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diff --git a/48552-h/48552-h.htm b/48552-h/48552-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e87e10 --- /dev/null +++ b/48552-h/48552-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3804 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blissylvania Post-Office, by Marion Ames Taggart. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + + + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 48552 ***</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/icover.jpg" width="500" height="718" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<h3>THE</h3> + +<h1><span class="smcap">Blissylvania Post-Office.</span></h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>MARION AMES TAGGART.</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;"> +<img src="images/ilogo.jpg" width="187" height="243" alt="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h4><span class="smcap">New York, Cincinnati, Chicago:</span></h4> + +<h2>BENZIGER BROTHERS,</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<h4>PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE</h4> + +<p> </p> + + +<h4>Copyright, 1897, by Benziger Brothers.</h4> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> + <td align="left"> </td> + <td align="left"> CHAPTER</td><td align="left">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">I.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_I">How it Began,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">II.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Honorary Member,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">III.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_III">A Narrow Escape,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">IV.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_IV">The Mysterious Tenant,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">V.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Invasion of the Amazons,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">VI.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Further Acquaintance,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">VII.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">A New Member,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">VIII.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Margery's Plan,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">IX.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_IX">One Honorary Member to the Other Honorary +Member,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">X.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_X">A Picnic,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">XI.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XI">A Wedding,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="left">XII.</td> + <td align="left"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XII">The End of the Year and of the Post-Office,</a></td><td align="left"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> + + + + + +<h2><a name="THE_BLISSYLVANIA_POST-OFFICE" id="THE_BLISSYLVANIA_POST-OFFICE">THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE.</a></h2> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h2> + +<h2>HOW IT BEGAN.</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was wonderful that any one could have a bright idea on +such a dark day. It had rained in torrents all of the night before and +throughout the forenoon, and now that the rain had ceased, the sodden +earth sent up clouds of steaming dampness to mingle with the thick fog +descending, and they blended together like two gray ghosts of pleasant +weather. The lilacs drooped in discouragement, and a draggle-tailed +robin sat with hanging wings on the fence, uttering an occasional +chirp of protest in such vehement disgust that every time he made the +remark it tilted him forward, and agitated him to the tip of his tail. +A slender boy lay on the hearth-rug in the light of the fire kindled +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> dry the dampness, the warmth of which was grateful, although it +was almost June. He was recklessly pulling a stitch that was broken in +the knee of his stocking all the way down to the ankle, and the gloomy +expression of his face indicated a melancholy pleasure in the knowledge +that he had no business to do this.</p> + +<p>Tommy Traddles, the striped cat, sat before a plump little girl on the +floor, whose sunny face no amount of bad weather could cloud, watching +the hearth-brush in her hand, which she occasionally whisked to and fro +for his amusement, and making uncatlike cooings in his throat if she +forgot him for too long. Jack Hildreth, the boy on the rug, said he was +a cat with a canary-bird attachment.</p> + +<p>On the edge of a chair opposite the cheery little girl on the floor sat +a long-limbed, dark-eyed girl, holding her gypsy face in her hands, her +elbows on her knees, listlessly watching Amy Tracy and the cat. They +were spending the afternoon with Margaret Gresham, Jack's cousin, who +was kept in the house by a cold, and whose tiny figure was curled up +in a big leather chair near the fire, and her pale face and big, eager +gray eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> looked out from its brown depths in sharp contrast.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to ask St. Anthony to find the sun," announced the +gypsy-like girl suddenly. She spoke through her closed teeth, not +taking the trouble to remove her hands from her face.</p> + +<p>"Not a bad idea, Trix," said Jack, laughing.</p> + +<p>But their hostess looked shocked. "Why, Beatrice Lane, you shouldn't +say that, it isn't right," she protested.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sure it seems lost enough," retorted Trix.</p> + +<p>"Nothing's lost when you know where it is," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"I don't know where the sun is, except that it's somewhere in the sky," +said Trix.</p> + +<p>"It's just about there," said Jack, sitting up to point out of the +window, and becoming more cheerful in the chance to show off to the +girls. "It's sliding right down to the zenith."</p> + +<p>"Horizon, Jack," interrupted Margery, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Well, horizon, then; it doesn't matter," Jack said, annoyed. "It's +getting ready to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> slip down to China, and it's more than ninety-five +millions of miles away."</p> + +<p>"Good boy!" said Trix mockingly. "How much he knows! I don't care about +the sun anyway, it's too late for it to shine to-day; but if I don't +find something to do I'll eat that cat up, Amy."</p> + +<p>Amy cried out in pretended fear, and gathered Tommy Traddles to her +heart, but he remonstrated vigorously, and struggling free sat down in +precisely the same spot, wrapping his tail around him, and looking as +if he had never been disturbed.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking," began Margery slowly, "of something nice."</p> + +<p>"Charlotte Russe?" asked Jack, knowing Margery's weakness.</p> + +<p>"Cats?" suggested Amy, alluding to another.</p> + +<p>"Sister Aloysia?" inquired Beatrice, for Margery was devoted to her +teacher, and, in school phrase, "had a favorite nun."</p> + +<p>"It's something nice for us to do," replied Margery, with much dignity, +"and it would not be for a day, but for always, and if you make fun of +me I'll not tell you."</p> + +<p>"All right, Margery, we won't, and do tell quick," said Trix.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wasn't really making fun of you, and I'm dying to hear," said Amy.</p> + +<p>"Tell ahead, Margery; hurry up," added Jack.</p> + +<p>Thus urged, Margery sat up, putting down her feet, upon which she had +been sitting, and smoothing her skirt to do honor to what she had to +reveal.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking," she began, "that we might form a club, we four."</p> + +<p>"Like the A. G. L.?" asked Amy.</p> + +<p>They had banded themselves into an Anti-Gum League, and wore its badge, +designed and made by Jack, which consisted of a piece of gum stuck on +a bent pin on the centre of a wooden disk, and preceded by the word +"No," in large red letters, which of course made the badge read: "No +Gum." The only trouble was that the gum frequently fell off, and had to +be renewed, and it required chewing in order to mould it soft enough +for the pin to enter. The duty of preparing the gum for the badges was +unanimously appointed to Jack, and honor forbade his chewing longer +than the flavor lasted, which was an agreeable circumstance, and one +that made him entertain secret doubts as to his being a worthy member +of the league.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, not like the A. G. L.," said Margery, replying to Amy's question. +"The A. G. L. has a noble end, for chewing gum is a bad habit; but this +would be more of a club, and only be for fun, though I think it would +improve us."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is it anyway?" cried Trix impatiently.</p> + +<p>"There's a big tree down in the orchard," said Margery, "and it's +hollow. I thought we might each take a character, and use that name for +our letters, and Jack could fix up a box with partitions in it, and we +could put it in the hollow tree, and we'd have——"</p> + +<p>"A post-office!" cried Trix, jumping up in great excitement, her dark +eyes snapping. "Margery, it's a great idea."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah for Margery!" cried Jack.</p> + +<p>"It's splendid. Oh, Margery, you are so clever!" cried Amy, scrambling +up rapidly, to Tommy Traddles' great disgust.</p> + +<p>"When you do think, Margery, you think," said Trix, pulling Margery out +of her chair. "Come on," and holding Margery's slender little hands +in her strong brown ones, she pranced around the room in a triumphal +dance, followed by both the others, while Tommy Traddles retreated +under the sofa,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> whence he peered out at the performance with dilated +eyes.</p> + +<p>He withdrew his head quickly as the four children fell breathless and +laughing on the sofa to discuss and mature Margery's brilliant plan.</p> + +<p>"What did you mean about names?" asked Jack. "You may write poetry, +Margery, but you sometimes get mixed in talking prose."</p> + +<p>"I mean this," began Margery. "Let's each take some character or name, +and let's write to each other by these names instead of our own; it +would be more fun. I'd like to be Mary Queen of Scots."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll be Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert!" cried Jack, who in his +twelfth year was beginning to taste the joy Sir Walter has to give +an imaginative child, and revelled in constantly repeated reading of +"Ivanhoe."</p> + +<p>"I'll be Anthony Wayne, because I'd love to ride down the steps," +said Trix enthusiastically; "or Lafayette, or Light Horse Harry, or +Napoleon."</p> + +<p>"O Trix, you can't be a man," expostulated Margery.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can. I'd like to know why you can't make believe the whole +thing just as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> well as part of it. I'm as much like a man as you're +like Mary Queen of Scots, or Jack is like Sir Whatever-his-name."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but——" began Margery, with the anxious line appearing between +her eyes that always came there when she was worried.</p> + +<p>"Now I think that it would be a bother to take any of these +characters," said Amy, the peacemaker. "You know, all the letters would +have to fit the parts, or they'd be silly, and I never could keep up +writing <i>thee</i> and <i>thou</i>, and <i>wot ye</i>, instead of do you know, and +all that kind of words. You'd have to write the way Shakespeare did, +and I can't."</p> + +<p>"Can't you? That's queer," remarked Margery, and the rest shouted.</p> + +<p>"No, I can't," Amy continued, quite unconscious of a joke. "I'd like to +be the good Lady Godiva myself, who saved her people from starving, but +I couldn't keep it up."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you?" asked the others, and laughed again.</p> + +<p>"No, I couldn't," reiterated Amy, who was the practical little woman of +the party. "I say we just take names, and not characters."</p> + +<p>"Well," assented Margery reluctantly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> "I'll be the Lady Griselda of +the Castle of the Lonely Lake."</p> + +<p>"My goodness, Margery; no wonder you write poetry!" exclaimed Beatrice.</p> + +<p>"I'll be——" but she got no farther.</p> + +<p>"Now, Trix, please, <i>please</i> don't be a boy," cried Margery.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think it's mean; I've wanted to be a boy all my life, and you +won't even let me play one," grumbled Trix. "But I'll be a daring, +splendid girl, then. Couldn't we take a name out of a book?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; don't you think so, Amy?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see why not," said Amy.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll be Catharine Seyton, who barred the door with her arm when +the mean Lady of Lochleven tried to break through into the queen's +chamber. I heard my brothers reading about it," cried Trix.</p> + +<p>"It's in 'The Abbot,' by Scott," said Jack, glad to show his +acquaintance with literature, which Trix evidently considered grown up. +"I'll take Sir Harry Hotspur," he added.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that history?" asked Margery doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly," replied Jack. "It's Shakespeare, too; I'll take only +his part."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> Which, though not very clear, was satisfactory.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be Mrs. Peace Plenty, a philanthropist," announced Amy, +convulsing the rest.</p> + +<p>"P. P. P.," gasped Margery, emerging from a sofa pillow with her +usually pale face crimson. "O Amy, you <i>are</i> so funny, and you never +just seem to mean to be."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's not so funny as that," said Amy, laughing good-naturedly.</p> + +<p>"What is a philanthropist, Jack?" asked Trix. "How did you know, Amy?"</p> + +<p>"It's a charitable person," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"It's a person who loves human beings," said Amy at the same time. "I +know, because papa said if I didn't mind my p's and q's I'd grow up to +be one, and get on committees; so I asked him what it was, and when he +told me I didn't think it would be so bad to be one."</p> + +<p>"Well, now we have settled the names. Do you think you could make the +box, Jack?" asked Margery.</p> + +<p>"Of course I can," said Jack, looking with loving condescension at +the anxiously puckered brow of his little cousin, who, though a year +younger than he, was cleverer, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> made such mistakes as this question +implied; probably because she was only a girl.</p> + +<p>"I'll make four divisions in it, and maybe I'll paint it."</p> + +<p>"And make a drop-box, and nail it outside the tree for us to drop +letters in with a slit in the top," said Trix.</p> + +<p>"Just as you like, Trix," remarked Jack solemnly. "I for one don't mean +to write letters with slits in the top. I'll make a slit in the top of +the box, though, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a goose, Jack," replied Trix, with dignity. "You know I meant +that."</p> + +<p>"We ought to have a name for our club," said Amy.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I've been thinking of that underneath all the time we were +talking," said Margery.</p> + +<p>Jack stooped down and peeped under the sofa.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how you could have thought <i>underneath</i>, Margery," he +said; "I see only Tommy Traddles there."</p> + +<p>"Now, Jack, don't be funny," said Margery, "and look out for smartness. +You know aunty says you are troubled with smartness sometimes. I meant +that underneath all we were saying I kept thinking of our name."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Would Post-Office Club do?" asked Amy.</p> + +<p>"I know; call it the Happy Thought Club," cried Trix, "because it was +a lovely thing for Margery to think of, and when we were half dead for +something to do, too. And we can have it a secret from all the other +girls and boys, and if we had the letters P. O. on our badge they'd +know right off what they stood for. We'll have a badge, won't we?" she +added.</p> + +<p>"Let's vote on the name," said Margery. "All in favor of calling it the +Happy Thought Club please signify it by saying aye."</p> + +<p>Four voices instantly chorused "Aye."</p> + +<p>"Contrary, no," said Margery, and paused. Deep silence reigned, and the +clock on the mantelpiece struck once.</p> + +<p>"I propose we have for a badge a blue ribbon, and get mamma to paint an +envelope on it, with the initials of the club over it. Would that be +nice?" asked Margery.</p> + +<p>"Lovely; and now I must go, because that was half-past five that +struck," said Trix, jumping up.</p> + +<p>"So must I," echoed Amy.</p> + +<p>They hastily bundled themselves into their waterproofs, and Amy was +stamping her foot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> into her right rubber, when she paused with the +other rubber suspended in the air, on the way to her left foot.</p> + +<p>"Why, there's Miss Isabel; we never thought of her!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Sure enough." "That's so." "Oh, our dear Miss Isabel," cried Trix and +Jack and Margery together.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to make five divisions in the box, Jack," said Margery +decidedly, "for she's got to be an honorary member."</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h2> + +<h2>THE HONORARY MEMBER.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Miss Isabel for whom a fifth box in the post-office would +be necessary lived in a charming old house, which had been built +when Washington was a little boy. It had a large, old-time garden, +deliciously fragrant of box, syringas, and spicy border pinks, which +the children thought the utmost perfection of all that a garden should +be, and wherein it was their delight to wander. Miss Isabel was the +youngest and only surviving member of a merry band of brothers and +sisters, and she seemed too small to live alone in the great house, +with its big, empty rooms filled with the saddest and only real +ghosts—the memory of those who had occupied them, the echo of feet +which had ceased to walk the earth, and voices silenced by the green +grass pressing on the lips that death had sealed; and had she been +other than Miss Isabel she would have been melancholy; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> being Miss +Isabel she was as sunny as the day was long. Her gentle life was too +full of care for others' sorrows to find time to think of her own, +and she was too loving a little soul to ever lack love. The children +worshipped her; she was their playmate, counsellor, and ideal. They +had the vaguest ideas as to her age, supposing that she must be pretty +old, in spite of the fact of her playing with them almost like one of +themselves, for they could not remember her other than she was then; +but one does not have to live long in order to be always grown up in +the memory of little persons of eleven years and less, and in truth +Miss Isabel was still young.</p> + +<p>The children understood that at some time in her life Miss Isabel had +not expected to live alone in the big homestead, but had looked forward +to a newer home of her own, and that at the last moment something had +happened to prevent her marriage.</p> + +<p>Their elders said Miss Isabel had had "a disappointment," and the +children, especially Margery, looked at her with pitying wonder, +speculating on how it felt to have such a disappointment that it was +spoken of as if written with a big D, and feeling, judging from their +own sensations when something failed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> to which they were looking +forward, that it must be very dreadful.</p> + +<p>It cleared off warm and beautiful after the rain, and in the afternoon +the flowers and grass looked a week farther advanced than before the +storm, and the discouraged robin darted at the worms in the soft +earth with jubilant chirps, and retired to the elm to sing and swing +in ecstasy. As soon as school was over the children started for Miss +Isabel's. She met them on the broad door-stone, looking, in her soft +pink muslin, like an apple-blossom that had drifted there.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how pretty you are!" cried Trix, giving her an enthusiastic and +damaging hug, to Margery's mute amazement. It was a perpetual wonder to +her how the others could fondle Miss Isabel so recklessly. If Margery +threw her arms around her or kissed her, it was when she had her all +to herself, and though she laid deep schemes to walk near her, and sit +where she could see her, and often stroked her gown softly on the sly, +she never flew to her as Trix and Amy did. She was sometimes afraid +that Miss Isabel would think that the others loved her more than she, +but she need not have feared; Miss Isabel understood Margery.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We've come to tell you the nicest thing." "We've made you an honorary +member." "Margery's thought of something fine." "We're going to have a +club," began all four at once.</p> + +<p>"Dear me!" cried Miss Isabel, laughing; "I shall never be able to +listen to four at one time. Even a quadruped couldn't do that, you +know, because he has four legs, but not four ears."</p> + +<p>"Jack, you tell," said Trix generously, feeling it proper to resign the +glory to the man of the party.