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+Project Gutenberg's The Blissylvania Post-Office, by Marion Ames Taggart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: The Blissylvania Post-Office
+
+Author: Marion Ames Taggart
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2015 [EBook #48552]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Beth Baran, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+
+                       BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE.
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         MARION AMES TAGGART.
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+                    NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO:
+
+
+
+                          BENZIGER BROTHERS,
+
+                   PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE
+
+
+
+
+                Copyright, 1897, by Benziger Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+          CHAPTER                                  PAGE
+
+  I.    How it Began,                                5
+
+  II.   The Honorary Member,                        18
+
+  III.  A Narrow Escape,                            32
+
+  IV.   The Mysterious Tenant,                      46
+
+  V.    The Invasion of the Amazons,                57
+
+  VI.   Further Acquaintance,                       69
+
+  VII.  A New Member,                               82
+
+  VIII. Margery's Plan,                             96
+
+  IX.   One Honorary Member to the Other Honorary
+  Member,                                          104
+
+  X.    A Picnic,                                  118
+
+  XI.   A Wedding,                                 132
+
+  XII.  The End of the Year and of the Post-Office,143
+
+
+
+
+THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+HOW IT BEGAN.
+
+
+IT 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 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 looked out from its brown depths in sharp contrast.
+
+"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.
+
+"Not a bad idea, Trix," said Jack, laughing.
+
+But their hostess looked shocked. "Why, Beatrice Lane, you shouldn't
+say that, it isn't right," she protested.
+
+"Well, I'm sure it seems lost enough," retorted Trix.
+
+"Nothing's lost when you know where it is," said Jack.
+
+"I don't know where the sun is, except that it's somewhere in the sky,"
+said Trix.
+
+"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."
+
+"Horizon, Jack," interrupted Margery, laughing.
+
+"Well, horizon, then; it doesn't matter," Jack said, annoyed. "It's
+getting ready to slip down to China, and it's more than ninety-five
+millions of miles away."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"I was thinking," began Margery slowly, "of something nice."
+
+"Charlotte Russe?" asked Jack, knowing Margery's weakness.
+
+"Cats?" suggested Amy, alluding to another.
+
+"Sister Aloysia?" inquired Beatrice, for Margery was devoted to her
+teacher, and, in school phrase, "had a favorite nun."
+
+"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."
+
+"All right, Margery, we won't, and do tell quick," said Trix.
+
+"I wasn't really making fun of you, and I'm dying to hear," said Amy.
+
+"Tell ahead, Margery; hurry up," added Jack.
+
+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.
+
+"I was thinking," she began, "that we might form a club, we four."
+
+"Like the A. G. L.?" asked Amy.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh, what is it anyway?" cried Trix impatiently.
+
+"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----"
+
+"A post-office!" cried Trix, jumping up in great excitement, her dark
+eyes snapping. "Margery, it's a great idea."
+
+"Hurrah for Margery!" cried Jack.
+
+"It's splendid. Oh, Margery, you are so clever!" cried Amy, scrambling
+up rapidly, to Tommy Traddles' great disgust.
+
+"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, whence he peered out at the performance with dilated
+eyes.
+
+He withdrew his head quickly as the four children fell breathless and
+laughing on the sofa to discuss and mature Margery's brilliant plan.
+
+"What did you mean about names?" asked Jack. "You may write poetry,
+Margery, but you sometimes get mixed in talking prose."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"O Trix, you can't be a man," expostulated Margery.
+
+"Yes, I can. I'd like to know why you can't make believe the whole
+thing just as 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."
+
+"Oh, but----" began Margery, with the anxious line appearing between
+her eyes that always came there when she was worried.
+
+"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 _thee_ and _thou_, and _wot ye_, instead of do you know, and
+all that kind of words. You'd have to write the way Shakespeare did,
+and I can't."
+
+"Can't you? That's queer," remarked Margery, and the rest shouted.
+
+"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."
+
+"Couldn't you?" asked the others, and laughed again.
+
+"No, I couldn't," reiterated Amy, who was the practical little woman of
+the party. "I say we just take names, and not characters."
+
+"Well," assented Margery reluctantly, "I'll be the Lady Griselda of
+the Castle of the Lonely Lake."
+
+"My goodness, Margery; no wonder you write poetry!" exclaimed Beatrice.
+
+"I'll be----" but she got no farther.
+
+"Now, Trix, please, _please_ don't be a boy," cried Margery.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes; don't you think so, Amy?"
+
+"I don't see why not," said Amy.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Isn't that history?" asked Margery doubtfully.
+
+"No, not exactly," replied Jack. "It's Shakespeare, too; I'll take only
+his part." Which, though not very clear, was satisfactory.
+
+"I'm going to be Mrs. Peace Plenty, a philanthropist," announced Amy,
+convulsing the rest.
+
+"P. P. P.," gasped Margery, emerging from a sofa pillow with her
+usually pale face crimson. "O Amy, you _are_ so funny, and you never
+just seem to mean to be."
+
+"Well, it's not so funny as that," said Amy, laughing good-naturedly.
+
+"What is a philanthropist, Jack?" asked Trix. "How did you know, Amy?"
+
+"It's a charitable person," said Jack.
+
+"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."
+
+"Well, now we have settled the names. Do you think you could make the
+box, Jack?" asked Margery.
+
+"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 made such mistakes as this question
+implied; probably because she was only a girl.
+
+"I'll make four divisions in it, and maybe I'll paint it."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Don't be a goose, Jack," replied Trix, with dignity. "You know I meant
+that."
+
+"We ought to have a name for our club," said Amy.
+
+"Yes; I've been thinking of that underneath all the time we were
+talking," said Margery.
+
+Jack stooped down and peeped under the sofa.
+
+"I don't see how you could have thought _underneath_, Margery," he
+said; "I see only Tommy Traddles there."
+
+"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."
+
+"Would Post-Office Club do?" asked Amy.
+
+"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.
+
+"Let's vote on the name," said Margery. "All in favor of calling it the
+Happy Thought Club please signify it by saying aye."
+
+Four voices instantly chorused "Aye."
+
+"Contrary, no," said Margery, and paused. Deep silence reigned, and the
+clock on the mantelpiece struck once.
+
+"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.
+
+"Lovely; and now I must go, because that was half-past five that
+struck," said Trix, jumping up.
+
+"So must I," echoed Amy.
