Every bit of the fuss and parade in getting the big company started—for all the scholars went to the annual picnic—was a special delight to the girls. The only trouble was that the seats were not all end ones, while the favorite places up by the driver were necessarily few in each vehicle.

"Come on, Polly," screamed Alexia. Everybody had agreed that she should have one of these choice positions because of her lame arm, which Dr. Fisher had said must be carried in its sling this day. So there she was, calling lustily for Polly Pepper, and beating the cushion impatiently with her well hand. "Oh, do hurry up!"

Polly, down on the ground in a swarm of girls, shook her head. "No," her lips said softly, so that no one but Alexia, who was leaning over for that purpose, could possibly hear, "ask Cathie."

"Oh bother!" exclaimed Alexia, with a frown. Then she smothered it up with a "Come, Polly," very persuasively.

"Can't," said Polly; "I'm going back here." And she moved down to the end of the barge.

"Then I'm going back too." Alexia gave a frantic dive to get down from the barge.

Miss Salisbury saw it; and as she had planned to give Alexia just that very pleasure of riding on the front seat, she was naturally somewhat disturbed. "No, no, my dear," seeing Alexia's efforts to get down, "stay where you are."

"Oh dear me!" Alexia craned her long neck around the side of the vehicle, to spy Polly's movements. "I don't want to be mewed up here," she cried discontentedly. But Miss Salisbury, feeling well satisfied with her plan for making Alexia happy, had moved off. And the babel and tumult waged so high, over the placing of the big company, all the girls chattering and laughing at once, that Alexia, call as she might, began to despair of attracting Polly's attention, or Cathie's either for that matter.

"You better set down," said the driver, an old man whom Miss Salisbury employed every year to superintend the business, "and make yourself comfortable."

"But I'm not in the least comfortable," said Alexia passionately, "and I don't want to be up here. I want to get down."

"But you can't,"—the old man seemed to fairly enjoy her dismay,—"'cause she, you know," pointing a short square thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Miss Salisbury, "told ye to set still. So ye better set."

But Alexia craned her neck yet more, and called insistently, "Polly—oh, Polly!"

Miss Anstice looked up from the bevy of girls she was settling in another barge. "Alexia Rhys," she said severely, "you must be quiet; it is impossible to get started unless all you girls are going to be tractable and obedient."

"Miss Anstice,"—Alexia formed a sudden bold resolve,—"please come here. I want you very much," she said sweetly.

Miss Anstice, pleased to be wanted very much, or indeed at all, left her work, and went over to the front barge where Alexia was raging inwardly.

"Miss Anstice, I need Polly Pepper up next to me," said Alexia, "oh, so much. She knows all about my arm, you know; her father fixed it for me. Will you please have her come up here? Then if I should feel worse, she could help me."

Miss Anstice peered here and there in her nearsighted fashion. "I don't see Polly Pepper," she said.

"There she is; there she is," cried Alexia, trembling in every limb, for her plan could not be said to be a complete success yet, and pointing eagerly to the end of her barge; "she's the fourth from the door, Miss Anstice. Oh, how lovely you are!"

Miss Anstice, quite overcome to be told she was lovely, and especially by Alexia, who had previously given her no reason to suppose that she entertained any such opinion, went with great satisfaction down the length of the barge, and standing on her tiptoes, said very importantly, "Polly Pepper, I want to place you differently."

So Polly, quite puzzled, but very obedient, crawled out from her seat, where she was wedged in between two girls not of her set, who had been perfectly radiant at their good fortune, and clambering down the steps, was, almost before she knew it, installed up on the front row, by Alexia's side.

"Oh Polly, what richness!" exclaimed that individual in smothered accents, as Miss Anstice stepped off in much importance, and hugging Polly. "I'm so glad my sling is on, for I never'd gotten you up here without the old thing," and she giggled as she told the story.

"Oh Alexia!" exclaimed Polly, quite shocked.

"Well, I may get a relapse in it, you don't know," said Alexia coolly, "so you really ought to be up here. Oh my goodness me! I forgot this man," she brought up suddenly. "Do you suppose he'll tell?" She peered around anxiously past Polly.

"Ef you'll set still, I won't tell that teacher," said the old man with a twinkle in his eye, "but ef you get to carryin' on, as I should think you could ef you set out to, I'll up an' give the whole thing to her."

"Oh, I'll sit as still as a mouse," promised Alexia. "Oh Polly, isn't he a horrible old thing!" in a stage whisper under cover of the noise going on around them.

"Hush," said Polly.

"Well, I'm not going to hush," cried Alexia recklessly; "I'm going to have a good time at the picnic to-day, and do just everything I want to, so there, Polly Pepper!"

"Very well," said Polly, "then when we get to the Glen, I shall go off with the other girls, Alexia," which had the desired effect. Alexia curled up into her corner, and hanging to Polly Pepper's arm, was just like a mouse for quiet. And off they went; the old man's whip going crack—snap! as he led the way with a grand flourish, as much better than his efforts of former years, as was possible!

The road led through winding, woodsy paths, redolent of sweet fern; the girls never tired of its delights, exclaiming at all the sights and sounds of country life at all such moments as were not filled to the brim with the songs that ran over from their happy hearts. So on and up they went to the Glen, a precipitous ravine some fifteen miles out from the city.

When the barges finally drew up with another grand flourish at the entrance, a smooth grassy plateau shaded by oaks and drooping elms, they simply poured out a stream of girls from each conveyance; the old man and his companion drivers laughing to see them tumble out. "Pretty quick work, eh, Bill?" said old man Kimball, "no screaming for first places now."

"It's the same beautiful, dear old Glen!" exclaimed Polly, with kindling eyes and dancing feet. "Oh Alexia, come on!" and seizing the well hand, they spun round and round, unable to keep still, having plenty of company, all the other girls following suit.

Polly looked at her little watch. "In five minutes we must stop. It'll be time to get the flowers."

"Oh, can we?" cried Alexia. "Misery me! I'm so tired cooped up in that barge, I feel stiff as a jointed doll, Polly Pepper."

"Well, I don't," said Polly, dancing away for dear life. "Oh Alexia, when Miss Salisbury gives the signal to explore, won't it be just fun!"

"I should say," cried Alexia, unable to find words that would just express the case.

There was always one routine to be observed in the annual picnic of the "Salisbury School," and no one thought for a moment of deviating from it. The maids collected the baskets taken from the wagons, and set them in a cool, shady place among the rocks just within the Glen. The girls ran hither and thither to collect flowers and ferns to drape Miss Salisbury's seat of honor, and one as near like it as possible for Miss Anstice. These were big crevices in the rocks, that were as comfortable as chairs, and having backs to them in the shape of boulders, they were truly luxurious. Indeed, Miss Salisbury had declared, when the seats were discovered by Polly Pepper at the first picnic after she joined the "Salisbury School," that she never sat in one more comfortable; and she was so pleased when she was led to it and inducted therein, all flower-trimmed with little vines trailing off, and arching over her head.

"Why, my dears!" she exclaimed, quite overcome. "Oh, how pretty! and how did you think of it?"

"It was Polly Pepper who thought of it," said a parlor boarder. And Polly, blushing rosy red, a new girl as she was, was led up, and Miss Salisbury set a kiss on her round cheek. Polly never forgot how happy she was that day.

And afterward, when the girls were busy in various little groups, Miss Salisbury had beckoned Polly to her side where she reposed on her throne; for it was beautiful and stately enough for one, and quite worthy of royalty itself.

"Polly," said Miss Salisbury, in quite a low tone only fitted for Polly's ear, "do you think you could find a seat, like this beautiful one of mine, for sister? I should really enjoy it so very much more if sister had one also and she would prize the attention very much, Polly, from you girls."

So Polly, fired with the laudable desire to find one exactly like Miss Salisbury's very own, for "sister," at last was just so fortunate. So that was also flower-trimmed, with trailing vines to finish it off with. And every year, the first thing the girls did after dancing around a bit to rest their feet after the long drive, was to set to work to collect the vines and ferns, and decorate the two stone seats.

Then with quite a good deal of pomp and ceremony, the girls escorted the two teachers to their thrones, unpacked the little bag of books and magazines, and arranged some cushions and shawls about them. And then Miss Salisbury always said with a sweet smile, "Thank you, my dears." And Miss Anstice said the same; although, try as hard as she would, her smile never could be sweet like Miss Salisbury's. And then off the girls would go to "exploring," as they called rambling in the Glen, the under-teachers taking them in charge.

And now Polly Pepper ran to her hamper, which she saw in a pile where the baskets had been heaped by the maids. "There it is," pointing to the tag sticking up; "oh, help me,—not you, Alexia," as Alexia ran up as usual, to help forward any undertaking Polly Pepper might have in mind. "Dear me! you might almost kill your arm."

"This old arm," cried Alexia,—"I'm sick and tired of it."

"Well, you better take care of it," cried Polly gaily, "and then it won't be an old arm, but it will be as good as brand new, Alexia. Oh, one of the other girls, do come and help me."

"What do you want, Polly?" cried some of the girls, racing up to her.

"I want to get out my hamper," said Polly, pointing to the tag sticking up "high and dry" amid a stack of baskets. "My tin botany case is in it; I must get the ferns I promised to bring home to Phronsie."