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, Miss Isabel," Jack said willingly, "it's Margery's +scheme, and we thought it so good we're going to call it the Happy +Thought Club. We're going to have a post-office in Uncle Gresham's +orchard."</p> + +<p>"With five boxes, one for you," put in Amy, who had been hopping about +wildly, first on one foot and then on the other, longing to speak.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and we're each going to take a name and write letters to one +another, and have a badge, and—and—oh, everything," concluded Jack, +waving his hands, as if to include the universe.</p> + +<p>"And you're to be in it, you're to be in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> it!" cried Trix and Amy, +hugging Miss Isabel at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Of course she's in it; it wouldn't be much if she weren't," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of it; you haven't said a word?" asked Margery +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"But that was owing to circumstances over which I have no control," +laughed Miss Isabel. "Here are you chattering like four of the +blackbirds baked in the pie, with the other twenty flown away, and how +could I say anything? I think it is a splendumphant plan, and that is a +portmanteau word, such as Humpty Dumpty taught Alice in Looking-Glass +Land, and it means splendid and triumphant. I am deeply sensible of the +honor you do me, ladies and gentleman, in inviting me to join the club, +and I accept with joy and gratitude." And Miss Isabel took her pink +skirts in each hand, and dropped them a real dancing-school courtesy.</p> + +<p>"Might one ask what names you have chosen?" she said.</p> + +<p>"We were going to be people in history," said Margery. "I was going +to be Mary Queen of Scots, and Trix wanted to be Anthony Wayne, or +Lafayette, or Napoleon, or something else."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Light Horse Harry," said Trix.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but Amy thought it would be a bother to keep up historical ways +of talking—I mean old-fashioned ways—so we decided to take a name, +and not a character; so now Jack is Sir Harry Hotspur, and Trix is +Catharine Seyton, and I am the Lady Griselda of the Castle of the +Lonely Lake, and Amy is Mrs. Peace Plenty, a philanthropist."</p> + +<p>"Well done, Amy!" cried Miss Isabel, laughing heartily. "All but yours +are just the names that I might have guessed they would have taken, and +yet yours is, perhaps, the most suitable of all."</p> + +<p>"What will you take, Miss Isabel?" asked Jack.</p> + +<p>"Why, I can't answer such an important question without thought," said +Miss Isabel. "Can you suggest a name?"</p> + +<p>"I never could think of a name nice enough for you," said Amy lovingly.</p> + +<p>"I think it ought to be something like Good Fairy," said Trix, "only +that sounds silly."</p> + +<p>The color had been mounting to Margery's dark hair, and Jack said:</p> + +<p>"Margery's thought of something. Let's have it, Peggy."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I was thinking of Miss Isabel's name after I went to bed last night," +the little girl said slowly. "I knew what it ought to mean, but you +couldn't make it sound like a name in English, so I asked papa this +morning if you could have any words for it in any other language that +would sound like a name, and he told me some. And I think," she said, +very low, "if Miss Isabel will, it would be nice for her to be Lady +Alma Cara."</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel gave Margery such a look that her eyes filled with happy +tears.</p> + +<p>"I would never have dared take such a lovely name," Miss Isabel said, +"but if my dear little Margery will give me it, I shall be proud to +have it."</p> + +<p>"What does it mean?" asked Trix.</p> + +<p>"I think Dearest Darling is about what it would be in English," said +Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p>"That's you." "That's just the name." "Indeed, you are our dearest +darling," said Jack and Trix and Amy. But Margery said nothing, feeling +all warm and cosey inside, for she had named Miss Isabel, and her +loving look had thanked her better than words.</p> + +<p>"Now, how about a postmark?" asked Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We never thought of that," said the children.</p> + +<p>"Well, it seems to me that since we have all taken names, it would +be nice to play that our post-office was in some town with a pretty +title, and not postmark our letters with the real name of the town like +ordinary letters," said Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p>"But how can we postmark at all?" asked Jack.</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind, I will have a stamp made," said Miss Isabel, "and +the postmaster or postmistress can have an ink pad, and stamp each +envelope, like the real office."</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't that fine," "Oh, you blessed, little Miss Isabel!" "Didn't I +say she ought to be called the good fairy?" "You always think of <i>such</i> +things," chorused her visitors.</p> + +<p>"Then that's settled," continued Miss Isabel. "Now, what shall we call +our town? If this is the Happy Thought Club, wouldn't it be a good idea +to call the place also something that meant happiness?"</p> + +<p>"Joyberg," remarked Margery thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"That wouldn't do; sounds like June bug," said Jack decidedly.</p> + +<p>"Happiness Centre," suggested Amy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That is good, but a trifle long, Amy," said Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p>"How would Bliss-sylvania do?" asked Jack. "It's like Pennsylvania, you +know, and would mean <i>bliss</i> and <i>woods</i>, and that would be saying that +we had fun in the tree in the orchard."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," began Miss Isabel doubtfully, but was overwhelmed by a +chorus of applause from the three little girls, whom the name struck +favorably.</p> + +<p>"But how could we get on with so many s's in the middle?" asked Amy; +"there are three right together."</p> + +<p>"We could easily drop one, if that is the only drawback," said Miss +Isabel, "and write it B-l-i-s-s-y-l-v-a-n-i-a. That is often done in +spelling, and is called elision of a letter."</p> + +<p>"It is lovely," cried all the little girls. "Jack, how did you come to +think of it?"</p> + +<p>Jack tried to look modest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," he said. "It just popped into my head."</p> + +<p>"Like all great thoughts," added Miss Isabel. "We will make you mayor +of Blissylvania, Jack. How about postage-stamps, girls and boy?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, must we have stamps?" they asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly not, if you would rather not; but I thought it would be +more fun," said Miss Isabel. "I could paint some—say, a dozen for each +of us, and then they need not be cancelled, except with a pencil-mark +that would easily rub off, so they would last a long time."</p> + +<p>"It would be much nicer, but you ought not to bother, Miss Isabel," +said Amy.</p> + +<p>"It is no trouble; I'll do them in the evening, and if Jack makes +the box, and you all do lots of things, I ought to do something. +An honorary member must be an honorable member," said Miss Isabel, +smiling. "May I ask you to go into the arbor in the garden while I ask +Mary to make some lemonade and bring it to us with cake, that we may +eat and drink to the health of the Happy Thought Club of Blissylvania?"</p> + +<p>The children passed through the great hall, and out the door opposite +the front one, which admitted them to the beloved garden. On the way +they decided for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, at least, that +their Miss Isabel was the <i>dearest thing</i>, and that there was no one on +earth quite like her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> + +<p>This decision had hardly been arrived at when she rejoined them.</p> + +<p>"When shall we begin?" she asked, bending her head under the wistaria +vine drooping above the entrance to the arbor.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make the box to-night, and we thought we'd get the thing +up and everything ready to-morrow," answered Jack.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and begin Monday," added Margery. "You see this is Friday, and we +shall have all day Saturday to get ready, and Sunday is a nice day to +write letters, for we all go to children's Mass at nine, you know, and +can write all day."</p> + +<p>"Stopping to eat, I hope," laughed Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p>"We are going to give you box number one, because—oh, because you are +<i>you</i>, and an honorary member," said Jack. "And Margery's to have two, +because she thought of the plan——"</p> + +<p>"And you'll have to have three, because you named the town, Jack," +interrupted Margery.</p> + +<p>"And Trix and Amy will have four and five," resumed Jack.</p> + +<p>But Miss Isabel, foreseeing possible danger, interposed.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have any rewards of that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> kind," she said. "I'd have +Blissylvania a real republic, with every one equal, and draw lots for +numbers."</p> + +<p>"So would I," echoed Margery heartily. "I don't want to be first +because I thought of the plan."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to do something to celebrate the club," cried Trix, balancing +on one foot on the seat of the arbor. "I'd like to do something queer."</p> + +<p>As she spoke the board, which was loose at one end, flew up and sent +Trix flying first upward, and then into a collapsed heap under the seat.</p> + +<p>"You've done it!" shouted Jack, in ecstasy—"you've done the queer +thing!"</p> + +<p>"O Trix, are you hurt?" cried the other two girls anxiously.</p> + +<p>Trix's eyes were on a level with her knees, for she had fallen through, +doubled up like a jack-knife.</p> + +<p>"I fell down," she remarked, vainly trying to extricate herself.</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard something drop!" cried Jack, rolling over in spasms +of laughter, while Miss Isabel, laughing, too, at Beatrice's funny +appearance and remark, helped get her up.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think we'd better go home," said Amy. "When Trix gets crazy there's +no telling what will happen."</p> + +<p>"It has happened," remarked Jack, looking down whence Trix had emerged. +"O jolly me!"—Jack's favorite and appropriate exclamation—"O jolly +me, Trix, you killed a mud worm. I knew you didn't like them, but you +needn't have sat on him so hard."</p> + +<p>"O Jack, I didn't! O Jack, where?" cried Trix, running to look. "Oh, +yes, I did! Oh, please look and see if there's any of him on me!" she +cried, spinning round and round wildly, in a vain effort to see the +back of her own dress. "Oh, the dreadful thing!"</p> + +<p>"See here, Trix," said Jack, "I thought you wanted to be a boy. No boy +would make a row about such a little thing as sitting on a mud worm."</p> + +<p>Trix disdained to answer.</p> + +<p>"We ought to go, it's getting late," she said instead. "Good-night, +Miss Isabel."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, dears; good-night all of you," said Miss Isabel, kissing +each happy face twice over, except Jack's, who stood for the dignity of +his sex, and was not kissed, even by Miss Isabel—that is, unless no +one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> were looking. "You shall have the post-mark and ink-pad to-morrow +afternoon, and I am very grateful to you for letting me join you."</p> + +<p>"Grateful! Pooh!" cried Jack, voicing the sentiments of them all. "We +couldn't get on without you."</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h2> + +<h2>A NARROW ESCAPE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Saturday</span> morning Jack appeared whistling energetically as he +triumphantly balanced a box on his left hand, and swung another in his +right. He was early, but the three girls were earlier, and had swept +the dead leaves from under the apple-tree destined for the office, and +had cleared out the hollow which was to hold the box, to the noisy +indignation of a woodpecker and his dame who had chosen the tree for a +summer residence.</p> + +<p>Jack was hailed with a cry of rapture.</p> + +<p>"Here's the office!" he shouted, breaking into a run as he saw the +little girls; "and this is the drop-box."</p> + +<p>So saying he stubbed his toe on one of the many rough places in the +orchard, and boy and boxes went headlong in three directions.</p> + +<p>"I see it is a drop-box," remarked Trix<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> dryly, getting square on the +account of the previous night.</p> + +<p>"O Jack, have you broken them?" cried Amy, while Margery stood still in +mute anguish.</p> + +<p>"Guess not; no, they're all right," replied Jack, gathering up his +burdens. "Aren't they just James dandies?"</p> + +<p>The girls, who had renounced slang with gum, pronounced them "lovely" +and "beautiful." One was a starch-box, divided through the middle +into an upper and lower section, the upper partitioned into three +pigeon-holes, each numbered, and the lower half made into two +divisions, likewise numbered. The box was painted a wood brown, with +the words "Post-Office" in white over the top, and the numbers were +also white.</p> + +<p>Jack had wanted to paint the box red, but Amy had convinced him that it +would be in greater danger of discovery in such a bright color, and he +had yielded to prudence.</p> + +<p>The second box was red, however, for Jack had literally stood to his +colors in this case, maintaining that all Uncle Sam's drop-boxes were +red, and Blissylvania's must be no exception to the rule.</p> + +<p>This had a slit cut in the top large enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> for letters to pass +through, and was not less admired than the post-office.</p> + +<p>"But how shall we get parcels in?" asked Margery, and Jack explained +that for this it was only necessary to lift the lid, which would not +be fastened. Every one found this arrangement perfectly satisfactory, +and the office was nailed into the tree by Jack at the cost of only one +bruised finger, while the girls executed a sort of war-dance around him +in irrepressible satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The drop-box was fastened on a stump ten or twelve feet from the +office, which made it still more like a real post-office, for, as +Margery explained, the postmistress could play she was a postman +collecting and bringing in the mail when she took the things out of the +drop-box, and needn't pretend she was postmaster till she began sorting +them at the apple-tree.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more encouraging than the morning operations, +but in the afternoon the H. T. C. and the town of Blissylvania narrowly +escaped a catastrophe that would have been like an earthquake, sweeping +the fair city from the earth.</p> + +<p>It all came from the honorary member's generosity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<p>True to her promise, Miss Isabel hastened down to town in the morning +early, and ordered the stamp made for the postmark. It was to be +of leaden type, that allowed the changing of date each day, and as +the type was already in stock the shopkeeper promised to deliver it +that afternoon. Margery's mamma had painted the badges according to +the design selected at the first meeting, only substituting a white +carrier-pigeon as the device instead of an envelope, because, as +Margery explained to the others, "it was more poetical than an envelope +and prettier." The badge was of beautiful blue ribbon, the pigeon +painted in white, surmounted by the initials of the club—H. T. C. And +it may be stated here that unsatisfied curiosity as to the secret moved +the other school-children to derision, and Jack, Margaret, Beatrice, +and Amy were called the "Highty Tighty Cooing Pigeons," shortened for +convenience to "The Doves."</p> + +<p>The four were wrapped in admiration over their beautiful badges, +when the postmark arrived. Each one tried it in turn, and at every +impression the magic circle enclosing the words, "Blissylvania, +June 8th, 1896"—for the date was set ready for the first use on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +Monday—seemed more entrancing. They all repaired to the orchard to see +if it worked equally well on the big stone which they had selected for +its table, and here the little cloud appeared that rolled up into a +storm. It was such unutterable bliss to press the stamp on the ink-pad, +and then make the impression on the white paper, that the office of +postmaster suddenly seemed to each one the honor most to be coveted in +all the world.</p> + +<p>"I wonder how we shall decide who is to be postmaster," remarked Trix +casually, as she reluctantly gave Amy the stamp to try.</p> + +<p>Each face reddened slightly; evidently they had all been thinking of +the same thing.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how a girl can be postmaster," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! We can be postmistress, and it's all the same," said Amy, +speaking sharply for her.</p> + +<p>"I should think it was more a man's place," continued Jack.</p> + +<p>"It's a place for a girl that is strong and quick, and like a boy," +said Trix hastily.</p> + +<p>"I live right here, where I could look after it," said Margery, +bringing the discussion from abstract views on suitability to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +personal application they were all secretly making.</p> + +<p>"That's the very reason why you shouldn't be postmistress!" cried +peace-loving Amy, ruffling her feathers. "You shouldn't have +everything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're no good for it, Peggy!" said Jack, with easy scorn. +"It needs a boy, and I'm the only boy; so of course I've got to be +postmaster."</p> + +<p>"Well, I like that," cried Trix, with eyes flashing like a whole +woman's-rights convention in one small body. "Every one knows girls are +heaps quicker and smarter than boys. I'd be a better postmaster than +any of you, if I do say so."</p> + +<p>"You! You're too harum-scarum; you'd lose half the mail!" cried Amy. +"I'd be a much better one, and you know it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'd not lose the mail!" said Trix, trembling and stammering in +indignation. "You think I'm harum-scarum because you're such a poke."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's no good you girls fighting about it, because I'm +the boy, and I'm going to be postmaster!" remarked Jack, with such +maddening certainty that the girls turned on him in a body.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You'll be nothing of the sort!" screamed Trix, stamping her foot.</p> + +<p>"You won't touch my letters!" cried Amy.</p> + +<p>"If you were a gentleman you'd not want to take a lady's place!" said +Margery, with withering scorn. "No gentleman ever sits down when a lady +hasn't a seat."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to know who wants to sit down?" demanded Jack.</p> + +<p>"If you felt as you ought, you'd want your cousin to be postmaster," +said Margery.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't; so there!" said Jack.</p> + +<p>"Who does?" asked Trix, deserting her ally and turning on Margery. +"You've got the office in your orchard, and that's enough."</p> + +<p>"If I'd known that you'd all have been so selfish I'd never have said +have a post-office," said Margery, turning away to hide the tears which +always would come when she was angry, spoiling the effect of her most +telling remarks.</p> + +<p>"You're selfish yourself, because you want it as much as we do, and +that is why you think we're selfish," said Amy, with so much truth that +Margery could not retort.</p> + +<p>"You're the meanest three in the world!" cried Trix.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That counts me out, for you girls are the three, and Trix is the +worst!" shouted Jack.</p> + +<p>"If I was half as mean as the rest of you I'd go to some old-clothes +man, and try to sell myself," said Amy, the mild.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't get much," said Trix, not realizing her retort was rather +against herself.</p> + +<p>"I think I don't care about a post-office," remarked Margery, with +quivering lips. "I think I'll not be in it, and if you want one you can +have it some other place than my orchard."</p> + +<p>"I don't want one," said Trix.</p> + +<p>"It's a stupid thing anyhow," said Amy.</p> + +<p>"No one with any sense would ever have proposed it," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"Then we'll give it all up," said Margery, in a low voice. A quarrel +was not a little thing to her, as it was to the others, but an awful +tragedy. And at this terrible moment Miss Isabel came down the orchard, +looking as fresh and calm as if there were no such thing as anger in +all the world. It did not require her keen eyes to see the flushed +faces and trembling lips, and feel the electricity in the air, but she +discreetly pretended to observe nothing.</p> + +<p>"Good-morrow, brave Sir Hotspur, noble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> Lady Catharine Seyton, kind +Mrs. Plenty, fair Lady Griselda," she said.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Miss Isabel," responded four melancholy voices, from +which joy seemed forever fled.</p> + +<p>"I see the postmark came. I was uneasy lest it fail to arrive, and came +over to ask about it," continued Miss Isabel cheerfully. "Is it good? +Oh, yes; those are very clear impressions you made. Do you know, I like +the name Blissylvania much better than I thought I should?"