+now speaking to some one else,&mdash;was saying very politely without a
+touch of sharpness, but with a world of meaning to those who had the
+clew, and those only,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"How do you do, Lizzy? How do you do, Nelly? And, Nelly, I want to thank
+you for a real service in connection with my birthday invitations. But
+for you I should have missed a very welcome guest. I shall never forget
+this, you may be sure."
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;" But for once Nelly Ryder's ready speech failed her. Her cousin
+tried to take up her words, tried to say something about April fun,
+tried to smile, to laugh; but the laugh died upon her lips, and she was
+only too glad to move on with Nelly into the room beyond, and there, out
+of the range of observation for a moment, the two expressed their
+astonishment and dismay at Marian's knowledge, and wondered how she came
+by it.
+</p><p>
+"But to think of her taking an April joke so seriously as to make much
+of Angela Jocelyn just to come up with <i>me</i>!" burst out Nelly.
+</p><p>
+"And to think," burst out Lizzy, with a sly laugh, "that it is <i>you</i> who
+have introduced Angela to Marian's good graces, and that it is <i>you</i>,
+after all, who have been made the April fool, and not Angela!"
+</p>
+<hr class="chapbreak">
+<h2><a name="Guest">THE THANKSGIVING GUEST.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="illus">
+<a href="images/Illus314.png" target="_blank"><img src="images/Illus314s.png"
+ alt="I" width="165" height="188" align="left"></a><br><br>
+t is such a lovely idea, such a truly Christian idea, Mrs. Lambert.
+How did you ever happen to think of it?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, <i>I</i> did not think of it; it wasn't <i>my</i> idea. Didn't you ever hear
+how it came about?"
+</p><p>
+"No; do tell me!"
+</p><p>
+"Well, my husband, you know, was always looking out for ways of doing
+good,&mdash;lending a helping hand,&mdash;and he used to talk with the children a
+great deal of such things. One day he came across a beautiful little
+story that he read to them. It was the story of a child who made the
+acquaintance of a poor, half-starved student and brought him home with
+her to share her Thanksgiving dinner. It made a deep impression on the
+children. They talked about it continually, and acted it out in their
+play. But they were in the habit of doing that with any fresh story that
+pleased them, so it was nothing new to us, and we hadn't a thought of
+their carrying it further. But the next week was Thanksgiving week; and
+when Thanksgiving Day came, what do you think those little things
+did,&mdash;for they were quite little things then,&mdash;what do you think they
+did but bring in just before dinner the half-blind old apple-pedler who
+had a stand on the corner of the street?
+</p><p>
+"They were so happy about it, and they thought we should be so happy
+too, that we couldn't say a word of discouragement in the way of advice
+then; but later, when we had given the old fellow his dinner, and he had
+gone, we had a talk with the dear little souls, when we tried to show
+them that it would be better to let us know when they wanted to invite
+any one to dinner or to tea,&mdash;that that was the way other girls and boys
+always did. They were rather crestfallen at our suggestions; for, with
+the keen, sensitive instinct of children, they felt that their
+beautiful plan, as they thought it, had somewhere failed, and, though
+they promised readily enough to consult us 'next time,' we could see
+that they were puzzled and depressed over all this <i>regulation</i>, when we
+had seemed to have nothing but admiring appreciation for the similar act
+of the child in the story. My husband, seeing this, was very much
+troubled to know just what to say or do; for he thought, as I did, that
+it might be a serious injury to them to say or do anything to chill or
+check their first independent attempt to lend a helping hand to others.
+Then all at once out of his perplexity came this idea of allowing the
+children from that time forward to have the privilege of inviting a
+guest of their own choosing every Thanksgiving Day, and that this guest
+should be some one who needed, in some way or other, home-cherishing and
+kindness. They should have the privilege of choosing, but they must tell
+us the one they had chosen, that we might send the invitation for them.
+This plan delighted them; and from this start, five years ago, the thing
+has gone on until it has grown into the present 'guest day,' where <i>each
+one</i> of the children may invite his or her particular guest. It has got
+to be a very pleasant thing now, though at first we had some queer
+times. But as the children grew older, they learned better how to
+regulate matters, and to make necessary discriminations, and a year ago
+we found we could trust them to invite their guests without any older
+supervision, and they are very proud of this liberty, and very happy in
+the whole thing; and such an education as it has been. You've no idea
+how they have learned to think of others, to look about them to find
+those who are in need not merely of food or clothing but of loving
+attention and kindness."
+</p><p>
+"Well, it is beautiful, Mrs. Lambert, and what a Thanksgiving ought to
+be,&mdash;what it was in the old pilgrim days at Plymouth, when those who had
+more than others invited the less fortunate to share with them. It's
+beautiful, and I wish everybody who could afford it would go and do
+likewise."
+</p><p>
+"Speaking of affording it, I thought, when my husband died last spring,
+I should have to give up our guest day with most other things, for you
+know that railroad business that my husband entered into with his
+half-brother John nearly ruined him. I think the worry and fret of it
+killed him, anyway, and I told John so, and he has never forgiven me.
+But I have never forgiven him, and never shall; for if it hadn't been
+for John's representations, his continual urging, Charles would never
+have gone into the business. Oh, I shall always hold John responsible
+for his death, and I told him so."
+</p><p>
+"You told him so? How did he take that? What did he say?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you know John. He flew into a rage, and said he loved his brother
+as well as <i>I</i> did. As well as <i>I</i> did! Think of that; and that he had
+urged him into that business, thinking that it was for his
+benefit,&mdash;that no one could have foreseen what happened, and that if
+Charles lost, he also had lost, and much more heavily. But, as I was
+saying, I thought at first I should have to give up our guest day; but
+when matters came to be settled, I found there were other things I would
+rather economize on."
+</p><p>
+"Where <i>is</i> John now, Mrs. Lambert?"
+</p><p>
+"He is in&mdash;" But just at that moment a tall pretty girl of fourteen
+entered the room. It was Elsie, the eldest of the Lambert children.
+</p><p>
+"Why, Elsie, how you have grown!" cried Mrs. Mason, who hadn't seen
+Elsie for some months, "and you've quite lost the look of your mother."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Elsie is getting to look like the Lamberts," remarked the mother.
+</p><p>
+"Everybody says I look just like Uncle John," spoke up Elsie.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, you were asking me where John was now," said Mrs. Lambert, turning
+to Mrs. Mason. "He is in New York, dabbling in railroads, as usual, and
+getting poorer and poorer by this obstinate folly, I heard last week.
+<i>We</i> don't see him, of course; for, as I told you, we don't forgive each
+other. Oh!" as her visitor cast a questioning glance toward Elsie, who
+had suddenly given a little start here, "Elsie knows all about it. Elsie
+is my big girl now. But what is it, my dear?&mdash;you came in to ask me
+something,&mdash;what is it?"
+</p><p>
+"It's about Tommy. He has told me who he is going to invite for next
+week,"&mdash;next week was Thanksgiving week,&mdash;"and I knew you would not like
+it, and I felt that I ought to tell you; it is that horrid Marchant
+boy."
+</p><p>
+"Like it,&mdash;I should think not! Why, what in the world has put Tommy up
+to that?"
+</p><p>
+"He says that Joe Marchant hasn't any home of his own this
+Thanksgiving, because his father has gone out West on business, and left
+Joe all alone with those people that his father and he boarded with just
+after his mother died; and Tommy pities Joe so, he says he is going to
+invite him here for next Thursday, and I knew you wouldn't want him."
+</p><p>
+"Of course not; the boy is ill-mannered and disagreeable, and he is
+always quarrelling with Tommy."
+</p><p>
+"I told Tommy that," laughed Elsie, "and he said he guessed he'd done
+<i>his</i> share of the quarrelling, and that, anyway, Joe Marchant was the
+under dog now, and he was going to forgive and forget."
+</p><p>
+"Dear little Tommy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lambert, admiringly.
+</p><p>
+"And he said, too, mother, that he knew you wouldn't object; that you
+always told him that Thanksgiving Day was the very day to make up with
+folks and be good to 'em, but I knew you <i>would</i> object to Joe Marchant,
+and so&mdash;"
+</p><p>
+"I&mdash;I don't know about it, Elsie. If Tommy feels like that, I&mdash;I don't
+believe it would be wise for me to check him. No, I don't believe I can.
+Tommy is nearer right than I am. He is doing a fine, generous thing,
+and it <i>is</i> the right thing, and I think we must put up with Joe
+Marchant, Elsie, after all."
+</p><p>
+"Oh, <i>I</i> don't mind, if <i>you</i> don't, mamma; but I thought you wouldn't
+like it, and it would spoil the day."
+</p><p>
+"No, nothing done in that spirit <i>could</i> spoil the day; and, Elsie, I
+hope the rest of you will make your choice of guests with as good reason
+as Tommy has."
+</p><p>
+Elsie looked at her mother with an odd, eager expression, as if she were
+about to speak. Then she suddenly lifted up her head with a little air
+of resolution, and starting forward hurriedly left the room.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Lambert laughed as the door closed.
+</p><p>
+"I think I know what Elsie is going to do," she said smilingly to Mrs.
+Mason. "There is a young teacher in her school, Miss Matthews, who is
+seldom invited anywhere, she is so unpopular. I've often asked Elsie to
+bring her home, and she has always put it off; but I believe that this
+act of Tommy's and what I've said about it has made such an impression
+upon her that she has gone now to invite Miss Matthews to be her guest
+next week. She was going to tell me about it at first, then she thought
+better of it. They've all had this liberty for the last year&mdash;not to
+tell&mdash;it's so much more fun for them; and I can always trust Elsie to
+look out for things, she has such good sense with her good heart."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, and you <i>all</i> seem to have such good sense and such good hearts,
+Mrs. Lambert," said Mrs. Mason, as she rose to go; but as she walked
+down the street she said to herself, "Such good sense and such good
+hearts, overflowing with charity and forgiveness for everybody but John
+Lambert!"
+</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was Thanksgiving Day, and just three minutes to the dinner-hour at
+the Lamberts', and all the guests had arrived except the one that Elsie
+had bidden.
+</p><p>
+"Don't fret, Elsie," whispered Mrs. Lambert to her, as she noted the two
+red spots burning in her cheeks and her anxious glances toward the
+clock,&mdash;"don't fret; she's probably going to be fashionably exact on the
+stroke of the hour."
+</p><p>
+Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to
+talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.
+</p><p>
+"We'll wait five minutes for her," thought Mrs. Lambert. "If there
+hasn't been an accident to detain her, she's very rude, and certainly
+not fit to be a teacher of <i>manners</i>, and I don't wonder she's unpopular
+with the girls."
+</p><p>
+The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did
+not appear. To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs.
+Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served. It was seemingly a
+very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but
+there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each
+one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger's
+feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day. Mrs.
+Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses
+and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her
+five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the
+dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other
+relations. But she must not dwell on these memories with all these
+guests to serve. She must put her own needs aside to see that little
+Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and
+that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry
+sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.
+</p><p>
+It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was
+laughing a little at Joe's clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling
+him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one
+guest was missing,&mdash;while she was doing this, there came a great crunch
+of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell,
+and, "There she is! there she is!" thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added
+thought: "It's rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage
+when she is at such a little distance from us,&mdash;rather putting on airs,
+but&mdash;What <i>are</i> you jumping up for?" she calls out to Elsie, who has
+suddenly sprung from her seat. "What are you jumping up for? Ellen will
+attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed
+her wraps. Sit down, Elsie; don't be so fidgety. I will&mdash;" But the
+dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw
+coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with
+a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of
+this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt
+her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I am so glad to come to you,&mdash;to see you and the children again,
+Caroline. I was away when Elsie's letter arrived; but as soon as I got
+into New York yesterday, I started off, and I am so glad to come, so
+glad to come;" and here Mrs. Lambert heard the eager voice falter, and
+saw the glisten of tears in the eyes that were regarding her and in the
+next instant felt them against her cheek as a tender kiss was pressed
+upon it. It was all in a moment, the strange surprise of look and word
+and tone and touch, the joyful cries of "It's Uncle John, it's Uncle
+John!" from some one of the children. Then all in a moment the
+strangeness seemed to have passed, and John Lambert was taking his place
+amongst them with the fond belief that he was his sister-in-law's chosen
+guest. And she, with those warm, manly words of thanks, those joyful
+cries of childish welcome in her ears, could she undeceive him,&mdash;could
+she say to him: "It was not I who sent for you; I am the same as ever,
+as full of wild regrets and bitter resentments"? Could she say this to
+him? How could she, how could she, when over the wild regrets and bitter
+resentments there kept rising and rising a flood of earlier memories of
+an earlier time when this guest had been a welcome guest indeed, and she
+had heard again and again those very words, "I'm so glad to come"? Those
+very words, but with what a difference of accent, and what a difference
+in the speaker himself,&mdash;only a year and his face so worn, his hair so
+white, she had not known him! He must have suffered,&mdash;yes, and she&mdash;she
+had suffered; but she had her children, and he had no one!
+</p><p>
+The dinner was over. They had all risen from the table, and were going
+into the parlor, and Uncle John had his namesake Johnny on one side of
+him and little Archie on the other. They had taken possession of him
+from the first, when Elsie, hanging back, clung to her mother and
+whispered agitatedly,&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, it was what you said last week about Tommy's
+invitation that made me think of&mdash;of inviting Uncle John; but perhaps I
+ought to have told you&mdash;have asked you."
+</p><p>
+"No, no, it is better as it is. Don't fret, dear, it&mdash;it is all right.
+But there is Ann bringing the coffee into the parlor. Go and light your
+little teakettle, Elsie, and make your uncle a cup of tea as you used to
+do; he can't drink coffee, you know."
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<pre>
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Flock of Girls and Boys, by Nora Perry
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Flock of Girls and Boys
+
+Author: Nora Perry
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2003  [eBook #10433]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Wilson, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+A FLOCK
+
+of
+
+GIRLS AND BOYS.
+
+by NORA PERRY,
+
+Author Of "Hope Benham," "Lyrics And Legends,"
+"A Rosebud Garden Of Girls," Etc.
+
+
+Illustrated by
+CHARLOTTE TIFFANY PARKER.
+
+1895.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: That little Smith girl]
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
+
+THE EGG BOY
+
+MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE
+
+POLLY'S VALENTINE
+
+SIBYL'S SLIPPER
+
+A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN
+
+ESTHER BODN
+
+BECKY
+
+ALLY
+
+AN APRIL FOOL
+
+THE THANKSGIVING GUEST
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
+
+"MISS PELHAM! MISS MARGARET PELHAM!"
+
+WALLULA CLAPPED HER HANDS WITH DELIGHT
+
+A VERY PRETTY PAIR
+
+SIBYL'S REFLECTIONS
+
+A TALL, HANDSOME WOMAN SMILED A GREETING
+
+SHE WAS ADDRESSING MONSIEUR BAUDOUIN
+
+THE PRETTY LITTLE BASKET OF GREEN AND WHITE PAPER
+
+AS THE FRESH ARRIVALS APPEARED
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"The Pelhams are coming next month."
+
+"Who are the Pelhams?"
+
+Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as
+she exclaimed:
+
+"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the Pelhams
+are?"
+
+Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up _her_ nose as she replied,--
+
+"I do mean to say just that."
+
+"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.
+
+"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.
+
+"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson,
+with a laugh.
+
+"But the Pelhams,--I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at
+least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a
+doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further
+irritated, cried impulsively,--
+
+"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done, pray
+tell, that everybody should know of them?"
+
+"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They
+are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one of
+the oldest families of Boston."
+
+"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until
+it bumped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat
+Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,--
+
+"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"
+
+Then another girl giggled,--it was another of the Robsons,--Dora's
+Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,--
+
+"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her
+'Crack Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."
+
+"You'd better call her L.H.,--'Level Head,'" a voice--a boy's
+voice--called out here.
+
+The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.
+"Who--what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie, by
+hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our
+secrets?"
+
+"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or
+more when you girls came to this end of the piazza."
+
+"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I
+didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let
+me see it."
+
+"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+Will held up the book.
+
+"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"
+
+"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of
+boy's sports," returned Will.
+
+"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her
+head.
+
+"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.
+
+"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.
+
+"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."
+
+Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and
+prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."
+
+"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.
+
+"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the
+hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read
+it twice."
+
+Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he ejaculated in
+pleased astonishment,--
+
+"Come, I say now!"
+
+"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever
+read,--that part about the boat-race I've read over three or four
+times."
+
+"Well, your head _is_ level," cried Will, sitting up still straighter
+in the hammock, and regarding Tilly with a look of respect.
+
+"Because I don't care anything for Boston's grand folks and do care for
+'Jack Hall'?" laughed Tilly.
+
+"Yes, that's about it," responded Will, with a little grin. "I'm so sick
+and tired," he went on, "hearing about 'swells' and money. The best
+fellow I know at school is quite poor; and one of the worst of the lot
+is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."
+
+"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly
+well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.
+
+"I don't!" growled Will.
+
+"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to
+that."
+
+"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.
+
+"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name--"
+
+"I do think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I
+want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of
+'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There
+wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have
+cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and
+sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that
+showed his approval of this trait in his ancestors.
+
+Dora looked at him curiously; then with a faint smile she said,--
+
+"Your cousin Frances is so proud of those old Wentworths. She's often
+told me how grandly they lived, and she's so pleased that her name
+Frances is the name of one of the prettiest of the Governor's wives."
+
+"Yes; and one of the prettiest, and I dare say one of the best of 'em,
+was a servant-girl in Governor Benning Wentworth's kitchen, and he
+married her out of it. Did Fan ever tell you that?" and Will chuckled.
+
+Amy Robson stared at Will with amazement as she exclaimed,--
+
+"Well, I never saw such a queer boy as you are,--to run your own family
+down."
+
+"I'm not running 'em down. 'Tisn't running 'em down to say that one of
+'em married Martha Hilton. Martha Hilton was a nice girl, though she was
+poor and had to work in a kitchen. Plenty of nice girls--farmers'
+daughters--worked in that way in those old times; the New England
+histories tell you that."
+
+Not one of the girls made any comment or criticism upon this statement,
+for Will Wentworth was known to be well up in history; but after a
+moment or two of silence, Dora burst forth in this wise,--
+
+"You may talk as you like. Will Wentworth, but you know perfectly well
+that you don't think a servant-girl is as good as you are."
+
+"If you mean that I don't think she is of the same class, of course I
+don't. She may be a great deal better than I am in other ways, for all
+that. In those old days, though, the servant-girls weren't the kind we
+have now; they were Americans,--farmers' daughters,--most of 'em."
+
+"Oh, well, you may talk and talk in this grand way, Willie Wentworth;
+but you know where you belong, and when the Pelhams come, Tilly'll see
+for herself that you are one of the same sort."
+
+"As the Pelhams?"
+
+"Well, what have you got to say about the Pelhams in that scornful way?"
+asked Amy, rather indignantly.
+
+"I'm not scornful. I was only going to set you right, and say that the
+Pelhams are fashionable folks and the Wentworths are not."
+
+"Oh, I'd like to have your cousin Fanny hear you say that. Fanny thinks
+the Wentworths are fully equal to the Pelhams or any one else."
+
+"They are."
+
+"What do you mean, Will Wentworth? You just said--"
+
+"I just said that the Pelhams were fashionable people and the Wentworths
+were not, but that doesn't make the Pelhams any better than the
+Wentworths. The Pelhams have got more money and like to spend it in that
+way,--in being fashionable society folks, I suppose. There are lots of
+people who have as much and more money, who won't be fashionable,--they
+don't like it."
+
+"Your cousin Fanny says--"
+
+"Fanny's a snob. It makes me sick to hear her talk sometimes. If she
+were here now, she'd be full of these Pelhams, and as thick with 'em
+when they came, whether they were nice or not. If they were ever so
+nice, she'd snub 'em if they were not up in the world,--what you call
+'swells.' She never got such stuff as that from the Wentworths."
+
+"There are plenty of people like your cousin," spoke up Tilly, with
+sudden emphasis and a fleeting glance at Agnes Brendon.
+
+"Oh, now, Tilly, don't say that," cried Dora, in a funny little
+wheedling tone, "don't now; you'll hurt some of our feelings, for we
+shall think you mean one of us, and you can't mean that, Tilly
+dear,"--the wheedling tone taking on a droll, merry accent,--"you can't,
+for you know how independent and high-minded we all are,--how incapable
+of such meanness!"
+
+"I wouldn't trust this high-mindedness," retorted Tilly, wrinkling up
+her forehead.
+
+"Now, Tilly, you don't mean that,--you don't mean that you've come all
+the way from naughty New York to find such dreadful faults in nice,
+primmy New England. The very dogs here are above such things. Look at
+Punch there making friends with that little plebeian yellow dog."
+
+"And look at Dandy barking at everybody who isn't well dressed," laughed
+Tilly, pointing to a handsome collie, who was vigorously giving voice to
+his displeasure at the approach of a workman in shabby clothing.
+
+The Robson girls and Will Wentworth joined in Tilly's laugh; but Agnes
+Brendon, who could never see a joke, looked disgusted, and glancing at
+the little yellow dog, asked petulantly,--
+
+"Whose dog is it?"
+
+"It belongs to the girl who sits at the corner table," answered Will
+Wentworth, "and its name is Pete. I heard the girl call him this
+morning."
+
+"What a horrid, vulgar name!" exclaimed Agnes. "It suits the dog,
+though; and the people, I suppose, are--"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, look at that horrid worm on your dress!"
+
+Agnes jumped up in a panic, screaming, "Where, where?"
+
+Dora, bending down to brush off the smallest of small caterpillars,
+whispered,--
+
+"The girl who owns the yellow dog is in the other hammock. I just saw
+her, and she can hear every word you say."
+
+"I don't care if she does hear," said Agnes, without troubling herself
+to lower her voice. "You needn't have frightened me with your horrid
+worm story, just for that."
+
+Will Wentworth, as he heard this, fell backward into his reclining
+position, with an explosive laugh. The next minute he sprang out of the
+hammock, and, tucking "Jack Hall" under his arm, was up and off, giving
+a sidelong look as he went at the other hammock, which, though only a
+few rods away, was half hidden by the foliage of the two low-growing
+trees between which it hung. Meeting Tilly and the Robson girls as he
+ran around the corner of the house, he said breathlessly,--
+
+"Look here; that girl must have heard everything that we've said."
+
+"Well, there wasn't anything said that concerned her, until Agnes began
+about the yellow dog; and I stopped that," said Dora, gleefully.
+
+"She may be acquainted with the Pelhams,--how do we know?" exclaimed
+Will, ruefully.
+
+"The Pelhams!" cried Dora and Amy, in one breath.
+
+"Yes, how do we know?" repeated Will.
+
+"That girl who sits over at the corner table with that stuffy old woman,
+acquainted with the Pelhams! Oh, Will, if Agnes could hear you!" cried
+Dora, with a shout of laughter.
+
+"Well, I can't see what there is to laugh at," broke in Will, huffily.
+"Why shouldn't she and the stuffy old woman, as you call her, know the
+Pelhams? She's a nice-looking girl, a first-rate looking girl. What's
+the matter with her?"
+
+"Matter? I don't know that anything is the matter, except that she
+doesn't look like the sort of girl who would be an acquaintance of the
+Pelhams. She doesn't look like their kind, you know. She wears the
+plainest sort of dresses,--just little straight up and down frocks of
+brown or drab, or those white cambric things,--they are more like
+baby-slips than anything; and her hats are just the same,--great flat
+all-round hats, not a bit of style to them; and she's a girl of fourteen
+or fifteen certainly. Do you suppose people of the Pelhams' kind dress
+like that?"
+
+Will gave a gruff little sound half under his breath, as he asked
+sarcastically,--
+
+"How do people of the Pelham kind dress?"
+
+"Oh, like Dora and Amy, and especially like Agnes,--in the height of the
+fashion, you know," Tilly cried laughingly.
+
+"Now, Tilly," expostulated Dora, "neither Amy nor I overdress. We wear
+what all girls of our age--girls who are almost young ladies--wear, and
+I'm sure you wear the same kind of things."
+
+"Not quite, Dora. I'll own, though, I would if I could; but there's such
+a lot of us at home that the money gives out before it goes all 'round,"
+said Tilly, frankly, yet rather ruefully.
+
+"I'm sure you look very nice," said Dora, politely. Amy echoed the
+polite remark, while Will, eying the three with an attempt at a critical
+estimate, thought to himself, "They don't look a bit nicer than that
+girl at the corner table."
+
+But Will was too wise to give utterance to this thought. He knew how it
+would be received; he knew that the three would laugh at him and say,
+"What does a boy know about girl's clothes?"
+
+In the mean time, while all this was going on, what was that girl who
+had suggested the talk, that girl who sat at the corner table in the
+dining room and who was now lying in a hammock,--what was she doing,
+what was she thinking?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+She was lying looking up through the green branches of the trees. She
+had been reading, but her book was now closed, and she was lying quietly
+looking up at the blue sky between the branches. Her thoughts were not
+quite so quiet as her position would seem to indicate. She had, as Will
+Wentworth had said, heard all that talk about the Pelhams. Whatever her
+class in life, she was certainly a delicate and honorable young girl;
+for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party
+of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood,
+she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various
+little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and
+readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these
+demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared
+whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably
+back again into her place, and opened her book.
+
+But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age,
+and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said,
+she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she
+found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would
+dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her
+lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little
+yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she
+quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's
+little device to make it unfinished.
+
+It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of
+her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this
+knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed
+down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of
+laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.
+
+All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way
+across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she
+jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran
+into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person
+she was going in search of,--the person that Dora Robson had called
+"that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow
+dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone
+like satin.
+
+"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his
+young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.
+
+"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"
+cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.
+
+"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.
+
+"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to
+tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.
+Let's go in here, where we shall be all by ourselves," turning towards a
+small unoccupied reception-room.
+
+There, cosily ensconced beside her aunt, with the little yellow dog at
+her feet, the dog's mistress told her story, with various exclamations
+and interjections of, "Now wasn't it horrid of them?" and "Did you ever
+know anything so ridiculous?" while auntie listened with great
+interest, her only comment at the end being,--
+
+"Well, they're not worth minding, Peggy, and I wouldn't act as if I'd
+heard what they said when you meet them. I wouldn't take any notice of
+them."
+
+"I? Why, it's they who won't take any notice of me, auntie. I'm like my
+little dog,--a vulgar plebeian. What would they say, what would they
+think, if they could hear you call me Peggy?--that's as bad as Pete,
+isn't it?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is;" and auntie laughed a little as she spoke.
+
+The great summer hotel was not nearly full yet, for it was only the last
+of June; and as Peggy went down to luncheon, her hand closely clasped in
+"auntie's," whom should she meet face to face in the rather
+deserted-looking hall but "those girls"? It was a little embarrassing
+all round, and they all colored up very rosily as they met.
+
+"I wonder where the boy is?" thought Peggy; "he and that New York girl
+were nice." She glanced over her shoulder at this thought. There was the
+boy; and--yes, he was standing at the office desk, carefully examining
+the hotel register. "He's looking for our names!" flashed into Peggy's
+mind, "and those girls set him up to it. I wonder what they'll say to
+'Mrs. Smith and niece'? I know; they'll say, or the girl they call Agnes
+will say, 'Smith, of course! I knew they had some such common name as
+that.'"
+
+Something very like this comment did take place when Master Will, in
+obedience to Dora Robson's request, brought the information that the
+people at the corner table were Mrs. Smith and her niece. But if Peggy
+could only have heard Will flash out upon this comment the further
+information that very distinguished people had borne the name of
+Smith,--could have heard him quote the famous English clergyman Sydney
+Smith, whose wit and humor were so charming,--if Peggy could have heard
+Will going on in this fashion, she would have thought he was very nice
+indeed, and been quite delighted with his independent outspokenness.
+
+Agnes, however, was anything but delighted. She was, in fact, very angry
+with Will by this time, and what she called his meddlesome, domineering
+airs, and quite determined to let him know at the very first opportunity
+that she was not in the least to be influenced by his opinions.
+
+The opportunity presented itself sooner than she expected. It was just
+after luncheon, and a couple of Indians had come up from their
+neighboring summer camp with a load of baskets for sale.
+
+Dora and Tilly, with Mrs. Brendon and Agnes and Amy, went out to them at
+once. Others soon followed, and a brisk bargaining began. When the
+Indian woman held up a beautiful little basket skilfully woven to
+imitate shells, there was a general exclamation of pleasure, and one
+voice cried out with enthusiasm, "Oh, how lovely!" and the owner of the
+voice reached forth to take the basket in her hand. Agnes Brendon,
+turning quickly, saw that it was Mrs. Smith's niece.
+
+"The idea of that girl pushing herself forward like this!" was Agnes's
+whispered remark to Amy.
+
+"Hush: she'll hear you," whispered back Amy.
+
+"I don't care," answered Agnes, at the same time crowding herself to the
+front and inquiring the price of the basket, with the determination to
+get possession of it before any one else had a chance. But when the
+price--two dollars--was named, Mrs. Brendon pronounced it exorbitant,
+and offered half the sum, never doubting its acceptance. The Indian
+woman, however, shook her head with an air of grim decision; and at that
+very moment, catching sight of Mrs. Smith and her niece, she nodded
+smilingly, repeated the price, and held the basket up again;
+
+"Yes, yes, I'll take it," called out Peggy, nodding and smiling
+responsively; and the next instant the basket was in her hands.
+
+Agnes, not only disappointed, but deeply mortified and angry, turned
+hastily to Dora Robson, and gave vent to her feelings by remarking in a
+perfectly clear undertone,--
+
+"The worst of a place like this is that you meet such common people,
+with nothing to recommend them but their money."
+
+Dora and Amy flushed with annoyance at this speech; but Tilly was so
+disgusted and indignant that she broke away from them all with an
+impatient exclamation, and started off across the lawn towards the
+house. Halfway across she met Will Wentworth, with Tom Raymond,--a great
+chum of his, who had just arrived by the noon boat.
+
+"Hullo, what's up, what's the matter?" asked Will, as he perceived the
+expression of Tilly's face.
+
+Tilly stopped, and in a few graphic words told her story, winding up
+with, "Wasn't it horrid of Agnes?"
+
+"Horrid? It was beastly," sputtered Will. "_She_ to call people common!"
+
+"But that girl is not common," said Tilly. "She may belong to people who
+have just made a lot of money,--for that's what Agnes meant to fling
+out,--but there isn't any vulgar common show of it. Look at her, how
+plainly she's dressed, and how quiet she is."
+
+"Wonder what Agnes is up to now? Let's go and see," said Will, wheeling
+about and nodding to Tilly and Tom to follow.
+
+As they came along together, Will a little ahead, Tom Raymond was quite
+silent until they approached the group collected around the Indians;
+then he suddenly ejaculated, "Well, I never!"
+
+"What? What do you mean?--what--who do you see?" asked Tilly, very much
+surprised at this outbreak.
+
+"Is that the girl--the Smith girl you were telling about--there by the
+tree--holding a basket?" asked Tom.
+
+"Yes; why--do you know her?"
+
+"N-o--but--I was thinking--she doesn't look common, does she?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't, only plainly dressed."
+
+"Yes, that's all;" and Tom gave a little odd chuckling laugh.
+
+"How queer Tom Raymond is!" thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer
+still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl.
+Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom with
+rather a puzzled observation.
+
+"I see how it is," reflected Miss Tilly; "they have met before
+somewhere, and Tom doesn't want to know her now. He thinks she isn't
+fine enough for this Boston set, though he owns that she doesn't look
+common. Oh, I do believe that Will Wentworth is the only one here who
+has any sense or heart."
+
+As Tilly arrived at this conclusion of her reflections, Will came
+running up to her.
+
+"Come," he said, "there's no fun here. Let's go and have a game of
+tennis."
+
+"But where's Agnes? I thought you wanted to see what she was doing."
+
+"She's gone off in a huff because I asked her if she'd bought any
+baskets," answered Will, grinning. Tilly laughed, and Tom Raymond gave
+another odd little chuckle. Then the three strolled away to the tennis
+ground. As they were passing the rustic bench under the tree where Mrs.
+Smith and her niece were sitting, Tilly took a sudden resolution, and,
+stopping abruptly, said,--
+
+"We're going to have a game of tennis; won't you join us, Miss--Miss
+Smith?"
+
+The girl looked up with a smile, hesitated a moment, and then accepted
+the invitation. Will, nodding to Tilly a surprised and pleased approval
+of her action, started off ahead of the others to see if the tennis
+ground was occupied. As he turned the corner, he met Dora Robson with a
+racket in her hand.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "here you are! I was just coming after you, for Amy and
+I have got to go in,--mamma has sent for us, and Agnes was so
+disappointed,--now it's all right, for there's Tilly, and--what
+luck--Tom Raymond; he's such a splendid player, and you can--" But Dora
+stopped, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Who--who was that behind Tilly?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+As Agnes, standing waiting upon the tennis-ground where Dora had left
+her, suddenly caught sight of Tom Raymond, her heart gave a little throb
+of exultation. Tom Raymond was the best tennis-player she knew. To have
+him for her partner would be delightful, and she went forward with the
+most gracious welcome to him. So absorbed was she, so pleased at Tom's
+appearance, at his polite response to her, she did not observe Miss
+Smith,--did not see Tilly draw back, did not hear her say, "No, I don't
+care to play, Miss Smith, I want you to play with Will; this is my
+friend Will Wentworth, Miss Smith," by way of introduction.
