But Joel was just in his element, and when he brought the rest off from the overturned boat, he couldn't conceal his satisfaction.

"Some one has got to tell about that boat." He pointed to the overturned one.

"I knew you would blab." Mike turned, his shame disappearing, to grow red with passion.

"Shut up." It was the other boy that roared at him, who, injured arm or not, could somehow inspire the former leader with fear. "I'm going to tell myself; an' if any of you fellows has got spunk, he'll tell, too." It was such a battle cry that Mike's head went down. He knew as well as afterward that his leadership was gone, and that every one of the crew had gone over to the other boy.

"Hi—yes, we'll tell." If Jack, their new leader, could decide to, they would follow him, and they yelled it out much better than any one would suppose possible after their fright, turning their backs on Mike.

"That's good," said Joel, bobbing his black curls, from which the rain was streaming, at the whole bunch of boys in approval, and taking up his oars he prepared to move off. "If you'll only tell about the boat."

"Oh, I say"—Jack seeing that he was now the recognized leader, was going to do the whole thing up in good shape—"we're much obliged, and who are you, anyway?" he broke off awkwardly.

"I'm Mr. King's grandson," said Joel "Well, good-bye."

"Mr. King's!" Jack gave a roll over and groveled in the wet moss. "Oh, it's all up with us, fellows," he groaned. The black dog, who belonged to him, came and licked him all over, glaring between whiles at Joel, as if he were the cause of the whole trouble. The bunch of boys said nothing, but shivered in silence.

"Well, good-bye," said Joel, as he pushed off, feeling it necessary for some one to speak, "and I hope you haven't hurt your arm much," to the recumbent figure.

"Don't let him hurt these chaps—your grandfather I mean." Jack threw up his head and pointed to the boys. "Only get Mike licked. We'd all of us like that."

"What?" cried Joel over his shoulder, stopping his busy oars.

"Why, when you tell him how mean we used you, don't let him get those chaps into trouble, 'cause——"

"When I tell him!" cried Joel. "What do you mean?"

"Why, of course you'll tell him," blurted Jack. Mike had taken to his heels and was making quick tracks with his sodden shoes through the undergrowth. Things were not going to his taste now.

"See here." Joel made quick passes now with the oars, and brought his boat up alongside the bank. "I'm not going to tell my Grandpapa about what you've done, 'Tisn't any matter."

"You ain't?" cried Jack, getting up so quickly he upset the next boy, who rolled over the big, black dog. "Great Scott! You ain't going to tell the old gentleman?"

"No," said Joel, "I don't care anything about it; you didn't hurt me any."

"Well, if I ever!" It was all that Jack, the leader, could get out. And Joel, seeing there was nothing to wait for, set to work again, and presently amid the rain and the lightning gleams, his boat was only a little speck on the surface of the pond, as viewed by the group of boys on the bank.



XVIII

THE COMFORT COMMITTEE

"Oh, Mary!" Eleanor Keep seized Miss Taylor's arm and burst into tears. When she could speak she gasped, "What is it, Mary?"

"Hush!" warned Mary Taylor, drawing her off into the little reception-room. "Your mother—we must think of her, Nell."

"Mr. Delafield is telling her something. I know it is dreadful." Eleanor sank upon the sofa, dragging Mary Taylor with her. "Oh, I shall die if you don't tell me right off what has happened, Mary."

"Not a word shall you hear until you can control yourself," declared Miss Taylor, wresting herself away from the nervous grasp, and running over to the door she closed it. "Now then, Nell, are you a sensible girl?"—coming back.

Eleanor flung herself down on the sofa, and sobbed:

"Oh, I know Larry is dead and you are trying to keep it from me."

"Larry is not dead," said Mary Taylor.

"Well, he is terribly hurt," said Eleanor, between her sobs. "Oh dear, my only brother, Larry!"

Mary Taylor got down on her knees by the sofa, and took the poor head up to let her own tears fall over it.

"Why, you are crying yourself," exclaimed Eleanor, feeling the drops trickle down her neck. "And you told me not to. Why, Mary Taylor!"

"Of course I am," said Mary. "Now see here: we are both of us very wrong to give way in this fashion; we ought to be seeing to your mother. Get up, Eleanor," and she sprang to her feet. "There, that's right. Come on."

Some one rapped at the side door, and the confusion in the house calling the maids from their duty, the butler belonging to the establishment of the next neighbor, Mrs. Sterling, popped in his head.

"Excuse me, Miss," he said to Mary Taylor, Eleanor being beyond a reply. "Mrs. Sterling has sent for you ladies to come in there and stay until the doctors are through."

At the word "doctors" Eleanor shivered and covered her eyes.

"The very thing," said Mary Taylor; "we'll get your mother in there"; and with a message back to Mrs. Sterling the two young ladies hurried off, and before Larry's mother quite knew how, she was in the beautiful upper room of the stately brownstone mansion, and face to face with its invalid mistress, condemned for years to lie on her sofa.

"I do believe," said Mrs. Sterling, putting out a soft hand, "that everything will be much better than you think. We shall soon have cheering news, I feel quite sure. Gibson, draw up the easy-chair, so—that's right."

Gibson quietly did as bidden, and Mrs, Keep sank into it, and laid down her head with the air of one quite done with the world. To add to the gloom, a terrible thunderstorm broke suddenly.

"Now give me your hand." Mrs. Sterling leaned over and drew it within her own. Seeing all things going on so well, Mary Taylor and Eleanor drew off into the hall.

"Young ladies," said Gibson, coming out softly, "wouldn't you wish to go down into the drawing-room? Mistress would like to have you make yourselves comfortable. The storm is pretty heavy, and I'll light the gas."

"Oh, no, no," said Eleanor, shrinking at the invitation. "Mary, don't let's go," she whispered; "I should die there in that big, stiff room."

"We'll sit just here," said Mary Taylor. "Come on, Nell," and down they both got on the top stair, huddling up together, while the storm raged outside in its fury.

"Oh, young ladies!" exclaimed Gibson, starting, "I'll get you some chairs if you want to sit in the hall."

"We like this," said Mary Taylor; "please, Gibson, don't feel troubled." So Gibson went back to her mistress' room, and Mary put her arm around Eleanor, and patted her hair as she cuddled up to her neck.

"Mary, I like you so much," sobbed Eleanor, in a muffled voice, "because you don't try to say something to comfort me."

Mary kept on patting the pretty hair, with anxious ears for the messenger to come from the Keep household. Presently out came Gibson again.

"I'm going out to bring in those boys," she said; "Mistress wants it."

"What boys?" asked Mary quickly.

"The whole of them," said Gibson; "they've been hanging around ever since Master Larry was brought home, and——"

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Eleanor faintly.

"And Mrs. Sterling wants them invited in here to wait?" exclaimed Mary. "How kind of her! Now, then, Nell, that's work for you and for me: we must help those boys to get a little comfort"—as Gibson went quickly down the long stairs on her errand.

"Oh, I can't," cried Eleanor, burrowing into the soft neck.

"Yes, you can."

"I'm his sister. And you can't expect me to see them."

"Yes, I do," said Mary firmly; "it's exactly what you ought to do. I'm going down to welcome them, and you must come too. Come on, Eleanor; we've simply got to do it."

Eleanor, seeing nothing for it unless she were to be left alone on her stair, which would have been the last thing to be endured, got up and followed slowly, to be met at the big door leading to the side porch by the company of gloomy-faced boys.

"Well boys," said Mary cheerfully, "I'm glad you've come to help Eleanor and me."

Every boy looked up in great surprise, for they all supposed they were left to comfort themselves.

"Can't we sit in the dining-room?" asked Mary, with a thought for the cheerful red carpet and curtains.

"Mistress wants them to come up into her sitting-room," said Gibson.

"Her sitting-room!" exclaimed Mary.

"Yes, Miss. She says they can help Mrs. Keep and her," said Gibson, standing with folded hands deferentially, but yet quite expecting the command to be carried out.

The boys stood up a little taller yet. Evidently they were thought worthy of consideration in the way of administering consolation instead of hanging around, useless creatures in everybody's way.

"In that case," said Mary Taylor, "we'll all go upstairs at once."

So they all filed up the long flight, and Gibson held open the door, and Mrs. Sterling from her sofa called out, "Boys, yon don't know how glad I am to see you all." And just as they began to feel a little bit of hope down in their hearts, it was so much easier all bearing the suspense together, a light tripping step came up the staircase, and little Doctor Fisher's big spectacles were thrust in the doorway.

"Just right. Very sensible." He beamed at them all, and darted over and took the poor mother's hand.

"Your boy is all right," he said. "His collar bone is broken, to be sure, but it is a beautiful fracture. And he has some bruises. Thank the Lord it is no worse."

There was a rustle back of him. Then two or three boys broke from the group and fell upon him in the rear.

"Is that true?" the foremost one shouted.

"Eh?"—little Doctor Fisher whirled around—"yes indeed, true as gospel. Oh, see here now," as the whole bunch made a mad plunge for the hall. "Come back here, boys."

Every single one came slowly back, except Frick; he had cleared the space to the top of the stairs, and was now making his quickest time on record down the flight.

"You are not to cheer; I see you want to," and Doctor Fisher gave a little laugh.

"Yes, sir," Curtis Park answered for the rest.

"Well, you——"

"Doctor Fisher"—it was Mrs. Sterling who interrupted, and she smiled—"I should very much like to hear that cheer now."

"Ma'am!" exclaimed the little doctor, gazing at her over his spectacles.

"Oh, it would do me good, I assure you," said Mrs. Sterling, leaning back in a satisfied way against her pillows. "So, if you please, boys, let me hear it at once"—smiling at them.

And they gave it then and there, the poor mother in all this confusion getting time to recover herself.

And then three more for the little doctor. And then one of the boys, the least likely to have courage to propose it, piped out:

"Let's give her three"—pointing to the hostess.

How pleased the poor invalid was, and how she beamed at them all! And when Doctor Fisher saw that, he was so well satisfied that he shook hands with them all quite around the circle.

"Now I must go. I'll look in again on your boy in an hour. Madam"—to Mrs. Keep. "Meantime, I'd stay over here, for I've sent for a nurse from the hospital; he must be kept quiet a spell. Good-day," and he was off.