</p> + +<p>No answer; the children were beginning to feel dreadfully ashamed, for +though they were perfectly at ease with Miss Isabel, they cared too +much for her good opinion to be anything but their best before her.</p> + +<p>"I brought the stamps," continued Miss Isabel, with persistent, +cheerful blindness. "Here they are."</p> + +<p>Jack had been digging a hole with his heel ever since Miss Isabel had +arrived, and it required his entire attention. Giving an extra deep +backward thrust, he said without looking up:</p> + +<p>"It's a pity you took that trouble, Miss Isabel, for we're not going to +have a post-office after all."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> + +<p>A sob from Margery followed this remark.</p> + +<p>"Why, what is the matter?" asked Miss Isabel, looking from one gloomy +face to another, and drawing Margery's, which was hidden from her, on +her knee.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Trix desperately, "we're all mad. We got into a fuss about +who would be postmaster, and we decided to give the thing up."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean; you couldn't decide who should be postmaster first?" +asked Miss Isabel. "Of course you intend to take turns in office?"</p> + +<p>Jack, Trix, and Amy glanced at each other, and Margery stopped sobbing +to listen. Simple as this solution of the difficulty was, no one had +thought of it.</p> + +<p>"We didn't mean that; we thought some one would be postmaster all the +time," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me, I should think you would get into a fuss if you tried to +decide who was to have the fun all alone," laughed Miss Isabel. "And +so you were going to give up the whole thing, and cheat me of all the +pleasure you promised me because you did not hit on such a simple plan! +And last night we decided that Blissylvania was to be a real<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> republic, +with every one equal! Look up, little Marguerite; you are a daisy too +wet with rain just now. Don't make mountains of molehills, children; it +is much wiser to make molehills of the mountains we have to climb in +life. Now, I think each would better be postmaster a week at a time, +and draw lots for the order of serving. Or, perhaps, it would be better +still to have the term of office last but three days, for then the +terms will come around quicker."</p> + +<p>She did not add that this would give each a second chance to serve in +case they tired quickly of the new play, but she thought it.</p> + +<p>"Shall we draw lots for turns now?" she asked, reaching for the white +paper on which they had been making impressions before the storm broke.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack and Amy and Trix meekly, while Margery +sat up pale and trembling, and began to dry her eyes. The others +glanced at her wonderingly; they never could understand why Margery +seemed half sick if she had been angry or had cried.</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel wrote the numbers, and they drew, Amy number one, Trix two, +Margery three, and Jack four.</p> + +<p>"Now please show me the boxes. Why,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> they are very nicely made, Jack; +did you do it alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack, beaming, all trace of anger melted in +the sunshine of her presence.</p> + +<p>"And look, Miss Isabel, here's the drop-box," cried Amy. "You put +letters through the slit in the top, and when you have a parcel you +lift the cover and put it inside."</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel laughed.</p> + +<p>"That is a wee bit like the story of the man who made a large hole for +his cat to go in and out, and a small one alongside for the kitten. But +it is certainly the nicest kind of a post-office, and I think, perhaps, +that I shall get more pleasure out of it than any of you." Which was a +much truer prophecy than Miss Isabel herself dreamed. "We are to write +letters to-morrow, and begin Monday, are we not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; oh, what fun!" cried Trix, catching Amy around the waist, and +waltzing her about the old apple-tree and back again.</p> + +<p>No one but Margery seemed to remember "the late unpleasantness;" she +stood a little apart, very pale, but trying to smile.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I think it is unusually warm for the sixth of June?" +remarked Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> Isabel. "I wonder if I could get any one to walk down to +Bent's to eat ice-cream with me?"</p> + +<p>Jack turned a somersault at once.</p> + +<p>"Don't try if you don't want to succeed, Miss Isabel," he said.</p> + +<p>"Come, then, every one of you," she cried merrily, "for I do want to +succeed. And I propose that we wear our beautiful new badges, for we +are to go in a body as a club."</p> + +<p>"Let me pin them on, please," said Margery. She had been longing for a +chance to beg pardon, and saw it here. "I'm dreadfully sorry I was so +cross, Jack," she whispered, pinning the badge, and at the same time +rubbing her cheek on his gray jacket.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, Megsy. You're never much cross," he whispered +back, and would have liked to have kissed her little white face, for he +dearly loved his cousin.</p> + +<p>"Please forgive me, Trix, for being so mean," she whispered, as she +reached her, and Trix stared at her for a moment in amazement.</p> + +<p>"Why, I forgot all about it," she said. "I was meaner than you anyhow." +And she kissed her.</p> + +<p>Amy put her arms around Margery before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> she could speak. "It's all +right, Margery; forgive me, too," she whispered.</p> + +<p>And so, at peace with all the world and each other, the Happy Thought +Club, that had so narrowly escaped destruction, sallied forth to eat +ice-cream.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2> + +<h2>THE MYSTERIOUS TENANT.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> opening of the post-office was a great success. Amy, who +was the first to go into office as postmistress, had a busy time for +the three days of her term. Every member of the H. T. C. wrote the +other four one letter a day with praiseworthy regularity, so there +were twenty letters daily for the postmistress of Blissylvania to +handle, not to mention packages and papers, and the invisible city of +Blissylvania did more mail business than many of Uncle Sam's offices in +far-off country places. There was a slight falling off in mail on the +second day of Trix's term, which followed Amy's, for Jack found so much +and such regular correspondence exhausting to mind and body, and was +first to complain that he had nothing to say. It was even found, when +the ladies compared notes on the fifth day after the office opened, +that he had basely written one letter, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> copied it three times—Miss +Isabel requiring a different style of composition—but they had agreed +to feign ignorance of this action, charitably excusing it on the ground +of boys' well-known deficiencies.</p> + +<p>There was difficulty about Margery's address. She insisted that +the whole title and address must be used, but Jack declared it was +expecting too much of any one to write on the small space of the back +of their letters, which for economy's sake were so folded as to serve +instead of envelopes: "Lady Griselda, At the Castle of the Lonely Lake, +Blissylvania, New York," which was what Margery desired.</p> + +<p>They compromised, following Miss Isabel's suggestion, on "Lady Griselda +of the Castle, Blissylvania, New York," because, as Miss Isabel pointed +out, there could be no mistake, there being but one Lady Griselda and +one castle.</p> + +<p>Taken altogether, the post-office could hardly have succeeded better, +and if there were any danger of its losing charm, it was saved by a +new interest arising, which gave a novel topic for conversation and +supplied Jack with the needed subject for correspondence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a little after eight o'clock on the sixth morning after the +post-office opened, and Margery was practising. She was as faithful +in this as in everything else, and to the inexpressible wonder of her +playmates no strategy or coaxing could get her to leave the piano +before her time was up. This seemed to Trix, who seized any excuse to +shorten the hated task, little short of insanity, and a new proof of +the queerness that they all recognized in dreamy, sensitive Margery. +They did not understand that Margery was an unconscious philosopher, +and since the thought of an unfulfilled duty would spoil her pleasure, +preferred to secure a thorough good time by clearing away any possible +hindrances to one.</p> + +<p>Trix came into the room, and finding Margery at the piano, sighed.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there's no use talking to you until you're done," she said, +throwing herself in a big chair. "And I've the most interesting thing +to tell you."</p> + +<p>Margery shook her head.</p> + +<p>"How long must you practise; till half after?"</p> + +<p>Margery nodded, the nod coming in well on an accented note. Up and +down went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> the nimble fingers, playing an exercise, with the metronome +ticking on the piano.</p> + +<p>Trix fidgeted and wriggled down in the chair, and pulled herself up, +watching the clock the while.</p> + +<p>"Margery, it's <i>such</i> an interesting thing," she said plaintively at +last.</p> + +<p>"In ten minutes," sang Margery to the accompaniment of the scale. "Play +with Tommy Traddles while you wait."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Margery, <i>won't</i> you stop?" cried Trix, after three minutes had +passed. No answer but <i>arpeggios</i>. "Margaret Gresham, you're chewing +gum," cried Trix, resorting to strategy.</p> + +<p>"I am not," said Margery, coming down in flat contradiction and a false +chord at one and the same time. "I'm chewing the side of my tongue."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you have a cud?" asked Trix, delighted at having trapped +Margery into speech. But she was not to be caught again.</p> + +<p>Shaking her head she began playing her new piece, which, true to her +principles, she had left till the last. Finally the tiresome clock +struck once. Trix sprang up.</p> + +<p>"You shall not finish that page," she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> cried, catching Margery around +the waist and pulling her off the stool. "You said half-past, and it is +half-past; so stop."</p> + +<p>"But I <i>must</i> finish that page, Trix," she protested. "Unfinished tunes +I can't stand."</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll have to," declared Trix. "Listen to me. The Dismals is +rented!"</p> + +<p>"The Dismals" was the children's name for a very large, untenanted +place called the Evergreens.</p> + +<p>"Why, the Dismals is never rented!" cried Margery. "It hasn't had any +one in it since we were born."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but it has now," replied Trix. "There is a man there, and he +lives all alone. Our waitress, Katie, told me about it last night. I +thought I'd never go to sleep for thinking about him. Katie knows a +girl that saw him go through the hedge and disappear under the Dismals' +pine-trees. There is something queer about him; Katie says so. They +don't know whether he's crazy or whether he's wicked, or perhaps he's +both. Katie says we may all be murdered in our beds. She says she +thinks he's a robber who has come from somewhere, and is to make the +Dismals his den. But Katie says some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> think he's a murderer hiding +there, and again some think he's got the evil eye."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" asked Margery, shuddering; "another eye, or what?"</p> + +<p>"No, you goose," cried Trix; "it's an eye that looks just like others, +only it's kind of set and stony, and when people look at it they're +never lucky any more."</p> + +<p>But this had not the effect Trix anticipated.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that," said Margery; "that sounds like a ghost story, +or something of that kind. Besides, if there were an evil eye it +couldn't hurt us, for we wear our medals, and if we met him we'd just +hold on to them and say Hail Marys till he went by."</p> + +<p>Trix was staggered.</p> + +<p>"Katie didn't say so, and Katie's a Catholic," she remarked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but Katie doesn't understand," said Margery. "You ought to teach +her not to be superstitious, Trix."</p> + +<p>This was taking the conversation into the realms of morals, and Trix +wished it to be only thrilling.</p> + +<p>"Well, what if he's crazy or wicked?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"That's different," replied Margery promptly. "We'll be late for +school; wait<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> till I get my hat and catechism, and we'll talk about it +going along."</p> + +<p>She came back in a moment, and the two little girls went out into the +June sunshine on their way to the convent, where they were to have a +catechism instruction, though it was Saturday.</p> + +<p>"I think myself it's much more likely he's crazy, or a robber, or +something awful," Trix resumed. "You see, no one who was all right +could live alone in such a dreadful place as the Dismals."</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose he's some exiled prince come over from Europe and +hiding there?" suggested Margery.</p> + +<p>"They don't have exiled princes now," declared Trix.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes they do; the last of the rightful princes of France died not +very long ago; papa said so."</p> + +<p>"Well, if he's dead he can't be at the Dismals," said Trix. "I tell +you, Margery, this man is some dangerous character, and I shall be +afraid of my life to go to bed."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid now talking about it, because I think maybe he's +unfortunate, and not wicked, but when night comes I shall be afraid to +go to bed, too," Margery agreed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Evergreens, or "the Dismals," lay out of their way to school, +but attracted to it by their very fear, the children turned aside in +order to pass it, and then raced by it as fast as their feet could +carry them, casting fearful glances over their shoulders as they ran. +That afternoon among the mail in the Blissylvania post-office was the +following circular, in duplicate copies, addressed to Lady Alma Cara, +and Mrs. Peace Plenty, and Sir Harry Hotspur. It ran:</p> + +<p>"Dear Madam (or Sir): Having heard that a dangerous or mysterious +character has come to live alone in the Evergreens, which we call the +Dismals, we feel it our duty to warn you that you may fear to be robbed +or murdered by this strange person, and that you should be on your +guard. Yours respectfully (signed), Lady Griselda of the Castle of the +Lonely Lake. Lady Catharine Seyton, Postmistress of Blissylvania."</p> + +<p>The circular had the desired effect. Mrs. Peace Plenty was +panic-stricken; Sir Harry Hotspur vowed to wear his sword henceforth +when he went abroad, and warned all wicked men that they'd better look +out, for he would use it, and Lady Alma Cara promised to take Hero with +her whenever she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> could if she went out. Hero was her big St. Bernard, +and objected to much exercise in summer.</p> + +<p>Lady Alma Cara did not seem disturbed by the awful rumors as to the +strange tenant, but she was far too wise to tell the children that she +thought there was no danger, knowing well that this was an opportunity +for them to make much of, and that there was a certain pleasure +in their fear. By Sunday the reports of the mysterious tenant had +multiplied, not lessening in horror. Margery held her medals tight as +she passed along the streets, though her terror was moderated when +Winnie, the cook, reported that he had been in the back of the church +at the first Mass, but had slipped out before any one could get a good +look at him. Jack and Trix pointed out to Margery with much pains, that +this showed that he was even worse than they supposed, because he came +to church only to pretend to be decent, but could not stay to face +honest people.</p> + +<p>Sunday night the sensation reached a tremendous pitch. The children had +taken tea with Trix, and had been entertained by Katie with the latest +news of the stranger. He did not live alone, after all; it seemed that +he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> had an old woman for housekeeper, and though it was not certain who +had seen her to report her appearance, it was quite certain that she +had a hump, and never went out in the grounds of the Dismals without a +broomstick, which proved, so Katie thought, that she was a witch. As +to the man himself, he walked with his head down, and Katie had heard +that he cast no shadow, and the children wondered what kind of folks +it was cast no shadow. The children did not know, but they did not +like to ask, feeling sure they must be the most awful people possible, +especially since they had never seen such, and shuddered at the +thought. Katie, a fresh-faced, pleasant little girl with no notion of +doing them harm, but with an amiable desire to be agreeable, responded +to their cries for more, with tales of banshees and witches till their +blood froze in their veins, and they left for home in an agony of fear +and went to bed in dumb suffering. Had they spoken their fears their +misery would have been short, but none of them mentioned the matter, +and so no relief could come.</p> + +<p>Each made a characteristic preparation for the dangers of the night. +Jack took his toy pistol and sword to bed, hoping in case of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> alarm the +invader would mistake them for real ones. Trix laid the ice-pick and +fire-tongs on her pillow, and hung a bucket of water, to which she had +tied a string, over her bedroom-door. Amy put her rosary, crucifix, and +prayer-book under her pillow, and made sure that she had on her medals +and scapular, and then got an extra pillow and blanket to muffle her +ears, which, as the night was warm, had its drawbacks. Poor, nervous +little Margery sprinkled all her bed with holy water, collected every +pious object which she possessed, and took Tommy Traddles to bed with +her, that in case of danger she might protect him. To all the others +sleep came soon in spite of fear, but Margery lay cold and wakeful +until the twitter and stirring of the birds outside her window, and the +first rays of dawn brought the hope and comfort of another day.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h2> + +<h2>THE INVASION OF THE AMAZONS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Margery</span> arose from her night of terror armed with the courage +of desperation. There were two letters in the post that morning +addressed in her stiff little handwriting to Lady Catharine Seyton and +Mrs. Peace Plenty. They were precisely alike, except in the address, +and ran thus:</p> + +<p>"The Lady Griselda of the Castle of the Lonely Lake requests you to +meet her at the elm at the corner of the convent grounds after school +to do something for the public safety."</p> + +<p>Margery herself carried them to school and gave them to their owners, +for it was her first day as postmistress.</p> + +<p>"They were marked 'Immediate,' so I delivered them," she said to Trix +and Amy, in the character of postmistress, with fine assumption of +ignorance as to their contents.</p> + +<p>Amy found her waiting with Trix when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> she appeared at the +trysting-place a trifle late.</p> + +<p>"Now she's come; what is it, Margery?" demanded Trix, who never could +endure waiting, and had been fuming because Margery would not speak +until Amy had arrived.</p> + +<p>"It means that I can't stand this another moment," Margery burst out, +glad to express her feelings. "I wouldn't be so scared every night as I +was last night for anything. I want you to go with me to the Dismals, +and see if that man's as bad as Katie says."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't go for the world," declared Amy, blanching at the thought.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," echoed daring Trix. "You're such a scared cat, Margery, I +don't see what you want to go for."</p> + +<p>"It's because I am a scared cat," said Margery. "I'm afraid not to go. +I should think you'd dare what I dare, Trix Lane, when you're always +talking about being a boy."</p> + +<p>"I suppose Jack would think we were brave," remarked Trix slowly.</p> + +<p>She and Jack were engaged in a sort of perpetual "stump" as to which +should outdo the other.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Margery saw an advantage here.</p> + +<p>"Of course he would," she said. "He'd never dare say again that girls +were cowards."</p> + +<p>"But I am," said Amy candidly, "and I couldn't say I wasn't. Still, if +you go, Margery, I'll go with you."</p> + +<p>"You dear thing," cried Margery, giving her an enthusiastic hug.</p> + +<p>"I'll go; I'd like to," said Trix hastily, trying to retrieve her +reputation.</p> + +<p>"Then we'll start right now," Margery declared. "Don't you see that +I'm afraid to go, but I'm more afraid to stay away, because we <i>must</i> +know what's there? If I had to lie awake nights thinking about the +hump-backed witch and the evil eye without seeing them I'd be a raving +lumanic."</p> + +<p>Margery meant lunatic or maniac, it is not clear which.</p> + +<p>The desperate band of amazons started valiantly down the street. As +they neared the Evergreens their pace slackened, but they did not halt. +Margery, the coward, went steadily on, and the others were ashamed not +to follow. They entered "the Dismals" by a less frequented way than +the gate—in fact, they crawled through an opening in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> fence, and +concealed themselves not far from the back door, in the long grass that +had not been cut for many summers.