"What, child?"

"You said there was a robin in those flowers," said Rachel again, using her little brown fingers to designate the vase and its contents, "and that he was ragged, and there isn't any."

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Parrott; then she laughed. "The flowers are called ragged robins, Rachel," she said.

"Oh!" said Rachel; then she laughed, too, a merry little peal, that just bubbled over because she was happy.

"Now eat your luncheon," said Miss Parrott. "Hooper, you may give her some more milk."

"I don't want any more milk," said Rachel, waving him off with quite an air. "I've got lots and lots"—peering into her cup. She took up her knife and fork again, but, looking over them, found so many things to call for more attention than they seemed to be worthy of, that she soon laid them down again upon her plate.

"Where did you used to sit when you was a little girl?" she asked suddenly, when she had been reflecting a bit.

"I? Oh, I sat at the side of the table," said Miss Parrott, starting, as she was thus hastily summoned down into her past.

"Then can't I sit there now?" cried Rachel, flying out of her chair again. "Say, can't I? Do let me." She ran clear around the table and hung over Miss Parrott's chair.

Hooper groaned again and looked steadfastly out of the opposite window.

"My child," exclaimed Miss Parrott; her tone was very grave, but she put her long arm around Rachel and drew her closely to her, "remember what I said: you must not leave your chair during a meal."

"I forgot," Rachel flew back again, not waiting for her request to be granted, and sat down meekly in her place.

"And you must eat something," continued Miss Parrott, glancing at the little girl's plate, and with dreadful qualms at her old heart for having been severe. "If you don't, Rachel, Mrs. Henderson won't let you come here again."

The solemn butler folded and unfolded his hands, while his face expressed the belief that such a calamity could possibly be borne.

"And if you didn't come, Rachel"—Miss Parrott took up her cup of tea, and set it down again untouched—"I should feel very sorry; I should indeed," she added, with a little catch in her throat.

"So should I," said Rachel abruptly; then she picked up her knife and fork and began to eat as fast as she could.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Parrott, quite horrified, "not so fast! Pray don't, Rachel"—looking down the table-length in distress.

Rachel by this time was alive to the disgrace she was undergoing, and she turned quite pale, and deserting her food altogether, sat stiff and straight on her chair, too miserable to care for anything. Miss Parrott bore this for a breathing-space, and then without a warning she slipped off from her chair and went quickly down to the end of the table.

"I'm not blaming you, you poor little thing," she declared, bending over the dark hair; "don't think so, Rachel."

Rachel turned with a swift movement and hid her face in the laces falling from Miss Parrott's breast.

"I want to go home to Mrs. Henderson's," she sobbed.

"We don't care for any more luncheon, Hooper," said Miss Parrott hoarsely, taking Rachel's hand, "We will go into the other room," and she led her off sobbing.

When Rachel reached Hooper, however, standing petrified with surprise, she looked up at him defiantly and brushed the tears from her cheek.

And after they had passed out, Hooper still stood in a daze. At last he came out of it, and, ejaculating, "Well, I never did!" he began to clear the table.

Once outside, Miss Parrott turned suddenly.

"We'll go back to the garden," she said.

This pleased Rachel very much, and she forgot her distress and mortification, and actually smiled up into the old face.

"Your hand's shaking," she announced, turning her gaze to the long, slender fingers covering her own little brown palm.

"Is it?" said Miss Parrott absently.

"Yes, it shakes dreadfully," said Rachel, with a critical air. "Look!"—pointing down at it.

"Oh, that is nothing," began Miss Parrott; then she stopped suddenly and put both hands on the thin little shoulders. "Oh, child," she said brokenly, "I did so hope you'd like me, for I've nothing in this world to live for, Rachel, and now you want to go back to the parsonage."

"Oh, I don't want to go back—I do love you!" cried Rachel, in great alarm, and she raised her little brown hands and actually smoothed the long, wrinkled face between them. "Don't look so. you look dreadful," she pleaded.

For at the touch of those childish hands over her face, Miss Parrott broke utterly down, all her aristocratic traditions falling away in a second of time, to reveal her lonely, hopeless life. And she sobbed in a way very hard for any onlooker to hear. To Rachel, powerless to stop her, it seemed the most terrible thing in all this world, and she burst out in her misery:

"I'll stay here forever if you'll stop."

That word "forever" did what nothing else could have achieved. It brought Miss Parrott to herself. Then it was Rachel who led her about the old-fashioned garden, and chattered about the flowers, unmindful whether or no she was answered, until presently Miss Parrott was quite recovered, and even smiling in a well-pleased way. At last she pulled out her ancient watch from her belt.

"Now, Rachel," she said, "you must go back to the parsonage this afternoon, for Mrs. Henderson expects you."

"I'll stay if you want me to," said Rachel, moving closer to Miss Parrott's side.

"No, dear—not to-day, because it wouldn't be right; the parson and his wife only loaned you to me for to-day, but——"

"What's 'loaned'?" interrupted Rachel abruptly, and wrinkling her forehead.

"Why, they only let me have you just for today," said Miss Parrott.

"Oh."

"And so you must go back, but I shall come for you again," and Miss Parrott turned a hungry glance down upon the dark little face at her side.

"I'll come," said Rachel, with a sociable nod.

"And, Rachel"—Miss Parrott drew her closer to her side—"you may keep the coral beads, dear. That shows you are really coming back to me to stay."

"For ever and always?" cried Rachel, patting the necklace lovingly with one hand. "Can I keep 'em just forever? Say, can I?"

"Yes, child"—Miss Parrott's old face smiled in delight at the compact—"they are yours to keep all your life. And now," she added brightly, "I want you to come into the drawing-room, and——"

"What's 'drawing-room'?" demanded Rachel, who felt it was much better for all concerned in a conversation to understand things as they went along.

"Why, that is the parlor," answered Miss Parrott.

"Oh."

"I want to hear you sing, Rachel," cried Miss Parrott longingly. "I can hardly wait, come." She hurried the child along with hasty steps, Rachel skipping by her side.

"I'll sing," she said, "all you want me to. I know lots and lots of things"—until the grand piano in the long, dim drawing-room, not opened for many years, was reached. Then she spun down the middle of the apartment. "I'm going to dance first," she announced, picking out the skirt of her gown on either side. "My, but ain't it dark, here, though!"



XXIV

RACHEL'S FUTURE

When the old brougham drew up in front of the colonial door, Miss Parrott let her hands fall away from the time-stained piano-keys.

"It can't surely be time for you to go, Rachel."

Then she did a thing she could not remember doing in all her life, she deliberately went on with her employment, allowing Simmons to wait on his carriage box, while she broke up the system of years that always made her punctual to a minute.

"You may sing that over again, Rachel," she said, beginning on the strains of the opera that Rachel had gathered from the barrel-organ on the street corners.

"Then may I dance again?" begged Rachel. "Please—just once before I go."

"Yes," said Miss Parrott, sitting very straight, and giving all the graceful little quirks to the slender fingers which her music-master, long since dead and buried, had taught her. "Now begin, child."

So up and down, high and clear, rang Rachel's voice, with no more effort than the birds outside put forth, the sound penetrating the ancient walls, and paralyzing every domestic, while it nearly made Simmons, outside, fall from his box.

"She hain't touched that pianner in ten years," said the cook, in a hushed voice. "Oh, me! I'm afraid she's going to die," and she flung her apron over her head.

"Die!" exclaimed Hooper, finding his voice. "She won't die with that young one here," he added, in scorn.

"Now may I dance?" pleaded Rachel, plucking Miss Parrott's sleeve. "Do let me; you said I might."

"Yes," said Miss Parrott, wrenching herself away from the operatic strains, to begin on a little old-fashioned jig.

"Oh, that's so funny," giggled Rachel, hopping aimlessly in the center of the big drawing-room and trying to keep time. "Do stop; you put me all out."

"But that is a dancing-tune," said Miss Parrott, jingling away, "and sister and I used to dance quite prettily to it, I remember."

"Well, I can't," said Rachel, hopping wildly, and doing her best to get into step. "Oh, dear!" she brought up suddenly, flushed and panting.

"What is the matter, Rachel?" Miss Parrott let her hands rest on the yellow ivory keys and looked over her shoulder at her.

"Oh, I can't dance," said Rachel, "when you play so funnily. It doesn't go like that; it goes so." She picked up her gown again, and made a sweep off in one direction, and then in another, her feet scarcely touching the pictured roses and lilies with which the velvet carpet was strewn, all the while singing a tune that seemed to carry her off on its own melody. Miss Parrott turned around on the music-stool, and watched her breathlessly.

It was therefore much later than the parsonage people expected when the old brougham set Rachel down at their gate, and she walked into the house, supported on either side by Peletiah and Ezekiel, who had been watching there a full hour for her arrival.

"I like her," she said, marching up to the minister's wife. "She gave me these"—putting her hand on the red coral beads on her neck—"and I'm going back again—to-morrow, I guess."

But it wasn't to stay, that Rachel went back on the morrow; it was only for a day. Despite all the pleadings made by Miss Parrott, and all the desire of the parson and his wife to please their honored parishioner, and most of all, the earnest wish to consent to what would probably be for the child's best good, they held firmly to the first statement, that nothing could be arranged till Mrs. Fisher and Mr. King had been consulted.

"They have sent the child here to us, and here she must stay until they make some other arrangement," they said firmly, and no amount of urging could make them say anything else.

So letters had to fly back and forth from the parsonage and the King estate in the big city, and Miss Parrott wrote long letters in a pinched, lady-like hand in very faint ink, crossing the paper whenever she was afraid she hadn't said enough to plead her cause successfully. Which condition of mind she was in perpetually, all through these writing days. These letters old Mr. King endeavored to read at the first, but he soon threw them down impatiently.

"The child shall never go to a woman who has no more sense," he loudly declared.

Then Polly or Jasper would hurry in and wade through the missives. And when he saw the hungry longing of the desolate soul, and the sweet refinement of the writer came out, and the sterling honesty was revealed in the prim sentences, he relented and went tumultuously over to the other side.

"Yes, yes, she shall go," he declared, pulling out his big handkerchief to blow his nose violently, to remove all suspicion that anything was the matter with his eyes; "'twould be the best thing in the world for her. Of course she must go."

And so it was finally settled that Rachel was to live at Miss Parrott's and be her own little girl, going down to the parsonage every day to learn her lessons under Mr. Henderson's care, until the time when she would be ready to be sent to such a school as Miss Parrott might select should arrive.