+
+They hastily bundled themselves into their waterproofs, and Amy was
+stamping her foot into her right rubber, when she paused with the
+other rubber suspended in the air, on the way to her left foot.
+
+"Why, there's Miss Isabel; we never thought of her!" she cried.
+
+"Sure enough." "That's so." "Oh, our dear Miss Isabel," cried Trix and
+Jack and Margery together.
+
+"You'll have to make five divisions in the box, Jack," said Margery
+decidedly, "for she's got to be an honorary member."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HONORARY MEMBER.
+
+
+THE 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 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 to which they were looking
+forward, that it must be very dreadful.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Jack, you tell," said Trix generously, feeling it proper to resign the
+glory to the man of the party.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"And you're to be in it, you're to be in it!" cried Trix and Amy,
+hugging Miss Isabel at the same time.
+
+"Of course she's in it; it wouldn't be much if she weren't," said Jack.
+
+"What do you think of it; you haven't said a word?" asked Margery
+anxiously.
+
+"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.
+
+"Might one ask what names you have chosen?" she said.
+
+"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."
+
+"Light Horse Harry," said Trix.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"What will you take, Miss Isabel?" asked Jack.
+
+"Why, I can't answer such an important question without thought," said
+Miss Isabel. "Can you suggest a name?"
+
+"I never could think of a name nice enough for you," said Amy lovingly.
+
+"I think it ought to be something like Good Fairy," said Trix, "only
+that sounds silly."
+
+The color had been mounting to Margery's dark hair, and Jack said:
+
+"Margery's thought of something. Let's have it, Peggy."
+
+"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."
+
+Miss Isabel gave Margery such a look that her eyes filled with happy
+tears.
+
+"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."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Trix.
+
+"I think Dearest Darling is about what it would be in English," said
+Miss Isabel.
+
+"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.
+
+"Now, how about a postmark?" asked Miss Isabel.
+
+"We never thought of that," said the children.
+
+"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.
+
+"But how can we postmark at all?" asked Jack.
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _such_
+things," chorused her visitors.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Joyberg," remarked Margery thoughtfully.
+
+"That wouldn't do; sounds like June bug," said Jack decidedly.
+
+"Happiness Centre," suggested Amy.
+
+"That is good, but a trifle long, Amy," said Miss Isabel.
+
+"How would Bliss-sylvania do?" asked Jack. "It's like Pennsylvania, you
+know, and would mean _bliss_ and _woods_, and that would be saying that
+we had fun in the tree in the orchard."
+
+"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.
+
+"But how could we get on with so many s's in the middle?" asked Amy;
+"there are three right together."
+
+"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."
+
+"It is lovely," cried all the little girls. "Jack, how did you come to
+think of it?"
+
+Jack tried to look modest.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," he said. "It just popped into my head."
+
+"Like all great thoughts," added Miss Isabel. "We will make you mayor
+of Blissylvania, Jack. How about postage-stamps, girls and boy?"
+
+"Oh, must we have stamps?" they asked.
+
+"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."
+
+"It would be much nicer, but you ought not to bother, Miss Isabel,"
+said Amy.
+
+"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?"
+
+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 _dearest thing_, and that there was no one on
+earth quite like her.
+
+This decision had hardly been arrived at when she rejoined them.
+
+"When shall we begin?" she asked, bending her head under the wistaria
+vine drooping above the entrance to the arbor.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Stopping to eat, I hope," laughed Miss Isabel.
+
+"We are going to give you box number one, because--oh, because you are
+_you_, and an honorary member," said Jack. "And Margery's to have two,
+because she thought of the plan----"
+
+"And you'll have to have three, because you named the town, Jack,"
+interrupted Margery.
+
+"And Trix and Amy will have four and five," resumed Jack.
+
+But Miss Isabel, foreseeing possible danger, interposed.
+
+"I wouldn't have any rewards of that kind," she said. "I'd have
+Blissylvania a real republic, with every one equal, and draw lots for
+numbers."
+
+"So would I," echoed Margery heartily. "I don't want to be first
+because I thought of the plan."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"You've done it!" shouted Jack, in ecstasy--"you've done the queer
+thing!"
+
+"O Trix, are you hurt?" cried the other two girls anxiously.
+
+Trix's eyes were on a level with her knees, for she had fallen through,
+doubled up like a jack-knife.
+
+"I fell down," she remarked, vainly trying to extricate herself.
+
+"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.
+
+"I think we'd better go home," said Amy. "When Trix gets crazy there's
+no telling what will happen."
+
+"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."
+
+"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!"
+
+"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."
+
+Trix disdained to answer.
+
+"We ought to go, it's getting late," she said instead. "Good-night,
+Miss Isabel."
+
+"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 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."
+
+"Grateful! Pooh!" cried Jack, voicing the sentiments of them all. "We
+couldn't get on without you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE.
+
+
+SATURDAY 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.
+
+Jack was hailed with a cry of rapture.
+
+"Here's the office!" he shouted, breaking into a run as he saw the
+little girls; "and this is the drop-box."
+
+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.
+
+"I see it is a drop-box," remarked Trix dryly, getting square on the
+account of the previous night.
+
+"O Jack, have you broken them?" cried Amy, while Margery stood still in
+mute anguish.
+
+"Guess not; no, they're all right," replied Jack, gathering up his
+burdens. "Aren't they just James dandies?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+This had a slit cut in the top large enough for letters to pass
+through, and was not less admired than the post-office.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+It all came from the honorary member's generosity.
+
+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."
+
+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
+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.
+
+"I wonder how we shall decide who is to be postmaster," remarked Trix
+casually, as she reluctantly gave Amy the stamp to try.
+
+Each face reddened slightly; evidently they had all been thinking of
+the same thing.
+
+"I don't see how a girl can be postmaster," said Jack.
+
+"Pshaw! We can be postmistress, and it's all the same," said Amy,
+speaking sharply for her.
+
+"I should think it was more a man's place," continued Jack.
+
+"It's a place for a girl that is strong and quick, and like a boy,"
+said Trix hastily.
+
+"I live right here, where I could look after it," said Margery,
+bringing the discussion from abstract views on suitability to the
+personal application they were all secretly making.
+
+"That's the very reason why you shouldn't be postmistress!" cried
+peace-loving Amy, ruffling her feathers. "You shouldn't have
+everything."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"You'll be nothing of the sort!" screamed Trix, stamping her foot.
+
+"You won't touch my letters!" cried Amy.
+
+"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."