+
+No; Agnes saw and heard nothing of all this, or of Will's polite
+arrangements with the newcomer. She saw nothing, she thought of nothing,
+but that her own little arrangement to have Tom for a partner was
+successful; and so, blithely and triumphantly, she took her place and
+lifted her racket. Whizz! she sent the ball flying over the netting,
+and whizz! it came flying back again, to be returned by Tom Raymond's
+vigorous stroke. Agnes regarded this stroke with due admiration.
+"Neither Will nor Tilly can match that," she thought; and at the thought
+she looked over and across the netting, to see a girl's uplifted arm
+swinging easily forward, the racket hitting the ball lightly with a
+swift, sure, upward, and onward motion. Where had Tilly learned to
+strike out like that, all at once? Tilly! The uplifted arm that had
+partially hidden the player's face was lowered. What--what--it was not
+Tilly, but--but--that girl! How did she come there? A glance at Will's
+face drawn up into a most exasperating grin, at Will's eyes darting
+forth gleams of fun, was enough for Agnes.
+
+Yes, this was Will Wentworth's doing,--this hateful plot to humiliate
+her and triumph over her. Stung by this thought, she lost sight for that
+moment of everything else, and the ball sent so surely back to her
+dropped to the ground before her partner could rescue it. An exclamation
+of disappointment from Tom added to her discomfiture; and when Will, the
+next instant, cried, "Wait a minute, till I get another racket, Miss
+Smith has broken hers," Agnes, flinging down her own, exclaimed,--
+
+"Miss Smith can have my racket; I'm not going to play any longer!"
+
+"Not going to play? What do you mean?" shouted Will.
+
+"I mean that I am not used to a surprise-party and to playing with
+strangers," was the rude and angry answer.
+
+"You--you ought to--" But Will controlled himself and stopped. He was
+about to say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+Agnes, however, understood by the tone of his voice something of what he
+meant, and turned scornfully away, her head up, and with a glance at Tom
+that plainly showed she expected him to follow her.
+
+But Tom made no movement of that kind. He stood where he was, looking
+across at Will, who, red and ashamed, had approached Miss Smith, and was
+evidently making some sort of apology to her for the insult that had
+been offered to her; and Miss Smith was listening to this apology with
+the coolest little face imaginable.
+
+Tom, taking all this in, gave another of his odd little chuckles. Agnes
+heard it, and flushed scarlet. So he was taking sides with Will
+Wentworth, was he? And what--what--was that--Tilly? Yes, it was
+Tilly,--Tilly with the racket she, Agnes, had flung down,--Tilly
+standing in her place and--and--serving the ball back to that girl! So
+Tilly was with them too? Well, she would see, they would all see, that
+Agnes Brendon was not a person to be snubbed and disregarded in this
+fashion, nor a person to be forced to make acquaintances with vulgar or
+common people against her will. Oh, they would see, they would see! And
+bracing herself up with these indignant resolutions, Agnes betook
+herself to the hotel.
+
+Before the end of the week there were two distinct parties in the house,
+where heretofore there had been but one,--two distinct opposing forces.
+
+On one side were Agnes and Dora and Amy; on the other side were Tilly
+and Tom and Will. Dora and Amy were not naturally ill-natured girls, but
+they were inclined to be worldly and were greatly under Agnes's
+influence. She had been a sort of authority with them for a good while,
+perforce of her dominant disposition and the knowledge she seemed to
+possess of the worldly matters that were of so much interest to them.
+
+"But I should think you would feel ashamed to side with Agnes Brendon in
+persecuting a poor little stranger," said honest Tilly, a day or two
+after the tennis affair; for Agnes had at once set to work to carry out
+her plan of showing that she was not to be forced, as she expressed it,
+into making acquaintances she didn't like, and had thus lost no
+opportunity of being disagreeable.
+
+Dora flushed at Tilly's words, but she answered coolly,--
+
+"Persecuting! I don't call it persecuting to avoid a person one doesn't
+want to know."
+
+"Yes; but how does Agnes avoid her? She stiffens herself up and curls
+her lips when the girl goes by, as if there was something contaminating
+about her; and one night when we were in the music-room and Miss Smith
+was playing and singing 'Mrs. Brady' for us, Agnes came in with Amy and
+made a great fuss and noise, disturbing everybody in pretending to hunt
+up one of her own music-books; and when I asked her to be quieter, she
+said something horrid about 'low common songs,' and 'Mrs. Brady' isn't
+a low common song; and the other morning, when Pete, the little dog, ran
+up to her on the piazza, she pushed him away from her in such a
+disagreeable manner--and so it has gone on every day, and I think it's a
+shame, and such a nice girl as Miss Smith is too. I told grandmother all
+about it,--the whole story,--and she says it is Agnes who is vulgar and
+not Miss Smith, and that she never would have brought me here if she had
+known that a girl who could behave like that was to be in the house; and
+you can tell Miss Agnes Brendon this, if you like, and you can tell her
+too that she'll only make us stand by Miss Smith stancher than ever by
+persecuting her as she does."
+
+"I shall tell her nothing of the kind, and there's no such thing as
+persecution anyway,--that's ridiculous. Agnes is very exclusive,--the
+Brendons all are,--and she doesn't like to make acquaintances with
+common people, that's all."
+
+"Common people! Miss Smith isn't any more common than you or I. She's a
+very ladylike girl.--much more ladylike and nice, and nicer-looking too,
+than Agnes."
+
+"Nicer looking with those plain frocky dresses, and her hair all pulled
+back without the sign of a crimp or curl!" and Dora burst into a jeering
+laugh.
+
+"Oh, she isn't all fussed up, I know, as most of us girls are; but her
+clothes are of the very finest materials,--I've noticed that."
+
+"And that stuffy old aunt's clothes are of the finest material, I
+suppose; and the little yellow dog's coat is as fine as a King Charles
+spaniel's," jeered Dora.
+
+"Stuffy old aunt! She isn't stuffy in the least. She's a little
+old-fashioned; that's all. Grandmother has taken quite a fancy to her."
+
+Dora smiled a very provoking smile as she said,--
+
+"Perhaps the Pelhams, when they come, will take a fancy to her too, and
+to that pretty name of Peggy."
+
+The hot color rushed to Tilly's cheeks and the tears to her eyes as she
+turned away. She knew perfectly well that Dora was thinking: "Oh, your
+grandmother is only another old woman a good deal like Mrs. Smith,--what
+is her judgment worth?"
+
+Dora was a little ashamed of herself as Tilly left her. Indeed, she had
+been a little ashamed of herself for some time,--ever since, in fact,
+she had ranged herself on Agnes's side after the tennis affair; but
+once having taken that side she was determined to stick to it, and to
+believe that it was the right side, in spite of some qualms of
+conscience.
+
+Her cousin Amy followed in the same path, and Agnes spared no pains to
+keep them there. She felt that she could not afford to lose her only
+allies. Every minute that had elapsed since she had flung down her
+tennis racket in such anger and mortification had but increased this
+mortification, and strengthened her resolve to show those boys and Tilly
+Morris that she was right and they were wrong about "that girl."
+
+Of course, when she set her face in this direction, she was on the
+lookout for everything unfavorable; and everything, pretty nearly, was
+turned into something unfavorable, so perverted and distorted had her
+vision become. It was "Dora, did you notice this?" and "Amy, did you see
+that?" until the two began to find the incessant harping upon one
+subject rather wearisome, especially as the particular details thus
+pointed out had never yet developed into matters of any importance.
+
+"I wish Agnes wouldn't keep talking about that Smith girl all the time,
+unless there was something more worth while to talk about," broke forth
+Dora impatiently to Amy just after the interview with Tilly.
+
+"So do I," Amy responded emphatically; then, laughing a little, "unless
+there was some real big thing to tell."
+
+"But I don't wonder Agnes doesn't like the girl, with Tilly and Will
+taking up for her and making such a fuss;" and Dora indignantly repeated
+Tilly's accusations. Amy caught at the word "persecution," as Dora had
+done, and together they defended themselves against these accusations
+with a zeal and ingenuity worthy of a better cause.
+
+They were in the full tide of this talk when, as they rounded the curve
+of the shore where they were walking, they came upon Agnes herself,
+coming rapidly towards them.
+
+"Oh, girls, I've been looking for you everywhere. I've got something I
+want to show you," she exclaimed excitedly. "Come up here and sit down;"
+and she led the way to a little cluster of rocks.
+
+Dora and Amy glanced at each other rather apprehensively. Was Agnes
+going to tell them something else about the Smith girl,--going to say.
+"Did you notice this?" or "Did you see that?" in reference to some
+detail that displeased her? They had worked themselves up into quite a
+state of indignation against Tilly and the boys, and of increased
+sympathy with Agnes; but they were so tired of hearing, "Did you notice
+this?" "Did you see that?" when there had been such uninteresting little
+things to "notice," to "see."
+
+With these apprehensions flitting through their minds, the two girls
+seated themselves to listen with very languid interest. But what was
+that Agnes was unfolding,--a newspaper? And what was it she was saying
+as she pointed to a certain column? She wanted them to read that! The
+cousins looked at each other in a dazed, inquiring fashion; and Agnes,
+starting forward, impatiently thrust the paper into Dora's hand and
+cried sharply,--
+
+"Read that; read that!"
+
+Dora in a bewildered way read aloud this sentence, which in big black
+letters stared her in the face,--
+
+"Smithson, alias Smith."
+
+"Well, go on, go on; read what is underneath," urged Agnes, as Dora
+stopped; and Dora went on and read,--
+
+"It seems that that arch schemer and swindler Frank Smithson, who got
+himself out of the country so successfully with his ill-gotten gains
+from the Star Mining Company, has dropped the last syllable from his too
+notorious name, and is now figuring in South America under the name of
+Smith. His wife and young son are with him, and the three are living
+luxuriously in the suburbs of Rio, where Smithson has rented a villa. An
+older child, a daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was left behind in this
+country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the name of
+Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston."
+
+The bewildered look on Dora's face did not disappear as she came to the
+end of this statement.
+
+"What did you want me to read this for?" she asked Agnes.
+
+"What did I want you to read it for? Is it possible that you don't
+see,--that you don't understand?"
+
+"Understand what? We don't know these Smithsons."
+
+"But we do know these--Smiths."
+
+"Agnes, you don't mean--"
+
+"Yes, I do mean that I believe--that I am sure that these Smiths are
+those very identical Smithsons."
+
+"Oh, Agnes, what makes you think so? Smith is such a very common name,
+you know."
+
+"Yes, I know it; but here is a girl whose name is Smith, and she is with
+a Mrs. Smith, her aunt, and they are staying at a summer resort near
+Boston. How does that fit?"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, it does look like--as if it must be, doesn't it?" cried
+Dora, in a sort of shuddering enjoyment of the sensational situation.
+
+"Of course it does. I knew I was right about those people. I knew there
+was something queer and mysterious about them. And what do you
+think,--only yesterday I happened to go into the little parlor, where
+there are writing-materials, and there sat this very Peggy Smith
+directing a letter; and when she went out, I happened to cast my eyes at
+the blotting-pad she had used, and I couldn't help reading--for it was
+just as plain as print--the last part of the address, and it was--'South
+America'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" said Tilly Morris,
+indignantly, as Dora wound up her recital of the Smithson-Smith story.
+
+"Well, you can believe it or not; but I don't see how you can help
+believing, when you remember that their name is Smith, and that they are
+aunt and niece, and that the niece is fourteen or fifteen,--just as the
+paper said,--and that they are staying at a summer resort not far from
+Boston, and--that the niece writes to some one in South America,--think
+of that!"
+
+Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,--
+
+"Well, I don't care, I don't care. I'm not going to talk about it,
+either. How many people have you--has Amy--has Agnes told?"
+
+"I haven't told anybody but you yet. I've just come from Agnes."
+
+"Yet! Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora. My father, you
+know, is a lawyer, and I've heard him talk a great deal when we've had
+company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,--queer
+things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits. One of the things that I
+particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had
+heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the
+neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and
+they had a horrid time. The woman's daughters had to go into court and
+be examined as witnesses. Oh, it was horrid; and the worst of it was
+that even though there was some truth in the stories, there were things
+that were not true,--exaggerations, you know,--and so the woman was
+declared guilty, and her husband had to pay a lot of money to keep her
+out of prison. There was ever so much more that I've forgotten; but I
+recollect papa's turning to us children at the end, and saying, 'Now,
+children, remember when you are repeating things that you have heard
+against people, that the next thing you'll know you may be prosecuted
+for what you've said, and have to answer for it in the law courts.'"
+
+Dora looked scared. "Well, I'm sure," she began, "I haven't repeated
+this to anybody but you; and if Agnes--"
+
+"What's that about me?" suddenly interrupted Agnes herself, as she came
+up behind the two girls. Dora began to explain, and then called upon
+Tilly to repeat her story of the lawsuit.
+
+"Oh, fiddlesticks!" cried Agnes, angrily, after hearing this story; "you
+can't frighten me that way, Tilly Morris. We can't be prosecuted for
+telling facts that are already in the newspapers."
+
+"But we can be for what isn't. It isn't in the newspapers that this Mrs.
+Smith and her niece are these Smithsons."
+
+"Well, Tilly Morris, I should think it was in the newspapers about as
+plain as could be. What do you say to this sentence?" And Agnes pulled
+from her pocket the Smithson article she had cut out, and read aloud:
+"'An older child--a daughter of fourteen or fifteen--was left behind in
+this country with Smithson's brother's widow, who has also taken the
+name of Smith. They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston;'
+and what do you say to that letter addressed to some place in South
+America?"
+
+"I say that--that--all this might mean somebody else, and not--not
+these--our--my Smiths. What did your mother say when you told her, and
+showed the paper to her?"
+
+"I didn't tell her; I didn't show her the paper. We never tell mamma
+such things; she is a nervous invalid, and it would fret her to death,"
+Agnes responded snappishly.
+
+"Well, I don't believe it's my Smiths; I believe it's somebody else,"
+flashed back Tilly, with tears in her eyes and in her voice.
+
+"Oh, very well; you can stand up for your Smiths, if you like; but
+you'll find they are--"
+
+"Hullo! What's the little Smith girl done now? Agnes, I should think
+you'd get tired of rattling about the Smiths," interposed a voice here.
+
+It was Will Wentworth's voice; he had come out on the piazza just as the
+girls were passing the hall door.
+
+Agnes started back nervously at the sight of him. "I think you are very
+rude to listen and spring at anybody like this," she said.
+
+Will looked at her in astonishment. "I haven't been listening, and I
+didn't spring at you," he responded indignantly. "I simply met you as I
+came out, and heard you say something about the Smiths."
+
+"What did you hear?" asked Agnes, quickly.
+
+"I heard you say to Tilly, 'Stand up for your Smiths if you like;' and I
+knew by that you'd been going for Miss Peggy, and Tilly had been
+defending her." Will's bright eyes, as he said this, suddenly observed
+that there was something unusually serious in the girl's face. "What's
+the matter?" he inquired; "what's up now?"
+
+Agnes put her hand into her pocket, and Tilly drew in her breath with a
+little gasp, and braced herself to come to the defence again when Agnes
+should answer this question, as she fully expected her to do, by
+producing the cutting from the newspaper and repeating her accusations.
+But when Agnes drew her hand forth, there was no slip of paper in it,
+and all the answer that she made to Will's question was to say in a
+mocking tone,--
+
+"Ask Tilly; she knows all the delightful facts now about Miss Peggy and
+her highly respectable family."
+
+The decisive tone in which this was said, the significant expression of
+the speaker's face as she glanced at Tilly, and Tilly's own silence at
+the moment impressed Will very strongly, as Agnes fully intended; and
+when a minute later she slipped her hand over Dora's arm, and went off
+with her toward the tennis ground, and Tilly refused to tell him what
+this something that was "up" was, honest Will felt convinced that the
+"something" must be very queer indeed.
+
+Poor Tilly saw and understood at once the nature of the impression that
+Will had received; but what could she do? It was certainly better to
+keep silence than to speak and tell that dreadful, dreadful story of
+"Smithson, alias Smith." Even, yes, even if it was true,--for Tilly,
+spite of her vehement defence, her stout declaration of disbelief at the
+first, had a shuddering fear at her heart as she thought of that last
+paragraph about the girl of fourteen or fifteen, and of that letter to
+South America,--a shuddering fear that the story might be true; but even
+then she would not be one of those to point a finger at poor innocent
+Peggy; for, whatever her father might have done, Peggy was innocent.
+
+There was one person, however, that Tilly could speak to, could ask
+counsel of, and that, of course, was her grandmother. Grandmother, she
+was quite sure, would agree with her that the story was not to be
+chattered about; and even if it were true that Mrs. Smith and Peggy
+were those very Smithsons, neither was to blame, but only, as she had
+heard her father say once of the family of a man who had proved a
+defaulter, "innocent victims who were very much to be pitied."
+
+But perhaps--perhaps grandmother would not believe that Mrs. Smith and
+Peggy were "those Smithsons," and perhaps she would find some careful
+way to investigate the matter and prove that they were not. With this
+hope springing up over her fears, Tilly flew along the corridor to her
+grandmother's room.
+
+"What! what! what!" cried grandmother, as she listened to the story; "I
+don't believe a word of Agnes's suspicions. There are millions of Smiths
+in the world."
+
+"But did you hear what I said about that last paragraph,--the girl of
+fourteen or fifteen, and--and the letter,--the letter to South America?"
+asked Tilly, tremulously.
+
+"In what paper was it that Agnes found the statement?"
+
+"It was some morning paper: I don't know which one,--I only remember
+seeing the date."
+
+Grandmother rang the bell, and sent for all the morning papers. When
+they were brought her, she put on her spectacles and began the search
+for "Smithson, alias Smith." One, two, three papers she searched
+through; and at last there it was,--"Smithson, alias Smith!"
+
+Tilly watched her grandmother as she read with breathless anxiety, and
+her heart sank as she noticed how serious was the expression on the
+reader's face as she came to the last paragraph.
+
+"Oh, grandmother," she cried, "you do believe it may be our Smiths."
+
+"Well, yes, my dear, I believe that it may possibly be, that's all; but
+it may not be, just as possibly."
+
+"Oh, grandmother, couldn't you inquire--carefully, you know."
+
+"No, no, my dear. If it isn't our Smiths, think what an outrage any
+inquiries would be; and if it is, how cruel to stir the matter up! No,
+we must say nothing. The girl is an innocent creature; and if this
+Smithson is her father, I doubt if she has been told by anybody the
+facts of the case,--probably there was some very different reason given
+her for dropping that last syllable of the name. However it may be, it
+would be cruel for us to show by our manner or speech any knowledge of
+the story; for either way, whether they are those Smithsons or not,
+Agnes has made a very unpleasant situation for them, and we must be good
+to them."
+
+"But, grandmother, when Agnes tells other people--"
+
+"She won't. Your little warning, by your description of the way she took
+it, convinces me that she won't."
+
+"But other people read the papers, and they--"
+
+"May not take any more notice than I did, if Agnes's spiteful suspicions
+are held in check."
+
+"But if poor Peggy herself--"
+
+"Peggy probably doesn't read the newspapers any more than you do. But we
+needn't waste time in thinking what if this or that; the clear duty for
+us is to take no notice, and, as I said, be good to them."
+
+"Oh, grandmother, you are such a dear! I knew you'd feel like this."
+
+There was to be an early little dance that night for the young people,
+and Tilly put on her prettiest gown,--a white mull with rose-colored
+ribbons,--and went down to dinner in it, for the dance was an informal
+affair that was to follow very soon after dinner on account of the
+youth of most of the dancers. Her heart beat more quickly as she looked
+across at the corner table and saw Peggy and her aunt in their places,
+and that Peggy was also dressed for the occasion in something white,
+embroidered with rosebuds, and with ribbon loops of pale blue and a
+broad sash of the same color.
+
+"Of course, she expects to dance," thought Tilly, "and Agnes will be
+horrid to her about it in some way or other; but I shall stand by Peggy
+anyway, whatever anybody else may do."
+
+It was with this kind intention that Tilly hurried through her dinner
+and hastened out to join Peggy and her aunt when they left the
+dining-room. But the kind intention was arrested for the moment by
+Dora's voice calling out,--
+
+"Tilly, Tilly, wait a minute."
+
+The next thing Dora had her hand over Tilly's arm. Amy and Agnes were
+just behind, and there was nothing to do but to follow the general
+movement with them to the piazza. That it was a planned movement to
+separate her from Peggy, Tilly did not doubt; for once out on the
+piazza, Agnes, with a whispered word to Amy, turned sharply about in the
+opposite direction to that where Mrs. Smith and her niece were sitting.
+
+A color like a red rose sprang to Tilly's cheeks as she glanced across
+at Peggy, and bowed to her with a swift little smile. Then, "How pretty
+Peggy Smith looks!" and "What a lovely gown she has on!" she said,
+turning a brave and half-defiant glance upon Agnes.
+
+"Yes, it is pretty. It's made of that South American embroidered
+muslin,--convent work, you know," answered Agnes, casting a fleeting
+look at Tilly.
+
+"No, I didn't know," answered Tilly, trying to seem calm and
+indifferent, but failing miserably.
+
+"Yes," went on Agnes, "I know, because my cousins have had several of
+those dresses, and I'm quite familiar with them."
+
+Peggy, sitting there in her odd pretty dress, saw with pity the distress
+in her friend Tilly's face.
+
+"Those girls are worrying poor Tilly, auntie, see,--and I dare say it's
+on my account, for I was sure when she came out that she was intending
+to join us, and that they prevented her,--and, auntie, I'm going to
+brave the lions in their dens, and going over to her."
+
+"They are ill-bred girls, and they may do or say something rude,"
+replied auntie, regarding Peggy with a slightly anxious expression.
+
+"Oh, I don't care for that now. Tilly is such a darling in sticking to
+me, in spite of their disapproval," laughing a little, "that I think I
+ought to stick to her;" and, nodding to her auntie, Peggy started on her
+friendly errand.
+
+"What impudence! She's actually coming over to us uninvited. Well, I
+must say she has nerve!" muttered Agnes, as she observed Peggy's
+movements.
+
+Coming forward, Peggy nodded to the whole group of girls; but it was to
+Tilly she addressed herself, and by Tilly's side she seated herself. It
+was in doing this that the delicate material of her dress caught in a
+protruding nail in the splint piazza chair with an ominous sound.
+
+"Oh, your pretty gown! it's torn!" cried Tilly.
+
+The two sprang up to examine it, and found an ugly little rent that had
+nearly pulled out one of the wrought rosebuds.
+
+"It's too bad,--too bad!" sympathized Tilly.
+
+"But it's easily mended, and it won't show," answered Peggy, cheerfully.
+
+"It isn't easy to mend that South American stuff so that it won't show,"
+remarked Agnes, coolly.
+
+"I know it isn't usually," answered Peggy, as coolly; "but auntie can
+mend almost anything."
+
+"It is a perfectly beautiful dress. I wish I had one just like it,"
+broke forth Tilly, hurriedly, hardly knowing what she was saying in the
+desire to say something kind.
+
+"You could easily send for one like it," spoke up Agnes, "if you knew
+anybody out there, or what shop or convent address to send to."
+
+"We could send for you," said Peggy, turning to Tilly. Tilly looked
+startled.
+
+"Have you friends out there?" asked Agnes, with an impertinent stare at
+Peggy.
+
+"Yes," answered Peggy, curtly, meeting Agnes's stare with a look of
+sudden haughtiness.
+
+Tilly turned hot and cold, but through all her perturbation was one
+feeling of satisfaction. Peggy could stand her ground, it seemed, and
+resent impertinence; but, "Oh, dear!" said this poor Tilly to herself,
+"that South American gown, I suppose, proves that she must be that
+Smithson man's daughter; but grandmother was right,--she is innocent of
+the facts of the case, of that there can be no doubt,--and we must be
+good to her, and now is the time to begin,--this very minute, when Agnes
+is planning what hateful thing she can do next."
+
+Fired by this thought, Tilly sprang to her feet, and, casting a glance
+of scorn and contempt at Agnes, slipped her hand over Peggy's arm and
+said,--
+
+"Come, Peggy, let's go over to the other end of the piazza and walk up
+and down; it's much pleasanter there."
+
+Warm-hearted Tilly's intentions were excellent; but her look of
+contempt, her meaning words, instead of cowing and controlling Agnes,
+only roused her to deeper anger, which resulted in an action that
+probably had not been premeditated even by her jealous and bitter
+spirit. Tilly will never forget that action. It was just as she was
+turning away with Peggy, when she saw that angry face barring her way,
+when she heard those ominous words, "Miss Smithson," and then--and then
+that outstretched hand thrusting forth to Peggy that fluttering,
+dreadful slip of paper!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+But another hand than Peggy's snatched at the fluttering paper. "What is
+it, what does it mean?" demanded Peggy, as a gusty breeze tore the paper
+from Tilly's trembling fingers.
+
+"Yes, and what do you mean, Miss Tilly Morris, by snatching what doesn't
+belong to you?" cried Agnes, shrilly, as she started off to capture the
+flying paper, that, eluding her, blew hither and thither in a
+tantalizing way, and at last, falling at the feet of Will Wentworth, was
+picked up by him as he came out of the hall.
+
+"It is mine, it is mine," shrieked Agnes; "keep it for me."
+
+But Tilly, who was nearer to him, whispered agitatedly,--
+
+"No, no, Will; don't give it to her,--she is--she means--"
+
+"Mischief, I see," whispered back Will, with a swift, intelligent glance
+at Tilly.
+
+"And if you wouldn't read it until--until I see you--oh, if you
+wouldn't!"
+
+Will looked at Tilly with wonder. This was certainly something more
+serious than common. What was it,--what was the trouble?
+
+But Agnes was by this time close upon him, reaching up her hand and
+crying, "Give it to me, Will, give it to me!"
+
+But Will laughingly thrust the paper into his pocket, and answered,--
+
+"No, I'll keep it for you, and give it to you later; I don't think it
+would be safe now. There's so much thunder in the air it might be struck
+by lightning."
+
+"It might be snatched or stolen, I dare say," said Agnes, with a
+significant look at Tilly; "and you may keep it for me until later in
+the evening, and--read it at your leisure. It's a very interesting
+collection of facts."
+
+"Tum, tum, ti tum," suddenly struck up the band in the hall.
+
+"Eight o'clock!" cried Agnes, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, the ball's begun," said Will, nodding and smiling; "and if you'll
+excuse me," lifting his cap, "I'll go and get into my dancing shoes."
+
+Agnes tried to smile in response; but a little pang of disappointment
+thrilled her as he left her without asking her for a dance. But he
+would later, of course,--later, when he would hand her her property,
+that collection of "facts," and by that time he would have read these
+"facts." She wouldn't need to risk any words of her own in accusation
+after that,--which conclusion shows very plainly that Miss Agnes had
+been sufficiently impressed with Tilly's warning to hold her peace.
+
+That she had not flaunted the newspaper cutting before the eyes of
+others in the house also shows that the accident of the moment and her
+hot anger had, in the one instance only, overcome her caution.
+
+But Tilly did not know all this, and her anxiety increased after she had
+heard those words to Will, "Read it at your leisure."
+
+Peggy, too, had heard those words, though it was quite clear she had not
+heard that other word,--that dreadful name of Smithson; for, "What is it
+all about, that bit of paper?" she asked Tilly innocently, as Agnes and
+Will disappeared in the hallway; and Tilly said to her imploringly,--
+
+"Don't ask me now, Peggy,--don't, that's a dear; I can't stand any more
+now."
+
+And then and there Peggy answered, "I won't, I won't, you dear Tilly; I
+won't say another thing about it, and we won't think about it--" And
+then and there "Tum, tum, ti tum" burst forth the band in Strauss's
+"Morgen Blaetter" waltzes.
+
+"Oh, how I love the 'Morgen Blaetter!'" cried Peggy. "Come, let us get
+into the dancing-hall as soon as possible. Where's auntie? Oh, there she
+is, talking with your pretty grandmother."
+
+The next minute auntie and grandmother were sitting side by side in the
+dancing-hall, watching the two girls as they kept step to that perfect
+waltz music.
+
+"Isn't it just lovely!" sighed Peggy.
+
+"Lovely!" echoed Tilly.
+
+"And how we suit each other! our steps are just alike."
+
+"Just alike," echoed Tilly; whereat they both laughed, and a little
+silence between them followed, and then--
+
+"There's Agnes dancing with Tom Raymond," suddenly exclaimed Tilly. "I
+wonder--"
+
+"Don't wonder or worry about Agnes now, when we are tuned to the 'Morgen
+Blaetter' music," said Peggy. "'Music has charms to soothe the savage
+breast,' somebody has written, you know; and--and," with a soft little
+laugh, "it may soothe the breast of this savage Agnes."
+
+Tilly echoed the soft little laugh, but she could not dismiss Agnes from
+her mind. She could not cease to wonder what it was she was talking
+about so earnestly with Tom Raymond,--to wonder if she had told, or was
+telling him at that very moment, of "Smithson, alias Smith."
+
+And while poor Tilly wondered and worried, there was Peggy, the
+unconscious centre of all the wonder and worry, lifting up a radiant
+face of enjoyment as she floated along to the music of the "Morgen
+Blaetter." Tom Raymond, catching sight of this radiant face, said to
+himself,--
+
+"I wonder if she's engaged for the next dance. I'll ask her the minute
+this is over."
+
+The two girls were standing near their two chaperones when Tom came up,
+and with an odd sort of shyness, asked,--
+
+"Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss--Miss Smith?"
+
+Tilly's heart gave a jump as she noted Tom's sudden confusion and
+hesitation at this "Miss Smith," for it brought back to her his strange
+expression at the first sight of Peggy, and his question, "Is that the
+girl--the Miss Smith you were talking about?" and then his odd,
+chuckling laugh.
+
+Peggy, too, had regarded Tom at that moment with a puzzled observation,
+as if she wondered if she had seen him before; and now, as Tom hesitated
+and bungled at the "Miss Smith," Peggy's own manner showed signs of
+consciousness, if not of embarrassment. Oh, oh! what could it all mean
+but that he had known everything from the first? "And I fancied at the
+first he acted as he did because he thought she wasn't quite fine
+enough; and all the time he knew she was this Miss Smithson, and was
+keeping it to himself, and, knowing that, he's going to ask her to dance
+with him now! Oh, what a good fellow he is, and what injustice I've done
+him!" concluded Tilly. "If only Will now, when he finds out--"
+
+It was just then that a voice called softly from the open window behind
+her, "Miss Tilly, Miss Tilly!" and there was Will beckoning to her.
+"What shall I do with that paper?" he whispered, as Tilly turned. "I
+expect Agnes to be after me for it as quick as she catches sight of me
+again."
+
+The window was a long French window, and Tilly stepped out and joined
+him upon the piazza. "Come around here where nobody can see or overhear
+us," she said. He followed her down the steps to a sheltered rustic
+seat.
+
+"You haven't read it?" she asked.
+
+"Read it? No!" Will answered a little huffily. "You asked me not to
+until I had seen you."
+
+Tilly colored, and then, "You are a gentleman!" she burst out
+vehemently.
+
+"Well, I hope so," Will answered.
+
+"And so is Tom Raymond. I had done him such an injustice; but he's
+turned out so different from what I supposed he was. Oh, he's just
+splendid! and if you--" But here--I'm half ashamed to record it of my
+plucky little Tilly--here, suddenly overcome by all the excitement she
+had been through, Tilly broke down and began to cry.
+
+"Oh, don't! I wish you wouldn't, now! Oh, I say!" cried Will, in boyish
+embarrassment.
+
+Poor Tilly checked her sobs by a vigorous effort; but tears continued to
+flow, and she fumbled vainly for her handkerchief to dry them.
+
+"Here, here, take mine," said Will, hastily thrusting the cambric into
+her hand; "and don't you bother another bit about Agnes and her
+tantrums. I'll burn her old paper if you say so, and I won't read it at
+all."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, you'll have to read it now. She'll ask you,--she'll tell
+you. Yes, read it, read it, Will. I know you'll pity Peggy, as
+grandmother and I do."
+
+Thus adjured, Will drew the bit of paper from his pocket.
+
+Tilly forgot her tears as she watched Will's face. He read it twice. At
+first there was an entire lack of comprehension; at the second reading a
+look of shocked understanding, and, bringing his fist down upon his
+knee, he exclaimed,--
+
+"And Agnes was going to fling this bombshell straight at that poor
+thing!"