"And she must come and see me sometimes," said Phronsie when the announcement was made in the King household. "My little girl may come, can't she, Grandpapa?" she begged.

"Yes, yes, child," said old Mr. King warmly; "we all shall want to see Rachel now and then."

The Comfort committee being well-established and in fine running order by this time, Mrs. Sterling gathering them around her sofa, in her spacious sitting-room upstairs, Polly and Alexia saw no reason why they shouldn't begin work on the Cooking Club, "because," said Polly, "if we are really going to learn how to cook things, why, we ought to begin." And the mothers of the several boys and girls who were to form it, taking instantly to the idea, the two girls and Jasper set to work to write the notices of the first meeting.

"We ought to have another boy," said Jasper, "on the Committee."

Alexia wrinkled up her face. "Oh, don't; boys are so tiresome," she said.

"Why, I am a boy," said Jasper, bursting into a laugh.

"Oh, well, you are different," said Alexia; "we always expect you around."

"Thank you," said Jasper, with a low bow; "I'm sure I ought to feel very much complimented, Alexia," and he laughed again,

"Well, I'm sure boys are such nuisances," said Alexia, leaning her long arms on the table (they were in the library at Mr. King's), "and besides they won't want to come to our Cooking Club, I verily believe, so what's the use of having them on the Committee?"

"Oh, yes, they will," declared Jasper eagerly; "you don't know anything about it, if you say that. Why, Clare, and Pickering, and ever so many more are just wild to be asked."

"Oh, well, then if we've got to have some boy on the Committee," said Alexia, accepting the situation, "let's ask Pickering Dodge."

"I'd rather have Pick," said Jasper in a tone of great satisfaction; and Polly saying the same thing, it was decided then and there.

"Well, now that matter is off our hands," said Alexia, "let's get to writing these old notices," and her hands began to bustle about among the little pile of paper and envelopes.

"Hold on," said Jasper; "if Pick is to be on this committee, he must help us with these things; and he'll want to, for it will be great fun."

"O bother!" exclaimed Alexia, jerking back her chair, "now we've got to wait. You see for yourself what a nuisance it is to try to get you boys in, Jasper."

"Oh, I'll get Pick over here in a jiffy," declared Jasper, plunging out of the library; "you won't have to wait long for us, Alexia."

It wasn't more than ten minutes by the clock, when in rushed the two boys and swarmed around the big table.

"Well, I declare," cried Alexia, looking up admiringly from a receipt book which Mrs. Fisher had loaned them, and over which the heads of the two girls were bent, "if you boys haven't been quick, though!"

"Haven't we?" cried Jasper, and his eyes twinkled.

"Don't tell," whispered Pickering over his shoulder.

"And what are you two whispering about?" cried Alexia, deserting the cook-book: "Now, tell us," she demanded, dreadfully afraid she would miss some news.

"Well, you see—" began Jasper.

"Hush—hush!" said Pickering.

"Now don't pay any attention to Pickering," said Alexia, turning a cold shoulder to the last-mentioned individual; "do tell us, Jasper, what is it?"

"The fact is," said Jasper, laughing, "I didn't have to go for Pickering at all; that is, only to the corner. He was coming here."

"And Jasper nearly knocked the breath out of me," finished Pickering, "he bolted into me so."

"Well, you were on the wrong side of the pavement," retorted Jasper.

"Is that all?" cried Alexia, horribly disappointed to get no news. "Oh, dear me! Well, do sit down, now you have come, and let us get to these horrible old notices."

So the boys drew up their chairs, and Polly pushed the cook-book, with an affectionate little pat, into the center of the table. "That's what we are going to study," she said gleefully.

"Study?" echoed Pickering, with a very long face. "I didn't come over here to study; I get enough of that at school," and he glared in a very injured way at Jasper.

"Don't get upset," said Jasper, patting him on the back; "you'll like this, Pick, I tell you."

"And it's a cook-book," said Polly, laughing merrily.

"All right," said Pickering, immensely relieved, and reaching out his long arm, he seized it, and whirled the leaves. "'Lemon pie'—that sounds good. 'How to cook cabbage'—oh, dear me!"

"See here now"—Jasper seized the book and shut it up with a bang—"no one is going to look into that, until we write these notices. Why, we haven't even got a Cooking Club yet."

"Give it back," roared Pickering after him, as Jasper hopped out of his chair, carrying the book.

"No, sir," cried Jasper, bearing off the book out of the room. "There, you'll never find that," he observed, coming back to slip into his seat with satisfaction.

"Well, now," said Alexia sweetly, "if you two boys are through scrapping, we'll begin on these notices." She picked an envelope off from the pile. "Oh, dear me! who is the first one to ask?"

"I think Larry ought to have it," said Polly.

"Oh, Polly Pepper!" exclaimed Alexia, "Larry can't come for ever so long, with his collar bone all smashed and his leg hurt. The very idea!"

Polly gave a little shiver, "Well, he would like to be asked," she said.

"And I think so, too," declared Jasper; "a chap would enjoy it twice as much to get an invitation when he was abed and couldn't come."

"Well, that's nice to say," cried Alexia, bursting into a loud laugh, in which Pickering joined.

"You've done it now," he said, clapping Jasper on the back. "I'm glad of it, old chap, after the way you acted about that old cook-book."

"So I have," said Jasper grimly. Then he laughed as hard as the others. "Well, you know what I mean, and we ought to give Larry the first attention."

"I'm going to write the notice to him," declared Alexia, dipping her pen in the ink-well and beginning with a flourish. But she threw it down before she had finished his first name. "Polly, you ought to write the first notice," she cried; "you proposed the Club."

"That's no matter," said Polly, "so long as we are going to have the Club. Go ahead, Alexia."

"No, I'm not going to," said Alexia obstinately, and leaning back in her chair; "you've just got to do it, Polly, so there!"

"There'll be no peace, Polly, for any of us until you do," said Pickering, thrusting his hands lazily into his pockets.

"And I think people would do better to go to work and help," said Alexia decidedly, "than to set other people against—oh, dear me!" as she found herself hopelessly entangled.

"You would do better to get yourself out of that sentence, Alexia," laughed Jasper, "before you do anything else."

"Well, I don't care," said Alexia, joining in the general laugh; "it's too mean for anything, Pickering, to say I fight, when everybody knows I suffer just everything before I say a word."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Pickering faintly.

"And when you two stop sparring," said Jasper, "perhaps we can do some work. Come now, Polly and I don't propose to do the whole."

Alexia, at this, scrabbled up another envelope, and began to write as fast as she could. And Pickering selecting a pen and getting down to business, the room began to assume a very work-like aspect.

"Now that's done," said Alexia, tossing aside the envelope. "I've addressed notice number two."

"Whose is it?" asked Pickering, glancing up from his own to the scrawling characters where the envelope lay face uppermost on the table. "Who is number two, Alexia?"

"You mustn't see," cried Alexia, twitching it away; "you go on and address your own, Pickering, and let mine alone."

"Well, I've seen already," said Pickering coolly. "It would be impossible not to read your writing a mile off, Alexia."

"Well, that's much better than to write such mean, lazy little words that nobody can make them out," she retorted.

"Oh, clear! we haven't a pattern of the notice made yet," said Polly, leaning back in her chair, after the labor of getting the first envelope addressed; and she pushed up the little brown rings of hair from her brow, for Polly didn't like very well to write, and it always took her some time to achieve anything in that line. "Jasper, you draw up one, do," she begged.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Jasper, aghast, "I can't, Polly; you can do it much better."

"Misery me!" exclaimed Polly, "I couldn't do it in all this world," and she looked so distressed that Jasper hastened to say:

"Come along then, Pick, and help me out, and I'll try."

But Picketing protesting that he didn't know any more how to write such a notice than Prince lying on the rug before the fire, Jasper in despair drew up a sheet of paper, and wrote in big staring letters and with a great flourish, clear across the top of the page:

"ATTENTION."

"Goodness me!" cried Pickering, his pale eyes following Jasper's pen, "it looks like a fire-alarm summons."

"Or just like Miss Salisbury when she's going to say something quite ugly and horrid," said Alexia, with a grimace.

"Oh, Alexia!" said Polly.

"Well, it does," said Alexia; "you know for yourself, Polly, she always stands up quite stiff on the platform and says, 'Attention, young ladies!' Oh, I quite hate the word, because we all have to look at her."

"Well, it does good service then," said Jasper coolly, "since it makes you do the very thing wanted."

"And we wouldn't mind looking at her," said Alexia, running on with her reminiscences, "if she didn't make us do every single thing she says."

"That's too bad," said Jasper, with a laugh, and flourishing away on the second line of the notice.

"You needn't laugh," said Alexia grimly; "I guess you wouldn't if you had our Miss Salisbury at your school, Jasper King."

"Is she any worse than our Mr. Fraser?" said Jasper. "I wonder. I tell you what, Alexia, he keeps us boys at it! Doesn't he, Pick?"

"Well, I rather guess," said Picketing concisely, but his look told volumes.

"Oh, you boys have an easy enough time," said Alexia, with a sniff, "and you are always grumbling about how hard it is, while I don't say a word, but just bear things."

"I'm so sorry for poor Miss Salisbury," observed Pickering, lazily watching Jasper's efforts.

"Well, you needn't be," retorted Alexia; "she's very fond of me, Miss Salisbury is, and I don't in the least know what she'd do if I left her school. But I never shall go away, for I just dote on her."

"It looks like it," said Pickering, with a laugh.

"Well, I do," declared Alexia; "she's my very sweetest friend, except Polly Pepper, so there!"

"Oh, dear me! I don't know what next to say," cried Jasper, holding off the notice at arm's length, and scowling at it dreadfully.

"You ought to see your face, Jasper," cried Alexia. "Dear me! it's positively awful."

"Well, it's not half as bad as I feel," said Jasper, "with this terrible old notice weighing me down."

"'Attention'," drawled Pickering, reading the two lines. "'You are requested to appear—'"

"Hold on!" cried Jasper, turning over the notice. "Who told you to read it out, pray tell?"

"I'm on the Committee, I'd have you know," said Pickering coolly.

"Well, we'll pitch you out," said Jasper, "neck and heels, if you don't take care. Well, but really this is awful work." He whirled over the notice again, and glared at it savagely.

"Why don't we just say, 'A Cooking Club is to be formed'?" proposed Polly, "and——"

"Oh, that will be elegant," interrupted Alexia, clapping her hands. "Oh, Polly, you write it."

"Oh, I couldn't," said Polly, drawing back.

"Yes, Polly. do," begged Jasper.

