"And a blue tam-o"-shanter. I had forgotten you had grown up any to speak of."
"You see me every vacation," Eleanor grumbled, as she stepped into the waiting motor. "It isn"t because you lack opportunity that you don"t notice what I look like. It"s just because you"re naturally un.o.bserving."
"Peter and Jimmie have been making a good deal of fuss about your being a young lady, now I think of it. Peter especially has been rather a nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious moments of triviality with the sweetly solemn thought that our little girl has grown to be a woman now."
"Oh, does _he_ think I"m grown up, does he really?"
"Jimmie is almost as bad. He"s all the time wanting me to get you to New York over the weekend, so that he can see if you are any taller than you were the last time he saw you."
"Are they coming to see me this evening?"
"Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up with his sister. You know she"s on here from China with her daughter. Peter wants you to meet the child."
"She must be as grown up as I am," Eleanor said. "I used to have her room, you know, when I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like her?"
"Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. He says she looks like a heathen Chinee but otherwise is pa.s.sable. I didn"t know that you added jealousy to the list of your estimable vices."
"I"m not jealous," Eleanor protested; "or if I am it"s only because she"s blood relation,--and I"m not, you know."
"It"s a good deal more prosaic to be a blood relation, if anybody should ask you," David smiled. "A blood relation is a good deal like the famous primrose on the river"s brim."
""A primrose by the river"s brim a yellow primrose was to him,--and nothing more,"" Eleanor quoted gaily. "Why, what more--" she broke off suddenly and colored slightly.
"What more would anybody want to be than a yellow primrose by the river"s brim?" David finished for her. "I don"t know, I"m sure. I"m a mere man and such questions are too abstruse for me, as I told your Aunt Margaret the other day. Now I think of it, though, you don"t look unlike a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter."
"That"s because I"ve got a yellow ribbon on my hat."
"No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has something to do with youth and fragrance and the flowers that bloom in the spring."
"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la," Eleanor returned saucily, "have nothing to do with the case."
"She"s learning that she has eyes, good Lord," David said to himself, but aloud he remarked paternally, "I saw all your aunts yesterday.
Gertrude gave a tea party and invited a great many famous tea party types, and ourselves."
"Was Aunt Beulah there?"
"I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like the famous Queenie, with her hair in a braid."
"Not really."
"Pretty nearly. She"s gone in for dress reform now, you know, a kind of middy blouse made out of a striped portiere with a kilted skirt of the same material and a Scotch cap. She doesn"t look so bad in it.
Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar phenomenon these days. She"s growing better-looking and behaving worse every day of her life."
"Behaving worse?"
"She"s theory ridden and fad bitten. She"ll come to a bad end if something doesn"t stop her."
"Do you mean--stop her working for suffrage? I"m a suffragist, Uncle David."
"And quite right to remind me of it before I began slamming the cause.
No, I don"t mean suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the way she"s going after it. There are healthy ways of insisting on your rights and unhealthy ways. Beulah"s getting further and further off key, that"s all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor old cooperative father welcomes you to the a.s.sociated hearthstone."
"This front entrance looks more like my front entrance than any other place does," Eleanor said. "Oh! I"m so glad to be here. George, how is the baby?" she asked the black elevator man, who beamed delightedly upon her.
"Gosh! I didn"t know he had one," David chuckled. "It takes a woman--"
Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets and a five pound box of the chocolates most in favor in the politest circles at the moment. David whistled when he saw them.
"What"s devouring you, papa?" Jimmie asked him. "Don"t I always place tributes at the feet of the offspring?"
"Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes," David said. "It"s only the labels that surprised me."
"She knows the difference, now," Jimmie answered, "what would you?"
The night before her return to school it was decreed that she should go to bed early. She had spent two busy days of shopping and "seeing the family." She had her hours discussing her future with Peter, long visits and talks with Margaret and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at suffrage headquarters with Beulah, as well as long sessions in the shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made her home now permanently with David. She sat before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out of the embers and David stood with one arm on the mantel, smoking his after-dinner cigar, and watching her.
"Is it to be college, Eleanor?" he asked her presently.
"I can"t seem to make up my mind, Uncle David."
"Don"t you like the idea?"
"Yes, I"d love it,--if--"
"If what, daughter?"
"If I thought I could spare the time."
"The time? Elucidate."
"I"m going to earn my own living, you know."
"I didn"t know."
"I am. I"ve got to--in order to--to feel right about things."
"Don"t you like the style of living to which your cooperative parents have accustomed you?"
"I love everything you"ve ever done for me, but I can"t go on letting you do things for me forever."
"Why not?"
"I don"t know why not exactly. It doesn"t seem--right, that"s all."
"It"s your New England conscience, Eleanor; one of the most specious varieties of consciences in the world. It will always be tempting you to do good that better may come. Don"t listen to it, daughter."
"I"m in earnest, Uncle David. I don"t know whether I would be better fitted to earn my living if I went to business college or real college. What do you think?"