"Now, boys"—there was a pretty pink spot in either cheek, as Mrs. Sterling turned to them—"do you know, I've thought of a plan by which you might do something for Lawrence?"

"What—oh, what?" They crowded up to her sofa. Gibson, from the doorway where she had retreated, to be within call, looked a little anxious, but catching a glance from her mistress, smoothed out her face again.

"What is your plan?" asked Curtis. It really seemed as if the boys had been accustomed to gather in that room, by the way in which they now crowded up as comrades entering into anything that might be proposed.

"You know that before long Lawrence will be able to see you, we hope," began Mrs. Sterling, in her cheeriest way. "Gibson, push up that pillow a little more."

"Oh, I will," cried Curtis, springing forward.

Gibson, in great trepidation at any one performing the office for her mistress, started to do it, but Curtis was already most gallantly, if a trifle awkwardly, pushing up the pillow, giving it a rousing thump that got on the nerves of the maid.

"You should have waited for me," she said tartly.

"Never mind; that is all right." Mrs. Sterling smiled up at him where he stood, the hot blood in his face, and his eyes downcast. "I'm very much obliged to you, Curtis. I guess you are accustomed to do it for your mother," she said encouragingly.

"I do—I am," he said incoherently, beginning to feel better. It was only Gibson who was cross, he reflected; Mrs. Sterling herself was as nice as she could be.

"Well now, if I were you," said Mrs. Sterling, turning on her pillow to get a good look at them all, "I'd form a committee, a comfort committee, to think up things that will interest Lawrence. And by and by the doctor is going to let you go to see him, and——"

"What things?" The small boy who had proposed the cheers for Mrs. Sterling, now pushed to the front, so as to get a good look at her. "Tell me, please, what things?"

"Well, you can cut out funny things from the magazines and papers for one thing," said Mrs. Sterling, quite delighted at the success of her plan so far, "and the nurse can read them to him."

"I've got a lot of Punch numbers," cried one boy.

"And Life," said another.

"And oceans of magazines." They all shouted one thing, and another. Gibson, who by this time was tired of popping her head in and out, had withdrawn to a little room opening out of her mistress' apartment, and taken up her sewing, quite convinced that far from its being a cause for alarm, everything was going on finely.

"Well now, just see how much pleasure that will give him," Mrs. Sterling was saying.

"What else?" asked the small boy.

"Then has any one of you any puzzles?" asked Mrs. Sterling, "or conundrums? Don't you think that is fine, to have something to think of beside dismal things, when you lie in bed?"

Curtis Park was just in his element here, for he dearly loved puzzles and conundrums. And presently Mrs. Sterling and he were busily talking over this and that kind, and book, and collection, until finally the small boy pulled the fringe of her pink crocheted shawl.

"I want to know what else?"

"Dear me!" Mrs. Sterling looked up quickly, to give a little laugh. It wasn't loud, but so cheery and sweet that Gibson, in the little outer room, dropped her sewing in her lap. "Thank the Lord!" she said, and wiped her eyes.

Frick, meanwhile, too excited to hear the doctor call them to come back, had darted out of the house, with no thought for the rain, but with one wild desire—to find Joel Pepper. And as he had a perfect faculty for sprinting, and cut through, with a dash, all the cross-streets, he soon found himself for the second time that day at the King mansion.

But this second time he was no more fortunate than the first. For although he was willingly admitted to Mr. King's writing-room, it was to see that gentleman look up and say with the most genial of smiles:

"Ah, Frick, my boy, well, this time it's all right, isn't it, since I let Joel go down to you?"

"Joel hasn't been with us," blurted out Frick, Then he leaned against the big writing-table, speech all gone, for he began to feel terribly tired, and it had been nothing but one long disappointment all day.

Old Mr. King laid down his pen and looked Frick all over.

"Oh, no, he hasn't," declared Frick, shaking his head dismally; "we haven't any of us seen him, and Larry Keep has been run over by Mr. MacIlvaine's tallyho, and most smashed up." Then he stopped suddenly, his cup of woe being empty.

"The first thing to do is to find Joel," said Mr. King to himself, anxiously. "The storm is almost over, to be sure"—glancing out of the window—"but where can he be?" He hurried across the room and touched the electric button. "You haven't the least idea, Frick, where to look for him, eh?"

"No, sir," said Frick miserably.

Thomas popped his head in, to be given the order to have one of the rainy-day carriages brought round. Just then, in ran Jasper. He had been caught by the sudden shower over at Pickering Dodge's.

"Father," he cried, his face glowing, "I've come home as soon as it slacked up a bit. Why, you are not going out?"—seeing the old gentleman beginning to don his mackintosh.

"Yes, I am," said Mr. King grimly, "going to do just that very thing, Jasper."

"Oh, let me, Father." Jasper sprang to his side eagerly, then looked in a puzzled way over to Frick.

"It's Joel," said Frick, feeling that it was expected of him to furnish an answer.

"Joel?" cried Jasper, the color going out of his cheek.

"Yes, Joel can't be found," said old Mr. King, speaking lightly to hide the dismay he really felt. "It's all right, of course; he's probably at one of the boys' houses; only as he was to join Frick, why, I'd prefer to look him up a bit. Well, there's Thomas"—glancing out of the window.

"Oh, let me go for him," begged Jasper. "I can find him. Surely, you don't need to, Father; don't, pray, in all this rain."

"I am going after Joel," declared his father, quite obstinately, "so say no more about it, Jasper"—moving past him to the door. "Come, along, Frick, my boy, you might as well come, too."

"Let me go, too," cried Jasper. "Oh, Father, can't I? I can at least help." He didn't say "take care of you," but he really felt anxious to the last degree.

"Yes, yes," said his father, "of course you may come if you like." So Jasper, well pleased, rushed for his mackintosh, and all three got into the carriage, and Thomas whirled them off in his best style.

"It isn't really worth while to worry Mrs. Fisher," said old Mr. King when well on the way, "for we shall probably soon run across Joel as bright as a button, and gay as a lark. Bless me, how this rain comes down!"



XIX

JOEL'S NEW FRIEND

But no Joel "bright as a button and gay as a lark" came in sight. Instead, at a corner they were turning rapidly, Mr. King in desperation giving the order to drive to one of the boys' houses most likely to attract Joel's attention this morning, Thomas came to an abrupt halt that nearly threw the horses back on their haunches.

"What are you about there?" he cried in vexation. "Can't you keep out from under the horses' heels, I'd like to know?"

The boy thus addressed paid not the slightest attention to the irate coachman, but advanced to the carriage door. He seemed to have something the matter with his arm that would evidently have given him a good deal of bother had his mind been on anything but the desire to attract Mr. King's attention.

But that gentleman, violently jolted by the sudden pull-up of the horses, not being in the best frame of mind, called out testily, "Bless me, what is the man stopping for? Drive on, Thomas," and looked directly over his head.

Seeing which, the boy clambered up the carriage step and hung on with one hand, but so much determination was in his eyes that old Mr. King fumed out: "Make the scoundrel get down, Jasper."

"What do you want?" asked Jasper, trying to make it as pleasant as possible, before the more summary treatment set in.

"I've got to speak to him," said the boy. Thomas, gathering up the reins in one hand and the whip in the other, looked around with fury in his eye. "Shall I give him a lick?" he asked.

"No, no," said Jasper hastily, "keep quiet, Thomas."

"I've nothing to say to you," cried Mr. King in his most pompous way, and with a stately wave of his hand, "so take yourself off, boy."

"Father—" began Jasper, in a distressed tone.

"And be quick about it." The old gentleman fairly roared it out. "Thomas, drive on."

That functionary, with a very dissatisfied expression that he hadn't been allowed to use his whip when he got it all ready so nicely, now cracked it at the horses. The boy, with one hesitating glance at Jasper, slid off the carriage-step down to the street, and yelled defiantly up into Mr. King's face as the brougham spun off:

"I was going to tell you where your boy is."

"Father!" exclaimed Jasper, with a white face, "he must know where Joel is. Thomas, Thomas, stop!" For Thomas, having no other way to vent his vexation, took it out in driving as fast as possible, so he didn't hear what was going on in the coach.

"Eh?" Mr. King was saying in bewilderment. At last Jasper succeeded in getting his wishes known, and once more the horses were jerked back, for the summons was quick and sharp.

By this time the boy was off, and although Jasper peered this way and that, he could see nothing of the old blue cap that had adorned the head thrust over the carriage door.

"He knows something about Joel, Father, you may depend," persisted Jasper; "we must find him."

Frick, who had been ready to cry, all huddled down in his corner, now sat straight, for it didn't seem to be just the time for tears, and in a minute he had scrambled past Mr. King, and hopped out.

"I'm going to find him," came back on the air, as he shot off.

"Do you wait here, Father," said Jasper, following him, and leaping out, "and we'll get the boy."

But the boy, quite willing to tell whatever story there was on his mind when he jumped on the carriage step, was now of a different mind, and he ran like a deer, first down one street then another. At last, finding himself pursued by some one not at all inclined to easily give up the chase, it suddenly dawned on him that his blue cap might possibly be a means of tracing his course. So he twitched it off and tucked it under his well arm. This made it more difficult for Jasper, whose footsteps were fast gaining on him, to follow him accurately, and for the first time a horrible moment came to the pursuer when he thought that after all the boy might escape; but Frick, who had seen Jasper's nimble progress around a corner, ran down a side street, then across a garden, and came plump into the face of the boy.

"Here he is," cried Frick, the breath almost knocked out of him by the encounter. He had grasped whatever he could first lay his fingers on and held to it firmly. It proved to be the arm for which the boy had not appeared to have much use.

Once caught, the boy gave a groan, then started to run. Frick being smaller, it might be an easy matter to shake him off, even with only one available arm.

"No, you don't get away this time," said Frick, for the tall boy had him in hand now, and was marching him back to the carriage at a pace much more comfortable for all concerned. "What have you to tell us?" he was being asked.

"I would have told you then," said the boy doggedly. He couldn't help but show some suffering in his face, and Jasper, looking down to see its cause, found one arm hanging in a very peculiar manner. "You've hurt your arm," he said abruptly. "Frick, take care"—to the boy, not at all particular what he took hold of if he only got a good grip.

"Well, he shan't get away," said Frick decidedly, nipping up the end of the jacket nearest to him.