"Oh, no, you write it," said Polly.

"Well, then, you tell me what to say," said Jasper, laughing.

"She did," said Alexia impatiently. "A Cooking Club is to be formed'—didn't you hear her?"

"I have that," said Jasper, scribbling away on a fresh piece of paper. "Now what next?"

"Go on, Polly," said Alexia.

"Well—oh, 'Will you please come to the first meeting?'"

"'And see how you like it,'" finished Alexia; "that's just elegant—do write it down, Jasper."

"You may be sure I will," cried Jasper, vastly pleased that he was to be helped out, and finishing it all up with great energy. "Well, what else?" and he poised his pen in air and looked at Polly.

"Why, isn't that enough?" said Polly, a little pucker beginning to come on her forehead.

"I should think so," said Pickering; "it tells all the story."

"And they will come, you may be sure," said Jasper, holding off the notice again, this time for everybody's inspection, "and that's the main thing."

"And now we can all begin to write them," said Alexia, in great satisfaction, seizing her pen, which she had dropped. "Do put it in the middle of the table, Jasper, where we can all see."

"Wait till I write a good one," said Jasper, beginning on a fresh sheet of paper. "I was hurrying so to get it all down; you can hardly read it." So he wrote it out in his best hand, then propped the notice up against the book-rack. "Now begin," he said.

"Let's race," cried Alexia, already scrawling the first words at a great rate.

"Oh, dear me! we shan't do it decently then," said Polly, in alarm. "I mean, I shan't, if we race."

"Nor I, either," said Jasper.

"Well, I'm not going to race, anyway," declared Pickering, making slow, lazy strokes with his pen; "it's quite bad enough to have to write these odious things, without breaking one's neck over them."

"Well, don't let's talk," said Alexia, seeing that she couldn't have any part in the conversation since all her mind had to go into her task. "Oh, dear me! I left out the dot to my 'i,' and misery! there's a blot! It was all because I was listening to you, Pickering Dodge."

"Well, we'll all be as still as mice now," said Polly; so no sound was heard save the scratching of pens over the paper, as the work went gayly on.

"Oh, isn't it too bad that we can't any of us find that ten-dollar bill Joel lost at the garden party?" broke out Alexia, when this sort of thing had proceeded for some time.

"Ugh!" cried Polly, and her pen slipped, making an awful scratch and just spoiling the best notice she had written.

Jasper raised his head and cast a warning glance over the table at Alexia, but it was too late.

"I do believe we shall find it some time," said Polly, scraping away with the ink-eraser and only making matters worse.

"Take care, Polly; the ink is too fresh," warned Jasper. "Wait until it dries."

"Well, I've smeared it all up now," said Polly, leaning back in her chair and viewing her work with despair.

"Perhaps it can be fixed," said Alexia, overwhelmed with distress and leaning forward to see the worst. "I 'most know it can; let me try, Polly."

"No, no, Alexia, I wouldn't," said Jasper; "it's quite bad enough already."

"Well, maybe I can do it," persisted Alexia, "if I could only try."

"You may try," said Polly, pushing the paper toward her, when she saw Alexia's face, "but it's no matter anyway, I'll write another." And she had already begun it when Alexia threw down the ink-eraser.

"It's no sort of use," she said, "and I've made a shocking hole in the paper. Oh, dear me!" and she looked so utterly miserable that Polly's brow cleared and she began to laugh.

"Dear me!" she said, "it isn't a bit of matter, and see, I've ever so much done already on this. And I do believe we shall find that ten-dollar note sometime. I do verily believe so, Alexia."

"So do I," cried Jasper heartily.

Pickering said nothing; he didn't really believe the ten-dollar bill would ever be found, having helped Jasper to ransack so many possible and impossible places, but he wasn't going to say so, and thus add to the general gloom.

"And I think it was awfully nice of Joel to do that dreadful work over Mr. King's old books, and earn the money," said Alexia.

Polly looked up with a smile. "Wasn't it?" she cried radiantly.

"And Father says Joe does the lists so well," said Jasper heartily; "he sticks at it every day like a leech, and there can't anything get him off to play till the hour is over."

"Well, I don't see how he can," said Alexia, drawing a long breath. "Dear me, it would just tire me to death. Why, Polly Pepper!" Alexia threw clown her pen and stared at her. "When is the first meeting to be?"

"Why, you know," said Polly, writing away, laboriously; "next Wednesday evening, of course."

"Well, we don't say so," said Alexia. "How in the world are they to know?"

The other members of the Committee stopped work immediately and glanced ruefully at the little pile of notices accumulating in the middle of the table.

"We can never write those all over," began Polly tragically.

Pickering put out a long hand and picked out from the pile the one he had written.

"I shall just write, 'Wednesday evening, July 21st,' down in one corner," he said.

"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Alexia, her face brightening; "I shall do mine so"—pulling out her scrawls from the heap of notices.

"But we don't tell where the meeting is to be," said Jasper after they had all fallen to work again.

At this second fright no one seemed to be able to speak. It was Alexia who first found her voice.

"Why not put it in the other corner?" she said.

"And that just balances," said Jasper, holding one of his notices up when the two additions had been made, "so it really looks better than ever."

"But we mustn't make any more blunders," observed Pickering wisely, "for we haven't any extra corners to go to now."

"Oh, we aren't going to make any," declared Alexia, "and we will soon be through, thank goodness!"—as the pens set up lively work once more.

"I hope so." Polly gave a long sigh. "Oh, dear me! it wouldn't be one-half so hard to do cooking for the Club, as to write a single one of these things."



XXV

JACK PARISH

"Grandpapa!" Joel came in with a shout, rushed around the room two or three times, and finally came up to the big writing-table, quite blown.

"Dear me!" exclaimed old Mr. King, laying down his pen, "have you really got through, Joe?"

"Grandpapa," said Joel, his black eyes shining, and bobbing over his head to get a good look into the old gentleman's face, "she's asked him, she really has!"

"Who?" asked Mr. King, very much puzzled.

"Mrs. Sterling," said Joel, in a tone of the greatest satisfaction. Then he began to dance again, snapping his brown fingers to keep time.

"When you come out of that war dance, Joel," said old Mr. King, leaning back in his big chair to laugh at him, "perhaps you'll have the goodness to tell me whom you are talking about all this time."

Joel stopped his mad career and ran up to the old gentleman's side.

"Why Jack Parish—I thought you knew, Grandpapa," he added reproachfully.

"I suppose I might have known if I'd stopped to consider that you've talked your Parish boy every day since the little affair on the pond," said Mr. King, still laughing. "Well, and so Mrs. Sterling has invited your friend, Joel, to some festivity, I suppose, eh?"

"Yes," said Joel, "she has"—his satisfaction returning—"it's a supper at her house, to-morrow night, Grandpapa." He leaned over to bring his brown cheek close to the one under the white hair. "Just think of that!"

"Whew!" ejaculated the old gentleman, "and she hasn't had company for ten years!"

"Well, she's going to have us, every single one in the Comfort committee," declared Joel decidedly, "and she asked Jack, most particularly; she did, Grandpapa—she really did. May I go down and tell him now? May I, Grandpapa?" he cried eagerly.

"Why, if your mother says so, I suppose—" began Mr. King.

"She says I may go, if you think best," cried Joel, hanging to the arms of the big chair and having hard work to curb his impatience. "Oh, Grandpapa, please hurry and say yes."

Instead of complying with this demand, the old gentleman leaned back in his chair and steadily gazed into space while he revolved something in his mind. At last, when Joel thought he couldn't brook the delay another minute, Mr. King whirled suddenly around in his chair.

"I tell you what it is, Joel, you and I will go down to see your friend ourselves."

"Oh, Grandpapa!" Joel gave a leap, and seized Mr. King's arm with both hands. "Right away now?" he cried, with sparkling eyes.

"Right away now," declared old Mr. King, getting out of his chair; "that is, as soon as we can make ourselves presentable for our walk. Goodness me, Joe, what a whirlwind you are!"—bursting into another laugh.

Joel didn't care what he was called so long as he was really going to see Jack Parish and carry him the wonderful invitation, and all the way down to the little grocer's on Common Street he just bubbled over with happiness, till everybody who passed the two felt a glow at the heart at the merry comrades: and many were the backward glances cast at the old, white-haired gentleman of stately mien, with a chubby-faced boy of the jolliest appearance hanging to his hand.

"Well, well, well, and so here we are." Old Mr. King looked up curiously at the little sign above the door—"Ichabod Parish, Grocer"—then down over the shop windows overrunning with canned goods, and, to finish up, an outside stall on which jostled and overcrowded each other every description of vegetable in the market, from a cabbage down. A fat, red-faced man with a big apron that had been white earlier in the day, came out of the shop and stood by the stall.

"Anything in our line to-day, sir?" he said. He had a little pad of paper in one hand and a pencil in the other.

"Well, yes," said old Mr. King, with a twinkle in his eye, for by this time he perceived some lines along the fat cheeks that showed very plainly the habit of smiles running up and down in them. "I've come for a boy, if you please."

"A boy?" said the fat, red-faced man, laughing, till the round cheeks were all wrinkled up. "Well, now, I take it, you're joking, sir."

"Oh, no, I'm not," said old Mr. King very seriously, but the other man had been just as observing in his way, and had seen the twinkle in the keen eyes. So now he laughed some more and waited patiently for the joke to be explained.

"I take it you have a boy named Jack, hereabout," said Mr. King presently.

All the wrinkles dropped suddenly out of the fat, red cheeks. "He hain't done nothin' wrong, Jack hain't?" gasped the man.

"Oh, Grandpapa, tell him what we've come for," cried Joel, twitching Mr. King's hand, and quite aghast to see the suffering in Jack's father. "Do, please, Grandpapa."

Old Mr. King was rapidly exclaiming: "No, no; bless you, did you think I'd come at you in such a way? Why, this boy here"—thrusting Joel forward—"has got an invitation for him. Now, then Joel, my boy, speak up,"

And Joel did speak up; and in a minute they were all there in the little shop, and the fat grocer was bustling around to work a chair out from behind the counter. But as the big store cat and several parcels were on it, it took a bit of time. Meanwhile, old Mr. King sat down upon a box of soap, while Joel hung over his shoulder.

A woman came in with a jug to be filled with molasses, and a small girl for a box of matches. But the little grocer told them to wait, and after he had placed the chair and gotten Mr. King off from the soap-box and into it, he bustled to a door at the head of the shop.

"Ma," he cried, putting his head into the room to which it opened, "do you know where Jack is?"