"You stand away, all of ye." The old man Kimball, his horses out of the shafts, and well taken care of, now drew near, and swept off with his ample hand the bunch of girls. "Which one is't? Oh, that ere one with the tag," answering his own question. "Well, now, I'll git that for you jest as easy as rolling off a log. One—two—three—there she comes!"

And, one, two, three, and here she did come! And in a trice Polly had the cover up, and out flew the little green tin botany case; and within it being an iron spoon and little trowel, off flew Polly on happy feet to unearth the treasures that were to beautify Phronsie's little garden; a bunch of girls following to see the operation.

The magazine fell idly to the lap of Miss Salisbury. She sat dreamily back, resting her head against the boulder. "Sister," she said softly, "this is a happy custom we have started. I trust nothing will ever prevent our holding our annual picnic."

"Yes," said Miss Anstice absently. She was very much interested in a story she had begun, and she hated to have Miss Salisbury say a word. Although she had on a stiff, immaculate white gown (for on such a festival as the annual picnic, she always dressed in white), still she was not in the same sweet temper that the principal was enjoying, and she held her thumb and finger in the place.

"Yes, the picnic is very good," she said, feeling that something was expected of her, "if we didn't get worms and bugs crawling over the tablecloth."

"Oh sister!" exclaimed Miss Salisbury, quite shocked; "it is no time to think of worms and bugs, I'm sure, on such a beautiful occasion as this."

"Still, they are here," said Miss Anstice; "there is one now," looking down at the hem of her gown. "Ugh! go right away," slapping her book at it. Then her thumb and finger flew out, and she lost her place, and the bug ran away, and she added somewhat tartly, "For my own taste, I should really prefer a festival in the schoolroom."

When it came to spreading the feast, not one of the maids was allowed to serve. They could unpack the hampers, and hand the dishes and eatables to the girls, and run, and wait, and tend. But no one but the Salisbury girls must lay the snowy cloth, dress it up with flowers, with little knots at the corners, concealing the big stones that kept the tablecloth from flapping in any chance wind. And then they all took turns in setting the feast forth, and arranging all the goodies. And some one had to make the coffee, with a little coterie to help her. The crotched sticks were always there just as they had left them where they hung the kettle over the stone oven. And old man Kimball set one of the younger drivers to make the fire—and a rousing good one it was—where they roasted their corn and potatoes. And another one brought up the water from the spring that bubbled up clear and cold in the rocky ravine, so when all was ready it was a feast fit for a king, or rather the queen and her royal subjects.

And then Miss Salisbury and "sister" were escorted with all appropriate ceremonies down from their stone thrones,—and one had the head and the other the foot of the feast spread on the grass,—to sit on a stone draped with a shawl, and to be waited on lovingly by the girls, who threw themselves down on the ground, surrounding the snowy cloth. And they sat two or three rows deep; and those in the front row had to pass the things, of course, to the back-row girls.

"Oh, you're spilling jelly-cake crumbs all down my back," proclaimed Alexia, with a shudder. "Rose Harding," looking at the girl just back of her, "can't you eat over your own lap, pray tell?"

"Well, give me your seat then," suggested Rose, with another good bite from the crumbly piece in her hand, "if you don't like what the back-row girls do."

"No, I'm not going to," said Alexia, "catch me! but you needn't eat all over my hair. Ugh! there goes another," and she squirmed so she knocked off the things in her neighbor's as well as her own lap.

"Oh dear me! Keep your feet to yourself, Alexia Rhys," said the neighbor; "there goes my egg in all the dirt—and I'd just gotten it shelled."

"All the easier for the bugs," observed Alexia sweetly; "see, they're already appropriating it. And I guess you'd kick and wriggle if some one put jelly cake down your back," returning to her grievance,—"slippery, slimy jelly cake," twisting again at the remembrance.

"Well, you needn't kick the things out of my lap. I didn't put the jelly cake down your back," retorted the neighbor, beginning to shell her second egg.

Oh dear! was ever anything quite so good in all this world as that feast at the "Salisbury picnic!"

"I didn't suppose those baskets could bring out so much, nor such perfectly delicious things," sighed Polly Pepper, in an interval of rest before attacking one of Philena's chocolate cakes.

"Polly, Polly Pepper," called a girl opposite, "give me one of your little lemon tarts. You did bring 'em this year, didn't you?" anxiously.

"Yes, indeed," answered Polly; "why, where are they?" peering up and down the festal, not "board," but tablecloth.

"Don't tell me they are gone," cried the girl, leaning over to look for herself.

"I'm afraid they are," said Polly; "oh, I'm so sorry, Agatha!"

"You should have spoken before, my child," said a parlor boarder, who had eaten only three of Mrs. Fisher's tarts, and adjusting her eyeglasses.

"Why, I've only just gotten through eating bread and butter," said Agatha. "I can't eat cake until that's done."

"A foolish waste of time," observed the parlor boarder; "bread and butter is for every day; cake and custards and flummery for high holidays," she added with quite an air.

"Hush up, do," cried Alexia, who had small respect for the parlor boarders and their graces, "and eat what you like, Penelope. I'm going to ransack this table for a tart for you, Agatha."

She sent keen, bird-like glances all up and down the length of the tablecloth. "Yes, no—yes, it is." She pounced upon a lemon tart hiding under a spray of sweet fern, and handed it in triumph across. "There you are, Agatha! now don't say I never did anything for you."

"Oh, how sweet!" cried Agatha, burying her teeth in the flaky tart.

"I should think it was sour," observed Amy Garrett; "lemons usually are."

"Don't try to be clever, Amy child," said Alexia, "it isn't expected at a picnic."

"It's never expected where you are," retorted Amy sharply.

"Oh dear, dear! that's pretty good," cried Alexia, nowise disconcerted, as she loved a joke just as much at herself as at the expense of any one else, while the others burst into a merry laugh.

"There's one good thing about Alexia Rhys," the "Salisbury girls" had always said, "she can take any amount of chaff, and not stick her finger in her eye and whimper."

So now she smiled serenely. "Oh dear, dear! I wish I could eat some more," she said. "I haven't tasted your orange jelly, Clem, nor as much as looked at your French sandwiches, Silvia. What is the reason one can eat so very little at a picnic, I wonder?" She drew a long breath, and regarded them all with a very injured expression.

"Hear that, girls!" cried Silvia; "isn't that rich, when Alexia has been eating every blessed minute just as fast as she could!"

"I suppose that is what we all have been doing," observed Alexia placidly.

Miss Salisbury had been a happy observer of all the fun and nonsense going on around her, and renewing her youth when she had dearly loved picnics; but it was not so with Miss Anstice. At the foot of the festal tablecloth, she had been viewing from the corners of her eyes the inroads of various specimens of the insect creation and several other peripatetic creatures that seemed to belong to no particular species but to a new order of beings originated for this very occasion. She had held herself in bravely, although eating little, being much too busy in keeping watch of these intruders, who all seemed bent on running over her food and her person, to hide in all conceivable folds of her white gown. And she was now congratulating herself on the end of the feast, which about this time should be somewhere in sight, when a goggle-eyed bug, at least so it seemed to her distraught vision, pranced with agile steps directly for her lap, to disappear at once. And it got on to her nerves.

"Oh—ow! Take it off." Miss Anstice let her plate fly, and skipped to her feet. But looking out for the goggle-eyed bug, she thought of little else, and stepped into some more of the jelly cake—slipped, and precipitated herself into the middle of the feast.



XIV MISS SALISBURY'S STORY

"Oh Miss Anstice!" cried the "Salisbury girls," jumping to their feet.

"Sister!" exclaimed Miss Salisbury, dropping her plate, and letting all her sweet, peaceful reflections fly to the four winds.

"I never did regard picnics as pleasant affairs," gasped Miss Anstice, as the young hands raised her, "and now they are—quite—quite detestable." She looked at her gown, alas! no longer immaculate.

"If you could wipe my hands first, young ladies," sticking out those members, on which were plentiful supplies of marmalade and jelly cake, "I should be much obliged. Never mind the gown yet," she added with asperity.

"I'll do that," cried Alexia, flying at her with two or three napkins.

"Alexia, keep your seat." Miss Anstice turned on her. "It is quite bad enough, without your heedless fingers at work on it."



"I won't touch the old thing," declared Alexia, in a towering passion, and forgetting it was not one of the girls. "And I may be heedless, but I can be polite," and she threw down the napkins, and turned her back on the whole thing.

"Alexia!" cried Polly, turning very pale; and, rushing up to her, she bore her away under the trees. "Why, Alexia Rhys, you've talked awfully to Miss Anstice—just think, the sister of our Miss Salisbury!"

"Was that old thing a Salisbury?" asked Alexia, quite unmoved. "I thought it was a rude creature that didn't know what it was to have good manners."

"Alexia, Alexia!" mourned Polly, and for the first time in Alexia's remembrance wringing her hands, "to think you should do such a thing!"

Alexia, seeing Polly wring her hands, felt quite aghast at herself. "Polly, don't do that," she begged.

"Oh, I can't help it." And Polly's tears fell fast.

Alexia gave her one look, as she stood there quite still and pale, unable to stop the tears racing over her cheeks, turned, and fled with long steps back to the crowd of girls surrounding poor Miss Anstice, Miss Salisbury herself wiping the linen gown with an old napkin in her deft fingers.

"I beg your pardon," cried Alexia gustily, and plunging up unsteadily. "I was bad to say such things."

