"Lilly"s so hateful!" grumbled Clarence.
"Well,--she is sometimes, I know," admitted Clover, candidly. "But because she is hateful is no reason why you should be unmanly."
"Unmanly!" cried Clarence, flushing.
"Yes. I call it unmanly to tease and quarrel, and contradict like that. It"s like girls. They do it sometimes, but I didn"t think a boy would. I thought he"d be ashamed!"
"Doesn"t Dorry ever quarrel or tease?" asked Clarence, who liked to hear about Clover"s brothers and sisters.
"Not now, and never in that way. He used to sometimes when he was little, but now he"s real nice. He wouldn"t speak to a girl as you speak to Lilly for any thing in the world. He"d think it wasn"t being a gentleman."
"Stuff about gentleman, and all that!" retorted Clarence. "Mother dings the word in my ears till I hate it!"
"Well, it is rather teasing to be reminded all the time, I admit; but you can"t wonder that your mother wants you to be a gentleman, Clarence.
It"s the best thing in the world, I think. I hope Phil and Dorry will grow up just like papa, for everybody says he"s the most perfect gentleman, and it makes me so proud to hear them."
"But what does it mean any way! Mother says it"s how you hold your fork, and how you chew, and how you put on your hat. If that"s all, I don"t think it amounts to much."
"Oh, that isn"t all. It"s being gentle, don"t you see? Gentle and nice to everybody, and just as polite to poor people as to rich ones,"
said Clover, talking fast, in her eagerness to explain her meaning,-- "and never being selfish, or noisy, or pushing people out of their place. Forks, and hats, and all that are only little ways of making one"s self more agreeable to other people. A gentleman is a gentleman inside,--all through! Oh, I wish I could make you see what I mean!"
"Oh, that"s it, is it?" said Clarence. Whether he understood or not, Clover could not tell; or whether she had done any good or not; but she had the discretion to say no more; and certainly Clarence was not offended, for after that day he grew fonder of her than ever. Lilly became absolutely jealous. She had never cared particularly for Clarence"s affection, but she did not like to have any one preferred above herself.
"It"s pretty hard, I think," she told Clover. "Clare does every thing you tell him, and he treats me awfully. It isn"t a bit fair! I"m his sister, and you"re only a second cousin."
All this time the girls had seen almost nothing of Louisa Agnew. She called once, but Lilly received the call with them, and so cool and stiff that Louisa grew stiff also, and made but a short stay; and when the girls returned the visit she was out. A few days before the close of vacation, however, a note came from her.
"Dear Katy,--I am so sorry not to have seen more of you and Clover. Won"t you come and spend Wednesday with us? Mamma sends her love, and hopes you will come early, so as to have a long day, for she wants to know you. I long to show you the baby and every thing. Do come. Papa will see you home in the evening. Remember me to Lilly. She has so many friends to see during vacation that I am sure she will forgive me for stealing you for one day.
"Yours affectionately, "Louisa."
Katy thought this message very politely expressed, but Lilly, when she heard it, tossed her head, and said she "really thought Miss Agnew might let her name alone when she wrote notes." Mrs. Page seemed to pity the girls for having to go. They must, she supposed, as it was a schoolmate; but she feared it would be stupid for them. The Agnews were queer sort of people, not in society at all. Mr. Agnew was clever, people said; but, really, she knew very little about the family. Perhaps it would not do to decline.
Katy and Clover had no idea of declining. They sent a warm little note of acceptance, and on the appointed day set off bright and early with a good deal of pleasant antic.i.p.ation. The vacation had been rather dull at Cousin Olivia"s. Lilly was a good deal with her own friends, and Mrs. Page with hers; and there never seemed any special place where they might sit, or any thing in particular for then to do.
Louisa"s home was at some distance from Mr. Page"s, and in a less fashionable street. It looked pleasant and cosy as the girls opened the gate. There was a small garden in front with gay flower-beds; and on the piazza, which was shaded with vines, sat Mrs. Agnew with a little work-table by her side. She was a pretty and youthful- looking woman, and her voice and smile made them feel at home immediately.
"There is no need of anybody to introduce you," she said. "Lulu has described you so often that I know perfectly well which is Katy and which is Clover. I am so glad you could come. Won"t you go right in my bed-room by that long window and take off your things? Lulu has explained to you that I am lame and never walk, so you won"t think it strange that I do not show you the way. She will be here in a moment. She ran upstairs to fetch the baby."