+
+Then Tilly knew that Will was on the right side; that he pitied Peggy,
+and that he would agree with all that grandmother had said about her and
+her innocence and ignorance of real facts. This estimate of Master
+Will's sympathy was not a mistaken one. He not only agreed with
+grandmother about Peggy's innocence and ignorance, but in grandmother's
+kind conclusion "that they must be good to her."
+
+"But what did you mean about Tom? What has he done to make you think so
+much better of him?" Will asked curiously.
+
+While Tilly was enlightening him upon this point, Tom's voice was heard
+saying, "Oh, here they are," and Tom himself came round the clump of
+sheltering bushes accompanied by Peggy. And "We've been looking for you
+everywhere," said Peggy. "We've just had another of the Strauss waltzes,
+and the next thing is the 'Lancers;' and we want you and Tilly--"
+
+"Will Wentworth, I want my property, if you please; that paper I gave
+you to keep for me," a very different voice--a high, sharp voice that
+the whole four recognized at once--interrupted here.
+
+Tilly started, and turned pale.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Tilly, she sha'n't have it," whispered Will.
+
+Agnes flushed resentfully as she came forward and saw the confidential
+friendliness of the little group. For "that girl" she had been neglected
+and disregarded like this! Not a moment longer would she bear such
+insults. It was all nonsense,--all that stuff about being prosecuted
+for showing up facts. She would be stopped by that foolishness no
+longer. She would first take her stand boldly, and let everybody know
+what a fraud this Miss Smith was. These were some of the wild thoughts
+that leaped up out of the bitter fountain in Agnes's distorted mind at
+that instant, and her voice was sharper than ever as she again said,--
+
+"I want my property,--the paper I gave you to keep for me."
+
+Will had risen to his feet, and answered very coolly, "I can't give it
+to you."
+
+"What do you mean? Have you lost it?"
+
+"No, but I can't give it to you."
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes, and that's the reason I don't give it to you. I know if I should
+you would--"
+
+"Probably give it to Miss Smithson," cried Agnes, shrilly. "Miss
+Smithson," going toward Peggy, "I--"
+
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, come with me. We're all your friends,--grandmother
+and I and Will and Tom; and we know how sweet and innocent you are. Oh,
+Peggy, come, come, and don't listen to her!" burst forth Tilly, in an
+agony of pity and horror, as she put an arm around Peggy to draw her
+away.
+
+But Peggy was not to be drawn away.
+
+"What in the world is the matter? What is it all about? What do you
+mean, Tilly, dear, by 'innocent'? What has she," glancing at Agnes
+disdainfully "been getting up against me?"
+
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, don't!" moaned Tilly.
+
+"Well, this is rich," laughed Agnes, jeeringly. "Nobody has been getting
+up anything against you, Miss Smithson."
+
+"What do you mean by calling me Miss Smithson? That isn't my name."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" derisively. "How long since did you change it for
+Smith?"
+
+"I have never changed it for Smith."
+
+"Oh, I believe that 'Miss Smith' is down on the hotel register, and you
+answer to that name."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Peggy, looking at Agnes with great scorn.
+"'Mrs. Smith and niece' are down on the register. It was the clerk who
+registered us in that way, and all of you seemed to take it for granted
+that _my_ name must be Smith also. Perhaps I ought to have corrected the
+mistake at once; but after I overheard that conversation on the piazza,
+and--saw somebody examining the register a few minutes later" glancing
+away from Agnes with a smile at Will, who looked rather sheepish--"after
+that I thought I'd let the mistake go until the rest of the family
+arrived, it was so amusing."
+
+"Oh," retorted Agnes, "this all sounds very straight and pretty, but I
+dare say you've got used to telling such stories. Perhaps you'll tell us
+now what name you do call your own, and if it is by that those South
+American friends you write to are known."
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Tom Raymond will tell you," answered Peggy, quickly. "I've
+thought for some time that he might be one of the Tennis Club that came
+out to Fairview at my brother's invitation last summer, and I thought he
+suspected who I was, and--and wouldn't tell because--because he saw,
+just as I did, what fun the mistake was. But now, if he will, he can
+introduce me--to my friends, Tilly and Will Wentworth, as--"
+
+[Illustration: "Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!"]
+
+"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" shouted Tom, before Peggy could go
+any further.
+
+"Pelham!" cried Tilly, in a dazed way.
+
+"Pelham!" repeated Will.
+
+"Yes, Pelham! Pelham!" exclaimed Tom, exultantly, flinging up his cap
+with a chuckle of delighted laughter.
+
+"And you're not--you're not the daughter of that dreadful Smithson?"
+burst forth Tilly, in a little transport of happy relief.
+
+"'That dreadful Smithson'? Who is he, and who said I was his daughter?"
+
+"_She_ said it," roared Will, darting a furious look at Agnes; "and she
+cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his
+pocket.
+
+"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to snatch
+the paper from his hand.
+
+"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now
+I'll give it to--Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to
+circulate about the house," answered Will.
+
+"I--I--if I happened to notice it before the rest of you--and--and
+thought that it might be this Miss Smith--"
+
+"That it _must_ be! you insisted," broke in Will.
+
+"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl,
+and--and--the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South
+American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,--"if I happened to be
+before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be;
+and--"
+
+"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's
+clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper
+slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as
+in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they
+thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"
+with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it _must_ be, because you wanted
+it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all
+now,--everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to
+that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my
+uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying
+and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all
+for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for
+I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,--oh,
+Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful
+little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite
+of--even this--this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to
+shield me."
+
+"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever
+might just possibly have happened to--to--"
+
+"Mr. Smithson--" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in
+something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's
+shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes
+had disappeared.
+
+"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped
+your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there
+wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully,
+though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had so long
+manfully repressed.
+
+"Finished off! I should say so!" cried Will, joining in Tom's laughter.
+
+"And to think that you were a Pelham,--one of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams
+all the time," put in Tilly, still with an air of bewilderment.
+
+"And am now," laughed Peggy. "Oh, Tilly, you are such a dear!"
+
+"One of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams!" shouted Tom. "Guess she won't be in
+a hurry to set up a claim to 'em now!" and Tom burst out again in wild
+chuckles of hilarity.
+
+"And I never saw her, and I don't believe she ever met one of us
+before," cried Peggy.
+
+"She told Amy that she didn't know the Pelhams yet, but that her Aunt
+Ann did, and her aunt was coming next month and would introduce her to
+them when they arrived," said Tilly, with a demure smile.
+
+"Well, she'll probably like my sister Isabel's Skye terrier, with its
+fine name of Prince, much better than she does my poor little plebeian
+doggie, with its vulgar name of Pete," remarked Peggy, her eyes
+twinkling with fun.
+
+"Oh, Peggy, to think of your hearing all that talk about the dog and
+everything."
+
+"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking
+rather red as he recalled his own words.
+
+"Yes, and everything,--all about the dogs and the difference between the
+Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.
+
+"Oh, I say now," began Will.
+
+"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,--I liked it.
+It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think
+that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a
+maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the
+register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and
+never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,--when I think of all
+this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this
+minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in
+her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from
+whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."
+
+But what was that sound,--that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly
+rang over and above the dance music?
+
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out
+from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see
+that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,--a coaching-party.
+"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage
+drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The
+long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party
+atop of the coach.
+
+"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins,"
+said a bystander.
+
+Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the
+dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was passing them; and Dora
+whispered,--
+
+"Are they the Pelhams,--Agnes's Pelhams?"
+
+"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed
+laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She
+ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."
+
+"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking
+dreadfully a few minutes ago."
+
+"I should think she might; she had had a blow."
+
+"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that
+Smith girl."
+
+"No, they're not."
+
+"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"
+
+"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss
+Pelham speaking to--Miss Peggy Pelham."
+
+Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought;
+but--but--what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down
+from her top seat on the coach was saying?
+
+"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance,
+Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little
+waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine
+time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and
+away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with
+auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."
+
+"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.
+
+"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid
+fact,--so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake
+again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the
+crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll
+see what a blow Agnes has had."
+
+Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and
+never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but
+though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of
+bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and
+said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and
+mortification, cried,--
+
+"Yes, fun to you,--to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the
+right side of the fun; but I--we--are disgraced of course with Agnes.
+Oh, we've been just horrid--horrid, and such fools!"
+
+"Well, I--I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,--for it's
+her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling
+laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by
+the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up
+against Agnes."
+
+"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.
+
+"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right
+side of things naturally."
+
+If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it
+in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor
+creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.
+
+Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known
+throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with
+amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their
+slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson,
+was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted
+over her daughter and niece.
+
+"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were
+going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.
+"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"
+
+Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,--Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the
+honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her
+alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of
+the Robsons with these words,--
+
+"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little
+Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating,
+worldly ways of judging people and things?"
+
+And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to
+these bitter, brutal truths,--
+
+"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,--the
+people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't
+know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always
+talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they
+never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong
+to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances
+with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and
+amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,--nothing, nothing,
+nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EGG-BOY.
+
+
+
+
+"Marge, Marge, here is the egg-boy!"
+
+Marge dropped her book and ran to join her sister Elsie, who by this
+time was on the back piazza talking to a boy who had just driven up in a
+farm-wagon.
+
+"We want two dozen more,--all nice big ones, and by to-morrow, for it is
+only three days before Easter, and they must be boiled and colored to be
+ready in season."
+
+The boy stared. "Colored?" he repeated in a puzzled, questioning tone.
+
+"Yes," answered Elsie, "colored. Don't you color eggs for Easter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How queer! But you know about them, of course?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Not know about Easter eggs? Where in the world have you lived not to
+know about Easter? I thought everybody--"
+
+"I do know about Easter," interrupted the boy, sharply. "All I said was
+that I didn't know about your colored eggs."
+
+"Oh, well, I guess it is Episcopalians mostly who keep that old custom
+going in this part of the country, and I suppose your people are not
+Episcopalians, are they?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, _we_ are, and we've lived in Washington, too, where everybody has
+colored eggs, and all the boys and girls there used to go to the
+egg-rolling party the Monday morning after Easter; and a good many of
+them go now."
+
+"Egg-rolling party?" cried the boy, with such wide-open eyes of
+astonishment that Elsie and Marge both burst out laughing, whereat the
+boy flushed up angrily, and seizing the reins was starting off, when the
+cook called to him to wait until she had the butter-box ready for him to
+take back.
+
+"Oh!" whispered Marge, "we've hurt his feelings, Elsie; it is too bad."
+Then she ran forward, and said gently: "'Tisn't anything at all strange
+that you didn't know about the rolling. Elsie and I didn't until we went
+to Washington to live, and saw the game ourselves, and had it explained
+to us; and I'll explain it to you. We had a lot of eggs boiled hard, and
+dyed all sorts of pretty flower colors and patterns; and these we took
+to the top of a little hill near the White House, and each one, or each
+party, started two or three or more eggs of different colors, and made
+guesses as to which color would beat. After the game was over, we
+exchanged the eggs we had, and gave away a good many to the poor
+children. Oh, it was great fun."
+
+The boy laughed. "Fun! I should call it baby play!" he said derisively.
+
+"Well, _you_ can call it baby play if you like," returned Marge, with
+great dignity; "but the 'baby play' has come down through a good many
+years. It is an old Easter custom that was brought over from England by
+one of the early settlers at Washington."
+
+"I--I didn't mean--I'm sorry--" began Royal, stammeringly; when--
+
+"Royal! Royal Purcel!" called out a voice; and a little fellow scarcely
+more than six or seven years old came running up the driveway, and made
+a flying leap into the wagon.
+
+"Do you belong to a circus?" cried Elsie.
+
+"No; wish I did. I belong to Royal."
+
+"Who is Royal?"
+
+"Who is Royal?" repeated the child, making a cunning, impudent face at
+her.
+
+"He means me. My name is Royal,--Royal Purcel; and he," nodding towards
+the child, "is my brother."
+
+"Royal Purcel! _What_ a funny name! It sounds--"
+
+"Don't, Elsie," remonstrated Marge.
+
+"It sounds just like Royal Purple," giggled Elsie, regardless of her
+sister's remonstrance.
+
+Rhoda Davis, the cook, coming out just then with the butter-box, Royal
+thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word
+or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace.
+
+"Well, I never saw such a tempery boy as that in my life," said Elsie.
+"A boy that can't take a joke I don't think is much of a boy."
+
+"Them Purcels allers was pretty peppery, and I guess they're more'n
+ever so now," said Rhoda.
+
+"Why?" asked Marge.
+
+"Why? Because they used to be the richest farmers about here. They owned
+pretty nigh all Lime Ridge once. Now they hain't got nothin' but that
+little Ridge farm. It's a stony little place, and how they manage to get
+a livin' off of it beats me."
+
+"How'd they happen to lose so much?"
+
+"Oh, the boy's father took to spekerlatin', and then some banks they had
+money in bust up."
+
+"Well, he needn't fly up at everything because he isn't rich," said
+Elsie. "That's regular cry-baby fashion. He's a royal purple cry-baby,
+that's what he is, and I mean to call him that, see if I don't;" and
+Elsie laughed in high glee as this mischievous idea struck her. And
+while she and her sister were discussing Royal and his temper, Royal was
+discussing that very temper with himself.
+
+"To think of my being such a fool as to show mad before those girls. I'm
+a regular sissy," was his final conclusion as he drove down the road.
+
+The next morning, bright and early, he was up at the Lloyds' with two
+dozen fine big eggs. "As handsome a lot of eggs as I ever see,"
+commented Rhoda, as she took them in.
+
+"Are they going to color them all?" asked Royal.
+
+"I s'pose so. Here are some of their old ones. They've been b'iled as
+hard as stones. They'll keep forever;" and Rhoda handed out of the open
+window a little basket of colored eggs.
+
+"But some of these are painted," said the boy, taking up an egg with a
+pattern of flowers on it.
+
+"No, they ain't; they're jest colored in a dye-pot. Them that looks as
+if they was painted were tied up in a bit of figgered calico and b'iled,
+and when they come out of the b'iling they took the calico off, and
+there was the figgers set on the eggs. See?"
+
+"Yes, I see;" and Royal turned the egg round thoughtfully for a moment,
+then suddenly put it down, and started off towards his wagon on a run.
+
+"Land sakes!" called out Rhoda; "what's come to you all at once to set
+off like that?"
+
+"Muskrats!" shouted Royal, with a laugh as he jumped into the wagon.
+
+"Ben a-settin' traps for 'em, eh?"
+
+Royal nodded as he went rattling down the driveway.
+
+"Did Royal Purple bring the eggs?" asked Elsie Lloyd, a little later.
+
+"His name ain't Purple; it's Purcel," corrected Rhoda, innocently.
+
+Elsie giggled. "Well, did Royal _Purcel_ bring the eggs?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, there they be."
+
+"Oh, oh! aren't they beauties?"
+
+"They be; that's a fact," agreed Rhoda. "Royal, he's done his best for
+ye now, anyway. He's kind o' quick, like all the Purcels, but he's real
+accommodatin'."
+
+"So he is, Rhoda, and I'll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn
+out for being so 'accommodatin';' and we are going to have some extra
+pretty ones this time. See this now, and this, and this!" and Elsie
+whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico. One was a
+pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.
+
+"The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will
+be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern," said Marge,
+enthusiastically.
+
+By Saturday afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns
+were "ready for company," as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on
+Saturday night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three
+days' visit. It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and
+they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a
+box was brought in by one of the servants. It was neatly tied, and
+directed in a bold round handwriting to "Miss Elsie and Miss Marge
+Lloyd."
+
+"What _can_ it be?" said Marge, wonderingly.
+
+"We'll open it and see," cried Elsie. And suiting her action to her
+word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six
+eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design. On one
+was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch
+of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple
+blossoms. On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,--a
+palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings,
+soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub
+head with a soft halo about it.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, "Who _could_ have
+painted them?" wondered Marge; and, "Who _could_ have sent them?" cried
+Elsie.
+
+In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor. They could find
+nothing to give them the slightest clew.
+
+"Perhaps, papa, it is Mr. Archer," said Marge at last, turning to her
+father. Mr. Archer was an artist friend.
+
+"Oh, no, this isn't Archer's work; it's a novice's work, though very
+promising," her father replied.
+
+"Cousin Tom's, then?"
+
+"And too strong for Tom."
+
+"Then it must be Jimmy Barrows."
+
+"Well, it may be Jimmy. We shall know when he comes with Tom on Monday.
+It's bold enough for Jimmy, but I didn't think he had so much fancy."
+
+And finally it was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows.
+Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an
+amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to be a professional one.
+
+"It's such fun to have Jimmy do these, and send them without a word,"
+said Elsie to her sister.
+
+"Such a generous thing to do, too! I wonder if he would like some of
+_our_ eggs as specimens? We might give him one of each kind."
+
+"Oh, Marge, don't think of offering him those calico-colored
+things,--anybody who can paint like this!"
+
+"Very well; but, Elsie, which one are you going to give to Royal
+Purcel?"
+
+"To Royal Purcel?"
+
+"Yes; don't you remember you told Rhoda you were going to give him one
+for being so accommodating?"
+
+"Oh, I'd forgotten. Well, here, I'll give him this,--it's the very
+thing;" and Elsie snatched up a bright purple one.
+
+"Oh, Elsie, don't!"
+
+But Elsie fairly danced with glee as she cried, "I will, I will; it's
+the very thing,--royal purple to Royal Purple!"
+
+The young visitors, when all this was explained to them, joined in the
+merriment; but Marge--kind, tender little Marge--hid away one of the
+blue and white lily eggs, to get the advantage of Elsie's mischief by
+bestowing _that_ upon Royal.
+
+But Royal was quite out of Elsie's thoughts by Monday morning. It was a
+beautiful morning; and by nine o'clock, when Tom and Jimmy Barrows
+arrived, the lawn and sloping knoll at the east of it were bright and
+dry with sunshine. On the piazza the various baskets of eggs were
+standing; only "Jimmy Barrows's gift" had been set aside as "too good to
+use."
+
+"My! haven't you got a lot, though?" cried Tom, as he surveyed them.
+"But what are these in the box here?"
+
+"Yes, what are they?" sparkled Elsie. "Ask Jimmy Barrows."
+
+Jimmy, with a wondering expression on his face at this remark, came over
+and looked down at the treasured eggs. "Who did these?" he asked
+quickly.
+
+"'Who did these?'" mimicked Elsie. "Oh, you needn't try that. We found
+you out at once, or _I_ did."
+
+"You think I painted 'em--I sent 'em?" queried Jimmy.
+
+"Of course I do. Now, Master Jimmy--"
+
+"Miss Elsie, just as true as I'm standing here, I never saw them
+before."
+
+Elsie shook her head at him, but Jimmy did not see her. He was lifting
+the eggs and examining them.
+
+"No, honest, I didn't paint 'em, Miss Elsie. I wish I had; but I can't
+do things like that--yet. I can draw as well, am a better draughtsman,
+maybe, but I haven't got the ideas. The fellow who did these has got a
+lot of original ideas."
+
+Mr. Lloyd came forward here with great interest. "Did any of you,"
+turning to Elsie and Marge, "ask who brought the box?"
+
+"Yes," answered Elsie. "I asked Ann, and she said 'a bit of a boy
+brought 'em;' she didn't know who he was."
+
+"Ask Rhoda to come here. She knows the neighborhood."
+
+Rhoda came, and Mr. Lloyd put the matter before her. Had she any idea
+who the "bit of a boy" was?
+
+"I didn't see him, but it might be Bert Purcel," answered Rhoda. "Folks
+get him to do errands sometimes. He's just drove up with his brother to
+bring the chickens. I'll send him 'round, and you can ask him."
+
+"Did you leave a box here Saturday night?" Mr. Lloyd inquired
+pleasantly, when the boy stood before him.
+
+The red lips began to frame a "No," then closed tightly together, while
+the slim little figure whirled about and made an attempt to leap over
+the piazza railing,--an attempt that would have been successful if one
+foot had not caught in a stout vine.
+
+Royal, waiting in the wagon at the back porch, heard a sudden cry, and
+hurried to see what had happened. He found Bert scrambling to his feet,
+brisk and angry. The child made a dash towards his brother, and seized
+his hand.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Royal. No answer, but a renewed tug at his
+hand to draw him away.
+
+"The little fellow tried to jump the piazza railing and fell," explained
+Mr. Lloyd, laughingly.
+
+"Papa just asked him a question,--if he brought us a box Saturday night;
+and as he didn't want to answer, he ran," spoke up Elsie.
+
+"I didn't, I jumped!" cried the child.
+
+Everybody laughed.
+
+"Can't _you_ tell us?" asked Marge, looking at Royal. "_Did_ your
+brother bring it?"
+
+"Yes," answered Royal, flushing up.
+
+"And who sent it?" asked Elsie, impatiently. She waited a moment for an
+answer. As none came, she asked still more impatiently, "Do you _know_
+the person who sent it?"
+
+"Yes," in a hesitating voice.
+
+"Did the person tell you not to tell?"
+
+"No," in the same hesitating voice.
+
+"Then why in the world _don't_ you tell? You've no right to keep it back
+like this. It is our affair, not yours, and so it is our right to know
+who it is. Don't you understand that we don't want people to send us
+things--presents--and not know anything about who it is?"
+
+Royal looked startled, and the flush on his face deepened. Elsie thought
+she had conquered him, and chirped out an encouraging, "Come, now, who
+was it?" But to her surprise the boy flung up his head with an angry
+movement, and with a defiant glance at her said stubbornly,--
+
+"I've a perfect right _not_ to answer your question, and I sha'n't!"
+
+"Well, of all the brazen--"
+
+"Elsie!" warned her father, "don't say anything more."
+
+"You'll let me say one thing more, papa. Rhoda told us that this boy was
+very accommodating, and he brought me such nice big eggs, I thought he
+was, and meant to give him something to show my appreciation, and I'd
+like to give it to him now. Here," taking something from her pocket,
+"give this to your brother," she said to little Bert, who stood eying
+her curiously. The child's hand opened involuntarily. Into it dropped a
+_royal purple_ egg.
+
+Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.
+
+Bert, feeling the passion in his brother's voice, drew off, and _flung_
+the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim
+and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond
+her.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and,"
+running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the shell
+is all cracked to pieces!"
+
+"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.
+
+But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's
+recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was
+now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his
+action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the
+result of it.
+
+"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to
+tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.
+
+"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who
+had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.
+
+"Purcel."
+
+"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade
+Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had
+hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound
+in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.
+
+"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a
+right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.
+
+"But it was Royal's present, whatever relation he got to paint the eggs
+for him, for it was only Royal who knew about _our_ eggs; and this is
+the way we've paid him!" cried Marge, with a glance of indignant
+reproach at Elsie.
+
+"I don't think he got anybody to do it for him; I--I think he did it
+himself," spoke up Jimmy.
+
+"Royal Purcel! that--that farm-boy?" shrieked Elsie.
+
+"Yes," answered Jimmy. "I thought so all the time, when you--when he
+was standing under--under your questioning fire." And Jimmy laughed.
+
+"But how did he learn?" cried Elsie, in astonishment.
+
+"I don't think the boy has had much instruction," said Jimmy. "I think
+he has great natural talent, and has had very little opportunity to
+study." Jimmy was now peering at the palm and tent egg, and, "See,
+here's the name again, in this thready grass," he said, "and he has
+probably marked all the eggs in this cunning way."
+
+Jimmy was right. On the bird's wing, amid the lily leaves, and on the
+apple bough, they also found "R. Purcel" hidden deftly from casual
+observation.
+
+Elsie was silent as, one after another, these discoveries were made.
+Finally she could contain herself no longer, and burst out,--
+
+"To think of his painting all these beautiful things and giving them to
+us,--to me, when I've been such a horrid little cat to him! Oh, papa, I
+must do something,--I just must!"
+
+"Well, I should think it would become you to say you are sorry and to
+thank him," said Mr. Lloyd, smiling.
+
+"But, papa, I want to take the pony-carriage and go after him, and ask
+him to come back to the egg-rolling; and if Jimmy Barrows will go with
+me--"
+
+"I'd be delighted, Miss Elsie."
+
+"He'd make it easier,--he'd know what to say, and Royal would know what
+to say to him. The others will excuse us; we won't be long. Oh, may
+I--may we, papa?"
+
+"Well, as you seem to have settled everything, I don't see but I must--"
+
+But Elsie did not wait to hear more. She knew she had not only her
+father's consent, but his approval, and was off like a flash to order
+the carriage.
+
+If the Lloyds had been better acquainted in Lime Ridge, Royal's work
+would not have been such a great surprise to them. A good many of the
+Lime Ridge people could have told them of the boy's talent, and how it
+had been discouraged by his family. There was no money now to support
+and educate him in that direction, and it had been arranged with an old
+friend who was in the wool business that the boy should go into his
+employ as soon as he had graduated from the Lime Ridge High School. This
+was considered a very lucky prospect for him, but Royal hated it. From
+a little fellow he had shown a great love for pictures, and had covered
+every scrap of paper he could find with crude drawings.
+
+When he was eight years old, a visitor had given him a box of paints and
+brushes. Two years later he had become acquainted with an artist who was
+staying a few weeks at Lime Ridge, and went with him on his
+sketching-tramps. With him he learned something about an artist's
+methods, and received from him as a parting gift, various artist's
+materials that he had made industrious use of.
+
+The whim of painting the eggs and sending them to the sisters had come
+to him as a sort of apology to them for his exhibition of temper, and he
+had no idea that his name, so palpable to his artist eye, would escape
+their observation as it did. He expected his gift and its motives to be
+recognized at once. Instead, he was questioned as if he were nothing but
+an ignorant errand-boy; and, bitterest of all, even when he had
+confessed to a knowledge of the giver, the possibility of his being the
+painter himself was not for a moment suspected. But while he stood
+leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout
+little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever
+going amongst 'em again,--an overbearing lot of city folks," he was
+saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the
+road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a
+movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and stood
+in front of him.
+
+"I've come to ask you to go back with us, and forgive me for being such
+a horrid little cat to you. I didn't understand. I thought--" and then
+in a perfect jumble of words Elsie went on, and poured forth her
+contrition and explanation, at the same time introducing Jimmy Barrows,
+who knew just what to say, and said it with such effect that Royal's
+spirits went up with a bound, and almost before he knew to what he had
+consented, he was sitting on the little back seat of the phaeton,
+talking with these "city folks" as if they were his best friends, as
+they turned out to be.
+
+All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you
+suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing? In Mr.
+Carr's mills, learning to pick and buy wool?
+
+Not he. He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting
+himself by making business illustrations for various newspapers. It is
+humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for
+higher things; and the "higher things" are not far off, for two or three
+of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and
+he has furnished a set of drawings for a child's book that has been well
+paid for and well spoken of. And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd
+the other day,--
+
+"Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but
+what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this
+possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking! But I guess they
+began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them
+last week that he'd paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.
+Houp-la!"
+
+"'A howling success'! And it's all through me," laughed Elsie, as she
+read this portion of Jimmy's letter; "for if I hadn't eaten humble-pie,
+and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy
+Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day. Yes; it's all
+through me and my humble-pie. Houp-la!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Never had a Christmas present?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Why, it's just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,--you _shall_ have one
+this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas
+muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could
+scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor
+laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She
+was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,--a
+charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a
+thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon. Molly
+Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling
+face,--a beauty, though she _was_ an Indian. Yes, this charming little
+maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful
+tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far
+Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had
+thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly
+was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post,
+for her father had been an army officer until the three years before,
+when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his
+brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was
+an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time
+been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether
+unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons. Molly thought they were very
+welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life,
+she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only
+pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded
+gladly to Molly's friendly advances.
+
+"But to think that you've never had a Christmas present!" exclaimed
+Molly again, as Wallula's laugh rippled out. "If I'd _only_ known you
+the first year we came! But I'll make it up _this_ year, you'll see; and
+oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know--I know what
+I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped _her_ hands and cried, "Oh, tell
+me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole.
+Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do.
+It is all a secret until Christmas eve or Christmas morning."
+
+"Yes, I know,--Metalka told me; but I forgot."
+
+"Of course your sister must have known all about Christmas after she
+came back from school. Why didn't _she_ make you a Christmas present,
+then, Lula?"
+
+"Metalka?" A cloud came over the little bright face. "Metalka didn't
+stay long after she came back. She didn't stay till Christmas; she went
+'way--to--to heaven."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"If Metalka had stayed, I might have gone to school this year."
+
+"I thought you _had_ been to school, Lula."
+
+"Oh, no! only to little school out here summers,--little school some
+ladies made; and Metalka tole me--taught me--showed me ev'ry day after
+she came back--ev'ry day, till--til she--went 'way. I can read and
+write and talk, talk, talk, all day in English,"--smiling roguishly,
+then more seriously and anxiously. "Is it pretty fair English,--white
+English,--Major Molly?"
+
+"'White English'!" laughed back Major Molly. "You are such fun, Lula.
+Yes, it's pretty fair--white English."
+
+Lula dimpled with pleasure, then sighed as she said, "If I could go 'way
+off East to Metalka's school, two, three, four, five year, as Metalka
+did, then I could talk splen'id English, and I could make heap--no, all
+sort things, and help keep house nice, and cook like Metalka."
+
+"But why don't you go, Lula?"
+
+"Why don't I? Listen!" and Wallula bent forward eagerly. "I don't go
+because my father won't have me go. Metalka went. When she first came
+back, she was so happy, so strong. She was going to have everything
+white way, civ--I can't say it, Maje Molly."
+
+"Do you mean civilized?"
+
+"Yes, yes; civ'lized--white way. And she worked, she talked, she tried,
+and nobody'd pay much 'tention but my father. The girls, some o' them,
+wanted to be like her; but the fathers and mothers would n' help, and
+some, good many, were set hard 'gainst it; and then there was no money
+to buy white people's clothes, they said. It took all the money was
+earned to pay big 'counts up at agency store, where Indians bought
+things,--things to eat, you know; so what's the use, they said, to try
+to live white ways when everything was 'gainst them, and they stopped
+trying; and Metalka was so dis'pointed, for she was going do so
+much,--going help civ-civ'lize. She was so dis'pointed, she by-'n'-by
+got sick--homesick, and just after the first snow came, she--she went
+'way to heaven. And that's why my father won't have me go to the school.
+He say it killed Metalka. He say if she'd stayed home, she'd been happy
+Indian and lived long time. He say Indian got hurt; spoiled going off
+into white man's country."
+
+"How came he to let your sister go, Lula?"
+
+"Metalka wanted to go so bad. She'd heard so much 'bout the 'way-off
+schools from some white ladies up at the fort one summer, and my father
+heard too. A white off'cer tole him if Indian wanted to know how to have
+plenty to eat, plenty ev'rything like white peoples, they must learn to
+do bus'ness white ways, be edg'cated. So he let Metalka go; _he_ could
+n' go, he too old; but Metalka could go and learn to read all the books
+and the papers and keep 'counts for him, so 't he'd know how to deal
+with white men. When Metalka first took 'count for him, after she came
+back, my father so pleased. He'd worked hard all winter hauling wood,
+and killing elk and deer for the skins; and my mother 'n' I had made
+bewt'ful moccasins and gloves out o' the skins, all worked with beads;
+and so he'd earned good deal money, and he 'd kept 'count of it
+all,--_his_ way, and 't was honest way; and kept 'count, too, what he'd
+had out of agency store; and Metalka understood and reckoned it all up,
+and said he 'd have good lot money left after he'd paid what he owed at
+the store. But, Maje Molly, he didn't! he didn't! They tole him he owed
+_all_ his money, and when he said they'd made mistake, and showed 'em
+Metalka's 'counts, they laughed at him, and showed him big book of
+_their_ 'counts, and tole him Metalka didn't know 'bout prices o'
+things. Then he came home and said: 'What's the use going to white
+people's schools to learn white people's ways, when white people can
+come out to Indian country and tell lies 'bout prices o' things?' And
+that's the way 't is ev'ry time, my father say; the way 't was before
+Metalka went to school. The bad white trader comes out to Indian country
+to cheat Indians. _He_ knows white prices, but he don't tell Indian
+white prices; he tell Indian two, three time more price. That's what my
+father say. And Metalka, when she see it all, she so disjointed, she
+never get over it, and my father say it killed her, like arrow shot at
+her."
+
+"But your father doesn't think all white people bad; he doesn't dislike
+all their ways?"
+
+"No; it's only white traders he thinks bad, and the white big chiefs who
+break promises 'bout lands. He like white ways that Metalka brought
+back, and he built nice log house to live in instead of tepee, 'cause
+Metalka wanted it; and he like all you here, Maje Molly, 'cause you good
+to me. But, Maje Molly"--and here the little bright face clouded
+over--"my mother say _all_ white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians."