"He's upstairs," said a voice, evidently "Ma's."

"Well, tell him to come down," said the fat grocer.

"All right, Ichabod."

"Jack's to home," announced the grocer, coming back with the air of imparting a piece of news, just as much as if every word had not been heard. "Well, now, Mis. Jones, I'll fill your jug." He took it from her and she settled herself comfortably, during the slow process, to watch the stately, white-haired figure in the chair to her heart's content; her example being followed by the small girl who had, of course, been obliged to wait for the box of matches.

A pair of feet could be heard coming through the room just mentioned.

"I don't know what your Pa wants you for," said a woman's voice; "most likely for an errand."

So Jack, free from his sling, for Doctor Fisher had found him surprisingly quick at recovery, bolted through the doorway, and into the shop, and without a bit of warning brought up against old Mr. Horatio King and Joel.

"Great Scott!" he cried, scared out of his usual shyness.

"Yes," said Joel, sociably bobbing his face into Jack's, "I've come to ask you to supper. Mrs. Sterling told me to, most particularly, you know."

"Dear me, Joe!" exclaimed old Mr. King, "do give it to him more slowly"; for Jack's head of light hair was wagging from one to the other of the visitors in great distress.

"I am," said Joel; "awful slow, Grandpapa."

"It doesn't look much like it," said the old gentleman, bursting into a laugh. The fat grocer over at the molasses barrel, looked across anxiously at the group, and for once in his life wished Mrs. Jones, although one of his best customers, anywhere but in his shop.



"Well, try again, Joel," said Mr. King. So Joel began once more, and before long, Jack Parish understood fairly that Mrs. Sterling had actually invited him to supper on the following night with the Comfort committee, just as if he were not the son of Ichabod Parish, the little grocer on Common Street, but were one of the rich boys of Joel Pepper's set.

"Pa," he shouted (he wanted some one of his own family to help understand this puzzle), "do come here."

The fat grocer, hearing this cry, could stand it no longer trying to stamp out his curiosity; so deserting the molasses barrel and forgetting to turn the spigot, he bore off the jug.

"There, Mis. Jones, there you are"—depositing it with a thump on the counter, and waddled over to his son and the visitors.

When he comprehended the matter, as after an infinite deal of pains he did, his astonishment knew no bounds. It absolutely struck him speechless, and there he stood in the middle of the little shop, lost to the fact that he was a small grocer on an obscure street. He was the father of Jack, hitherto obliged to go with boys of the neighborhood, not of specially nice families, with manners and aims to match, now—oh, joy!—with a chance for something better, that might reach to unknown heights. He might even become an alderman! The little grocer's breast heaved with delight, but even in that blissful moment, his first thought was of his wife.

"Won't your mother be proud, Jack!" he made out to utter.

"Your molasses is all runnin' out," proclaimed the small girl who was waiting for the box of matches.

And Jack springing to help his father, who bounded to the molasses barrel, old Mr. King and Joel took themselves off without any further embarrassment to the little grocer, who surely never could in all this world express his gratitude as he wanted to.

"Be at my house to-morrow afternoon, and we'll go over together," said Joel, with longing glances at the center of bustle around the molasses barrel.

"Oh, Grandpapa, how I do wish I could have staid and helped clean up!" Joel burst out, as they left the shop.

"Oh, my goodness, Joel!" exclaimed old Mr. King; "such a messy job! How can you!"

"It would have been such fun," mourned Joel, wishing he could have free access to just such a small grocer's shop, and thinking that Jack was the luckiest fellow alive.

"When I grow up, I'm going to have a shop like that," he declared, after marching on in silence down the next block and surveying with favor all the surroundings of the narrow street.

"I thought you were going to sell tin, like your Mr. Biggs, of Badgertown," said Mr. King mischievously.

Joel hung his head. "I was, but I think a shop would be nicer after all; you can have everything in it, you know, Grandpapa."

"Even molasses," put in Mr. King. "Well, I wouldn't decide the matter just now, Joel, my boy—which you will be when you are grown up. There's plenty of time yet ahead of you."

Jack Parish, with his hair carefully oiled by his anxious mother, and his very best clothes on, a circumstance calculated to invest him with dread and rob him of every bit of comfort to begin with, presented himself at Mr. King's mansion on the next afternoon. His countenance was long, and he looked so worried that Joel, rushing out to meet him, involuntarily ejaculated, "Oh, dear me!" in dismay.

After regarding each other uncomfortably for a minute, in which Jack began to wish himself, a thousand times, back in the little shop, Joel burst out, seizing his arm:

"Come up into my room—Dave's and mine," and over the stairs they went.

"Is this your room?" gasped Jack, forgetting his discomfort and staring all about.

"Yes, it is," said Joel; "Dave's and mine. See my tennis racket, Jack. Isn't it prime!"—darting over to pull it out of a corner.

"I should say it was," declared Jack, fingering it lovingly as Joel thrust it into his hand with a, "Do you play?"

"A little," said Jack. He did not think it necessary to add that he was the champion player of the Common Street team on the dingy little open space given up to goats and tenement-house children.

"That's good!" exclaimed Joel, with shining eyes, and clapping him on the back; "we'll have a bout together sometime. And here are my boxing-gloves." He seized them and struck an attitude. "Come on, Jack," he cried in huge delight.

So Jack did come on, and when he emerged, why, there were the fencing foils to try; and when this was all over, and both boys sat down, flushed and panting, why, Jack's best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and his oiled hair didn't look so badly, to Joel's way of thinking.

David now ran in.

"It's time to get ready to go to Mrs. Sterling's supper," he said, with a nod to Jack.

"So it is," cried Joel, beginning to run here and there for his other shoes and clothes.

Jack turned away with a feeling that it wasn't good manners to be looking on, and glanced out of the window.

"Come over and look at our butterflies," cried Joel, running over to a cabinet against the wall, "they're just beauties."

"Oh, have you collected butterflies?" cried Jack, whirling around, greatly excited.

"Yes; Dave and I have," said Joel, "we have lots and lots."

It didn't take Jack long to be over in front of the cabinet, and pulling out its many drawers. So that he was lost to all the fuss of dressing that Joel and David were undergoing, and it wasn't till he had been clapped on the back most vigorously with a, "Wake up, old chap," that he realized that the dreaded time had arrived when he must go out to his first company. Then a dreadful feeling came over him.

"Oh, I can't go," he declared, his face turning as red as a beet, and he stood still, perfectly miserable.

"Why, Mrs. Sterling expects you," began David!

Joel had no such gentle ways.

"Come along, you," he cried, hauling Jack away from the cabinet and hurrying him off downstairs. Then he began to chatter as hard as he could, saying the first things that came into his head, until the gray stone mansion was reached, and they were fast and safe within the door.

Joel drew a long breath and began to mount the stairs.

"Any boys here yet?" he asked, looking up at Gibson in the upper hall.

"Yes," said Gibson; "three boys have come."

Joel didn't wait to ask who they were; he left David to bring Jack along and raced in to speak to Mrs. Sterling and the members of the Comfort committee.

"I am very glad to see you, Joel." Mrs. Sterling beamed at him from her sofa, feeling quite sure of the success of the first company she had given to the boys, now that Joel Pepper had come.

Joel gave her a bright little nod; then, remembering himself, he went over to her sofa and stuck out his little brown hand.

"I'm glad I've come," he said, bobbing at the same time in great satisfaction to the boys.

"Where is your friend, Joel?" asked Mrs. Sterling, in disappointment. "I surely thought you would bring him."

Joel glanced around in dismay, then pranced out into the hall. A scuffling noise struck upon his ear, and leaning over the banister, he saw David and Jack apparently hanging on to each other and whirling around in the hall below. He was down over the stairs in a flash.

"He says he must go home," said David, still holding fast to the edge of Jack's jacket, and looking up with a very pink face.

Jack looked thoroughly ashamed, but he still cast wild eyes at the big front door, as Joel considering whatever was to be done at all, should be done quickly, launched him upstairs, and before he had a moment to breathe freely, pushed him into the beautiful sitting-room above with a, "Here he is."

The room swam all around before Jack, as he went up to the sofa-edge, and Mrs. Sterling's soft, white hand took his hot, nervous one. He didn't know in the least what she said, or how she looked, as he couldn't raise his eyes, but he remembered afterward that her voice was sweet and low, and that somehow he wasn't so afraid after that, and then Joel dragged him into a knot of boys, for by this time several were pouring into the room. And in five minutes Jack felt as if he had known them all for years, and he quite forgot that this was the first time he had ever gone into company.

When the bustle of the arrival was over, and every member of the Comfort committee was present, Mrs. Sterling said:

"Now I think, Gibson, the first thing we should do is to have supper."

So Gibson went over and touched the electric button on the wall, and in came the butler and two maids bearing trays full—well, just crowded with all the good things a boy could desire to eat. And these having been placed on the big, mahogany table in the center of the room, usually filled with books and magazines, but which had been cleared for the purpose, each boy was invited to come up and be helped to whatever he wanted, an invitation that wasn't long left unaccepted.

Joel, in his fear that Jack would somehow be left out in the cold, bent all his energies toward getting him something to eat. The consequence was, that he forgot all about waiting on Mrs. Sterling, and, glancing around after he had poked a plate of cold chicken and jelly into Jack's hand, he saw two or three of the boys—Frick and even little Porter Knapp—vying with each other to be the first to serve their hostess.

"Ugh!" cried Joel, seizing the first thing on the table that caught his eye. It proved to be the salt-cellar, and he rushed up and presented it with a flourish.

"Ho, ho!" exploded Frick, as the little knot of boys parted in the middle, "why we've only got her a napkin and a plate."

Joel glanced down ruefully at the salt-cellar in his hand, and was going to beat a retreat with it, quite crestfallen.

"Thank you, Joel; I shall want it pretty soon," said Mrs. Sterling, smiling into his red face. "There, we'll put it on the table"—for Mrs. Gibson had been busy drawing up a light stand to the side of the sofa—"and will you bring me some cold chicken?"

"Me?" cried Joel, perfectly radiant, but scarcely believing that he could be meant, after his awkwardness.

"Yes, you," said Mrs. Sterling, laughing; "so hurry, and get it, Joel."

No need to tell him that. Joel sprang at the table again, bore off a plate of the desired delicacy, and a spoonful of currant jelly by its side, and flew back again.

"Is that right?" he asked anxiously, with a dreadful feeling that he ought to have asked her if she wanted brown or white meat.