</p> + +<p>"My heart beats so I know he'll think some one's knocking," whispered +poor Amy, and to Margery's additional alarm Trix giggled hysterically.</p> + +<p>"Oh, keep quiet, and just pray," she whispered.</p> + +<p>Presently an old woman appeared, and the agonized trio noted that she +carried a broom. But she certainly was not hunchbacked, but a slender, +tiny old woman, with a smiling face, and she began using the broom in a +most un-witchlike manner to clear off the back stoop.</p> + +<p>In spite of themselves the children felt a little reassured, but their +fear returned when they saw a man come around the corner. He walked +slowly, and they soon saw that this was because he read as he walked. A +spaniel ran ahead of him, and came back, barking wildly.</p> + +<p>"Why, Sheila, I'm ashamed of you," said the man, closing his book, with +one finger inside, and shaking the little volume at the excited dog. +"How often must I tell you that I will never help you to catch birds, +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> much less in June, when they have families to look after?"</p> + +<p>His voice sounded kindly, and even sweet; his eyes were brown, and +looked affectionately at the little dog. As Amy said afterward, +"Neither looked like an evil eye." Comfort began to come to the three +palpitating little hearts in the grass, and though they dared not +whisper it to each other, the conviction struck them that there must +have been a mistake. Just then Sheila, the spaniel, ran towards them, +barking in quite a different tone, and so sharply that her master +turned to follow her.</p> + +<p>"That does not sound like birds, Sheila," he said. "What have you +found?"</p> + +<p>In an agony no words could represent the three valiant amazons lay +quaking till they saw that the little dog had really scented them, and +was leading her master straight to them. Breaking cover like three +startled quails they precipitately took to their heels, to the surprise +of both dog and man.</p> + +<p>"Stop!" shouted the stranger. "Don't run, children; Sheila won't hurt +you."</p> + +<p>"But you might," thought the children, and fled faster, all their fear +returning in their flight. Margery and Amy cleared the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> hole in the +fence in rapid succession, but Trix, not liking to wait her turn to go +through, tried to climb over, and stuck fast on a paling.</p> + +<p>"If you leave me I'll die!" she shrieked to the other two, who were +making off at a great rate. They turned and saw her face purple with +fright, while the old woman, the man, and the little dog on the other +side saw her long legs kicking so wildly that they looked several pairs +instead of one. With heroism, genuine, if unnecessary, Margery and Amy +stopped and turned back to their imprisoned comrade. They reached her +head just as a hand touched her back. With a scream that made them +sure that she had at least been stabbed, Trix made one last, desperate +effort to get away, and was still.</p> + +<p>"Let me help you," said the man gently. "Pray, don't be so frightened. +Indeed, my little dog would never hurt you, and as soon as I can get +you off she shall apologize for frightening you so badly."</p> + +<p>So saying he extricated Trix's dress, and set her on her feet. His +touch was so careful that Trix plucked up heart to look at him. He +was not old, he was not ugly. Trix felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> sure that if she had met him +elsewhere and otherwise she should have liked him.</p> + +<p>"Weren't there more little girls?" he asked, laughing. "It seemed to me +a dozen started up from the grass when Sheila barked."</p> + +<p>"Two, sir," Trix murmured faintly. "They are on the other side."</p> + +<p>He came closer, and looked over.</p> + +<p>"Please come back a moment, and let Sheila apologize," he said, and +Margery and Amy dared not refuse.</p> + +<p>They crawled back, and the man turned to the dog.</p> + +<p>"Sit up, Sheila; say you're very sorry," he commanded.</p> + +<p>Sheila sat up at once and whined.</p> + +<p>"Now go shake hands all round," said her master.</p> + +<p>Sheila rose on her hind feet and walked to each in turn, offering her +little brown right paw, which they accepted, almost forgetting their +fears.</p> + +<p>"Now won't you come back and rest?" asked the man.</p> + +<p>"Oh! no, thank you," the three little girls said in chorus, as if they +had been rehearsing it, turning at once towards the opening in the +fence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then good-by," said the man. "Sheila and I are a bit lonely here, +and we should be very glad to have you come again—when you can stay +longer," he added, with such a merry twinkle of the eye that Trix could +not help responding with a laugh, and all replied, "Thank you," in +much better spirits, and went away quite enchanted with the mysterious +tenant.</p> + +<p>The more they thought over their adventure, the more they found their +new acquaintance delightful, and the faster they hurried to look up +Jack to vaunt their courage to him, and tell him the facts about their +bugaboo. Great was Jack's amazement as he listened, and his admiration +for their pluck was satisfactory even to Trix.</p> + +<p>But the next day Jack had a piece of news for them that restored +the balance of importance among them, and re-established Jack's +self-esteem, which had been a little lowered by the brave deed of the +girls.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you suppose I know?" he asked, coming down the orchard +where the girls were putting the post-office to rights, the day after +the invasion of "the Dismals."</p> + +<p>"That wouldn't take long to tell," replied Trix saucily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You may have seen the man at the Dismals, but I know who he is," Jack +continued, ignoring Trix.</p> + +<p>"Who?" cried each of the girls.</p> + +<p>"Guess," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"An escaped bandit," exclaimed Trix.</p> + +<p>"An officer of the society that takes care of animals," said Amy, who +had been much impressed by the stranger's goodness to Sheila.</p> + +<p>"An exiled prince," cried Margery, returning to her first idea.</p> + +<p>"All wrong!" shouted Jack triumphantly. "Not even warm. I'll tell you +what happened last night. I was reading in the library, and papa and +mamma were there, and pretty soon I went to sleep. And after a while I +woke up enough to hear them talking, and papa said: 'Well, it must be +that he has some motive for coming back here, for no one would choose +to live in such a dreary place as the Evergreens without reason.' +That woke me up, and I pricked up my ears to listen. 'You know it was +his grandfather's place,' mamma said; and papa said: 'But, my dear, +people rarely live alone in a tumble-down house for their grandfather's +sake.' Mamma said: 'No, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> think as you do, it must be something to do +with Isabel that brought him back here. Then papa said: 'It would be +queer if they were to marry, and be happy after all this time, like +story-book people.' And mamma said she loved Miss Isabel so much, and +she was so good and sweet, that she should be more glad of happiness +for her than for almost anything else in the world. And she said she +thought Mr. Robert Dean was a good man. And then my old book tumbled +down, and mamma said low: 'Don't let Jack hear anything of this;' and +she said to me: 'Jack, dear, don't you think you'd better go to bed?' +And I didn't think so, but I had to go. And now, do you know who that +man is?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Amy, bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Why, is he Mr. Robert Dean?" asked Trix, immediately adding: "I don't +know who Mr. Dean is, though."</p> + +<p>But Margery looked greatly excited.</p> + +<p>"Is he the one Miss Isabel was going to marry, ever so long ago, when +she was going to live in that house near yours, Jack?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Right you are, Peggy," said Jack. "He's come back to take Miss Isabel +away,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> I'll bet you, and so he is a robber, and we were right in the +first place."</p> + +<p>Trix assented cordially.</p> + +<p>"He'd better not try to take Miss Isabel off!" she said fiercely.</p> + +<p>Amy and Margery took another view.</p> + +<p>"May be she likes him, and would be glad to see him again," said Amy. +"Maybe she'd rather have him come back."</p> + +<p>And Margery said firmly: "I don't want any one to take Miss Isabel +away, but if she would be happier, we must not say one word."</p> + +<p>"Much he'd care what we said," muttered Jack wrathfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Margery, "but we mustn't say it anyway. We'll go to see +him, for he asked us to, and we'll see if he is nice, and then we won't +care if he does marry Miss Isabel. We'll be glad because she's glad, +and we won't let her know once how we feel about it."</p> + +<p>Margery's voice had been growing more and more quavering, and as she +ceased speaking she sat down on the grass and cried as though her heart +would break. The others looked at her in silence.</p> + +<p>They could not make up their minds to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> give up Miss Isabel, even +for her happiness; but, on the other hand, they could not cry so +tempestuously at the thought of losing her.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Margery; you'll have us," said Amy, sitting down by her +and putting her arm around her.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but you're none of you Miss Isabel. But I'll be glad, very glad," +said Margery, with a fresh burst of tears.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2> + +<h2>FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Mr. Robert Dean opened his front door in response to +a faint ring at the bell, and saw three little girls and one very +rosy-faced boy standing on the step, he had no idea that it was a +self-appointed committee of investigation, and that his character was +to be tried by a very exacting standard. Yet such was the case.</p> + +<p>Following Margery's suggestion, Beatrice, Amy, and Jack had gone with +her to call on the new tenant, to see if by any possibility he could be +good enough to be Miss Isabel's husband, in case that were his object +in coming to the Evergreens.</p> + +<p>The visit was a difficult one, and was made still more so by the +committee not finding Mr. Dean in the grounds as they had hoped to do, +and thus being obliged to walk deliberately up the steps and ring the +bell.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Dean looked down on them with some surprise, and Margery said +faintly:</p> + +<p>"We've come to call on you, sir, as you asked us."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; we've met before," said Mr. Dean, recognizing Trix's black +eyes, and laughing as he remembered the plight from which he had +rescued her. "I am very glad to see you and so I am sure will Sheila +be. Will you kindly walk into my parlor, like four pleasant flies, +though I think I am not a spider."</p> + +<p>The children thanked him, and followed him into the old house. The +parlor was darkened, and their host went to the window and threw open +the blind. The light revealed a room furnished in the taste of more +than fifty years ago. Haircloth chairs were ranged at intervals around +the walls, a carpet strewn with immense roses covered the floor, and +the wall-paper in panels representing a tiger hunt so fascinated Jack's +wondering gaze that he became quite lost in its contemplation. Margery +had perched herself on the haircloth sofa, which was so slippery that +she had to hold herself on by the bolster-like ends, for her feet did +not nearly reach the floor. She rejoiced when she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> rescued from her +precarious situation by their host turning from the window with the +words:</p> + +<p>"My name is Robert Dean. Will you please tell me yours, that we may +begin properly?"</p> + +<p>All the others looked toward Margery, feeling that as it was her +expedition, it was for her to do the honors.</p> + +<p>Margery gladly slipped down on her feet.</p> + +<p>"This is Beatrice Lane; we call her Trix," she began.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean made a profound bow.</p> + +<p>"And the name suits her, if one may judge by appearances," he said.</p> + +<p>"And this is Amy Tracy, and my cousin, Jack Hildreth."</p> + +<p>"And you?" suggested Mr. Dean. "I should like to call you something +too."</p> + +<p>"I am Margaret Gresham," said Margery, blushing.</p> + +<p>"I think you would be much more comfortable if you would take this +low chair that my grandmother embroidered, rather than perch on that +abominable sofa again," said her host, handing Margery a small ebony +chair with a carved back and a seat of faded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> satin embroidered with +flowers dim with time.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Margery, with profound inward gratitude. "It seems a +pity to sit on it if your grandmother embroidered it."</p> + +<p>"It has been used a great many times, and was made for another +Margaret, who for many years has been out of the world where things +grow old and fade," replied Mr. Dean. "My father had a sister who died +when she was just sixteen. This chair, I have been told, grandmother +embroidered for her on her fifteenth birthday."</p> + +<p>"How lovely to have it still!" said Margery, rising to look at the +flowers again. "I am not eleven yet—not till October."</p> + +<p>"That is a great age," said Mr. Dean, smiling. "And now you really do +not know how glad I am that you came to-day. I was feeling a trifle +blue, and wondering if I should be lonely all my life, and just then +the bell rang, and four good fairies appeared. By the way," he added, +starting up boyishly, "suppose we go into the garden? Sheila can come +there; I dare not let her in here for fear of my housekeeper. She is a +little woman, and I am a big man, but I am afraid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> of her. You see she +was my old nurse, and I got into the habit of minding her when I was +small. I think that she makes pretty good cake, though I am not the +judge of cake that I was when I was younger. If you will go into the +garden I'll ask her to give us some, and get your opinion."</p> + +<p>He led the way through the side door, and the children found themselves +at once in such a dear old garden that four "Ah's!" of satisfaction +arose.</p> + +<p>"What a beautiful, lovely old garden!" cried Trix. "It is as nice as +Miss Isabel's."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean turned quickly.</p> + +<p>"Do you know Miss Isabel?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Know her!" cried Jack. "She's our best friend."</p> + +<p>"And she's lovelier than any one else in all the world," added Trix, +with defiance in her voice, remembering who he was and for what he +might be there. But Margery kept her big gray eyes fastened on his +face, and saw the color come there and his eyes grow moist.</p> + +<p>"So she is, Beatrice," he said. "You are fortunate to have her +friendship."</p> + +<p>Something in his voice melted all Mar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>gery's distrust; she slipped her +hand confidingly into his.</p> + +<p>"We love her more than all the world," she said softly. "We have a +club, and her name in the club is Alma Cara."</p> + +<p>Some sure instinct always led little Margery to divine the right and +kindest thing to do. Mr. Dean looked down on her pale face and earnest +eyes.</p> + +<p>"And I believe you are the one who named her," he said. And from that +moment, though he grew to be very fond of the three other children, +Margery was his especial pet and friend.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean left them after this, and returned, bringing the cake and +Sheila. The little dog was introduced to Jack in proper form, shook +hands with each of her guests, walking over to them on her hind legs to +do so, and graciously accepted cake from the children, first sniffing +each piece cautiously, like the dainty, well-fed creature that she was.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean touched Amy's badge inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"Might one ask what that means?" he said.</p> + +<p>"It's a secret," began Amy, looking hesitatingly at the others.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"But I think we could tell Mr. Dean, couldn't we?" suggested Margery.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied all the other members of the club promptly. There was +no question but that the investigating committee had made up its mind, +individually and collectively, to a favorable report on the stranger.</p> + +<p>"It is the Happy Thought Club," explained Amy, indicating the initials +on her badge; "and we have a post-office."</p> + +<p>And each adding a bit of information, the story of the post-office was +told him. Mr. Dean laughed heartily over the names.</p> + +<p>"What fun you must have!" he exclaimed. "If I come to return your call, +will you show me the post-office?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," cried Margery. "I am post-mistress this week. And, you know, +we have one honorary member, and she's Miss Isabel, and her name is +the Lady Alma Cara. No matter what we do, we always have Miss Isabel, +because we can't get on without her."</p> + +<p>"It is not easy, my little maid, to get on without Miss Isabel," said +Mr. Dean gently. "What would you do if you could not see her, or speak +to her, or write to her for ten year?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We wouldn't stand it: we will always keep her," cried Trix, firing up, +and regarding this as a direct threat from him whom she was still ready +to regard as an enemy. But Margery understood.</p> + +<p>"I'd hardly be able to breathe," she said pityingly, laying her hand on +her new friend's coat-sleeve; "but I'd know it would be better by and +by."</p> + +<p>"You dear little atom," said Mr. Dean, putting his hand on her dark +hair, "it is no wonder that you at least have a white dove on your +badge."</p> + +<p>In a moment Mr. Dean spoke again, quite cheerfully:</p> + +<p>"Now I have been thinking of something while we have been sitting here. +I cannot tell how long I shall be at the Evergreens; it may be all +summer, it may not be a month. It depends on whether I succeed in what +I came to do. I should like to see as much of you as I can while I am +here; do you suppose that if I asked you to tea some day before long +you would all come?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir; we'd like to, if we may," said all four children +heartily.</p> + +<p>"I think that your mothers will allow it," said Mr. Dean. "You see you +do not know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> me, nor I you, because you were all babies when I went +away from here, but I knew your mothers and fathers. Now are you not +surprised?"</p> + +<p>Jack blushed painfully, but Trix said, with great presence of mind:</p> + +<p>"I don't think that I ever heard them speak of you."</p> + +<p>"Very likely not——" Mr. Dean was beginning, when Amy interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"We were afraid of you," she said, in spite of the warning kicks and +frowns of the others. Amy had a tendency to frankness that was at times +wholly uncontrollable. "We had heard from Trix's waitress, Katie, that +you had the evil eye and your house-keeper was a witch, so the day +before yesterday, when Sheila found us, we were hiding in the grass to +see if you were so bad."</p> + +<p>The others watched Mr. Dean anxiously to see what effect this dreadful +revelation of Amy's might have, and were relieved when he threw back +his head and laughed merrily.</p> + +<p>"Well done!" he cried. "I had no idea that I was alarming the +neighborhood. I am glad that you decided in my favor, as I suppose you +did, since you came to see me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; don't mind that nonsense," said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> Trix, and Margery, rising to +go, held out her hand, saying, "I think we shall be real friends."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," replied Mr. Dean, bowing over her little fingers as if, as +Trix afterwards remarked, "she had really been the Lady Griselda of the +Castle."</p> + +<p>"Good-by," said the children; "we've had a beautiful time. Come and see +us, and we'll show you our post-office."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, my dears; thank you for coming, and come often," said Mr. +Dean, as he held the garden gate open for them, and watched them go +away, while Sheila "shook a day-day with her tail," as Amy said.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think?" asked Trix, as they walked towards Miss +Isabel's, whom they had not seen for four whole days, because she had +been away.</p> + +<p>"He's all right," said Jack comprehensively.</p> + +<p>"I think he's nice," said Amy emphatically.</p> + +<p>"He's the nicest man, except my father, I ever saw," announced Trix.</p> + +<p>Margery sighed gently.</p> + +<p>"I like him," she said, "and I'm sorry for him, because I think he's +lonely and feels sad. He's most as nice for a man as Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> Isabel is +for a lady." And praise could go no further.</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel welcomed her fellow-members of the club heartily.</p> + +<p>"We've something very interesting to tell you," said Amy, the moment +the salutations were over.</p> + +<p>"I am all attention," said Miss Isabel, coming to sit down before them.