+
+"No, no, they don't, Lula; they don't, you'll see. _I_ sha'n't forget;
+_I_ sha'n't break _my_ promise, you'll see,--you'll see, Lula. On
+Christmas eve I shall send you a Christmas present, sure,--now
+remember!" answered Molly, vehemently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+It was the day before Christmas,--a beautiful, mild day, very unlike the
+usual winter weather in the far West. At the Ellistons' windows hung
+wreaths of pine, and all about on tables and chairs tempting-looking
+packages were lying. Some of these were from their military friends, and
+most of them were directed to "Major Molly," the name that had been
+given to Molly when she was a little tot of a thing, and the pet of the
+fort where she lived. On this Christmas day, as she watched her mother
+fold up the pretty bright tartan dress that was to be her Christmas
+present to Wallula, she said gleefully,--
+
+"Don't forget, mamma, to write on the box, 'Wallula's Christmas present
+from Major Molly.'"
+
+It had been Molly's intention to have Wallula to tea on Christmas eve,
+and then and there to bestow upon her the pretty gift. But invitations
+to dine at the fort had frustrated this plan, and so it was arranged
+that Barney McGuire, one of the ranchmen, should come up and carry the
+box over to the reservation late that afternoon; and as the short winter
+day progressed, and Molly found that she must have a little more time to
+finish off the table-cover she wanted to take up to the Colonel's wife,
+she said to her mother,--
+
+"Instead of going on with you and papa at five o'clock, let Barney
+escort me to the fort after he leaves Wallula's present; that will give
+me plenty of time to finish the cover, and plenty of time to get to the
+dinner in season."
+
+"Very well," answered Mrs. Elliston; "but you must promise me to start
+with Barney as soon as he comes back for you, whether the cover is
+finished or not. You mustn't be late."
+
+At five o'clock, when Captain Elliston and his wife rode off, Molly was
+working away at her cover with the greatest industry. Now and then, as
+she worked on, she glanced up at the clock. If everything went
+smoothly,--if the silk didn't knot or the lace didn't pucker,--she would
+be through long before Barney came back for her. But presently she
+thought, where _was_ Barney. He ought to be there for the box by this
+time. She worked on a little longer, her ear alert for the sound of
+Barney's horse. At last she went to an upper window and looked out. She
+could see, even in the gathering dusk, a great distance from that
+window, away across toward the sheep-corrals and cattle-pens; but nobody
+was in sight. What did it mean? Barney was punctuality itself.
+
+Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes more she worked with flying fingers,
+and still there was no sight or sound of Barney; but her work was
+finished, and now--now, what then?
+
+There was only Hannah and John, the two house-servants, at hand. Hannah
+couldn't go, and John had strict orders never to leave the premises in
+Captain Elliston's absence. She looked at the clock; every second seemed
+an age. If Barney didn't come, if _no one was sent in his place_, her
+promise to Wallula would be broken, and Molly remembered Wallula's
+words, "My mother say all white peoples forget, and break promises to
+Indians;" and her own vehement reply, "_I_ sha'n't forget; I sha'n't
+break _my_ promise, you'll see, you'll see, Lula!" Break her promise
+after that! Never, never! Her father himself would say she must
+not,--would say that _somebody_ must go in Barney's place, and there
+was nobody,--nobody to go but--herself!
+
+"Yer goin' alone, yer mean, over to the Injuns!" demanded John, as Molly
+told him to bring her pony, Tam o' Shanter, to the door.
+
+"Yes, yes, and right away, John; so hurry as fast as you can."
+
+"Do yer think yer'd orter, Major Molly? Do yer think the Cap'n would
+like it?" asked John, disapprovingly.
+
+"John, if you don't bring Tam 'round this minute, I'll go for him
+myself."
+
+"'T ain't safe fur yer to go over there alone!" cried Hannah.
+
+"Safe! I know the way, every inch of it, with my eyes shut, and so does
+Tam; and I know the Indians, and Wallula is my friend; and I told her
+she should have her present Christmas eve, sure, and I'm going to keep
+my promise. Now bring Tam 'round just as quick as you can."
+
+John obeyed, though with evident reluctance, and Hannah showed her
+disapproval by scolding and protesting; but they had both of them lived
+on the frontier for years, and their disapproval therefore was not what
+it might have been under different circumstances. Molly, they knew,
+could ride as well as a little Indian, and was familiar with every inch
+of the way, as she had said, and Wallula was her friend.
+
+"And 't wouldn't 'a' done the least bit o' good to hev set myself any
+more against her. If I had, just as like as not the Cap'n would 'a'
+sided with her and been mad at me, for he thinks the Major's ekal to
+'most anything," John confided to Hannah, as he brought the pony round.
+
+The pony shied a little as Wallula's Christmas present was strapped to
+his back. But at Molly's whispered, "Tam! Tam! be a good boy. We're
+going to see Wallula,--to carry her something nice, just as quick as we
+can go," the little fellow whinnied softly, as if in response; and the
+next moment, at Molly's "Now, Tam," he started forward at his best
+pace,--a pace that Molly knew so well, and knew she could trust,--firm
+and even and assured, and gaining, gaining, gaining at every step.
+
+"Good boy, good boy!" she said to him as he sped along. But as he began
+to hasten his pace, it occurred to her that it was only about half an
+hour's easy riding to the reservation, and that after leaving there she
+could easily reach the fort in another half-hour,--so easily that there
+was no need of hurrying Tam as she was doing; and she pulled him up with
+a "Take it easy, Tam dear." As she spoke, Tam flung up his head, pricked
+up his ears, and made a sudden plunge forward. What was it? What was the
+matter? What had he heard? He had heard what Molly herself heard in the
+next instant,--the beat of a horse's hoofs. But the minute it struck
+upon Molly's ear she said to herself, "It's Barney; for that's old
+Ranger's step, I know." Ranger was an old troop horse of her father's
+that Barney often rode. But in vain she tried to rein Tam in. In vain
+she said to him, "Wait, wait! It's Ranger and Barney, Tam!"
+
+The pony snorted, as if in scorn, and held on his way. What _was_ the
+matter with him? He was usually such a wise little fellow, and always
+knew his friends and his enemies. _And he knew them now_! He was wiser
+than she was, and he scented on the wind something that spurred him on.
+
+But, hark! What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal
+that Barney was trying? Was it--Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped
+Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to
+escape the danger he had scented,--the danger of a lariat flung by a
+practised hand.
+
+Oh, Tam, Tam! fly now with all your speed, your mistress understands at
+last. She is a frontier-bred girl. She knows now that it is no friendly
+person following her, but some one who means mischief; and that mischief
+she has no doubt is the proposed capture of Tam, who is well known for
+miles and miles about the country as a wonderful little racer. Yes,
+Molly understands at last. She has _seen in the starlight_ the lariat as
+it missed Tam's head, and she knows perfectly well that only Tam's speed
+and sure-footedness can save them. Her heart beats like a trip-hammer;
+but she keeps a firm hold upon the rein, with a watchful eye for any
+sudden inequalities of the road, while her ears are strained to catch
+every sound. Tam's leap forward had given him a moment's advantage, and
+he keeps it up bravely, his dainty feet almost spurning the ground as he
+goes on, gaining, gaining, gaining at every step. In a few minutes more
+they will be out of the reach of any lariat, then in another minute safe
+at Wallula's door.
+
+In a few minutes! As this thought flashes through Molly's mind, wh-irr,
+s-st! cuts the still air again. Tam drops his head, and plunges forward.
+
+Though the starlight is brighter than ever, Molly does not _see_ the
+lariat, but there is something, something,--what is it?--that prompts
+her to fling herself forward face downwards upon Tam's mane; and the
+lariat that was about to drop over her head once more falls harmless to
+the ground, and Tam once more seems to know what danger has been
+escaped, and starts forward again with an exultant bound. They are
+almost there! Molly sees the smoke from the tepees of the reservation,
+and a light from a log cabin, and draws a breath of relief. But not yet,
+O brave little frontier girl, O gallant little steed, is the race won
+and the danger passed! Not yet, oh, not yet! for just ahead there is a
+treacherous pitfall which neither Tam nor his mistress sees,--a hollow
+that some little animal has burrowed out, and into this Tam plunges a
+forefoot, stumbles, and falls!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"She _said_, 'I sha'n't forget; I sha'n't break _my_ promise. You'll
+see, on Christmas eve, I shall send you a Christmas present, sure. Now
+remember.' On Christmas eve! And to-night is Christmas eve!"
+
+Wallula had said this over and over to herself ever since the sun went
+down. She had kept count of the days from the day that Molly had made
+her that vehement promise. That promise meant so much to Wallula. It
+meant not merely a gift, but keeping faith, holding on, making real
+friends with an Indian girl. And her mother had said, "_She'll_ forget,
+like the rest. White peoples always forget what they say to Indians."
+And her father had nodded his head when her mother said this. But
+Wallula had shaken _her_ head, and declared with passionate emphasis
+more than once,--
+
+"Major Molly will never forget,--never! You'll see, you'll see!"
+
+Wallula had awakened very early that morning, and the minute she opened
+her eyes she thought, "This is the day before Christ's day. To-night,
+'bout sundown, Major Molly'll keep her promise." All through the day
+this happy thought was uppermost. In the afternoon she followed Major
+Molly's instructions, and hung pine wreaths about the cabin.
+
+The short afternoon sped on, and sundown came, and the gray dusk, and
+then the stars came out.
+
+"Where's your Major Molly now?" asked the mother. There was a sharp
+accent in the Indian woman's voice, and a bitter expression on her face.
+But it was not for Wallula; it was for the white girl,--the Major Molly
+who, in breaking her promise to Wallula, had brought suffering upon her;
+for on Wallula's face the mother could see by this time the shadow of
+disappointment gathering. It made her think of Metalka. Metalka had gone
+amongst the white people. She had come back full of belief in them, and
+it was the white people's white traders with their lies and their broken
+promises that had hurt Metalka to death. There was only little Wallula
+left now. Was it going the same way with Wallula? These were some of
+the Indian mother's bitter resentful thoughts as she watched Wallula's
+face.
+
+Wallula found it very hard to bear this watchfulness. She felt as if her
+mother were glad that her prophecy had proved true, that the white girl
+had broken her promise; but Wallula was wrong. Her mother's bitterness
+and resentment were the outcome of her anxiety. She would have given
+anything, have done anything, to have saved Wallula this suffering. If
+something would only happen to rouse Wallula, she thought, as she
+watched her. There had come a visitor to their cabin the other day,--the
+chief of a neighboring tribe. When he saw Wallula, he said he would come
+again and bring his little daughter. If he would only come soon! If he
+would only--But, hark! what was that? Was it an answer to her wish,--her
+prayer? Was he coming now--_now_? And, jumping to her feet, the woman
+ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her
+prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards
+her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned
+and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo
+Wallula leaped up, and sped past her mother with the fleetness of a
+fawn, calling as she did so, "I'm coming, coming!" In the next instant
+the wondering woman saw her child running, as only an Indian can run, by
+the side of a jet-black pony whose coat was flecked with foam, and whose
+breath was well-nigh spent. As they came nearer into the pathway of
+light that the pine blaze sent forth from the open door, something that
+looked like a pennon of gold streamed out, and a clear but rather shaken
+voice cried, "Lula, Lula, I've kept my promise; I've kept my promise!"
+
+The next moment the owner of the voice had slid from the pony's back
+into Wallula's arms, and Wallula was stroking the streaming golden hair,
+and crying jubilantly, "She's kept her promise, she's kept her promise!"
+
+"Yes, I've kept my promise. I've brought your Christmas present. There
+it is in that box strapped across Tam. If somebody'll unstrap it and see
+to Tam, we'll go into the house, and I'll tell you what a race I've had.
+I can only stay a few minutes, for I must get to the fort if your
+father'll go with me. I don't dare to go alone now."
+
+"To the fort?" asked Wallula, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, I'm going there to dinner; but let's go in. I'm so tired I can
+hardly stand; and Tam--"
+
+But as a glance showed her that Tam was being cared for, and that
+Wallula's mother was carrying the box into the house, Major Molly
+followed on with a sigh of relief, and, doffing the riding-suit that
+covered her dress, flung herself down before the blazing fire, and began
+to tell her story. When she came to the point where Tam stumbled and
+fell forward, she burst out excitedly,--
+
+"Oh, Lula, Lula! I thought then I should never get here, and I don't
+know how we did it, Tam and I; I don't know how we did it, but I kept my
+seat, and I gave a great pull. I felt as strong as a man, and I cried,
+'Tam! Tam! Tam!' and Tam,--oh, I don't know how he did it,--Tam got to
+his feet again, and then he flew, flew, _flew_ over the ground. We'd
+lost a minute, and I expected every second the lariat would catch us
+sure after that, but it didn't, it didn't, and I'm here safe and sound.
+I've kept my promise, I've kept my promise, Lula."
+
+"Yes, she kep' her promise, she kep' her promise!" repeated Wallula in
+glad triumphant accents, glancing at her mother, and at the tall gaunt
+figure of her father standing in the shadow of the doorway.
+
+[Illustration: Wallula clapped her hands with delight]
+
+Wallula was a young girl, and this mystery of a Christmas-box was full
+of delight to her; but just then a greater delight--the joy of Major
+Molly's fidelity--made her forget everything else. But Molly did not
+forget. The minute she had finished her story she sprang to her feet,
+and produced the contents of the box. Wallula clapped her hands with
+delight when the pretty bright dress was held up before her.
+
+"Just like Major Molly's,--just like Major Molly's! See! see!" she
+called out to her father and mother.
+
+The mother nodded and smiled. The father's eyes lighted with an
+expression of deep gratification; then he leaned forward eagerly, and
+said to Molly,--
+
+"Tell 'gain 'bout where you saw--heard--lar'yet."
+
+"Just as we got to the little pine-trees where the old Sioux trail
+stops," answered Molly, promptly.
+
+"Yah!" ejaculated the Indian, grimly, in a tone of conviction. Then,
+turning, he took down a Winchester rifle, slung it over his shoulder,
+and started towards the door, saying to Molly as he did so: "You stay
+here with Wallula. I go up to fort and tell 'em 'bout you."
+
+"Oh, take me with you, take me with you!" cried Molly, jumping up.
+
+The Indian shook his head. When Molly insisted, he said tersely: "No,
+not safe for little white girl yet. Maje Molly stay here till I come
+back."
+
+Molly's face fell. Wallula stole up to her. "I got bewt'ful Chris'mas
+present for Maje Molly," she said softly. "Maje Molly stay see it with
+Wallula."
+
+"You dear!" cried Molly, flinging her arm round Wallula.
+
+The Indian father nodded his head vigorously, and his face shone with
+satisfaction. "Yes, yes!" he said. "Wallula take care you. You stay till
+I come back."
+
+In looking at and trying on the "bewt'ful Chris'mas present,"--a pair of
+elaborately embroidered moccasins lined and bordered with rabbit
+fur,--and in dressing Wallula up in the tartan dress, the time flew so
+rapidly that long before Molly expected it the cabin door opened again,
+and the tall gaunt figure reappeared.
+
+Behind it followed another figure. Molly ran forward as she saw it,
+and, "Papa, papa!" she cried, "I waited and waited for Barney, and he
+didn't come; and I couldn't bear for Lula not to have her Christmas
+present to-night, for I'd promised it to her to-night. She told me, when
+I promised, that white people always broke their promises to Indians,
+and I said over and over that _I_ wouldn't break _my_ promise; and I
+couldn't--I couldn't break it, papa."
+
+"You did quite right, my little daughter,--quite right."
+
+There was something in her father's manner as he said this, a
+seriousness in his voice and in his eyes, that surprised Molly. She was
+still more surprised when the Indian suddenly said,--
+
+"She little brave; she come all 'way 'lone to keep promise, so she not
+hurt my Wallula. She make me believe more good in white peoples; so I go
+to fort,--I keep friends."
+
+"You've been a friend indeed. I sha'n't forget it; we'll none of us
+forget it, Washo," said Captain Elliston; and he put out his hand as he
+spoke, and grasped the brown hand of the Indian in a warm friendly
+clasp.
+
+At the fort everything was literally "up in _arms_,"--that is, set in
+order for business, and that meant ready for resistance or attack. Molly
+had lived most of her fourteen years at some Western military post, and
+she recognized at once this "order" as she rode in.
+
+"What _did_ it mean?" she asked again, as the Colonel himself met her
+and hurried her into the dining-room; and the Colonel himself answered
+her,--
+
+"It means, my dear, that Major Molly has saved us from being surprised
+by the enemy, and that means that she has saved us from a bloody fight."
+
+"I--I--" faltered Molly. Then like a flash her mind cleared, and she
+struck her little hand on the table and cried,--
+
+"It was an Indian, an unfriendly Indian, who followed me, and Washo knew
+it when I told my story!"
+
+"Yes, Washo knew it, and, more than that, he had known for some days
+that those particular Indians had been planning a raid upon us, and he
+didn't interfere; he didn't warn us because he had begun to think that
+we were all bad white traders, and he wouldn't meddle with these braves
+who proposed to punish us, though he wouldn't go on the war-path with
+them. But, Major Molly, when he heard your story, when he saw how one of
+us could be a little white brave in keeping a promise to an Indian, _for
+your sake_ he relented towards the rest of us."
+
+"And when he asked me to tell him where I first heard the lariat--"
+
+"When he asked you that, he was making sure that it was his Sioux
+friends,--for he knew they were to send out a scout who would take
+exactly that direction."
+
+"But why--why did the scout chase _me_?"
+
+"He was after Tam, no doubt,--for this Sioux band is probably short of
+ponies, and Tam, you know, is a famous fellow,--and the moment the scout
+caught sight of him he would give chase."
+
+"Did he get Ranger that way? And where, oh, where is poor Barney?"
+
+"The probability is that the scout visited the corral first, and
+captured Ranger, who is almost as famous as Tam."
+
+"But, Barney--oh, oh, _do_ you think Barney has been killed?"
+
+"We don't know yet, my dear. Your father has gone off to the ranch with
+a squad of men. He'll soon find out what's happened to Barney. And
+don't fret, my dear, about your father," seeing a new anxiety on Molly's
+face. "The raiders by this time have seen our signals, and have found
+out we're up and doing, and more than a match for them; so don't
+fret,--don't fret, any of you," turning to his wife and Mrs. Elliston.
+"I don't think there'll be so much as a skirmish."
+
+And the Colonel was right. When the Indians saw the signals and the
+other signs of activity, they knew that their only chance of overcoming
+the whites by taking them unawares was gone. There were a few shots
+fired, but no skirmish; and by the time the moon rose, the fort scouts
+brought in word that the whole band had departed over the mountains. A
+few minutes after, when Captain Elliston rode in, the satisfaction was
+complete, for he brought with him the news of Barney's safety. Ranger,
+however, was gone. The Indian--or Indians, for there were two of them at
+that point--had succeeded in capturing him just as Barney had started
+out from the corral. A stealthy step, a skilful use of the lariat, and
+Barney was bound and gagged, that he might give no alarm; and all this
+with such quiet Indian alertness that a ranchman farther down the
+corral heard nothing.
+
+So harmlessly ended this raid, that might have been a bloody battle but
+for Major Molly's Christmas promise!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POLLY'S VALENTINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Polly was seven years old before she knew anything about valentines.
+This may seem very strange to most girls, for most girls have heard all
+about Valentine's Day by the time they are three or four, and have had
+no end of fun sending and receiving these friendly favors. But Polly
+didn't know a thing about them until she was seven. I'll tell you why.
+Polly was one of a number of children who lived in an Orphan's Home, and
+Polly herself was the youngest of the orphans.
+
+One morning as she looked out of the window, she saw the postman
+suddenly surrounded by a whole flock of little girls, and heard one of
+them say, "Oh, _haven't_ you got a valentine for me?" And then the whole
+flock cried, "And for me? and for me?" And the postman laughed
+good-naturedly, and, looking through his pack of letters, took out two
+or three quite big square envelopes, and handed them to one and another
+of the clamorous little crowd.
+
+Polly, hearing and seeing all this, wondered what a valentine could be.
+She did not ask anybody the question, however, just then; but when the
+postman came around at noon, and she saw the same scene repeated, her
+curiosity could not be restrained any longer, and she started off to
+find Jane McClane,--for Jane was fourteen years old and knew everything,
+Polly thought.
+
+Jane was in the linen-room mending a sheet when Polly found her, and
+being rather lonesome was quite willing to enter into conversation with
+any one who came along. But Polly's question made her open her eyes with
+surprise.
+
+"A valentine?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say, Polly, you never
+heard of a valentine before?"
+
+"No, never," answered Polly, feeling very small and ignorant.
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Jane, "you're very little, and ain't 'round
+much, but I _should_ have thought you'd have heard _somebody_ say
+something about valentines before this; but you ain't much for listening
+and asking, I know."
+
+"No," echoed Polly; "but I'm listening now."
+
+Jane laughed. "Yes, I see you are. Well, a valentine is just a piece of
+poetry, with a picture to it, that anybody sends to a person on
+Valentine's Day."
+
+"What's Valentine's Day?"
+
+"Why, it's the day you send valentines, to be sure,--the 14th of
+February."
+
+"Is it like Christmas? Was Valentine very good, and is it his birthday
+as Christmas is Christ's birthday?"
+
+"Mercy, no! What queer things you do ask when you get going, Polly!
+Valentine's Day is just Valentine's Day, when folks send these poetry
+and picture things for fun, and don't sign their own names, only 'Your
+Valentine,' and that means somebody who has chosen--chosen to be
+your--well, your beau, maybe."
+
+"What's a beau?" asked innocent Polly.
+
+"Polly, you don't know _anything_!" cried Jane, in an exasperated tone.
+"A beau is--is somebody who likes you better 'n anybody else."
+
+"Oh, I wish I had one!"
+
+"Had one--what?" asked Jane.
+
+"A beau to like me like that; to send me a valentine."
+
+"Oh, oh! you are such a baby," laughed Jane.
+
+"I ain't a baby!" cried Polly, indignantly; and then her lip quivered,
+and she began to cry.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Jane; "if Mrs. Banks hears you, she'll send you out
+of here quicker 'n a wink."
+
+But Polly could not "hush" all at once, and continued to sob and sniff
+behind her apron; Jane trying in the mean time to soothe her, but not
+succeeding very well, until she thought to say,--
+
+"If you won't cry any more, Polly, I'll get Martha"--Martha was the
+chambermaid--"to show you _her_ valentine; it's a beauty."
+
+Polly dropped her apron and began to swallow her sobs, while Jane ran to
+Martha, who was very proud of her valentine, and very glad to show it
+even to little Polly Price; and the valentine _was_ a beauty, as Jane
+had said. Polly, looking through the tears that still hung on her
+lashes at the group of little cherubs that were dancing out of lily-cups
+and roses, cried, "Angels, angels!" winding up with, "Oh, I _wish_
+somebody 'd send me a valentine!"
+
+"She didn't know a thing about valentines; never heard of them till just
+now," Jane explained to Martha.
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Martha, "she is the greenest little thing; but
+then she ain't never been to school like the rest of ye, and things is
+very quiet and out-of-the-way like in the Home here, and she's nothin'
+but a baby."
+
+"I ain't a baby! I ain't, I ain't!" screamed Polly.
+
+"Polly, Polly!" warned Jane. But Polly only burst out afresh in loud
+sobs and cries. Jane was a good-natured girl, but she could not stand
+this, and, reaching forward, she gave Polly a little shake, and said,
+"Now, Polly Price, you just stop and be a good girl, or I'll never have
+anything more to do with you."
+
+Polly gasped. Three years ago, when she was first brought to the Home,
+she had been assigned to a little bed next the one that Jane occupied,
+and had been more or less under the elder girl's care. Jane had been
+very good to the child, and with her womanly ways and superior
+knowledge she stood to Polly for both mother and sister. No wonder,
+then, that she gasped at Jane's threat. What would she do if that threat
+were carried out, and Jane had nothing more to do with her? What would
+life be in the Home without Jane?
+
+Polly did not ask herself these questions in exactly these words, but
+she felt the desolate possibility that had been suggested to her; and it
+was so appalling that it quite overpowered her flare of temper, and
+stopped her sobs and cries as effectually as Jane could have desired.
+But Jane herself, busy with her darning, did not notice the expression
+of Polly's face, and had no idea how deeply her words had penetrated the
+child's mind until hours afterwards, when, as she was preparing to go to
+bed, Polly's voice called softly,--
+
+"Jane, haven't I been a good girl since?"
+
+Jane started. "What in the world are you awake for now, Polly Price?"
+she asked. "It's nine o'clock. You ought to have been asleep long ago."
+
+"I couldn't go to sleep, I felt so bad," answered Polly.
+
+"You felt so bad; where? Have you got a sore throat?" inquired Jane,
+remembering that a good many of the children's illnesses began with sore
+throat.
+
+"No, 'tisn't my throat."
+
+"Where is it, then--your stomach?"
+
+"No, it's--it's my feelin's. I felt bad 'cause--'cause you said if I
+didn't stop cryin' and be a good girl, you wouldn' ever have anythin' to
+do with me any more. But I did stop, and I _have_ been a good girl
+since, haven't I?"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes, you've been good since," bending down to tuck Polly in.
+As she stooped, Polly flung her arms around Jane's neck, and
+whispered,--
+
+"Do you love me just the same, Jane?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so," replied Jane, smiling.
+
+"I love you better 'n anybody in the world, Jane."
+
+"And you'd choose me to be your valentine, then, wouldn't you?" laughed
+Jane.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes; and if I could only send you one of those po'try picture
+things, I'd send you the most bewt'f'lest I could find. Don't you wish I
+could, Jane?"
+
+"Yes, of course I do."
+
+"Did you ever have a valentine, Jane?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Those girls 'cross the street had 'em, and Martha had one. Why don't
+you and I have 'em, Jane?"
+
+"You 'n' I? Those girls across the street know girls and boys who have
+fathers and mothers to give them money to buy valentines with."
+
+"Why don't we know such girls and boys?"
+
+"'Cause we don't. We're poor, and live in an Orphans' Home. Those girls
+only know folks that live like themselves."
+
+"But Martha lives right here, just where we do, and Martha had a
+valentine."
+
+"Martha's different. She's only paid for staying here to work. She's got
+folks outside that she belongs to. It was a cousin of hers sent her that
+valentine."
+
+"Oh," and Polly gave a soft sigh, "I wish _we_ had folks that we
+belonged to! Don't you, Jane?"
+
+"_Don't_ I!" and as Jane said this, she dropped down upon Polly's little
+bed, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Oh, Jane, Janey! what's the matter? Has somebody hurted your feelings?"
+
+"No, no," answered Jane, brokenly; "nobody in particular. I--I felt
+lonesome. I do sometimes when I get to thinking I don't belong to
+anybody and nobody belongs to me."
+
+"Janey, _I_ belongs to you, don't I?" And around Jane's neck two little
+arms pressed lovingly.
+
+"You don't belong to me as a relation does. You ain't a sister or a
+cousin, you know."
+
+"Can't you 'dopt me, Jane?"
+
+Jane laughed through her tears. "What do you know about adopting?" she
+asked.
+
+"Martha tole me 'bout it. She said folks of'n 'dopted children to be
+their very own, and that mebbe some time somebody'd 'dopt me; and I tole
+her then I didn' want anybody to 'dopt me, but--I'd like you to 'dopt
+me, Jane. Couldn't you?" with great earnestness.
+
+"Of course not, Polly. Folks who adopt children are older 'n I am, and
+have money to take care of 'em. But I do wish some nice lady would adopt
+you,--some nice lady with a nice home."
+
+"But I'd rather stay here 'long o' you, Jane. I don't want to go 'way
+from you; I'd be lonesome. But mebbe they'd 'dopt you too. Would you
+like to be 'dopted, Jane?"
+
+"I don't know's I would. I'm too old now; I couldn't get to feel as if
+they were own folks, as if I really belonged to them, as you could.
+But, Polly," suddenly sitting up and looking very seriously at Polly,
+"you mustn't think I'm finding fault with the Home here. It's a very
+comfortable place, and we are treated well. I only feel kind of lonesome
+sometimes when I see girls like those across the street, who have
+mother-and-father homes."
+
+"And valentines," cried Polly.
+
+"Oh, Polly, Polly! you'll dream of valentines to-night," laughed Jane;
+"and mind you send me one in your dream, and the very prettiest you can
+find."
+
+"I will, I will!" exclaimed Polly, flinging her arms again about Jane's
+neck, and giving her a good-night hug and kiss. "The very prettiest I
+can find! the very prettiest I can find!" And saying this over and over,
+Polly drifted away into the land of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+And sure enough, when it was well on towards morning, she did dream of
+valentines,--piles and piles of them, and out of them all she was
+hunting for the prettiest, when she heard a strangely familiar voice,
+calling,--
+
+"Come, come, Polly! It's time to get up if you want any breakfast."
+
+Polly opened her eyes to see Martha looking down at her. "Oh, Martha,
+Martha," she cried, "if you hadn't waked me, I should have got it. I'd
+_almost_ found it, and in a little minute I'd 'a' had it sure."
+
+"Had what?" asked Martha.
+
+"Janey's valentine;" and, sitting up, Polly told her dream.
+
+Martha laughed till the tears came. "You _are_ the funniest young one we
+ever had here," was her comment, when she caught her breath. "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting out your money to
+buy valentines with."
+
+"What's an heiress?" inquired Polly.
+
+"Oh, a girl that has a bankful of money," replied Martha, carelessly.
+
+Polly gave one of her long-drawn "O--hs," then slipped out of bed, and
+began to dress so slowly that Martha said to her,--
+
+"What are you dreaming about now, Polly?"
+
+But Polly didn't answer. She was too busy pulling on her stockings, and
+thinking of something else that Martha had said, and this "something"
+was "a girl with a bankful of money." Martha little suspected what
+effect her words had had, little thought what a fine scheme she had set
+going. If she had, the scheme would certainly never have been carried
+out, or never have been carried out as Polly planned it. And Polly knew
+this perfectly well, and kept as still as a mouse all through
+breakfast,--so still that the matron, Mrs. Banks, asked, "Don't you feel
+well, Polly?" whereat Polly choked over her oatmeal as she confusedly
+answered, "Yes, 'm."
+
+If it had been any other child, Mrs. Banks would have suspected that
+there was some mischief brewing behind this stillness; but Polly had
+never been given to mischief, so she was not further questioned or
+observed, and thus left to herself she scampered back to the dormitory
+after the chamber-work was done, and, going straight to a small bureau
+that stood between Jane's bed and her own, she cautiously pulled out the
+lower drawer, and took from it a little toy house. This pretty toy house
+was nothing more nor less than a child's bank that had been given to
+Polly one Christmas, and into which she had dropped the pennies that had
+been bestowed upon her from time to time. Polly had long yearned for a
+paint-box; and whenever she went out, she used to stop at a certain
+shop-window where these tempting things were displayed, and wonder how
+much they cost. One day she summoned up courage to go in and ask the
+price of the smallest.
+
+"Twenty-five cents," the clerk told her. Polly at first was dismayed.
+Twenty-five cents seemed a vast sum to her. But it was a long time yet
+to next Christmas, and perhaps by then she _might_ find even as much as
+that in her bank. This hope had warmed her heart for weeks, so that when
+she was smarting under the first sense of disappointment about the
+valentines, she consoled herself with the thought of the little
+paint-box that might soon be hers. But when Martha had said, "Some time
+you'll dream you're an heiress, and wake up counting your money out,"
+and had told her an heiress meant a girl with a bankful of money, like a
+flash of lightning came another thought into Polly's mind,--the thought
+that then and there from _her_ little bank she might count the money to
+buy a valentine for her dear Jane; and once this thought had entered
+Polly's head there was no putting it out. Over and above everything it
+kept gaining, until it sent her to tugging at that red chimney. Then
+suddenly the chimney that had stuck so fast gave way.
+
+Polly nearly fell backward, it was so sudden; but righting herself, she
+shook the treasure into her lap, and fell to counting it. She counted up
+to ten; that was as far as her knowledge of arithmetic went. Putting
+aside the ten pennies into a little pile, she began to count the rest.
+"One, two, three," she went on until--why, there was another pile of
+ten, and more yet; and the "more yet" counted up to five. Polly couldn't
+"do sums." She couldn't add these two piles of ten and the "more yet,"
+and she couldn't ask Jane or any one else in the house to do it for her.
+But what she _could_ do, what she _would_ do, was to slip the whole
+treasure back into the bank, and take it around to the shop on the
+corner, the shop where she had seen the paint-boxes, and where she was
+sure she should also find plenty of valentines. So getting into her
+little coat and hood, she scampered out and off, unseen and unheard by
+any of the household. It was rather terrifying to find several other
+customers in the shop, but she had no time to wait until they had left,
+and, going bravely forward, she called out, "Please, I want a
+valentine." But the clerk was busy, and paid no attention to her; so she
+pressed a little nearer, and piped out again in a louder tone, "Please,
+I want a valentine."
+
+But even this did not succeed in getting his attention. Oh, what
+_should_ she do! Perhaps in another minute Jane or Martha or Mrs. Banks
+would have missed her, and be hunting for her; perhaps they would be
+sending a policeman after her. Oh dear! oh dear! And summoning up all
+her courage, she cried out in a voice full of sobs and tears, "Oh,
+please, _please_, I want a valentine right off now this minute!"
+
+"Don't you see I'm busy now?" said the clerk, sharply.