"How did you know I am very fond of white meat, Joel?" asked Mrs. Sterling. "And above all things I like the wing."

"Do you?" cried Joel, in a transport. "Now what else?"

"Nothing now, and the next time, why, I must let Frick and some of the other boys help me," said Mrs. Sterling, "so run back and get something to eat yourself, Joel."

So Joel, with a mind to edge up to see how Jack was getting on, found to his amazement that he was laughing and talking with the last boy with whom he would have supposed it to be possible—Curtis Park!

"Dear me!" exclaimed Joel to himself, tumbling back instinctively when he saw that he wasn't wanted, and he fell up against David.

"I couldn't help it," said Davie, who had been quite miserable since his ill success in getting Jack over the stairs after Joel. He was aimlessly crumbling up a biscuit on his plate, and eating nothing.

"Well, 'tisn't any matter," said Joel, "and he's here now, and having a good time; just hear him laugh," he added enviously.

"Is that Jack laughing?" asked David incredulously, poking his head around the intervening boys to see for himself.

"Yes, it is," said Joel, bobbing his head decidedly.

"Oh, well, then, it's all right," said David happily. So he ran off to fill his plate and go over in the corner to eat its contents with a group of boys of whom he was especially fond.

Joel, left alone, was feeling very dismal, when suddenly he looked over, and caught Jack's eye. Curtis Park was saying something very jolly—Joel knew it was, for he caught scraps of it, and so did some of the other boys who pushed up to hear the rest. But Jack Parish evidently didn't listen, for his eye had been anxiously roving around the room, and just at that moment, they rested on Joel, and they lighted up so unmistakably that Joel sprang forward, a light in his own.

"Did you want me, Jack?"

"Yes," said Jack, "I did." The words were not much, but they seemed to satisfy Joel.



XXVI

MR. HAMILTON DYCE A TRUE FRIEND

And after every boy protested that he couldn't eat another bit, the butler and the two maids packed up the trays and carried them down again.

"Now, Comfort committee," said Mrs. Sterling, "all draw up here."

So the circle of chairs and crickets was made around the sofa, and the real business of the evening began. It was in the very commencement of things Joel noticed that every one of the members seemed to take a fancy to Jack.

Curtis Park leaned over from his chair. "I say, Frick, change places with me." Frick was next to the visitor, Joel, of course, being on his other side.

"No, you don't," said Frick, not over politely.

"Oh, that's mean," began Curtis, then he remembered where he was, and sat back in his chair, biting his pencil.

Frick straightened himself up with enjoyment

"You can take my pencil," he said to Jack magnanimously; "we all brought 'em, you know, she wanted us to."

Joel caught the last of this. "Oh, dear me!" he exclaimed, in remorse, "I forgot mine; and, Jack, I was going to bring one for you."

"He can take mine," said Frick, shoving a very stubby specimen into Jack's hand.

"Mine's better," said Curtis, reaching over a brand-new one, just sharpened to a fine point; "take mine, Jack, you much better."

Jack, not knowing how to refuse, took it. And the other boys, seeing Curtis Park come down from his high-flown notions enough to notice so conspicuously the new boy, all began to find ever so many things in him that were worthy of, their attention. So, instead of Joel having to push him along, Jack became quite popular. The result was that Joel was left out in the cold.

"Now," said Mrs. Sterling brightly, after a little of this chat had been going on, and Gibson had shaken up her pillows, and raised her mistress into a more comfortable position, "you all know, of course, that Doctor Fisher reports Lawrence ready for a little amusement, if we send it to him, for no one is allowed yet to see him."

"But we will be soon. Doctor Fisher told my father so yesterday," piped out Porter Knapp, sliding to the edge of his chair.

"I don't doubt it," said Mrs. Sterling, smiling at him, "but until that good time does come, why we who belong to the Comfort committee ought to set to work on something that will cheer him up. And as I believe work of that kind always gets along better when ever so many club together at it, why, I thought I'd ask you all to meet here, and we'd see what could be done this evening. Now what shall we do first?"

She looked all around the circle, but no one spoke. "Oh, dear me!" she said, and her face fell.

"I'd rather write out conundrums than anything else," said Curtis Park, seeing some answer was expected.

"Good!" Mrs. Sterling beamed on him. "Does any other boy have something to propose?"

"Puzzles," said Frick decidedly. "I'd a great deal rather have puzzles; conundrums are just horrid."

"Two things to choose from," and Mrs. Sterling laughed. Her spirits were rising now, and all the doubts she was beginning to feel overwhelming her as to the wisdom of inviting these boys in for the evening, fled at once.

"I think puzzles are just as horrid as conundrums," said Joel Pepper, beginning already to feel the prickles run up and down his legs, from sitting still so long, and wishing for nothing so much as a good scamper; "they're both as horrid as they can be."

"Oh, Joel!" exclaimed Mrs. Sterling, quite crestfallen.

"Well, propose something yourself, then, Joe," said his next neighbor, with a nudge.

"Oh, I can't," said Joel, quite horrified; "I don't know anything that we can write down."

Jack leaned over and whispered in his ear.

"The very thing!" cried Joel, slapping his knee. And, "Tell it yourself, Jack," in the next breath.

"Oh, no, no," protested Jack, shrinking as far back in his chair as he could, and getting very red in the face.

"I very much wish you would, Jack," said Mrs. Sterling. And she looked at him in such a way, that Jack although he had wild thoughts of taking a flying leap out of his chair, and off to the small grocery shop, nevertheless stuck to it manfully and at last found his tongue.

"We might cut out pictures that spell the names of books," he said.

"Capital!" said Mrs. Sterling.

"Well, those are puzzles," said Frick.

"Well, not like the ones you meant," said Joel, leaning back of Jack to bestow a punch. "Do be still," he added furiously.

"But mine would be puzzles, anyway," declared Frick, unwilling to give up the point.

"Well, we'd much rather have these, anyway," said Curtis Park, projecting himself into as much of the circle as possible. "Who cares for your old puzzles, Frick?"

"Boys—boys," said Mrs. Sterling gently.

"Beg pardon," said Curtis. "But we really do want these that Jack has just proposed, Mrs. Sterling. At least I do, and I'd give up conundrums to have them; so please let us have these."

"How is it, Frick?" asked Mrs. Sterling. "Do you give up your puzzles in favor of our making Jack's pictures?"

Frick wriggled in his chair; he wanted his puzzles dreadfully, and he couldn't see, since he had proposed them first, why he shouldn't carry the day, but every boy was looking at him sharply, so he mumbled, "Yes."

It was Jack who settled it happily after all.

"Let's have one of his"—bobbing his head at Frick—"and a conundrum," and he looked over and smiled at Curtis, "then one of mine after that. Won't that do, ma'am?"

"Well, now, Jack, you've fixed it cleverly," said Mrs. Sterling, much relieved. "Get your pencils all ready while Gibson goes into my bedroom and brings out the pile of magazines, and we'll have such a lovely evening of work. You know you must each select pictures, and each write a puzzle, and each give a conundrum; then they must be read aloud and we will choose the very best ones to send. Now then "—as Gibson deposited her armful of magazines on the little stand, and laid several pairs of scissors on the top of the pile—"let us all set about it."

Then what a whirling of leaves and snipping of paper, because they all decided they would begin on Jack's first.

"Can't we have some mucilage?" asked Joel.

"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Sterling. "Gibson, will you get——"

Boom, boom, clang, clang, clang! It was the fire-bell, loud and clear and strong. Down went all the scissors, and a whole litter of papers to the floor, and the magazines sprawled every way, as each boy sprang out of his chair.

"Gibson," said Mrs. Sterling faintly.

"Now, you boys," cried Gibson, hurrying in, her cap strings flying in her perturbation, "don't you know no better than to jump up like that?"

"Gibson—Gibson," said Mrs. Sterling reprovingly, but she laid her hand on her heart.

"It's a fire!" cried Joel, with very red cheeks, whirling around from the window where the mass of boys was pressed.

"Well, is that any reason why you should act so and scare the mistress to death?" said Gibson sharply.

"We didn't scare her," said Joel bluntly; "it was the fire."

"Well, we must go," declared little Porter Knapp, struggling out from the knot of boys, who, all bigger and stronger, were pinning him against the window most uncomfortably.

"Oh, he mustn't," Mrs. Sterling said, in alarm.

"His father wouldn't like it at all; he was to stay here until he was sent for."

"It's a fire!" exclaimed Porter, kicking dreadfully, and his face getting red, "and I shall go!"

The other boys, just on the edge of saying the same thing, now stood quite still. Every nerve was quivering to be off to the fire, which, from all appearances, must be a splendid one. The bells were clanging fast and furiously, hoarse cries were heard, as if raised from hundreds of throats, and now, to add to the general melee, an engine dashed around the corner. They could hear the mad plunge of the horses, the shouts of the people; and then off in the distance, yet approaching nearer each instant, was another and evidently a more powerful one, the horses at a mad gallop. It was too much for any boy to stand.

"You see we must go." Curtis Park went over to the sofa, and said this hoarsely. "He's a baby"—pointing to Porter—"and he's got to stay here, but we big boys must go."

Mrs. Sterling looked up, and her face grew white. "But your fathers wouldn't wish you to go, I am quite sure," she said.

Curtis turned away his face, but his teeth were set. "I'm going," he said briefly.

Jack Parish's head spun, and he clenched his hands. Why had he come to this sick woman's house! If he were only out in the free, open air, he'd go in a flash. His father let him run to fires, and it wouldn't be many minutes before he'd be in the thick of it. He'd make a break and run!

But how white she looked as she laid her head on the pillow. Like it or not, there he was in her house, an invited guest; and she'd been so kind to him and sent him the first invitation he'd ever had. He opened his hard fists and closed them tighter than ever. Curtis Park was now at the head of the stairs. Having decided, he was bolting off. Little Porter Knapp was engaged in kicking Gibson, who was detaining him by the end of his jacket, and screaming wrathfully and slapping her hands. The other boys, most of them making up their minds to follow Curtis, were watching proceedings.

Jack strode off to Curtis. "See here," he said, "we ought not to go, don't you know?"

Curtis turned on him in a towering passion. "You let me alone, you grocer's boy, you! What business is it of yours?"

"I may be a grocer's boy," said Jack, feeling himself wonder fully cool, as the other's anger raged, "but I know something of good manners, p'raps, and we're scaring that lady to death."

Curtis Park was dreadfully proud of his manners, and he would have stopped there, but as it again occurred to him that this was the son of a grocer who was setting up to be an authority, he cried angrily:

"You're a great one to teach me manners," and he dashed down the stairs and was out of the house.