+
+"I'd like to know who wants to sit down?" demanded Jack.
+
+"If you felt as you ought, you'd want your cousin to be postmaster,"
+said Margery.
+
+"Well, I don't; so there!" said Jack.
+
+"Who does?" asked Trix, deserting her ally and turning on Margery.
+"You've got the office in your orchard, and that's enough."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"You're the meanest three in the world!" cried Trix.
+
+"That counts me out, for you girls are the three, and Trix is the
+worst!" shouted Jack.
+
+"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.
+
+"You wouldn't get much," said Trix, not realizing her retort was rather
+against herself.
+
+"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."
+
+"I don't want one," said Trix.
+
+"It's a stupid thing anyhow," said Amy.
+
+"No one with any sense would ever have proposed it," said Jack.
+
+"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.
+
+"Good-morrow, brave Sir Hotspur, noble Lady Catharine Seyton, kind
+Mrs. Plenty, fair Lady Griselda," she said.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Miss Isabel," responded four melancholy voices, from
+which joy seemed forever fled.
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"I brought the stamps," continued Miss Isabel, with persistent,
+cheerful blindness. "Here they are."
+
+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:
+
+"It's a pity you took that trouble, Miss Isabel, for we're not going to
+have a post-office after all."
+
+A sob from Margery followed this remark.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"We didn't mean that; we thought some one would be postmaster all the
+time," said Jack.
+
+"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 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."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+Miss Isabel wrote the numbers, and they drew, Amy number one, Trix two,
+Margery three, and Jack four.
+
+"Now please show me the boxes. Why, they are very nicely made, Jack;
+did you do it alone?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack, beaming, all trace of anger melted in
+the sunshine of her presence.
+
+"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."
+
+Miss Isabel laughed.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes; oh, what fun!" cried Trix, catching Amy around the waist, and
+waltzing her about the old apple-tree and back again.
+
+No one but Margery seemed to remember "the late unpleasantness;" she
+stood a little apart, very pale, but trying to smile.
+
+"Do you know, I think it is unusually warm for the sixth of June?"
+remarked Miss Isabel. "I wonder if I could get any one to walk down to
+Bent's to eat ice-cream with me?"
+
+Jack turned a somersault at once.
+
+"Don't try if you don't want to succeed, Miss Isabel," he said.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Please forgive me, Trix, for being so mean," she whispered, as she
+reached her, and Trix stared at her for a moment in amazement.
+
+"Why, I forgot all about it," she said. "I was meaner than you anyhow."
+And she kissed her.
+
+Amy put her arms around Margery before she could speak. "It's all
+right, Margery; forgive me, too," she whispered.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS TENANT.
+
+
+THE 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 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Trix came into the room, and finding Margery at the piano, sighed.
+
+"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."
+
+Margery shook her head.
+
+"How long must you practise; till half after?"
+
+Margery nodded, the nod coming in well on an accented note. Up and
+down went the nimble fingers, playing an exercise, with the metronome
+ticking on the piano.
+
+Trix fidgeted and wriggled down in the chair, and pulled herself up,
+watching the clock the while.
+
+"Margery, it's _such_ an interesting thing," she said plaintively at
+last.
+
+"In ten minutes," sang Margery to the accompaniment of the scale. "Play
+with Tommy Traddles while you wait."
+
+"Oh, Margery, _won't_ you stop?" cried Trix, after three minutes had
+passed. No answer but _arpeggios_. "Margaret Gresham, you're chewing
+gum," cried Trix, resorting to strategy.
+
+"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."
+
+"Why don't you have a cud?" asked Trix, delighted at having trapped
+Margery into speech. But she was not to be caught again.
+
+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.
+
+"You shall not finish that page," she cried, catching Margery around
+the waist and pulling her off the stool. "You said half-past, and it is
+half-past; so stop."
+
+"But I _must_ finish that page, Trix," she protested. "Unfinished tunes
+I can't stand."
+
+"Well, you'll have to," declared Trix. "Listen to me. The Dismals is
+rented!"
+
+"The Dismals" was the children's name for a very large, untenanted
+place called the Evergreens.
+
+"Why, the Dismals is never rented!" cried Margery. "It hasn't had any
+one in it since we were born."
+
+"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 think he's a murderer hiding
+there, and again some think he's got the evil eye."
+
+"What's that?" asked Margery, shuddering; "another eye, or what?"
+
+"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."
+
+But this had not the effect Trix anticipated.
+
+"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."
+
+Trix was staggered.
+
+"Katie didn't say so, and Katie's a Catholic," she remarked.
+
+"Yes; but Katie doesn't understand," said Margery. "You ought to teach
+her not to be superstitious, Trix."
+
+This was taking the conversation into the realms of morals, and Trix
+wished it to be only thrilling.
+
+"Well, what if he's crazy or wicked?" she demanded.
+
+"That's different," replied Margery promptly. "We'll be late for
+school; wait till I get my hat and catechism, and we'll talk about it
+going along."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"You don't suppose he's some exiled prince come over from Europe and
+hiding there?" suggested Margery.
+
+"They don't have exiled princes now," declared Trix.
+
+"Oh, yes they do; the last of the rightful princes of France died not
+very long ago; papa said so."
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+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:
+
+"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."
+
+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 could if she went out. Hero was her big St. Bernard,
+and objected to much exercise in summer.
+
+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.
+
+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 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.
+
+Each made a characteristic preparation for the dangers of the night.
+Jack took his toy pistol and sword to bed, hoping in case of 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE INVASION OF THE AMAZONS.
+
+
+MARGERY 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:
+
+"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."
+
+Margery herself carried them to school and gave them to their owners,
+for it was her first day as postmistress.
+
+"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.
+
+Amy found her waiting with Trix when she appeared at the
+trysting-place a trifle late.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I wouldn't go for the world," declared Amy, blanching at the thought.
+
+"Nor I," echoed daring Trix. "You're such a scared cat, Margery, I
+don't see what you want to go for."
+
+"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."
+
+"I suppose Jack would think we were brave," remarked Trix slowly.
+
+She and Jack were engaged in a sort of perpetual "stump" as to which
+should outdo the other.
+
+Margery saw an advantage here.
+
+"Of course he would," she said. "He'd never dare say again that girls
+were cowards."
+
+"But I am," said Amy candidly, "and I couldn't say I wasn't. Still, if
+you go, Margery, I'll go with you."
+
+"You dear thing," cried Margery, giving her an enthusiastic hug.