"You were, indeed," assented Miss Anstice tartly. "Sister, that is quite enough; the gown cannot possibly be made any better with your incessant rubbing."

Miss Salisbury gave a sigh, and got up from her knees, and put down the napkin. Then she looked at Alexia. "She is very sorry, sister," she said gently. "I am sure Alexia regrets exceedingly her hasty speech."

"Hasty?" repeated Miss Anstice, with acrimony, "it was quite impertinent; and I cannot remember when one of our young ladies has done such a thing."

All the blood in Alexia's body seemed to go to her sallow cheeks when she heard that. That she should be the first and only Salisbury girl to be so bad, quite overcame her, and she looked around for Polly Pepper to help her out. And Polly, who had followed her up to the group, begged, "Do, dear Miss Anstice, forgive her." And so did all the girls, even those who did not like Alexia one bit, feeling sorry for her now. Miss Anstice relented enough to say, "Well, we will say no more about it; I dare say you did not intend to be impertinent." And then they all sat down again, and everybody tried to be as gay as possible while the feast went on.

And by the time they sang the "Salisbury School Songs,"—for they had several very fine ones, that the different classes had composed,—there was such a tone of good humor prevailing, everybody getting so very jolly, that no one looking on would have supposed for a moment that a single unpleasant note had been struck. And Miss Anstice tried not to look at her gown; and Miss Salisbury had a pretty pink tinge in her cheeks, and her eyes were blue and serene, without the tired look that often came into them.

"Now for the story—oh, that is the best of all!" exclaimed Polly Pepper, when at last, protesting that they couldn't eat another morsel, they all got up from the feast, leaving it to the maids.

"Isn't it!" echoed the girls. "Oh, dear Miss Salisbury, I am so glad it is time for you to tell it." All of which pleased Miss Salisbury very much indeed, for it was the custom at this annual festival to wind up the afternoon with a story by the principal, when all the girls would gather at her feet to listen to it, as she sat in state in her stone chair.

"Is it?" she cried, the pink tinge on her cheek getting deeper. "Well, do you know, I think I enjoy, as much as my girls, the telling of this annual story."

"Oh, you can't enjoy it as much," said one impulsive young voice.

Miss Salisbury smiled indulgently at her. "Well, now, if you are ready, girls, I will begin."

"Oh, yes, we are—we are," the bright groups, scattered on the grass at her feet, declared.

"To-day I thought I would tell you of my school days when I was as young as you," began Miss Salisbury.

"Oh—oh!"

"Miss Salisbury, I just love you for that!" exclaimed the impulsive girl, and jumping out of her seat, she ran around the groups to the stone chair. "I do, Miss Salisbury, for I did so want to hear all about when you were a schoolgirl."

"Well, go back to your place, Fanny, and you shall hear a little of my school life," said Miss Salisbury gently.

"No—no; the whole of it," begged Fanny earnestly, going slowly back.

"My dear child, I could not possibly tell you the whole," said Miss Salisbury, smiling; "it must be one little picture of my school days."

"Do sit down, Fanny," cried one of the other girls impatiently; "you are hindering it all."

So Fanny flew back to her place, and Miss Salisbury without any more interruptions, began:

"You see, girls, you must know to begin with, that our father—sister's and mine—was a clergyman in a small country parish; and as there were a great many mouths to feed, and young, growing minds to feed as well, besides ours, why there was a great deal of considering as to ways and means constantly going on at the parsonage. Well, as I was the eldest, of course the question came first, what to do with Amelia."

"Were you Amelia?" asked Fanny.

"Yes. Well, after talking it over a great deal,—and I suspect many sleepless nights spent by my good father and mother,—it was at last decided that I should be sent to boarding school; for I forgot to tell you, I had finished at the academy."

"Yes; sister was very smart," broke in Miss Anstice proudly—"she won't tell you that; so I must."

"Oh sister, sister," protested Miss Salisbury.

"Yes, she excelled all the boys and girls."

"Did they have boys at that school?" interrupted Philena, in amazement. "Oh, how very nice, Miss Salisbury!"

"I should just love to go to school with boys," declared ever so many of the girls ecstatically.

"Why don't you take boys at our school, Miss Salisbury?" asked Silvia longingly.

Miss Anstice looked quite horrified at the very idea; but Miss Salisbury laughed. "It is not the custom now, my dear, in private schools. In my day—you must remember that was a long time ago—there were academies where girls and boys attended what would be called a high school now."

"Oh!"

"And I went to one in the next town until it was thought best for me to be sent to boarding school."

"And she was very smart; she took all the prizes at the academy, and the principal said—" Miss Anstice was herself brought up quickly by her sister.

"If you interrupt so much, I never shall finish my story, Anstice," she said.

"I want the girls to understand this," said Miss Anstice with decision. "The principal said she was the best educated scholar he had ever seen graduated from Hilltop Academy."

"Well, now if you have finished," said Miss Salisbury, laughing, "I will proceed. So I was despatched by my father to a town about thirty miles away, to a boarding school kept by the widow of a clergyman who had been a college classmate. Well, I was sorry to leave all my young brothers and sisters, you may be sure, while my mother—girls, I haven't even now forgotten the pang it cost me to kiss my mother good-bye."

Miss Salisbury stopped suddenly, and let her gaze wander off to the waving tree-tops; and Miss Anstice fell into a revery that kept her face turned away.

"But it was the only way I could get an education; and you know I could not be fitted for a teacher, which was to be my life work, unless I went; so I stifled all those dreadful feelings which anticipated my homesickness, and pretty soon I found myself in the boarding school."

"How many scholars were there, Miss Salisbury?" asked Laura Page, who was very exact.

"Fifteen girls," said Miss Salisbury.

"Oh dear me, what a little bit of a school!" exclaimed one girl.

"The schools were not as large in those days," said Miss Salisbury. "You must keep in mind the great difference between that time and this, my dear. Well, and when I was once there, I had quite enough to do to keep me from being homesick, I can assure you, through the day; because, in addition to lessons, there was the sewing hour."

"Sewing? Oh my goodness me!" exclaimed Alexia. "You didn't have to sew at that school, did you, Miss Salisbury?"

"I surely did," replied Miss Salisbury, "and very glad I have been, Alexia, that I learned so much in that sewing hour. I have seriously thought, sister and I, of introducing the plan into our school."

"Oh, don't, Miss Salisbury," screamed the girls. "Ple—ase don't make us sew." Some of them jumped to their feet in distress.

"I shall die," declared Alexia tragically, "if we have to sew."

There was such a general gloom settled over the entire party that Miss Salisbury hastened to say, "I don't think, girls, we can do it, because something else equally important would have to be given up to make the time." At which the faces brightened up.

"Well, I was only to stay at this school a year," went on Miss Salisbury, "because, you see, it was as much as my father could do to pay for that time; so it was necessary to use every moment to advantage. So I studied pretty hard; and I presume this is one reason why the incident I am going to tell you about was of such a nature; for I was over-tired, though that should be no excuse," she added hastily.

"Oh sister," said Miss Anstice nervously, "don't tell them that story. I wouldn't."

"It may help them, to have a leaf out of another young person's life, Anstice," said Miss Salisbury, gravely.

"Well, but—"

"And so, every time when I thought I must give up and go home, I was so hungry to see my father and mother, and the little ones—"

"Was Miss Anstice one of the little ones?" asked Fanny, with a curious look at the crow's-feet and faded eyes of the younger Miss Salisbury.

"Yes, she was: there were two boys came in between; then Anstice, then Jane, Harriett, Lemuel, and the baby."

"Oh my!" gasped Alexia, tumbling over into Polly Pepper's lap.

"Eight of us; so you see, it would never do for the one who was having so much money spent upon her, to waste a single penny of it. When I once got to teaching, I was to pay it all back."

"And did you—did you?" demanded curious Fanny.

"Did she?—oh, girls!" It was Miss Anstice who almost gasped this, making every girl turn around.

"Never mind," Miss Salisbury telegraphed over their heads, to "sister," which kept her silent. But she meant to tell sometime.

Polly Pepper, all this time, hadn't moved, but sat with hands folded in her lap. What if she had given up and flown home to Mamsie and the little brown house before Mr. King discovered her homesickness and brought Phronsie! Supposing she hadn't gone in the old stagecoach that day when she first left Badgertown to visit in Jasper's home! Just supposing it! She turned quite pale, and held her breath, while Miss Salisbury proceeded.

"And now comes the incident that occurred during that boarding-school year, that I have intended for some time to tell you girls, because it may perhaps help you in some experience where you will need the very quality that I lacked on that occasion."

"Oh sister!" expostulated Miss Anstice.

"It was a midwinter day, cold and clear and piercing." Miss Salisbury shivered a bit, and drew the shawl put across the back of her stone seat, closer around her. "Mrs. Ferguson—that was the name of the principal—had given the girls a holiday to take them to a neighboring town; there was to be a concert, I remember, and some other treats; and the scholars were, as you would say, 'perfectly wild to go,'" and she smiled indulgently at her rapt audience. "Well, I was not going."

"Oh Miss Salisbury!" exclaimed Amy Garrett in sorrow, as if the disappointment were not forty years in the background.

"No. I decided it was not best for me to take the money, although my father had written me that I could, when the holiday had been planned some time before. And besides, I thought I could do some extra studying ahead while the girls were away. Understand, I didn't really think of doing wrong then; although afterward I did the wrong thing."