"I wish I'd stopped him," said Jack to himself. "Hello, here's the whole mob"—as all the boys except Joel and David, and of course Porter, now plunged out to do the same thing. "No, you don't." He squared up in front of the staircase. "Not one of you goes down there."

They brought up with a gasp. At that instant a cheery voice in the hall below rang out:

"Hello, boys; I knew you were to be here tonight. Don't you want to come with me to the fire?" It was Hamilton Dyce to whom the voice belonged.

And in five minutes Hamilton Dyce set forth, with Mrs. Sterling's complete approval; a string of boys in his wake, including little Porter, who was parted from Gibson only on her hearing her mistress say, "Yes, indeed, he can go; but do look out for him."

Mr. Dyce nodded over to her couch. "Come on, you little rascal"—to Porter—"you stick close to me or—" he didn't finish the sentence.

Gibson, pale, and shaking in every limb, but seeing no reason to regret that she had hung on to little Porter's jacket, sank into a chair, and simply looked at her mistress.

"Nevertheless," said Mrs. Sterling, with a long breath, and beginning to smile, "I am very glad those boys were here to supper."

If her mistress could smile, it wasn't so very black and dreadful after all, and Gibson came enough out of her gloom to mutter, "But look at this room," and she waved her hands in despair.

"Oh, that's nothing," said Mrs. Sterling cheerfully, and then she laughed outright as she glanced around at the effects of the tumult. "Gibson, come here a minute."

The old serving-woman crept out of her chair, and went over to the sofa.

"Do you know"—Mrs. Sterling took her arm and pulled her gently down to a level with the face on the pillow, and her soft eyes twinkled—"it really seems good to see such a muss for once in my life: you do keep me so immaculately fine, Gibson."

"Oh, mistress!" breathed Gibson, aghast.

"And to think I have had boys, actually young life here in this room." Mrs. Sterling raised herself suddenly to rest on one elbow.

"Mistress—mistress," implored the alarmed Gibson, with restraining hands, "you'll hurt yourself."

"No, I shan't," protested Mrs. Sterling, her eyes beaming, and going on resolutely, "and just to think of boys being here!"—she looked around the room with a sudden affection—"and liking it—for they did, Gibson, they surely did, until the fire started. Oh, it is perfectly beautiful!"

"Well, do lie back, mistress," begged Gibson, thumping up the pillows invitingly, "else those dreadful creatures will finish you entirely."

"Don't say so," cried Mrs. Sterling laughingly, "and I will be good," and she settled back comfortably into her accustomed place. "Yes, Gibson, I have my young folks now, the same as other people," she added proudly. "You needn't try to fix up the room yet; you may finish the story you were reading to me last night,"

She had to turn her face on the pillow, for the smile would come, at the picture of Gibson, the immaculate, sitting down calmly in the midst of the awful effects of the tumult that had so vexed her soul.

She had her young people, there was no manner of doubt after that. And though the exit from their evening's excitement was not again made to the clang of the fire-bell, all the subsequent visits held fun and jollity, and quiet enjoyment, and everything else that was delightful, mixed up together.

And the Comfort committee had so much pleasure out of the whole thing, that one evening little Porter looked up from his laborious pasting, whereby a joke from a funny paper was going down for the sick boy's amusement.

"I wish some one else would get hurt," he said abruptly, without stopping to think.

"Oh, you beggar!" It was Curtis Park who turned on him, though every boy had glanced up in surprise.

"We can't have such fun," said Porter, waving his sticky hands in both directions, "unless they do," and he twisted uncomfortably in his chair, as he realized the effect of his words.

"Well, we must think of somebody else to help with our Comfort committee," said Mrs. Sterling from her sofa. "Don't worry, Porter, we won't let ourselves die out for want of work. Boys—" She looked at them suddenly, and raised herself on her elbow, Gibson over in her watchful corner trotting across in great apprehension.

"Mistress—mistress," she began.

"There are ever so many young people who are hurt and sick and distressed and are taken right out of life." She was gazing at them now with eyes that were large and dark and shining.

"But we don't know them," burst out Joel Pepper, for she seemed to expect somebody to answer.

"No, but they need you."

"Mistress—mistress," begged Gibson, hanging over her.

"And if you do the work after Lawrence doesn't need it, and he is here with us, well and happy once more, I will see that some sick or unhappy boy gets it."

Joel Pepper hopped out of his chair, upsetting the mucilage bottle, seeing which, Gibson left her mistress to reach the table in time to save a disaster.

"Will you—will you?" he cried, running over to the sofa. "Will you give our things, if we make them, to some poor sick boys who are hurt, Mrs. Sterling?"

"I surely will, Joel," promised Mrs. Sterling, taking his two brown hands in her thin one.

"Then I'm going to make things," declared Joel, who never in his life before had been willing to sit still and cut out and snip and paste and write, and he plunged back to his seat. "Oh!" he cried, in dismay, and his face grew terribly red, "did I upset that?"—pointing to the mucilage bottle.

"You surely did," said Gibson tartly, and taking up the last of the sticky mess with a wet towel, "and I suppose you'll do it again, or some of the rest of you boys will. It don't make much difference which," and she moved off slowly.

"Gibson—Gibson," said Mrs. Sterling gently.

"Oh, Gibson!" Joel flew after her and twitched her apron string.

"What is it?" She turned on him with asperity. "I never will upset the mucilage bottle again, I won't, Gibson, really."

"See that you don't," replied Gibson, moving off with small faith in such promises.

And another promise had that very evening been made, just before the boys had gathered in Mrs. Sterling's handsome sitting-room.

Curtis Park had been through several spasms of distress over his attack on Jack, when, whirling around from the friendly attitude he had chosen to assume, he had made a tirade on the grocer's son. Look at it whichever way he might, it didn't seem pleasant to view. And all the delight in the fire and the companionship of Mr. Dyce, of whom all the boys were exceedingly fond, was suddenly blotted out. He went home that night, and crept into bed, a most disconsolate boy.

"I was a beastly cad," he fumed, kicking the covering down to the foot, and rolling out with the vain attempt to find some diversion. But that being impossible, he tumbled in again, with his unhappy thoughts.

And all through the following days, go whichever way he might, there was the fact to stare him in the face, that he, Curtis Park, who had hitherto prided himself upon his fine manners, had dropped from his height, to blackguard a boy, who, despite the fact of having been born the son of a little grocer on Common Street, had yet shown himself capable of the height.

"It's no use to deny it. I've been a bully and a cad," he groaned, and wiped the perspiration from his face. "What can I do!"

There was only one way, and he knew it, just as well at first as after all the fencing with himself that ensued the next few days. And at last on this very evening, he stopped fighting the idea, and marched up to what it suggested, like a man.

"See here, will you, though I shouldn't think you'd want to speak to me." It was a boy who said this to Jack standing on the step of the grocer's front door, next to the shop.

"Hey?" said Jack, in a great bewilderment. Was that really Curtis Park, whose rap on the door had announced him?

"Oh, it's no use to deny, Jack," said Curtis, speaking rapidly and desperately, "that I've been a cad—a mean, low cad—to talk to you in that way. It's done, and can't be helped now, only I want you to know what I think of it."

Jack swallowed hard. He was going to put out his hand, but luckily thought in time, This is Curtis Park.

"I don't wonder you won't shake hands with me," said Curtis, who saw the movement. "I'm no end sorry; and perhaps sometime, Jack, why, you will."

Jack's brown hand shot out so swiftly it nearly knocked the other boy from the doorstep.

"It's all right," he said heartily.

"And you will never have another chance to call me a cad, I promise you," declared Curtis, wringing it. "Come on now, Jack"—hooking him by the arm—"it's time to go to Mrs. Sterling's; this is the evening, you know."

And the boys who had begun to think they had made a mistake in supposing that Curtis Park had taken a fancy to Jack Parish, were pushed back into their first conviction by seeing them come into the meeting of the Comfort committee arm in arm.



XXVII

A PIECE OF GOOD NEWS

Polly Pepper ran down the steps of Miss Taylor's house, and set off at a lively pace on the pavement. Presently she came to an abrupt stop. "Oh, how could I forget, Mamsie wouldn't like me to run in the street," she thought remorsefully. And this took away some of the glad little thrills running over her.

When she got to Mrs. Cummings' very select boarding-house on the avenue, there was Miss Rhys at the window of her room, looking up from her embroidery. When she saw Polly Pepper, she smiled.

"Oh, it's you, Polly; I'm glad to see you."

"Is Alexia there?" called Polly, looking up, and feeling her lovely bit of news dancing within her again, so that she could hardly control her impatience. "Do tell her to come out, please, Miss Rhys."

"She isn't here. She went down-town."

Miss Rhys laid her precious work in her lap, and put her face close to the window screen. "Her candy wasn't a success, and she's gone down for more confectioner's sugar."

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Polly, quite gone in distress over the failure of the candy, and feeling very helpless in the fact that there was no one to tell her news to, for of course Alexia must be the first one to hear it. "Which way did she go, Miss Rhys?"—lifting a troubled face to the window above.

"I don't know," said Miss Rhys absently, her mind on her embroidery, and very much wishing she could return to it. "She was going to your house, I know, for one thing, on her way down."

"Oh, she couldn't have gone there," cried Polly, "for I should have met her on the way."

"So you would," assented Alexia's aunt, wondering whether the bunch of grapes should be filled in solid, or worked with the mixed stitch that she had seen in a shop. "Well, then, I think on her way back she was going to see you, Polly."

"Then, I am going to run down and meet her," declared Polly, with a long breath. "Was it Pennsey's where she was going for the sugar, Miss Rhys?"—pausing a moment.

"Yes," said Miss Rhys, turning back with a sigh of relief to her embroidery again, while Polly hurried off, wishing that she was a boy, when it would be quite proper for her to run through the streets.

"Oh, if it were only Badgertown!" she sighed to herself, thinking of the many happy runs she had enjoyed down the lane to Grandma Bascom's cottage, or over across the fields to the parsonage. "Dear me!"—when a voice, "Polly Pepper, Pol—ly Pepper!" called after her. She looked back, and there, with the window screen up, and her face thrust well forward, was Alexia's aunt, loudly summoning her.

When she saw that Polly heard, and had turned back, she beckoned smartly with her long fingers, on which shone, as Alexia had once said, "all the rings the Rhys family had ever owned," drew in her head, and waited till Polly came up under the window again.