"How did you hurt your arm?" asked Jasper. Despite all his anxiety about Joel, and an awful feeling that in some way an accident had occurred that had enveloped them both, he looked into he face beneath him with real concern.

"None of your business," the boy was going to say, but instead he turned away his face, then brought it back, and defiance was written all over it. "He sassed me, that old fellow in the carriage. Did you s'pose I'd tell him after that?"

"He's dreadfully anxious," said Jasper, ignoring everything else. "You see, Joel's been gone in all this storm, and we don't know anything in the world where he is."

"I do," said the boy.

"Then, if you do"—Jasper stopped suddenly and brought his keen dark eyes to bear on the rough, defiant face—"I just hope you will tell me. And I know you will," he added, after a pause in which Frick fastened his gaze on them both wildly, luckily without discovering any use for his tongue.

The boy swallowed hard, dropped his eyes for a moment, then looked up.

"He was out on the pond."

"Out on the pond!" echoed Frick, and his hand nipping the jacket-end fell nerveless to his side.

"No one told you to speak," said the boy sharply, turning on him, "so you shut up."

"But what was he doing out on the pond in such a storm?" asked Jasper. His lips were white, but he didn't allow his eyes to waver, for it was better to have the whole story before getting back to his father.

"It didn't rain till after we'd had the row," said the boy.

"Had the row?" It seemed an eternity to Jasper, for Joel perhaps even now might be in peril, before the next question was answered, "What row?"

"Yes," said the boy, as if he were going to add, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" The next moment, he had made up his mind to tell all there was to tell. It wasn't exactly clear why, but he was giving the account in a very few words, leaving it where it ended with his seeing Joel rowing off down the pond.

And presently the two who had hopped out of the carriage, with the new boy and the one who had thrust his head in over the door, were seated in the brougham, and Thomas had turned his back on the city streets and was driving off at a furious pace for Spy Pond.

Frick collapsed now and mumbled distractedly, "Oh, dear! now Joel's——" what, he didn't trust himself to say. "And Larry's 'most killed, and——"

Jasper interrupted him sharply, "What do you say, Frick?" for it was the first hint of anything gone wrong with any of the other boys.

Then out came that story to add to the general misery, and old Mr. King sat very straight and kept saying, "Bless me! Tell Thomas to drive faster," and "Oh, bless me!" again, as he glanced over at the boy.

But no Joel. They pranced, the horses did, shaking off the rain from their wet manes, around as much of the pond as was adapted to carriages, and Jasper and Frick got out and explored the rest, at least wherever Joel would be supposed to put into port, the boy holding up the arm that appeared not to be in its usual condition and going along, too, yet unable to add any information to his original statement. At last: "Probably Joel's gone home"—it was all Jasper could do to get the words out of his white lips.

Without a word old Mr. King sank back, and waved his hand, which meant "Yes," settling down amongst the cushions hopelessly, while their faces were turned homeward.

"Hullo!" Unmistakably Joel's voice, and there he was, wet and dirty, and waving frantically from a side street for them to stop, as he made his best time to the corner.

Jasper threw wide the door. "Joe!" he cried. Thomas pulled up again, the horses by this time having become so well accustomed to this method of bringing up that they did it quite well, and there was a great to-do in the coach.

"I've been calling and calling," panted Joel, blowing like a porpoise, and running up with red cheeks, "and you wouldn't stop," he added in a very injured way.

"Well, we didn't hear you, you beggar," cried Jasper. "Come, get in with you"—putting out both hands to assist in the process. "Where have you been, Joe?" for old Mr. King was beyond talking.

"I've been—" began Joel, glad enough to hop in; "why, where—" as his black eyes fell on the boy in the corner.

Frick had tried to swarm all over him, but Joel put out an unsteady hand.

"I came to tell," said the boy, seeing he was expected to say something.

"Oh, don't," cried Joel involuntarily; "'tisn't any matter; I don't care."

"Well, it's all out, Joe," said Jasper affectionately, who couldn't stop patting his back. Frick flew over to the opposite side and let Joel snuggle up to the old gentleman. "I'm here, Grandpapa," he said happily.

"Oh, bless me! Yes, my boy!" said old Mr. King brokenly, and fondling the little brown hands. "Well, we must get you home and out of these wet clothes as soon as possible. I don't know what your mother will say. Oh, dear me, Joe!"

"Pooh!" cried Joel, "I'm not wet."

"You're wet as a drowned rat, Joe," declared Jasper, bursting into a laugh, which was such a relief to all concerned that in a minute it really seemed like a pleasure excursion. But Joel pulled himself up.

"Oh, I'm going to see what's the matter with Jack's arm," and he leaned over and put his hand on it.

"Nothing," said Jack, trying to pull it away, but Joel held on.

"Tis, too," he said. "You're going to have it fixed. Grandpapa, won't you take him to Doctor Fisher's office? Please do."

At this Frick pricked up his ears. "Doctor Fisher isn't——"

"Frick," began Jasper desperately, "look out and see if it rains."

Frick stared in amazement, and even Joel bobbed his head over at Jasper.

"Why, doesn't it rain on your side?" he cried, his black eyes very wide.

"Never mind; do as I tell you," said Jasper, nowise disconcerted. So Frick reported that it did rain; and then Jasper began to talk so fast that Joel had no time to get in a word at all, although he tried with all his might.

"See here," he shouted at last, and his voice rang clear above every other noise, "can't we take him to Doctor Fisher's office—can't we, Grandpapa? Make Thomas turn about and take us there"—he fairly howled it now.

"And Doctor Fisher won't be there," screamed Frick, on just as high a key.

"Why not?"

It was impossible to stop the dreadful news of Larry's accident from coming now. And in a minute Frick had it all out in a burst, quite unconscious of Jasper's efforts, and well pleased at having something important to say.

"Larry's been run over by Mr. MacIlvaine's tallyho, and 'most smashed to death."



XX

THE COOKING CLUB

"Oh, my goodness me!" Alexia gave a jump, then ran for the closet.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Polly, standing quite still in the middle of the room, the lightning flash and the sudden peal of thunder coming without warning.

"Oh, I'm scared to death," cried Alexia, burrowing frantically; "come in here, Polly Pepper. Are you killed?" she screamed.

"No," said Polly, "and I don't believe there'll be another as bad."

"Oh, come in here. Ooh!" cried Alexia, in muffled accents, as she huddled up against the clothes.

"Oh, Polly!" It was Miss Rhys: her embroidery, cast aside at the sudden storm-burst, was dragging behind her, and she was wringing her hands. "Did you ever see anything so dreadful?"

"I don't believe there'll be another as bad," said Polly again, finding nothing more of consolation to offer.

"And where is Alexia?" And without waiting for an answer, Miss Rhys paced nervously up and down the room, still wringing her hands. "And of course there will be more; there, there it comes," and she ran, the embroidery-piece still hanging to her gown, into the closet.

"Oh, Aunt," cried Alexia, with a squeal, "you scared me 'most to death; I thought I was struck!"

"Why, are you here, Alexia?" gasped Miss Rhys, when she could recover herself enough to speak. "Well, this is truly a dreadful storm," and she clutched her with shaking fingers.

"Yes, I am here," said Alexia. "Don't pinch so, Aunt—ow! My arm is all black and blue, I know it is."

"It's no time to think of such little things, Alexia," replied her aunt severely; "it may kill us both."

"Well, that's no reason I should be all pinched to death," grumbled Alexia, forgetting the thunderstorm in her present discomfort and edging off as well as she could. "The closet is dreadfully small, Aunt."

"It's quite large enough, I'm sure, to protect us," said Miss Rhys, hanging tightly to her with trembling fingers. "Dear me! any minute may be our last."

"Well, I'm not going to be smothered to death," declared Alexia, struggling to work her way past her aunt.

"Alexia!" exclaimed her aunt.

"I'm going after Polly." Alexia out in the middle of the room flung her arm around Polly. "Oh, misery!—where?" as a vivid flash seemed to hop right in the window. "Oh, Polly, come!" She clutched her wildly.

"Where?" said Polly. "We can't get away from it, Alexia; it's just everywhere."

"Oh, I don't care—anywhere—in the coal-scoop," cried Alexia, frantically dragging her along. "I shall just die, Polly Pepper, and here you stand like a stick."

"Well, there's just no use in running," said Polly, but seeing Alexia's distress she suffered herself to be led, and downstairs the two girls sped, and into the landlady's room, the first door to stand ajar.

"I'm coming in," announced Alexia, without ceremony, "for I'm scared to death," and she dragged Polly Pepper after her. "Did you ever see such a thunderstorm, Mrs. Cummings?"

"It is pretty bad," a voice answered. It wasn't Mrs. Cummings, as she had hurried to oversee the maid close the windows through the house, but another of the boarders, who, like Alexia, had selected this apartment for a refuge.

"Oh, dear me!" Alexia sank down upon the sofa, being careful not to relinquish her hold of Polly, and dragged a cushion over her face. "Is that you, Mr. Filbert"—bringing out one eye to stare at him.

"I think so," said Mr. Filbert, a little thin old man sitting over in the corner and leaning forward over his cane. He spoke cautiously, as if not quite sure. "Yes, it is a bad storm," he repeated decidedly. "Where is your aunt?"

"She's up in the closet," said Alexia, pulling the sofa-cushion over her own and Polly's face as well. "There, we can't see it at any rate, if we are going to be killed."

"Up in the closet?" repeated Mr. Filbert.

"Yes. Oh, Polly, do you suppose it's lightening and thundering now?"—as the two girls cuddled up closer together on the roomy old sofa, the cushion crowded up over eyes and ears.

"I suppose so," said Polly, very much wishing she could say "No."

"Oh, dear me! I'm smothered to death," grumbled Alexia, "and I'm so hot"—wriggling discontentedly.

"So am I," said Polly.

"What did you say? Your aunt was in the closet?" little old Mr. Filbert was asking; and receiving no reply, he kept on.

"Oh, do hear him," whispered Alexia, back of the sofa-cushion; "he is so tiresome, asking the same thing over and over."

"Well, do answer him," said Polly.

"I have, once," said Alexia.

"Is your aunt in the closet, did you say?" Mr. Filbert kept on, with the impression that a reply would soon be coming if he only held up the conversation at his end of it.