+
+"I'll go; I'd like to," said Trix hastily, trying to retrieve her
+reputation.
+
+"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 _must_
+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."
+
+Margery meant lunatic or maniac, it is not clear which.
+
+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 fence, and
+concealed themselves not far from the back door, in the long grass that
+had not been cut for many summers.
+
+"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.
+
+"Oh, keep quiet, and just pray," she whispered.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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 much less in June, when they have families to look after?"
+
+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.
+
+"That does not sound like birds, Sheila," he said. "What have you
+found?"
+
+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.
+
+"Stop!" shouted the stranger. "Don't run, children; Sheila won't hurt
+you."
+
+"But you might," thought the children, and fled faster, all their fear
+returning in their flight. Margery and Amy cleared the 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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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 sure that if she had met him
+elsewhere and otherwise she should have liked him.
+
+"Weren't there more little girls?" he asked, laughing. "It seemed to me
+a dozen started up from the grass when Sheila barked."
+
+"Two, sir," Trix murmured faintly. "They are on the other side."
+
+He came closer, and looked over.
+
+"Please come back a moment, and let Sheila apologize," he said, and
+Margery and Amy dared not refuse.
+
+They crawled back, and the man turned to the dog.
+
+"Sit up, Sheila; say you're very sorry," he commanded.
+
+Sheila sat up at once and whined.
+
+"Now go shake hands all round," said her master.
+
+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.
+
+"Now won't you come back and rest?" asked the man.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"That wouldn't take long to tell," replied Trix saucily.
+
+"You may have seen the man at the Dismals, but I know who he is," Jack
+continued, ignoring Trix.
+
+"Who?" cried each of the girls.
+
+"Guess," said Jack.
+
+"An escaped bandit," exclaimed Trix.
+
+"An officer of the society that takes care of animals," said Amy, who
+had been much impressed by the stranger's goodness to Sheila.
+
+"An exiled prince," cried Margery, returning to her first idea.
+
+"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 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?"
+
+"No," said Amy, bewildered.
+
+"Why, is he Mr. Robert Dean?" asked Trix, immediately adding: "I don't
+know who Mr. Dean is, though."
+
+But Margery looked greatly excited.
+
+"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.
+
+"Right you are, Peggy," said Jack. "He's come back to take Miss Isabel
+away, I'll bet you, and so he is a robber, and we were right in the
+first place."
+
+Trix assented cordially.
+
+"He'd better not try to take Miss Isabel off!" she said fiercely.
+
+Amy and Margery took another view.
+
+"May be she likes him, and would be glad to see him again," said Amy.
+"Maybe she'd rather have him come back."
+
+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."
+
+"Much he'd care what we said," muttered Jack wrathfully.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+They could not make up their minds to 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.
+
+"Never mind, Margery; you'll have us," said Amy, sitting down by her
+and putting her arm around her.
+
+"Yes; but you're none of you Miss Isabel. But I'll be glad, very glad,"
+said Margery, with a fresh burst of tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+WHEN 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Mr. Dean looked down on them with some surprise, and Margery said
+faintly:
+
+"We've come to call on you, sir, as you asked us."
+
+"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."
+
+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 rescued from her
+precarious situation by their host turning from the window with the
+words:
+
+"My name is Robert Dean. Will you please tell me yours, that we may
+begin properly?"
+
+All the others looked toward Margery, feeling that as it was her
+expedition, it was for her to do the honors.
+
+Margery gladly slipped down on her feet.
+
+"This is Beatrice Lane; we call her Trix," she began.
+
+Mr. Dean made a profound bow.
+
+"And the name suits her, if one may judge by appearances," he said.
+
+"And this is Amy Tracy, and my cousin, Jack Hildreth."
+
+"And you?" suggested Mr. Dean. "I should like to call you something
+too."
+
+"I am Margaret Gresham," said Margery, blushing.
+
+"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 satin embroidered with
+flowers dim with time.
+
+"Thank you," said Margery, with profound inward gratitude. "It seems a
+pity to sit on it if your grandmother embroidered it."
+
+"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."
+
+"How lovely to have it still!" said Margery, rising to look at the
+flowers again. "I am not eleven yet--not till October."
+
+"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 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."
+
+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.
+
+"What a beautiful, lovely old garden!" cried Trix. "It is as nice as
+Miss Isabel's."
+
+Mr. Dean turned quickly.
+
+"Do you know Miss Isabel?" he asked.
+
+"Know her!" cried Jack. "She's our best friend."
+
+"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.
+
+"So she is, Beatrice," he said. "You are fortunate to have her
+friendship."
+
+Something in his voice melted all Margery's distrust; she slipped her
+hand confidingly into his.
+
+"We love her more than all the world," she said softly. "We have a
+club, and her name in the club is Alma Cara."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+Mr. Dean touched Amy's badge inquiringly.
+
+"Might one ask what that means?" he said.
+
+"It's a secret," began Amy, looking hesitatingly at the others.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mr. Dean.
+
+"But I think we could tell Mr. Dean, couldn't we?" suggested Margery.
+
+"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.
+
+"It is the Happy Thought Club," explained Amy, indicating the initials
+on her badge; "and we have a post-office."
+
+And each adding a bit of information, the story of the post-office was
+told him. Mr. Dean laughed heartily over the names.
+
+"What fun you must have!" he exclaimed. "If I come to return your call,
+will you show me the post-office?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+In a moment Mr. Dean spoke again, quite cheerfully:
+
+"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?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir; we'd like to, if we may," said all four children
+heartily.
+
+"I think that your mothers will allow it," said Mr. Dean. "You see you
+do not know 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?"
+
+Jack blushed painfully, but Trix said, with great presence of mind:
+
+"I don't think that I ever heard them speak of you."
+
+"Very likely not----" Mr. Dean was beginning, when Amy interrupted him.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh, yes; don't mind that nonsense," said Trix, and Margery, rising to
+go, held out her hand, saying, "I think we shall be real friends."
+
+"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."
+
+"Good-by," said the children; "we've had a beautiful time. Come and see
+us, and we'll show you our post-office."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"He's all right," said Jack comprehensively.
+
+"I think he's nice," said Amy emphatically.
+
+"He's the nicest man, except my father, I ever saw," announced Trix.
+
+Margery sighed gently.
+
+"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 Isabel is
+for a lady." And praise could go no further.
+
+Miss Isabel welcomed her fellow-members of the club heartily.