"Oh, Polly, it's just this—how fortunate you hadn't gotten far. I want you to tell Alexia to get me some more green floss at Miss Angell's."

"Yes, Miss Rhys," said Polly, with a dismayed remembrance just how far it was to the little shop where the very latest patterns and materials for fancy work could be obtained, and the first supper of the Cooking Club to be given to-night!

"And stay, Miss Angell may send me up some more patterns to choose from; that is, if she has had any new ones since I was there last week, and I presume that she has."

Polly could only utter, "Yes, Miss Rhys," so very faintly it could scarcely be heard. Dear me! and it was three o'clock already, and all that candy to be made over again!

She crept off on very dismal feet, till she reflected it wouldn't help matters any to lose heart, and so she set forward at a brisk pace again. Miss Rhys pushed down the window screen and set to work with a complacent smile at the prospect of having her errand performed so nicely.

"That's the good of having young people around," she said; "it's so convenient at times to get one's errands done."

Polly went the whole length of North Street to the great establishment of Pennsey's, where the avenue people traded. But search as she might, up one aisle and down another, there was no trace of Alexia; and inquiring of a clerk at the sugar department, if she had been there, he whipped his pencil out from behind his ear, and picked up his order pad before he stopped to think.

"She's just gone," he said. "Yes, madam"—all attention to the next customer.

Polly hurried on rapid feet. It was half-past three by the big central clock as she went down the main aisle—well, she must hurry home, for Alexia was probably on her way there, as Miss Rhys had said, when, "Dear me, Polly Pepper, wait!" struck her ear.

She turned, and there before an opposite counter was Alexia, picking up her package of sugar and preparing to race after her.

"I'm getting some more nuts," she said; "my candy was perfectly horrid, and everything was spoiled."

"Yes, I know," said Polly, coming up close to comfort as much as possible, for Alexia had a very long face on, and looked as if it would take a good deal to cheer her up. "How can I tell her about that dreadful green floss and those patterns?" said Polly over and over to herself. "I must wait till we get out on the street."

But when the two girls were outside the shop, Polly carrying the bundle of nuts tucked under her arm, it was just as bad, and she put it off until the corner was reached down which they must turn to go to Miss Angell's. And worst of all, they were hurrying on so fast the lovely bit of news must be postponed,

"How glad I am, Aunt didn't take it into her head to send me spinning off down there!" observed Alexia, glancing down the long thoroughfare with anything but a pleasant expression on her long face. "I just hate that Miss Angell's shop. Goodness me! we never could do it, with all this candy to make, and get our Club supper to-night."

Polly stopped short, and seized Alexia's arm. "Oh, don't feel badly!" she gasped, and then, thinking, "It's better to have the whole out at once," she finished in one breath, "Your aunt wants some green floss, Alexia."

"Well, she shan't have it," declared Alexia, stopping short, too, and glaring at Polly over her bundle of sugar. "No, indeed!" and her pale eyes grew very angry. "The very idea! she's always wanting green floss, every single minute. Come on, Polly Pepper." She set her face straight ahead and marched on. But not hearing Polly following, she looked over her shoulder, and then ran back. "Why don't you come on? I shan't get that old green floss"—all in one breath.

"We can get there in a few minutes perhaps," said Polly, "Alexia, do let us hurry," and, turning down the corner, without so much as a glance backward, she went swiftly on, without trusting herself to look down the long street.

"I shan't get that old green floss," declared Alexia wrathfully, standing quite still on the corner, yet, as Polly kept steadily on, showing no intention of stopping, she pattered after. But she kept saying, every step of the way, "I shan't get that old green floss, Polly, wait!"

But it was not until the door of Miss Angell's shop was reached that the two girls came together.

"It's a hateful mean shame," exploded Alexia, huddling up her bundle of sugar passionately. "There, I've punched a hole with my thumb; see what you've made me do."

Polly turned around in dismay, to see a little trail of fine sugar drifting from the package down over Alexia's gown.

"Oh, dear me!" she exclaimed, in dismay. "I'll help you; stand still, Alexia, do; it's all running out."

"Well, you made me," cried Alexia, whirling around and wildly patting the bag in just the wrong places, so that the stream of sugar became now quite big.

"Do stand still, Alexia," implored Polly; "here, I'll pinch it up," She set down her bundle of nuts on the top step, which a lady, not seeing, came out of the shop, and promptly fell over.

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Polly, in terror, and running down the steps. "Did you hurt you? Oh, I'm so sorry!"—clasping her hands and looking the picture of distress. Then she saw it was Mrs. Patterson, a friend of Auntie Whitney's.

"No," said the lady tartly, getting up to her feet to draw a long breath and gaze up and down the street. "Why, Polly Pepper!"—bringing her gaze upon the flushed face.

"Are you sure you are not hurt, Mrs. Patterson?" Polly looked at her anxiously. Oh, dear me! how could she be so careless!

"Not a bit of it," declared that lady, "but, oh, Polly, do you suppose any one saw me?" and she gazed ruefully up and down the street again.

"I don't believe any one did," said Polly, peering this way and that.

"Polly, do come; this sugar is all running away," cried Alexia loudly.

"And do let me brush your gown," implored Polly, feeling as if everything were going wrong this afternoon.

"Never mind, I'm going directly home, here is the carriage," said Mrs. Patterson, as her handsome equipage drew up. "Don't you worry a bit, Polly Pepper; I'm not in the least hurt," and off she drove.

"Polly, will you come?" called Alexia, dancing about impatiently on the top step, and clutching the bag of sugar with nervous ringers that didn't help matters any. "Oh, dear me, do look!"—pointing tragically to the little pile of sweetness at her feet.

"Oh, I do hope she wasn't hurt," cried Polly, stumbling up over the steps, how, she didn't know.

"Oh, that tiresome Mrs. Patterson! Well, it will do her good to tumble down once in a while," said Alexia unsympathetically, "she's so stiff and mighty; and I should think you might pay some attention to me," she cried, in a loud, injured tone; "I'm all in a mess with this sugar, and I haven't got any candy, and you made me come clear down to this old shop, and——"

"Well, do come in," cried Polly, interrupting her stream of complaint, and, picking up the bag of nuts before any one else could tumble over it, she hurried Alexia into the little shop.

"And I'm glad enough to get where I can lay this old thing down," declared Alexia, dumping the bag of sugar upon the first resting-place she saw, an aesthetic little lounge, covered with elaborately embroidered pieces. "Oh, me! my arms are almost broken," and she stretched them restfully, "and beside, the sugar is 'most all run out."

"Oh, Alexia!" cried Polly, quite aghast, as she saw where Alexia had deposited the sugar, just as the proprietor of the shop hurried up with dismay written all over her countenance.

"Oh, my beautiful centerpieces!" she exclaimed, raising both hands in dismay, "I am sure they are quite, quite ruined."

"It's nothing but sugar," grumbled Alexia, as she huddled up her bundle again.

"And I'll brush it all off," said Polly anxiously, bestowing little pats over the various specimens of fancy work. "See, Miss Angell, I don't believe it's hurt," she said, lifting her flushed face.

"Well, I don't wish them," declared two ladies together, coming back from the small table Where they had gone to examine more work.

"They are quite mussed and tumbled now," added one, "and not at all what we want. Come, Sister," and she walked to the door, viewing with disfavor Alexia and her bundle, and Polly Pepper as well.

Miss Angell's face dropped to such a length that Polly couldn't bear to look at it.

"Oh, please don't go," cried Polly, flying after the irate customer; "I don't really believe the pretty things are hurt. Do just come back and see, please."

The other lady was standing irresolutely by the lounge, but she wouldn't even look at the centerpieces that Miss Angell was smoothing out with a despairing hand, preparing to put them into their boxes again.

"It was clean sugar," Polly ran on, feeling quite sure if she stopped talking, that all hope was lost.

"But they are mussed," began the lady by the door, very decidedly.

Alexia was huddling up her bundle quite gone in despair, and lost to all the distress of having no candy to take to the Cooking Club supper. If those two ladies would only buy the centerpieces they had selected, it was all she hoped for in this world.

"No, indeed! Come, Sister!" and she opened the door. "Why, Mrs. Alexander!"

Mrs. Alexander, a portly person, with a great deal of black jet and lace, that seemed to be always catching in the apparel of those who passed her, worked her way into the small shop, and up past the knot of people, giving friendly nods of recognition on her way.

"How d'ye do, Miss Ellicott, Miss Juliana. How are you, Polly? And, Alexia, how is your aunt?" And without waiting for a reply, she sprang, if such a ponderous body could be said to spring, at the box of centerpieces Miss Angell was packing away. "Oh, oh! how beautiful! Stop"—laying her large hand on one. "Just what I want. How much is it?"

"Fifteen dollars," said Miss Angell, whipping it neatly out of the box, her dismal frown becoming an expansive smile. "Yes, it is a beauty—one of the very latest things," and she spread it forth on the lounge with an experienced little nourish.

Miss Ellicott deserted the door and hurried over to the lounge. "I'll—I'll"—as she tried to work herself in between. But the portly Mrs. Alexander had no idea of being interrupted at such an important crisis in life when centerpieces were to be decided upon, so she loudly kept on in her bargaining. "I'll take it," she said, in her most decided fashion. "And the next one, too, I fancy; let me see that."

"But that is," gasped Miss Juliana, "threading her way into the group," the very one that I liked."

"Eh?" said Mrs. Alexander, looking up with the acute eyes of a bargain-hunter. "Oh, I don't wonder you like it; it's a beauty. Yes, I'll take it also. How much did you say it was, Miss Angell?"

Miss Angell, who hadn't said, saw no reason why she shouldn't now make it any price that appealed to her better judgment.

"Twenty dollars," she answered, clapping on a cool third of its price, and Mrs. Alexander, who cared very little what she paid for it, beamed at her, and said:

"Put them in a box and send it out to my carriage; they are the handsomest things I've seen for a long time, and so wonderfully cheap! You are quite right; they are beauties."

"If you'd done as I wanted you to," cried Miss Juliana, the tears of vexation gathering in her eyes, as she saw the now incomparable bits of fancy work borne off before their very faces, "you wouldn't have stopped for such a trifle as a few crumbs of sugar, Sister."

Miss Ellicott's face was very red, but she knew better than to show the chagrin she felt, to add to the delight of the purchaser over her bargain, so she contented herself with saying, as she stalked to the door:

"You said you didn't want them, Juliana, the same as I did."