Alexia dashed down the sofa-cushion with a nervous hand. "I can't breathe; let's get out, Polly," and she flew up, to sit quite straight. "Yes, my aunt is up in the closet, Mr. Filbert. Whee! Oh, I am so scared, Polly Pepper!"

"She'll be struck there quicker 'n any other place she could pick out," declared the little old gentleman positively.

Alexia hopped off from the sofa and ran on anxious feet to his chair.

"What did yon say, Mr. Filbert? and how do you know?" she cried, all in one breath.

"The chimney closets always catch the lightning first," said Mr. Filbert cheerfully; "you see, it——"

Alexia dashed off, ran through the hall and up to her own room. "Aunt, Aunt," she cried, thrusting her head into the closet, "you'll be struck in there, Mr. Filbert says so. Come out, Aunt."

There was no response, and Alexia, now in mortal terror, plunged into the closet.

"Come, Aunt. Oh, my!" as a clap of thunder sent her plunging in headlong. "Why, where—" for grope as she might, clear up to the end, among the clothes and the shoe-bag, no Miss Rhys was to be found.

"Oh, dear, dear!" Alexia began to whimper, feeling all around the floor with terror-stricken fingers. "Aunt, where are you? Oh, she's been struck and she's dead, I know she is! Polly Pepper," she screamed, tumbling out of the closet to rush to the head of the stairs, "come up and help me find Aunt."

"Alexia!" Miss Rhys, concluding not to be left alone in the closet when the two girls ran downstairs, had hurried out after them, and now appeared from the hall corner where she had crouched. "Don't scream so."

"Oh, Aunt!" cried Alexia, throwing her arms around her, "you haven't been struck, have you? Oh, do say you haven't."

"Why, of course not; don't you see I'm here?" said Miss Rhys. "There, child, take care, you're mussing my lace collar," and she edged off from the nervous fingers. "We'll go downstairs, I think, and stay with Mrs. Cummings."

"If you're really sure you are not struck," said Alexia, eying her askance, as if in considerable doubt, "we'll go; and Polly Pepper is there and that tiresome old Mr. Filbert."

"If Polly is there, she must stay to luncheon," said Miss Rhys, gathering up her skirts and preparing to descend the stairs.

"Oh, how fine!" exclaimed Alexia, hopping after, losing sight of the thunderstorm in the delight of having Polly Pepper to herself for so many hours. "Oh, Aunt, what's that tagging after you?"—catching sight of the piece of embroidery dangling from her aunt's long figure.

"I see nothing," said Miss Rhys, turning around with her head over her shoulder.

"Well, do stand still, Aunt," cried Alexia, "a minute."

"What is it?" Miss Rhys kept saying, trying to see for herself.

"Your centerpiece—oh, dear me!" Alexia by this time had it free, and burst into a laugh as she held it up.

"Well, now, I expect I have dragged off my green floss," exclaimed her aunt, in irritation. "I am quite sure of it."

"Well, 'twould be in the closet," said Alexia, who didn't relish offering to go back, "'twon't hurt it to stay there a little while."

"I must find it," said Miss Rhys decidedly. And Alexia, wild to go down to tell Polly Pepper she was to stay to luncheon, flew over the stairs, leaving her aunt to get her green floss as she could.

"But I can't," said Polly, when Alexia had hugged her and danced around her to her heart's content; "I must go home."

"Why, Polly Pepper, you can't ever go in this awful rain."

"It isn't going to rain much more," said Polly, running over to the window to flatten her face against the pane.

"You'll be struck if you do that." Little Mr. Filbert looked after her in disapproval. "The window is the worst place in a thunderstorm; you see, it——"

"Oh, that's what you said about the chimney closet," said Alexia, in scorn, "and there can't be two places that are the worst."

"Oh, Alexia," said Polly, looking back from the window.

"Well, he's so tiresome," said Alexia, putting her arm around her and gazing out of the window; "that's just the way he goes on at the table every single day. Oh, see it rain, Polly Pepper!"

"It's slackening," said Polly, peering up at the drops, that really were beginning to fall with little spaces between. "And Mamsie will send for me soon, I guess."

"Oh, well, it will begin again most likely," said Alexia. "I hope this thunderstorm will last till ever so late this afternoon."

"Oh, Alexia Rhys!" cried Polly, in great distress, and whirling away from the window, "don't wish that. Why, I must get home."

"Well, I do," said Alexia, bobbing her light hair till the fluffs settled over her forehead, "for then you'd stay. You haven't been over here in ever and ever so long, Polly Pepper," she said, in an injured voice, "and I've got so very much to talk with you about."

"Well, let's talk now, then," said Polly, with a sigh, yet feeling quite sure that she would soon be sent for to go home.

"Come over to the sofa then," said Alexia, So they ran over, and together settled as far back into the corner as they could, pushing up one of the cushions comfortably behind them.

"Well, now, you begin," said Polly.

"Oh, no—you," said Alexia, having no notion of doing the talking, for it was always great fun to listen to Polly Pepper.

"Why, I thought you said you had ever so much to talk over," said Polly.

"So I have," said Alexia coolly, "we always do have; you know we do, Polly. Well, now begin."

"But it's your place to begin first," said Polly decidedly, "because you said you had something to talk over. So what is it, Alexia?"

"Well—" Alexia drew a long breath, cudgeling her brains, then burst out, "We must think of something new to do now, Polly, since the garden party is over."

"I know," said Polly. "How I wish we could get up something else, for our fancy work is all done! Oh, wasn't it just gorgeous, Alexia"—with a comfortable little wriggle.

"I should say it was," cried Alexia, "and didn't it sell, though!—and everybody wished there was more, except my horrible old shawl."

"Why, Alexia Rhys!" Polly poked up her head where she had been nestling it on Alexia's shoulder. "You know Mrs. Sterling sent for the shawl and gave five dollars for it."

"Oh, that was because she knew it was so ugly that no one else would buy it," said Alexia composedly. "Well, I don't care, so long as it's sold. I was just tired to death of that old thing, Polly; I don't want to ever see another shawl."

"Well, we shan't have another fair in a long while, I suppose," said Polly, with a sigh, and laying her head down again.

"Not till next summer," said Alexia; "then, says I, for a garden party! You know your grandpapa said he'd give you another, just as nice a one, then."

"But that's a whole year." said Polly disconsolately; "heigh-ho, it's so very long to wait! Well, I suppose we must think of something else to do now."

"Just for us girls," said Alexia.

"I don't know," said Polly slowly, looking up at her; "we ought to let the boys come in."

"Oh, not those horrid boys," said Alexia impatiently; "they're forever hanging around, and I like, once in a while, to have something by ourselves."

"But it seems too bad to leave them out," said Polly soberly.

"Well, it would do them good to be left out sometimes," declared Alexia: "they're so high and mighty, I'd just dearly love to take them down, and say, 'Boys, you can't come into this.'" She tossed her fluffy hair till the long, light braids flew out triumphantly.

"Why can't we have a cooking club?" suggested Polly, after a minute of hard thinking.

"Ugh!" Alexia twisted up her face. "Oh, that's horrid," she said, with another grimace. "Do you mean, learn to make things on the kitchen range?"

"Yes, and on the chafing-dish," said Polly, flying up to sit straight. "Oh, it would be elegant, Alexia!" she cried, with glowing cheeks.

"Well, I can't learn," said Alexia, "so that's some small comfort, for I'm in a boarding-house, and I guess the cook here would fly in a fit to see me come into the kitchen."

"But you can come to our house and learn with me," said Polly, clasping her hands, "and we'll make perfectly splendid things; just think, Alexia."

"What things?" asked Alexia doubtfully.

"Oh, little biscuits," said Polly, going back in her mind to the delights of baking-day in the little brown house; "cunning little ones, you know; you can't think how perfectly elegant we used to make them, Alexia."

"Oh, you had everything elegant in your little brown house," said Alexia, twisting enviously in her corner. "Joel's never tired of telling of it. And to think I wasn't there! Oh, dear me! I wish you would talk about it."

"Well, you can try now to make some biscuits. I'll show you how," said Polly eagerly.

"And Polly—oh, goody!—now don't you see we won't have to ask the boys to join this? A cooking club—the very idea!" Alexia hopped off from the sofa, and stood in front of Polly, clasping her hands.

"Why, yes we will," cried Polly, hopping off too, and speaking very decidedly; "the boys will like it just as much as we do."

"The boys like a cooking club!" screamed Alexia, standing quite still.

"Yes, indeed," said Polly. "Why, Jasper used to like our baking-days in the little brown house, you know he did, Alexia, like everything."

"Oh, dear! yes, I know," said Alexia reluctantly.

"And beside, even if they don't make things, why, they can come to our suppers, for we must of course get up some, of things we've learned to make. Oh, it will be such fun, Alexia!" Polly sighed and clasped her hands.

"And I'll learn to make your cunning little biscuits," declared Alexia suddenly, quite as if she had proposed the plan and pushed it along from the very beginning, "and do let's have a club supper soon," she begged.

"There's a carriage coming," announced little Mr. Filbert, from his chair in the corner.

"Oh, it's for me, I know," cried Polly, springing to the window. "Yes, Mamsie has sent for me, Alexia. I knew she would!"

"Oh, dear me!" grumbled Alexia, awfully disappointed and racing after her. "Why, you can't ever go in all this rain, Polly Pepper."

Polly burst out into a laugh. "Just look there," She pointed to the patches of light in the sky gradually growing bigger and brighter. "It doesn't rain a single drop! And, oh, Alexia, look, look—the rainbow!"



XXI

OF MANY THINGS IN GENERAL

But the cooking club with all its delights wasn't started yet for many a day, for just as soon as Polly got home there was the whole story of the morning's adventures of Joel and Larry's accident, to fill all her time and thoughts.

And then Jack—why, of course, he must come in for a goodly share of notice, for Joel insisted on making him a hero, to be willing to come and tell Mr. King of his misdemeanor on the pond. And Doctor Fisher had said the arm was in a bad way, the trouble being increased by all the running about in the pelting storm that Jack had indulged in, and this made Joel nearly frantic. Dear me! there was no time to think of cooking clubs!