"Sister!" reproved Miss Anstice. She could not sit still now, but got out of her stone chair, and paced up and down.

"No; I did not dream that in a little while after the party had started, I should be so sorely tempted, and the idea would enter my head to do the wrong thing. But so it was. I was studying, I remember, my philosophy lesson for some days ahead, when suddenly, as plainly as if letters of light were written down the page, it flashed upon my mind, 'Why don't I go home to-day? I can get back to-night, and no one will know it; at least, not until I am back again, and no harm done.' And without waiting to think it out, I clapped to my book, tossed it on the table, and ran to get my poor little purse out of the bureau drawer."

The girls, in their eagerness not to lose a word, crowded close to Miss Salisbury's knees, forgetting that she wasn't a girl with them.

"I had quite enough money, I could see, to take me home and back on the cars, and by the stage."

"The stage?" repeated Alexia faintly.

"Yes; you must remember that this time of which I am telling you was many, many years back. Besides, in some country places, it is still the only mode of conveyance used."

Polly Pepper drew a long breath. Dear old Badgertown, and Mr. Tisbett's stage. She could see it now, as it looked when the Five Little Peppers would run to the windows of the little brown house to watch it go lumbering by, and to hear the old stage-driver crack his whip in greeting!

"The housekeeper had a day off, to go to her daughter's, so that helped my plan along," Miss Salisbury was saying. "Well would it have been for me if the conditions had been less easy. But I must hasten. I have told you that I did not pause to think; that was my trouble in those days: I acted on impulse often, as schoolgirls are apt perhaps to do, and so I was not ready to stand this sudden temptation. I tied on my bonnet, gathered up my little purse tightly in my hand; and although the day was cold, the sun was shining brightly, and my heart was so full of hope and anticipation that I scarcely thought of what I was doing, as I took a thin little jacket instead of the warm cloak my mother had made me for winter wear. I hurried out of the house, when there was no one to notice me, for the maids were careless in the housekeeper's absence, and had slipped off for the moment—at any rate, they said afterward they never saw me;—so off I went.

"I caught the eight o'clock train just in time; which I considered most fortunate. How often afterward did I wish I had missed it! And reasoning within myself as the wheels bore me away, that it was perfectly right to spend the money to go home, for my father had been quite willing for me to take the treat with Mrs. Ferguson and the others, I settled back in my seat, and tried not to feel strange at travelling alone."

"Oh dear me!" exclaimed the girls, huddling up closer to Miss Salisbury's knees. Miss Anstice paced back and forth; it was too late to stop the story now, and her nervousness could only be walked off.

"But I noticed the farther I got from the boarding school, little doubts would come creeping into my mind,—first, was it very wise for me to have set out in this way? then, was it right? And suddenly in a flash, it struck me that I was doing a very wrong thing, and that, if my father and my mother knew it, they would be greatly distressed. And I would have given worlds, if I had possessed them, to be back at Mrs. Ferguson's, studying my philosophy lesson. And I laid my head on the back of the seat before me, and cried as hard as I could."

Amy sniffed into her handkerchief, and two or three other girls coughed as if they had taken cold, while no one looked into her neighbor's face.

"And a wild idea crossed my mind once, of rushing up to the conductor and telling him of my trouble, to ask him if I couldn't get off at the next station and go back; but a minute's reflection told me that this was foolish. There was only the late afternoon train to take me to the school. I had started, and must go on."

A long sigh went through the group. Miss Anstice seemed to have it communicated to her, for she quickened her pace nervously.

"At last, after what seemed an age to me, though it wasn't really but half an hour since we started, I made up my mind to bear it as well as I could; father and mother would forgive me, I was sure, and would make Mrs. Ferguson overlook it—when I glanced out of the car window. Little flakes of snow were falling fast. It struck dismay to my heart. If it kept on like this,—and after watching it for some moments, I had no reason to expect otherwise, for it was of that fine, dry quality that seems destined to last,—I should not be able to get back to school that afternoon. Oh dear me! And now I began to open my heart to all sorts of fears: the train might be delayed, the stagecoach slow in getting through to Cherryfield. By this time I was in a fine state of nerves, and did not dare to think further."

One of the girls stole her hand softly up to lay it on that of the principal, forgetting that she had never before dared to do such a thing in all her life. Miss Salisbury smiled, and closed it within her own.

There was a smothered chorus of "Oh dears!"

"I sat there, my dears, in a misery that saw nothing of the beauty of that storm, knew nothing, heard nothing, except the occasional ejaculations and remarks of the passengers, such as, 'It's going to be the worst storm of the year,' and 'It's come to stay.'

"Suddenly, without a bit of warning, there was a bumping noise, then the train dragged slowly on, then stopped. All the passengers jumped up, except myself. I was too miserable to stir, for I knew now that I was to pay finely for my wrong-doing in leaving the school without permission."

"Oh—oh!" the girls gave a little scream.

"'What is it—what is it?' the passengers one and all cried, and there was great rushing to the doors, and hopping outside to ascertain the trouble. I never knew, for I didn't care to ask. It was enough for me that something had broken, and the train had stopped; to start again no one could tell when."

The sympathy and excitement now were intense. One girl sniffed out from behind her handkerchief, "I—I should have—thought you would—have died—Miss Salisbury."

"Ah!" said Miss Salisbury, with a sigh, "you will find, Helen, as you grow older, that the only thing you can do to repair in any way the mischief you have done, is to keep yourself well under control, and endure the penalty without wasting time on your suffering. So I just made up my mind now to this; and I sat up straight, determined not to give way, whatever happened.

"It was very hard when the impatient passengers would come back into the car to ask each other, 'How soon do you suppose we will get to Mayville?' That was where I was to take the stage.

"'Not till night, if we don't start,' one would answer, trying to be facetious; but I would torture myself into believing it. At last the conductor came through, and he met a storm of inquiries, all asking the same question, 'How soon will we get to Mayville?'

"It seemed to me that he was perfectly heartless in tone and manner, as he pulled out his watch to consult it. I can never see a big silver watch to this day, girls, without a shiver."

The "Salisbury girls" shivered in sympathy, and tried to creep up closer to her.

"Well, the conductor went on to say, that there was no telling,—the railroad officials never commit themselves, you know,—they had telegraphed back to town for another engine (he didn't mention that, after that, we should be sidetracked to allow other trains their right of way), and as soon as they could, why, they would move. Then he proceeded to move himself down the aisle in great dignity. Well, my dears, you must remember that this all happened long years ago, when accidents to the trains were very slowly made good. We didn't get into Mayville until twelve o'clock. If everything had gone as it should, we ought to have reached there three hours before."

"Oh my goodness me!" exploded Alexia.

"By this time, the snow had piled up fast. What promised to be a heavy storm had become a reality, and it was whirling and drifting dreadfully. You must remember that I had on my little thin jacket, instead—"

"Oh Miss Salisbury!" screamed several girls, "I forgot that."

"Don't tell any more," sobbed another—"don't, Miss Salisbury."

"I want you to hear this story," said Miss Salisbury quietly. "Remember, I did it all myself. And the saddest part of it is what I made others suffer; not my own distress."

"Sister, if you only won't proceed!" Miss Anstice abruptly leaned over the outer fringe of girls.

"I am getting on to the end," said Miss Salisbury, with a smile. "Well, girls, I won't prolong the misery for you. I climbed into that stage, it seemed to me, more dead than alive. The old stage-driver, showing as much of his face as his big fur cap drawn well over his ears would allow, looked at me compassionately.

"'Sakes alive!' I can hear him now. 'Hain't your folks no sense to let a young thing come out in that way?'

"I was so stiff, all I could think of was, that I had turned into an icicle, and that I was liable to break at any minute. But I couldn't let that criticism pass.

"'They—they didn't let me—I've come from school,' I stammered.

"He looked at me curiously, got up from his seat, opened a box under it, and twitched out a big cape, moth-eaten, and well-worn otherwise; but oh, girls, I never loved anything so much in all my life as that horrible old article, for it saved my life."

A long-drawn breath went around the circle.

"'Here, you just get into this as soon as the next one,' said the stage-driver gruffly, handing it over to me where I sat on the middle seat. I needed no command, but fairly huddled myself within it, wrapping it around and around me. And then I knew by the time it took to warm me up, how very cold I had been.

"And every few minutes of the toilsome journey, for we had to proceed very slowly, the stage-driver would look back over his shoulder to say, 'Be you gittin' any warmer now?' And I would say, 'Yes, thank you, a little.'

"And finally he asked suddenly, 'Do your folks know you're comin'?' And I answered, 'No,' and I hoped he hadn't heard, and I pulled the cape up higher around my face, I was so ashamed. But he had heard, for he whistled; and oh, girls, that made my head sink lower yet. Oh my dears, the shame of wrong-doing is so terrible to bear!

"Well, after a while we got into Cherryfield, along about half-past three o'clock."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed the young voices.

"I could just distinguish our church spire amid the whirling snow; and then a panic seized me. I must get down at some spot where I would not be recognized, for oh, I did not want any one to tell that old stage-driver who I was, and thus bring discredit upon my father, the clergyman, for having a daughter who had come away from school without permission. So I mumbled out that I was to stop at the Four Corners: that was a short distance from the centre of the village, the usual stopping place.