+
+But the lady he was waiting upon had turned and looked at Polly as she
+spoke, and immediately said to the clerk,--
+
+"Oh, do attend to the child now. Her mother has probably told her to
+make haste."
+
+"She hasn't any mother. She's one of the children at the Orphans' Home,"
+replied the clerk in a lower tone.
+
+"Oh!" And the lady started and looked at Polly with new interest, and
+then insisted still more earnestly that she should be attended to at
+once, at the same time beckoning Polly to come forward.
+
+Polly obeyed her; but as she glanced at the cheap little five-cent
+valentines the clerk put before her, she shook her head disdainfully. "I
+want a bigger one; I want the bewt'f'lest there is," she informed him.
+
+The young man laughed. "How much money have you got?" he asked.
+
+Polly produced her bank, and triumphantly shook out its contents.
+
+"Oh,"--laughing again,--"all that? How much is it?"
+
+"I don't know jus' exac'ly. I can count up to ten, and there's two ten
+piles, and--and--five cents more."
+
+"Oh, two tens and five. Yes, I see,"--running his fingers over the
+little heap,--"that makes twenty-five. You've got twenty-five cents.
+Here are the twenty-five-cent valentines;" and he uncovered another box,
+and left her to make her choice.
+
+"Twenty-five cents!" echoed Polly. Why, why, why, that was enough to buy
+the little paint-box! She glanced down at the twenty-five-cent
+valentines. They presented a dazzling sight of cherubs' heads and wings
+and flowery garlands. She lifted her chin a little higher, and there,
+staring her in the face, was the very little paint-box, with its two
+brushes and porcelain color plate, and it seemed to say to her: "Come,
+buy me now; come, buy me now. If you don't, somebody else will get me."
+And she _could_ buy it now, if only--she gave up the valentine--Jane's
+valentine; and--why shouldn't she? She hadn't told Jane anything about
+it; Jane didn't expect it; Jane wouldn't ever know about it. Why
+shouldn't she? And Polly drew a deep sigh of perplexity as she asked
+herself this question.
+
+"What is it?" a soft voice said to her here. "What is it that troubles
+you? Tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+Polly started, and turned to see the lady who had made way for her
+standing beside her. The lady smiled reassuringly as she met Polly's
+perplexed glance, and said again,--
+
+"What is it? Tell me."
+
+And Polly, looking up into the kind sweet face, told the whole
+story,--all about the long saving for the little paint-box, Jane's
+valentine, and everything, winding up eagerly with the appeal,--"And
+wouldn't _you_ buy the paint-box now 'stead of the valentine, 'cos the
+paint-box mebbe'll be gone when I get more money?"
+
+"Wouldn't I? Well, I don't know what I should have done when I was a
+little girl like you. I dare say, though, that I should have felt just
+as you do--have done just as you, I see, are going to do now."
+
+"Bought the paint-box!" cried Polly.
+
+"Yes, bought the paint-box," laughed the lady.
+
+Polly beamed with smiles, and gave a rapturous look at the treasure that
+was so soon to be hers. But presently the rapture faded, and a new
+expression came into her face. The lady was watching her very
+attentively.
+
+"Well, what now?" she inquired. "Doesn't the paint-box suit you?"
+
+Polly gave an emphatic nod. Perhaps it was that nod that sent two little
+tears to her eyes.
+
+"Then, if it suits you, shall I speak to the clerk, and tell him you've
+changed your mind about the valentine, and will buy the paint-box?"
+
+Polly shook her head, and two more tears followed the first ones.
+
+"You're not going to buy the paint-box?"
+
+"N-o, I--I gu-ess not. I guess I'll buy the valentine. Jane didn't ever
+get a valentine, and she hasn't got anybody to give her one but me."
+
+The blurring tears made Polly's eyes so dim here, she could scarcely
+see; but through the dimness she sent one last good-by look at the dear
+paint-box, and then resolutely turned to the valentines, from which she
+selected the biggest and "bewt'f'lest" she could find, the lady crowning
+her kindness by stamping and directing it, and finally mailing it in the
+letterbox just outside the shop door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"What yer watchin' for, Polly?"
+
+Polly didn't answer.
+
+"Guess I know," said Martha, laughing; "yer watchin' for the postman to
+bring yer a valentine."
+
+"I ain't," said Polly.
+
+Just then the postman crossed the street, and ring, ring, went the Home
+bell.
+
+"I told you so," said Martha, as she ran down to answer it. In a minute
+she was back again holding out a big square envelope, and saying again,
+"I told you so."
+
+"'T ain't for me," cried Polly.
+
+"Ain't your name Polly Price?"
+
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+
+"Well, here 's 'Polly Price' written as plain as print. Just look now!"
+and Martha held forth the missive.
+
+Polly looked. She could read her own name in writing; and there it was,
+sure enough, plain as print,--Polly Price, and it was written on an
+envelope exactly like the one she had chosen to send to Jane. A fearful
+thought came into Polly's mind. She had told the lady her own
+name,--Polly Price,--and it was Polly Price she had written on the
+envelope instead of Jane McClane. Oh! oh! oh! and then Polly burst
+out,--
+
+"It ain't mine, it ain't mine, it's Jane's. The lady made a mistake."
+
+"What lady?"
+
+"The lady in the shop."
+
+"What shop?"
+
+And then Polly had to tell the whole story.
+
+"And that's where you were after breakfast, you little monkey, breaking
+a bank, and running away with it, to buy Jane McClane a valentine. Well,
+if this isn't the funniest thing I ever heard of. Jane! Jane! come up
+here and show Polly _your_ valentine!" And up came Jane, her face
+beaming with smiles, holding in one hand a big square envelope, and in
+the other an open sheet all covered with lilies and roses and cherubs'
+faces; that very "bewt'f'lest valentine" that had been chosen for her.
+
+Polly, staring at it in amazement, cried out, "Why, she's got it! she's
+got it!" And then, pulling open the envelope addressed to Polly Price,
+she stared in amazement again, and cried out, "Why, this is just like
+_that_ one,--the one I bought for you, Janey!"
+
+And then it was Jane's turn to cry out in amazement, to say, "_You_
+bought it; how did _you_ buy it, Polly?"
+
+"She broke a bank and ran away with the money," laughed Martha.
+
+"I didn't, either. The chimney's made to come out, and the bank's my
+bank," retorted Polly, indignantly.
+
+"You took _your_ money,--your money you've been saving to buy the
+paint-box with, to buy this valentine for me?" asked Jane.
+
+"Yes," faltered Polly.
+
+"And gave up the paint-box! Oh, Polly, Polly, you're a dear;" and Jane
+swooped down upon Polly with a tremendous hug. Polly returned the
+embrace with ardor, and then, "Who d' you s'pose," she asked, "who d'
+you s'pose sent _me_ one jus' exactly like yours? It must be somebody
+that likes me jus' as I like you, Janey."
+
+"Mrs. Banks wants you to go down to the parlor, Polly. There's some one
+to see you," a voice interrupted here.
+
+"To see _me_?" cried Polly.
+
+"Yes,--don't stop to bother,--run along." And Polly ran along as fast
+as her feet could carry her, wondering as she went who had come to see
+_her_, who had never in her life had a visitor before. At the foot of
+the stairs she stopped in shy alarm. Then she tiptoed across the hallway
+to the parlor threshold, and there she saw the lady who had been so kind
+to her in the shop.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed Polly, joyfully.
+
+The lady laughed, and held out her hand. "Yes, it's I," she said. "Did
+Jane get the valentine all right, and did she like it?"
+
+Polly nodded, and then burst out with the story of her own
+valentine,--"Jus' like Janey's!"
+
+"And who d' you s'pose sent it?" she asked confidingly, nestling against
+the lady's knee.
+
+"I think it must have been one of the good Saint Valentine's
+messengers," answered the lady.
+
+Polly's eyes opened very wide. "Saint Valentine! Tell me 'bout him," she
+said.
+
+"A very wise man has told about him,--a man by the name of
+Wheatley,--and he says that this Valentine was a good bishop who lived
+long ago, and so famous for his love and charity that after he died he
+was called Saint Valentine, and a festival was held on his birthday,
+when all the people would send love tokens to their friends."
+
+Polly's face was radiant. "Oh, I _thought_ Valentine was a somebody very
+good, and that Valentine's Day was his birthday. I asked Jane if 't
+wasn't. Oh, Janey, Janey!" running to the foot of the stairs in her
+excitement, "come down and hear 'bout Saint Valentine!"
+
+"Polly!" said Mrs. Banks, reprovingly.
+
+"Oh, don't stop her," cried the lady. "I like to hear her, and I want to
+see Janey." After this there was nothing for Mrs. Banks to do but to
+send for Jane. As the strong, womanly-looking girl entered the room, a
+new idea entered the lady's mind. "It's the very thing," she said to
+herself,--"the very thing." At that instant carriage wheels were heard
+at the door, and the bell was rung sharply and impatiently. "Oh, it must
+be my Elise," said the lady.
+
+The next instant the door was opened, and in hopped--that is the only
+word to use--a little lame girl of ten or eleven, lifting herself along
+by a crutch. She was very pale, and her eyes were sunken with suffering;
+but she looked about her with a smile, and said in a quick, lively
+way,--
+
+"I got tired of driving 'round the square waiting for you, mamma; so I
+thought I'd come in."
+
+"I'm glad you did; I wanted you to see--"
+
+"I know--Polly! Mamma 's told me all about you, Polly, you and Jane and
+the valentine; and that's Jane. How do you do, Polly? how do you do,
+Jane?" nodding and laughing at them in a way that made Polly and Jane
+laugh too, whereupon this odd little girl exclaimed, "That's right,
+laugh, do! I like laughy folks;" and then, as she said this, her little
+figure swayed and would have fallen, if Jane, who was very quick of
+motion, hadn't sprung forward and caught her in her arms. The girl's
+face was all puckered up into little wrinkles of pain; but as soon as
+she could speak, she said, "Aren't you strong, though, Jane!"
+
+Jane couldn't say a word, but Polly piped out, "If I let you have my
+valentine to look at a little while, do you think you'd feel better?"
+
+"Lots, Polly, lots. Mamma told me about you; and when you come to stay
+with us, you'll be a regular treat."
+
+"Stay with you?" cried Polly, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes; what," turning to her mother, "haven't you asked her yet, mamma?"
+
+"No; I've only talked with Mrs. Banks."
+
+"Well, I'll talk to Polly. Polly, we've been looking for a nice little
+girl like you to come and stay at our house. I'm lame, and I can't do
+much. When mamma came home and told me about you and the bank and the
+paint-box and the valentine, I said, 'That's the girl for me; let's go
+and ask her to come.' And _won't_ you come, Polly?"
+
+"I--I'd like to if--if Jane can come too."
+
+"Don't. Polly. I can't--I can't!" whispered Jane.
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried the lame Elise, entreatingly.
+
+"Mamma" turned to Mrs. Banks. "If she _would_ only come and help
+us,--come and try us, at least,--I'm sure we could make satisfactory
+arrangements."
+
+Mrs. Banks nodded, and smiled approval. "Of course Jane can go if she
+chooses."
+
+"And you _will_ choose,--you will, won't you, Jane?"
+
+"Course she will," cried Polly; and then everybody laughed, and
+everything was as good as settled from that moment. Then it was that
+Polly burst out, "I should be puffickly happy now if I only knew jus'
+who that mess'nger was that sent my valentine."
+
+"Tell her, mamma, tell her!" called out Elise; and "mamma" bent down,
+and said to Polly,--
+
+"It was somebody who saw what a loving heart a certain little girl had
+when she chose to give up her paint-box to buy her dear Jane a
+valentine."
+
+"'Twas you, 'twas you!" cried Polly, joyfully. "Oh, I jus' love
+Valentine's Day, and I knew it must be Somebody's birfday,--some very
+good Somebody!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIBYL'S SLIPPER.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+When Sir William Howe succeeded General Gage as governor and military
+commander of the New England province, he at once set to work to make
+himself and the King's cause popular in a social way by giving a series
+of fine entertainments in the stately Province House.
+
+To these entertainments were bidden all the Boston townsfolk who were
+loyal to the British crown. Amongst such, none were more prominent or
+made more welcome than Mr. Jeffrey Merridew and his pretty young niece,
+Sibyl.
+
+Mr. Merridew was a stanch royalist, though he was by no means a violent
+hater of the rebels. Many of them were his old friends and neighbors;
+and his only brother, Dr. Ephraim Merridew,--Sibyl's father,--was a
+rebel at heart, though in far-away Barbadoes, where he was at that time
+engaged in business, he could not serve the rebel cause in person, as he
+would gladly have done. But he left behind him a son who, in full
+sympathy with his father's views, ranged himself boldly on the rebel
+side, as part and parcel of the American army.
+
+A rebel relative in Barbadoes was not a matter to trouble oneself about
+greatly, but a rebel relative on the spot, so to speak,--for young
+Ephraim was only four miles away at the Cambridge rallying-ground,--was
+a different thing; and, amiable and easy-going as Mr. Jeffrey Merridew
+was disposed to be, his nephew's close proximity could not, under the
+peculiar circumstances, but be embarrassing and disturbing on occasions;
+for the young man, besides being his nephew, was Sibyl's brother, and
+Sibyl, as a member of a royalist's family,--for her father on his
+departure for Barbadoes had left his motherless girl in her uncle's
+charge,--could not, of course, be allowed free intercourse with one who
+had placed himself in an attitude of active hostility to the royal
+cause.
+
+When Sibyl was apprised of this dictum, she at once made passionate
+protest against it. "What harm do the King's soldiers think poor Eph can
+do them by now and then paying a visit to his sister?" she asked her
+uncle scornfully.
+
+"Harm? You are very young, Sibyl, and don't understand these things.
+Your brother has chosen very foolishly to join the rebel forces, and so
+has made himself one of our acknowledged enemies; and I never heard of
+declared enemies in time of war walking in and out of each other's
+houses like tame cats," answered Mr. Merridew, sarcastically.
+
+"But Eph, such a boy as Eph, only nineteen, only two years older than I!
+What harm could he do now, more than he has ever done, by coming to his
+uncle's house as a visitor?" still persisted Sibyl, rather foolishly.
+
+"What harm!" exclaimed Mr. Merridew, impatiently. "What a child you are,
+Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal
+government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that
+he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to
+see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if reported to his
+officers?"
+
+"You think Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in
+high indignation.
+
+"Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with
+irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting
+of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war
+tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'"
+
+"And would you--would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a
+visitor,--would you--"
+
+"Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything
+worth telling,--anything that I thought would save the cause I believed
+to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be
+my duty to do it."
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business."
+
+"Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious
+business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels,
+like--"
+
+"Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew
+hesitated.
+
+"Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded
+her uncle, gravely.
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame.
+They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play.
+It is the King's folk who are to blame,--the King's folk who want to
+oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater
+grandeur."
+
+Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst.
+Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he
+said,--
+
+"So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these
+are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none
+too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong
+boy."
+
+"But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother.
+They are his principles, and they are my principles too!"
+
+"Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely
+tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an
+assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great
+laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy,
+to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see
+if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have
+those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her
+principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew."
+
+"Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that."
+
+"You will not promise? But you _have_ promised."
+
+"_Have_ promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting
+yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a
+little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant
+beauty.
+
+But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little
+provincial,--not he; and so, lifting up _his_ head with an air of
+hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,--
+
+"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a
+moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged
+her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her
+to-night."
+
+Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at
+her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,--
+
+"But I never reflect."
+
+"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but
+perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance
+upon this"--and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted
+card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was
+written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised
+to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if
+they are to be had in the town!"
+
+Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers--Sir Harry's
+roses--to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said,
+with a gleam of fun in her eyes,--
+
+"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for _him_ to recall his friends
+and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an
+untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about
+with her, to charge _her_ mind unaided."
+
+"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath
+extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration
+of her ready wit,--"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss
+Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As
+I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he
+held out his hand to her.
+
+[Illustration: A very pretty pair]
+
+"A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as
+the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as
+the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his
+post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,--
+
+"Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they
+would stand a test."
+
+Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his
+one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about
+"our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the
+test against a full regiment of regulars."
+
+"Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great
+interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge
+have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in
+a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us
+successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth
+if they attempt it."
+
+"And you--the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl.
+
+"We--well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions
+of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a
+vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah,"
+with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of
+this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a
+prize!"
+
+"But there is no possibility of this?"
+
+"Not the slightest. But you are pale,--don't be alarmed; there is no
+danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are
+certain."
+
+"But if they had?"
+
+"Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business
+better than their landsmen."
+
+All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the
+music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way
+at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his
+companion falter.
+
+"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she
+spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel
+of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night.
+For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not
+_he_ do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a
+slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must
+be hammered and fitted on.
+
+But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. _Something could_ be
+done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She
+needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry--on his
+way to his quarters that night--would he think it beneath his dignity to
+leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there
+by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the
+shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box
+by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon
+it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish
+job, she knew.
+
+Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her
+bidding.
+
+And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to
+the cloak-room for a moment?
+
+Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles.
+Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her
+pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken
+cord that had held her fan.
+
+"And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry,
+smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later.
+
+"Perhaps, if I may depend upon you--and Anthony Styles," she answered.
+Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like
+red twin roses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+  Robe of satin and Brussels lace,
+    Knots of flowers and ribbons too,
+  Scattered about in every place,
+    For the revel is through.
+
+And there, in the midst of all this pretty disorder of satin and lace
+and flowers, sits Sibyl, far into the night, or rather morning, turning
+over and over in her mind something that effectually banishes sleep.
+
+By and by, as she turns it over for the twentieth time, she says aloud
+to herself: "To think that it should be given to _me_ to do,--made _my_
+duty! Uncle Jeffrey taught me that, as he has taught me many things
+these past months,--to keep my own counsel, for one thing.
+
+"Ah, Uncle Jeffrey, you have fancied me all these months naught but a
+vain little puppet who could be led to forget anything in a round of
+routs and balls. Well, I like the routs and balls dearly, dearly, but I
+like something else better. I like what my father has taught us, what
+my dear Eph is going to fight for, and perhaps die for, far, far better.
+Yet I felt like a cheat to-night as I led Sir Harry on to tell me what
+he did,--Sir Harry, who thinks me, as all the rest do, a stanch little
+Tory, for I have kept my counsel indeed, and no one suspects. But oh, it
+is odious, it is odious, this war business; yet I have been taught how
+to do my duty, and I have done it. Yes, I have done my duty, for 'the
+reporting of important facts, however gained, in times of war, is part
+of war tactics.' Yes, these are your words, Uncle Jeffrey, and oh, how
+they flashed up to me to-night when Sir Harry told me of the British
+vessel, and how they fairly rung in my ears like an order, when it
+suddenly came to me how I could get this important fact that I had
+gained sent to the right quarter by means of good Anthony Styles and
+that parcel-box of his, through which so many messages have gone safely.
+
+"Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh, if I didn't shiver so, when I think
+of it! Sir Harry, Sir Harry of all persons, dropping that message into
+Anthony Styles's hands,--Anthony Styles, the stanch rebel whom they
+think a stanch Tory! Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh! And now if
+everything goes well,--if everything goes well, my dear rebels will not
+be swept off the earth by British arms quite yet!
+
+[Illustration: Sibyl's reflections]
+
+"But, hark! that is the clock; it is striking one, and I out of bed and
+gabbling to myself in this foolish way of mine, 'like a play-acting
+woman,' as Uncle Jeffrey would say of me. But I will not stay up a
+minute longer. So good-night, good-night, my dear rebels, g--ood-night!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clock was striking four the next afternoon when a weather-beaten
+man, who had a look as if he had once been a seaman, knocked at the side
+door of Mr. Jeffrey Merridew's mansion and asked to see young Mistress
+Merridew.
+
+"It's Shoemaker Styles," the maid informed Sibyl, "and he says you must
+come down and try on the slipper he has brought; he's not sure about the
+heel. He's in the hall-room, mem."
+
+It was with a wildly beating heart that Sibyl, obeying this summons, ran
+down to the little hall-room where Anthony Styles awaited her.
+
+He stood with the slipper in his hand as she entered the room; and
+before he could close the door behind her, he called out in a frank,
+loud voice: "I thought you had better try on the shoe, miss; I wasn't
+sure of the heel."
+
+The moment the door was closed, however, he came forward eagerly, and in
+a low tone said: "It's all right, little mistress. I heard the click of
+the tunnel-box last night, for I hadn't turned in, and afore many
+minutes I was up and off in my boat with the message in my head; I burnt
+the paper! There was a stiff breeze, and I reached the cutter in the
+quickest time I ever made, and got back afore daylight with nobody the
+wiser. Shoemaker Styles understands his old sailor business better than
+shoemaking," with a grim laugh, "and no Tory knows these waters as I
+do."
+
+"And it's all right, and the end will be all right?" faltered Sibyl,
+anxiously.
+
+"All right! You'll know for yourself by nightfall, perhaps; and now God
+bless you, little mistress. You've done a great service; and if ever
+Anthony Styles can sarve you, he'll do it with a whole heart,--God bless
+you, God bless you!" and with these words Shoemaker Styles hurried off,
+leaving Sibyl with the slipper still in her hand, and both of them quite
+oblivious of that important trying-on process.
+
+The day after the ball was a busy one for Sir Harry Willing, and it was
+not until late in the afternoon that he felt himself at liberty to take
+his accustomed saunter about town.
+
+As he came in sight of the gilded boot, he smilingly thought: "I wonder
+if Shoemaker Styles has done his duty by the little slipper; if he has,
+I shall dance with my lady Sibyl at Madame Boutineau's this evening."
+
+But Sir Harry did not dance at Madame Boutineau's that evening, for when
+at nightfall he returned to his quarters, he was met by the disastrous
+tidings that the long-looked for, eagerly expected British brig, loaded
+with supplies for the King's army, had been captured off Lechmere's
+Point by the Yankee rebels.
+
+It was not many months after this capture that the British evacuated
+Boston. When Sir Harry Willing took leave of Sibyl Merridew, he pleaded
+for some token of remembrance.
+
+"You will not promise yourself to me," he said in reproachful accents,
+"but give me some token of yourself, some gage of amity at least."
+
+"But what--what can I give you, Sir Harry?" asked Sibyl, not a little
+touched and troubled.
+
+"Give me the little slipper you wore that night we danced together at
+the Province House."
+
+"That--that slipper?" and Sibyl blushed and paled.
+
+"Yes--ah, you will, you will."
+
+A moment's hesitation; then with a strange smile, half grave, half gay,
+Sibyl answered, "I will."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+It was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in
+their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their
+lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke,
+with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and
+exclaimed, "We _can't_ be good as they were in those Bible days, no
+matter _what_ anybody says; things are different."
+
+"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"
+
+Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who
+had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and
+bound up his wounds and took care of him.
+
+"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.
+
+"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of
+a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those
+particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to
+people who are in trouble,--people who need things done for them."
+
+"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have
+now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable
+societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see
+them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."
+
+"We can do some things in vacations,--get up fairs and things of that
+kind, and give the money to the poor."
+
+"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the
+money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that
+all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our
+eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was
+keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected _me_ to
+do."
+
+"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any
+more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,--five
+minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid
+is so frowzely."
+
+"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you
+used to?"
+
+"I told you why yesterday,--because that Burr girl has made me sick of
+curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd
+make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came
+out with that fiery thing of hers. _Isn't_ it horrid?"
+
+"Yes, horrid!"
+
+A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the
+supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the
+dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a
+heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied
+back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery
+red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could
+have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside
+her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls,
+her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every
+movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the
+reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to
+go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she
+crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer.
+Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey
+tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the
+end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat,
+tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This
+was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up
+with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a
+little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so
+careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.
+
+"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this
+term; but there's _one_ thing I'm not going to do any more,--I'm not
+going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she _does_ dress
+so!" concluded Janey.
+
+"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She
+chooses her things herself," said Eva.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Janey.
+
+"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what
+she likes."
+
+"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things!
+Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"
+
+"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She _has_ lived 'way off
+out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army
+officer of some kind."
+
+"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a
+voice outside the door.
+
+"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night,
+good-night."
+
+The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great
+hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered
+as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that
+seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in
+her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little
+Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled
+when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice
+went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her
+age,--their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that
+Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,--Miss Vincent,
+in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,--
+
+"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do--oh, so much!
+You are thinking of only one way of doing,--helping the poor, visiting
+people in need. I _don't_ think you can do much of that. I think that
+_is_ mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your
+own,--a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day
+and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through
+such suffering once,--was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let
+me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was
+between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent
+to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So
+when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst
+themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly
+way and laughing at _me_, and I immediately straightened up and put on a
+stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only
+prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became
+very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided
+way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a
+while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to
+conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still
+misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at
+this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other
+girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the
+whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were
+down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't
+stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to
+worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them
+like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,--forgot everything but my
+desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even
+conflict,--thirty girls against one; and at length I did something
+dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my
+ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three
+of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against
+them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that,
+and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated
+me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that
+I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the
+ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the
+details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening
+of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the
+dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers
+to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all
+of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not
+even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was
+natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't
+remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me
+away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."
+
+"They were horrid girls,--horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.
+
+"No; they were like any ordinary girls who _don't think_. But you see
+how different everything might have been if only _one_ of them had
+thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been
+suffering, and"--smiling down upon Eva--"been a good Samaritan to me."
+
+"They were horrid, or they _would_ have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm
+sure _I_ don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."
+
+"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was
+silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head,
+Eva; and you never get things right,--never!"
+
+"I think you are very unkind."
+
+"Well, you can think so. _I_ think--"
+
+"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;"
+then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller
+entered.
+
+"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.
+
+"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.
+
+"Cordelia Burr?"
+
+"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with
+her."
+
+"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her.
+When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking
+of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with _her_, as
+those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."
+
+"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.
+
+Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it
+into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we
+are like those horrid girls."
+
+"Not like them; not as bad as they were, _yet_; but we might be if we
+kept on, maybe."
+
+"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet,
+pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and
+we--I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like
+Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls
+do."
+
+"But you--we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't
+dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of
+things that we were in, a good many times."
+
+"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so
+disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never
+in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in
+everything else it's just the same."
+
+"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."
+
+"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.
+
+"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and
+independent as she can be."
+
+"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe--"
+
+"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.
+
+"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are
+not on the wrong track with her; and I--"
+
+"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take
+notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be
+pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just
+one thing more: I'll say, if you _do_ begin this, you'll have to do it
+alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of
+the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and
+a nice time you'll have of it."
+
+Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for
+she was choking with tears,--tears that presently found vent in "a good
+cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.
+
+What should she do? What _could_ she do with all the girls against her?
+If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss
+Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.
+
+Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very
+sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that
+could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the
+same impression upon Alice,--that Alice had not seen in it, as she had,
+a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was
+Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest
+of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might--it might
+make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more,
+to--to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter
+would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her
+task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss
+Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."
+
+About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the
+other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.
+
+"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this
+time; she is so fond of the gym."
+
+"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day,"
+whispered Janey.
+
+"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have--But there
+she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here
+and try the bars with us."
+
+Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this
+pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody,
+and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward
+and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment
+everything that was unpleasant.
+
+There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined
+plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung
+down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track,
+as they called it.
+
+They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came
+in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried
+forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice
+gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and,
+pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who
+had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even
+to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was
+accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track
+there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem
+enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and
+heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a
+different aspect. But what--what ought she to do? What _could_ she do
+then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls,
+and Alice--Alice specially--would be _so_ angry. Oh, no, no, she
+couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came
+to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face
+flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.
+
+"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed
+again through Eva's mind.
+
+"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace
+faltered here.
+
+Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was
+going towards the door.
+
+"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.
+
+But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and
+dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"
+
+Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.
+
+Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia!
+Cordelia!"
+
+The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What
+was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and
+Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,--even they
+wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant
+she cried breathlessly, "We--I--didn't mean to crowd you out; it--it
+wasn't fair; and--and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia,
+won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot
+everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary
+admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did--_against them
+all_! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and
+her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to
+start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take
+place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most
+unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn
+with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish,
+independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer.
+Instead of that--instead of coldness and haughty independence--they saw
+her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then,
+dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of
+tears,--not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that,
+like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart
+after long repression.
+
+"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia,
+"don't, don't cry."
+
+Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but
+as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her
+head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching
+saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe
+away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!
+don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning
+sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking
+voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret
+gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and
+one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed
+fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they
+passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to
+Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what
+they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately,
+"Oh, girls, I should think--" and then broke down completely, and bowed
+her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody
+else took up her words,--the very words she had used a second
+ago,--somebody else whispered,--
+
+"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder,
+and she looked up to see--Alice King standing beside her. And then it
+seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of
+them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly
+piped out,--
+
+"We--we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."
+
+And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered
+out: "Care? How--how could I hel--help caring?"
+
+"But we thought--we thought you didn't like us," said another,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"And I--I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise
+me more if--if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little
+sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.
+
+"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and
+then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong
+track."
+
+Just here a bell in the hall--the signal to those in the gymnasium that
+their half-hour was up--rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and
+repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses
+and prepare for dinner.
+
+"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms
+around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.
+
+"Good? Don't--don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.
+
+"But you _were_. I--I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I--"
+
+Alice now flung _her_ arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug,
+as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I--I've been--a
+little fiend, I suppose, and I _was_ horridly angry at first; but when
+I--I saw how--that Cordelia really was--that she really felt what she
+did, I--oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood
+mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, _there's_ a little
+Samaritan."
+
+"Oh, Alice!"
+
+"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by
+liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though
+I'm going to behave myself, and _bear_ with her, I shall never come up
+to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she _does_ dress so! I'm
+going to behave myself, though, I am,--I am; but I hope she won't expect
+too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."
+
+"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's
+too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress
+and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but
+she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if
+she doesn't."
+
+And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much
+in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like
+another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her
+self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and
+apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a
+girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere,
+and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so
+far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by
+it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She _does_ dress
+so!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ESTHER BODN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Oh, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and
+dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and
+papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told
+me to ask you."
+
+"If it was any other evening."
+
+"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"
+
+"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."
+
+"Esther Bodn!"
+
+"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I
+fixed Thursday,--to-morrow."
+
+"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,--that mamma and
+papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I
+shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"
+
+"I don't want to do that, Kitty."
+
+"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"
+
+"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't
+want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."
+
+"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very
+ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a
+visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,--that
+you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,--and
+Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."
+
+"But that was different, Kitty."
+
+"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."
+
+"Oh, Kitty, you _know_."
+
+"But I _don't_ know."
+
+Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation
+she said: "Esther is--is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she
+doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,--quite poor, Kitty."
+
+"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately
+responded Kitty.
+
+"Now, Kitty, you _do_ see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't
+visit the people that we do."
+
+"She doesn't visit _anybody_, so far as I know."
+
+"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when
+she and her mother have made preparations for company--even one
+person--it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience
+to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to
+do it."
+
+"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?"
+asked Kitty, sarcastically.
+
+Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way,
+but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that
+Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother
+wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."
+
+"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor,
+like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in
+a wondering tone.
+
+"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with
+decision.
+
+"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should be sent to Miss
+Milwood's school. I shouldn't think they could afford it," went on
+Kitty; "why, the place for her is a public school."
+
+"But, Kitty, don't you know that Esther assists Miss Milwood,--that it
+is Esther who looks over all the French and German exercises, and makes
+the first corrections before mademoiselle takes them?"
+
+"Esther Bodn?"
+
+"Yes,--why, Esther, you must have noticed, is very proficient in French
+and German. She and her mother have lived abroad and here, in French and
+German families, to prepare her for being a teacher. She has a great
+natural aptitude, too, for languages."
+
+"How in the world did you find all this out, Laura?"
+
+"I didn't _find it out_, as you call it,--there is no secret about
+it,--Esther would no doubt have told you as much, if you had got as well
+acquainted with her as I have."
+
+"I don't see how you came to get so well acquainted with her. She's nice
+enough, but I could always see that she wasn't like the rest of us,--of
+our set."
+
+"Like the rest of us! She's just as good as the rest of us, and better
+than some of us."
+
+"Oh, I dare say," said Kitty, in a patronizing tone.
+
+"She may not be of our set, as you say, Kitty; but when I think of how
+Maud and Florence Aplin talk sometimes, I don't feel very proud of
+belonging to 'our set.'"
+
+"Yes, I know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are
+nice girls, and it is a nice family, mamma says."
+
+"Every one seems to say that about them, and I've often wondered what
+they meant. I'm sure Mr. Aplin isn't very nice. He has no end of money,
+I know, but he can be so rude, and Mrs. Aplin is so patronizing. Now,
+why should they be called such 'nice people'?"
+
+Kitty straightened herself up, put on a very knowing look, and repeated
+parrot-like what she had heard older persons say,--
+
+"Mrs. Aplin was a Windlow."
+
+"What in the world is a Windlow?" asked Laura, rather sarcastically.