And then after luncheon came a little note from Mrs. Sterling, brought by no less a person than Mrs. Gibson herself, who, in her staid little black bonnet and gray dress and white apron, waited for Polly's answer.

"No, Miss, I'll not sit down, if you please, as my mistress expects me back at once."

"Dear Polly" (so the note ran), "will you run down this afternoon to talk over a little plan for the Comfort committee. I suppose the boys have told you about it. Bring Joel, too, for he couldn't come this morning when it was proposed. Your friend, Pamela Sterling."

"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Polly, vastly pleased, and springing off. "Yes, I'll come, Mrs. Gibson, please tell her, and right away; that is, when I find Joel."

"I hope you'll be there soon," said Mrs. Gibson, the light of pleasure at Polly's first words dying down a bit when she saw that Joel was to be waited for. "Couldn't you come first?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, I must find Joel," said Polly, "but I almost know where he is, and we'll be over soon. Please tell her so."

She was already out in the hall, and Mrs. Gibson having obtained the best she was likely to receive, departed to carry back the word to her mistress. And Polly raced here and there without avail, for Joel was not so easily found after all.

"Oh, Joel, where are you?" cried Polly, racing along the hall. "Oh, dear me! Percy, is that you?" as Percy, with Van at his heels, came near running into her.

"Yes, it is," said Percy, coming to an abrupt stop, but Van ran past them. "Hold on, Van," he cried, his face growing very red, "that's not fair, when Polly wanted to speak to us."

"She didn't want to speak to me," said Van, making pretty quick time down the hall.

"Oh, Polly, make him stop," begged Percy, twitching her sleeve; "he's going up into Ben's room; it's not fair, for I was ahead."

"Well, you aren't ahead now," cried Van in glee, and mounting the stairs, he couldn't resist the temptation to peer over the railing. "Ha, ha! who's the smart one now? I'll get there first, Percy Whitney."

"You shan't. Oh, make him stop," howled Percy, in distress.

"Van," called Polly, looking up at him.

"What?" said Van, wishing he hadn't wasted the time in exhibiting his triumph. He still kept on.

"I want you," said Polly clearly. "Come down, Vanny, that's a good boy."

"What do you want me for?" asked Van, turning slowly to look down at her.

"Come down, and you'll see. Make haste, Van, for I'm in a dreadful hurry."

"What do you want me for?" repeated Van, begrudging every step of the way he was now taking, and keeping a sharp look out that Percy didn't spring past him. To prevent that, he spread out both arms. "Say, Polly, what do you want me for?" At last he was by her side.

"There, who's going to get up in Ben's room first?" said Percy complacently.

"Well, you aren't," said Van stoutly, "'cause just as soon as Polly's got through with me, I'm going to run like lightning up there—so! I was ahead when she called me back."

"Well, I was ahead first," declared Percy, "wasn't I, Polly—wasn't I?" he appealed anxiously to her.

"Yes," said Polly, "and hush, Van. Now, see here, boys: I've got to find Joel. Mrs. Sterling has sent for him to come with me over there this afternoon, and she wants us right away. Don't you know where he is? I've looked for him just everywhere." She clasped her hands and looked at them in despair.

"I don't," said Percy.

"Neither do I," said Van; "we're going up in Ben's room. Is that all, Polly?" and he prepared to run.

"No," said Polly, while Percy, in alarm lest a march should be stolen on him, sidled off on the other side.

"Van!" Polly nipped his jacket and held it fast. Seeing which, Percy concluded to remain, and he now came back quietly and stood quite still.

"Boys," said Polly, "it's just this way; you must help me to find Joel, for, unless you do, I'm sure I don't know what I can do. And Mrs. Sterling was going to tell us all about the Comfort committee to help Larry, you know." She dropped Van's jacket-end, and ran and sat down on one of the high-backed chairs, and folded her hands in dismay.

"Oh, we will—we will," cried both the boys, quite overcome at this, and, losing sight of all the charms that were awaiting them in Ben's room, they precipitated themselves upon her. "But where shall we look for him? You know he went out with Doctor Fisher in his gig. Say where shall we look for him, Polly."

"Joel went out with Papa Fisher!" cried Polly, hopping off from her chair. "Why didn't you say so before? Oh, dear me!"

"Well, you asked me where he was, and I didn't know where they were going," said Percy dismally, changing from one foot to the other in great distress.

"And they might have taken us; I think 'twas real mean," declared Van, in a dudgeon.

"Oh, Van, if he went with Papa Fisher, how could he? Oh, I know." Polly clapped her hands. "They've gone down to see that boy that got his arm hurt on the pond. I verily believe they have."

"Well, they might have taken us," said Van again. "I'd like to have seen him awfully, and now Joel will have him all to himself. I'm going to get something, and I won't let Joel have any of it," he added vindictively.

"Oh, Vanny!" and Polly went close to him, and put her cheek to his. "Just think what a dreadful time Joel had out there on the pond," and she gave a little shiver.

"Hah, hah!" ejaculated Percy. "You'd been scared to death, Van, if those boys even winked at you."

"I wouldn't, either," declared Van, straightening up.

"Percy—Percy," said Polly warningly, turning around at him.

"Well, he would," said Percy uneasily, not looking at her; "you know he would, Polly."

"Well, don't say any such thing," said Polly firmly, "and perhaps he wouldn't, either."

"No, I wouldn't," protested Van stoutly, since Polly reinforced him, "and you're just as mean as you can be, Percy Whitney, to say so."

"Boys"—Polly drew away from Van, and sank down on her chair again—"I shan't have anything to say to either of you when you say such dreadful things," and she folded her hands sorrowfully in her lap and looked straight ahead at the opposite wall.

"Oh, we won't—we won't," cried both boys, running over to her. "Polly, we won't"—shaking her arms.

"Well, don't, then," said Polly. "Now promise you won't do it again, or else I'm really not going to talk to you."

So Percy and Van promised, and pretty soon the wide hall resounded with merry peals of laughter.

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Polly, jumping to her feet in dismay.

"What's the matter?" cried both boys, tumbling back in astonishment.

"Just look what I've done!" Polly was wringing her hands now, and presented a picture of distress.

"What—what, Polly?" They crowded up to her again.

"Why, I've forgotten I was to go at once to Mrs. Sterling's, and she's been waiting. If Joel comes, send—him—over." The last words came back in a little shout, for Polly was off.

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Percy discontentedly, losing all thought of the attractions in Ben's room, "now Polly will be gone all the whole afternoon, I 'most know."

"Let's tag her," proposed Van cheerfully, not caring to get upstairs first, since Percy wasn't going to race with him, "I will; come on!"

"No, no," said Percy, in alarm, "she won't like that. Think of something else."

"I've thought of one thing, and you won't do it," said Van composedly, sitting down on the very chair Polly had left. "Now it's your turn."

"But it was no good—that old thing you thought of," retorted Percy, in disdain; "no one could do it."

"I thought it out, anyway," repeated Van obstinately, "and you wouldn't do it, so I'm not going to think up anything else till you have thought something, Percy Whitney."

"Well, you needn't be so cross," said Percy sourly, and squaring up to his chair.

"I'm not cross," contradicted Van, looking up at him with a very red face.

"Yes, you are, just as cross as a snapping-turtle," said Percy, trying to think of the worst thing he had encountered, and quite pleased as he saw its effect on Van.

"You shall just take that back, Percy Whitney," declared Van, hopping out of his chair, and doubling up his small fists. "I'm not a snapping-turtle."

Percy edged off, with a sharp lookout for the fists.

"I didn't say so."

"Yes, you did," said Van crossly; "you said just that very thing, Percy Whitney, and I'm not a snapping-turtle."

"I said you were as cross as one," said Percy, wishing he hadn't been quite as free with his comparisons, and moving off to a convenient corner.

"Well, that's just the same," said Van, advancing, "and Polly——"

[Transcriber's note: This page in our print copy was obscured by an ink blot. The words in brackets are those that we have supplied based on context and those letters that were visible.]

At the mention of Polly, Percy stopped suddenly, drew a long breath, and never thought of the [corner] again.

"[Why,] we promised her," he gasped; "I forgot all about it."

Down [went Van's] little fist.

"So we [did]," [he] said gloomily, and both boys crept off [together to] the same corner Percy had selected for [himself].

"Whatever shall [we] do [now]?" breathed Percy, quite lost in his dismal reflections.

"We stopped," said Van, as something to be offered with a grain of hope.

"But we did a lot before we stopped," said Percy. A deep gloom had settled over his countenance, and he wouldn't look at Van. "Oh, dear me!"

Van fidgeted about for a minute,

"Well, I don't know," he said, twisting his hands. "Oh, dear me! Why, you might say I'm not a snapping-turtle," he cried cheerfully at last, and fairly hugging Percy in his delight.

"So I might," said Percy, well pleased, "but I didn't say you were a snapping-turtle; I said you were as cross as a snapping-turtle."

"Well, you might say I'm not as cross as a snapping-turtle, then," said Van, determined to fix it some way.

So Percy said it, and then the two brothers plunged out of doors without a thought of the formalities of any plan. But it was Van who furnished it after all.

"Let's go down and see [Candace]," he said.

"Oh, yes, let's," cried Percy, [then] he stopped short and began to laugh.

"What's the matter?" Van twitched his sleeve.

"Nothing," said Percy, so relieved he hadn't said what was on the tip of his tongue; "you've done it after all and told something for us to do."

"Well, then, come on," cried Van, with a harder twitch. So they set off at a lively pace for the delights of Candace's little shop.

Meanwhile, Polly was sorrowfully confessing to Mrs. Sterling why she was late, and explaining all the reason that Joel couldn't accompany her. And the whole story of the morning affair on the pond, as gathered from Jack, for Joel hadn't told a word of the encounter with the crowd of rough boys, had to be gone over with before Mrs. Sterling could open her budget of news and her wonderful plan for the Comfort committee.

She was just beginning on it.

"I do like that name so very much," sighed Polly. She was on a little cricket by the side of the lounge, her hands resting on the gay sofa-blanket.

"Don't you?" cried Mrs. Sterling, in great satisfaction. "It expresses so much, Polly. I am so very glad that you like it."

"Master Joel Pepper is coming down the street," said Gibson, guilty of interrupting, for she knew how anxious her mistress was to see Joel. "Shall I call him in?"