+
+"We've something very interesting to tell you," said Amy, the moment
+the salutations were over.
+
+"I am all attention," said Miss Isabel, coming to sit down before them.
+
+"We've been making a call at the Dismals, on Mr. Dean," said Trix.
+
+Miss Isabel sprang up again and went to the window.
+
+"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."
+
+Miss Isabel turned and came back to them.
+
+"And what about the post-office?" she asked, ignoring the new
+acquaintance.
+
+Trix and Jack stared, Margery looked hurt, and Amy murmured in helpless
+bewilderment:
+
+"It's very well, thank you."
+
+Suddenly Jack brightened.
+
+"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."
+
+"I am afraid I don't understand, Jack," said Miss Isabel.
+
+"Why, then we could ask Mr. Dean to be an honorary member, too,"
+explained Jack.
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried the three girls.
+
+"I'm sure he'd be delighted; he seemed so interested in the office,"
+said Amy.
+
+"Should you mind?" asked Trix. "May we?" while Margery said nothing,
+but looked eager.
+
+"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."
+
+"Why, we'd love to," they all cried.
+
+"Let me do it all the time," begged Jack.
+
+"You will all come; I want you all," said Miss Isabel, rising. "You
+won't mind if I say good-by? I--I feel tired. Good-night, dears; come
+back as soon as you can."
+
+She kissed each one lovingly, but there was no mistaking the fact that
+she was impatient to be left alone.
+
+The children went down the street in wondering silence, which Amy was
+the first to break.
+
+"Miss Isabel's sick," she said.
+
+"She didn't care one bit about our visit to the Dismals," said Trix.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A NEW MEMBER.
+
+
+MR. DEAN 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:
+
+"Tell him."
+
+"No, you tell him," said Amy.
+
+"Jack ought to tell him," said Trix, "because he thought of it."
+
+"Yes, tell, Jack," echoed Margery and Amy.
+
+"Now what is this mystery?" asked Mr. Dean.
+
+"It's nothing much," Jack replied, blushing furiously. "You see I
+thought--we thought that you might like--oh, I mean maybe you'd be
+another honorary member."
+
+"Of the post-office, the H. T. C.?" asked Mr. Dean.
+
+Jack nodded. "If you don't think we're too little for you," he added.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, I see," cried Amy. "What a lovely way to grow up! I mean to be a
+woman that way, too."
+
+"That's like Miss Isabel," remarked Trix, but Jack, with an eye solely
+on the business in hand, said:
+
+"We'd like lots to have you join if you will."
+
+"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.
+
+"Now you'll have to choose a name," cried Amy, jumping around in high
+glee.
+
+Mr. Dean considered a moment. "I think, on the whole, Oliver Twist
+would be an appropriate name for me this summer," he said, with
+humorous melancholy.
+
+"Oliver Twist? What is that? Sir Oliver Twist, or plain Mr. Oliver
+Twist?" asked Trix.
+
+"Are none of you plain Mr. or Miss; are you all a knight or lady?" Mr.
+Dean inquired.
+
+"No; Amy is Mrs. Peace Plenty, but the rest of us are lady, and Jack is
+Sir Harry Hotspur," answered Margery gravely.
+
+"And your Miss Isabel?" suggested Mr. Dean.
+
+"Oh, she is Lady Alma Cara; it would never do for her to be plain
+_Mrs._," said Trix.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," replied the children.
+
+"Then that's settled. And, Jack, do you know a boy who would go
+fishing with me to-morrow after school?"
+
+"I think I do," said Jack, looking up with a beaming face.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Does Miss Isabel usually come at this hour?" asked Mr. Dean, brushing
+his hat carefully.
+
+"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."
+
+Something like a shadow crept over Mr. Dean's face; Margery thought
+that he looked hurt.
+
+"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."
+
+He smiled at her sadly.
+
+"All of you whom she wishes to see," he said. "Good-by till the day
+after to-morrow, then, and thank you for this honor more than I can
+say. Come along, Jack."
+
+Trix watched them enviously as they disappeared.
+
+"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."
+
+"Isn't he splendid!" cried the other two, disregarding her woes, and
+she cheered up in agreeing with them.
+
+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.
+
+This funny parcel was considered by the others as a good joke, but
+Margery took it seriously, and her gratitude was unbounded.
+
+"Dear Mr. Twist," she wrote in acknowledgment. "I cannot tell you how
+much 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."
+
+The reply came the next morning, and Margery found herself taken rather
+painfully at her word.
+
+"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."
+
+This letter threw Margery into an agony of excitement.
+
+"Who told him?" she demanded sternly, looking with dilated eyes over
+the edge of the missive.
+
+"I may have just mentioned that you wrote poetry that day that we went
+fishing," said Jack sheepishly. "What's the harm, Peggy?"
+
+"Yes, what's the harm?" echoed Amy, who was much impressed by the
+request. "You do write poetry, and it's lovely."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"'The Knight,'" said Jack promptly.
+
+"'Rome,'" said Trix.
+
+"'Rome' is unfinished," objected Margery.
+
+"'Millie Maloe,'" said Amy.
+
+"I'll send 'The Knight' and 'Millie Maloe,'" Margery decided, and the
+next morning's mail contained a thick letter for Mr. Oliver Twist.
+
+"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 be
+silly, but she is glad to do anything to please you because you are so
+good to us."
+
+    MILLIE MALOE.
+
+    All alone she is wandering,
+      All alone in the snow;
+    Lost in the pathless forest,
+      Poor little Millie Maloe.
+
+    The tall tress shake able her,
+      And the winds whistle and sigh,
+    And poor little Millie is shiv'ring,
+      And she thinks she's going to die;
+
+    And she falls asleep on the dry leaves
+      Covered o'er with snow,
+    But is waked by darling Rover--
+      Ah, happy Millie Maloe!
+
+    The dog is bending o'er her,
+      And a sleigh is drawing near,
+    And soon she's with her father,
+      Who clasps his baby dear.
+
+    THE KNIGHT.
+
+    In a nameless grave does the good knight rest.
+    He has fought for the cross, and so he is blest.
+    Far away, in a castle grim,
+    His wife watcheth and prayeth for him.
+    Her baby son around her plays
+    And tosses the beads while she prays.
+    A message comes from the Holy War
+    Breathing of love for the son he ne'er saw.
+    Days after another one comes--
+    He's dead! "God pity the sorrowing ones."