"One of the passengers—for I didn't think it was necessary to prolong the story to describe the two women who occupied the back seat—leaned forward and said, 'I hope, Mr. Cheesewell, you ain't goin' to let that girl get out, half froze as she's been, in this snowstorm. You'd ought to go out o' your beat, and carry her home.'

"'Oh, no—no,' I cried in terror, unwinding myself from the big cape and preparing to descend.

"'Stop there!' roared Mr. Cheesewell at me. 'Did ye s'pose I'd desert that child?' he said to the two women. 'I'd take her home, ef I knew where in creation 'twas.'

"'She lives at the parsonage—she's th' minister's daughter,' said one of the women quietly.

"I sank back in my seat—oh, girls, the bitterness of that moment!—and as well as I could for the gathering mist in my eyes, and the blinding storm without, realized the approach to my home. But what a home-coming!

"I managed to hand back the big cape, and to thank Mr. Cheesewell, then stumbled up the little pathway to the parsonage door, feeling every step a misery, with all those eyes watching me; and lifting the latch, I was at home!

"Then I fell flat in the entry, and knew nothing more till I found myself in my own bed, with my mother's face above me; and beyond her, there was father."

Every girl was sobbing now. No one saw Miss Anstice, with the tears raining down her cheeks at the memory that the beautiful prosperity of all these later years could not blot out.

"Girls, if my life was saved in the first place by that old cape, it was saved again by one person."

"Your mother," gasped Polly Pepper, with wet, shining eyes.

"No; my mother had gone to a sick parishioner's, and father was with her. There was no one but the children at home; the bigger boys were away. I owe my life really to my sister Anstice."

"Don't!" begged Miss Anstice hoarsely, and trying to shrink away. The circle of girls whirled around to see her clasping her slender hands tightly together, while she kept her face turned aside.

"Oh girls," cried Miss Salisbury, with sudden energy, "if you could only understand what that sister of mine did for me! I never can tell you. She kept back her own fright, as the small children were so scared when they found me lying there in the entry, for they had all been in the woodshed picking up some kindlings, and didn't hear me come in. And she thought at first I was dead, but she worked over me just as she thought mother would. You see we hadn't any near neighbors, so she couldn't call any one. And at last she piled me all over with blankets just where I lay, for she couldn't lift me, of course, and tucked me in tightly; and telling the children not to cry, but to watch me, she ran a mile, or floundered rather—for the snow was now so deep—to the doctor's house."

"Oh, that was fine!" cried Polly Pepper, with kindling eyes, and turning her flushed face with pride on Miss Anstice. When Miss Salisbury saw that, a happy smile spread over her face, and she beamed on Polly.

"And then, you know the rest; for of course, when I came to myself, the doctor had patched me up. And once within my father's arms, with mother holding my hand—why, I was forgiven."

Miss Salisbury paused, and glanced off over the young heads, not trusting herself to speak.

"And how did they know at the school where you were?" Fanny broke in impulsively.

"Father telegraphed Mrs. Ferguson; and luckily for me, she and her party were delayed by the storm in returning to the school, so the message was handed to her as she left the railroad station. Otherwise, my absence would have plunged her in terrible distress."

"Oh, well, it all came out rightly after all." Louisa Frink dropped her handkerchief in her lap, and gave a little laugh.

"Came out rightly!" repeated Miss Salisbury sternly, and turning such a glance on Louisa that she wilted at once. "Yes, if you can forget that for days the doctor was working to keep me from brain fever; that it took much of my father's hard-earned savings to pay him; that it kept me from school, and lost me the marks I had almost gained; that, worst of all, it added lines of care and distress to the faces of my parents; and that my sister who saved me, barely escaped a long fit of sickness from her exposure."

"Don't, sister, don't," begged Miss Anstice.

"Came out rightly? Girls, nothing can ever come out rightly, unless the steps leading up to the end are right."

"Ma'am,"—Mr. Kimball suddenly appeared above the fringe of girls surrounding Miss Salisbury,—"there's a storm brewin'; it looks as if 'twas comin' to stay. I'm all hitched up, 'n' I give ye my 'pinion that we'd better be movin'."

With that, everybody hopped up, for Mr. Kimball's "'pinion" was law in such a case. The picnic party was hastily packed into the barges,—Polly carrying the little green botany case with the ferns for Phronsie's garden carefully on her lap,—and with many backward glances for the dear Glen, off they went, as fast as the horses could swing along.



XV THE BROKEN VASE

But drive as they might, Mr. Kimball and his assistants, they couldn't beat that storm that was brewing. It came up rather slowly, to be sure, at first, but very persistently. Evidently the old stage-driver was right. It was "coming to stay."

"Ye see, ma'am, ef we hadn't started when we did, like enough we couldn't a got home to-night," he vouchsafed over his shoulder to Miss Salisbury, as they rattled on.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed at thought of her brood. Those young things were having the best of times. It was "wildly exciting," as Clem Forsythe said, to be packed in; those on the end seats huddling away from the rain as much as possible, under cover of the curtains buttoned down fast. And hilarity ran high. They sang songs; never quite finishing one, but running shrilly off to others, which were produced on several different keys maybe, according to the mood of the singers. And as every girl wanted to sing her favorite song, there were sometimes various compositions being produced in different quarters of the big stage, till no one particular melody could be said to have the right of way. And Miss Salisbury sat in the midst of the babel, and smiled as much as her anxiety would allow, at the merriment. And as it was in this stage, so the other stages were counterparts. And the gay tunes and merry laughter floated back all along the cavalcade, mingling harmoniously with the rainfall.

Suddenly an awful clap of thunder reverberated in the sky. The songs ended in squeals of dismay, and the laughter died away.

"Oh—oh—we're going to have a thunder storm!" screamed more than one girl, huddling up closer to her next neighbor, to clutch her frantically.

"Oh, I'm so afraid of the thunder!" screamed Amy Garrett.

"You goose, it won't hurt you." Lucy Bennett, whom Amy had crouched against, gave her a little push.

"It will. It will. My uncle was struck once," said Amy, rebounding from the push to grasp Lucy frantically around the neck.

"You nearly choked me to death," exclaimed Lucy, untwisting the nervous hands; "don't get so scared. Your uncle never was struck by the thunder, and we haven't had any lightning yet; so I wouldn't yell till we do."

"Well, there it is now," cried Amy, covering her eyes. And there it was now, to be sure, in a blinding flash; to be followed by deeper rolls of thunder, drowning the screams of the frightened girls, and the plunging of the horses that didn't like it much better.

Mr. Kimball peered out and squinted to the right and to the left through the blinding storm; then he turned his horses suddenly off from the road, into a narrow lane. "Oh, why do you?" began Miss Salisbury. But this remonstrance wouldn't have done any good had the old stage-driver heard it. At the end of the lane, he knew in a few moments they would all arrive at a big old fashioned mansion where shelter could not be refused them under such circumstances. Although,—and Mr. Kimball shook within himself at his temerity,—under any other conditions visitors would not be expected nor welcomed. For Mr. John Clemcy and his sister, Miss Ophelia, had never exhibited, since they settled down in this quiet spot after leaving their English home many years ago, any apparent desire to make friends. They were quite sufficient for themselves; and what with driving about,—which they did in a big basket phaeton, or behind their solemn pair of black horses, and the still more solemn coachman, Isaac, also black,—and in the care of the large estate and the big brick mansion, they found ample occupation for their time and thoughts.

Up to this big red brick mansion now plunged Mr. Kimball with as much assurance as if he were not quaking dreadfully. And the other stages following suit, the sudden and unusual uproar brought two faces to the windows, and then to the door.

"May we all git out and go into your barn?" roared Mr. Kimball, peering at them from beneath his dripping hat.

There was an awful pause. Mr. Kimball clutched his old leather reins desperately; and Miss Salisbury, to whom had come faint rumors of the chosen isolation of the brother and sister, felt her heart sink woefully.

Mr. John Clemcy stepped out,—slender, tall, with white hair and beard, both closely cropped. He had a pale, aristocratic face, and a pair of singularly stern eyes, which he now bent upon the old stage-driver.

"Brother," remonstrated his sister,—she looked as much like him as possible in face and figure,—"do not venture out in this driving storm."

"No," said Mr. Clemcy, "I cannot consent to your going into my stable. I—"

"'Taint Christian," blurted out the old stage-driver, "to leave human bein's out in sech a pickle."

"No, I am aware of that," said Mr. John Clemcy, without a change of countenance; "and so I invite you all to come into my house." He threw wide the door. "My sister, Miss Clemcy."

Miss Ophelia stepped forward and received them as if she had specially prepared for their visit, and with such an air of distinction that it completely overwhelmed Miss Salisbury, so that her own manners, always considered quite perfect by parents and friends of her pupils, paled considerably in contrast. It was quite like entering an old baronial hall, as the courtly, aristocratic host ushered them in; and the girls, not easily overawed by any change of circumstance, who had tumbled out laughingly from the stages despite Miss Salisbury's nervous endeavors to quiet them, were now instantly subdued.

"Isn't it solemn!" whispered Alexia, hanging to Polly Pepper, her pale eyes roving over the armor, and old family portraits almost completely covering the walls of the wide hall.

"Hush," whispered Polly back again.

"But I can't breathe; oh, look at that old horror in the ruff. Polly—look!" she pinched the arm she grasped.