"Do, by all means," said Mrs. Sterling, while Polly cried:

"Oh, I am so glad!"

So Gibson knocked on the window, and beckoned to Joel that he was wanted; then she hurried down to the big front door to let him in.

There was a funny little noise over the stairs, as if there were more than one pair of feet, which was soon explained by Joel's bursting in, dragging another boy after him, who had his arm done up in a sling.

"It's Jack," he said, by way of introduction.

"Oh, Joel!" cried Polly, springing to her feet, in consternation.

"Yes, and now what is it?" Joel advanced to the invalid's couch, ready for business.

"I'm very glad to see Jack," said Mrs. Sterling, with a smile, putting out her soft, white hand to the boy, who was gazing at the doorway through which he had come, as if nothing would please him so much as to go through it again, this time on the way back.

"You might get a chair, Joel, for your friend, and another for yourself," suggested Mrs. Sterling.

"I will—I will," cried Joel, well pleased to have something to do, and dragging up the first one he could find. "I'm going to sit on the carpet"—suiting the action to the words.

"Well, you see—" Mrs. Sterling, without more ado, began at once on her plan. Polly was by this time back on her cricket, very much relieved to find that it wasn't so very dreadful after all to have Jack there, since Mrs. Sterling seemed to like it. "There's nothing helps a boy who is to be shut up in the house for a long time, quite so much as to have the other boys who can go out to play, think of him, and plan for his comfort. Isn't that so?" Mrs. Sterling looked at her little audience keenly.

"Yes," said two of them. Jack was so scared at finding himself where he had never supposed he could be—in the stately brownstone mansion—that he fixed his eyes on the carpet, not daring to move; as for speech, it was quite beyond him.

"Well, now that Lawrence Keep has gotten hurt, I think it will be a very good plan to have a Comfort committee to look out for him."

"What can we do for him?" cried Joel, very much excited, and jumping up from the carpet.

"Joel, do sit down," said Polly, quite ashamed, and pulling him by the jacket.

Joel very unwillingly slid back to his place on the carpet, and fastened his black eyes on Mrs. Sterling's face.

"Well, there are so many things to do for a boy who won't be very sick, but must be shut up in the house," said Mrs. Sterling, "that really it takes time even to think of them all."

"What are some of them?" burst out Joel, pulling the sofa-blanket in his eagerness.

"Joel—Joel," said Polly.

"Here are some of them," said Mrs. Sterling, "that I told the boys this morning when they were in here. You might cut out the funny things in the magazines and newspapers, the pictures and the stories, and send him. It's so nice to have little reminders to pass away the time."

"What else?"

"Well, I didn't tell them that, but there are letters you might write him."

"Ugh!" Joel made a wry face. "I don't like to write letters," he said bluntly.

"Joel," said Polly again.

"Perhaps that is the very reason it would be well for you to do it," said Mrs. Sterling, with a smile. "At any rate, it would please Lawrence, I think. Well, then there are conundrums; you can surely think up something of that sort that will amuse him, and puzzles."

Now, strange to say, Jack had a good head for these things, and without thinking where he was, he blurted out:

"I know a lot of 'em."

Joel whirled around on the carpet and stared at him, as did Polly from her cricket. But Mrs. Sterling only smiled.

"That's good," she said in approval, "now you see you can help us out a good deal"—nodding at him.

But Jack, with a wild glance at the door, as he came to himself, was beyond conundrums, as he thought of what he'd done.

"Tell some of 'em, Jack," cried Joel eagerly, emerging from his surprise. "What are they, Jack? Tell some."

"Not now," said Mrs. Sterling, interposing. "Jack is going to write them out, and they will be sent in as his contribution to Lawrence."

Sent in to Larry Keep's big house, almost as grand as the one Jack sat in now, by him, a little six-penny grocer's son, doing business over at the South End! He couldn't believe his ears, and to assist them, he lifted his eyes and stared at the person making the announcement. Evidently she meant it, and the more he gazed at her face, the better he liked it. But he didn't dare to stare long, so he concluded to transfer his attention from it to the carpet.

"We are getting on so well," said Mrs. Sterling, and her tone was very cheery, "that I am really quite hopeful that Lawrence may be amused by all that we are to do for him. And now, before we go any further in our plan, suppose we take a little comfort ourselves." And she laughed a gay little laugh that wouldn't have sounded badly as Polly's own. "Gibson," she called.

Out came Gibson from the little room next.

"Will you bring us a tray of some of the nice things you always can get up, Gibson?" said her mistress. "I am really hungry, and I know these young people must be, they run about so."

"I am," declared Joel, in great satisfaction at hearing the tray mentioned, and bobbing his black hair, "awfully hungry."

"Oh, Joel!" said Polly.

"If you knew, Polly," said Mrs. Sterling, with a laugh, "what a pleasure it is to me, to hear a hungry boy say so up here, you would be very glad to let him. You can't think"—looking around on the three—"what good you are doing me. Really your work as a comfort committee has begun already."



XXII

RACHEL'S VISIT TO MISS PARROTT

Rachel ran blindly up the garret stairs of the parsonage and threw herself down on the top, her blue, checked apron over her head.

"Oh, I can't—I can't," she screamed.

"Rachel," the minister's wife called gently after her. But Rachel stormed on, "Oh, I can't; dear me, I can't!"

So Mrs. Henderson mounted the stairs and sat down on the top one, and took Rachel's hands, nervously beating together.

"My child, you must listen to me."

It was said very quietly; but Rachel knew by this time what the parsonage people meant when they said a thing, so she answered meekly in a muffled voice because of the apron over her head:

"Yes'm."

"Take down your apron," said Mrs. Henderson.

Down fell the apron, disclosing a face of so much distress, that for a moment the heart of the parson's wife failed her, but it must be done,

"My child," she began very gently, "it is best that you should go to see Miss Parrott. She will be a good friend to you."

"I don't want no friends," said Rachel doggedly, in her distress relapsing into her old tenement-house disregard of the rules of speech; "no more 'n I've got her."

"Ah, child, that is not a wise way to talk," said Mrs. Henderson, shaking her head. "One cannot have too many friends."

"She'd be too many," said Rachel; "that old woman that came the other day in that carriage all full of bones."

"You must not talk so, dear. She is a very fine woman. Now, Rachel, she has asked to have you spend the day there, and we have promised that you shall go."

There was an awful pause. A big blue-bottle over in the corner under the rafters was making a final decision to explore the filmy lace web beneath the window where a fat old spider had been patiently waiting for him, and he gave his last buzz of freedom before he hopped in. This was all the sound that broke the silence. Rachel held her breath, and fixed her black eyes at a point straight ahead, positively sure if she withdrew her gaze she would burst out crying.

"So you will be ready to go at ten o'clock, Rachel, for Miss Parrott will send for you then," Mrs. Henderson was saying. And in a minute more the parson's wife was going down the garret stairs; Rachel, with a heart full of woe, slowly following, leaving the big garret to the fat old spider, who was busily weaving her silken threads in glee over her prisoner.

And Rachel's woeful face was more than matched by the countenances of the two boys of the parson's family, who were not at all pleased that the companion sent to them by Mrs. Fisher, and who had turned out surprisingly just to their liking, should be suddenly torn away from them even for a single day. And they followed disapprovingly around, hanging upon all the preparations for the momentous visit, with a very bad influence upon Rachel's endeavor to control herself. Seeing which, their mother sent them off on an errand to Grandma Bascom.

So, when the ancient carriage, with its well-seasoned coachman who rejoiced in the name of Simmons, made its appearance, there was no one to see Rachel off, save the patron's wife, the minister himself being away on a call lo a sick parishioner.

Rachel went steadily down the walk between the box-borders, feeling her heart sink at each step. Mrs. Henderson, well in advance, was down at the roadside to help her in, with a last bit of good advice.

"Good-morning, Simmons," said the parson's wife pleasantly.

"Good-morning, Madam," Simmons touched his hat, and spoke with the air of state, for he kept his English ways. Secretly, the parson's wife was always quite impressed by them, and she looked at Rachel for some sign to that effect. But the child was scowling, and biting her thin lips, and she suffered Mrs. Henderson to assist her into the wide old vehicle without any further change of expression. When once in, she gazed around, then leaned forward on the slippery old green leather seat.

"Can't Peletiah come?" she gasped; "there's lots o' room."

"No," said Mrs. Henderson. "Now be a good girl"—all her fears returning as she saw Rachel's face.

Simmons starting up the horses, that, although an old pair, yet liked to set off with a flourish, the movement bounced Rachel violently against the back of her seat and knocked her bonnet over her face. This gave her something to think of, and changed her terror to a deep displeasure. When the drive was ended, therefore, and the brougham, after its progress through an avenue of fine old trees, was brought to a standstill before the ancestral mansion where Miss Parrott's father and grandfather had lived before her, the visitor was in no condition to enjoy the pleasures thrust upon her.

Miss Parrott, in the stiff, black silk gown that she had worn the day when she called at the parsonage, met her on the big stone steps. She put out a hand in a long, black lace mitt, "I am very glad to see you, child," she said, in old-time hospitality.

But no hospitality, old-time or any other, had a pleasant effect on Rachel. She gave a glance up and around the big, gloomy gray, stone house, with a wild thought of rushing down the avenue and home to the parsonage.

"It is a pleasant place, isn't it?" observed Miss Parrott with complacent memory of always living in the grandest homestead for several counties.

"No, ma'am," said Rachel promptly.

Miss Parrott started, and gave a little gasp. Then, reflecting it was not in accordance with fine manners to notice any such slip on the part of guests, she led the way into the mansion. Simmons, much shocked, actually forgot himself so far as to scratch his head, as he drove off to the stables, and he didn't get over it all day.

"Perhaps you would like a little refreshment," suggested Miss Parrott, when, the child's bonnet off, she was seated on the edge of a stiff, high-backed chair. She couldn't think of anything else to say, and as she usually offered it to her friends at the end of their long drives when they called upon her, it seemed a happy thing to do now, especially as Rachel's black eyes were fastened upon her in a manner extremely uncomfortable for the person gazed at.