+
+Kitty was a worldly young woman, but she was also full of fun; and this
+question of Laura's amused her mightily, and with a suppressed giggle
+she answered demurely: "I think it has something to do with windows. The
+Windlows were English, and I believe their business was to open and shut
+the windows in the king's palaces,--perhaps to wash them. This all began
+ages ago, and it was considered a great honor, a tip-top thing to do,
+especially when the windows were high up. The honor has descended from
+generation to generation, and the name with it, I believe. They had some
+very ordinary name at the start."
+
+The giggle, that had been suppressed up to this point, now burst forth
+in a shout of laughter, wherein Laura herself joined, exclaiming, as she
+did so, "Oh, Kitty, you are so ridiculous!"
+
+"Why don't you make a rhyme and say, 'Oh, Kitty, you're so witty'? But,
+Laura, it is you who are odd and ridiculous, to pretend that you don't
+know that Windlow is one of the oldest names of one of the oldest
+families who came over to America in the Mayflower,--regular old
+aristocrats."
+
+"Now, Kitty, I'm up in my history, if I'm not on this society stuff, and
+just let me tell you that those first settlers of America who came over
+in the Mayflower were _not_ aristocrats."
+
+"Oh, Laura, when everybody who can, brags of a Mayflower ancestor! I
+heard Mrs. Arkwright say to mamma, the other day that the Aplins were of
+the real old Mayflower blue blood."
+
+"Then Mrs. Arkwright, with the 'everybody' you tell of, doesn't know
+what history says."
+
+"Why, I'm sure I thought that was history."
+
+"Well, it isn't. Last year I went with my father to Plymouth, and he
+took me to the famous rock where the Mayflower pilgrims landed, and
+afterward he gave me a lovely book called 'The Olden Time,' by Edmund
+Sears, that told me all about the pilgrims,--who they were, and why they
+came over, and everything, and I remember it said in this book that the
+Plymouth pilgrims were constantly confounded--those were the very
+words--with the Puritans who came over nine years later to
+Massachusetts."
+
+"But Plymouth is in Massachusetts."
+
+"Yes, I know, but it wasn't in that day. It was simply Plymouth Colony.
+The Mayflower sailed by Cape Cod into Plymouth Bay. They named the bay
+Plymouth, as they named the town Plymouth, for the old Plymouth in
+England."
+
+"Did they name Cape Cod too?"
+
+"No; that name was given years before by Captain Gosnold, an early
+voyager."
+
+"Oh, I know, he caught such a lot of codfish there. I wish he'd never
+discovered the place; I hate codfish. But go on with your history
+lesson, Miss Brooks. I haven't any Mayflower ancestors, and so I'm more
+than resigned to have them taken down from their aristocratic peg."
+
+"But they were lovely people,--lovely; kind and good to everybody,
+whether they believed as they did or not, for they had been persecuted
+themselves in the old country they had left for their opinions, and they
+meant that every one in the new country should worship as they pleased.
+They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says,
+'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who
+came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the
+aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the
+Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and
+interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of
+strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of
+'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was
+bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New
+England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think
+that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."
+
+Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's
+astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls
+were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura
+looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call
+out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, "_What_ is
+such larks?"
+
+Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have
+pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful
+little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only--what does
+your history book say? Oh, I have it--'from the middle and humbler walks
+of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors--can't you see
+that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little
+bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these
+Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"
+
+"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"
+
+"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought,
+and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,--that if it wasn't for
+that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now--and now, Brooksie, I
+shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of
+perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed
+full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact,
+even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"
+
+"I haven't neglected you."
+
+"Well, snubbed me, then."
+
+"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther;
+that's all."
+
+"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura--Esther
+Bodn--Bodn?"
+
+"I don't think it's horrid at all. I like it."
+
+"B-o-d-n--Bodn--it sounds awfully common."
+
+"Why, Kitty, it's spelled B-o-w-d-o-i-n, the same as our Bowdoin Street,
+and pronounced Bod'n, as that is!"
+
+"Is it, really? I didn't know that."
+
+"I'm sure Bowdoin Street sounds well enough."
+
+"Well, yes, I've always rather liked the sound of it; but then, you
+know, I always _saw_ and _felt_ the spelling, when I saw it. What in the
+world was the pronunciation ever snipped off like that for? It ought to
+be pronounced just as it is spelled. I've a good mind to pronounce it so
+the next time I speak to Esther."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that; but you might _think_ of her as Miss Bowdoin,"
+answered Laura, dryly.
+
+"Oh, Laura, what a head full of wisdom you've got! I don't see how I
+ever lived without you. But--see here, tell me what street Miss Bowdoin
+lives in."
+
+Laura hesitated a moment; then answered, "McVane Street."
+
+"Where is McVane Street, for pity's sake? I never heard of it,--one of
+those horrid South End streets, I suppose?"
+
+"No, it is at the West End, beyond Cambridge Street, down by the
+Massachusetts Hospital."
+
+"No, no, Laura Brooks, you _don't_ mean that she lives down there by the
+wharves?"
+
+"It isn't by the wharves," cried Laura, indignantly.
+
+"Well, it isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets,
+given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going
+to take tea with a girl who lives in that frowsy, dirty place!"
+
+"It isn't frowsy and dirty. It's only an old, unfashionable street, but
+not frowsy or dirty. It's quite clean and quiet, and has shade-trees and
+little grass plots to some of the houses. Why, it used to be the court
+end of the town years ago."
+
+"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now
+it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,--Russian Jews, and every
+other kind of a foreigner,--and look here!" suddenly interrupting
+herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this
+Esther Bodn is a foreigner,--an emigrant herself of some sort."
+
+"Kitty!"
+
+"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,--eight-buttoned ones,--and I don't
+believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe
+they--her mother and she--spell it that way _to suit themselves_. I
+believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I--"
+
+"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,--it's
+slander."
+
+Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little
+undertone,--
+
+  "Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief
+   Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."
+
+Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the
+laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,--
+
+"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't--"
+
+"Laura, how _did_ it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?"
+interrupted Kitty.
+
+"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston
+Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out
+with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying
+some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my
+offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon
+Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books,
+and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'
+
+"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with
+you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I
+didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with
+her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a
+mistake,--that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how
+to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my
+insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge
+Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,--she felt
+sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder--"
+
+"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.
+
+"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so
+sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take
+no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to
+me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she
+went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and
+second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so
+thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over
+and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds
+of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I
+said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the
+street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country
+there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked
+old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly
+painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one
+of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over
+the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I
+felt,--that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there,
+and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking
+the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second,
+as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to
+come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,--that they were
+very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come
+very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for--"
+
+"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty,
+laughing.
+
+"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set
+the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but
+she is a very interesting girl,--my mother thinks she is too."
+
+"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"
+
+"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see
+the pictures,--she's very fond of pictures,--and mamma asked her to stay
+to luncheon, but she couldn't."
+
+"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to
+sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"
+
+"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her
+brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute
+she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was
+calling after her mischievously,--
+
+"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl
+who lives on McVane Street!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so
+completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything
+else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the
+"Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean
+by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"
+
+"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,--Esther Bodn."
+
+"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's
+school?"
+
+"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's
+assistance in the way of the French and German.
+
+"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this,
+as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject
+from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while
+Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her
+brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might
+find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I
+shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says
+that I may."
+
+But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next
+day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the
+young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter
+altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little
+journey to McVane Street.
+
+Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she
+was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might
+be in time for her own dinner hour,--had laughed and said, "Oh, a
+regular 'four-to-six,'--a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on
+'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish _I_ could go with you,--I
+never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a
+little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone
+on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself,
+Laura had retorted,--
+
+"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't
+appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if
+the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane
+Street didn't happen to please your taste."
+
+These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of
+the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a
+chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when
+she followed Esther up the stairs,--for it was Esther who had answered
+her ring,--and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought
+pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal
+fashion."
+
+It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the
+stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a
+door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura,
+turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that
+by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for
+it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with
+the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up
+a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils,
+and two or three fine etchings,--all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly
+dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still
+brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples
+and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in
+the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness
+stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned
+tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups
+and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a
+'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could
+see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't
+mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she _does_ live on
+McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more
+absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,--a little
+New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the
+Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation
+of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the
+country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know
+where to choose a home."
+
+Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had
+chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more
+completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the
+windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs
+of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,--bits of
+coral and ivory and mosses,--things grew plainer than ever, and she
+began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and
+pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little
+women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just
+when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard
+Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,--
+
+[Illustration: A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting]
+
+"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and
+Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little
+person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her
+daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that
+she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who--who was
+it she suggested?
+
+All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where
+_had_ she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her
+again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little
+third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where _had_ she
+seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as
+the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the
+question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face,
+and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated
+expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura
+answered eagerly,--
+
+"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by
+some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his
+library, and it is so like you, _so_ like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I
+saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the
+sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was
+its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, _do_ you know the picture,
+Mrs. Bodn?"
+
+"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not
+painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is
+now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."
+
+"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"
+
+"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was
+painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,--I was the
+model."
+
+"You were a--a--the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, I was a--a--the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own
+halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm.
+Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in
+Munich."
+
+"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.
+
+"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and
+see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being
+introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"--a tall, good-looking boy of
+fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next
+moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.
+Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying
+through Laura's mind,--
+
+"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her
+daughter's and her nephew's names,--Esther, David,--these also Hebrew
+names!" What did it signify? Kitty--Kitty would say that it proved _she_
+was right,--that they _were_ the very people she had said they were.
+But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
+classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother _had_ been a model years
+ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
+ashamed of it; and Esther,--Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
+be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
+no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
+would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
+foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
+as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
+Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
+the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
+carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
+when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
+walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
+happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
+friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
+words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
+passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
+like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.
+
+What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
+exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
+was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
+brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
+by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
+Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
+little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
+of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
+disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
+injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
+heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
+often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
+fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly,
+that you seemed to like most of all,--
+
+  "'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
+    May bear the prize and a' that;'
+
+"and yet now, now--"
+
+"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,--"my
+dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,--it is because we don't
+know anything about them."
+
+"I--I think it is because you _do_ know that--that they live on McVane
+Street," faltered Laura.
+
+"Well, that _is_ to know nothing about them, in the sense that father
+means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that
+they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,--people
+that we don't _want_ to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other
+day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your
+teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks
+who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."
+
+"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than
+Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."
+
+"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering
+little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish
+face."
+
+"He has _not_," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It
+was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind
+that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that
+of her nephew rose before her! If they--if they--her brother, her
+father, could see these faces,--these faces so fine and intelligent, and
+saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's
+library,--would they feel differently,--would they do justice to Esther
+and her relations, though they _were_ Jews,--would they admit that they
+were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no,
+she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind,
+and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive
+answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one
+class,--the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the
+lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the
+lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That
+great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there,
+Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the
+Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels
+Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and
+'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius--"
+
+"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted
+her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of
+your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush
+into any intimacy with such strangers."
+
+There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very
+plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that
+henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All
+her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming
+her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with
+the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be
+good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to
+her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She
+would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind
+and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in
+spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.
+Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got
+interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But,
+alas, for this scheme!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She
+had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in
+near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then
+"made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura,
+airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn,
+in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the
+listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that
+every girl had passed from indifference to an active prejudice against
+Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed,
+Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,--"making
+fun;" and when the girls, relishing this "fun," laughed and applauded,
+she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura,
+however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther
+subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the
+person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon
+Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was
+apparently hard at work.
+
+"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.
+
+Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower;
+and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the
+exercises upon the desk.
+
+"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always
+knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not
+unkind. Now--they--seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy,
+but--but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and--and
+sometimes they seem to avoid me, and--I'm just the same as ever,
+except--except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been
+rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some
+money,--not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have
+anything new; and--and there's another thing--one morning I overheard
+one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'
+They must have been talking about me and where I live. Nobody else here
+lives on McVane Street, and we--mother and I--wouldn't live there if we
+could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and
+this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could
+pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it _isn't_ bad,
+it _isn't_ low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I
+thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd
+always heard that Boston girls--"
+
+"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of
+any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick--sick of girls. Girls
+will do things and say things--little, mean, petty things--that boys
+would be ashamed to do or say."
+
+"Then you _do_ think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live
+that--that has made them--these girls so--so different; but why should
+they--all at once? I can't understand."
+
+"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them--they don't
+mean--they don't know--they are not worth your notice. You are a long,
+long way above them!"
+
+"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John
+Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,--he died in Munich; he
+was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my
+father's death,--we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew
+some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He
+didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious,
+hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and _he
+knew_, for _he_ hadn't made a success any more than my father
+had,--and--and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane
+Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But _I_ wanted to come
+from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was
+sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and
+high-minded, and--" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at
+this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with,
+"and then I knew my father's people had once--" But at this point,
+"Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises
+into my room, and we'll finish them together."
+
+Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle,
+calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art
+Club?"
+
+"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."
+
+"Well, we'll go together, then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice,
+"Laura, what _is_ the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What
+have I done?"
+
+"You've done a very cruel thing."
+
+"Laura!"
+
+"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,--you have done a very cruel thing."
+
+"For pity's sake, what do you mean?"
+
+"You may well say 'for _pity's_ sake;'" and then Laura burst forth and
+repeated, word for word, the conversation that had transpired between
+Esther and herself, concluding with, "And you--_you_, Kitty, are to
+blame for this, for it is you who have prejudiced the girls against
+Esther with your talk about McVane Street and the foreigners in that
+neighborhood."
+
+"I? Just my little fun about McVane Street and your sunset tea there?"
+
+"Yes, just your little fun! I know what your fun is! Oh, Kitty, Kitty,
+I _did_ think you had a kind heart! But to be the means of hurting
+anybody, as you have hurt Esther,--it is--it is--"
+
+"Laura, Laura, don't," as Laura here broke down in a little fit of
+sobbing. "Of course I didn't know--I didn't think. Oh, dear, I'll tell
+the girls I didn't mean a word I said,--that I'm the biggest liar in
+town; that Esther is an heiress; that--that--oh, I'll do or say
+anything, if you'll only stop crying, Laura. There, there," as Laura
+tried to stifle a fresh sob, "that's right, take my handkerchief,--yours
+is sopping wet, and--My goodness, there comes Maud Aplin--she _must_ not
+see us sniffing and sobbing like this, she'll say we've had a quarrel.
+Here, let us go into the little recitation-room, quick now, before she
+sees us."
+
+And into the little recitation-room Laura was very willing to go and
+hide her tear-stained face from inquisitive eyes, while Kitty, penitent
+and overcome more by the spectacle of these tears than by a sense of her
+own shortcomings, followed briskly after, with this cheerful little
+running fire of remarks, anent the Art Club lecturer: "I'm just
+crazy--_crazy_ to see this Monsieur Baudouin; for what do you think Flo
+Aplin says? That he is a real viscomte or marquis, or something of that
+sort, but that he came into his title only a year or two ago, and is
+much prouder of his reputation as an art authority and critic and his
+name, Pierre Baudouin,--it's his own name, you know,--and he won his
+reputation under that. The Aplins met him last year in Paris. Windlow
+Aplin, who is studying art there, just swears by him, and says the
+artists dote on him, and Flo says he is perfectly elegant. Etching is
+his great fad now, and he is going to lecture this afternoon on etching
+and etchers. Oh, I'm just crazy to see and hear him, aren't you?"
+
+Laura had by this time conquered her tears, thanks to Kitty's
+adroitness, and, with a half-humorous, half-grateful appreciation of
+this adroitness, she thought to herself as she walked round to the Art
+Club with Kitty that afternoon, "Kitty _has_ a good heart, after all."
+
+The Art Club hall was quite full as they entered; but there were seats
+well down in front, and there they found most of the school girls under
+Miss Milwood's charge. Esther was one of this party; and Kitty made a
+great point of leaning forward and bowing to her with much graciousness.
+The next moment she was whispering to Laura, "There, didn't I behave
+prettily to Esther this time? You'll see now--" But at that instant a
+slender dark-eyed gentleman, accompanied by one of the artists, was seen
+coming rapidly up the aisle, and, "Look, look, there he is!" cried
+Kitty, "and _isn't_ he elegant?"
+
+And Laura looking, as she was told, found no reason to disagree with
+this comment.
+
+"But I _do_ hope," whispered the irrepressible Kitty again, as Monsieur
+Baudouin ascended the platform,--"I _do_ hope he is as interesting as he
+looks; appearances are deceitful sometimes." But no one of that audience
+found Pierre Baudouin's appearance deceitful. He was more than
+interesting,--he was enthralling as he went on with his almost loving
+consideration of his subject, setting before his hearers, in a melodious
+voice and very good English, some of the results of his great knowledge
+and experience. You could have heard a pin drop, as the saying goes, so
+spell-bound was the audience; and at the end there was a warm outburst
+of applause, and then a gathering about him, as he left the platform,
+of the various artists, and others who were eager to speak with him. He
+was standing with this little group, when Laura, watching and listening
+just outside of it, heard him say, "There is a remarkable etching that I
+wish I could show you, for it proves completely the theory I have just
+placed before you. I saw it but once, in the artist's own studio, as I
+was passing through Munich. When a little later I heard that the artist
+was dead, and his effects for sale, I tried to buy the etching, but was
+told that it had been given to a friend, a Mr. John Wybern. Since then,
+I have learned that Mr. Wybern has also died, and I started again on my
+search; but it has been fruitless so far, though I still hope I may come
+across it, and be able, if not to add it to my collection, to examine it
+again. The artist, by the way, is the same one that painted that
+remarkable picture, 'Rebecca the Jewess.'"
+
+Laura turned hastily around to look for Esther. She had not to look far.
+Esther was just behind her. "Esther, did you hear?" she asked.
+
+Esther nodded.
+
+"Do you know about the etching?"
+
+[Illustration: She was addressing Monsieur Baudouin]
+
+"Yes, it hangs in our parlor. I wish I dared go forward now and tell
+him."
+
+"Oh, Esther, do, do!"
+
+But Esther hung back. Then Laura obeyed an impulse that forever after
+filled her with astonishment. She pressed forward, and, before she had
+time to think twice, was addressing Monsieur Baudouin, and telling him
+what she knew.
+
+"What! you can tell me where this etching is? You can take me to it?" he
+exclaimed, with a sort of joyful incredulity.
+
+Laura answered by turning to Esther and saying. "This young lady can
+tell you more about it. The etching is in the possession of her family."
+
+"Ah, and this young lady is--"
+
+Laura reached back, seized Esther's hand, and pulled her to her side.
+
+"Is Miss Bodn."
+
+"Mees _Bodn_!" he repeated with a start. "Mees _Bodn_! Ah, pardon me, do
+you spell this name B-o-w-d-o-i-n?"
+
+"You do, you do," as Esther answered in the affirmative; "and, pardon
+again, are you related to one Henri--Henry, you call it here--Henry
+Pierre Bowdoin?"
+
+"My father's name was Henry Pierre Bowdoin."
+
+"Then, Mademoiselle," and Monsieur Baudouin stretched out his hand, and
+a smile lit up his face, "you must be a relation of mine; and three
+years ago, when I was in this country, and tried to find the American
+branch of our family that spelled its name Bowdoin and was called Bodn,
+but which was originally Baudouin, the old Huguenot name, I was told it
+had died out. Where were you then, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"In Munich, where my mother and I had lived with my uncle John Wybern,
+since my father's death, years ago."
+
+"Your uncle! John Wybern was your uncle? So--so is it possible, is it
+possible? And I find the two objects I have been hunting, so far apart,
+together! It is most astonishing and yet most simple. And your
+mother--your mother is living? Yes, and you will give me your address,
+that I may hasten to pay my respects to her;" and Monsieur whipped out a
+little note-book and wrote down, probably with greater satisfaction than
+it had ever been written before, "McVane Street."
+
+"Most astonishing and yet most simple," as Monsieur had truly said; yet
+to the flock of Miss Milwood's girls, who, well down to the front, had
+lost nothing of this surprising interview, it was only "most
+astonishing," and to some of them most humiliating and mortifying. Kitty
+Grant was the first to voice this mortification, by turning upon them
+and saying, as Esther disappeared with Monsieur Baudouin, "Say, girls,
+how do you feel now? _I_ feel like one of Cinderella's sisters. Laura
+now--Laura, where are you?" But Laura had also disappeared. She wanted
+to be by herself and think it over. But what of Esther,--Esther, who had
+been neglected and disregarded and despised? What of Esther, as she
+stood there, and as she walked away with Monsieur Baudouin? Esther was
+the least astonished of them all, for years ago she had been familiar
+with the facts of her paternal family history, and knew that she was a
+descendant of Pierre Baudouin, a French Huguenot, who had fled to
+America to escape religious persecution, and knew that the name Baudouin
+had suffered a change to Bowdoin; knew, too, that as Bowdoin it had been
+made illustrious in America's annals, and worn the honors of the highest
+offices of the State. She knew all this; but she knew also that this was
+long ago, and that her father was the last of his name in America, and
+when he died, after a wasting illness that exhausted his fortune, there
+was little thought given to the fact that the old Huguenot root still
+existed in France, though half-playful, half-serious mention had now and
+then been made of the kinsfolk in France they would sometime go to seek.
+
+All this Esther had stored away in her memory, so that when Monsieur
+Baudouin announced himself as the kinsman from France, it was more like
+a long-anticipated event than a surprise. And all this she told to Laura
+in the days that followed,--those dear, delightful days, when there was
+no difficulty put in the way of going to McVane Street; when McVane
+Street, indeed, according to Kitty, became quite the fashion with the
+artists flocking to see the wonderful etching, and Monsieur Baudouin
+holding forth upon its merits to them as he made himself at home with
+his American kinsfolk, who were now discovered to be such charming folk.
+Laura sometimes in these days blazed up with indignation and disgust as
+she noted the sudden attentions that were bestowed upon Esther and her
+mother. No one now spoke of emigrants and foreigners in connection with
+these dwellers on McVane Street. Jack Brooks himself seemed to forget
+that David Wybern looked like a Jew, even before it was found that David
+and all of his people were of the most unmixed Puritan stock!
+
+"And I, too," thought Laura,--"I, too, muddled and mistook things as I
+shouldn't, if Esther and her mother had lived in a different quarter. If
+they had lived anywhere over the hill, should I have fancied, though
+they _were_ so poor, that Mrs. Bowdoin must have been a professional
+model? No, no, I should have thought at once, what I _know_ now, that
+the artist was her friend, and that she sat to him as a friendly favor,
+like any other lady."
+
+But while Laura thus scourged herself with the rest, Esther and her
+mother had set her apart from all the rest for their special love and
+confidence,--a love and confidence that are as fresh to-day as when the
+mother and daughter sailed away with Monsieur Baudouin, a year ago, to
+visit their French kinsfolk.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BECKY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Number five!" called out shrilly and impatiently the saleswoman at the
+lace counter in a great dry-goods establishment. The call was repeated
+in a still more impatient tone before there was any response; then there
+rushed up a girl of ten or eleven, whose big black eyes looked forth
+fearlessly, some people said impudently, from a little peaked face, so
+thin and small that it seemed all eyes, and in the neighborhood where
+the child lived she was often nicknamed "Eyes."
+
+"Why didn't you come when you were first called?" asked the saleswoman,
+angrily.
+
+"Couldn't; I'se waitin' for somethin'," answered the child, coolly.
+
+"You were staring at and list'nin' to those ladies at the ribbon
+counter; I saw you," retorted the saleswoman.
+
+"Well, I tole yer, I'se waitin' for somethin'," the girl answered,
+showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.
+
+A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.
+
+"Don't laugh at her, Lizzie," rebuked the elder; "she's getting too big
+for her boots with her impudence."
+
+"They ain't boots; they're shoes." And a thin little leg was thrust
+forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for
+it.
+
+Then, like a flash, the "imp," as the saleswoman often termed her,
+seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.
+
+"You'll get reported if you don't look out," the saleswoman called after
+her.
+
+The "imp" turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in
+such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which
+she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself. Good-natured Lizzie
+admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so
+funny she "just couldn't help laughing."
+
+"You call it 'funny,'" the other exclaimed; "_I_ call it impudence. She
+ain't afraid of anything or anybody. Look at her now! there she is back
+at the ribbon counter. I wonder what those swells are talking about,
+that she's so taken up with. She's up to some mischief, I'll bet you,
+Lizzie."
+
+"I guess it's only her fun. She's going to take 'em off by 'n' by," said
+Lizzie.
+
+This was one of the "imp's" accomplishments,--taking people off. She was
+a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in
+the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky
+would "take off," the various people that had come under her keen
+observation during the day. "Private theatricals," the lively Lizzie
+called this "taking off," as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin
+up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair
+of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of
+cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady
+fashion,--"just like the swells," Lizzie declared. It was quite natural
+then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was "up
+to," in her close attention to the "swell" customers at the ribbon
+counter. "She was studyin' 'em, just as actresses study their
+play-parts," Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she
+met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,--
+
+"Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter."
+
+"Eh?" said Becky.
+
+Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in: "Yes, Becky,
+give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun."
+
+"They warn't funny," answered Becky, shortly.
+
+"Oh! now, Becky, what'd you stand there lis'nin' and lookin' at 'em so
+long for?"
+
+"'Cause they were sayin' somethin' I wanted to hear."
+
+"Of course they were. What was it about, Becky?"
+
+"May-day, flowers and queens and baskets."
+
+"Oh, my! Well, tell us how they said it, Becky."
+
+"I tole yer they warn't funny; they warn't o' that kind that peeks
+through them long stick glasses and puckers up their lips. They talked
+straight 'long, and said very int'restin' things," said Becky.
+
+"Well, tell us; tell us what 'twas," exclaimed Lizzie.
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't care for what they's talkin' 'bout. They warn't sayin'
+anythin' 'bout beaux or clothes," Becky replied with a grin.
+
+A shout of laughter went up from the rest of the company, who all knew
+the lively Lizzie's favorite topics. Lizzie joined in the laugh, and
+cried good-naturedly,--
+
+"Never mind, Becky, if I'm not up to your ribbon swells talk; tell us
+about it."
+
+"Oh, yes! tell us, tell us!" echoed the others.
+
+Becky took a bite out of a slice of bread, and munching it slowly,
+said,--
+
+"I tole yer once 't was 'bout May-day and flowers and queens and
+baskets."
+
+"What May-day? There's thirty-one of 'em, Becky."
+
+Becky looked staggered for a moment. In her little hard-worked life she
+had had small opportunity to learn much out of books, and she had never
+happened to hear this rhyming bit:--
+
+  "Thirty days hath September,
+   April, June, and November,
+   All the rest have thirty-one,
+   Excepting February alone."
+
+Recovering her wits, however, very speedily, she said coolly,--
+
+"The first pleasant one."
+
+"Well, what were they telling about it? What were they going to do the
+first pleasant day in May?"
+
+"They didn't say as _they_ was goin' to do anythin'; they was
+tellin'--or one of 'em was tellin' t' other one--what folks did when
+they's little, and afore that, hundreds o' years ago, how the folks then
+used to get all the children together and go out in the country and put
+up a great big high pole, and put a lot o' flowers on a string and wind
+'em roun' the pole; and then all the children would take hold o' han's
+and dance roun' the pole, and one o' the children was chose to be queen,
+and had a crown made o' flowers on her head, and the rest o' the
+children minded her."
+
+"You'd like _that_,--to be queen and have the rest mind you, Becky,
+wouldn't you?" laughed one of the company.
+
+"I bet I would," owned Becky, frankly.
+
+"But what about the baskets?" asked somebody else.
+
+"Oh, the kids," said Becky, forgetting in her present absorbed interest
+the term "children,"--which she had learned to use since she had come up
+daily from the poor neighborhood where she lived,--"the kids use to fill
+a basket with flowers and hang it on the door-knob of somebody's
+house,--somebody they knew,--and then ring the bell and run. Golly!
+guess _I_ should hev to hang it _inside_ where I lives. I couldn't hang
+it on no outside door and hev it stay there long,--them thieves o' alley
+boys would git it 'fore yer could turn. I guess, though, they was
+country kids who used to hang 'em; but the lady said she was goin' to
+try to start 'em up again here in the city."
+
+"What kind o' baskets were they?" asked Lizzie, suddenly sitting up with
+a new air of attention.
+
+"Oh, ho!" laughed one of the girls; "Lizzie wants to hang a basket for
+somebody _she_ knows!"
+
+"Hush up!" said Lizzie, turning rather red. Then, addressing Becky
+again: "Did the lady who was telling about 'em have a basket with her?
+Did you see it?"
+
+"No, but she hed a piece o' that pretty wrinkly paper jes' like the
+lamp-shades in the winders, and she said the baskets was made o' that,
+and she was buyin' some ribbon to match for handles and bows."
+
+"Oh, I _wish_ I could see one of 'em," said Lizzie.
+
+"I went to a kinnergarden school wonst when I was a little kid," struck
+in Becky here, "and we was put up there to makin' baskets out o' paper."
+
+"Could you do it now?" asked Lizzie, eagerly.
+
+"Mebbe I could," answered Becky, warily; "but it's a good bit ago."
+
+"When you were young," cried one of the company with a giggle.
+
+"Yes, when I was young," repeated Becky, in exact imitation of the
+speaker, whose voice was very flat and nasal.
+
+Everybody laughed, and one of the girls cried: "Becky'll get the best of
+you any time." They were all of them impressed with this fact, when, a
+few minutes after, the wary Becky agreed to show Lizzie what she knew of
+"kinnergarden" basket-making, if Lizzie would agree to pay her for her
+trouble by giving her materials enough to make a basket for herself.
+
+"Ain't she a sharp one?" commented one of the girls to another when they
+had left the lunch-room.
+
+"Ain't she, though? She'll get what she can, and hold on to what she's
+got every time."
+
+"But she's awful good fun. Didn't she take off Matty Kelley's flat
+nose-y way of talkin' to a T?"
+
+"Didn't she!" and the two girls laughed anew at the recollection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Becky was the only one of the parcel-girls who was in the lunch-room
+when this talk about May-day took place. The others lived nearer to the
+store, and had gone home to their dinners. They were all a trifle older
+than Becky, and a good deal larger. For these reasons, as well as for
+the fact that they had been in the establishment quite a while when
+Becky entered it, they had put on a great many disagreeable airs toward
+the pale-faced little girl when she first appeared, and attempted, as
+Becky put it, to "boss" her. They soon found, however, that the
+new-comer was too much for them. They expected her to be afraid of
+them,--to "stand round" for them. But Miss Becky was not in the least
+afraid of them, or, for that matter, of anybody; and as soon as she
+understood what they meant, she turned upon them the whole force of that
+inimitable mimicry of hers, and "took off" their airs in a manner that
+soon set the small army of salesmen and saleswomen into such fits of
+laughter that the tables were completely turned upon the tormentors,
+and they were only too glad to drop their airs and treat Becky with the
+respect that pluck and superior power invariably command. But while thus
+constrained to decent behavior before Becky's eyes, behind her back they
+gave way to the resentment that they felt against her for her triumph
+over them, and let no opportunity slip to say slighting things of her.
+Good-natured Lizzie would laugh when they said these things to
+her,--when they told her that Becky Hawkins was nothin' but one o' that
+low lot who lived down amongst that thieving set by the East Cove
+alleys,--that jus' as like as not she was a thief herself; that she was
+awful close and stingy, anyway, and saved up every scrap she could find;
+that they'd seen her themselves pick up old strings and buttons and such
+duds from the gutters! But if Lizzie laughed out of her light lively
+heart, and declared she didn't believe what they said was true, and
+didn't care if it _was_, there were others not so good-natured as
+Lizzie, who, though often vastly entertained by Becky, were quite ready
+to believe that the spirit of mimicry she possessed had something
+lawless about it, especially when she broke forth into the slang of the
+street,--"gutter-slang," the other parcel-girls called it,--the
+lawlessness seemed to gather a sort of proof. And so it was that, in
+spite of the entertainment she afforded, and a certain kind of respect
+in which her "smartness" was held, Becky was considered as rather an
+outsider, and an object of more or less suspicion.
+
+"A sharp one!" the saleswoman had called her, the other agreeing; and
+when the next day, which was also a rainy day, the little company
+gathered in the lunch-room again, and Lizzie brought forth a variety of
+pretty papers, there was a general watchfulness to see how much Becky
+knew, and what she would claim. Two other of the parcel-girls were now
+present. They had heard all about the basket-making plan of yesterday,
+and pushed forward with great interest. Becky looked at them with
+mischief in her eyes, but made no movement to join Lizzie.
+
+"Come," said the older of the two, "why don't you begin, Becky? Lizzie's
+waitin', and so are we."
+
+"What _yer_ waitin' for?" asked Becky, with an impudent grin.
+
+"To see how you make the baskets."
+
+"Well, yer'll hev to wait."
+
+"Why, you told Lizzie you'd show her how to make baskets out o' paper!"
+
+"But I didn' say I'se goin' to show anybody else. This ain't a free
+kinnergarden. These are private lessons."