Meantime, although there were so many girls, the big red brick mansion seemed quite able to contain them hospitably, as Mr. and Miss Clemcy opened door after door into apartments that appeared to stretch out into greater space beyond. When at last the company had been distributed, Miss Salisbury found her voice. "I am pained to think of all the trouble we are giving you, Miss Clemcy."

"Do not mention it." Miss Ophelia put up a slender arm, from which fell off a deep flounce of rare old lace. The hand that thus came into view was perfect; and Miss Salisbury, who could recognize qualities of distinction, fell deeply in love with the evidences before her.

"Do you suppose she dresses up like that every day, Silvia?" whispered Lucy Bennett, in an awe-struck voice.

Silvia, in matters of dress never being willing to show surprise, preserved her composure. "That's nothing," she managed to say indifferently: "it can't be real, such a lot of it, and around her neck too."

Down into the old colonial kitchen, with its corner fireplace, wide and roomy, and bricked to the ceiling, Mr. Clemcy led the way. It was a big room, and not used for its original purpose; being filled with cabinets, and shelves on which reposed some of the most beautiful specimens of china and various relics and curiosities and mementos of travel, Miss Salisbury thought she had ever seen. And she had been about the world a good bit; having utilized many of her vacations, and once or twice taking a year off from her school work, for that purpose. And being singularly receptive to information, she was the best of listeners, in an intelligent way, as Mr. Clemcy moved about from object to object explaining his collection. He seemed perfectly absorbed in it, and, as the girls began to notice, in his listener as well.

Lucy Bennett was frightfully romantic, and jumped to conclusions at once. "Oh, do you suppose he will marry her?" she cried under her breath to Silvia, as the two kept together.

"Who? What are you talking about?" demanded Silvia, who was very matter-of-fact.

"Why, that old man—Mr. Whatever his name is," whispered Lucy.

"Mr. Clemcy? do get names into your head, Lu," said Silvia crossly, who wanted to look at things and not be interrupted every minute.

"I can't ever remember names, if I do hear them," said Lucy, "so what is the use of my bothering to hear them, Sil?"

"Well, do keep still," said Silvia, trying to twist away her arm, but Lucy clung to it.

"Well, I can't keep still either, for I'm mortally afraid he is—that old man, whatever you call him—going to marry her."

"Who?" demanded Silvia sharply.

"Our Miss Salisbury, and—"

"Lu Bennett!" Silvia sat down in the first chair she could find. It was very fortunate that the other groups were so absorbed that nobody noticed them.

"Oh, you do say such perfectly silly things!" declared Silvia, smothering the peal of laughter that nearly escaped her.

"Well, it isn't silly," cried Lucy in an angry whisper, "and it's going to happen, I know, and she'll give up our school to Miss Anstice, and come and live here. Oh my!" She looked ready to cry on the spot. "Look at them!"

Now, Silvia had called Lucy Bennett "silly" hundreds of times, but now as she looked at Mr. Clemcy and Miss Salisbury, she began to have an uneasy feeling at her heart. "I won't go to school to Miss Anstice," she declared passionately. Then she began to plan immediately. "I'll get mother to let me go to boarding school."

"And I'll go with you," exclaimed Lucy radiantly. All this was in stage whispers, such a buzz going on around them that no one else could possibly catch a word. And so in just about two minutes, they had their immediate future all planned.

"Well, you better get up out of that chair," said Lucy presently, and picking at Silvia's sleeve.

"I guess I'm not hurting the chair," said Silvia, squinting sideways at the high, carved back. "They asked us in here,—at least he did."

"Well, he didn't ask us to sit down," said Lucy triumphantly.

"And if he's going to marry her," said Silvia, in a convincing whisper, "I guess I can sit in all the chairs if I want to."

"Hush!" warned Lucy, "here comes Miss Anstice."

Miss Anstice, with her front breadth all stained with jelly cake and marmalade, was wandering around, quite subdued. It was pitiful to see how she always got into the thickest of the groups to hide her gown, trying to be sociable with the girls. But the girls not reciprocating, she was at last taken in tow by Miss Ophelia, who set about showing her some rare old china, as a special attention.

Now, Miss Anstice cared nothing for rare old china, or indeed, for relics or curiosities of any sort; but she was very meek on this occasion, and so she allowed herself to be led about from shelf to shelf; and though she said nothing, Miss Ophelia was so enchanted by her own words and memories, as she described in a fluent and loving manner their various claims to admiration, that she thought the younger Miss Salisbury quite a remarkable person.

"Show her the Lowestoft collection, sister," called Mr. John Clemcy, from across the apartment, and breaking off from his animated discussion over an old Egyptian vase, in which Miss Salisbury had carried herself brilliantly.

"I will, Brother John," assented Miss Clemcy, with great affability. "Now here," and she opened the door to its cabinet, "is what will interest you greatly, I think."

Suddenly, a crash as of breaking porcelain struck upon the ear. Every one in the old room jumped, save the persons who might be supposed to be the most interested—Mr. Clemcy and his sister. Their faces did not change.

Miss Salisbury deserted the Egyptian vase. "Who," she demanded, hurrying to the centre of the apartment, a red spot on either cheek, "has done this?"

Mr. John Clemcy followed her. "Do not, I beg," he said quietly, "notice it."

"Notice it! after your extreme hospitality—oh! which one of my scholars can have forgotten herself enough to touch a thing?"

The groups parted a little, just enough to disclose a shrinking figure. It was Lily, whose curious fingers were clasped in distress.

"She is very young," said Miss Clemcy softly, as Miss Salisbury detached her from the group, and passed into another room, crying as if her heart would break.

Mr. John Clemcy then came up to his sister and her visitor. "Your sister must not take it so to heart," he said.

Miss Anstice was worn out by this time, what with her gown, and now by this terrible thing that would bring such discredit upon their school; and besides, it might take ever so much from their savings to replace, for Lily was poor, and was a connection, so they perhaps would have to help her out. She therefore could find no words at her command, except, "Oh dear me!" and raised her poor eyes.

Mr. John Clemcy searched her face intently, and actually smiled to reassure her. She thought he was looking at her gown; so she mumbled faintly, to draw off his attention, "I am afraid it was very valuable."

He didn't tell her it was one of the oldest bits in his collection; but while Miss Clemcy slipped off, and quietly picked up every piece of the broken treasure, he turned the conversation, and talked rapidly and charmingly upon something,—for the life of her, Miss Anstice never could tell what.

And he was still talking when Miss Salisbury brought back Lily by the hand, red-eyed and still sniffling, to stumble over her pleas for pardon. And then, the storm having abated, there were instant preparations for departure set in motion. And Mr. Kimball and his associates helped them into their vehicles, Miss Clemcy's beautiful old lace showing off finely on the great porch as she bade them good-bye.

"It is real, I guess," declared Silvia, looking closely from her seat next to Lucy. "And, oh dear me, isn't this too horrible, what Lily Cushing has done?"

Mr. John Clemcy helped the ladies in, Miss Anstice putting forth all her powers to enable her to ascend the steep steps without disclosing the front breadth of her gown. Despite her best endeavors, she felt quite sure that the keen eyes of both brother and sister had discovered every blemish.

Miss Salisbury sank back in her seat, as the barge rolled off, quite in despair; for she knew quite well that the broken vase was one of the gems of the collection.

"Oh, see the lovely rainbow!" The girls' spirits rose, now that they were once more on the move. What was one broken vase, after all? And they began to laugh and talk once more.

"Oh dear!" Polly Pepper glanced back. "Alexia, this will just about kill our dear Miss Salisbury!" she exclaimed.

"Well, I'm clear beat," Mr. Kimball was saying to himself, as nobody paid attention. "You might knock me over with a feather! To think o' that old reecluse that won't know nobody, him nor his sister, an' is so hifalutin' smart, a-bustin' out so polite all of a suddint."



XVI NEW PLANS

"Polly," said Jasper, "could you come into the den?"

"Why, yes, Jasper," she cried, in surprise at his face. "Oh, has anything happened?"

"No," he said, but the gloomy look did not disappear. "Oh Polly, it's too bad to ask,—were you going to study?" with a glance at her armful of books.

"No—that is, I can do them just as well after dinner." Polly dropped her books on the hall chair. "Oh, what is it, Jasper?" running after him into the den.

"It's just this, Polly, I hate to tell you—" He paused, and gloom settled worse than ever over his face.

"Jasper," said Polly quite firmly, and she laid her hand on his arm, "I really think you ought to tell me right away what is on your mind."

"Do you really, Polly?" Jasper asked eagerly.

"Yes, I do," said Polly, "unless you had rather tell Mamsie. Perhaps that would be best, Jasper."

"No, I don't really think it would in this case, Polly. I will tell you." So he drew up a chair, and Polly settled into it, and he perched on the end of the table.

"You see, Polly," he began, "I hate to tell you, but if I don't, why of course you can't in the least understand how to help."

"No, of course I can't," said Polly, clasping her hands together tightly, and trying to wait patiently for the recital. Oh, what could it be!

"Well, Pickering isn't doing well at school," said Jasper, in a burst. It was so much better to have it out at once.

"Oh dear me!" exclaimed Polly, in sorrow.

"No, he isn't," said Jasper decidedly; "it grows worse and worse."

"Dear me!" said Polly again.