+
+The Lady Griselda received a polite note of thanks for the favor thus
+shown Mr. Oliver Twist, and the matter was forgotten.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+danger of its precious nose, and flew with Trix to her side.
+
+"What is it?" they cried.
+
+"Look!" gasped Margery.
+
+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.
+
+The girls nearly fell over in their wonder and awe, and Margery looked
+so white and excited that they really feared she would faint.
+
+"Jack, come here!" cried Trix and Amy, waving their hands wildly to
+Jack, who appeared that moment in the gate. "Hurry! oh, hurry!"
+
+Jack ran over to them.
+
+"What's up?" he asked.
+
+"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.
+
+"Oh, jolly me!" cried Jack, much impressed. "Why, you're a writer now,
+like--like--oh, those people what write poetry for the papers."
+
+"I'm going to find mamma," said Margery, rising in solemn ecstasy; "and
+then I'm going to thank him."
+
+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.
+
+"You are very good to me; I came to thank you," said Margery simply,
+kissing him as she spoke.
+
+"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."
+
+"I like it _very_ much," said Margery earnestly--"I like it more than I
+can say, and when I grow up I mean to write all the time."
+
+And there was told the secret that Margery had never uttered, for she
+did not tell her dreams as the others did.
+
+"We are going now to show the magazine to Miss Isabel," said Margery,
+slipping down.
+
+"To Miss Isabel?" repeated Mr. Dean. "Let me tell you something. I am
+going away."
+
+"Oh!" cried four pained voices.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh! not forever," cried Trix, while Amy's lips quivered, and Jack
+stooped to lace his boot.
+
+Mr. Dean did not answer.
+
+"You'll all write me, and we shall be friends wherever I am," he said
+instead.
+
+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?"
+
+Mr. Dean gathered her up, hushing her like a baby.
+
+"I don't know, my little Margery," he said. "I have been trying to
+answer that question, but I can't."
+
+They were four tear-stained and swollen faces that appeared before Miss
+Isabel a little 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.
+
+"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."
+
+Miss Isabel flushed and grew pale.
+
+"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."
+
+"It's not that, Miss Isabel," said Margery, with indignant vigor. "We
+love him."
+
+And Miss Isabel kissed her.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"I thought he was some one else," she said, arousing herself, while
+Jack shouted with laughter.
+
+"What's the matter, Megsy; writing another poem?" he asked.
+
+"I won't tell you," she said. "I've had an idea."
+
+"Tell us; how queer you look!" cried Trix, giving her a little shake of
+impatience.
+
+"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."
+
+"Have you a plan, Margery?" asked Amy, who regarded Margery as a
+superior being, whose thoughts were beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.
+
+"Yes, I've a plan," replied Margery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MARGERY'S PLAN.
+
+
+THE 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.
+
+She found him in the library putting his 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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"I did not want the rest," replied Margery. "I came to see you about
+something important."
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+"You see," said Margery, "I was thinking about your going away, and
+about Miss Isabel."
+
+Mr. Dean looked rather startled.
+
+"That is a queer subject for your thoughts, Margery," he said.
+
+"I think that you are sorry that you are not friends with Miss Isabel,"
+Margery continued.
+
+"I am very sorry that I am not friends with Miss Isabel," Mr. Dean
+repeated gravely.
+
+"Now I think Miss Isabel doesn't know," said Margery.
+
+"Doesn't know what, little dove?" Mr. Dean asked.
+
+"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."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Dean, smiling a little, "I think it's rather horrid
+myself."
+
+"Yes," assented Margery. "Now why don't you send her a letter through
+our postoffice, and tell her how badly it makes us all feel?"
+
+Mr. Dean sat up straight, and looked at her.
+
+"I never once thought of the little post-office!" he cried.
+
+"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."
+
+"Margery, it's an inspiration," cried Mr. Dean. "And I could address it
+to Miss Alma Cara."
+
+"Oh, yes, you'd have to, because that's her post-office name, only it's
+not _Miss_, it's _Lady_ 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."
+
+Mr. Dean was walking up and down the room by this time, and he came
+over and stood before Margery.
+
+"Did you ever hear that Solomon was a little girl before he grew up?"
+he asked.
+
+"I never heard about Solomon when he was little, but I guess he was a
+little boy," replied Margery.
+
+"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.
+
+Margery laughed.
+
+"Do you think it is a good plan?" she asked delightedly.
+
+"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."
+
+And Margery felt that in all her life she could never again have such
+praise as this.
+
+"Will you write it soon?" she asked, putting on her hat, and pulling
+its elastic from the ribbon on the end of her braid.
+
+"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."
+
+"And if you and Miss Isabel were friends you wouldn't go away, would
+you?" asked Margery wistfully, turning back in the doorway.
+
+"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.
+
+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 _it_; come find 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.
+
+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.
+
+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. While they were playing he had come in
+the orchard gate and posted it.
+
+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.
+
+"Now if only Miss Isabel will forgive him, and he can stay here, and we
+can all be friends," thought the little conspirator.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ONE HONORARY MEMBER TO THE OTHER HONORARY MEMBER.
+
+
+TOMMY TRADDLES 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?"
+
+"I couldn't sleep, Tommy," Margery answered; "I have so much on my
+mind."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Dear Miss Isabel, are you ill?" she cried, running to throw her arms
+around her.
+
+Miss Isabel brightened as she turned to meet her.
+
+"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."
+
+This recalled Margery to her errand.
+
+"I brought you a letter, Lady Alma Cara," she said.
+
+Miss Isabel set down the watering-pot, and put out her hand.
+
+"Was it a special delivery that you came so early?" she asked.
+
+"I think it was," said Margery, "though it was not marked."
+
+Suddenly Miss Isabel dropped her shears and sponge, and sat down on the
+old gray 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.
+
+"What is this, Margery?" she asked.
+
+"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
+_worms_," said Margery, inspired to this comparison by looking down at
+the lilies' roots. "Please, _please_ 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."
+
+Miss Isabel was sobbing.
+
+"Go back, dear Margery," she whispered. "You must go away now."
+
+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.
+
+"Are you angry?" she implored. "Only tell me that; are you angry?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Isabel, suddenly laughing in a queer sobbing way;
+"why didn't you bring this letter before?"
+
+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.
+
+"What's the matter?" she called out, as soon as they could hear,
+running to receive the answer.
+
+"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.
+
+"Going to spend the day? I'm glad. What's the matter, Trix, that you
+look so solemn," asked Margery.