As Rachel didn't know in the least what "refreshment" meant, she stared on, without a word. And Miss Parrott, pulling with more vigor than was her wont, a long red worsted cord that hung down by the piano, a stately butler made his appearance quicker than usual, took his directions from his mistress, and after regarding the small figure perched on one of the ancestral Parrott chairs with extreme disfavor, he silently withdrew.

Presently, in he came, his head well thrown back, and bearing a huge silver tray. On it were a decanter, two little queer-shaped glasses, and a plate of very thin seed cakes. He deposited this on a spindle-legged table, which he drew up in front of his mistress, and, with another glance, which he intended to be very withering, cast upon Rachel, but which she didn't see at all, he departed.

"Now, my dear," said Miss Parrott, in a lighter tone, feeling quite in her element while serving refreshments in such an elegant way, "you must be very hungry." She poured out a glassful from the decanter, and getting out of her chair, she took up the plate of seed cakes, and advanced to the small figure. "Here, child."

Rachel took the little queer-shaped glass, but had no sooner felt it within her hand, than she gave a loud scream.

"Take it away, it smells just like Gran"—pushing it from her.

It knocked against the plate of seed cakes Miss Parrott was proffering, and together they fell to the floor with a crash. In hurried the butler.

"I don't know what can be the matter," Miss Parrott was gasping, her hand on her heart, as she leaned against one of the ancient cabinets of which the apartment seemed to be full.

"It smells just like Gran," Rachel was repeating, with flashing eyes. "Oh, how dare you give it to me!" She was standing over the wreck of the priceless china and glass, which, as no such accidents had been recorded in the family, Miss Parrott had continued to use in the entertainment of her guests.

"You bad child, you!" exclaimed the butler, seizing her arm, and gone almost out of his senses at the sight of the ruin of such ancient treasures.

"I'm not bad," cried Rachel, turning on him and stamping her foot; "she's bad—that woman there—for giving me what smells just like Gran!"

"I can't make her out," declared the butler, eyeing her as he released her arm and stepped back toward his mistress.

"And that's what makes people drunk," went on Rachel, pointing an angry finger at the wet spot where the liquid from the decanter was slowly oozing into the velvet carpet.

The butler turned an outraged countenance, on which a dull red was spreading, over to his mistress.

"You would better go out, Hooper," said Miss Parrott faintly, and holding fast to the cabinet.

"I'm afraid to leave you, madam," said Hooper; "she ain't fit—that creature"—pointing to Rachel, "to be here; she may fly at you. I'll put her out at once."

"You may leave the apartment, Hooper," said Miss Parrott, regaining some of her dignity by a mighty effort. "I'm not in the least afraid." But her looks belied her words, or at any rate the old serving-man thought so, and he made bold to remonstrate again.

"Let me put her out, madam," he begged. "I'll call the gardeners."

"Oh, no, no!" protested Miss Parrott, coming rapidly to her self-composure; "that would never do in all the world. Leave the room, Hooper." This last was said so exactly like his mistress at her best, that the butler obeyed it, making a wide circuit as he passed Rachel, who still stood, the picture of wrath, over the broken china and glass.

Not a word was said for some minutes. Outside, Polly, the old parrot, was scolding vociferously, and the tall clock was ticking away for clear life. Hooper, his ear first, and then his eye, glued to the keyhole, was vainly endeavoring to find out what was passing in the sitting-room.

At last Rachel drew a long breath. "I'm sorry I broke your things," and she awkwardly pushed the bits with her shoe,

"Oh, that's no matter," said Miss Parrott, feeling astonished at herself for the words, "but you said such dreadful things. I can never forget that." She drew a long breath.

No matter that she broke those beautiful things! The whole truth flashed upon Rachel, and although the smell of the hated stuff was even yet dragging back to her all the memory of her low condition of life through such childhood as she had known, over and above it all was quickly rising the conviction that for this unpardonable misdemeanor she would be sent back to the city and—awful thought!—perhaps to Gran. She set her teeth together hard, and clenched her thin hands as they hung by her side.

"Yes. I say it is no matter," repeated Miss Parrott, not suffering herself to glance at the wreck of her ancestral treasures, "but oh, child! why did you say such dreadful things?" She still clung to the cabinet, shocked out of one tradition of her family, as if she must still hold to its time-worn and honored furnishings.

Rachel gave her a swift, bird-like glance. "You do care; you're crying," she exclaimed, aghast at the tears running over the wrinkled face.

"Not about that, but the things you said; I didn't mean to do you harm." Miss Parrott did not attempt to deny the tears, and brushed them off with a trembling hand.

"You ain't hurt me," cried Rachel, stumbling across the floor, with an awful feeling at her heart to see this stiff old woman cry.

"Oh, whatever your name is, don't! I'll go home, and the minister may send me back to Gran, an' she may beat me. Don't cry!" She seized the heavy black silk in its front breadth and held on tightly.

The butler, having at this minute his eye at the keyhole, now rushed in, unable to bear the sight, to be met by Miss Parrott, her withered face flaming behind her tears.

"Do you go directly out, Hooper, and remain away until you are called." He never knew how he got out; and this time the keyhole was unobstructed.

"Were you beaten, you poor little thing?" Was this Miss Parrott bending over Rachel's shaking shoulders, and hands clutching the silk gown! "Oh, dear, dear!"

"Tain't no matter," mumbled Rachel. "I don't care, only don't let me go back." She shook in terror, and crouched down to the floor.

"Never!" said Miss Parrott firmly. All the blood in her body seemed to be in her wrinkled face, and her eyes shone, as had those of her father, the old judge, when befriending some poor unfortunate. "You shall never go back, child; don't be afraid."

But Rachel still shivered. There were the broken bits of china and glass on the floor back of her, and the minister and his wife must be told of the awful accident; and what they would do with her, why, of course, no one could tell.

The thin, wrinkled fingers on which blazed many rings, that had been her mother's before her, were tremblingly smoothing Rachel's neatly braided hair. And as if she thought what was passing beneath them, Miss Parrott broke out quickly:

"I shall never speak of it—of the breaking of those articles, child; so no one will know it but ourselves."

"Never tell?" gasped Rachel, lifting her head, in astonishment and scarcely believing her ears.

"Of course not," declared Miss Parrott, in scorn. "So do not be afraid any longer, but get up and dry your eyes." For at this announcement, Rachel's tears had gushed out, and she sobbed as if her heart would break.

For answer Rachel flew to her feet, and without any warning and astonishing herself equally with the recipient, she threw her arms around Miss Parrott's thin neck, in among all the ancient laces with which she delighted to adorn it, and hugged it convulsively.

Taken unawares, Miss Parrott could utter no word, and Rachel clung to her and sobbed. But the old ears had heard what hadn't been sounded in them for many a long day, and forgotten were wasted heirlooms and broken treasures.

"I love you!" Rachel had said, hugging her tumultuously.



XXIII

THE OLD PARROTT HOMESTEAD

"Come, child." Miss Parrott drew herself out of Rachel's clinging arms.

What should she do now to divert this little girl from her terror and distress? She was sorely put to it for the answer. She gathered up the nervous hands in one of her own, and led the way out into the wide hall, hung with ancestral portraits. "I am going to take you to my own room," she said suddenly.

Rachel didn't know the wonderful condescension of this plan for her amusement, but she clung to the long, thin fingers, and presently she was seated on a cricket covered with tambour work, and watching Miss Parrott's movements about the spacious apartment.

"Move your cricket over here, child." Miss Parrott was unlocking what looked to Rachel's eyes like a big cupboard that stood out from the wall. It had little panes of glass all criss-crossed with strips of white wood across its face, and a set of drawers beneath. And as Rachel obediently carried the cricket over and set it down where Miss Parrott indicated, her chief attention was still upon this curious cupboard, and what Miss Parrott was doing in it, for the door now stood open.

Rachel leaned forward on her cricket and rested her hands on her knees. On the shelves was such an array of articles, that to the child's gaze, nothing stood out distinctly as an object to lavish one's sole attention upon. But Miss Parrott made early choice, and lifting out a big doll from one of the lower shelves, she laid it in Rachel's lap.

"I used to play with it," she said softly.

Rachel looked down upon the doll in her lap. It was long and hard and angular as to body, and its face was a dull white, except some patches of pink on the outer edge of the cheeks, showing the rest of the coloring to have been worn away. Its eyes were staring up into Rachel's in such an expressionless, unpleasant manner that she involuntarily turned away her own.

"Her name is Priscilla," said Miss Parrott, looking down at Rachel, which called her to herself and the necessity of attention to these efforts to amuse her.

"Yes'm," said Rachel.

"Now I don't suppose you know how much I loved this doll," said Miss Parrott, turning her back on the cupboard, to draw up a chair opposite Rachel and seat herself upon it, "but I used to take her to bed with me nights."

"Did you?" said Rachel, beginning to finger the doll with sudden interest.

"Yes, and I made her clothes and talked to her, and sometimes I called her 'Sister,'" said Miss Parrott, quite gone in remembrance.

"Oh!" said Rachel.

"You see, she was all I had. I was the youngest, and my real sister was married and away, and my brothers were men when I was a little girl."

"Oh!" said Rachel again.

"And so I had to make believe that Priscilla was alive," said Miss Parrott, her eyes glowing with remembrance of her childhood, brought so singularly near on this morning; "I really had to Rachel."

"I've got a child," said Rachel, growing suddenly communicative, and looking up from the old doll to watch the effect of her announcement.

"Have you, dear?" responded Miss Parrott, quite pleased at the bright face, from which the last tear had been wiped away.

"Yes, my Phronsie gave her to me, and she sleeps with me," said Rachel, in great satisfaction.

"I suppose she is very much like Priscilla," observed Miss Parrott.

"Oh, no, she isn't," declared Rachel promptly, turning her mind again to the ancient doll; "my child is pretty and she shuts her eyes. She isn't a bit like yours."

"Well, Priscilla was always pretty to me," said Miss Parrott, astonished that she felt so little the slight to her child. "Well, now, Rachel, we will put the doll aside. You may lay it on the bed and then come back here."

Rachel got off from her cricket and went over to the other side of the apartment.

"My, what a funny bed!" she exclaimed, using her eyes to their utmost to see as much of the canopy, with its tester of blue and white chintz, the four posts beneath, and the counterpane executed in honeycomb pattern.