"And now Mr. Faber says there isn't much hope for him, unless he picks up in the last half. He called me into his study to tell me that to-day—wants me to influence him and all that."

All the hateful story was out at last. Polly sprang out of her chair.

"You don't mean—you can't mean, that Pickering will be dropped, Jasper?" she cried as she faced him.

"Worse than that," answered Jasper gloomily.

"Worse than dropped!" exclaimed Polly with wide eyes.

"To be dropped a class wouldn't kill Pick; so many boys have had that happen, although it is quite bad enough."

"I should think so," breathed Polly.

"But Pick will simply be shot out of the school," said Jasper desperately; "there's no use in mincing matters. Mr. Faber has utterly lost patience; and the other teachers as well."

"You don't mean that Pickering Dodge will be expelled?" cried Polly in a little scream.

"Yes." Jasper nodded his head, unable to utter another word. Then he sprang off from the table-end, and walked up and down the room, as Polly sank back in her chair.

"You see, it's just this way, Polly," he cried. "Pick has had warning after warning—you know the teachers have a system of sending written warnings around to the boys when they fall behind in their work—and he hasn't paid any attention to them."

"Won't he pay attention to what the teachers write to him, Jasper?" asked Polly, leaning forward in her big chair to watch him anxiously as he paced back and forth.

"No, calls them rubbish, and tears them up; and sometimes he won't even read them," said Jasper. "Oh, it's awful, Polly."

"I should say it was," said Polly slowly. "Very awful indeed, Jasper."

"And the last time he had one from Herr Frincke about his German, Pick brought it into the room where a lot of us boys were, and read it out, with no end of fun over it, and it went into the scrap-basket; and he hasn't tackled his grammar a bit better since; only the translations he's up a trifle on."

"Oh, now I know why you wouldn't go to ride with me for the last week," cried Polly, springing out of her chair to rush up to him, "you've been helping Pickering," she declared, with kindling eyes.

"Never mind," said Jasper uneasily.

"And it was splendid of you," cried Polly, the color flying over her cheeks. "Oh Jasper, I do believe you can pull him through."

"No, I can't, Polly." Jasper stood quite still. "No one can pull him through, but you, Polly."

"I!" exclaimed Polly in amazement. "Why, Jasper King!" and she tumbled back a few steps to stare at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's just this way." Jasper threw back his hair from his hot forehead. "Pick doesn't care a bit for what I say: it's an old story; goes in at one ear, and out at the other."

"Oh, he does care for what you say," contradicted Polly stoutly, "ever and ever so much, Jasper."

"Well, he's heard it so much; perhaps I've pounded at him too hard. And then again—" Jasper paused, turned away a bit, and rushed back hastily, with vexation written all over his face. "I must speak it: I can't help him any more, for somehow Mr. Faber has found it out, and forbids it; that's one reason of the talk this morning in his study—says I must influence him, and all that. That's rubbish; I can't influence him." Jasper dashed over to lay his head on the table on his folded arms.

"Polly, if Pick is expelled, I—" he couldn't finish it, his voice breaking all up.

Polly ran over to lay a hand on his shaking shoulders.

"What can I do, Jasper?" she cried brokenly. "Tell me, and I'll do it, every single thing."

"You must talk to him," said Jasper, raising his head. It filled Polly with dismay to see his face. "Get him in here; I'll bring him over and then clear out of the den."

"Oh Jasper!" exclaimed Polly, quite aghast. "I couldn't talk to Pickering Dodge. Why, he wouldn't listen to me."

"Yes, he would," declared Jasper eagerly; "he thinks everything of you, Polly, and if you'll say the word, it will do more good than anything else. Do, Polly," he begged.

"But, Jasper," began Polly, a little white line coming around her mouth, "what would he think to have me talk to him about his lessons?"

"Think?" repeated Jasper, "why, he'd like it, Polly, and it will be the very thing that will help him."

"Oh, I can't!" cried Polly, twisting her fingers. Then she broke out passionately, "Oh, he ought to be ashamed of himself not to study; and there's that nice Mr. Cabot, and his aunt—"

"Aunt!" exclaimed Jasper explosively. "Polly, I do believe if he hadn't her picking at him all the time, he would try harder."

"Well, his uncle is different," said Polly, her indignation by no means dying out.

"Yes, but it's his aunt who makes the mischief. Honestly, Polly, I don't believe I could stand her," said Jasper, in a loyal burst.

"No, I don't believe I could either," confessed Polly.

"And you see, when a boy has such a home, no matter what they give him, why, he doesn't have the ambition that he would if things were different. Just think, Polly, not to have one's own father or mother."

"Oh Jasper!" cried Polly, quite overcome. "I'll do it, I will."

"Polly!" Jasper seized her hands, and held them fast, his dark eyes glowing. "Oh Polly, that's so awfully good of you!"

"And you better run right over, and get him now," said Polly, speaking very fast, "or I may run away, I shall get so scared."

"You won't run away, I'll be bound," cried Jasper, bursting into a merry laugh, and rushing off with a light heart. And presently, in less time than one could imagine, though to Polly it seemed an age, back he came, Pickering with him, all alive with curiosity to know what Polly Pepper wanted of him.

"It's about the play, I suppose," he began, lolling into an easy-chair; "Jasper wouldn't tell me what it's all about; only seized me by the ear, and told me to come on. Draw up your chair, Jasper, and—why, hullo! where is the chap?" swinging his long figure around to stare.

"Pickering," began Polly; and the den, usually the pleasantest place in all the house, was now like a prison, whose walls wouldn't let her breathe, "I don't know what to say. Oh dear me!" Poor Polly could get no further, but sat there in hopeless misery, looking at him.

"Eh—what? Oh, beg pardon," exclaimed Pickering, whirling back in his chair, "but things are so very queer; first Jasper rushes off like a lunatic—"

"And I am worse," said Polly, at last finding her tongue. "I don't wonder you think it's queer, Pickering, but Jasper does so love you, and it will just kill him if you don't study." It was all out now, and in the most dreadful way. And feeling that she had quite destroyed all hope, Polly sat up pale and stiff in her chair.

Pickering threw his long figure out of the easy-chair, rushed up and down the den with immense strides, and came back to stand directly in front of her.

"Do you mean it, Polly?" His long face was working badly, and his hands were clenched, but as they were thrust deep within his pockets, Polly couldn't see them.

"Yes," said Polly, "I do, Pickering."

He stalked off again, but was back once more, Polly wondering how she could possibly bear to tell Jasper of her failure, for of course Pickering was very angry; when he said, "Polly, I want to tell you something."

"What is it?" Polly looked at him sharply, and caught her breath.

"I won't drag Jasper down, I tell you, with me. I'll get through somehow at school. I promise you that. Here!" He twitched out his right hand from its pocket, and thrust it out at her.

"Oh Pickering Dodge!" exclaimed Polly in a transport, and seizing his hand, it was shaken vigorously.

"There, that's a bargain," declared Pickering solemnly. "I'll get through someway. And say, Polly, it was awfully good of you to speak."

"It was awfully hard," said Polly, drawing a long breath. "Oh, are you sure you are not vexed, Pickering? Very sure?" And Polly's face drooped anxiously.

"Vexed?" cried Pickering. "I should rather say not! Polly, I'm lazy and selfish, and good for nothing; but I couldn't be vexed, for 'twas awfully hard for you to do."

"I guess it was," said Polly. Then she gave a little laugh, for it was all bright and jolly again, and she knew that Pickering would keep his word.

And that evening, after Jasper and she had a dance—they were so happy, they couldn't keep still—in the wide hall, Jasper burst out suddenly with a fresh idea.

"Polly," he said, drawing her off to rest on one of the high, carved chairs, "there's one more thing."

"Oh, what is it Jasper?" she cried gaily, with flushed cheeks. "Oh, wasn't that spin just delicious?"

"Wasn't it?" cried Jasper heartily. "Well, now, Polly," flinging himself down on the next chair, "it's just this. Do you know, I don't believe we ought to have our play."

"Not have our play?" Polly peered around to look closely into his face. "What do you mean, Jasper?"

"You see, Polly, Pick was to take a prominent part, and he ought not to, you know; it will take him from his lessons to rehearse and all that. And he's so backward there's a whole lot for him to make up."

"Well, but Pickering will have to give up his part, then," said Polly decidedly, "for we've simply got to have that play, to get the money to help that poor brakeman's family."

Jasper winced. "I know; we must earn it somehow," he said.

"We must earn it by the play," said Polly. "And besides, Jasper, we voted at the club meeting to have it. So there, now," she brought up triumphantly.

"We could vote to rescind that vote," said Jasper.

"Well, we don't want to. Why, Jasper, how that would look on our two record books!" said Polly in surprise, for Jasper was so proud of his club and its records.

"Yes, of course; as our two clubs united that evening, it must go down in both books," said Jasper slowly.

"Yes, of course," assented Polly happily. "Well, now, you see, Jasper, that we really can't give it up, for we've gone too far. Pickering will have to let some one else take the part of the chief brigand." For the little play was almost all written by Polly's fingers, Jasper filling out certain parts when implored to give advice: and brigands, and highway robberies, and buried treasures, and rescued maidens, and gallant knights, figured generously, in a style to give immense satisfaction.

"And the play is so very splendid!" cried Jasper. "Oh dear me! what ought we to do, Polly?" He buried his face in his hands a moment.

"Pickering must give up his part," said Polly again.