+
+"Don't you know what that means?" demanded Trix, in such a
+horror-stricken manner that Margery trembled and shook her head.
+
+"I'll tell you, then," said Trix. "You know mamma fell down-stairs
+three weeks ago and sprained her ankle?"
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Margery.
+
+"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.
+
+"How do you know?" demanded Margery, recovering from the shock.
+
+"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
+_know_ that's it, and I shall die, I shall die!"
+
+Margery and Amy looked at each other, feeling helpless in the face of
+such a calamity as this.
+
+"Did you say anything to my mother?" Margery asked at last.
+
+"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."
+
+"It's awful!" shuddered Margery. "You'd better come home with me, Trix,
+and we'll try to do something to forget it."
+
+"Forget it!" cried Trix, turning on her 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."
+
+Margery looked faint, Amy began to sob, and Trix quivered from head to
+foot.
+
+"We shall all go crazy if we think of it," said Margery, bracing
+herself. "It may not be that at all."
+
+"I tell you I know it is," asserted Trix, so confidently that Margery
+yielded the point.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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 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."
+
+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.
+
+"Jack! Jack!" she called.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Margaret," replied Jack, pausing.
+
+"If you are going out, don't go near Mrs. Lane's house," said his aunt.
+
+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 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.
+
+At last it was ten minutes to three, and Trix could go. Amy, Margery,
+and Jack accompanied her.
+
+"I don't smell ether," remarked Amy as they went in the door.
+
+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.
+
+"Look, Trix!" she said, and pointed to a piano standing in all the
+glory of new polish over at the end of the room.
+
+"For me!" gasped Trix.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"And you didn't have your leg cut off, after all?" asked Jack.
+
+"I don't understand," said Mrs. Lane in bewilderment.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+And for the first time in that hard day Trix burst out crying, though
+she explained that it was because she was so glad.
+
+"To think that we've had such a dreadful day for nothing," said Jack,
+in profound disgust, as they left the house.
+
+"Why, Jack Hildreth, I'm ashamed of you; one might think you were sorry
+that Mrs. Lane wasn't a cripple," cried his cousin.
+
+The children parted at their respective 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.
+
+"You little dove of good tidings, my dear little Margery, how can I
+love you enough?" she cried.
+
+"Have you answered?" asked Margery eagerly.
+
+"I posted a note just now, and it was addressed to Mr. Oliver Twist,"
+said Miss Isabel, and fairly ran away.
+
+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.
+
+She found Mr. Dean marching up and down the walk, "just as if he were
+expecting some one," thought Margery.
+
+"A letter, Margery?" he cried, as soon as he saw her.
+
+"Yes, but it's very thin, and yours was so thick," said Margery, not
+wishing him to be disappointed.
+
+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.
+
+"I shall not go away, my little dove," he said simply.
+
+"Then Miss Isabel isn't angry any more?" asked Margery.
+
+"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."
+
+"And now I can keep you and Miss Isabel?" asked Margery.
+
+"You can keep me; I'm not so sure about Miss Isabel," said Mr. Dean.
+
+"I'm not afraid of losing her," laughed Margery happily. "Oh, I'm so
+glad, I'm so glad you can stay!"
+
+"What shall we do to show how glad we are?" asked Mr. Dean.
+
+Margery considered the question seriously.
+
+"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.
+
+"But are you sure it is all right; it was such a little note, and yours
+was so thick?" said Margery as they arose.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"It's glad, too, that everything is happy, and Mr. Dean is going to
+stay. It's smiling good-night."
+
+And smiling back to it, Margery passed into happy dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A PICNIC.
+
+
+TRIX 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 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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 August,
+and the blackberries showing red through the vines, with some black as
+jet, and here and there the leaves beginning to bronze.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+The children drew long breaths of satisfaction as they paused here,
+and stooped to lay their burning cheeks on the cool pillows 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.
+
+"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.
+
+"What would you like to do first?" asked Mr. Dean, with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"Eat," said Jack promptly.
+
+"I knew it," cried Mr. Dean, laughing, "and to be quite honest, I am
+hungry myself."
+
+"Open the small hamper," said Miss Isabel. "I provided a little lunch
+and a big lunch, and we may have the little one first."
+
+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.
+
+"And now I've thought of a splendid play," announced Trix, removing
+the crumbs from her lips in the most simple, if not the 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."
+
+"Isn't that a great play, Trix!" cried Jack in ecstasy. "I'll kill
+dragons."
+
+"I'd like to discover," said Margery.
+
+"I'll report the flowers and things," said Amy.
+
+"And I want to be a knight sent out to have adventures," declared Trix.
+"Will you play that, Miss Isabel? Will you, Mr. Dean?"
+
+"By all means," replied Mr. Dean.
+
+"I'd like it very much," said Miss Isabel.
+
+"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 expeditions. And remember, we're all knights,
+because girls can't do such things."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes, your majesty," replied rosy-cheeked Sir Percival, trying to rise
+gracefully as the first knight had done, and getting entangled in her
+pink gingham skirts.
+
+"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."
+
+"Sire, I will go right gladly," replied Sir Philip loyally.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+Sir Harry bore the dragon's head, which he presented kneeling to the
+king.
+
+"It was a dreadful fight, your majesty," said the panting knight. "All
+around the dragon's cave lay men's bones."
+
+"Think ye they were the bones of the victims which he had devoured?"
+the king asked.
+
+"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."
+
+Jack had had a hard time digging up the root which represented the
+dragon's head.
+
+"You have our royal thanks," said the king, "and you shall learn that
+one monarch at least is not ungrateful."
+
+Sir Philip was the next to arrive. He--or she--knelt at the feet of the
+king.
+
+"Well, Sir Philip," he asked, "were you successful?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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 leaf, bearing the word "Honor" pricked in it with a pin.
+
+"And here comes Sir Guy," cried the king.
+
+Sir Guy came running, his hair was unbraided, and his cheeks flushed,
+and his dark eyes bright.
+
+"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.
+
+"Oh, Trix, give her to me!" cried Margery.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Here are all the flowers and fruits I could find," said Sir Percival,
+presenting an enormous bunch of all sorts of blossoms. "But 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.
+
+"A fossil!" cried her majesty. "Sir Percival, I congratulate you; you
+have really made a discovery. Where did you find it?"
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"The shells can tell us," said Miss Isabel, putting the lump of clay
+to her ear and pretending 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 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."
