"From a painting in my uncle"s hall," said Reginald, promptly, "and when I told him that I wished that men wore clothes like that now, he just laughed, and said he thought those huge, long-plumed hats would be an awful nuisance."
The older girls were soon to study English history, and they felt very important indeed.
"We"re bigger than Flossie and Katie and Reginald," said Jeanette, "so we are to have an extra study."
"We wouldn"t want what you"re going to have," Reginald said, "for it"s just horrid. I told you my brother Bob said it was all full of chopping folks" heads off, and you didn"t believe it, Jeanette Earl, but you"ll find out it"s so; you see "f you don"t."
Flossie slipped her hand into Reginald"s, as if for protection.
"We wouldn"t like to study it," she said, "and we won"t like to hear it, but we"ll have to when they say their lessons."
Dorothy and Nancy had been obliged to hurry home from school. They were to drive with Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte, and Mrs. Dainty had told them to be prompt.
Flossie and Reginald lingered after the others had gone. He gathered some blossoming weeds which grew near the cottage, thinking thus to cheer her, and to turn her mind from the hated English history.
She took the flowers, and for a time she laughed and talked so brightly that she seemed her sunny self.
He was just thinking how happy she looked when suddenly she leaned toward him, and said earnestly:
"Do you s"pose Bob was mistaken?"
Reginald hesitated. He ardently admired Bob, but he also cared for dear little Flossie, and longed to please her, so after a pause he said:
"My big brother knows _"most everything_, but just _p"r"aps_ he might have been mistaken."
It was not much comfort, but it was better than if Reginald had insisted that Bob"s knowledge was absolute.
As Mrs. Dainty"s carriage bowled along the avenue, the trees seemed ablaze with autumn splendor, for the leaves that danced in the sunlight were scarlet and gold, and the sunbeams flickered and shimmered like merry elves. The light breeze tossed the plumes on Dorothy"s hat, and blew her golden curls about her lovely little face.
She leaned back in the carriage and laid her hand in Nancy"s. Nancy"s fingers were quick to clasp Dorothy"s, and for a time they sat listening to what Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte Grayson were saying.
Then something made Nancy turn. A little figure was mincing along the avenue; its shoes had very high heels, its stockings were pink, and its dress a bright green. A showy hat with many-colored flowers crowned its head, and as the carriage pa.s.sed it waved a lace handkerchief, thus setting her many bangles tinkling.
"That _was_ Patricia Lavine," said Nancy; "Mollie Merton said she saw her just a few days ago."
"O dear!" said Dorothy, "and it"s not nice to say that when Patricia has just come back here to live, but truly she wasn"t pleasant."
"I don"t wonder you said, "O dear," for wherever she was, she made somebody uncomfortable," Nancy said, which was indeed true.
Patricia was not wholly at fault. She dearly loved anything that was showy, and her mother, who was a very ignorant woman, was quite as fond of display.
She had never taught her little daughter to be kind or courteous, but instead had laughed at her pert ways, and thought them amusing.
Patricia hastened along the avenue as fast as her little steeple heels would permit, and when she saw Flossie and Reginald, she rushed toward them, a.s.suring them that she _never_ had been so glad to see any one before.
Neither Flossie nor Reginald could say that they were quite as pleased, but Patricia did not wait for them to speak.
"We"ve been living in N" York," she said, "but we"re going to live here now, an" we"ve got a el"gant house right next the schoolhouse. Ma says it"s one of the finest houses in Merrivale, an" I guess--"
"If it"s next to the schoolhouse it"s the one where our cook"s brother lives," remarked Reginald. "He lives on the first floor, and the man that drives the water-cart lives just over him."
Patricia was annoyed. She had wished them to think that the entire house had been engaged for her own small family. Her cheeks were flushed, but she made the best of the situation, and at once commenced to tell of the beauties of the flat.
"We lived in a great big hotel in N" York," she said, "but ma says this flat is handsomer than the one what we had at the hotel. Ma says I can give a party this winter, if I want to. Of course I"ll invite _all_ my N" York friends, but I shall only ask the girls here that have been nice to me, and I don"t think I shall ask _any_ boys at all."
She cast a withering glance at Reginald, who whistled softly. Then he made a naughty reply.
"P"r"aps the boys wouldn"t come if you asked them," he said.
"Oh, Reginald!" said Flossie.
"Well, she said a mean thing "bout not inviting boys, else I wouldn"t have said it. I wouldn"t speak like that to you or Dorothy, or any of the nice girls I know."
"There were nice boys in N" York," snapped Patricia. "I didn"t see a boy while I was there who wasn"t _very_ nice."
CHAPTER VI
WHAT FLOSSIE DID
In the great hall, at the Barnet house, the butler stood puzzling over the letters which the postman had left.
He dared not meddle with them, but he paused for a moment to study them as they lay upon his salver, while he wondered if the handwriting upon either envelope were in the least familiar.
The little French maid, peering over the bal.u.s.ter, laughed softly.
"M"sieur is curious, but he should not delay. The lettairs, it may be, of importance are, and the madam already waiting is."
With a soft, yet merry laugh, the maid returned to dress her mistress"s hair, and the burly butler stalked up the stairway, angry that Marie should have seen him studying the letters, and annoyed by her saucy laugh. "That girl is always "round," he muttered.
It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and although it was October, it was as warm as a June day.
Mrs. Barnet was in the hands of the French maid, and could not be disturbed while her hair was being dressed.
Flossie wondered what she could find to play with.
She wished that Sat.u.r.day had been a schoolday.
Usually she found the baby amusing, but Uncle Harry"s little daughter was out for an airing.
The kitten skurried down the hall and Flossie caught her, and ran off to the music-room. She managed to clamber up on to the stool with p.u.s.s.y in her arms, and reached for the music, which she opened.
"Now that"s a _very_ nice song, kitty," she said, "but you needn"t sing it; you can just practise the "comfrement. Now one, two, three, begin!"
She held the kitten"s paws, and forced them to press the keys.