"But, Polly, you know he has been in all our plays," said Jasper. "And he'll feel so badly, and now he's got all this trouble about his lessons on his mind," and Jasper's face fell.

Polly twisted uncomfortably on her chair. "Oh dear me!" she began, "I suppose we must give it up."

"And if we gave it up, not altogether, but put it off till he catches up on his studies," suggested Jasper, "why, he wouldn't be dropped out."

"But the poor brakeman's family, Jasper," said Polly, puzzled that Jasper should forget the object of the play.

"Oh, I didn't mean that we should put off earning the money, Polly," cried Jasper, quite horrified at such a thought. "We must do something else, so that we can sell just as many tickets."

"But what will it be?" asked Polly, trying not to feel crushed, and sighing at the disappearance of the beautiful play, for a time at least.

"Well, we could have recitations, for one thing," said Jasper, feeling dreadfully to see Polly's disappointment, and concealing his own, for he had set his heart on the play too.

"Oh dear me!" exclaimed Polly, wrinkling up her face in disdain. "Jasper, do you know, I am so tired of recitations!"

"So am I," Jasper bobbed his head in sympathy, "but we boys have some new ones, learned for last exhibition, so Pick won't have to take a moment from his lessons. And then we can have music, and you will play, Polly."

"Oh Jasper, I've played so much," said Polly, "they're all tired of hearing me."

"They never would be tired of hearing you, Polly," said Jasper simply. "Every one of us thinks you play beautifully."

"And tableaux and an operetta take just as much time to rehearse," mused Polly, thinking very hard if there wasn't something to keep them from the dreaded recitations.

"And I just loathe an operetta or tableaux," exclaimed Jasper, with such venom that Polly burst out laughing.

"Oh Jasper, if you could see your face!" she cried.

"I shouldn't want to," he laughed too; "but of all insipid things, an operetta is the worst; and tableaux—the way Miss Montague drilled and drilled and drilled us, and then stuck us up like sticks not to move for a half-hour or so, nearly finished me."

"So it did me," confessed Polly. "And besides, it would take a great deal more time to go through all that drilling than to rehearse the play."

"Of course it would," said Jasper, "so tableaux, thank fortune, are not to be thought of. I think it will have to be recitations and music, Polly."

"I suppose so," she said with a sigh. "Oh Jasper!" then she sprang off from her chair, and clapped her hands. "I've thought of the very thing. I believe Mr. Hamilton Dyce would tell some of his funny stories and help out the program."

"Capital!" shouted Jasper; and just at this moment the big front door opened, and the butler ushered in Miss Mary Taylor and Mr. Dyce.

Polly and Jasper rushed up to the visitors, for they were prime favorites with the young people, and precipitated upon them all their woes. The end was, that they both promised beautifully to do whatever was wanted, for Miss Mary Taylor sang delightfully.

"And Pickering is safe, Polly, for I know now he'll go through the last half," cried Jasper as they ran off to study their lessons for the next day.



XVII PHRONSIE

And after that, there was no more trouble about that program, for as luck would have it, the very next day a letter came from Joel, saying that Dr. Marks had given them a holiday of a week on account of the illness of two boys in their dormitory, and, "May I bring home Tom Beresford? He's no-end fine!" and, "Please, Mamsie, let me fetch Sinbad! Do telegraph 'Yes.'"

And Mother Fisher, after consultation with Mr. King, telegraphed "Yes;" and wild was the rejoicing over the return of Joel and David and Percy and Van, and Tom; for Mother Fisher was ready to receive with open arms, and very glad silently to watch, one of Joel's friends.

"And to think that Sinbad is coming!" cried Polly, dancing about. "Just think, Phronsie, Joel's dear dog that Dr. Marks let him take to the little cobbler to keep for him!" And she took Phronsie's hand, and they spun around the hall.

"I shall get him a new pink ribbon," declared Phronsie breathlessly, when the spin was over.

"Do," cried Polly. "Dear me! that was a good spin, Phronsie!"

"I should think it was," said Ben. "Goodness me! Polly, Phronsie and you made such a breeze!"

"Didn't we, Pet!" cried Polly, with a last kiss. "Oh Ben and Jasper, to think those boys will be here for our entertainment!"

"I know Tom is made of the right stuff," Mamsie said proudly to Father Fisher, "else my boy would not choose him."

"That's a fact, wife," the little doctor responded heartily. "Joel is all right; may be a bit heedless, but he has a good head on his shoulders."

The five boys bounded into the wide hall that evening—Joel first; and in his arms, a yellow dog, by no means handsome, with small, beady eyes, and a stubby tail that he was violently endeavoring to wag, under the impression that he had a good deal of it.

"Mamsie!" shouted Joel, his black eyes glowing, and precipitating himself into her arms, dog and all, "See Sinbad! See, Mamsie!"

"It's impossible not to see him," said Ben. "Goodness me, Joe, what a dog!" which luckily Joel did not hear for the babel going on around. Besides, there was Phronsie trying to put her arms around the dog, and telling him about the pink ribbon which she held in her hand.

"Joe," said Dr. Fisher, who had been here, there, and everywhere in the group, and coming up to nip Joel's jacket, "introduce your friend. You're a pretty one, to bring a boy home, and—"

"I forgot you, Tom," shouted Joel, starting off, still hanging to his dog; "oh, there you are!" seeing Tom in the midst of the circle, and talking away to Grandpapa and Polly.

"As if I couldn't introduce Tom!" sniffed Percy importantly, quite delighted at Joel's social omissions. "I've done it ages ago."

"All right," said Joel, quite relieved. "Oh Phronsie, Sinbad doesn't want that ribbon on," as Phronsie was making violent efforts to get it around the dog's neck.

"I would let her, Joel," said Mother Fisher, "if I were you."

"But he hates a ribbon," said Joel in disgust, "and besides, he'll chew it up, Phronsie."

"I don't want him to chew it up, Joel," said Phronsie slowly, and pausing in her endeavors. And she looked very sober.

"I'll tell you, Phronsie." Mrs. Fisher took the pink satin ribbon that Phronsie had bought with her own money. "Now, do you want mother to tie it on?"

"Do, Mamsie," begged Phronsie, smoothing her gown in great satisfaction. And presently there was a nice little bow standing up on the back of Sinbad's neck; and as there didn't seem to be any ends to speak of, there was nothing to distract his attention from the responsibility of watching all the people.

"Oh, isn't he beautiful!" cried Phronsie in a transport, and hopping up and down to clap her hands. "Grandpapa dear, do look; and I've told Princey all about him, and given him a ribbon too, so he won't feel badly."

And after this excitement had died down, Joel whirled around. "Tom's brought his banjo," he announced.

"Oh!" exclaimed Polly.

"And he can sing," cried Joel, thinking it best to mention all the accomplishments at once.

"Don't, Joe," begged Tom, twitching his sleeve.

Polly looked over at Jasper, with sparkling eyes, and the color flew into her cheeks.

"Splendid!" his eyes signalled back.

"What is it?" cried Joel, giving each a sharp glance. "Now you two have secrets; and that's mean, when we've just got home. What is it, Polly?" He ran to her, shaking her arm.

"You'll see in time," said Polly, shaking him off, to dance away.

"I don't want to know in time," said Joel, "I want to know now. Mamsie, what is it?"

"I'm sure I haven't the least idea," said Mother Fisher, who hadn't heard Joel's announcement. "And I think you would do better, Joey, to take care of your guest, and let other things wait."

"Oh, Tom doesn't want to be fussed over," said Joel carelessly; yet he went back to the tall boy standing quite still, in the midst of the general hilarity. "That's just the way Ben and Polly used to do in the little brown house," he grumbled—"always running away, and hiding their old secrets from me, Tom."

"Well, we had to, if we ever told each other anything," said Ben coolly. "Joel everlastingly tagged us about, Beresford."

"Well, I had to, if I ever heard anything," burst out Joel, with a laugh. "Come on, Tom," and he bore him off together with Sinbad.

"Polly," Jasper was saying, the two now being off in a corner, "how fine! Now, perhaps Tom Beresford will sing."

"And play," finished Polly, with kindling face. "Oh Jasper, was anything ever so gorgeous!" she cried joyfully, for Polly dearly loved high-sounding words; "and we'll sell a lot more tickets, because he's new, and people will want to hear him."

"If he will do it," said Jasper slowly, not wanting to dampen her anticipation, but dreadfully afraid that the new boy might not respond.

"Oh, he'll do it, I do believe," declared Polly confidently; "he must, Jasper, help about that poor brakeman's family."

And he did. Tom Beresford evidently made up his mind, when he went home with Joel, to do everything straight through that the family asked him, for he turned out to be the best visitor they had entertained, and one and all pronounced him capital. All but Joel himself, who told him very flatly the second day that he wasn't half as nice as at school, for he was now running at everybody's beck and nod.

"Instead of yours," said Tom calmly. Then he roared.

"Hush up," cried Joel, very uncomfortable, and getting very red. "Well, you must acknowledge, Tom, that I want to see something of you, else why would I have brought you home, pray tell?"

"Nevertheless, I shall do what your sister Polly and your mother and Jasper and Mr. King ask me to do," said Tom composedly, which was all Joel got for his fuming. And the most that he saw of Tom after that was a series of dissolving views, for even Phronsie began to monopolize him, being very much taken with his obliging ways.