+
+"Oh, Miss Isabel, is it a fairy story?" "Oh, Miss Isabel, is it true?"
+cried Trix and Amy together.
+
+Margery almost sobbed in excitement; she stretched out her hand for the
+fossil.
+
+"I can't think so far back," she whispered. "Before God made man!"
+
+But Jack said, "I know; that's geology, and it's splendid. I mean to
+study it when I get big."
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Never mind, Amy, we'll pull you out," said Mr. Dean cheerily. "Jack,
+help me drag this dead tree over."
+
+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, though with
+both her low shoes gone, and her skirts in a sorry plight.
+
+"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."
+
+Mr. Dean obediently shouldered the little girl, and they started in
+procession out of the woods.
+
+"I am glad the hampers are empty," remarked Mr. Dean. "Mrs. Peace
+Plenty is a solid little body."
+
+The drive home in the long, warm rays of the afternoon sun warmed Amy
+thoroughly and restored her shaken nerves.
+
+"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.
+
+"And you have had a whole long eleven, too," laughed Mr. Dean.
+
+"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.
+
+"Many happy returns, many happy returns," Mr. Dean, Miss Isabel, Jack,
+and Margery called back to her as they drove away.
+
+"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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A WEDDING.
+
+
+MR. DEAN 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 the H. T. C. it might never have come about.
+
+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.
+
+There was only happiness in each little heart that lovely morning; all
+doubt had 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 _were_
+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."
+
+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."
+
+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 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.
+
+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 from Chicago that on this great day she might have the arm of
+one of her kindred on which to lean.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"I believe they built these old houses just for weddings and balls; I
+never knew it 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.
+
+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.
+
+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:
+
+"Mr. John Hildreth, my best man, will make a few remarks on this happy
+occasion."
+
+Jack sank back farther, looking painfully red and frightened, but Trix
+poked him energetically.
+
+"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."
+
+Jack arose; his very ears were crimson, and his voice trembled.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," poor Jack began.
+
+"Hear! hear!" cried one of the guests, in what was meant for
+encouragement, but had the opposite effect.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," Jack said again, "I didn't know best men had to
+make speeches. I never made a speech."
+
+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."
+
+"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 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."
+
+A great deal of laughter and cheering greeted this happy ending, under
+cover of which Trix whispered:
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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, 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.
+
+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 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.
+
+"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.
+
+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 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE END OF THE YEAR AND OF THE POST-OFFICE.
+
+
+CHRISTMAS 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.
+
+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 mails,
+which were steadily growing lighter; indeed, no one but Lady Alma Cara
+and Mr. Oliver Twist were still faithful correspondents.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I don't believe it's much," said Trix sceptically. "Jack has such lots
+of notions."
+
+But Margery shook her head.
+
+"This is something," she began, when Amy interrupted her.
+
+"I hear him now, coming through the back way," she said, and had
+scarcely spoken when Jack appeared, half a dozen cookies in each hand
+and busy with another.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Oh, tell me, Jack; hurry up!" cried Margery, while Trix threw a down
+pillow at him, which he caught, saying:
+
+"Thank you," putting it at his back. "Do you want me to tell you,
+Megsy?" he asked. "Well, I'm going away to school."
+
+A thunderbolt in the midst of the snow could not have produced greater
+consternation.
+
+"Jack!" cried all three in tones of horror. "You're not."
+
+"Yes, I am; papa has decided. I am going next Monday."
+
+"To boarding-school?" asked Trix, regret at his going and envy
+struggling in her face.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"Oh, no; only in town. I can come home at Easter, and June will soon be
+here," replied Jack.
+
+"And we can write to him," said Amy, trying as usual to see a bright
+side.
+
+"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.
+
+"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 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.
+
+Silence followed this remark. Amy and Margery looked at one another.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"You are too," said Trix, indirectly admitting that she was.
+
+"Well, even if I weren't, I couldn't play 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."
+
+Trix cheered up.
+
+"Let's," she said briefly.
+
+"Burn our post-office!" Amy gasped.
+
+Margery looked happier.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Aye," said Trix and Margery unanimously.
+
+"How do you vote when you want to and don't want to?" asked Amy.
+
+"You decide which you want more," said Margery.
+
+"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.
+
+"Sure enough," said Amy. "Well, I vote aye, then."
+
+"Now once more," cried Jack. "All in favor say aye."
+
+"Aye," cried the four voices.
+
+"Now, Jack, run up to Mr. Dean's while I write an ode," said Margery,
+and Jack went.
+
+"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."
+
+"How shall we burn it?" asked Amy, when Jack came back.
+
+"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."
+
+"It's awfully solemn," said Amy, shuddering.
+
+"It's fine," said Trix. "Ode done, Margery?"
+
+"Yes, it will do," said Margery, giving a last wild flourish with her
+pencil.
+
+"Come on then," said Jack. "Move the table."
+
+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.
+
+"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 recollection of this one, to which we now say good-by.
+Girls, take a corner each."
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"Now, Margery, begin your ode," whispered Jack. "Read slowly."
+
+Margery read:
+
+    "Sweet post-office, though you are dear,
+      The hour has come to say good-by;
+    You end now with the ending year,
+      And we stand here to see you die.
+    You served us well in summer's heat;
+      You changed two foes to man and wife;
+    We ran to you with hurried feet,
+      Because you were our joy in life.
+    Though you are warped, we do not spurn;
+      We love you still, though you are bent,
+    And standing here to see you burn
+      We read to you our hearts' lament.
+    The New Year comes to-morrow morn,
+      When one brave dove far schoolward flocks;
+    In June, if a new office's born,
+      We'll think your spirit's in the box,
+    And thus you will be with us yet;
+      Old office, we will hold you dear;
+    Our first friend we can ne'er forget,
+      So good-by, old office, and Old Year."
+
+This ode, in spite of its halting in some of its feet, was hailed with
+rapturous approval by Margery's audience.
+
+"There goes the last end of the office," cried Jack excitedly.
+
+"And our post-office is over," said Amy sadly.
+
+"And Jack's going away," added Margery.
+
+"Only till June, and then we'll have a new office and Jack back again,"
+said Trix.
+
+"And the Happy Thought Club's going to last forever," cried Jack.
+
+"Let's give three cheers for the H. T. C. as a close of the exercises.
+Hurry up before the box is quite gone."
+
+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.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blissylvania Post-Office, by 
+Marion Ames Taggart
+
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