"But I wasn't so set about it," said Miss Juliana, with a regretful glance at the box, now gayly tied up by the jubilant Miss Angell and delivered into the hands of the little errand-girl to be given to the Alexander footman, "and I'm sure if you hadn't insisted, I should have seen that they weren't hurt."

"Well, do come on now, Juliana," said her sister sharply, in all the anguish of having the whole blame deposited upon her person. "Since the things are gone, what is the use of talking about the matter?"—as they disappeared out of the shop.

Polly and Alexia, therefore, had to wait for all this confusion and excitement to clear away, before the green floss could be bought and the message from Miss Rhys as to the patterns could be given. Meanwhile, Polly was tying up the package of sugar, and patting the shrunken paper bag into shape over the hole.

"You tell your aunt," said Miss Angell, her cheeks quite flushed with elation over her good bargain, "that I haven't any more patterns come in since she was here. Yes, Mrs. Alexander"—to that lady, with her head over a drawer, deep in a hunt for more bargains-"there are some exquisite designs among those. There's the floss"—bunching it up hurriedly into a wad, and speaking all in one breath. "Would you mind, Miss Alexia, doing this up yourself?"—pointing to the white tissue paper on the table.

Alexia, who didn't mind anything so long as she could get out of the shop, twisted up the floss into a wad of the paper.

"Do hurry, Polly," she cried, and scampered out to the street, Polly following with her bag of nuts.

"Oh, dear! I've forgotten that tiresome old bundle of sugar after all," she cried, prancing back.

"I'll carry it, and you take the nuts," said Polly, cramming her bundle into the long arms and getting anxious fingers on the bag of sugar, as Alexia came running up with it.

"I'm sure I wish you would." said Alexia, seizing the nuts delightedly. "I just hate that old—Polly Pepper, it's four o'clock!"—as the church bell on St. Stephen's tower pealed out.

So Polly didn't have a chance, after all, to tell her glad piece of news, until they were at the Club supper, which was to be given at Larry Keep's to celebrate his getting well.

"Oh, Alexia," she was guilty of whispering, "it's the most splendid thing."

"Isn't it!" cried Alexia, in the greatest satisfaction. "To think I got it done after all our fright! And it's the best candy I ever made"—glancing over the room, where the dish was being passed about eagerly.

"Yes, I know," said Polly carelessly, "but this is much better than candy, Alexia, that I mean."

"Much better than candy!" echoed Alexia, laying clown the slice of sponge cake that Clem had made, on her plate, and peering around into Polly's face. "What do you mean, Polly Pepper? There can't anything possibly be better than candy."

"Yes, there can," contradicted Polly, twisting in delight on her chair, "and you'll say so when you hear it. It's the most beautiful thing that could possibly have happened, Alexia Rhys. It's"—and just then the door opened and in walked Miss Mary Taylor and Mr. Hamilton Dyce, and the first glance that Alexia took of their faces, she guessed the whole thing.

"Polly!" she gasped, seizing Polly's arm, "you don't mean that our Miss Mary is going to marry Mr. Dyce?"

"Yes, I do," said Polly happily, "mean just that very thing, Alexia."

"I don't believe it," declared Alexia, while all the time she knew it was true by their radiant faces.

"Well, it is true, as true can be," said Polly, "for she told me" so this very afternoon at her house."

"And you've known it all this time," cried Alexia, for the first time In her life in a passion at Polly, "and never told me at all!"

"Oh, Alexia, how could I?" cried Polly, in an aggrieved little voice; "for we were in such a perfectly dreadful scrape over getting ready for the supper! How could I, Alexia?" She turned such a miserable face that Alexia made haste to say:

"You couldn't, you sweet thing, you!" and gave her a reassuring hug.

"Well, just look at Mr. Dyce, and hear him laugh!"

And Mr. Hamilton Dyce being unable to keep his delight within bounds, and seeming to think it incumbent upon himself to take the young people into his confidence, just coolly announced it. And then there was no more paying attention to the cakes, and the little biscuits, the custards, and the whipped cream; and even Alexia's nut candy went begging.

And Miss Mary had to sit in the center of each group of boys and girls, a few minutes at a time, for the supper was passed around on trays, till Mr. Dyce said he wished he hadn't told the news until the feast was ended. And after that, when they all finished up the evening festivities with a dance, why, every one there, tried to get her for first partner. But it was Alexia who swept them all one side.

"She's my Sunday-school teacher," she declared, "and I shall have her first."

"Well, so she is our Sunday-school teacher," cried half a dozen of the girls at once, as they crowded up.

"Well, she's my very dearest friend—that is, except Polly Pepper," said Alexia positively. "Come, Miss Mary"—hanging obstinately to her hand, on which shone a new ring with a big, bright gem in it.

"Well, you said Miss Salisbury was," Pickering Dodge, on the fringe of the circle of girls, couldn't help saying.

"Oh, well, I mean Miss Mary is my very dearest friend after that," said Alexia coolly, tossing him a saucy glance, as she bore off her beloved Sunday-school teacher down the whole length of Mrs. Keep's drawing-room floor.



XXVIII

THE LITTLE STONE CUPBOARD

Phronsie ran down the hall.

"Oh, Mamsie!" she cried, hurrying into

Mrs. Fisher's room, "Grandpapa says she is coming—she really is!" She clasped her hands and stood quite still in front of her mother.

"Who, dear?" asked Mrs. Fisher absently. She was standing over by the window, with one of Phronsie's pinafores in her hand and wondering if any more were needed to carry her through the summer.

"She really is, Mamsie," said Phronsie, very much disappointed that her mother didn't seem to notice. Then her mouth drooped, and she gave a long sigh.

Mrs. Fisher tore her mind off from the pinafores and looked down quickly.

"Well, I declare, child;" and she took her in her arms. "Now, then!" She put the pinafore in a chair, and herself in another; then she drew Phronsie into her lap. "Tell Mother all about it," she said.

"Yes," said Phronsie, "I will"—snuggling in great satisfaction up against her mother's neck: "you see, my little girl is really coming; Grandpapa said so."

"Oh, yes—Rachel."

"Yes." Phronsie bobbed her yellow head; then took it up from its resting-place in her mother's neck, to peer up into the face above. "And she'll be my little girl all the time she is here, and I must get Clorinda fixed this very minute," she added, dreadfully excited. And, her news all told, Phronsie clambered down from Mrs. Fisher's lap and scurried off.

And in a few minutes everybody knew all over the house that the letter had come, in which the invitation for Rachel's visit had been accepted by Miss Parrott. Moreover, she was to arrive on the following day.

"Whoopity-la!" sang Joel, who very much liked Rachel, for she was always ready to play anything that he proposed, and was a perfect adept in climbing trees and inventing a circus out of small material; "now that's just prime! I wish she was coming to-day."

Van and Percy, just as well pleased, ran hither and yon, very much excited.

"What shall we do to show her we are glad she's coming?" asked Percy, who seized every chance that offered itself to celebrate such events.

"Why, she'll see it," said Joel, pounding away lustily. He was mending his tennis racket. "Whickets! I 'most split that"—holding it up ruefully.

"Mrs. Fisher told you not to say that," cried Van, who dearly loved to bring Joel up for correction.

"Well, I didn't mean—" Joel whirled around on him, "And I guess you'd say it if you'd 'most split your racket, so!"

"She told you not to," repeated Van, knowing his power in holding to that simple statement.

"Well, I didn't mean to, I tell you," cried Joel loudly, and very red in the face.

"And she won't like it," said Van, delighted to see the effect of his words.

Joel's face worked, and he flung the broken racket across the room. It fell with a crash; and he ran over to the bed, hopped into the middle of it, and buried his face in his brown hands, his shoulders in distress.

"I didn't mean—go away," he screamed, kicking as hard as he could.

Van, terribly frightened at the storm he had raised, stood perfectly still in the middle of the room.

"There, now, I hope you're satisfied," said Percy, from the other side. "See what you've done. I guess you'll catch it, Van Whitney," he added pleasantly.

Van, not so much worried over what he would catch as terrified about Joel, ran over to his brother.

"Oh, do stop him," he implored, seizing Percy's hand.

"I can't stop him," said Percy; "you know yourself it's silly to ask me that."

"I must, then," cried Van, scurrying over to the foot of the bed. "Joel, do stop," he begged frantically.

"Go away!" screamed Joel, kicking lustily. "I didn't mean to say it. Oh, dear me! Mamsie—Mamsie!" he blubbered, rolling from side to side on the neat, white bed.

"I guess he's going to have a fit," said Percy cheerfully, coming up to view matters at a safe distance from the flying feet.

At this, Van's distress knew no bounds, and, regardless of all possible danger to himself, he ran around the bed and flung himself upon it, to burrow close to Joel's stubby black head.

"Joe, don't," he cried, bursting into tears and hugging him with both frantic arms.

Joel wriggled and screamed, "Go away!" and kicked more than ever, but Van held on sturdily, and together the two boys rolled over and over across the bed, back and forth, till their breath gave out.

"Oh, just look what you are doing," exclaimed Percy, prancing up and down the room. He had started two or three times to run out and call Mrs. Fisher; then thought better of it. "You've mussed the bedspread all up; and only look at those shams!"—hanging over the footboard in extreme dismay.

Hearing these last words, both boys rolled apart and thrust up their heads, to gaze at the details in question. There they were, spick and span as usual at the top, but the lower parts were all mussed and wrinkled, while the lace at one end hung down in a small tag.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Joel, huddling up to Van, to throw his arm around his neck, "just see what I've done!"

"Oh, you didn't do it; I did," said Van, giving Joel an affectionate squeeze. "It was all my fault."

"No such thing," declared Joel sturdily; "if you say so again, I'll fight you."

"And perhaps you can straighten that lace," suggested Percy, with no relish for any further hostilities.

Van and Joel drew off to the foot of the bed, and huddled up there to regard his efforts, as he ran around to the pillows, patting and smoothing them straight.

"That won't do any good," said Joel, in great disfavor; "you can't make the lace whole again."

Van sorrowfully embraced his knees, his feet tucked up under him.

"Oh, what will Jane say?" he breathed fearfully.

"Jane? I don't care for her," said Joel scornfully. "It's Mamsie," and he swallowed hard.

"Perhaps she won't care," cried Van, leaving his knees to take care of themselves, in alarm lest Joel was going off again.

"And just see how you've mussed up the bedspread," Percy couldn't help saying, to relieve his chagrin over the failure to make the pillow shams look nicely, and he drew off and pointed to it tragically. "It looks as if crocodiles had been all over it," he declared, hunting for the worst thing he could think of.