</p> + +<p>"We've been making a call at the Dismals, on Mr. Dean," said Trix.</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel sprang up again and went to the window.</p> + +<p>"And he's very nice, Miss Isabel," added Margery conscientiously. "We +were afraid of him because we heard that he was a robber, or had the +evil eye. So we went to see, and it isn't any of it true, and to-day we +went to call on him, and we're going to take tea with him soon. He's +kind, and he has the loveliest little dog, and he seems not very happy, +and we're sorry, because he's nice."</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel turned and came back to them.</p> + +<p>"And what about the post-office?" she asked, ignoring the new +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Trix and Jack stared, Margery looked hurt, and Amy murmured in helpless +bewilderment:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's very well, thank you."</p> + +<p>Suddenly Jack brightened.</p> + +<p>"Were you thinking what I was?" he asked. "You know I could easily move +those partitions over in the lower row of the post-office, to make it +hold another box like the upper row."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I don't understand, Jack," said Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p>"Why, then we could ask Mr. Dean to be an honorary member, too," +explained Jack.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" cried the three girls.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he'd be delighted; he seemed so interested in the office," +said Amy.</p> + +<p>"Should you mind?" asked Trix. "May we?" while Margery said nothing, +but looked eager.</p> + +<p>"My dear children, you may do anything you like, and will you do one +favor for me?" said Miss Isabel. "If it is not too much trouble, will +one of you bring my mail to me every day? It is getting so warm, I +shall not feel like going down."</p> + +<p>"Why, we'd love to," they all cried.</p> + +<p>"Let me do it all the time," begged Jack.</p> + +<p>"You will all come; I want you all," said Miss Isabel, rising. "You +won't mind if I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> say good-by? I—I feel tired. Good-night, dears; come +back as soon as you can."</p> + +<p>She kissed each one lovingly, but there was no mistaking the fact that +she was impatient to be left alone.</p> + +<p>The children went down the street in wondering silence, which Amy was +the first to break.</p> + +<p>"Miss Isabel's sick," she said.</p> + +<p>"She didn't care one bit about our visit to the Dismals," said Trix.</p> + +<p>"And she always cared for everything we cared for," complained Jack. +"She's not one bit like our Miss Isabel; I guess she thinks Mr. Dean's +bad."</p> + +<p>"No," said Margery decidedly; "Miss Isabel's good to bad people. Never +mind; she loves us just as much. I think Miss Isabel's not happy +to-day. I wonder why nice people are not always happy? Now, I'm sure +Mr. Dean's nice, but he seems sad, and to-night our dear Miss Isabel's +troubled. We'll ask Mr. Dean to join the post-office—that was a good +idea, Jack—and then he won't be so lonely, and we'll love all Miss +Isabel's troubles away. Oh, dear," sighed Margery wistfully, "I'd like +to make the whole world happy."</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2> + +<h2>A NEW MEMBER.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Dean</span> returned the children's visit without loss of time. +He found them assembled in Mr. Gresham's orchard, and was given the +seat of honor on an old stump, while he was shown the beauties of +the post-office. His admiration for this institution satisfied even +the children's enthusiasm, and when it had been exhibited from every +possible point of view, Margery turned to Amy and said:</p> + +<p>"Tell him."</p> + +<p>"No, you tell him," said Amy.</p> + +<p>"Jack ought to tell him," said Trix, "because he thought of it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, tell, Jack," echoed Margery and Amy.</p> + +<p>"Now what is this mystery?" asked Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing much," Jack replied, blushing furiously. "You see I +thought—we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> thought that you might like—oh, I mean maybe you'd be +another honorary member."</p> + +<p>"Of the post-office, the H. T. C.?" asked Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>Jack nodded. "If you don't think we're too little for you," he added.</p> + +<p>"I should be delighted," replied Mr. Dean, rising to bow. "It is rather +if you don't think I am too big for you. But I'll tell you a secret. I +grew up outside, but inside I stayed a boy—do you see?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see," cried Amy. "What a lovely way to grow up! I mean to be a +woman that way, too."</p> + +<p>"That's like Miss Isabel," remarked Trix, but Jack, with an eye solely +on the business in hand, said:</p> + +<p>"We'd like lots to have you join if you will."</p> + +<p>"I feel honored, and I accept with much gratitude," said Mr. Dean, and +even Trix's sharp eyes, which were always on the watch lest she were +laughed at, could see nothing but pleasure in his face.</p> + +<p>"Now you'll have to choose a name," cried Amy, jumping around in high +glee.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean considered a moment. "I think, on the whole, Oliver Twist +would be an ap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>propriate name for me this summer," he said, with +humorous melancholy.</p> + +<p>"Oliver Twist? What is that? Sir Oliver Twist, or plain Mr. Oliver +Twist?" asked Trix.</p> + +<p>"Are none of you plain Mr. or Miss; are you all a knight or lady?" Mr. +Dean inquired.</p> + +<p>"No; Amy is Mrs. Peace Plenty, but the rest of us are lady, and Jack is +Sir Harry Hotspur," answered Margery gravely.</p> + +<p>"And your Miss Isabel?" suggested Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she is Lady Alma Cara; it would never do for her to be plain +<i>Mrs.</i>," said Trix.</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," assented Mr. Dean, with a queer little quirk of the +lip. "I like 'plain Mrs.' rather well myself sometimes, however. But I +shall have to be just Mr. Oliver Twist; it would never do to turn poor +hungry Oliver into a knight. Amy and I will be the every-day people, +while you others do the nobility for us. And I should like to know when +you are all coming to take tea with me? Will the day after to-morrow +suit you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, thank you," replied the children.</p> + +<p>"Then that's settled. And, Jack, do you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> know a boy who would go +fishing with me to-morrow after school?"</p> + +<p>"I think I do," said Jack, looking up with a beaming face.</p> + +<p>"Then will that boy come along with me now, and get his mother's +permission to go?" inquired Mr. Dean, rising. "And, by the way, at what +time do we come for our mail?"</p> + +<p>"We came at first before school," said Trix, "but it made us so late +that now we come after school, when Miss Isabel used to come."</p> + +<p>"Does Miss Isabel usually come at this hour?" asked Mr. Dean, brushing +his hat carefully.</p> + +<p>"She's not coming at all now," said Amy. "It's getting so warm, she +says, that she would like us to bring her mail to her."</p> + +<p>Something like a shadow crept over Mr. Dean's face; Margery thought +that he looked hurt.</p> + +<p>"We are to take her mail to her in turn; we agreed to that," she said, +coming close to him. "We'll all take turns going."</p> + +<p>He smiled at her sadly.</p> + +<p>"All of you whom she wishes to see," he said. "Good-by till the day +after to-mor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>row, then, and thank you for this honor more than I can +say. Come along, Jack."</p> + +<p>Trix watched them enviously as they disappeared.</p> + +<p>"That's why I hate to be a girl," she said. "No one thinks you ever +want to go fishing, and I love it just as much as Jack does."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he splendid!" cried the other two, disregarding her woes, and +she cheered up in agreeing with them.</p> + +<p>The tea was a delightful occasion, and the new member proved an +acquisition beyond words, for now there frequently appeared in the +boxes a card signifying that there was a parcel too big to go into the +box, which might be had on inquiry of the postmaster. The new member +devised this plan, and he was generally the sender of the parcels. +These varied in contents from delicious candy, plants, books, toys, and +all sorts of treasures, to six downy ducklings sent to Margery because +she had expressed a desire to have some.</p> + +<p>This funny parcel was considered by the others as a good joke, but +Margery took it seriously, and her gratitude was unbounded.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Twist," she wrote in acknowledgment. "I cannot tell you how +much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> pleased I am. If there is anything I can do to show you how much +I like my lovely little ducks, and how I thank you, tell me what it is, +and I will do it."</p> + +<p>The reply came the next morning, and Margery found herself taken rather +painfully at her word.</p> + +<p>"Most Noble Lady Griselda of the Castle of the Lonely Lake," it ran. +"There is a favor which I could receive at the hands of your ladyship +which would give me the keenest pleasure, and your generous offer makes +me bold to ask it. I have heard that you write poems. Will you be so +very kind as to send me some of your work through the post-office? I +should be most grateful for the favor, and treasure the poems as a +precious memento of your ladyship's goodness."</p> + +<p>This letter threw Margery into an agony of excitement.</p> + +<p>"Who told him?" she demanded sternly, looking with dilated eyes over +the edge of the missive.</p> + +<p>"I may have just mentioned that you wrote poetry that day that we went +fishing," said Jack sheepishly. "What's the harm, Peggy?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, what's the harm?" echoed Amy, who was much impressed by the +request. "You do write poetry, and it's lovely."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be a goose, Margery; there's no harm in Mr. Dean knowing +about it," said Trix. "Anyway, he does know, and you've got to send him +some, so what shall it be?"</p> + +<p>"I have to do it, but I don't like to," sighed Margery, tasting the +trials of geniuses with indiscreet friends. "What shall I send him?"</p> + +<p>"'The Knight,'" said Jack promptly.</p> + +<p>"'Rome,'" said Trix.</p> + +<p>"'Rome' is unfinished," objected Margery.</p> + +<p>"'Millie Maloe,'" said Amy.</p> + +<p>"I'll send 'The Knight' and 'Millie Maloe,'" Margery decided, and the +next morning's mail contained a thick letter for Mr. Oliver Twist.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Twist," this letter ran, "the Lady Griselda of the Castle +of the Lonely Lake sends two poems to you, as you asked her to. She +hopes you will excuse mistakes in 'Millie Maloe,' because she was only +eight years old when she wrote it, and 'The Knight' one she wrote last +spring; and I am sorry Jack told you, because I don't like to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> be +silly, but she is glad to do anything to please you because you are so +good to us."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">MILLIE MALOE.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All alone she is wandering,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All alone in the snow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lost in the pathless forest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Poor little Millie Maloe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The tall tress shake able her,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the winds whistle and sigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And poor little Millie is shiv'ring,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And she thinks she's going to die;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And she falls asleep on the dry leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Covered o'er with snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But is waked by darling Rover—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah, happy Millie Maloe!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The dog is bending o'er her,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a sleigh is drawing near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon she's with her father,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who clasps his baby dear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">THE KNIGHT.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In a nameless grave does the good knight rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He has fought for the cross, and so he is blest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far away, in a castle grim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His wife watcheth and prayeth for him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her baby son around her plays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tosses the beads while she prays.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A message comes from the Holy War<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathing of love for the son he ne'er saw.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Days after another one comes—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He's dead! "God pity the sorrowing ones."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> +<p>The Lady Griselda received a polite note of thanks for the favor thus +shown Mr. Oliver Twist, and the matter was forgotten.</p> + +<p>School closed, and the fresh warmth of June gave place to the fierce +heat of July. Gentle Miss Isabel was ailing, and the children divided +their time between her and their new friend. Even Jack, who was less +observant than the girls, discovered that though no subject was as +welcome to Mr. Dean as whatever they might have to say of Miss Isabel, +she did not care to hear them talk of Mr. Dean, and it puzzled them +sorely to account for such hardness of heart in her who never before +failed to throw herself wholly into their interests.</p> + +<p>It was an unusually burning day, the sun beating down with terrible +heat, and not a breath stirring the drooping leaves, when Trix, who +was postmistress that week, handed a magazine to Margery with her +other mail. It was from Mr. Oliver Twist, and she tore off the wrapper +hastily, for everything from him was sure to be interesting.</p> + +<p>It was a child's magazine, and as she turned its pages she stopped +suddenly, and grew so pale that Amy dropped her doll, to the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +danger of its precious nose, and flew with Trix to her side.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" they cried.</p> + +<p>"Look!" gasped Margery.</p> + +<p>They followed her finger pointing, and there in the glory of type was +"Millie Maloe" and "The Knight," signed with her own name—Margaret +Gresham.</p> + +<p>The girls nearly fell over in their wonder and awe, and Margery looked +so white and excited that they really feared she would faint.</p> + +<p>"Jack, come here!" cried Trix and Amy, waving their hands wildly to +Jack, who appeared that moment in the gate. "Hurry! oh, hurry!"</p> + +<p>Jack ran over to them.</p> + +<p>"What's up?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Dean's sent Margery's poetry to the magazine. Look at it!" cried +Trix, snatching the magazine from the hands of the dazed authoress.</p> + +<p>"Oh, jolly me!" cried Jack, much impressed. "Why, you're a writer now, +like—like—oh, those people what write poetry for the papers."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to find mamma," said Margery, rising in solemn ecstasy; "and +then I'm going to thank him."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> + +<p>Having rejoiced her family with a glimpse of her greatness, Margery +went forth, attended by her admiring cousin and friends. First they +went to the Evergreens—they had determined never to call the place +"the Dismals" again, since it had become so pleasant to them, and, they +wakened Mr. Dean from the nap into which he had fallen over his book, +overcome by the great heat.</p> + +<p>"You are very good to me; I came to thank you," said Margery simply, +kissing him as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Did you like it, little white dove?" he asked, taking the poetess on +his knee. "You are such a grave dove, and so still when you feel glad +or sorry that it is hard telling when you are pleased."</p> + +<p>"I like it <i>very</i> much," said Margery earnestly—"I like it more than I +can say, and when I grow up I mean to write all the time."</p> + +<p>And there was told the secret that Margery had never uttered, for she +did not tell her dreams as the others did.</p> + +<p>"We are going now to show the magazine to Miss Isabel," said Margery, +slipping down.</p> + +<p>"To Miss Isabel?" repeated Mr. Dean.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> "Let me tell you something. I am +going away."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried four pained voices.</p> + +<p>"Yes," continued Mr. Dean, "I mean to go next week. You are sorry, my +dear little club, and I am sorry to leave you. You tried to make me +live in Blissylvania, but it has been no use. I am going away."</p> + +<p>"Oh! not forever," cried Trix, while Amy's lips quivered, and Jack +stooped to lace his boot.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean did not answer.</p> + +<p>"You'll all write me, and we shall be friends wherever I am," he said +instead.</p> + +<p>But Margery, unstrung by her previous joy and this keen sorrow, threw +her magazine from her in a passion of tears. "You shan't go, you can't +go!" she screamed. "What's the use of being famous, or writing poetry, +or doing anything, if you can't have the people you love?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean gathered her up, hushing her like a baby.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, my little Margery," he said. "I have been trying to +answer that question, but I can't."</p> + +<p>They were four tear-stained and swollen faces that appeared before Miss +Isabel a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> later. The joy of seeing Margery's verses in print +was forgotten in their sorrow over their threatened loss. Miss Isabel +rejoiced at Margery's glory, but her words awoke no enthusiasm in +return.</p> + +<p>"You'll be glad," said Amy, almost bitterly, "so I suppose I'd better +tell you why we don't care any more about the verses. Mr. Dean's going +away."</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel flushed and grew pale.</p> + +<p>"Why should I be glad if you feel badly?" she asked gently. "I am sorry +for you, for I think that you were having good times with him."</p> + +<p>"It's not that, Miss Isabel," said Margery, with indignant vigor. "We +love him."</p> + +<p>And Miss Isabel kissed her.</p> + +<p>"It's very strange," remarked Trix on the way home, "how if you have +one thing you can't have another. We got the post-office and Mr. Dean, +but Miss Isabel's been so queer all summer, it's been almost like not +having her. And now Margery's poems are published Mr. Dean is going +away. I think everything is crooked, and I don't know whether we're +having a good time this summer or not, in spite of the post-office and +all our fun."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Margery walked on in a brown study, so lost to her surroundings that +she ran into Butcher Davis's big Newfoundland dog, which always sat in +the middle of the sidewalk, and would not have moved if the President +and the Queen had come along arm in arm, and she begged his pardon, to +the amusement of the other three.</p> + +<p>"I thought he was some one else," she said, arousing herself, while +Jack shouted with laughter.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Megsy; writing another poem?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I won't tell you," she said. "I've had an idea."</p> + +<p>"Tell us; how queer you look!" cried Trix, giving her a little shake of +impatience.</p> + +<p>"I won't tell any one on earth; so there!" said Margery, with entire +decision. "I want you all to make a novena for me, and begin right off +to-night. I want you to pray for my plan, but I won't tell you what it +is."</p> + +<p>"Have you a plan, Margery?" asked Amy, who regarded Margery as a +superior being, whose thoughts were beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've a plan," replied Margery.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2> + +<h2>MARGERY'S PLAN.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning Margery ate her breakfast of rolls and a +bowl of blueberries and milk without in the least realizing what she +put into her mouth. Her family was used to her abstractions, which +usually ended in the announcement of some wonderful discovery or new +verses, and paid no attention to her far-away look on this particular +morning. She did her practising as faithfully as ever, but with such +evident forgetfulness of what she was about that her mother came all +the way down-stairs to ask her to defer it to another time, when her +thoughts should be untangled. Accordingly she arose and went up-stairs, +brushed her hair, and braided it with great care, donned her clean blue +chambray with her favorite white ruffles, and went forth in solemn +excitement towards the Evergreens, to unfold her plan to Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>She found him in the library putting his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> books and magazines in a +case, in view of his coming departure. Margery's face clouded at the +sight, but brightened again when she remembered that she had come to +stay him.