Miss Parrott, exploring her cupboard to get out something else with which to entertain Rachel, did not hear her; so she slowly returned, walking backward to observe as much of this queer article of furniture as the time allowed. In this way she fell over the cricket.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott, pulling her head out of the cupboard, "did you hurt yourself, child?"

"No'm," said Rachel, getting up with a very red face, and exceedingly ashamed. "I don't believe I broke it." She set the cricket up in its proper position and anxiously examined it all over.

"Oh, no," said Miss Parrott reassuringly, "the cricket is not harmed. See here, Rachel"—she held in her hand a long string of little irregular things that dangled as she turned toward her—"I am going to put these on your neck. Now stand still, child." And suiting the action to the words, something snapped with a little click under Rachel's chin.

Rachel looked down quickly at the queer little odd-shaped red things, hanging over her breast.

"I used to wear them when I was a little girl, very much smaller than you," said Miss Parrott, her head on one side and falling back to see the effect.

"What are they?" asked Rachel, not daring to lay a finger on them, and holding her breath at the idea of being within the magnificent circle of Miss Parrott's early adornments.

"Red coral beads," said Miss Parrott, smiling at the nice contrast between the necklace and the dark little face above. "Now, child, you are going to wear them whenever you come to visit me and as long as you stay. And that means they will not come off till to-morrow, for you are to sleep here to-night."

"I haven't any nightgown," said Rachel, who by this time liked to stay well enough, but seeing here an insuperable objection.

"That's easily managed," said Miss Parrott, quickly; "I shall send a note to the parsonage, saying you will stay, and——"

At the mention of "note" Rachel suddenly collapsed, and a look of terror spread over her face.

"Oh, I forgot," she cried.

"Why, what is the matter, child?" demanded Miss Parrott, in great concern.

"I must go and get it," said Rachel wildly, and, dashing blindly off, she left Miss Parrott standing in front of her ancestral cupboard holding her childish treasures, to rush over the long and winding back stairs. At their end she found herself hopelessly entangled in an array of back passages and little old-fashioned apartments, from which, run as she would, she could never seem to find the right exit.

Her progress was noted with indignation and contempt by as many of the old retainers in the Parrott service as could be gathered at short notice, and their calls to her to leave the premises, accompanied by sundry shakings of a long crash towel in the hands of the cook, only impeded Rachel's hope of success.

"I don't know the way out," she cried at last, finding herself in a big closet whose door, being open, she fondly trusted would allow her passage out into the free air.

"Well, 'tisn't here," said an angry voice, and the brandishing of a big, iron spoon made Rachel beat a hasty retreat, this time into the back hall. Miss Parrott was just descending the stairs, her stiff, black silk skirt held high, before she set foot in the servants' quarters.

"Child, child," she said in reproach, "what is the matter?"

"Oh, I've lost the note—I mean, I forgot it." Rachel flew to her and wailed it all out.

"She's crying, that bad girl is, all over Mistress's front breadth," announced Joanna, the parlor maid, through the little window of the butler's pantry.

"La me!" ejaculated the cook, raising her hands and the crash towel, "to think of our mistress so demeaning herself!"

"What note?" cried Miss Parrott, in great bewilderment. "Rachel, stop crying at once and speak plainly. What note do you mean?"

"The one Mrs. Henderson gave me," cried Rachel; "I must go and get it, but I don't know the way out."

"To give to me? Did Mrs. Henderson tell you to give it to me?" asked Miss Parrott, beginning to see light.

"Yes'm. Oh, please let me out," begged Rachel; "I left it in the carriage."

"Ah—well, then, we'll go out this way." And there, turning to the left, was the passage down which Rachel had plunged twice before, and at its end, a small green door, that, when opened, led out through an arbor overrun with creepers, to a short cut to the stables.

"Now, then!" Miss Parrott gathered up the train of her black silk gown and put it over her arm; then in full view of the latticed window of the kitchen and scullery department, she sallied forth across the greensward to the stables beyond, Rachel's brown hand tucked in her own.

"Laws a me!" It was the scullery maid who screamed this out. "She's got on Miss Parrott's coral beads."

"You're a ninny!" cried the cook, turning on her in disdain; "go back to your pots and kettles, Ann. Whatever would she have to do with the Mistress's beads? It's some old string you see around her neck."

"It tell you it's Miss Parrott's red beads!" declared Ann stoutly. She might be sent back to her work among the pots and kettles, but she would stick fast to her tale. "I seen 'em when I went up to Miss Parrott's room with the bellows I'd cleaned this very morning, through the little winders to her cupboard, an' I'd know 'em anywhere."

The cook stamped her foot, shaking the crash towel which she still retained, and Ann withdrew to those inner precincts that were considered her department.

Meanwhile, Miss Parrott was talking to Simmons, who, touching his hat respectfully when he saw her approach, now came up to await her commands.

"Have the goodness to open the brougham door, Simmons," said Miss Parrott, going through the carriage house to the corner where that ancient vehicle was stored.

Simmons obeyed wonderingly, with an eye askance at Rachel, by the other side of Miss Parrott, eagerly pressing forward.

"Now jump in," said Miss Parrott, but this command was not needed, for Rachel was already within the family coach and prowling around on the old green leather cushion and over the floor with both nervous hands.

"It isn't—oh, yes, it is!" and up she came, red and shining, to hold out a small, white envelope.

Miss Parrott leaned against the brougham, and broke the seal. Rachel, her whole heart in one glad thrill of joy, made little sign except to heave a deep sigh of relief that the note had been found. Simmons, seeing no excuse for lingering further, went back to one of the carriages to go through the form of inspecting its exterior, while he still kept an eye employed in the direction of his mistress.

"Dear Miss Parrott" (so the note ran), "I really do not think it is wise to ask Rachel to remain over night. I will explain later. Another time, perhaps she may do so. Yours respectfully, Almira Henderson."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott to herself, and, folding up the little note into many creases, she stood lost in thought. "Well, I suppose I must yield to the parson's wife, for she has some good reason. But the child shall stay next time."

Rachel, whose spirits had risen, since it was quite positive that the note was not lost, now seized Miss Parrott's hand and hopped and skipped by her side across the green grass on their return to the mansion. Simmons came out of his retirement, his chamois skin with which he had been ostensibly polishing up a carriage, still in his hand, to stand in the doorway to watch them.

"Well, I am surprised," he declared, quite slowly and impressively, as befitted a serving-man to an old genteel family.

"Oh, let's go in there," cried Rachel, catching sight of the tall hollyhocks behind a wicket gate and pulling at the long, slender fingers.

Miss Parrott hesitated.

"Well, just one peep," she said, "for it is near to luncheon time," and she pulled out the watch from her belt. But to Rachel "a peep" meant all the world, so she dropped the fingers and raced through the gateway, to get there first and thus make it last as long as possible.

"Oh, oh!" she cried, her little dark face aflame with delight, "it's the most beautiful place." Then she began to run up and down all the narrow paths marking the circles and hearts and diamonds in which the old-fashioned garden was laid out, and sniffing the fragrance as she ran.

Miss Parrott seated herself on a stone seat by the fountain in the center. Her delight was quite equal to Rachel's, and the thin, wrinkled face assumed a more peaceful expression than it had carried for many a day, so that when Hooper came to summon her to luncheon, he was fairly taken aback at its unwonted cheer.

"Rachel!" Miss Parrott's voice had a pleasant ring to it. Rachel came dancing along a little curving path, the red coral beads flying up and down on her breast, her cheeks nearly as red. "Oh, it's perfectly beautiful here," she cried.

"Do you like it?" Miss Parrott's thin cheek glowed, too. It carried her back to the day when she as a child had been skipping in that old garden, and her heart gave a throb at the thought that there were perhaps in store for her many delights yet, through Rachel's enjoyment of the old-fashioned flowers and shrubs.

"But come, child," she brought herself up suddenly to say, with a little laugh; "Hooper has summoned us to luncheon, and we must obey."

"Do you have to obey a servant?" asked Rachel, coming out of her dance to fall into step by her side, and looking up with wide-open eyes.

"Always," said Miss Parrott most positively, "else they won't obey me, if I don't. It's system that makes everything comfortable, Rachel."

As Rachel knew nothing whatever about system, she followed silently, her small head full of the beautiful garden in which she had been rioting, and which—oh, joy!—Miss Parrott promised she should visit again, when the luncheon was over. And seated at the polished mahogany table, she was so lost in thought that Miss Parrott, in state at the other end, was obliged to speak to her twice before she looked up.

"Finish your soup, child," said Miss Parrott.

Rachel hadn't even begun it, and she now seized the first thing upon which her hand rested, a heavy silver fork. Hooper, back of his mistress's chair, darted forward to put the right implement before her. But Rachel gave him a withering glance that stopped him half-way. "You don't need to come. I've got it"; and she held up her spoon triumphantly, and ever after, all through the meal, she seemed to view his necessary advances as so many affronts, intended to show up her lack of manners, and she exercised all her wits to keep him at bay. So that the old butler was glad when the meal was over.

But long before that time arrived, Rachel had leaned back in her tall, carved chair, letting her knife and fork rest on her plate, while she feasted her eyes over the table, what it held, and then around the whole apartment.

"There's some of the same flowers like the ones in the garden," she said, bringing her gaze back to point to the old-fashioned silver vase and its nodding clusters in the center of the table. "What are they?"

"Those are larkspur," said Miss Parrott, craning her neck to see around the high silver service from which she poured her tea.

"And what's the other, this side?" Rachel bobbed over on her chair, till Hooper involuntarily closed his eyes, expecting she would go entirely off from her chair, and he didn't want to see it, it would be so disgraceful at a Parrott table.

"That?" Miss Parrott, too, leaned over on her chair. "Oh—why, that's a ragged robin, Rachel."

"Ragged robin!" repeated Rachel, hopping off from her chair. "Oh, I want to see it," and she ran around the table-end, and leaned over to get a better view. "'Tisn't a bit ragged," she cried, very much disappointed, "and besides, he isn't there."

"Oh, Rachel!" exclaimed Miss Parrott, in dismay. "You must not do so; we never leave our chairs when we are at the dining-table."

Rachel, thus admonished, scuttled back to her seat, while Hooper groaned and pretended not to see anything. But she kept her black eyes fastened on the ragged robins. "There isn't any bird there," she said.