The girls went into the bed-room. It was a pretty and unusual-looking apartment. The furniture was simple as could be, but bed and toilet and windows were curtained and frilled with white, and the walls were covered thick with pictures, photographs, and pen-and-ink sketches, and water-color drawings, unframed most of them, and just pinned up without regularity, so as to give each the best possible light. It was an odd way of arranging pictures; but Katy liked it, and would gladly have lingered to look at each one, only that she feared Mrs.
Agnew would expect them and would think it strange that they did not come back.
Just as they went out again to the piazza, Louisa came running downstairs with her little sister in her arms.
"I was curling her hair," she explained, "and did not hear you come in. Daisy, give Katy a kiss. Now another for Clover. Isn"t she a darling?" embracing the child rapturously herself, "now isn"t she a little beauty?"
"Perfectly lovely?" cried the others, and soon all three were seated on the floor of the piazza, with Daisy in the midst, pa.s.sing her from hand to hand as if she had been something good to eat. She was used to it, and submitted with perfect good nature to being kissed, trotted, carried up and down, and generally made love to. Mrs. Agnew sat by and laughed at the spectacle. When Baby was taken off for her noonday nap, Louisa took the girls into the parlor, another odd and pretty room, full of prints and sketches, and pictures of all sorts, some with frames, others with a knot of autumn leaves or a twist of ivy around them by way of a finish. There was a bowl of beautiful autumn roses on the table; and, though the price of one of Mrs. Page"s damask curtains would probably have bought the whole furniture of the room, every thing was so bright and homelike and pleasant-looking that Katy"s heart warmed at the sight. They were examining a portrait of Louisa with Daisy in her lap, painted by her father, when Mr. Agnew came in.
The girls liked his face at once. It was fine and frank; and nothing could be prettier than to see him pick up his sweet invalid wife as if she had been a child, and carry her into the dining-room to her place at the head of the table.
Katy and Clover agreed afterward that it was the merriest dinner they had had since they left home. Mr. Agnew told stories about painters and painting, and was delightful. No less so was the nice gossip upstairs in Louisa"s room which followed dinner, or the afternoon frolic with Daisy, or the long evening spent in looking over books and photographs. Altogether the day seemed only too short. As they went out of the gate at ten o"clock, Mr. Agnew following, lo! a dark figure emerged from behind a tree and joined Clover. It was Clarence!
"I thought I"d just walk this way," he explained, "the house has been dreadfully dull all day without you."
Clover was immensely flattered, but Mrs. Page"s astonishment next day knew no bounds.
"Really," she said, "I have hopes of Clarence at last. I never knew him volunteer to escort anybody anywhere before in his life."
"I say," remarked Clarence, the evening before the girls went back to school,--"I say, suppose you write to a fellow sometimes, Clover."
"Do you mean yourself by "a fellow"?" laughed Clover.
"You don"t suppose I meant George Hickman or that donkey of an Eels, did you?" retorted Clarence.
"No, I didn"t. Well, I"ve no objection to writing to a fellow, if that fellow is you, provided the fellow answers my letters. Will you?"
"Yes," gruffly, "but you mustn"t show "em to any girls or laugh at my writing, or I"ll stop. Lilly says my writing is like beetle tracks. Little she knows about it though! I don"t write to her!
Promise, Clover!"
"Yes, I promise," said Clover, pleased at the notion of Clare"s proposing a correspondence of his own accord. Next morning they all left for Hillsover. Clarence"s friendship and the remembrance of their day with the Agnews were the pleasantest things that the girls carried away with them from their autumn vacation.
CHAPTER X. A BUDGET OF LETTERS.
"Hillsover, October 21st.
Dearest Elsie,--I didn"t write you last Sat.u.r.day, because that was the day we came back to school, and there hasn"t been one minute since when I could. We thought perhaps Miss Jane would let us off from the abstracts on Sunday, because it was the first day, and school was hardly begun; and, if she had, I was going to write to you instead, but she didn"t. She said the only way to keep girls out of mischief was to keep them busy. Rose Red is sure that something has gone wrong with Miss Jane"s missionary during the vacation,--she"s so dreadfully cross. Oh, dear, how I do hate to come back and be scolded by her again!