</p> + +<p>"Why, what brings you so early, little dove?" asked Mr. Dean, brushing +the dust from his knees as he rose to welcome her. "And all alone? How +is it that you have flown away with none of your flock?"</p> + +<p>"I did not want the rest," replied Margery. "I came to see you about +something important."</p> + +<p>"And I am very glad to have you all to myself," said her friend. "Come +here, and sit by me on the sofa. You will not slip off of this one as +you do from that slippery hair-cloth thing in the parlor. Now, what +is the great matter that you have to tell me? Anything wrong with the +post-office?"</p> + +<p>Margery arranged herself beside him on the sofa, crossed her ankles, +smoothed her dress, clasped her hands in her lap, and immediately +unclasped them to remove her hat, folded them again, and was ready to +begin.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Margery, "I was thinking about your going away, and +about Miss Isabel."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean looked rather startled.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That is a queer subject for your thoughts, Margery," he said.</p> + +<p>"I think that you are sorry that you are not friends with Miss Isabel," +Margery continued.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry that I am not friends with Miss Isabel," Mr. Dean +repeated gravely.</p> + +<p>"Now I think Miss Isabel doesn't know," said Margery.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't know what, little dove?" Mr. Dean asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but she doesn't know something," Margery replied. +"Miss Isabel's this way: if anybody does anything she doesn't like, +she always forgives them right away, before they ask her to, and if +anybody's bad she says maybe they aren't what they seem. Now you're +nice, and yet you're the only one she acts so queer about. I've puzzled +and puzzled over it, and I can't see why it is, but I know she doesn't +understand. I think you're friends all the time, only it's all horrid."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Dean, smiling a little, "I think it's rather horrid +myself."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Margery. "Now why don't you send her a letter through +our post<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>office, and tell her how badly it makes us all feel?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean sat up straight, and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"I never once thought of the little post-office!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"You're both members," Margery went on, "and you're the only ones who +haven't written to each other. Now don't you think Miss Isabel would +be pleased if you wrote her through our little post-office? Maybe she +feels slighted."</p> + +<p>"Margery, it's an inspiration," cried Mr. Dean. "And I could address it +to Miss Alma Cara."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you'd have to, because that's her post-office name, only it's +not <i>Miss</i>, it's <i>Lady</i> Alma Cara. And you know it would be all part of +our play, and yet it wouldn't, because it's dreadful not to be friends +with people; but she wouldn't mind so much if you wrote her that way."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean was walking up and down the room by this time, and he came +over and stood before Margery.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear that Solomon was a little girl before he grew up?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"I never heard about Solomon when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> was little, but I guess he was a +little boy," replied Margery.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am sure that he was a little girl with a pale face and blue +dress, and that some good fairy made him into a king when he was big +enough, and the same good fairy brought him here to me to-day, once +more in the form of a little girl," said Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>Margery laughed.</p> + +<p>"Do you think it is a good plan?" she asked delightedly.</p> + +<p>"Good plan, Margery?" cried Mr. Dean. "Solomon himself could have +thought of no wiser. I'll try it, and you will carry Miss Isabel the +letter." He took her face in his hands and kissed her hair. "You dear +little soul," he said, "I think that you will grow up a second Miss +Isabel."</p> + +<p>And Margery felt that in all her life she could never again have such +praise as this.</p> + +<p>"Will you write it soon?" she asked, putting on her hat, and pulling +its elastic from the ribbon on the end of her braid.</p> + +<p>"You'll find the letter in to-morrow morning's mail," replied Mr. Dean. +"I shall be in more of a hurry about it than you are."</p> + +<p>"And if you and Miss Isabel were friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> you wouldn't go away, would +you?" asked Margery wistfully, turning back in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"In that case I promise to stay—oh, no one knows how long," said Mr. +Dean; and Margery ran down the walk with hope and joy speeding her +steps.</p> + +<p>She found Tommy Traddles watching for her return, for he was devoted to +his little mistress, and sat at the door on the lookout, and crying for +her when she was out, which was proof that she made life pleasant for +him when she was at home, for if any animal appreciates being treated +with attention it is the cat. He arose, welcoming her with loud mews, +alternating with the softest murmurs, and jumping up on a table, where +he could rub his head against her cheek, and give her hands sundry pats +with his white paws. Then he ran away and hid behind the door, solely +for the pleasure of jumping out at her, and then waited for her to +hide, which she did behind the sofa, and when she cried "Coop!" Tommy +Traddles came creeping softly to look for her, and when he found her, +sprang up on the sofa, and gave her a pat, instantly running away to +hide himself, as if he said, "Now you're <i>it</i>; come find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> me." When +hide-and-seek grew tiresome, Tommy Traddles went to get the stick which +was his favorite plaything, and brought it to Margery in his teeth, +laying it at her feet, and rubbing his head against her, and making the +most coaxing murmurs to induce her to whisk it about for him to run +after. Margery never could resist his pleadings, and cat and child had +a delightful frolic until both curled up on the big sofa, and fell into +a long summer noonday sleep.</p> + +<p>The afternoon seemed interminable to Margery, so full of impatience +was she for the hour when her plan should be carried out. Jack, +Trix, and Amy came over for three-cornered puss-in-the-corner and +old-man-among-your-castle after tea, which helped her through the few +hours that lay between then and bed-time.</p> + +<p>When her friends had gone Margery slipped down into the orchard, +through the wet grass, regardless of low shoes and damp ankles. She +opened the drop-box—it was her turn to be postmistress—and thrust her +hand down to the bottom. One letter was there, a big, thick one. She +took it out; yes, she was right. Even by the starlight she recognized +Mr. Dean's fine, clear hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> While they were playing he had come in +the orchard gate and posted it.</p> + +<p>She ran with it to the house, but she knew before she held it under +the gaslight that she should find it addressed to Lady Alma Cara, +Blissylvania, New York.</p> + +<p>"Now if only Miss Isabel will forgive him, and he can stay here, and we +can all be friends," thought the little conspirator.</p> + +<p>She took the letter to her own room and put it under her pillow. The +moon peeped in a little later and saw a small figure in its white night +dress kneeling by the bed, and praying very hard for the success of the +plan that might give happiness to the two friends whom Margery loved +best. It was long before she went to sleep, and when she did it was +to dream that Tommy Traddles had joined the club, and that instead of +wearing the dove badge, he had two white wings growing from his striped +back, and was flying over the orchard to take Mr. Dean a message +from the President, saying that he had been appointed postmaster of +Blissylvania, at Miss Isabel's request. And all night long she wakened +at intervals to slip her hand under the pillow to make sure that the +plump letter was still safe.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2> + +<h2>ONE HONORARY MEMBER TO THE OTHER HONORARY MEMBER.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Tommy Traddles</span> was aroused from his morning nap by the shock +of seeing his little mistress appear at half-past five all dressed and +ready for the day. He welcomed her with his usual salutation of soft +murmurs, rubbing his head against her, which she interpreted to mean on +this occasion, "Why are you dressed so early?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't sleep, Tommy," Margery answered; "I have so much on my +mind."</p> + +<p>By six the entire household was awake, for Margery began to practise +energetically, that there should be no hindrance to her starting to +take the letter to Miss Isabel as soon as breakfast was over.</p> + +<p>Mary, Miss Isabel's old servant, told Margery that Miss Isabel was in +the garden, and the little girl ran quickly through the big hall and +down the box-bordered paths to find her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Isabel was watering and tending her lilies. She looked pale +and ill as she bent over the tall stalks, in her white morning +gown, dusting the glossy leaves, and showering them from her little +watering-pot. Margery thought that she had never seen her beloved Miss +Isabel look so weary and sad, and fear for her health for a moment +drove all thought of the letter from her mind.</p> + +<p>"Dear Miss Isabel, are you ill?" she cried, running to throw her arms +around her.</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel brightened as she turned to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Why, my Margaret!" she cried; "you startled me! What a very early bird +you are! No, I am not ill, only a trifle tired, and perhaps a little +sad."</p> + +<p>This recalled Margery to her errand.</p> + +<p>"I brought you a letter, Lady Alma Cara," she said.</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel set down the watering-pot, and put out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Was it a special delivery that you came so early?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I think it was," said Margery, "though it was not marked."</p> + +<p>Suddenly Miss Isabel dropped her shears and sponge, and sat down on the +old gray<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> stone bench, beside which the lilies grew white and stately; +they were not as white as Miss Isabel's face as she looked at Margery.</p> + +<p>"What is this, Margery?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Dean wrote it," began Margery, very much frightened. "He is going +away, and we can't bear it, and he wants you to be friends, and so +do we, for then he would stay, and he has told you all about it, so +that you'll be nice to him, as you are to everybody else, even—even +<i>worms</i>," said Margery, inspired to this comparison by looking down at +the lilies' roots. "Please, <i>please</i> don't be angry with him any more, +Miss Isabel. You're the nicest of anybody in the whole world, except +mamma, and he's the next nicest."</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel was sobbing.</p> + +<p>"Go back, dear Margery," she whispered. "You must go away now."</p> + +<p>Margery was dreadfully frightened. She knelt at Miss Isabel's feet, and +pulled her hands from before her face, peering under a lily to look at +her.</p> + +<p>"Are you angry?" she implored. "Only tell me that; are you angry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Isabel, suddenly laugh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>ing in a queer sobbing way; +"why didn't you bring this letter before?"</p> + +<p>And Margery went away, pondering over this incomprehensible answer. As +she walked slowly down the street she saw Trix and Amy coming to meet +her. Trix's face was tragic; her cheeks were crimson, her lips set, her +brow dark, and her eyes full of dumb misery. Amy's comfortable, rosy +little countenance was stamped with sympathetic sorrow. Margery saw +that something dreadful must have happened.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" she called out, as soon as they could hear, +running to receive the answer.</p> + +<p>"I have been sent with a note to your house, and I'm to stay with you +all day till three, and if I go out I'm not to go near home," replied +Trix in an awful tone.</p> + +<p>"Going to spend the day? I'm glad. What's the matter, Trix, that you +look so solemn," asked Margery.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know what that means?" demanded Trix, in such a +horror-stricken manner that Margery trembled and shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, then," said Trix. "You know mamma fell down-stairs +three weeks ago and sprained her ankle?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, I know that," said Margery.</p> + +<p>"Well, the doctors are coming to-day to cut her leg off," declared +Trix, and Margery gasped, as did Amy, though she had been told this +before.</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" demanded Margery, recovering from the shock.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure of it," Trix replied. "I've heard how they do those things. +They send the children out of the way always, and mamma thought I would +never guess, and it would be easier for me to come home and find her +leg gone than to be there and smell the ether and hear her groan, and I +<i>know</i> that's it, and I shall die, I shall die!"</p> + +<p>Margery and Amy looked at each other, feeling helpless in the face of +such a calamity as this.</p> + +<p>"Did you say anything to my mother?" Margery asked at last.</p> + +<p>"No, I gave her mamma's note, and that will tell her," said Trix. "I +didn't want her to know I knew, because they were trying to keep it a +secret from me."</p> + +<p>"It's awful!" shuddered Margery. "You'd better come home with me, Trix, +and we'll try to do something to forget it."</p> + +<p>"Forget it!" cried Trix, turning on her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> indignantly, as they began +to walk onward. "Do you think you could forget it if you knew those +horrid doctors were cutting off your mother's leg, and she had to go on +crutches forever? Perhaps they're coming with their knives this minute."</p> + +<p>Margery looked faint, Amy began to sob, and Trix quivered from head to +foot.</p> + +<p>"We shall all go crazy if we think of it," said Margery, bracing +herself. "It may not be that at all."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I know it is," asserted Trix, so confidently that Margery +yielded the point.</p> + +<p>"Well, come home, and don't let us talk of it," she said. "I know some +people walk very nicely with crutches, and it doesn't hurt to have a +leg taken off, because they use ether."</p> + +<p>But there was no consoling Trix, and the task of entertaining her +proved a heavy one. Jack came, and heard the story with so much +excitement that the others were wrought to a higher pitch than ever.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be a doctor myself when I grow up," he announced. Jack +would have had more lives than a cat to follow half the callings that +at different times he thought that he should like to follow. "I'd like +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> cut off legs. Now, don't you fret, Trix; your mother'll be all +right in a few days, and crutches would only be fun. Think how fast I +can go on stilts, and that must be about a million times harder, for +you don't have even one foot on the ground. I've thought of a good +play. We'll pretend this house is a castle besieged by the enemy, and +I'll be a scout. I'll go around by Trix's house every half hour, and +come back to let you know how it looks."</p> + +<p>This idea was hailed with rapture, and was about to be carried out, but +just as Jack had reached the front gate Mrs. Gresham's voice was heard +from the window.</p> + +<p>"Jack! Jack!" she called.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt Margaret," replied Jack, pausing.</p> + +<p>"If you are going out, don't go near Mrs. Lane's house," said his aunt.</p> + +<p>So that plan was never fulfilled. Luncheon made one of the hours +pass a little better, but after luncheon Trix's restlessness became +uncontrollable. She wandered in and out of the house; she accepted +Amy's proposition to make a visit to the church and pray for her +mother, but, as Amy remarked, "did not seem to feel any better after +it." She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> quarrelled with Jack, and almost fell out with Margery, for +she teased Tommy Traddles till that confiding cat fled in terror, and +altogether led her friends such a life that no prisoners could long +for freedom more eagerly than they longed for three o'clock to come. +It never occurred to one of the four to lay their trouble before Mrs. +Gresham, and she being busy did not discover its symptoms. Children +are such queer little beings that they will sometimes suffer all sorts +of misery without a word, and in this case the feeling that there was +a secret to be kept from them made them unwilling to betray their +knowledge of it.</p> + +<p>At last it was ten minutes to three, and Trix could go. Amy, Margery, +and Jack accompanied her.</p> + +<p>"I don't smell ether," remarked Amy as they went in the door.</p> + +<p>Katie, smiling with all her might, showed them into the parlor. Mrs. +Lane, looking very bright and happy, stood by the window; she turned at +once, and came swiftly forward to meet the children.</p> + +<p>"Look, Trix!" she said, and pointed to a piano standing in all the +glory of new polish over at the end of the room.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For me!" gasped Trix.</p> + +<p>"Yes, for you. You see now why I sent you off," said her mother. "I +didn't want you to see it until it was all in place."</p> + +<p>Trix had longed for a new piano, but she did not know whether to be +glad or sorry; the revulsion of feeling was too strong.</p> + +<p>"And you didn't have your leg cut off, after all?" asked Jack.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," said Mrs. Lane in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Trix thought you were having your leg cut off, and that was why you +sent her away," explained Margery. "We've had an awful day."</p> + +<p>"You poor, poor child!" cried her mother, taking Trix in her lap, in +spite of her great length. "Why didn't you tell Mrs. Gresham?"</p> + +<p>And for the first time in that hard day Trix burst out crying, though +she explained that it was because she was so glad.</p> + +<p>"To think that we've had such a dreadful day for nothing," said Jack, +in profound disgust, as they left the house.</p> + +<p>"Why, Jack Hildreth, I'm ashamed of you; one might think you were sorry +that Mrs. Lane wasn't a cripple," cried his cousin.</p> + +<p>The children parted at their respective<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> homes, and Margery went around +by the orchard to look at the post-office, for throughout the troublous +day she had not forgotten her anxiety as to Miss Isabel and the letter. +She met Miss Isabel coming out of the gate as she went in. She was all +in white, with a bunch of sweet peas at her belt; her face was glowing +with color, her eyes shining. Margery did not stop to consider how +strange it was to find her there now when she had ceased coming to the +post-office; she only stood still in wondering amazement at the change +in Miss Isabel since morning. Miss Isabel put her arms around her, and +nearly kissed her breath away.</p> + +<p>"You little dove of good tidings, my dear little Margery, how can I +love you enough?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Have you answered?" asked Margery eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I posted a note just now, and it was addressed to Mr. Oliver Twist," +said Miss Isabel, and fairly ran away.</p> + +<p>Margery went at once to take it out of the box. It was alarmingly thin, +and her heart sank. Still, you could not always judge letters by the +outside, and she ran with it all the way to the Evergreens.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>She found Mr. Dean marching up and down the walk, "just as if he were +expecting some one," thought Margery.</p> + +<p>"A letter, Margery?" he cried, as soon as he saw her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it's very thin, and yours was so thick," said Margery, not +wishing him to be disappointed.</p> + +<p>He snatched it from her and tore it open while she stood by trembling +with eagerness to know whether he was to stay or go, and whether +Miss Isabel had been so cruel as not to forgive him, and to make +the children lose their kind new friend. It was a tiny note, but it +took Mr. Dean ten minutes to read it, with bowed head, and only his +shoulders visible to anxious Margery. Then he straightened himself, and +turned towards her such a happy face that her heart leaped with joy.</p> + +<p>"I shall not go away, my little dove," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Then Miss Isabel isn't angry any more?" asked Margery.</p> + +<p>"No, and it is your blessed little plan that saved us," said Mr. Dean. +"You dear little dove of peace and good tidings, you brought the olive +branch."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And now I can keep you and Miss Isabel?" asked Margery.</p> + +<p>"You can keep me; I'm not so sure about Miss Isabel," said Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid of losing her," laughed Margery happily. "Oh, I'm so +glad, I'm so glad you can stay!"