+
+A shriek of laughter went up at this, while somebody cried,--
+
+"And private lessons must be paid for, mustn't they, Becky?"
+
+"Every time," answered Becky, with unruffled coolness.
+
+"Where's the private room to give 'em in?" piped out one of the
+parcel-girls with a wink at the other.
+
+"In here!" cried Becky, with a sudden inspiration, jumping up and
+running into a little fitting-room that had that morning been assigned
+to her to sweep and put in order after the lunch hour.
+
+"Good for you!" cried Lizzie, with one of her laughs, as she followed
+her teacher.
+
+"And you didn't get ahead o' me _this_ time, either!" called out Becky,
+as she bolted the door upon herself and companion.
+
+"You're too sharp for any of _us_, Becky," called back one of the
+saleswomen.
+
+"_Ain't_ she sharp?" agreed one and another; and "I told you so," said
+still another. "She's a regular little cove-sharper, as Lotty said."
+Lotty was the older parcel-girl.
+
+And thus, though most of them laughed at Becky's last "move," they were
+prejudiced against her for it, and thought it another evidence of her
+stinginess and sharpness. They all agreed, however, that she had "got
+'round' Lizzie to that extent that that young woman would stand up for
+her, anyway, no matter what she'd do or didn't do.
+
+"An' I'll bet yer," said the younger parcel-girl, "she'll lie out o'
+that basket bizness, an' get a lot o' paper too. _She_ know how to make
+baskets! Not much. You see now when they come out o' the fitting-room
+there'll be some excuse that 't ain't done, an' they can't show it
+now,--you see."
+
+This prophecy was received in silence, but without much sign of
+disagreement; and when the fitting-room door finally opened, it was
+funny to watch the looks of astonishment that were bestowed upon the
+pretty little basket of green and white paper that Lizzie held swung
+upon her finger.
+
+"Well, I never! She _did_ know how, didn't she?" exclaimed one of the
+party.
+
+[Illustration: the pretty little basket of green and white paper]
+
+"Of course she did," answered Lizzie.
+
+Becky only shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
+
+"Bet yer she hooked it out o' some shop, and had it in that bag she
+carried in," whispered Lotty Riker, the parcel-girl.
+
+"Hush!" warned one of the company.
+
+But it was too late. Becky had heard, and for the first time since she
+had been in the store, those about her saw hot wrath blazing from her
+eyes as she burst forth savagely,--
+
+"Yer mean low-lived thing yer, yer must be up to sech tricks yerself to
+think that!"
+
+"What is it? What did she say?" asked Lizzie.
+
+Becky repeated Lotty's words, her wrath increasing as she did so.
+
+"Hooked it! You know better, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Lotty Riker," said Lizzie. "Becky and I made the basket ourselves. See
+here now!" and, opening one hand, she displayed the ends of the paper
+strips as they had been cut off, and where they fitted the protruding
+ends on the basket. "But," turning to Becky, "Lotty knows better; she
+only wanted to bother you."
+
+"She wanted to bully me! She's been at it ever since I come here,--she
+and t' other one. I made 'em stop it wonst, an' I'll make 'em ag'in. I
+can stan' a good deal, but I ain't a-goin' to stan' bein' called a
+thief, I ain't. I ain't no more a thief 'n they be, if I do live down
+Cove way, and don't wear quite so good clo'es as they does. _Hooked
+it_!" going a step nearer to the two girls. "I wish we was boys.
+I'd--I'd lick yer, I would, the minit I got yer out on the street; but,"
+with a disgusted sigh, "I'm a girl, and I carn't. 'Tain't 'spectable for
+girls, Tim says, an' I mus'n't. But lemme jes' hear any more sech talk,
+an'--I'll _forgit I'm a girl for 'bout five minutes_!"
+
+This conclusion was too much for Lizzie's gravity, and she burst into
+one of her infectious laughs. Several of the others joined in, and then
+Becky herself gave a sudden little grin.
+
+Lotty Riker and her sister, who had been thoroughly frightened, felt
+immensely relieved at this, and for the moment everything seemed the
+same as before the outbreak; but it was only seeming. The majority of
+the company, without taking into consideration the provocation Becky had
+received, thought to themselves: "_What_ a temper!" Becky's wild little
+threats, and the way she expressed herself, had made a strong
+impression; and when presently Lizzie laughingly asked, "Who's Tim,
+Becky?" and Becky had answered in that lawless manner of hers: "Oh, he's
+a fren' o' mine,--a great big fightin' gentleman what lives in the house
+where we do," there was a general exchange of glances, and a general
+conviction that the Riker girls had not been altogether wrong in some of
+their statements. And when the next day they heard Miss Becky confide to
+Lizzie that she had made "a splendid basket," and was going to hang it
+for Tim on that "fust pleasant day of May," they whispered to each
+other, "A May-basket for a prize-fighter!"
+
+But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She
+was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from
+her fun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and
+sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth
+Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and
+wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She
+would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got
+to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow
+on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;"
+but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
+
+"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
+
+"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for
+the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
+
+Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything
+else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to
+her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where _could_ she be? She had
+always been punctual to a minute.
+
+The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was
+forgotten. It was not until the closing hour--five o'clock--that Lizzie
+thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly,
+as they were leaving the store together,--
+
+"Where _do_ you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day,
+and she's _always_ here, and so punctual."
+
+"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would
+be just like her; she's that independent."
+
+"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's
+pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do
+that," put in Josie, laughing,
+
+"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
+
+"Sick! _her_ kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough.
+Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that
+basket?"
+
+"Why, what I agreed to give,--enough to make a basket for herself; and
+last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my
+Mayflowers,--I had plenty."
+
+"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
+
+"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
+
+"Yes, _Becky's_ bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the
+rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the
+rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking
+about private lessons!"
+
+"Oh, that was only her fun."
+
+"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid
+for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you
+think that was only fun?"
+
+"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little
+something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove
+Street."
+
+"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the
+other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends
+she was working alongside of."
+
+"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
+
+"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's
+exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she _sold_ her basket, and very
+likely to that prize-fighter,--that Tim."
+
+"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I
+hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things
+of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster
+down--' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
+
+"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street
+tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she
+cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,--in one of those
+tenements."
+
+"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six
+o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had
+for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and,
+owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such
+headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only
+the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours
+of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought
+under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the
+wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries
+and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought
+to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives
+in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means
+small.'"
+
+"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here,
+breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
+
+"But, Lizzie--"
+
+"You needn't try to stop me, I'm _going_. Becky's down there somewhere,
+and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to
+see. _You_ needn't come if you're afraid, but _I'm_ going!"
+
+The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and
+the three went on together toward the burned district.
+
+"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove
+Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business
+here."
+
+"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,--one of the girls in our store,"
+answered Lizzie.
+
+"Becky Hawkins?"
+
+"Yes; do you know her?"
+
+"Should think I did. This is my beat,--known her all her life pretty
+much."
+
+"Did she get out,--is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
+
+"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend
+Tim."
+
+The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,--a
+smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what
+the Riker girls had said she was,--a little Cove Street hoodlum,--while
+Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family
+that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner
+house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's
+sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman
+had advised, adding,--
+
+"We are decent girls, and--it's a disgrace to have anything to do with
+such a lot as Becky and her family and--"
+
+"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,--"what yer
+talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see
+what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled
+around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow
+him.
+
+They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with
+smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the
+flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of
+the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were
+huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open
+door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a
+familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
+
+But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
+
+"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it
+Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie
+stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room;
+but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes,
+and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the
+store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt,
+and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you;
+but I'm so glad you are all right--But," coming nearer and finding that
+Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table,
+"you're _not_ all right, are you?"
+
+"No, I--I guess--I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little
+smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
+
+"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,--a
+little thing like you!"
+
+"'Twas _she_ was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women
+in the room.
+
+"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd
+got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back
+for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she
+saved him for me,--she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the
+roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the
+'scape; but Becky--Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she
+made a jump--and fell--oh, Becky! Becky!"
+
+"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry
+her, and it's no use."
+
+"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in
+dumb amazement.
+
+"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
+
+Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing
+down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
+
+Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
+
+"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
+
+"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
+
+"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He
+didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I
+could make another--"
+
+"_I'll_ make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
+
+"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
+
+"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone,
+roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old
+mischief she said,--
+
+"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
+
+There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and
+then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body,
+wasted and shrunken,--the body of a child of seven with a shapely head
+and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
+
+"That's him,--that's Tim,--the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"
+said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and
+how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on
+Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,--
+
+"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,--the girls in the store,--how I played it on
+'em; and when I git back--I'll--"
+
+"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
+
+The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open,
+letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks
+beyond the Cove.
+
+"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
+
+"I--I feel fus' rate--all well, Jake, and--I--I smell the Mayflowers.
+They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
+jolly! Tim, Tim!"
+
+"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
+
+"Wait for me here Tim,--I--I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,--ther,
+ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by--I'm
+goin'--to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
+anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
+her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
+
+The two women--and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
+always lived--broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
+radiant face, she said suddenly,--
+
+"She's well out of it all."
+
+"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
+'t ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' _him_," nodding towards Jake,
+who was slipping quietly out of the room,--"it's the like o' him. They
+looked up to her, they did,--bit of a thing as she was. She was that
+straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
+Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
+
+And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
+room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
+furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
+and Josie still waiting for her.
+
+"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time--have you seen--have
+you heard--"
+
+They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,--
+
+"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
+don't know."
+
+"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ALLY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"
+
+"Put 'em away."
+
+"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
+wear 'em down town."
+
+But Ally didn't move.
+
+"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.
+
+"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
+you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
+your foot is bigger than mine."
+
+"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."
+
+"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
+'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."
+
+"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
+raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
+than lend me your new rubbers."
+
+"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"
+
+"Because they leak."
+
+"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally,
+scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my
+things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is
+threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as
+shabby--and--there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no
+better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"
+
+"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to _me_! I should like to
+know who buys your things for you? Isn't it _my father_ and Uncle John?
+I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for
+Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and
+everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours
+again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the
+rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back
+here,--I do!"
+
+"I wish so too. Nobody in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as
+to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."
+
+"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here
+that she dreaded the winter on your account,--there!"
+
+"Aunt Kate--said that?"
+
+"Yes, she did; I heard her."
+
+A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded
+from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,--
+
+"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll
+have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these
+words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst
+into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.
+
+"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's
+mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.
+
+"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,--so coolly, so calmly, that it
+was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the
+present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking,
+Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one
+girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and
+in consequence said rather sharply,--
+
+"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"
+and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter
+Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately
+overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to
+be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some
+other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any
+peace while--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it
+was--"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears
+shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh
+gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes,
+it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It
+would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan;
+yes, indeed, very different. If I was a _rich_ orphan, if papa and mamma
+had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things
+would be different,--I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and
+her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to _me_ then, and I
+guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of
+me,--no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some
+other arrangement _could_ be made away from 'em all. They don't any of
+'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd
+rather--I'd rather--oh, I'd rather go to _jail_ than to _them_!" and
+down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little
+hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor
+little beggar of an orphan."
+
+The facts of the case were these: Ally's father and mother had both died
+when she was seven years old, leaving her to the care of her two nearest
+relatives,--her father's two brothers,--Mr. Tom and Mr. John Fleming. As
+her father had little or nothing to leave her, he had requested that the
+burden of her maintenance should be equally divided between the uncles,
+the child to live alternately with each family, six months with one and
+six with the other. She had been old enough when she was thus
+transplanted from her own home to realize more or less the peculiar
+condition of things; and as she was quick-tempered and sensitive, she
+very soon began to take note of any comment or remark regarding herself
+that was dropped in her hearing, and very often misunderstood or made
+too much of it. But there was no denying, whichever way you looked at
+it, that it was rather a difficult situation for both sides, and that
+the Fleming aunts and uncles and cousins had something to put up with,
+as well as Ally. But that Ally was the most to be pitied there was also
+no denying, for she could remember with unfading vividness being the
+centre of love, the one special darling in _one_ home, and now she
+hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
+bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
+many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
+For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
+be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one _too_ many.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
+live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
+Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
+both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
+deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
+as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,--
+
+"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
+temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
+your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
+who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
+with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
+with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
+and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.
+
+"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
+before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
+outside the car.
+
+"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.
+
+His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.
+
+Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
+going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."
+
+"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
+Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.
+
+"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
+she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
+good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
+death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
+wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I _am_ hard to live with; but I don't
+play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
+mine never loved me--any of 'em--from the first."
+
+As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
+of the car window, and there, why, there was her aunt Ann and uncle Tom
+outside on the platform, standing at another car window farther down,
+talking and laughing in the liveliest manner with some friends they had
+met. Uncle Tom didn't seem in the least haste now, and ever so many
+minutes ago he had said to her, "Well, good-by, Ally!" and rushed off as
+if there wasn't another minute to spare,--not another minute; and here
+was a gentleman in front of her, saying to a friend of his at that very
+instant, "There's plenty of time; it's ten minutes before the cars
+start;" and then she heard a lady say to another lady, "There's no need
+of my leaving you yet; we've got oceans of time;" and all about her,
+Ally now noticed various groups of friends and relations lingering
+lovingly together until the last moment; and noting all this, a bitter
+little look came into Miss Ally's face, and a bitter little thought came
+into her heart,--a thought that said tauntingly, "There, this shows you,
+Ally Fleming, what kind of relations you've got; this shows you how much
+they care for you!"
+
+And by and by, as the cars started up and sped along, this bitter little
+thought also sped along, carrying in its wake all the bitter little
+thoughts of yesterday and to-day. Ally was quite accustomed to
+travelling by herself on this trip to and from New York. It was a
+perfectly simple thing to sit in the car-seat where she had been placed
+by one uncle, until at the end of the trip she was met by the other
+uncle, and taken charge of,--a perfectly simple, easy matter, and Ally
+had heretofore quite enjoyed it; but now, looking about her, and seeing
+the groups of other people's relations going home to Thanksgiving, she
+began to think it was a very lonesome thing to be travelling all alone
+by herself; and just as this occurred to her, what should happen but
+that one of these groups should turn inquisitively to her and ask, "Are
+you travelling all by yourself, little girl?" and when Ally had
+answered, "Yes," this inquisitive person commented upon her being such a
+little girl to travel all by herself; and then, when Ally told her
+rather proudly that she was ten years old, the inquisitive person had
+said, "Well, I don't know what _my_ little ten-year-old girl would think
+to be sent off to travel all alone. I shall tell her when I get home
+what a brave little girl I met."
+
+Ally thought all this was said out of pity and wonder, and that the lady
+thought her very much neglected and forlorn. But instead of that, the
+lady meant only to praise and compliment her; and thus, in this way and
+that way, the bitter little thoughts kept growing and growing, as the
+cars sped on, until long before the end of her journey came, poor Ally
+felt that there never was a much more friendless girl than she was; and
+when the cars steamed into the Boston station, she said to herself, "I
+wonder if Uncle John is dreading the winter on my account, as Aunt Kate
+is?" and with this thought she stepped out on the platform. But where
+_was_ Uncle John? She expected to see him at once, coming forward to
+lift her from the steps. Where _was_ he now? and Ally looked at the
+faces before her with wondering scrutiny. She jumped down--for people
+were pressing behind her--and moved on, scanning the face of every
+gentleman she saw with anxious eyes. No one of them, however, was that
+of Uncle John. What _was_ the matter? Didn't he know the train she was
+to take? Of course he did, for Uncle Tom had told her that he had
+telegraphed that he would meet her at the Boston station at five
+o'clock. Of course he knew, so he must have forgotten her. Yes, that was
+it,--he had forgotten all about her! Ally was not a specially timid
+child; but as she stood in the big station-building, and realized that
+there was not a soul she knew there to look out for her, a feeling of
+dismay overtook her. If it were in the morning or at noonday, it
+wouldn't have seemed so dreadful; but though the electric lights flashed
+everything into brilliance, it was a November day, and half-past five
+o'clock was after nightfall. What _should_ she do? There was no sign of
+Uncle John, and the passengers who had arrived with her were fast
+disappearing. Very soon the people in the station would begin to notice
+her, to ask questions, and then perhaps some police-officer would take
+her to the police-station, as a lost child. She'd heard that that was
+what they always did. It was just as this thought came into her head
+that she caught sight of one of those very big burly blue-coated
+individuals. He had his hand on the collar of a boy about her own age,
+and she heard him say to him in a big burly voice,--
+
+"What yer hangin' 'round here for? Lost, eh? That's a likely story.
+Come, off with yer, if yer don't want ter be locked up!"
+
+Poor little Ally didn't stop to reason,--to think of the difference in
+the outward appearance of herself and the boy,--to see that the
+policeman knew the boy perfectly well for a mischievous young scamp who
+was up to no good. She didn't stop to consider anything; but with those
+words, "If yer don't want ter be locked up," ringing in her ears, she
+turned and ran from the station-building as fast as her legs could carry
+her. As she came out upon the sidewalk, she saw the colored lights of a
+street car. Oh, joy, it was the very up-town car that would take her
+close to Beacon Street! But oh, horror! She suddenly recollected that
+Uncle John no longer lived on Beacon Street. He had moved last month
+into a new house on Marlborough Street, and oh, what _was_ the number?
+She "had heard Uncle Tom read it from a letter. It had a lot of 9's in
+it. Nine hundred and--why--99--999, three 9's; yes, yes, that was it;"
+and with this conviction, Ally gave a hop skip and a jump into the car,
+just as it was about to start off, for this very car she knew would take
+her nearer to Marlborough Street than to Beacon Street. Her spirits rose
+as she felt herself carried along; and in due time she found the three
+9's, and tripped up the steps of the house in Marlborough Street bearing
+that number. Her heart beat very fast with a sense of relief and injury,
+mixed with a certain elation at her own enterprise, as she rang the
+bell. Wouldn't they be surprised, and wouldn't Uncle John--But some one
+opening the door scattered her questioning thoughts; and--why, who was
+this somebody? It must be a new servant with the new house, and a
+manservant too. Uncle John must be getting better off,--they had had
+only two maids before. It never entered Ally's head to ask the strange
+servant if Mr. Fleming lived there. Why should she ask what she was so
+sure of? She simply asked, "Where's Uncle John and Aunt Kate and the
+rest of them?"
+
+The man looked bewildered, and repeated, "Uncle John?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle John and Aunt Kate. I'm Ally, and Uncle John telegraphed
+that he would meet me at the five-o'clock train, and he wasn't there,
+and I came up all alone. Where are they? In the parlor?" and Ally
+stepped in over the threshold.
+
+"I guess there's some mistake," said the man; "I guess your uncle
+John--"
+
+"No, there wasn't any mistake, for he telegraphed to Uncle Tom. He must
+have forgotten."
+
+"But your uncle doesn't--"
+
+"What is it, James? What is wanted?" interrupted some one here. The
+"some one" was a big, tall gentleman coming down the stairs, whom Ally,
+as she looked up in the rather confusing half light of the lower hall,
+at once took for her uncle, and rushing forward she ran up to meet him,
+crying,--
+
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John! I was so scared not to find you at the
+station, and I came up here all alone on the street car!"
+
+But in the very next instant she started back and gasped: "But--but it
+isn't--you're not--you're not Uncle John! Where is he, oh, where is he?"
+
+"You've made a mistake, my little girl!" exclaimed the gentleman,--"a
+mistake in the house. This isn't your uncle John's, but--"
+
+"Not Uncle John's? Why--why--this is 999!" interrupted Ally,
+tremulously.
+
+"Yes; but--"
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried poor Ally, as a fresh flash of memory overcame her,
+"that must be the--the--" She was going to say, "the old Beacon Street
+number," when, confused and dismayed, she gave another step backward,
+her foot slipped, and she fell headlong to the foot of the stairs, where
+she lay white and motionless, not a sigh or moan escaping her as she was
+lifted and carried into the parlor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The sun was shining brightly into the pretty new dining-room on
+Marlborough Street where Uncle John lived, and swinging in its beams a
+great gray parrot named Peter kept calling out, "Ally's come, Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+
+The room was empty when the parrot began; but presently Uncle John and
+Aunt Kate came in. At sight of them the parrot screamed, "Hello! hello!"
+and then repeated louder than ever, "Ally's come! Ally's come! give her
+a kiss! give her a kiss!"
+
+"For pity's sake, put the bird out!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I can't
+stand _that now_!"
+
+"Yes, put him out, do!" said Aunt Kate to the servant who was just then
+bringing in the coffee.
+
+In a few moments the three daughters of the family--Laura and Maud and
+Mary--appeared.
+
+"Have you heard anything about her this morning?" asked the
+eldest,--Laura,--as she took her seat at table.
+
+Uncle John shook his head.
+
+"And the police haven't got a clew yet?"
+
+"No, nor the detectives."
+
+"What I _can't_ understand is why she didn't wait in the ladies' room
+until you came, papa. She might have known you _would_ come _sometime_."
+
+"We don't know yet that she got as far as Boston," said Mrs. Fleming.
+
+"Why, Uncle Tom's telegram in answer to papa's that he saw her off on
+the 11.30 train proves that."
+
+"It doesn't prove that she came through to Boston."
+
+"'Came through'! Why, upon earth, should she leave the cars before she
+reached Boston?"
+
+"She might have made the acquaintance of some young people, and stepped
+off at a restaurant station with them to buy fruit, and so got left."
+
+"But she would have taken a later train then, and papa has been to the
+later ones."
+
+"Don't--don't wonder and speculate any more why a little girl of ten
+years didn't do exactly as a grown-up person would have done," burst
+forth Uncle John. "The whole blame lies with us, or with Tom and me. We
+should never have allowed such a child to be sent off alone like that."
+
+"But, papa, it isn't an uncommon thing for a child of her age to travel
+like that."
+
+"It isn't very _common_, and it ought not to be."
+
+"Maybe she's run away," suddenly exclaimed the youngest of the
+daughters,--a girl of fourteen.
+
+"Mary!" cried the other two; and "How can you make fun like that _now_?"
+said Mrs. Fleming, reprovingly.
+
+"I didn't say it to make fun," protested Mary,--"I didn't, truly;
+but--but Ally was very queer sometimes. She took up everything so, and
+got offended, or thought you didn't care for her. One day I asked her
+why she didn't take things as _I_ did,--spat, and forget it the next
+minute, and she said, 'Because I'm not like you, _I only happened
+here_'! Wasn't that droll?"
+
+"Droll!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I think it's the most pathetic thing I
+ever heard. What have we all been doing that she should feel like this?"
+
+"But she liked being _here_ better than at Uncle Tom's. Florence was
+always tormenting her one way and another."
+
+"The trouble with her is that she was an only child, and, transplanted
+suddenly into two large families, she couldn't fit herself to the new
+circumstances," said Mrs. Fleming.
+
+"And the trouble with _us_ has been," spoke up Uncle John, "that we
+didn't take that fact into consideration enough, and try to help her to
+fit into the new circumstances. Poor little soul, if we ever get her
+back again--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't talk like that,--'if we ever get her back again!' as
+if she were a Charley Ross child that had been kidnapped," burst forth
+Mary, with a breaking voice. "_I_ meant to be good to Ally, and that's
+why I taught Peter to say, 'Ally's come, Ally's come! give her a kiss!
+give her a kiss!' I thought it would be such a pretty welcome, and
+Ally'd be so pleased, she'd believe we _did_ care for her when she heard
+that."
+
+"You're a little trump, Mary," declared her father, with a suspicious
+moisture in his eyes. "I only hope if--_when_ Ally comes back--But,
+hark, there's the door-bell!" as a sharp peal rang through the house.
+"It may be one of the detectives."
+
+"A gentleman to see you in the parlor, sir," said the maid a moment
+later, as she brought in a card.
+
+Uncle John glanced at the card, and then, uttering an exclamation of
+surprise, passed it over to his wife, and, jumping up hastily, left the
+room.
+
+"Is it the chief of the detectives?" asked Laura, animatedly.
+
+"It isn't a detective at all; it's Dr. Phillips."
+
+"You don't mean _the_ Dr. Phillips,--_Bernard_ Phillips?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How strange, and at this hour in the morning! It must be something
+about Thanksgiving exercises," interposed Maud.
+
+"But we're not _his_ parishioners. We don't go to _his_ church!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mary; "I'm _so_ disappointed. I did hope it was the
+detective bringing Ally back."
+
+"Kate!" called Uncle John's voice here, "will you come into the parlor?"
+and Mrs. Fleming, obeying this call, found herself a minute after
+exchanging greetings with the unexpected visitor.
+
+"I want you to tell her, Doctor, just what you've told me exactly,"
+said Uncle John. "It's about Ally, my dear," to his wife. "She's found,
+and--and--"
+
+"She is at my house," took up the Doctor; and then he told of the little
+girl who had come to his house the night before, of her grievous
+disappointment, and the accident that had befallen her,--an accident
+that had robbed her of consciousness for a time, and from which she had
+only sufficiently recovered within the last few hours to answer the
+questions that were put to her in regard to her relations, that steps
+might be taken to restore her to them.
+
+"And she is seriously hurt,--she couldn't come with you?" broke in Aunt
+Kate, breathlessly.
+
+"No, she was not seriously hurt," he assured her; and then came that
+most delicate and difficult part of the Doctor's task,--to tell, in what
+gentle phrase he could, that this wilful child refused to accompany him;
+that she had taken a foolish fancy into her head that her relations did
+not care for her,--a fancy that had been strengthened into positive
+belief when she failed to find her uncle at the station, and had
+suggested to her a wild little plan of going away from them altogether,
+into some orphans' home that she had heard of, where she was sure a
+place could be found for her. Very gentle, indeed, was the phrasing of
+all this,--so gentle and full of sweet human consideration for
+everybody's shortcomings and mistakes that Aunt Kate forgot that the
+Doctor was a stranger; and with this forgetfulness the sharp pang of
+humiliation at a stranger's knowledge of such a family difficulty, and
+the little sting of resentment at Ally's attitude towards them all, was
+overborne to such an extent that she could frankly admit that her
+husband was right, and that none of them had had love and patience
+enough to help the child to fit into the new circumstances of her life.
+
+It was an added pang, but there was no resentment in it, when she saw
+Ally's sudden shrinking from her as she entered the Doctor's parlor with
+him a little later.
+
+To think that they had, though unwittingly, hurt and estranged the child
+like this, was Mrs. Fleming's first thought; and the tears came to her
+eyes, and her voice broke as she cried impulsively, "Oh, my little girl,
+my little girl!"
+
+Ally started at the sight of these tears, at the sound of this tenderly
+breaking voice. And there was Uncle John; and _he_ was crying too, and
+_his_ voice was breaking as he said something. What was it he was
+saying?--that it was not forgetfulness, it was not neglect of her, that
+had made him fail to meet her at the station, but an untoward accident
+to the streetcar he was in that had delayed him. And what was that Aunt
+Kate was saying? That they _did_ care for her, that they _did_ want her,
+and that they had set the telegraphic wires all over the country to hunt
+for her and bring her back to them.
+
+"But--but--Florence told me," faltered Ally, "that you dreaded the
+winter on my account,--I was so--so bad-tempered--so hard to live with."
+
+"Dreaded the winter on your account! Florence told you I said that?"
+cried Mrs. Fleming, in amazement.
+
+"She said she heard you say it to her mother."
+
+A light broke over Mrs. Fleming's face. "Oh, I remember now perfectly.
+It was just after you were so ill with that bad throat, and I was
+speaking to your aunt Ann about it, and I said to her, 'I dread the
+winter on Ally's account.' How could--how _could_ Florence put such a
+mischievous meaning to my words?"
+
+"Perhaps she only heard just those words," replied Ally, who would never
+take advantage of anybody.
+
+"But why should she want to tell you what would hurt you like that?"
+
+"We'd been quarrelling," answered Ally, with an honest brevity that was
+very edifying.
+
+"But, as you see now it was for your bad throat, and not for your bad
+temper, that I dreaded the winter," said Aunt Kate, with a smile, "you
+will come back with us, and let us both try again. We meant to be good
+to you, dear; but we did not think enough that you had been unused to a
+big family,--that you were a little ewe lamb that had been transplanted
+into a great crowded fold, and left to find your place with the crowd;
+and you misunderstood this, and took us too hardly; but we're going to
+do better. We're going to be more thoughtful of one another, and you'll
+come home with us now, and we'll have our Thanksgiving dinner together,
+won't we?"
+
+Childish and ignorant of the world's ways, as her wild idea in regard to
+her right to a place in an orphans' home proved her, Ally had a great
+deal of sense in other directions, and she began to perceive that she
+had not been the wilfully neglected and abused person she had thought
+herself, and to think, too, that perhaps Aunt Kate _might_ have had
+something to bear from _her_. At any rate, her good sense made her see
+that her aunt had come to her with kind and generous intentions, and
+that the least she could do was to respond with what grace was in her
+power; and so with a little smile that had something pathetic in it to
+those who saw it, it was so tremulous with that pitiful doubt that had
+been born of the last three unhappy years, she put her hand into Mrs.
+Fleming's, and signified her readiness to go with her. And then and
+there, as she met that smile, Kate Fleming vowed to herself that never
+again through fault of hers should this child suffer for lack of loving
+care; and with this resolve warm in her heart, she clasped the little
+hand in hers more closely, and said brightly,--
+
+"You'll see how glad the girls will be to see you, Ally, when we get
+home."
+
+But Ally had no response to make to this. A great dread had seized her
+as she felt herself going to meet them. Uncle John's and Aunt Kate's
+assurance of regard was one thing, but Uncle John and Aunt Kate were
+not the girls, and poor Ally was quite sure that no one of them had ever
+cared very much for her, though Mary had alternately petted and laughed
+at her, and now--why, now, they might dislike her for making such a
+fuss, for Laura had often said she did dislike people so who made a
+fuss, and Maud would agree with Laura, and Mary would laugh at her more
+than ever. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if she could only go back! if she could
+only get that dear good Doctor to find her a place in--But, "Here we
+are, Ally!" said Uncle John; and "Here she is!" exclaimed three girlish
+voices; and there, standing in the doorway, were Laura and Maud and
+Mary; and at sight of their faces, at sound of their voices, Ally's
+dread began to vanish. And then, just then, it was that Peter, who had
+been banished to the hall, called out uproariously, "Ally's come! Ally's
+come! give her a kiss! give her a kiss!" and Mary called out after him,
+"I taught him to say that; I taught him more 'n a month ago."
+
+"'More 'n a month ago'! Oh!" breathed Ally under her breath, "she liked
+me well enough for this _more 'n a month ago_!"
+
+Uncle John and Aunt Kate and Laura and Maud and Mary were looking on,
+and they knew what Ally was thinking of,--the very words of it,--by that
+sudden radiant smile upon her face; and Mary was so pleased thereat, she
+had to cry out,--
+
+"Oh, what a jolly Thanksgiving this is! Could anything be added to make
+it jollier?"
+
+But something _was_ added. When they were all at the dinner-table that
+night,--mother and father and girls and the three boys who had just come
+up from their boarding-school that very morning,--this telegram was
+brought in from Uncle Tom,--
+
+"Thanks for word of Ally's safety. All send love. Florence is writing to
+her."
+
+Ally's eyes opened wide with astonishment at this conclusion. Florence!
+Aunt Kate read the meaning of that astonished look, and sent a glance to
+Ally that said as plainly as _words_ could say, "You see, even Florence
+didn't mean as badly as you thought."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN APRIL FOOL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Have you written it, Nelly?"
+
+"Yes, I have it here in my pocket. I'll show it to you when I get a
+chance."
+
+"Oh, show it now! There's as good a chance now as you'll have, for the
+rest of the girls are all on the other side of the room. Come;" and
+Lizzy Ryder held out her hand coaxingly.
+
+Nelly sent a quick glance around the school-room, and then took from her
+pocket a small square envelope. The envelope was directed to Miss Angela
+Jocelyn. Lizzy Ryder gave a little giggle as she read this name; but as
+she drew forth the note-sheet and read written upon it in a slender
+pointed handwriting, "Miss Marian Selwyn requests the pleasure of Miss
+Angela Jocelyn's company on the evening of April 1st," her giggle became
+a smothered shriek, and she said to her cousin,--
+
+"Oh, Nelly, it's perfect; she'll never suspect. It looks just like
+Marian Selwyn's writing. Wouldn't it be too good if we could somehow get
+hold of Angela's acceptance and keep it back, and have her actually _go_
+to the party. What _do_ you suppose Marian would say to her when she
+walked in?"
+
+"She wouldn't _say_ anything, but she'd _look_ so astonished, and she'd
+be so stiff that Miss Angela would very soon find out she wasn't very
+welcome. But we can't keep back the note very well, even if we could get
+hold of it,--it might get us into trouble, for it would be against the
+law; but there's no law against an April Fool letter of our own, and
+'twill be just as good fun in the end, for Marian Selwyn, of course,
+will set Miss Angela right in double quick time after she receives her
+note. Oh, I can just imagine the top-lofty style in which she will
+inform Miss Angela that there must be some mistake."
+
+"And then, of course, they'll both find out that somebody's been
+April-fooling them."