"I forget if I told you about the abstracts. They are of the sermons on Sunday, you know, and we have to give the texts, and the heads, and as much as we can remember of the rest. Sometimes Dr. Prince begins: "I shall divide my subject into three parts," and tells what they are going to be. When he does that, most of the girls take out their pencils and put them down, and then they don"t listen any more.
Katy and I don"t, for she says it isn"t right not to listen some.
Miss Jane pretends that she reads all the abstracts through, but she doesn"t; for once Rose Red, just to try her, wrote in the middle of hers, "I am sitting by my window at this moment, and a red cow is going down the street. I wonder if she is any relation to Mrs.
Seccomb"s cow?" and Miss Jane never noticed it, but marked her "perfect" all the same. Wasn"t it funny?
"But I must tell you about our journey back. Mr. Page came all the way with us, and was ever so nice. Clarence rode down in the carriage to the depot. He gave me a real pretty india-rubber and gold pencil for a good-by present. I think you and Dorry would like Clarence, only just at first you might say he was rather rude and cross. I did; but now I like him ever so much. Cousin Olivia gave Katy a worked collar and sleeves, and me an embroidered pocket-handkerchief with clover leaves in the corner. Wasn"t it kind? I"m sorry I said in my last letter that we didn"t enjoy our vacation. We didn"t much; but it wasn"t exactly Cousin Olivia"s fault. She meant we should, but she didn"t know how. Some people don"t, you know. And don"t tell any one I said so, will you?
"Rose Red got here in the train before we did. She was so glad when we came that she cried. It was because she was home-sick waiting four hours at the Nunnery without us, she said. Rose is such a darling!
She had a splendid vacation, and went to three parties and a picnic.
Isn"t it queer? her winter bonnet is black velvet trimmed with pink, and so is mine. I wanted blue at first, but Cousin Olivia said pink was more stylish; and now I am glad, because I like to be like Rose.
"Katy and I have got No. 2 this term. It"s a good deal pleasanter than our old room, and the entry-stove is just outside the door, so we shall keep warm. There is sun, too, only Mrs. Nipson has nailed thick cotton over all the window except a little place at top. Every window in the house is just so. You can"t think how mad the girls are about it. The first night we had an indignation meeting, and pa.s.sed resolutions, and some of the girls said they wouldn"t stay,-- they should write to their fathers to come and take them home. None of them did, though. It"s perfectly forlorn, not being able to look out. Oh, dear, how I wish it were spring!
"We"ve got a new dining-room. It"s a great deal bigger than the old one, so now we all eat together, and don"t have any first and second tables. It"s ever so much nicer, for I used to get so dreadfully hungry waiting that I didn"t know what to do. One thing is horrid, though, and that is, that every girl has to make a remark in French every day at dinner. The remarks are about a subject. Mrs. Nipson gives out the subjects. To-day the subject was "Les oiseaux," and Rose Red said, "J"aime beaucoup les oiseaux, et surtout ceux qui sont rotis," which made us all laugh. That ridiculous little Bella Arkwright said, "J"aime beaucoup les oiseaux qui sing." She thought sing was French! Every girl in school began, "J"aime beaucoup les oiseaux"! To-morrow the subject is "Jules Cesar." I"m sure I don"t know what to say. There isn"t a word in Ollendorf about him.
"There aren"t so many new scholars this term as there were last. The girls think it is because Mrs. Nipson isn"t so popular as Mrs. Florence used to be. Two or three of the new ones look pleasant, but I don"t know them yet. Louisa Agnew is the nicest girl here next to Rose.
Lilly Page says she is vulgar, because her father paints portraits and they don"t know the same people that Cousin Olivia know, but she isn"t a bit. We went to spend the day there just before we left Ashburn, and her father and mother are splendid. Their house is just full of all sorts of queer, interesting things, and pictures; and Mr. Agnew told us ever so many stories about painters, and what they did. One was about a boy who used to make figures of lions in b.u.t.ter, and afterward he became famous. I forget his name. We had a lovely time. I wish you could see Lou"s little sister Daisy. She"s only two, and a perfect little beauty. She has got ten teeth, and hardly ever cries.