</p> + +<p>"What shall we do to show how glad we are?" asked Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>Margery considered the question seriously.</p> + +<p>"Let's kneel right down and thank God," pious little Margery suggested +at last, and as there was no one there to see, the big man and the +little maiden knelt down on the grass under the pines with their Gothic +arches, and said a most sincere prayer of thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>"But are you sure it is all right; it was such a little note, and yours +was so thick?" said Margery as they arose.</p> + +<p>"All right; it was little, but it was enough," said Mr. Dean, taking +out the note and refolding it carefully to restore it to his pocket. +And Margery went home pondering the mysterious ways of grown people. +She was quite sure that she should never have been satisfied with such +a tiny note in reply to a long letter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> + +<p>Margery went to bed early that night, needing rest after a long and +wearing day. She lay in her little white bed looking out at the soft +summer twilight in which her two friends, whom she had been the means +of reuniting, were that moment walking and talking after a separation +of ten years. The stars shone down on her peacefully, and the one +bright one that she called "her star" looked right into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's glad, too, that everything is happy, and Mr. Dean is going to +stay. It's smiling good-night."</p> + +<p>And smiling back to it, Margery passed into happy dreams.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></h2> + +<h2>A PICNIC.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Trix</span> and Amy were twins—that is, as they explained to +everybody, one was eleven and the other ten, and they weren't the least +bit of relation to one another, but both their birthdays was the same +day, the eighth of August. On the afternoon of the seventh four small +notes appeared in the post-office addressed to Lady Catharine Seyton, +Mrs. Peace Plenty, Lady Griselda of the Castle of the Lonely Lake, +and Sir Harry Hotspur, stating that the favor of their company was +requested for a day in the woods on the following day by Lady Alma Cara +and Mr. Oliver Twist, in celebration of the birthday of Lady Catharine +Seyton and Mrs. Peace Plenty. The recipients of this invitation showed +their joy with less dignity of manner than one might have expected +from their lofty titles. Sir Harry Hotspur immediately climbed a tree, +and sat whooping on a limb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> for a few moments before descending in a +somersault from a lower one. Lady Catharine Seyton, regardless of her +eleven years, danced a sort of impromptu skirt dance, in which Lady +Griselda joined, and Mrs. Peace Plenty hopped on and off the apple-tree +stump, which served as a seat, fully twenty times without stopping, +which was undignified in a well-known philanthropist.</p> + +<p>The eighth dawned fair and lovely, though rather warm. The four +children met at Miss Isabel's gate, where she and Mr. Dean were +awaiting them. Amy brought her doll Rose Viola along, for, as she +justly remarked, she did not see why growing up need make one forget +old friends, and for her part she meant to play with Rose Viola till +she was twenty. A three-seated wagon stood waiting them as they came up +to the meeting-place, and hampers of the most exciting appearance stuck +out all round under the seats.</p> + +<p>"Trix and Amy are the guests of honor to-day, because it is their +birthday," announced Mr. Dean. "Up with you first, lassies, and many +happy returns of the day."</p> + +<p>The drive to the woods was a delight in itself, so fragrant was the +air, and so beautiful the roadside with the bright flowers of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> August, +and the blackberries showing red through the vines, with some black as +jet, and here and there the leaves beginning to bronze.</p> + +<p>The last of the drive was through the woods, and the shrill voices +hushed as the great trees darkened the road, and the wheels rolled +almost noiselessly over the fragrant carpet of brown pine needles. +They left the horse and his driver at the last point where driving was +possible, and lading themselves with the contents of the wagon went on +afoot.</p> + +<p>"There is a spring not far from here," said Mr. Dean. "I came +prospecting the other day, and I thought that would be the best place +for us to pitch our tents, for I expect to be both hungry and thirsty."</p> + +<p>The spot that Mr. Dean had selected for their use was the prettiest in +all the woods. Though the fierce heat of the sun, penetrating even the +thick hemlocks, had dried much of the delicate leafage, the spring had +here kept the moss bright and green, and the brakes and ferns grew tall +and lovely in all the hollows.</p> + +<p>The children drew long breaths of satisfaction as they paused here, +and stooped to lay their burning cheeks on the cool pillows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> of moss. +Miss Isabel sank down with a happy sigh, caressing a fern at her side +with her delicate fingers, as if it were a little baby's hair. But her +guests were not disposed to be quiet long.</p> + +<p>"Now what shall we do?" said Jack, starting up after fully three +minutes and a half of silent enjoyment of the peace and refreshment of +the spot.</p> + +<p>"What would you like to do first?" asked Mr. Dean, with a twinkle in +his eye.</p> + +<p>"Eat," said Jack promptly.</p> + +<p>"I knew it," cried Mr. Dean, laughing, "and to be quite honest, I am +hungry myself."</p> + +<p>"Open the small hamper," said Miss Isabel. "I provided a little lunch +and a big lunch, and we may have the little one first."</p> + +<p>The "little lunch" proved to be hard-boiled eggs, thin bread and +butter, and bottles of milk, with ginger cookies for dessert. The last +crumb vanished speedily, for although the girls had laughed at Jack for +being hungry the very first thing, they were quite ready to take their +share of the luncheon.</p> + +<p>"And now I've thought of a splendid play," announced Trix, removing +the crumbs from her lips in the most simple, if not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> most elegant +manner, by the tip of her slender red tongue. "Miss Isabel and Mr. Dean +must be a queen and king, and we will be their subjects, and they must +send us to explore the countries around their kingdom, and do all kinds +of brave deeds, and we must come back to report them, and then they +must send us again. Some of us can discover countries, and some report +on the plants, and fruits, and things in the neighboring kingdoms, and +some must kill dragons and all those things."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that a great play, Trix!" cried Jack in ecstasy. "I'll kill +dragons."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to discover," said Margery.</p> + +<p>"I'll report the flowers and things," said Amy.</p> + +<p>"And I want to be a knight sent out to have adventures," declared Trix. +"Will you play that, Miss Isabel? Will you, Mr. Dean?"</p> + +<p>"By all means," replied Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"I'd like it very much," said Miss Isabel.</p> + +<p>"Then you sit here," said Trix, in great delight. "Wait till I make +your throne with these shawls. And now we'll kneel before you, and you +must send us on these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> expeditions. And remember, we're all knights, +because girls can't do such things."</p> + +<p>Four faces were raised to the sovereigns seated on the empty +lunch-basket and a rock, while four knightly figures, three in bright +ginghams and one in knickerbockers, knelt to receive their commands.</p> + +<p>"Sir Harry Hotspur," began the king, "there is a monstrous dragon +devastating our kingdom on the west. Take thy trusty sword and slay +this monster, bringing me its head, and fail not, as ye be a good +knight and true."</p> + +<p>"Yes, your majesty," replied Sir Harry, rising and backing from the +royal presence, and then starting westward at a pace that plainly +showed how his horse was plunging beneath him, as he waved his pine +sword in his right hand and blew an imaginary trumpet in his left.</p> + +<p>"And you, Sir Percival," the queen said, "go abroad to the kingdoms +adjoining our domain, and bring me tidings of the kinds of fruits and +plants that flourish in those foreign parts, and if possible bring me +also specimens of these."</p> + +<p>"Yes, your majesty," replied rosy-cheeked Sir Percival, trying to rise +gracefully as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> first knight had done, and getting entangled in her +pink gingham skirts.</p> + +<p>"And, Sir Philip," the king said, "don light armor and select your +trustiest steed, for it is my will that you go to discover new +countries, if such there be, for the honor of our name and the increase +of our kingdom."</p> + +<p>"Sire, I will go right gladly," replied Sir Philip loyally.</p> + +<p>"And you, brave and bold Sir Guy," the queen said, "ride hither and yon +seeking adventure for the glory of knighthood and the succor of the +unfortunate."</p> + +<p>"Your majesty, I obey," replied Sir Guy, making a profound bow, and +doffing a helmet that looked uncommonly like a shade hat with yellow +daisies.</p> + +<p>The band of knights began returning in what seemed like two or three +minutes, but which was a period of from three to five years.</p> + +<p>Sir Harry bore the dragon's head, which he presented kneeling to the +king.</p> + +<p>"It was a dreadful fight, your majesty," said the panting knight. "All +around the dragon's cave lay men's bones."</p> + +<p>"Think ye they were the bones of the vic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>tims which he had devoured?" +the king asked.</p> + +<p>"I am sure of it, your majesty, for I barely escaped," said Sir Harry; +"but at last I gave one terrible stroke, and his head rolled at my +feet. Here it is."</p> + +<p>Jack had had a hard time digging up the root which represented the +dragon's head.</p> + +<p>"You have our royal thanks," said the king, "and you shall learn that +one monarch at least is not ungrateful."</p> + +<p>Sir Philip was the next to arrive. He—or she—knelt at the feet of the +king.</p> + +<p>"Well, Sir Philip," he asked, "were you successful?"</p> + +<p>"More than I expected to be, my liege," replied Sir Philip. "I found +a large continent north of this kingdom, and an island to the east. +They are inhabited by a singular race, but the chief with whom I talked +is willing to embrace Christianity, so I doubt not they will be loyal +subjects of your throne."</p> + +<p>"Well done, valiant Sir Philip," said the queen; "permit me to decorate +you with the Isabellan medal," and she pinned in the gathers of the +blue gingham shirt-waist which covered the breast of this knight a +large round<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> leaf, bearing the word "Honor" pricked in it with a pin.</p> + +<p>"And here comes Sir Guy," cried the king.</p> + +<p>Sir Guy came running, his hair was unbraided, and his cheeks flushed, +and his dark eyes bright.</p> + +<p>"I found a lovely maiden chained to a rock, and four ruffians about to +stab her. I made them all fly, and here is the maiden," and Sir Guy +produced a little white kitten mewing feebly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Trix, give her to me!" cried Margery.</p> + +<p>"No; I'm going to keep her myself," said Trix, dropping the rôle of Sir +Guy. "I found her, and you've got Tommy Traddles, and I haven't any +kitten. She's most starved: Mayn't I give her milk, Miss Isabel?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you may. You really did have an adventure," cried Miss +Isabel. "Perhaps it is a fairy birthday present, Trix, and she is an +enchanted princess. But at last here comes Sir Percival. Good Sir +Percival, we began to fear you had perished."</p> + +<p>"Here are all the flowers and fruits I could find," said Sir Percival, +presenting an enormous bunch of all sorts of blossoms. "But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> here +is something else I found, and it looks like shells—see;" and Sir +Percival, who was not as good as the rest in keeping up what Margery +had called "historical ways of talking," held out something to the +queen.</p> + +<p>"A fossil!" cried her majesty. "Sir Percival, I congratulate you; you +have really made a discovery. Where did you find it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, need I be Sir Percival any more? It's so hard to talk that way. I +can't tell you unless I can be myself," implored Amy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, pshaw! you can't pretend worth a cent," said Jack in disgust; but +Miss Isabel said, "Why, of course; we don't want to do anything for fun +when it is no longer fun. Tell on, Amy."</p> + +<p>"You know that little hill over there beyond the spring," began Amy, +much relieved. "They've been taking out some rock on the side, and I +was looking there when I found this lump of something that looked like +mud, and when I took it up I found it was hard, and it had all these +shells in it. They look like scallop shells, but they can't be, because +they are in the woods. What are they, Miss Isabel?"</p> + +<p>"The shells can tell us," said Miss Isabel, putting the lump of clay +to her ear and pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>tending to listen. "I'll tell you what they say. +It is this shell that is speaking; it says: Many ages ago, before +Adam was made, there was a great lake where these woods now are, and +this shell lived in the water, and was the house of a little mollusk, +like shells nowadays. And once there came a great commotion in the +waters and something like an earthquake in the land, and when it was +over the lake was gone, and in its place was a valley, and the hill +was thrown up, and beautiful great plants of such kinds as grow now +only in the tropics began to flourish, for it was very warm. And the +shell says it found itself thrown up into clay-like mud, and pretty +soon the mollusk died, for it could not live out of the water. And +then it grew very cold, and great glaciers went crashing and cracking, +and sliding to the sea over this very spot where we now sit. And then +the land in the northern latitudes sank, and made the climate warmer +again, and the glaciers began to melt, and as they melted they dropped +great quantities of stone and gravel and soil made of the stones their +awful strength had ground up, and the hollow where the lake had been +was filled up, and the little shell says it was imbedded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> in the soil +made by the passing and breaking up of the glacier, and a great bowlder +fell on top of it, dropped by the glacier, and which was taken out of +the hill only the other day, and once more this little shell saw the +sun. And it says it wonders to see such creatures as we are, for though +more ages ago than we can imagine it saw great animals much larger than +the elephant wandering here, it never before saw anything that could +understand its wonderful history, for when it last saw light God had +not made man."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Isabel, is it a fairy story?" "Oh, Miss Isabel, is it true?" +cried Trix and Amy together.</p> + +<p>Margery almost sobbed in excitement; she stretched out her hand for the +fossil.</p> + +<p>"I can't think so far back," she whispered. "Before God made man!"</p> + +<p>But Jack said, "I know; that's geology, and it's splendid. I mean to +study it when I get big."</p> + +<p>"It is all true, dears," said Miss Isabel, "and no one can 'think so +far back,' nor take in the wonders of the story. And it is geology, as +Jack says; but no fairy story, Amy, is half so lovely and interesting +as the story that nature tells."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you know that nature is telling me a story about little Jack +Horner, and I think I should like to put my hand in that hamper and +pull out a plum—in other words, I'm hungry, Isabel," said Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>So they all attacked the "big luncheon," and when they had eaten all +the chicken, and rolls, and cake, and fruit that they possibly could, +and had given the white kitten the bones, they were disposed to rest, +and all but Amy lounged on the moss in every attitude of perfect ease. +Suddenly Miss Isabel asked, "Where is Amy?" And that moment a faint +scream came as answer to her question. Everybody ran towards the +direction whence the sound came. There stood poor little Mrs. Peace +Plenty up to her knees in black mud, and if she tried to extricate one +foot the other only sank the deeper.</p> + +<p>"I came to get some water," she sobbed, "and when I came around here +behind the spring to see what it looked like I got stuck."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Amy, we'll pull you out," said Mr. Dean cheerily. "Jack, +help me drag this dead tree over."</p> + +<p>They swung the fallen trunk around, and with that to stand on soon +pulled Amy out, and set the poor child on firm land again,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> though with +both her low shoes gone, and her skirts in a sorry plight.</p> + +<p>"It's lucky that it is time to go home," remarked Miss Isabel, as she +took off Amy's stockings to rub her feet. "You must carry her to the +wagon."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dean obediently shouldered the little girl, and they started in +procession out of the woods.</p> + +<p>"I am glad the hampers are empty," remarked Mr. Dean. "Mrs. Peace +Plenty is a solid little body."</p> + +<p>The drive home in the long, warm rays of the afternoon sun warmed Amy +thoroughly and restored her shaken nerves.</p> + +<p>"I never had such a lovely birthday in all my life, and I thank you +ever and ever so much," said Trix, as they set her down at her own gate.</p> + +<p>"And you have had a whole long eleven, too," laughed Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"I have had such a good time I can't tell you," said Amy, in her turn, +as she was deposited at home. She was a funny figure standing there +barefooted, the black mud of the woods dried on her skirts and hands, +clutching her stiff stockings, her precious fossil, and Rose Viola to +her breast.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Many happy returns, many happy returns," Mr. Dean, Miss Isabel, Jack, +and Margery called back to her as they drove away.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid there won't be many returns of her shoes," remarked Jack. +"But in spite of that it's been a perfect picnic."</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2> + +<h2>A WEDDING.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Dean</span> was to marry Miss Isabel, after all! The tidings came +to the children as a blow at first, and they, especially Margery, felt +that it was almost taking advantage of their confidence, since that was +not at all the end they had in view in seeking to have Mr. Dean stay at +the Evergreens. But in time they grew reconciled to the arrangement, +and even came to see that it was the best one possible, for now they +could visit both Miss Isabel and Mr. Dean at once, instead of dividing +their time between them. It helped them to see that this wedding was a +desirable plan, that the day appointed for it was Margery's eleventh +birthday, October fourteenth, and that all the little girls were to be +bridesmaids, and Jack best man, in spite of his being but twelve years +old, for Miss Isabel declared that this must be a club wedding, since +without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> the H. T. C. it might never have come about.</p> + +<p>Four pairs of little bare feet sprang to the floor early in the morning +of October fourteenth, moved by the thought that Margery was eleven +years old and it was Miss Isabel's wedding-day, and they sped to the +window to see what sort of weather it was. Nor was one likely to sleep +late when a dress of softest pink mull, with a big picture hat to +match, lay like a kind of rosy dawn on a chair ready for the bridesmaid +to put on. And Jack had gone to bed with his first long trousers laid +where his eyes could rest on them the moment they opened, and with his +patent-leather shoes in shining glory on the hearth, and he arose in a +flurry that was still dignified, feeling that much of the success of +the wedding lay on his shoulders. The weather was all that it should +be; a soft haze rested over all the earth, the leaves were blazing in +the glory of their October colors, and there was that wonderful hush +upon nature that comes when the harvest is over, the work done, and +summer pauses lingeringly, as if dreading to say good-by.</p> + +<p>There was only happiness in each little heart that lovely morning; all +doubt had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> been removed from the children's minds, and they had learned +to see what a delightful thing it was that their Miss Isabel would no +longer be lonely in the old house. "For," as Amy sagely remarked, "when +we were there we couldn't tell how lonely she was, because we <i>were</i> +there, and she wasn't lonely, but when we were gone she must have been +sad, and now we shall know that when we aren't there Mr. Dean will talk +to her till we come back."</p> + +<p>At half-past ten three pink skirts fluttered out of a carriage at +Miss Isabel's door. The Mass was to be at eleven. It would have +been dreadful to have been late, and they had all insisted on their +privilege of seeing Miss Isabel first in her bridal dress. Very sweet +and lovely she looked with the white veil crowning her bright hair, and +such a peaceful look on her face that Amy cried out as she kissed her, +"You look so good, Miss Isabel, as well as pretty."