+
+"Of course. But that isn't going to interfere with our fun. Miss Angela
+will be set down by that time just where I want her, when she discovers
+that her invitation is nothing but an April fool on her. I wish--But,
+hush, somebody's coming this way;" and in an instant Nelly had whisked
+into her pocket the note she had written, and the cousins were walking
+down the room, talking in a loud tone about their lessons. The "somebody
+coming" was a very quiet but a very observing girl, who, as she saw the
+sudden start of Lizzy and Nelly, also caught sight of the little white
+missive as it was whisked into Nelly's pocket, and immediately
+thought,--
+
+"There's some mischief going on. I wonder what it is."
+
+"That sly Mary Marcy, she's always spying 'round," whispered Nelly to
+her companion, as they passed along. Then in a high voice, thinking to
+mislead Mary, she cried, "Oh, Lizzy, now I've shown you _my_ composition
+you must show me yours."
+
+Mary Marcy was a shrewd girl as well as an observant one, and she
+laughed in her sleeve as she heard this.
+
+"Composition! that was no school composition", she said to herself; and
+when a few minutes later the bell rang for the close of recess, and she
+saw Nelly send a significant glance to Lizzy as the two hurried to their
+seats, this shrewd, observant Mary was surer than ever that there was
+mischief going on, and when she went home that afternoon she told her
+mother what she had seen and heard, and how she felt about it,--for Mary
+was very confidential with her mother, and told her most of her school
+secrets. Mrs. Marcy listened to this telling with that placid Quaker way
+of hers, and remarked in her quaint Quaker phrase, "Thee mustn't be too
+suspicious, my dear; it maybe harmless mischief, after all." And then
+Mary had replied, "I shouldn't be suspicious of any of the other girls,
+mother; but Lizzy and Nelly Ryder are always doing and saying the
+mischievous things that have a sting in them;" and Mrs. Marcy, spite of
+her Quaker charity, then admitted that she had never quite liked the
+ways of those girls, and had often been sorry that they were in the
+Westboro' High School; "but, poor things," she added the moment she had
+made this admission, "they are more to be pitied than the persons they
+hurt, for _they_ can get over the hurt, but these poor girls can't get
+over their own wrong-doing so easily. It makes a black mark on them
+every time, and black marks are hard to rub off; and thee'll see if they
+are up to any wrong-doing now, it will leave a mark, and so they'll get
+the worst of it in the long run."
+
+"But it's always _such_ a long run before a mark of that kind shows,"
+laughed Mary. "Girls of that sort seem to succeed in making everybody
+but themselves uncomfortable, and these two specially always appear to
+be so gay and full of good times with their giggle and chatter."
+
+"But the Bible says, Mary, 'for as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
+so is the laughter of the fool;' and thee can think of this the next
+time thee hears the chatter, and then thee can say to thyself, 'It _may_
+be nothing but foolish folly, after all.'"
+
+"Yes, it _may_ be nothing but that," Mary allowed; but when the next
+morning she heard it again, her first doubts and suspicions returned in
+full force, and she said to herself, "I'm perfectly sure that there's
+something more than mere foolishness in this crackling of thorns. I'm
+perfectly sure there's mischief with a sting in it. I feel it in the
+air, and I'm just going to watch out and see if I can't stop it as I did
+that horrid St. Valentine business last winter."
+
+And while good kind Mary was thus "watching out" for this mischief,
+there, only two or three seats away from her, sat Angela Jocelyn, about
+whom all the mischief was gathering as a dark cloud gathers over a fair
+sky. And Angela's sky was particularly fair to her just then, for she
+had been made very happy by the invitation she had received that
+morning,--so happy that she had said to her elder sister, Martha
+Jocelyn, "To think of Marian Selwyn's inviting _me_. Isn't it beautiful
+of her?" and Martha had answered back rather tartly, "I don't see why
+you should put such an emphasis on 'me,' as if you were so inferior.
+You're as good as Marian Selwyn."
+
+"Yes, Martha, I know--it isn't that I feel inferior in--in myself,"
+Angela exclaimed; "but the Selwyns have always had money and
+everything--always, and we are poor and have lived so out of the way
+that I say it's beautiful and kind of Marian, when she knows me so
+little. Why, Martha, I never see her anywhere but on the street and at
+Sunday-school."
+
+"Well, she likes you, I suppose. She's taken a fancy to you, and she's
+independent enough, I should hope, to invite any girl she likes, if the
+girl _is_ poor and lives out of the way," was Martha's cool reply.
+
+Liked her! Taken a fancy to her! How Angela's heart jumped at this
+suggestion! Could it be possible that this lovely fortunate Marian
+Selwyn, that she had always admired from afar off, had taken a fancy to
+_her_,--poor, plain little Angela Jocelyn,--was her thought. And it was
+with this thought quickening her pulses that she wrote a cordial
+acceptance to the note of invitation; and it was this thought that sent
+such a bright look into her face that morning, that Mary Marcy said to
+her friend and seat-mate, Anna Richards, "Look at Angela Jocelyn, she is
+really growing pretty;" and a little later at the recess that followed
+directly after a recitation where Angela had easily led, as usual, Mary,
+catching sight of the frowning faces of Lizzy and Nelly Ryder,
+exclaimed: "Anna, if Angela Jocelyn is going to add good looks to her
+braininess, those Ryder girls will be more jealous of her than ever."
+
+"And they pretend to look down on Angela because she is poor and her
+mother and sister take in sewing," responded Anna.
+
+"All the same they don't look down on what Angela really _is_. She is
+superior to them in brains, and they know it, and that makes them want
+to pull her down," answered Mary.
+
+"Yes, I heard Nelly Ryder say last week that Angela was altogether too
+conceited, and ought to be 'taken down'; and it would be just like Nelly
+Ryder to try to do it sometime."
+
+"_Sometime_! I believe she is trying to do it now. I believe that that
+is the mischief she and her cousin Lizzy are planning this moment,"
+cried Mary.
+
+"What _do_ you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you;" and Mary related, as she had related to her mother,
+what she had seen and heard.
+
+"Nelly Ryder has never forgiven Angela for getting the history prize;
+Nelly thought herself sure of it,--she as good as told me so," was
+Anna's only remark upon this.
+
+"And now she's going to play some trick on Angela to take her down, as
+she calls it; that's what you think, isn't it? And that's what _I_
+think. Oh, Anna, I wish I could ferret out the mischief and stop it. It
+will be something hateful and mortifying to poor Angela, I know. If I
+could only get some clew to what it is, so as to warn her."
+
+"Yes; but as we are not sure that there _is_ any mischief, after all,
+you mustn't say anything to anybody yet."
+
+"No, of course not; but I'll keep a sharp lookout, and I _may_ hear or
+see something that will give me a hint. What fun it would be to outwit
+one of the Ryder schemes!"
+
+"Mary! with all your Quaker bringing-up, I do believe you are just
+pining for what our Jack would call 'a scrimmage.'"
+
+"Well, I am, if that means getting the better of mischief-makers," Mary
+confessed with a laugh.
+
+"But you won't succeed, if the mischief-makers are Nelly and Lizzy
+Ryder, Those, girls seem to get the best of everything and everybody.
+Think now, for one thing, of their being acquaintances of Marian
+Selwyn's, and invited to her birthday party!"
+
+"Oh, well, that is family acquaintance, Anna. The Ryders have always
+known the Selwyns, just as we have. The Selwyns and Ryders and Marcys
+have lived in Westboro', and visited each other for ages."
+
+"I wish _I_ had, and then I might have been invited to this wonderful
+birthday party," exclaimed Anna, with a certain earnestness of tone that
+belied her gay little laugh, and made Mary say regretfully,--
+
+"I wish I'd known you felt like this last week, I would have had you and
+Marian 'round to tea, and then you would have got acquainted, and she'd
+have been sure to have invited you; but it's too late now, for the party
+comes off Thursday, you know."
+
+"Thursday! Why, Thursday is the first of April.. How funny that one's
+birthday should come on the first of April!"
+
+"Funny--why?"
+
+"Why? Because it's April-fool's day."
+
+"Oh, I see; but I'm so used to Marian's birthdays, I don't always stop
+to think of that."
+
+"But don't some people think of it? Don't they sometimes play--Oh, oh,
+Mary, Mary, mayn't this be your clew? Don't you believe that Nelly
+Ryder has been planning an April-fool trick upon Angela in connection
+with this party?"
+
+Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the
+recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of:
+"Oh, Anna, you've hit it. I do believe it _is_ the clew. Why _didn't_ I
+think of April-fool's day,--that it would be just the opportunity Nelly
+Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw
+it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in
+it. Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or
+other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to
+Marian,--sending her on some fool's errand to Marian, perhaps the night
+of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a
+silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified
+Tilly dreadfully."
+
+"Oh, well, Angela wouldn't be taken in like that; she's brighter than
+Tilly."
+
+"Angela is just the one to be taken in. She's one of the brightest
+persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very
+innocent and unsuspecting. Anna, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm
+going to see Marian this noon, and I'm going to tell her what I
+suspect."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that; it wouldn't be fair, for it's only our
+suspicion, and we _may_ be on the wrong track altogether."
+
+"But what am I to do? Sit still and let some horrid thing perhaps go on
+that I might stop?"
+
+"I'll tell you what you might do. You might say to Marian that you had
+got an idea that somebody was going to play a trick on her
+birthday,--upon her and some unsuspecting person; that you didn't know
+_what_ the trick was to be, and you might be all wrong in your suspicion
+that there was to be one, but you thought that you ought to put her on
+her guard. You might say this to her without mentioning a name."
+
+"Oh, Anna, Anna, what a cautious little thing you are with your 'mays'
+and your 'mights;' but you are right, you are right, and I'll go to
+Marian this noon, and say just what you've told me to say, and not a
+word more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Mary thought it would be a very easy matter to say to Marian what Anna
+had suggested, but it wasn't so easy as she thought. Marian was a year
+older than herself, and that meant a good deal to a girl of fifteen,--a
+year older and more than a year beyond her, with the experience of
+Washington city life and schools during the winter months. In fact, to
+Mary, who had not seen her for the past few months, she appeared so
+experienced and grown-up, as she came into the room to meet her, that
+that young person felt all at once very young and awkward, and as a
+consequence made such a boggle of what she had to say, that Marian,
+entirely misunderstanding, exclaimed in amazement,--
+
+"You want me to get up an April joke on my birthday, Mary? I couldn't
+think of such a thing; I hate April jokes."
+
+"No, no, you misunderstand," burst forth Mary; and then, forgetting all
+her awkwardness, she made her little statement over again, and this
+time succinctly and clearly. And now it was _her_ turn to be amazed; for
+before she had got entirely to the end of her statement, Marian starting
+up pulled a note from her pocket and cried, "Read this, Mary! read
+this!"
+
+It was Angela's cordial note of acceptance.
+
+"And she had no invitation from _me_. I never invited her, I scarcely
+knew her," went on Marian.
+
+"She had no invitation from _you_, but she thought she had. It isn't
+Angela who is playing a trick upon _you_. Somebody has played a trick
+upon _her_,--has written in your name. Oh, don't you see? _She_ is the
+innocent person I meant."
+
+"But who--who is the guilty one,--the one who has _dared_ to do this?"
+cried Marian.
+
+"I can't tell you yet whom I think it is, because I haven't any proof,
+and it wouldn't be fair to call names unless I had sure proof."
+
+"Well, look here. All my notes were sealed with my monogram seal, but I
+used a variety of colored wax. Everybody is interested in comparing
+seals now, and so can't you make an excuse to Angela that you want to
+compare the seals in the different colors, and borrow her note of
+invitation, and then bring it to me? If I could see that note, I might
+know the handwriting, and then I'd know who played this shabby, cruel
+trick. And I ought to know, that I mayn't suspect an innocent person."
+
+"But the note that Angela received may not be sealed with wax."
+
+"Oh, yes, it will. Whoever sent that note had seen mine, I am certain,
+and of course would use wax, as I did. Now, won't you do this little
+service for me, Mary?" urged Marian, entreatingly.
+
+Mary laughed. "Yes, I'll do it," she answered, "though I'm not very
+clever at playing theatre. I've too much Quaker blood in me for that;
+but it's a good cause, and I'll do the best I can, and I'll do it now,
+for Angela's sure to be at home now;" and suiting her action to her
+word, Mary started off then and there upon her errand.
+
+And so surely and swiftly did she do her best on this errand that Marian
+gave a little scream of surprise as she saw her coming back, and,
+"You've not got it already?" she cried, running to meet her.
+
+"Yes, here it is. Angela gave it to me at once."
+
+"Just the size of _my_ paper, and the wax--you see I was right. There
+_is_ wax, and a seal-stamp that looks like _my_ stamp, but isn't,"
+exclaimed Marian. "Now for the handwriting!" One glance at the address
+on the envelope; then, pulling out the note, she bent breathlessly over
+it for a moment. In another moment she was calling out triumphantly: "I
+know it! I know it! She tried to imitate mine, but I know these M's and
+r's and A's. They're Nelly Ryder's! they're Nelly Ryder's! Look here;"
+and running to her desk, the excited girl produced another note, and
+placed it beside the one that Angela had received. It was Nelly Ryder's
+acceptance of her invitation; and Mary, looking at the peculiar M's and
+r's and A's saw as clearly as Marian herself the proof of the same hand
+in each note.
+
+"And I should know her 'hand' anywhere, for I've had hundreds of notes
+from her, first and last," Marian went on. "But to think of her playing
+such a trick as this! I never had any admiration for her, or her cousin
+either; but I _didn't_ think either one of them could do such a
+mischievous, vulgar thing. But _you_ did, Mary, for this is the girl you
+suspected."
+
+"Yes, because I had known more of her than you had,--going to school
+with her every day;" and then Mary told what she had known, and what
+she had seen herself, winding up with, "But I didn't like to tell you
+all this before I had certain proof, for I wanted to be fair, you know."
+
+"And you _have_ been fair, more than fair; and now--"
+
+"Well, go on, what do you stop for--now what?"
+
+"Wait and see;" and Marian nodded her head, and compressed her lips into
+a firm, resolute line.
+
+"Oh, Marian, are you going to punish Nelly?" cried Mary, a little
+alarmed at these indications.
+
+Marian nodded again.
+
+"Yes, I'm going to punish her."
+
+"Oh, how, when, where?"
+
+"When? On Thursday night. Where? At the birthday party. How? Wait and
+see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+It was the evening of the first of April,--a beautiful, still, starry
+evening, with all the chill and frost of early spring blown out of it by
+the friendly winds of March, and all the lovely promises of summer
+buddings and flowerings wafting into it from waiting May and June.
+
+A "just perfect evening," said more than one girl delightedly, as she
+set out arrayed in all her furbelows for the birthday party. A "just
+perfect evening." And no one said this more emphatically, and felt it
+more emphatically, than Mary Marcy and Angela Jocelyn,--Mary in her
+pretty and becoming if rather plain white gown of China silk, and Angela
+in her old white cambric that had been 'done over' for the hundredth
+time, perhaps, and was neither pretty nor becoming, with its skimp skirt
+and sleeves and shrunken waist. But a new gown had been out of the
+question just then with the Jocelyns, and Angela had to make the best of
+the old one; and it did not seem at all hard to make a very good 'best'
+of it, when she stood in her own little bedroom, with Martha tying the
+well-worn blue sash around the shrunken waist, and her mother looking on
+and saying, "It really looks very nice, and that sash _does_ wash so
+well."
+
+But when she went up into the great brilliantly lighted bedchamber at
+the Selwyns', and saw Mary Marcy in her perfectly fitting gown drawing
+on her delicate gloves, and talking with several young ladies
+beautifully dressed in fresh muslin and silk, the skimp skirt and
+sleeves, the shrunken waist and washed sash, seemed all at once very
+mean and shabby to Angela. They seemed still meaner and shabbier when
+two other girls appeared in yet prettier costumes of fresh daintiness;
+and when these two dropped their little hooded shoulder-wraps of silk
+and lace, and she saw that they were the two Ryder cousins, poor Angela
+suddenly began to feel a strange sense of awkwardness and unfitness.
+This feeling increased as she noticed the unmistakable start that the
+cousins gave as they caught sight of her, and heard Nelly's astonished
+exclamation, "What! _you_ here?"
+
+It was a bitter moment; but a bitterer was yet to come, when Lizzy
+Ryder, with that innocent little way of hers, said,--
+
+"Oh, if you've come to help take our things off, _do_ help me with this
+scarf, Angela!"
+
+If Angela could but have known then and there that this was only a petty
+stab from one petty jealous girl! But she did not know. She heard the
+words, apparently so innocently spoken, and said to herself, "They think
+I am here as a servant, not as a guest!" and with a miserable confused
+feeling that everything was wrong, from her acceptance of the invitation
+to her shabby gown, she started back with all her confusion merging into
+one thought to get away out of the sight of these well-dressed happy
+girls. But as she started back, Mary Marcy, who had heard Lizzy Ryder's
+speech, started forward and called out: "Oh, Angela, how do you do? I
+didn't see you when you came in. I--I've been expecting to see you,
+though; and now shall we go down together?"
+
+Angela couldn't speak. She could only give a little nod of assent, and
+yield herself to kind Mary's guidance, with a deep breath of relief. It
+was only a partial relief, however. She had yet to go down into the
+brilliant parlor with its crowd of Selwyn cousins, yet to face, in that
+old shrunken gown with its washed sash, all those critical eyes. Oh,
+what if all those eyes should look at her with a stare of astonishment,
+such as Lizzy and Nelly Ryder had bestowed upon her? What if Marian
+herself should give a glance of surprise at the old shabby gown? These
+were some of the troubled questions that whirled through Angela's head
+as she went down the stairs with Mary Marcy. And down behind them,
+following closely, though Angela did not know it, came the two Ryder
+girls, full of eager curiosity, for they were both of them now quite
+certain that Marian had received no note of any sort from Angela. "She
+didn't know enough to write an acceptance. How should she? I don't
+suppose she's ever had an invitation to a party in her life," whispered
+Nelly to her cousin in the first shock of surprise at seeing Angela in
+the dressing-room.
+
+"No, of course not," whispered back Lizzy; and so, confident and secure
+in this belief, and in the anticipation of "fun," as they called the
+displeased astonishment they expected to see Marian express at the sight
+of her uninvited guest, and the guest's mortification thereat, the
+conspirators stepped softly along down the stairs and across the great
+hall into the beautiful brilliant parlor.
+
+[Illustration: As the fresh arrivals appeared]
+
+Marian was standing at the farther end of the parlor facing the doorway,
+with two of the Selwyn cousins beside her, as the fresh arrivals
+appeared. She was laughing joyously as they entered; but at her very
+first glimpse of the approaching group, the laugh ceased, and a look of
+sudden resolve flashed into her face,--a look that the Selwyn cousins,
+who had been told the whole story of the fraudulent invitation,
+understood at once to mean, "Here is my opportunity and I'll make the
+most of it!" But to the others--to the four who were approaching--this
+sudden change in their hostess's face was thus variously interpreted:
+"She has seen Angela," thought the Ryder girls, triumphantly. "She has
+seen the Ryder girls, and she is going to punish them," thought Mary,
+nervously. "She is looking at my dreadful old gown," thought Angela,
+miserably.
+
+And moved thus differently by such different anticipations, the little
+group came down the room, Mary's nervousness increasing at every
+step,--for her shyness and the Quaker love of peace rose up within her
+at the sight of Marian's face, that seemed to her to betoken a plan of
+punishment for the approaching offenders more in accordance with the
+fiery Selwyn spirit than any spirit of peace.
+
+Just what Mary feared she could not have told; but she knew something of
+this Selwyn spirit, and had often heard it said that the Selwyn tongue
+could cut like a lash when once started. That the Ryders deserved the
+sharpest cut of this lash she fully believed; but, "Oh, I _do_ hope
+Marian won't say anything sharp _now_," she thought to herself. And it
+was then, just then, at that very moment, that she saw Marian's face
+change again, as the softest, sweetest, kindest of smiles beamed from
+lips and eyes, and the softest, sweetest, kindest of voices said,--
+
+"How do you do, Mary? I'm very glad to see you,--you know my cousins,
+Bertie and Laura;" and in the next breath, "How do you do, Miss Jocelyn?
+It's very nice to see you here.--Bertie, Laura, this is my friend Angela
+Jocelyn, who is going to make one of our charade party next month if I
+can persuade her."
+
+One of that May-day charade party! Mary opened her eyes very wide at
+this, and Angela wondered if she were awake. But the charming voice was
+now speaking to some one else,--was saying very politely without a
+touch of sharpness, but with a world of meaning to those who had the
+clew, and those only,--
+
+"How do you do, Lizzy? How do you do, Nelly? And, Nelly, I want to thank
+you for a real service in connection with my birthday invitations. But
+for you I should have missed a very welcome guest. I shall never forget
+this, you may be sure."
+
+"I--I--" But for once Nelly Ryder's ready speech failed her. Her cousin
+tried to take up her words, tried to say something about April fun,
+tried to smile, to laugh; but the laugh died upon her lips, and she was
+only too glad to move on with Nelly into the room beyond, and there, out
+of the range of observation for a moment, the two expressed their
+astonishment and dismay at Marian's knowledge, and wondered how she came
+by it.
+
+"But to think of her taking an April joke so seriously as to make much
+of Angela Jocelyn just to come up with _me_!" burst out Nelly.
+
+"And to think," burst out Lizzy, with a sly laugh, "that it is _you_ who
+have introduced Angela to Marian's good graces, and that it is _you_,
+after all, who have been made the April fool, and not Angela!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE THANKSGIVING GUEST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"It is such a lovely idea, such a truly Christian idea, Mrs. Lambert.
+How did you ever happen to think of it?"
+
+"Oh, _I_ did not think of it; it wasn't _my_ idea. Didn't you ever hear
+how it came about?"
+
+"No; do tell me!"
+
+"Well, my husband, you know, was always looking out for ways of doing
+good,--lending a helping hand,--and he used to talk with the children a
+great deal of such things. One day he came across a beautiful little
+story that he read to them. It was the story of a child who made the
+acquaintance of a poor, half-starved student and brought him home with
+her to share her Thanksgiving dinner. It made a deep impression on the
+children. They talked about it continually, and acted it out in their
+play. But they were in the habit of doing that with any fresh story that
+pleased them, so it was nothing new to us, and we hadn't a thought of
+their carrying it further. But the next week was Thanksgiving week; and
+when Thanksgiving Day came, what do you think those little things
+did,--for they were quite little things then,--what do you think they
+did but bring in just before dinner the half-blind old apple-pedler who
+had a stand on the corner of the street?
+
+"They were so happy about it, and they thought we should be so happy
+too, that we couldn't say a word of discouragement in the way of advice
+then; but later, when we had given the old fellow his dinner, and he had
+gone, we had a talk with the dear little souls, when we tried to show
+them that it would be better to let us know when they wanted to invite
+any one to dinner or to tea,--that that was the way other girls and boys
+always did. They were rather crestfallen at our suggestions; for, with
+the keen, sensitive instinct of children, they felt that their
+beautiful plan, as they thought it, had somewhere failed, and, though
+they promised readily enough to consult us 'next time,' we could see
+that they were puzzled and depressed over all this _regulation_, when we
+had seemed to have nothing but admiring appreciation for the similar act
+of the child in the story. My husband, seeing this, was very much
+troubled to know just what to say or do; for he thought, as I did, that
+it might be a serious injury to them to say or do anything to chill or
+check their first independent attempt to lend a helping hand to others.
+Then all at once out of his perplexity came this idea of allowing the
+children from that time forward to have the privilege of inviting a
+guest of their own choosing every Thanksgiving Day, and that this guest
+should be some one who needed, in some way or other, home-cherishing and
+kindness. They should have the privilege of choosing, but they must tell
+us the one they had chosen, that we might send the invitation for them.
+This plan delighted them; and from this start, five years ago, the thing
+has gone on until it has grown into the present 'guest day,' where _each
+one_ of the children may invite his or her particular guest. It has got
+to be a very pleasant thing now, though at first we had some queer
+times. But as the children grew older, they learned better how to
+regulate matters, and to make necessary discriminations, and a year ago
+we found we could trust them to invite their guests without any older
+supervision, and they are very proud of this liberty, and very happy in
+the whole thing; and such an education as it has been. You've no idea
+how they have learned to think of others, to look about them to find
+those who are in need not merely of food or clothing but of loving
+attention and kindness."
+
+"Well, it is beautiful, Mrs. Lambert, and what a Thanksgiving ought to
+be,--what it was in the old pilgrim days at Plymouth, when those who had
+more than others invited the less fortunate to share with them. It's
+beautiful, and I wish everybody who could afford it would go and do
+likewise."
+
+"Speaking of affording it, I thought, when my husband died last spring,
+I should have to give up our guest day with most other things, for you
+know that railroad business that my husband entered into with his
+half-brother John nearly ruined him. I think the worry and fret of it
+killed him, anyway, and I told John so, and he has never forgiven me.
+But I have never forgiven him, and never shall; for if it hadn't been
+for John's representations, his continual urging, Charles would never
+have gone into the business. Oh, I shall always hold John responsible
+for his death, and I told him so."
+
+"You told him so? How did he take that? What did he say?"
+
+"Oh, you know John. He flew into a rage, and said he loved his brother
+as well as _I_ did. As well as _I_ did! Think of that; and that he had
+urged him into that business, thinking that it was for his
+benefit,--that no one could have foreseen what happened, and that if
+Charles lost, he also had lost, and much more heavily. But, as I was
+saying, I thought at first I should have to give up our guest day; but
+when matters came to be settled, I found there were other things I would
+rather economize on."
+
+"Where _is_ John now, Mrs. Lambert?"
+
+"He is in--" But just at that moment a tall pretty girl of fourteen
+entered the room. It was Elsie, the eldest of the Lambert children.
+
+"Why, Elsie, how you have grown!" cried Mrs. Mason, who hadn't seen
+Elsie for some months, "and you've quite lost the look of your mother."
+
+"Yes, Elsie is getting to look like the Lamberts," remarked the mother.
+
+"Everybody says I look just like Uncle John," spoke up Elsie.
+
+"Oh, you were asking me where John was now," said Mrs. Lambert, turning
+to Mrs. Mason. "He is in New York, dabbling in railroads, as usual, and
+getting poorer and poorer by this obstinate folly, I heard last week.
+_We_ don't see him, of course; for, as I told you, we don't forgive each
+other. Oh!" as her visitor cast a questioning glance toward Elsie, who
+had suddenly given a little start here, "Elsie knows all about it. Elsie
+is my big girl now. But what is it, my dear?--you came in to ask me
+something,--what is it?"
+
+"It's about Tommy. He has told me who he is going to invite for next
+week,"--next week was Thanksgiving week,--"and I knew you would not like
+it, and I felt that I ought to tell you; it is that horrid Marchant
+boy."
+
+"Like it,--I should think not! Why, what in the world has put Tommy up
+to that?"
+
+"He says that Joe Marchant hasn't any home of his own this
+Thanksgiving, because his father has gone out West on business, and left
+Joe all alone with those people that his father and he boarded with just
+after his mother died; and Tommy pities Joe so, he says he is going to
+invite him here for next Thursday, and I knew you wouldn't want him."
+
+"Of course not; the boy is ill-mannered and disagreeable, and he is
+always quarrelling with Tommy."
+
+"I told Tommy that," laughed Elsie, "and he said he guessed he'd done
+_his_ share of the quarrelling, and that, anyway, Joe Marchant was the
+under dog now, and he was going to forgive and forget."
+
+"Dear little Tommy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lambert, admiringly.
+
+"And he said, too, mother, that he knew you wouldn't object; that you
+always told him that Thanksgiving Day was the very day to make up with
+folks and be good to 'em, but I knew you _would_ object to Joe Marchant,
+and so--"
+
+"I--I don't know about it, Elsie. If Tommy feels like that, I--I don't
+believe it would be wise for me to check him. No, I don't believe I can.
+Tommy is nearer right than I am. He is doing a fine, generous thing,
+and it _is_ the right thing, and I think we must put up with Joe
+Marchant, Elsie, after all."
+
+"Oh, _I_ don't mind, if _you_ don't, mamma; but I thought you wouldn't
+like it, and it would spoil the day."
+
+"No, nothing done in that spirit _could_ spoil the day; and, Elsie, I
+hope the rest of you will make your choice of guests with as good reason
+as Tommy has."
+
+Elsie looked at her mother with an odd, eager expression, as if she were
+about to speak. Then she suddenly lifted up her head with a little air
+of resolution, and starting forward hurriedly left the room.
+
+Mrs. Lambert laughed as the door closed.
+
+"I think I know what Elsie is going to do," she said smilingly to Mrs.
+Mason. "There is a young teacher in her school, Miss Matthews, who is
+seldom invited anywhere, she is so unpopular. I've often asked Elsie to
+bring her home, and she has always put it off; but I believe that this
+act of Tommy's and what I've said about it has made such an impression
+upon her that she has gone now to invite Miss Matthews to be her guest
+next week. She was going to tell me about it at first, then she thought
+better of it. They've all had this liberty for the last year--not to
+tell--it's so much more fun for them; and I can always trust Elsie to
+look out for things, she has such good sense with her good heart."
+
+"Yes, and you _all_ seem to have such good sense and such good hearts,
+Mrs. Lambert," said Mrs. Mason, as she rose to go; but as she walked
+down the street she said to herself, "Such good sense and such good
+hearts, overflowing with charity and forgiveness for everybody but John
+Lambert!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+It was Thanksgiving Day, and just three minutes to the dinner-hour at
+the Lamberts', and all the guests had arrived except the one that Elsie
+had bidden.
+
+"Don't fret, Elsie," whispered Mrs. Lambert to her, as she noted the two
+red spots burning in her cheeks and her anxious glances toward the
+clock,--"don't fret; she's probably going to be fashionably exact on the
+stroke of the hour."
+
+Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to
+talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.
+
+"We'll wait five minutes for her," thought Mrs. Lambert. "If there
+hasn't been an accident to detain her, she's very rude, and certainly
+not fit to be a teacher of _manners_, and I don't wonder she's unpopular
+with the girls."
+
+The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did
+not appear. To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs.
+Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served. It was seemingly a
+very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but
+there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each
+one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger's
+feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day. Mrs.
+Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses
+and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her
+five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the
+dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other
+relations. But she must not dwell on these memories with all these
+guests to serve. She must put her own needs aside to see that little
+Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and
+that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry
+sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.
+
+It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was
+laughing a little at Joe's clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling
+him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one
+guest was missing,--while she was doing this, there came a great crunch
+of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell,
+and, "There she is! there she is!" thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added
+thought: "It's rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage
+when she is at such a little distance from us,--rather putting on airs,
+but--What _are_ you jumping up for?" she calls out to Elsie, who has
+suddenly sprung from her seat. "What are you jumping up for? Ellen will
+attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed
+her wraps. Sit down, Elsie; don't be so fidgety. I will--" But the
+dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw
+coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with
+a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of
+this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt
+her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,--
+
+"I am so glad to come to you,--to see you and the children again,
+Caroline. I was away when Elsie's letter arrived; but as soon as I got
+into New York yesterday, I started off, and I am so glad to come, so
+glad to come;" and here Mrs. Lambert heard the eager voice falter, and
+saw the glisten of tears in the eyes that were regarding her and in the
+next instant felt them against her cheek as a tender kiss was pressed
+upon it. It was all in a moment, the strange surprise of look and word
+and tone and touch, the joyful cries of "It's Uncle John, it's Uncle
+John!" from some one of the children. Then all in a moment the
+strangeness seemed to have passed, and John Lambert was taking his place
+amongst them with the fond belief that he was his sister-in-law's chosen
+guest. And she, with those warm, manly words of thanks, those joyful
+cries of childish welcome in her ears, could she undeceive him,--could
+she say to him: "It was not I who sent for you; I am the same as ever,
+as full of wild regrets and bitter resentments"? Could she say this to
+him? How could she, how could she, when over the wild regrets and bitter
+resentments there kept rising and rising a flood of earlier memories of
+an earlier time when this guest had been a welcome guest indeed, and she
+had heard again and again those very words, "I'm so glad to come"? Those
+very words, but with what a difference of accent, and what a difference
+in the speaker himself,--only a year and his face so worn, his hair so
+white, she had not known him! He must have suffered,--yes, and she--she
+had suffered; but she had her children, and he had no one!
+
+The dinner was over. They had all risen from the table, and were going
+into the parlor, and Uncle John had his namesake Johnny on one side of
+him and little Archie on the other. They had taken possession of him
+from the first, when Elsie, hanging back, clung to her mother and
+whispered agitatedly,--
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, it was what you said last week about Tommy's
+invitation that made me think of--of inviting Uncle John; but perhaps I
+ought to have told you--have asked you."
+
+"No, no, it is better as it is. Don't fret, dear, it--it is all right.
+But there is Ann bringing the coffee into the parlor. Go and light your
+little teakettle, Elsie, and make your uncle a cup of tea as you used to
+do; he can't drink coffee, you know."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
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