</p> + +<p>Miss Isabel had three little boxes all ready containing her gifts to +her bridesmaids, and when they opened them, behold there lay before +their delighted eyes a dear little dove in pearls, so that the only +regret that they felt in wearing their pretty pink dresses, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> the +blue badge with the dove was forbidden them, was more than taken away. +Miss Isabel fastened the pins in the soft ruffles around each little +yoke, and whispered to her bridesmaids that these were badges of her +love, as well as reminders of the club and the happiness that had come +from it. And she satisfied Trix's solicitude for Jack by assuring her +that he had a pin precisely like theirs for a scarf-pin.</p> + +<p>Then she kissed each face under its big mull hat, gathered up her +gloves, and they all went down to get into the carriages to drive to +the church, whence Miss Isabel should return Miss Isabel no longer. +The little church was filled, for Miss Isabel had many friends, and +everybody was deeply interested in this wedding because they knew it +was the happy ending of an old story. And everybody knew, too, that +it had come about through the children's club, and the old women in +the side aisles nudged each other as the Lohengrin wedding march +pealed through the church, and whispered, "There they are; there are +the children," as the three little maids in pink came slowly down the +aisle, preceding Miss Isabel on the arm of her uncle, who had come all +the way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> from Chicago that on this great day she might have the arm of +one of her kindred on which to lean.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Dean met her at the sanctuary gate, looking very proud and +happy, with Jack beside him suffering torture from his stiff collar, +but enjoying himself immensely none the less. Then Miss Isabel and Mr. +Dean entered the sanctuary, and Mass began.</p> + +<p>It did not seem long to the excited children before the organ once +more pealed forth, this time in the jubilant strains of Mendelssohn's +wedding march, and they were proceeding down the aisle in twos, +Trix and Amy, Margery and Jack, and behind them Mr. and Mrs. Dean, +while audible exclamations of "God bless her!" came from the humbler +friends to whom Miss Isabel had given help and happiness, and tearful +smiles and loving looks followed her from those to whom she had given +happiness also, though they had not needed alms.</p> + +<p>The old house looked beautiful on their return. All the rooms were +filled with palms and white and golden chrysanthemums, and the sun lit +up the place into splendor.</p> + +<p>"I believe they built these old houses just for weddings and balls; I +never knew it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> could look so fine," said Jack to Margery, pausing on +the threshold, and feeling without understanding why that the dignified +old rooms were made for grandeur.</p> + +<p>At the wedding breakfast Margery, as first bridesmaid, sat at Mrs. +Dean's right hand, and Jack at Mr. Dean's left, Trix next to him, and +Amy next Margery. They found that for once in their life they had +enough ice-cream and dainties, and Jack leaned over and whispered to +Trix, "I've taken my watch out, and I can't get it back," which remark +caused Trix to choke in the most embarrassing manner over her last +spoonful of ice.</p> + +<p>Jack had hardly succeeded in the difficult task of restoring his watch +to the tight vest, and was sitting back at peace with all mankind, when +he heard Mr. Dean saying something so dreadful that he could not credit +his own ears. He looked up; Mr. Dean's eyes had a twinkle in them that +Jack had learned meant mischief, and he certainly was saying:</p> + +<p>"Mr. John Hildreth, my best man, will make a few remarks on this happy +occasion."</p> + +<p>Jack sank back farther, looking painfully red and frightened, but Trix +poked him energetically.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Get up, Jack; he wants you to make a speech," she whispered. "You've +got to do it. Pooh! what do you care; you know most of the people here."</p> + +<p>Jack arose; his very ears were crimson, and his voice trembled.</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," poor Jack began.</p> + +<p>"Hear! hear!" cried one of the guests, in what was meant for +encouragement, but had the opposite effect.</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," Jack said again, "I didn't know best men had to +make speeches. I never made a speech."</p> + +<p>Here the poor child stuck fast, and Mrs. Dean whispered to her husband +to be merciful and tease him no more, while Trix in a stage whisper +said, "Go on, say something about the weather, the breakfast, and Miss +Isabel, or Mr. Dean, or anything."</p> + +<p>"I think we have very nice weather for a wedding," Jack went on, acting +on this hint; "and once I heard a saying, 'Happy the bride that the +sun shines on.' And we've had a fine breakfast, and enjoyed ourselves +very much, and I couldn't eat another bit. And we all love Miss Isabel +so much, that at first we didn't want Mr. Dean to marry her, but after +we got acquainted with him we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> didn't mind, because he's most as nice +as she is. So we were willing—I mean Margery, and Trix, and Amy, and +me—and I—to have her marry him, and we're all perfectly satisfied, +and we think they've had a nice wedding, and we hope they'll have a +great many more."</p> + +<p>A great deal of laughter and cheering greeted this happy ending, under +cover of which Trix whispered:</p> + +<p>"O Jack! you goose; why did you go and spoil it? The rest was splendid. +They can't have a great many more weddings; people don't keep getting +married."</p> + +<p>"Some people do," retorted Jack. "Isn't there a tombstone in the +cemetery that says, 'Here lies Amos Barnes, and Amelia, and Frances, +and Rosa, and Harriet, wife of the above'?" However, Jack got upon his +feet again, quite emboldened by his success. "I didn't mean we hoped +they'd have a great many more; I meant we wish them many happy returns +of the same."</p> + +<p>And not even Trix could see why the guests laughed again, but they +applauded heartily, and Mr. and Mrs. Dean told Jack that his speech was +very nice, and they thanked him very much. So Jack felt rather puffed +up,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> and tried hard not to look as if the eyes of the world were on +him; and under cover of the applause for Jack, Mr. and Mrs. Dean arose +and slipped away up-stairs, and presently they reappeared, Mr. Dean +carrying an umbrella and a travelling shawl, and Mrs. Dean dressed all +in soft dove-gray with chinchilla collar, and the children saw that +she had pinned on her breast the blue badge of the H. T. C. And that +one little act explained why they had so loved Miss Isabel, for even +in that exciting moment she remembered to give them pleasure. From the +foot of the stairs, all down the long hall, and out the door, even +while Mrs. Dean paused to kiss her small bridesmaids, swarming eagerly +around her, she was pelted with a shower of rice, and it rattled on the +top of the carriage as the door shut, and Jack hit the back with an old +slipper provided for that purpose, and then the wheels rattled down the +gravel of the driveway, and Miss Isabel was gone.</p> + +<p>A feeling of desolation crept over the children; the girls' eyes were +full of tears, and Jack felt a lump in his throat, for though they knew +that Miss Isabel would be back in two weeks, it seemed horribly like +giving her up. But the situation was saved from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> becoming melancholy by +Amy's small brother, who, standing quietly in his white dress and blue +kid shoes, had been watching the departure from under his waving mop of +golden hair. He now trotted off to the parlor, and returned with the +hearth-broom.</p> + +<p>"Well, if nobody else is goin' to get married, I dess I'd better thweep +up dis rice," he remarked, and everybody laughed, and the solemnity of +the moment was broken up.</p> + +<p>Fifteen minutes passed, and most of the guests had gone, when children +began arriving, and more and more, till Amy, Trix, Margery, and Jack +were completely puzzled to see all their schoolmates enter. But Mrs. +Gresham explained the mystery by telling them that it was a plan of +Miss Isabel's to surprise Margery, as it was her birthday, as well as +Miss Isabel's wedding-day. So she had asked Mrs. Gresham to help her, +and the orchestra was to remain, and the children were to have a party +for the rest of the afternoon. This exciting information drove all +thoughts of loneliness out of the children's heads, and soon the big +rooms were filled with gay little figures, dancing to the liveliest +music under the stately palms and bright golden chrysanthemums. And +so while the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> cars were whirling their dear Miss Isabel away to begin +her new life, her loving thought gave Margery a happy ending of her +birthday, and made the children feel that she was still too near them +to be lonely, and that the time would be all too short for them to plan +the welcome home that they meant to give her.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2> + +<h2>THE END OF THE YEAR AND OF THE POST-OFFICE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Christmas</span> had come and gone, and it was the last day of the +year. The Christmas tree still stood in the bay-window, and Tommy +Traddles had not ceased to find delight in setting in motion with his +paw the decorative balls within his reach on the lower limbs, and eying +wistfully those that hung higher. The fire burned brightly on the +hearth, and the snow fell swiftly and silently outside, drifting like a +white veil across the window, and heaping itself on the sills.</p> + +<p>Margery sat watching it listlessly, swinging the curtain cord, and +wondering what made the others so long. The post-office had languished +of late, having been crowded out of mind by the holiday preparations +and the colder weather. No one would confess to being tired of it, but +sometimes there were two or three days between the delivery of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> mails, +which were steadily growing lighter; indeed, no one but Lady Alma Cara +and Mr. Oliver Twist were still faithful correspondents.</p> + +<p>At last Trix and Amy came running in the gate, and Margery sprang to +meet them. They stamped the snow off in the vestibule, and took off +their things in the hall, where Trix had a struggle with her rubber +boots, which, as she needlessly observed, were growing too small for +her.</p> + +<p>"Now what shall we do?" demanded Trix, as they came into the +sitting-room, bringing with them such an atmosphere of out-of-doors +that Tommy Traddles retired to the hearth-rug.</p> + +<p>"Why, I'm looking for Jack," answered Margery. "He has some secret +which he wouldn't tell me, but he said he'd come over this afternoon +surely and tell me. He said it was half good and half bad, and I can't +think what it can be."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it's much," said Trix sceptically. "Jack has such lots +of notions."</p> + +<p>But Margery shook her head.</p> + +<p>"This is something," she began, when Amy interrupted her.</p> + +<p>"I hear him now, coming through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> back way," she said, and had +scarcely spoken when Jack appeared, half a dozen cookies in each hand +and busy with another.</p> + +<p>"Winnie's baking," he explained, not very clear in speech, "and I +helped myself. They're prime; have one," and he offered each girl a +cookie with princely generosity.</p> + +<p>"Now, Jack, what's your secret?" demanded Margery. "Are you going to +tell me to-day? Mind those crumbs; this room's been swept this morning."</p> + +<p>Jack nodded energetically, signifying in pantomime that he would tell +them as soon as the cookies had disappeared; so there was nothing to +do but wait for this to happen with what patience they could summon. +At last the final morsel vanished, and after a provokingly elaborate +brushing of his knees, and careful sweeping up of crumbs with the +hearth-brush, Jack seated himself on the edge of a chair, and looked +from one to the other.</p> + +<p>"Oh, tell me, Jack; hurry up!" cried Margery, while Trix threw a down +pillow at him, which he caught, saying:</p> + +<p>"Thank you," putting it at his back. "Do you want me to tell you, +Megsy?" he asked. "Well, I'm going away to school."</p> + +<p>A thunderbolt in the midst of the snow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> could not have produced greater +consternation.</p> + +<p>"Jack!" cried all three in tones of horror. "You're not."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am; papa has decided. I am going next Monday."</p> + +<p>"To boarding-school?" asked Trix, regret at his going and envy +struggling in her face.</p> + +<p>"Yes; you see, papa thinks I can prepare for my First Communion better +in the school than here, and you know I want to make it with you next +June."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Margery, who had been sitting in speechless grief, a little +ray of light breaking into the gloom of her face. "Then you're not +going far?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; only in town. I can come home at Easter, and June will soon be +here," replied Jack.</p> + +<p>"And we can write to him," said Amy, trying as usual to see a bright +side.</p> + +<p>"But it will be so lonesome without Jack," said Margery, her voice +quivering, for she had never had a brother, and this cousin had been +all to her that a brother could be.</p> + +<p>"It's a pity he must go," said Trix, tilting one foot up and down on +the toe of her slipper, which she thus slipped on and off at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> heel +in a pensive manner; "but as Amy says, we can write to him, and the +post-office will be more fun again," thus admitting by implication +what no one had been willing to confess, that the post-office was less +delightful than at first.</p> + +<p>Silence followed this remark. Amy and Margery looked at one another.</p> + +<p>"We should have to take the post-office in the house," Trix went on, +continuing her line of thought. "No one could go down into the orchard +for mail all winter."</p> + +<p>"And what house could we put it in?" asked Margery. "None of us wants +to be postmaster all the time now, though we did at first, and it would +be a nuisance for any of us to have to go into some one else's house to +take care of the mails."</p> + +<p>Neither liked to be the one to propose discontinuing it, but Jack did +not mind, because since he was going away he could not bear his part in +it that winter in any case.</p> + +<p>"Why not give up the post-office?" he asked. "We'd be the H. T. C. just +the same, and you're all sick of it anyway."</p> + +<p>"You are too," said Trix, indirectly admitting that she was.</p> + +<p>"Well, even if I weren't, I couldn't play<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> post-office this winter," +Jack replied. "I say, let's get the post-office in here, and burn it +for a farewell ceremony, and then if we want to have another I'll make +one next summer. Anyhow, this one's warped."</p> + +<p>Trix cheered up.</p> + +<p>"Let's," she said briefly.</p> + +<p>"Burn our post-office!" Amy gasped.</p> + +<p>Margery looked happier.</p> + +<p>"And I could write an ode, and we'd read it while it burned. But you'd +have to ask Alma Cara and Mr. Oliver Twist first, Jack, because they're +members. You go there, and while you're gone I'll write the ode."</p> + +<p>"First let's vote on whether we burn it or not," said Jack. "All in +favor of burning the post-office please signify it by saying aye."</p> + +<p>"Aye," said Trix and Margery unanimously.</p> + +<p>"How do you vote when you want to and don't want to?" asked Amy.</p> + +<p>"You decide which you want more," said Margery.</p> + +<p>"O Amy, you goose, we'll have another next summer, if we want one, and +what's the use of a post-office without Jack," said Trix impatiently.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure enough," said Amy. "Well, I vote aye, then."</p> + +<p>"Now once more," cried Jack. "All in favor say aye."</p> + +<p>"Aye," cried the four voices.</p> + +<p>"Now, Jack, run up to Mr. Dean's while I write an ode," said Margery, +and Jack went.</p> + +<p>"They say give it up till next summer, and then decide whether to begin +again," announced Jack, returning out of breath. "They say better not +drag on if it's burdensome. I'm going down to the orchard to get the +post-office."</p> + +<p>"How shall we burn it?" asked Amy, when Jack came back.</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking of the ceremonies on the way," Jack replied, +depositing the post-office on the floor. "I say we all march around it +three times in silence, and then each of us lay our hand on it once +for farewell. And then I'll make a speech, and then we'll each take +a corner and carry it to the fire and lay it on the coals, and we'll +stand around and watch it burn while Margery reads the ode."</p> + +<p>"It's awfully solemn," said Amy, shuddering.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's fine," said Trix. "Ode done, Margery?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it will do," said Margery, giving a last wild flourish with her +pencil.</p> + +<p>"Come on then," said Jack. "Move the table."</p> + +<p>They pushed the table out of the way, and three times the members of +the H. T. C. encircled the doomed post-office in solemn silence, after +which each laid a hand on its top as a farewell greeting. Then with a +gesture commanding silence Jack began to speak.</p> + +<p>"This office, ladies, has served us long and faithfully, and many are +the pleasures it has given us. We owe to it that our dear friend, Mr. +Oliver Twist, is still with us, and it has made the Lady Alma Cara +happy and done a noble work in the six months of its life. But the +year is ending to-night, and the office is to end with it, because +each has lasted as long as it can. We say farewell to this happy year, +and we are glad that it was so happy. And we say farewell to our good +post-office, and we are glad it was so good. I for one shall keep its +memory dear even in the new scenes to which I am about to depart. And +if the H. T. C. has a new post-office next summer we shall still love +and cherish the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> recollection of this one, to which we now say good-by. +Girls, take a corner each."</p> + +<p>Amy sniffed outright as she lifted her end, and Margery looked excited, +while Trix whispered to her, "I think Jack will be a priest, he +preaches so splendidly."</p> + +<p>They bore the little post-office to the grate, and laid it on the +coals. It was wet with snow, and sputtered, and steamed awhile before +it kindled. At last a little tongue of flame ran along the roof, and +came out at one of the boxes.</p> + +<p>"Now, Margery, begin your ode," whispered Jack. "Read slowly."</p> + +<p>Margery read:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sweet post-office, though you are dear,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hour has come to say good-by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You end now with the ending year,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And we stand here to see you die.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You served us well in summer's heat;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You changed two foes to man and wife;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We ran to you with hurried feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Because you were our joy in life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though you are warped, we do not spurn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We love you still, though you are bent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And standing here to see you burn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We read to you our hearts' lament.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The New Year comes to-morrow morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When one brave dove far schoolward flocks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In June, if a new office's born,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We'll think your spirit's in the box,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And thus you will be with us yet;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Old office, we will hold you dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our first friend we can ne'er forget,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So good-by, old office, and Old Year."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This ode, in spite of its halting in some of its feet, was hailed with +rapturous approval by Margery's audience.</p> + +<p>"There goes the last end of the office," cried Jack excitedly.</p> + +<p>"And our post-office is over," said Amy sadly.</p> + +<p>"And Jack's going away," added Margery.</p> + +<p>"Only till June, and then we'll have a new office and Jack back again," +said Trix.</p> + +<p>"And the Happy Thought Club's going to last forever," cried Jack.</p> + +<p>"Let's give three cheers for the H. T. C. as a close of the exercises. +Hurry up before the box is quite gone."</p> + +<p>The cheers were given, and then four figures curled up on the +hearth-rug to watch the last embers of the post-office fade away, and +build castles in the air for the future achievements of the H. T. C. in +the New Year so close upon them.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 294px;"> +<img src="images/ibacklogo.jpg" width="294" height="411" alt="" /> +</div> +<h4> +<span class="smcap">Printed by Benziger Brothers, New York.</span> +</h4> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 48552 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |