[Illustration: BINDING THE RINGS. ]

WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY

By

MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY

AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD, " "THE GAYWORTHYS, ""A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE, " ETC. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 

BOSTON1870, 1890

 CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS CHAPTER II. AMPHIBIOUS CHAPTER III. BETWIXT AND BETWEEN CHAPTER IV. NEXT THINGS CHAPTER V. THE "BACK YETT AJEE. " CHAPTER VI. CO-OPERATING CHAPTER VII. SPRINKLES AND GUSTS CHAPTER VIII. HALLOWEEN CHAPTER IX. WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. CHAPTER X. RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. CHAPTER XI. BARBARA'S BUZZ. CHAPTER XII. EMERGENCIES. 

WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE STORY BEGINS. 

It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. 

The town is down below the hill. 

It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against anotherhill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stopitself, just as it does on this side. 

It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, largecountry town, --in fact, it has some time since come under cityregulations, --thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for thatwhich it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis. 

Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken offthe dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surroundedthemselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called"places. " There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens, " and theold Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, whenthe great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train;down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers'offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eatat one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day. 

We lived in the town--that is, Mr. And Mrs. Holabird did, and theirchildren, for such length of the time as their ages allowed--fornineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began. 

They called it "Westover, " more or less, years and years before; whenthere were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures, and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other, in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get tothe fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so camethe name. 

We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn'tconsidered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below thebrow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to godown again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, ifthey get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it?

Grandfather Holabird--old Mr. Rufus, --I don't say whether he was mygrandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells thisstory, or whether it is a Holabird at all--bought land here ever somany years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here theboys grew up, --Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John. 

Roderick went into the manufactory with his father, --who had himselfcome up from being a workman to being owner, --and learned thebusiness, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C----, andlived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he wasyet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were nolittle children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and threedaughters. 

There are of us--Stephen Holabird's family--just six. Stephen and hiswife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousinsmarried two sisters. She came here when she had neither father normother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because"Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but ofcourse, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, onthe mere claim of the common cousinship. 

Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particularways too. 

There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are allknown by our straight names. I say _known_; because we do have littlepet ways of calling, among ourselves, --sometimes one way and sometimesanother; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabirddoesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or ourbed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a littlefun, --though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks orbehaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do thefirst, --or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common, or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he'sobstinate, --we always _introduce_ "my daughter Rosamond, " or "mysister Barbara, " or, --but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, becausenothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth, "--and Stephenis plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be aman some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we werechristened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird issuch a pretty name. "But it will keep, " her mother tells her. "Shewouldn't want to be everybody's Rose. "

Our moving to Westover was a great time. 

That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybodydoes not do who moves into a house by any means. 

We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in andtold us, one morning, of his having bought it, --the empty Beamanhouse, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had boughtthe land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out andbuild, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobodybut old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it waslarge and solid-built, and could not be taken far. 

We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, anotherday, and proposed that we should go and live in it. 

We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had verystrict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of whatthey ought to do _without_ it, when they didn't happen to have any. 

Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming thatday, --him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which itwas she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, oreven him without the cane; but both together were "_scare-mendous_;they did put down so. "

Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure tonotice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and theold one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up aboard at the door, --"Private way; dangerous passing. " And we had allmade over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it:and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. Butwe couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was nevertime for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubledjust now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one inthis family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There isalways one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, inother ways. 

Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live agentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made forthe din and scramble of business. 

He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowinghis sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the lossand the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and thengo down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all hisdebts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed andclothe his family meanwhile. 

Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, whenhe bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In thesummer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and atThanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But theseobliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these thingswe made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all themore afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets. 

"When you haven't any money, don't buy anything, " was his sternprecept. 

"When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe, " Barbara would say, after he was gone. 

But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. Thatday, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and ascosey as we could be. 

Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that hadbeen cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag. Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an oldblack-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones withsmooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box. 

"What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked, wondering. 

"They were dropped, --and I picked them up, " Rosamond answered, mysteriously. "The owner never missed them. "

"Why, Rosamond!" cried Stephen, looking up from his Latin grammar. 

"Did!" persisted Rosamond. "And would again. I'm sure I wanted 'emmost. Hens lay themselves out on their underclothing, don't they?" shewent on, quietly, putting the white against the black, and admiringthe effect. "They don't dress much outside. "

"O, hens! What did you make us think it was people for?"

"Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle aboutcontrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman andher accidents, --mine are usually catastrophes. "

Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the rightset-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense. 

Barbara flung down a magazine, --some old number. 

"Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of theclimax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she wenton to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, andwas stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat?Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two littlecats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and thecane coming in. 

There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, andfor Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, throughthe sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his canewere slow; the more awful for that. 

Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors;and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!"

[Illustration]

Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it. 

"Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a fewsquare yards of 'out of doors. ' And inside of that, a great contrivingand going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteensquare feet that we live on most!"

She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a verylittle matter, the bit of new carpet, after all. 

"How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know, or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we_don't_ tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we knowthem or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and thethings we do. 

Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had away of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentenceafter sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meantwas, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I dothink of you once in a while. " And our worn-out responses were, "It'svery good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes. "

It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing. When there was one, he always kept it to the last. 

"Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?"

"Yes, sir. "

"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as thearound settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and livein it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now. Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming. I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over. "

He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said aword. We were too much surprised. 

Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted. 

I shall call her "mother, " now; for it always seems as if that were awoman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call herso himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. Sheasked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keepher name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given itto either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to agrandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived. 

"We could keep a cow!" said mother. 

"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded. 

"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "Hisland begins this side. "

"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't wehave a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly. 

"I should think it would be less trouble, " said Rosamond, quietly, incontinuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finishedhat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She wouldnever discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or ourlimitations. 

"Does that look--"

"Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do neverdo. "

Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, ofsomething that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "mightbe, but it was Holabirdy. " Rosamond found it hard to forget that. 

"I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and Idon't mean to tease you, " said Barbara, quickly. "But _I do_ mean tobe proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of thename left. "

"I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now, " said mother. "And what_shall_ we do about all those other great rooms? It will take readymoney to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere elsefor a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?"

That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that shedid not speak at first. 

"'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don'tbelieve there ever was a family that had so _much_ opening andshetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goestogether again and snips our noses!"

"What _is_ a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "Amouse pinched in it, I should think. "

"Exactly, " replied Barbara. "The most expressive words arefricassees, --heads and tails dished up together. Can't you see thephilology of it? 'Squint' and 'peek. ' Worcester can't put downeverything. He leaves something to human ingenuity. The language isn'tall made, --or used, --yet!"

Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance--inaid, as she maintained--of the dictionaries. 

"O, I can practise, " Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright outthere, and the mornings will be so early!"

"That's just what they won't be, particularly, " said Barbara, "seeingwe're going 'west over. '"

"Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same, " saidRuth. That was the best she could do. 

"Mother, " said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to havesome of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, putdown with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful. Especially for a country house. "

"It seems, then, we _are_ going?"

Nobody had even raised a question of that. 

Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raisednone. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries, quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of ageometrical fact patent at first glance. 

"We can have a cow, " mother repeated. 

"Or a dog, at any rate, " put in Stephen, who found it hard to get ahearing. 

"You can have a garden, father, " said Barbara. "It's to be near to theparcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen. "

"I don't like to have you quote Scripture so, " said father, gravely. 

"I don't, " said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either. I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't manyin profane. "

"Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus'saluted' at the end of an epistle. "

"Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn'thistory; that's mere mention. "

"We can ask the girls to come 'over' now, instead of 'down, '"suggested Rosamond, complacently. 

Barbara smiled. 

"And we can tell _the girl_ to come 'over, ' instead of 'up, ' whenshe's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the'handy' things. "

"Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden. " This was betweenthe two. 

"Mayhap, " said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow. "

"We shall all have to remember that it will only be living thereinstead of here, " said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrellaunder the rain of suggestion. 

The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There wasno doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and itwas found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtainsin our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in thesquare Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over, and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors. The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the fewpictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled, " Barbarasaid, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairsthere would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, andmaking upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, becausein these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, andfireplace, and closet doors. 

They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr. Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over tosee his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, tocommunicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of akind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house anyprecisely matched companionship. 

This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it ledto trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned totheir new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the wholenumber of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregariousmind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out tolive in "sûch a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is toIrish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole canno longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfastthat she "must jûst be lukkin out fer a plaashe. "

"But, " said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two orthree months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be gladto have you stay and help us through. "

"Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taksan intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed Iniver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but Icouldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo aplaashe, ye see. "

It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk agraat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, butshe mûst jûst be lukkin out fer hersel'. " And that very day she hadthe kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonneton, --a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse--of ungarnishedhead between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate, --andtook her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, wherepeople were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company norchildren nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances, and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water, " shewould probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would_not_ allow of her continuing with us. 

A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions, --sure tohappen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line wehave a gale down below. 

"_Now_ what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming backinto the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartmentswhich spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling allthrough the house. 

"Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravelythan she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thyyouth, ' she must be 'now living upon the earth. ' In fact, I don'tdoubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among therest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door. There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least. "

"I would as lief come across the staying one, " said Mrs. Holabird, with meekness. 

It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very muchquenched. 

The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, andnowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long, " Barbara wrote up overthe kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls betweenthat time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without agirl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have notcome to the family-moving yet. 

The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, whilethe building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up intoall the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what newpictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how nowthis tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see bythe end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it, --for the slope, though gradual, was long, --and how the sunset came in more and more, as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill ofexcitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, theonward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought allrightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen calledthese earthquakes. 

We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It wassuch a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stopanywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't;because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it wasall pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting overon the west side, where grandfather meant it to be. 

We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaksbetween trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad, open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; andthe nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny andpleasant and real countrified. 

It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the greathouse could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grandgenerous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airsand splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highestpoint had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-inexcavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which wemight so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose thegreen bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we gotless of the great town within our view as we settled down upon ourside of the ridge. 

The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture. 

There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were tobe; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way downagainst the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fieldswere beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire inautumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructedsky. 

The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where thewalls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen thespot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for themoving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held thekitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of asmere lumber. It was only the main building--L-shaped still, of threevery large rooms below and five by more subdivision above--which hadmajestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire, westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt. 

Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient withone servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before heoffered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent wemust take out cheerfully in extra steps. 

It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirdscame fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped, and stood staring around it with its many eyes, --wide open to thedaylight, all its green winkers having been taken off, --to see whereit was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a veryknowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world. 

The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashedin at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as hegot his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle roundsouthward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until thenoonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with thesitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then throughthe long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in alongthe full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, andpeeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This waswhat he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in, --as if hestretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn aboutit, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. Hequieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night hefound somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took itserenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, andput us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was toleave so many cubic feet of light at daily. 

I think he _might_ like to look in at that best parlor. With the sixsnowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and thedeep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all overthem, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were likethe moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the lightglinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw outthe lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our fewfine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. Itwas Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bringhome straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good manynice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to bepaid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where wesat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselvesalready to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases wellfilled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn clothhid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to thehand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of thehome-spirit, --a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into itsround of radiance every night. 

Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the Junenights were at Westover. 

We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. Wehad at last got an Irish girl from "far down, "--that is their word forthe north country at home, and the north country is where the bestmaterial comes from, --who was willing to air her ignorance in ourkitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, forthe modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could notcome indeed for less, " said the friend who brought her. "All the girlswas gettin' that. " She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn'tdo starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to dowith established rates of wages. 

But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and thesinging of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean, and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in anew place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the thingswere old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busyrush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy howgrandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful oldthings also, --a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in. 

"Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb'to go, '" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the familysettlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building. "It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition beforeit, except when it is in the nominative case. "

Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to thesitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to theground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazzawas open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico, from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light lowrailing ran around the whole. 

Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was rightand lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over throughthe beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always around of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time withus, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. 

We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what newglory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for thewitnessing of a pageant. 

The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hungclose by; they dropped down through the gold together, till theytouched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slidsilently beneath, we caught our suspended breath. 

[Illustration]

"But the curtain isn't down, " said Barbara, after a hush. 

No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to southstretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints andsoftliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; thegentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, wentby; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; wewatched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked outinto great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight wasthe curtain. 

"We've got the best balcony seats, haven't we, father?" Barbara saidagain, coming to where Mr. Holabird sat, and leaning against therailing. 

"The front row, and season tickets!"

"Every one, all summer. Only think!" said Ruth. 

"Pho! You'll get used to it, " answered Stephen, as if he knew humannature, and had got used himself to most things. 

CHAPTER II. 

AMPHIBIOUS. 

"What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up fromher letter. 

Ruth told. 

"How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You areas pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anythingparticular has happened, to remember _any_ day by, since the first, and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm neversure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first;and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme inmy head. "

"I know how she tells, " spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in herroom, --that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down atthe bottom; and she whops it every morning. "

Ruth laughed. 

"What do you try to tease her for?" said Mrs. Holabird. 

"It doesn't tease her. She thinks it's funny. She laughed, and youonly puckered. "

Ruth laughed again. "It wasn't only that, " she said. 

"Well, what then?"

"To think you knew. "

"Knew! Why shouldn't I know? It's big enough. "

"Yes, --but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest partof the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve. "

Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth hadcaught him out. 

"I guess you set it for a goody-trap, " he said. "Folks can't helpreading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the manthat went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fineday, and then I'll whop the whole over for you. "

Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the lastpair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephenin her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lipsthat she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up andwent away with them to her room. 

She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket inher hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll ofScripture texts printed in large clear letters, --a sheet for each dayof the month, --and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnutrod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher atthe Bible Class, --Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside verymuch. 

Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer, and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, andmaplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she wentand sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair. 

For she had something to think about this morning. 

Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in thebeginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, andjust opposite her door another led into the large, light corner roomat the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on theother side of the three-feet passage which led straight through fromthe front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase wasa broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up;and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into theL, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as welltell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to betaken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out allthe pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to. 

Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it;behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square ofstaircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted bya window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was thewhole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the Lunequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at rightangles to each other. 

The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's inthe afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one longshine, from its south window at the end, right through, --except insuch days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, andthen the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drewthrough pleasantly in a soft shade. 

When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the largefront rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as ifthere were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands andbureaus, --the very things that make up-stairs look so _very_ bedroomy. And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamondand Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushionssewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seatand pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirtof white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange forthis Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished theirtwo windows before, and would not do for the three they had now. 

Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all goround by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked awaymysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened allthe doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most partremained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings andways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently opento the privilege and second sight of story-telling. 

The white dimity curtains--one pair of them--were up at the wide westwindow; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or fourthings, --drapery for a little old pine table that had come to lightamong attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitingsaround the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmedcover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encasedwith more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top andtied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised inuniform, --varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming incrimson arabesque, --made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripturescroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in thewindow what she called afterward her "considering-chair, " and in whichshe sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head tofoot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, over the deficient cane-work. 

Tin tacks and some considerable machining--for mother had lent her thehelp of her little "common sense" awhile--had done it all; and Ruth'sroom, with its oblong of carpet, --which Mrs. Holabird and she had madeout before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored oneand a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not beenenough to put upon the staircase, --looked, as Barbara said, "just asif it had been done on purpose. "

"It _says_ it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth. 

Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it, --with its situation above all;she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never mindedtheir coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her threelittle brass bolts when she had a desire to. 

She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about AdelaideMarchbanks's invitation. 

The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The marrieddaughter of one family--Mrs. Reyburne--was at home from New York, andhad brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. RogerMarchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friendsvisiting him; and both places were merry with young girls, --severalsisters in each family, --always. The Haddens were there a good deal, and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at atime. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and LeslieGoldthwaite, a great pet of hers, --Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter, in the town, --was often up among them all. 

The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now andthen, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they werenot on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others wereamong themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their lifewould not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind ofElf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in theimpalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when itwills to be by itself for a time. 

There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way forthem, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was notspoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted. Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and Isuppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized howthoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodilypresence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond andBarbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted forsomething; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wishedand meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers wereto carry out. 

But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was notquite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each herown sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by theaccepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard;why shouldn't they--the Holabirds--settle anything? Ruth hated to havetheirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. Sothis morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what hadhappened. 

Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "downstreet" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably. At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion, --

"Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should likeyou to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing. There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times nowamong ourselves. "

Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regularinviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; butshe knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, andthat the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that theend of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she shouldplay, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her ateleven o'clock. 

She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know, --perhaps; butshe hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expecther, " and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now. 

She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like tohear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she wouldvery likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo, " and modestlyacknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment. She would remember higher reason, also, than the _quid pro quo_; shewould try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; butit puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Wouldthey like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go?And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?--shethe very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose andBarbara; though Barbara said _they_ "never 'came' out, --they justleaked out. "

That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them, with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or powerof hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, shewould not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone toher sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that shecould repay into the household that had given itself to her like aborn home. 

She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, asat first she meant to do. 

But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls"means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" inher heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out ofthemselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turnsinto a plural. 

Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and herelbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell ofgrass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird'sfive-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like somenew, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous lazinessupon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, throughher own room and saw her there. 

Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill ofpleasantness. Her home had _expressed_ itself here, as it had neverdone anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshinyroominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and herdaughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearnessin which her love and her wish for them held them always. 

It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but thegenerous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you lookedthrough, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glasshouse" so long. 

The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows ateither end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the longmirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels inthe town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were hereput, quite elegantly tall, --the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above herdaintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great squaretrunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else, dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes andcushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room, "opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and atnight, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back andforth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided, gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; sothat Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning intheir busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you wereall lit up. "

"We had one candle apiece, " Barbara would answer, very concisely. 

"I do wish all our windows didn't look Mrs. Roderick's way, " Rosamondsaid once, after she had gone. 

"And that she _didn't_ have to come through our clothes-yard of aMonday morning, to see just how many white skirts we have in thewash, " added Barbara. 

But this is off the track. 

"What is it, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Holabird, as she came in upon thelittle figure in the white chair, midway in the long light through theopen rooms. "You didn't really mind Stephen, did you?"

"O no, indeed, aunt! I was only thinking out things. I believe I'vedone, pretty nearly. I guess I sha'n't go. I wanted to make sure Iwasn't provoked. "

"You're talking from where you left off, aren't you, Ruthie?"

"Yes, I guess so, " said Ruth, laughing. "It seems like talking righton, --doesn't it?--when you speak suddenly out of a 'think. ' I wonderwhat _alone_ really means. It doesn't ever quite seem alone. Somethingthinks alongside always, or else you couldn't keep it up. "

"Are you making an essay on metaphysics? You're a queer little Ruth. "

"Am I?" Ruth laughed again. "I can't help it. It _does_ answer back. "

"And what was the answer about this time?"

That was how Ruth came to let it out. 

"About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything, though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And theymight have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as yousaid, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I--needn't. I mean, Iknew right off that I _didn't_. "

Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of herthinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand theolder idiom, just as they do baby-talk, --by the same heart-key. Sheknew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to. "

"You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them beginwith me so. "

"You're a very sagacious little Ruth, " said Mrs. Holabird, affectionately. "And a very generous one. "

"No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rathernice to settle that I _can_ be contrary. I don't like to bepat-a-caked. "

She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood. 

The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, toask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas. 

Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be thebusy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was notwilling, but that when she _was_ at leisure she looked as though shealways had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambricmorning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of littlefancy slippers, --(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; shehad half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, andbeading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on toany stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body, in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at thelast point of morning freshness, --chairs and tables and books in themost charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower invase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among theothers, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and toreceive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be aslikely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her"points, "--as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak atthe heels and going at the sides, and kept their original characteronly by these embellishments upon the instep, --and to have dumpedherself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind thegreen blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in someirresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend. 

Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and wouldstay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, withunexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater inthe other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation. "

Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or ifMiss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens andLeslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake, and why should they be ashamed of it?"

Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, butthey could not bring them down stairs for parlor work. "

"That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, shewould make up hers all over the house, just where there was the mostfun. She hated pretences, and being fine. "

Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming;for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer anda very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down therein the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and tocall Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from thekitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward thebig trees. 

Somebody overtook and joined them there, --somebody in a dark gray suitand bright buttons. 

"Why, that, " cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, looking after them, --"that must be the brother from West Point theInglesides expected, --that young Dakie Thayne!"

It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and werewalking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had notbeen she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. Marchbanks's?

[Illustration]

Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. 

"I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not thinkI could come. I am the youngest, you see, " she said with a smile, "andI don't go out very much, except with my--cousins. "

"Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters. "

"It is all the same, " said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch mybreath a little before I say 'cousins. '"

"Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemedbent upon driving his questions home. 

"O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company. "

"Wasn't it?"

The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional;Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little--justa line or two--as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. 

Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at WestPoint were not all his experience; and he knew what queer littlewheels were turned sometimes. 

He had just come to Z---- (I must have a letter for my nameless town, and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up acrooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got amonginterested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what heexcelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; andit was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr. Ingleside, had come to Z----, to take the vacant practice of an oldphysician, disabled from continuing it. 

Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends;almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor. 

Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for oneolder, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one justlike her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, fromthe little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of theirpretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh, springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautifulflowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as shehad grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central ormost brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helpedand touched and perfected all. 

There was something very real and individual about her; she was no"girl of the period, " made up by the fashion of the day. She wouldhave grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the firstquarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly"sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showeditself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as tosimpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in hertwentieth year now, which sounds--didn't somebody say so over myshoulder?--so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her thatshe had "stayed fifteen. "

She _looked_ real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with somegraceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all beenfreshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightlyaround her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put onlike a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that andeverything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck;and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you couldtrace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex andbewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds andfestoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked moreas young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmakerseven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit, " and the publicpromenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiringminds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all thesewing, and where the hair all comes from. 

Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked tobe odd; she took pains to be. " This was not true; she began with theprevailing fashion--the fundamental idea of it--always, when she had anew thing; but she modified and curtailed, --something was sure to stopher somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that theynever stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago, "something always got crowded out. " She had other work to do, and shemust choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satinfolds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to usedifferently; the dress was never the first and the _must be_; so itcame by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode;and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker, " as she called it, were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided. 

It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questionsthat had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago, that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them halfunconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the"outside, " which is setting more and more between us and our realliving, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer putready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world. 

Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how"achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits ofembroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, andthe weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done forthem, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling ofLeslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off initself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figuredit. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Lesliehad said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the merebuying. 

Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the littlevines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creepingMitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniaturegrace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty toput in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helpedRose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grewhigher up. 

Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with thefragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was fullof bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, asif there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the greatsunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings"came, " and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, likea flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of courseone had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off likea bird or a bee right after breakfast, --that was living; that was theIrishman's blessing, --'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'"

"Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the mostmagnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what therewould be to give them all if they did, as they came round under thepiazza basement, and up to the front portico. 

They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs. Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner. 

Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azaleabranches, and looking "awfully pretty, " as Dakie Thayne saidafterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of. 

The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in ahurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't gotthe table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead ofparallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrorswhich she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent. 

Barbara stood behind the blind. 

"The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook rightout of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, andhas eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's DakieThayne?"

"Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?"

"O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!"

"It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he'snice, --ever so nice. "

"It's a case of Outledge, Leslie, " Dakie Thayne said, going down thehill. "They treat those girls--amphibiously!"

"Well, " returned Leslie, laughing, "_I'm_ amphibious. I live in thetown, and I _can_ come out--and not die--on the Hill. I like it. Ialways thought that kind of animal had the nicest time. "

They met Alice Marchbanks with her cousin Maud, coming up. 

"We've been to see the Holabirds, " said Dakie Thayne, right off. 

"I wonder why that little Ruth didn't come last night? We reallywanted her, " said Alice to Leslie Goldthwaite. 

"For batrachian reasons, I believe, " put in Dakie, full of fun. "Sheisn't quite amphibious yet. She don't come out from under water. Thatis, she's young, and doesn't go alone. She told me so. "

You needn't keep asking how we know! Things that belong get together. People who tell a story see round corners. 

The next morning Maud Marchbanks came over, and asked us all to playcroquet and drink tea with them that evening, with the Goldthwaitesand the Haddens. 

"We're growing very gay and multitudinous, " she said, graciously. 

"The midshipman's got home, --Harry Goldthwaite, you know. "

Ruth was glad, then, that mother knew; she had the girls' pride in herown keeping; there was no responsibility of telling or withholding. But she was glad also that she had not gone last night. 

When we went up stairs at bedtime, Rosamond asked Barbara the old, inevitable question, --

"What have you got to wear, Barb, to-morrow night, --that's ready?"

And Barbara gave, in substance, the usual unperturbed answer, "Not adud!"

But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt onpurpose to lend to Barbara. If she had _given_ it, there would havebeen the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist, and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirtsthat were _over with_, before the new fashion came. 

Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big worldto-morrow there would be something that she could pick up. 

It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it _was_ one of our ways atWestover. 

CHAPTER III. 

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 

Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds. 

Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond. 

Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head. 

And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were tocarry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus. 

You have thus the three heads of the present chapter. 

How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In thefirst place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name, --"a makingfor anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstandingShakespeare. 

It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming andsweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with gleeand grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke toher suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy, all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready tocatch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you inreturn, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of lifeand pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of herface lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised uponits stalk. She was _like_ a flower chatting with a breeze. 

She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; butshe had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it;and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of herhead any painful, conscious question of how she _was_ seeming. That, and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her mannerswhat Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them, --"exquisite. "

That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep;hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them. 

She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they hadeverybody round them. All the people in the room were saying howlovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed agreat and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It waspleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just aslovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to belovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood onthat same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just aspretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and itmeant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have herstand right there, and look just so, to-night. 

In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to hergrander, --another girl, in another corner, looking on, --a girl with avery homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. Shelooked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in herprettiness; _she_ looked as if she had put herself away, comfortablysatisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere. Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by. 

"I do think, " she said, --"don't you?--it's just the bravest andstrongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, andto go right on and have a good time just the same;--_every day_, yousee, right through everything! I think such people must be splendidinside!"

"The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that, " saidLeslie. "And she was fifty years old too. "

"Well, " said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years, "it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I shouldlike--just once--to look beautiful at a party!"

The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea. 

Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaitewere on one side, and they led off their whole party, goingnonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not helpit; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling eachother along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and camedown into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and thewhole game in their hands on their own part. 

"It was a handsome thing to see, for once, " Dakie Thayne said; "butthey might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on thesame side again. "

It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted awayfor the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, thatHarry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil. "

[Illustration]

Barbara shook her head. What was it?

"It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it tous. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plainenough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are tenrings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is tostring them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certaindistance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and youplay as many rounds as you may agree upon. "

Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly. 

"Have you told anybody else of that?"

"Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while. "

"Would you just please, then, " said Barbara in a hurry, as somebodycame down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let mehave it all to myself for a while? And then, " she added, as the strayball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it, "come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing, you see, to get anything that's new. "

"I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right, --isn't that whatthey make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famousout of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought tobe, which is the same thing. " It was Barbara's turn now; she hit HarryGoldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, puttingthe two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollickinginto the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle wastaking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody wasthere in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposingparty was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between themagain. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. After one "distant, random gun, " from the discomfited foe, Harryrolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over. 

It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance wasre-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an oldremembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school andgiven her half his marbles for a parting keepsake, --"as he might havedone, " we told her, "to any other boy. "

"Ruth hasn't had a good time, " said mother, softly, standing in herdoor, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pullingdown hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter atbedtime. 

Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, asif she could not get into that place without her considering-fitcoming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, andher eyes away out over the moonlighted fields. 

"She played all the evening, nearly. She always does, " said Barbara. 

"Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out ofher cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all theevening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook, ' aunt; and the music_splashes_ so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering itall over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!"

"The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober, " said Mrs. Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair. "I've known good times do that. "

"It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in myhead, 'going on forever--ever! _go_-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth brokeinto the joyous refrain of the song as she ended. 

"I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!"Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to themother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother, " you see; itwas only when she wanted a very dear word. 

"We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can findin the bottomless piece-bag, " Barbara was saying, at the same moment, in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for thebowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes oncein a while. It's going to be just--splend-umphant!"

"If you don't go and talk about it, " said Rosamond. "We _must_ keepthe new of it to ourselves. "

"As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up HarryGoldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doinganything but just give you that awful little pinch!"

"That was bad enough, " said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross orinelegantly excited about anything. "But I _do_ think the girls willlike it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza. "

"That is bare floor too, " said Barbara, mischievously. 

Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The darknew boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had beenreal oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny. "

Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-musicflittering in her brain. 

Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden abouther playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, althoughthey said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that herfingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the rightpoints. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to _see_ Ruth Holabird play, aswell as she did to hear her. 

But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almostanything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what sheshould do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gavelessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularlyto Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his beingcross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy andsensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to beafraid. 

Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba, except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred ateacher to come to the house. 

"A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style fromthe very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away, "said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and saidsomething, and drew her off. 

Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetismthat guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes werestruck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own. 

"If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really wouldhave me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr. Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could showanybody what I know, --and if they like that!"

It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up withthe "forever--ever, " and the dropping tinkle of that lovely tremblingripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the southand slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmeringlittle ghost in the arm-chair. 

Ruth came down late to breakfast. 

Barbara was pushing back her chair. 

"Mother, --or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm goingout for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning. "

"And talked off, doesn't it? I'm afraid my errand would need to bewith Mrs. Goldthwaite or Mrs. Hadden, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can'tyou come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!"

"That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose. 

"I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy, when we played with him so. "

"I suppose they all used to be, " said Rose, demurely. 

"Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, aboutthose--patent rights. I dare say they'll come up. "

"I've no doubt, " said Rosamond. 

"I wish you _would_ both go away somewhere, " said Ruth, as Mrs. Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret, and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast. "

"I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner, " said Mrs. Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls hadgone away. 

"I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something thatwould just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my headlast night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right upbehind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised myplaying; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbankswants a--" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that wascoming--"_lady_-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba. There, mother. It's in _your_ head now! Please turn it over with anice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that youbelieve perhaps I could!"

By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her twohands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down uponone of the hands, holding it so, caressingly. 

"I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I _wouldn't_ just as lief!I would liefer you should have all you need without. "

"I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!"

"That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in uponthe last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being goodfor them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both. "

"O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception ofdifficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether shecould, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "_Don't_ you--or Rose--callit names, Barbara, please, will you?"

"Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and sennaare different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, byyour putting her in that anxious parenthesis. "

"I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's--"

"Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfullyquiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retainme on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, andgive me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand. "

Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara. 

"I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. LewisMarchbanks would let me teach the children. "

"Teach the children! What?"

"O, music, of course. That's all I know, pretty much. And--make Roseunderstand. "

"Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like_it_. "

"Will you do just those two things?"

"It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part?I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It'ssuch a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if wemade it a regular family delegation--besides, it will take as much asall me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Lastnight's twilight isn't over. And it's funny _we_'ve plans too; _we_'regoing to give lessons, --differently; we're going to lead off, foronce, --we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chimein. It _may_ make things--Holabirdy. "

Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What shesaid, therefore, when she was told, was, --

"O dear! I suppose it is right! But--just now! Right things do come inso terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broadaisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?"

"And then somebody else would get the chance. "

"There's nobody else to be had. "

"Nobody knows till somebody starts up. They don't know there's _me_ tobe had yet. "

"O Ruth! Don't offer to teach grammar, anyhow!"

"I don't know. I might. I shouldn't _teach_ it 'anyhow. '"

Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-halfof her point. 

Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs. Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down. 

She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind andold-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had herjustification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and shemust take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clewright end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she hadhappened to think of it. 

"Good morning, " said the great lady, graciously, wondering not alittle what had brought the child, in this unceremonious earlyfashion, to ask for her. 

"I came, " said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "becauseI heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking myplaying; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought, perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it, and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessonsmyself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night. "

Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight throughwhatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond towhat she had at the moment in herself. She had real _self-possession_;because she did not let herself be magnetized into a falseconsciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak accordingto their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they wouldthink of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond couldnot help _feeling her double_, --Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That waswhat Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home. 

The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it isnot, there is no use any way. 

Mrs. Marchbanks smiled. 

"Does Mrs. Holabird know?"

"O yes; she always knows. "

There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs. Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been veryfrank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhatdifferent. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made;perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have beensensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all. 

"But you see, my dear, that _your_ having a pupil could not be quiteequal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one wouldnot quite provide for the other. "

"O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs. Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I couldteach two quarters, I could take one. "

"You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman. Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have reallya charming style. But whether you could _impart_ it, --that is adifferent capacity. "

"I am pretty good at showing how, " said Ruth. "I think I could makeher understand all I do. "

"Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any ladywho would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, Iwill pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have twothirds of Viertelnote's price. "

"O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter Icould begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another. "

"I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on, " said Mrs. Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she mighthave said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whomshe meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not twopersons, --one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected tobe treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quiteintent upon her purpose. 

If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so. 

"You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she. 

Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step, springing to a soundless rhythm. 

She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza, winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, andtying them with knots of ribbon. 

Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it uphimself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hangingupon his arms like bangles. 

They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at thefirst asking. 

It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take theplates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across herarm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate uponanother in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered agood deal, and dropped the salt-spoons. 

Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutelybeautiful repose. 

Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to comenext day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with alittle gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in thebrown room with tears in her eyes. 

"It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To havejust one wretched girl to do everything!"

"Especially, " said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always_will_ do it at dinner-time. "

"It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear, " said Rose. "To haveto do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and tosee their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfectserving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life'(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); andthen to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what oughtto be as she does, --it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather notknow, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!"

Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with thesethings. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what wasbeautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it_every day_, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances, more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they werequite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better thanwhen guests came and divided her attention. 

Ruth went over to where she sat. 

"Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in theshading-off, you know. That helps both ways. "

"It's a miserable indefiniteness, though. "

"No, it isn't, " said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I likeit. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines. 'You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. Andpeople that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark. ' It's theedge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixtand between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor dropall the spoons. "

CHAPTER IV. 

NEXT THINGS. 

Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itselfinto Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought ofit; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to bedelicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of highpropriety. 

Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up thecake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it wastime, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave allsorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table(the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, andreplaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the cornerbetween the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza. 

The table was bright with pretty silver--not too much--and best glassand delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls andthe thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that afork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red andwhite, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and goldenbrown. 

The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside;Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth andBarbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back andforth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help. 

Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonderswithout realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throubleat ahl to have company. "

But before the tea was the new game. 

It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually donehigher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventionsfor the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent intheir turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how itwould fall out, --whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would taketo it, or whether it would drop right there. 

"They _may_ 'take it off your hands, my dear, '" suggested theremorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs. Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltictrade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected. 

Rose was loftily silent; she would not have _said_ that to her veryself; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on, --throughHarry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty. 

Does this seem _very_ bare worldly scheming among young girls whoshould simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you ifwe did not know; it _begins_ right there among them, in just suchthings as these; and our day and our life are full of it. 

The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, assoon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds couldnot be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and theircoffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside allthat was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turningall the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But ifanything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, itwas so easy to receive it among the established and every-dayelegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and soadopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairlyforget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough?Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it. 

The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for theyoung men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each inturn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gaylywreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm likegarlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to tossthem one by one through the air with a motion of more or lessinevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew witheach succeeding trial. 

They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they mightventure upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin andreferences. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; ithad proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do. 

By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wideend steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuitsbegan to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as ifit had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having asgenuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it. 

And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure andvery different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, thanfrom those of a city confectioner and the most professed of privatecooks. 

It all went off and ended in a glory, --the glory of the sun pouringgreat backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith, and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slowforth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and bythey had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. Itwas the one magnificence of their house, --this high, spacious terrace;Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ tobuild the wood-house under it. 

After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than ourhome, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able tobecome before. 

They might have transplanted the game, --they did take slips fromit, --and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; butthey could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, andpractise "coil, " or make some other plan or errand; and so there cameto be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the othergirls wanted it, they had to come where it was. 

Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her. 

Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "theHolabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark didnot come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile theposition remained the same. 

It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the familyagain, one evening. 

"I wish, " she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggestingsomething utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could askLucilla Waters up here for a little visit. "

The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days togetherat each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach, and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up tothe Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddenswould stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day, and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees ofintimacy: that which took tea, --that which came in of a morning andstayed to lunch, --and that which was kept over night without plan orceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do suchthings without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed tous sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so asthat we might. 

"I wish, " said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here. "

"My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "Whatfor?"

"Why, I think she'd like it, " answered Ruth. 

"Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too, " responded Rose, ina deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. 

Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamondsuggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing howto dispose of the thought since she had got it. 

Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs. Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some prettyknitting, --making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten himat the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intentthought. 

She made up her mind presently, --partly at least, --and spoke again. "Idon't believe, " she said, "that it would be the next thing for ArcturaFish. "

Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line ortwo. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" heasked. 

"It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't, " repliedRuth. 

"It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing, " said DakieThayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it. "

"That's where only one _can_ have it at a time, " said Ruth. "Thesethings are different. "

"'Next things' interfere occasionally, " said Barbara. "Next things up, and next things down. "

"I don't know, " said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "Isuppose people wouldn't naturally--it can't be meant they should--walkright away from their own opportunities. "

Ruth laughed, --not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work. 

Dakie Thayne leaned back. 

"What, --if you please, --Miss Ruth?"

"I was thinking of the opportunities _down_, " Ruth answered. 

It was several days after this that the young party drifted togetheragain, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstynehad walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was shewho suggested it. 

"Why don't you have regular practisings, " said she, "and then ameeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games fora prize? They would do nicely together. "

Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch theproject here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once. 

But Dakie Thayne broke in. 

"Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea. "

"Ideas are rather apt to be that, " said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It isthe carrying out, you see. "

"Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organizewhat we are doing as it is. "

"But the minute you _do_ organize! You don't know how difficult it isin a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as yougo beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where tostop. "

"Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright, good-natured way that no one could take it amiss. 

"Well, yes, to skip, " said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don'tgo straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people, --downthe hill and into the town. "

"We talked it over, " said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts. "There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before. 

"O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it, " said LeslieGoldthwaite, quick and pleased. 

"Her ups and downs are just like yours, " said Dakie Thayne to RuthHolabird. 

It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gaveher an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so. She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite. 

"O, they _won't_ exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, withan air of high free-masonry. 

"Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely. 

"Suit, " replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward withoutany air at all. 

"Really, we have tried it since they came, " said Adelaide, "thoughwhat people _come_ for is the question, I think, when there isn'tanything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then ithas to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask themto pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said shehoped she would come often, and let _the girls_ run in and besociable! And Grace Hobart says '_she_ hasn't got tired ofcroquet, --she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr. Thayne. "

"Oh! that's very bad, " said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness. 

"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfullystiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than, --out quite loud, across everything, --'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they neverdid; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'"

"Plucky, anyhow, " said Harry Goldthwaite. 

"I don't think they meant to be rude, " said Elinor Hadden. "I thinkthey really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. Theydidn't know _what_ to say. "

"Evidently, " said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished inthat way very often. "

"I shouldn't mind having them, " said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They arekind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out. "

"That is just what stopped us, " said Adelaide. "That is just what theneighborhood is getting to be, --full of people that you don't knowwhat to do with. "

"I don't see why we _need_ to go out of our own set, " said Olivia. 

"O dear! O dear!"

It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they allturned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitementsmade her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It hadbeen growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and nowshe caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her faceto Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehowclearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard. 

"What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!"

Then she knew by the hush that _she_ had astonished them, and she grewfrightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink;for she still felt just as she did when the words came. 

Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh. 

"We can't go quite back to that, every time, " she said. "And we don'tquite set up to be angels. Come, --try one more round. "

And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned topick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to doit for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiargrace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch moredexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly sliddenover upon the rest. 

[Illustration]

Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had notbeen for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up theparty. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hourlonger. 

Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said toLeslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Rebawill be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask. "

But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across thegrounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; butthey kept on up over the hill. 

"Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I couldnot help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute. "

"About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in thefront, " said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched. "

"They would have thought it was from what I had said, " Ruth answered. "And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_. "

"_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of yourlip. I saw it. "

"Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if Ihad spoken then. "

"I'm always sorry for people who don't know how, " said Ruth. "I'm sureI don't know how myself so often. "

"That is just it, " said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up?And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find outthese mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions:picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kindof leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in thelump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?"

"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all, " saidRuth. 

"Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything, " said Leslie. "Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seemsto me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down. "

"Only there would be no end to it, " said Dakie Thayne, "would there?There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in justfor the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?"

"Just _be_ nice, I think, " said Leslie. "Nicer with those people thanwith anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made aboutit, --if there weren't any keeping out, --they would tire of theniceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is thefence that keeps out weeds. "

"You are just like Mrs. Ingleside, " said Ruth, walking closer toLeslie as she spoke. 

"And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose Ishould ever find many more of them, but they're counting up, " saidDakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, afterall. "

"If there really is any best society, " pursued Leslie, "it seems to meit ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybodyin as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven. "

"Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come, " said Dakie Thayne. 

It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arisecontinually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for theHolabirds were nearer next than ever before. 

"We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her, " said mother, one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, andshe was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes andinterruptions have put back the sewing so lately. "

"We ought not to have been idle so much, " said Barbara. "We've been afamily of grasshoppers all summer. "

"Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it, "said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and bebusy. "

"If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. 

"Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes rightinto the kitchen with the other servants. "

"I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her, "said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen. "

"Barbara, you're a plague!"

"Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should beexalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office. "

"In the way we live, " said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really moreconvenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; andbesides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of lifeto a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well asnot, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with'other servants. ' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies, and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst ofmeasuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; whyshouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures andgores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is toonice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her'crowd. '"

"But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready tobe familiar with common people. More in us, because we do liveplainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind_without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things. "

"But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenientfor them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, orseem, a condescension. We are the 'very next, ' and we must be contentto be the step we are. "

"It's the other thing with us, --con-_as_cension, --isn't it, mother? Astep up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Inglesidedoes it, " Ruth added. 

"O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has _that_ sort ofposition. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high socialcan do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful. "

"What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of theworld!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialtyamong us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of theWoman Question; 'all woman, and no question, ' as mother says; we shallnever preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and wewon't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless--and Iwonder if maybe that isn't it?--we just do two or three rather rightthings in a no-particular sort of a way. "

"Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth. 

"No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me. "

"We never have company when we are having sewing done, " said Mrs. Holabird. "We can always manage that. "

"I don't want to play Box and Cox, " said Rosamond. 

"That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "Youdon't want to _play_ anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clearand diamond bright!"

CHAPTER V. 

THE "BACK YETT AJEE. "

Those who do not like common people need not read this chapter. 

We had Delia Waite the next week. It happened well, in a sort ofBox-and-Cox fashion; for Mrs. Van Alstyne went off with some friendsto the Isles of Shoals, and Alice and Adelaide Marchbanks went withher; so that we knew we should see nothing of the two great familiesfor a good many days; and when Leslie came, or the Haddens, we did notso much mind; besides, they knew that we were busy, and they did notexpect any "coil" got up for them. Leslie came right up stairs, whenshe was alone; if Harry or Mr. Thayne were with her, one of us wouldtake a wristband or a bit of ruffling, and go down. Somehow, if ithappened to be Harry, Barbara was always tumultuously busy, and neveroffered to receive: but it always ended in Rosamond's making her. Itseemed to be one of the things that people wait to be overcome intheir objections to. 

We always had a snug, cosey time when Delia was with us; we were allsimple and busy, and the work was getting on; that was such anunder-satisfaction; and Delia was having such a good time. She hardlyever failed to come to us when we wanted her; she could always makesome arrangement. 

Ruth was artful; she tucked in Lucilla Waters, after all; she said itwould be such a nice chance to have her; she knew she would rathercome when we were by ourselves, and especially when we had our workand patterns about. Lucilla brought a sack and an overskirt to make;she could hardly have been spared if she had had to bring mere idlework. She sewed in gathers upon the shirts for mother, while Delia cutout her pretty material in a style she had not seen. If we had hadgrasshopper parties all summer before, this was certainly a bee, and Ithink we all really liked it just as well as the other. 

We had the comfort of mother's great, airy room, now, as we had nevereven realized it before. Everybody had a window to sit at;green-shaded with closed blinds for the most part; but that is sobeautiful in summer, when the out-of-doors comes brimming in withscent and sound, and we know how glorious it is if we choose to opento it, and how glorious it is going to be when we do throw all wide inthe cooling afternoon. 

"How glad I am we _have_ to have busy weeks sometimes!" said Ruth, stopping the little "common-sense" for an instant, while she tossed along flouncing over her sewing-table. "I know now why people whonever do their own work are obliged to go away from home for a change. It must be dreadfully same if they didn't. I like a book full ofdifferent stories!"

Lucilla Waters lives down in the heart of the town. So does LeslieGoldthwaite, to be sure; but then Mr. Goldthwaite's is one of the old, old-fashioned houses that were built when the town was country, andthat has its great yard full of trees and flowers around it now; andMrs. Waters lives in a block, flat-face to the street, with nothingpretty outside, and not very much in; for they have never been rich, the Waterses, and Mr. Waters died ten years ago, when Lucilla was alittle child. Lucilla and her mother keep a little children's school;but it was vacation now, of course. 

Lucilla is in Mrs. Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and thenthe rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service, --or, rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little"schooling, "--the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. Ingleside, --until she shall have "learned how, " and be "worth wages. "

Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern ofLucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or HelenJosselyn, --Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her somuch, --or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes _just next_. She can just reach up to her. She can see how she does up her hair, insomething approaching the new way, leaning back behind her in theclass and tracing out the twists between the questions; for Lucillacan only afford to use her own, and a few strands of harmless Berlinwool under it; she can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats, orintricacies ready made up at the--upholsterer's, I was going to say. So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement tolittle Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herselflook lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just likeLucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; whenshe reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently. 

Ruth gave up her little white room to Delia Waite, and went to sleepwith Lucilla in the great, square east room. 

Delia Waite thought a great deal of this; and it was wonderful hownobody could ever get a peep at the room when it looked as if anythingin it had been used or touched. Ruth is pretty nice about it; but shecannot keep it so _sacredly_ fair and pure as Delia did for her. Onlyone thing showed. 

"I say, " said Stephen, one morning, sliding by Ruth on the stair-railas they came down to breakfast, "do you look after that _piousosity_, now, mornings?"

"No, " said Ruth, laughing, "of course I can't. "

"It's always whopped, " said Stephen, sententiously. 

Barbara got up some of her special cookery in these days. Not her veryfinest, out of Miss Leslie; she said that was too much like the foxand the crane, when Lucilla asked for the receipts. It wasn't fair togive a taste of things that we ourselves could only have for verybest, and send people home to wish for them. But she made some of her"griddles trimmed with lace, " as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed;the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. Andanother time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushedgolden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beatenalmost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, afew spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, and delicately with pepper, --the oven doing the rest, and turning itinto a snowy soufflé. 

Barbara said we had none of us a specialty; she knew better; only herswas a very womanly and old-fashioned, not to say kitcheny one; andwould be quite at a discount when the grand co-operative kitchensshould come into play; for who cares to put one's genius into theuniversal and indiscriminate mouth, or make potato-soufflés to becarried half a mile to the table?

Barbara delighted to "make company" of seamstress week; "it was sonice, " she said, "to entertain somebody who thought 'chickings was'evingly. '"

Rosamond liked that part of it; she enjoyed giving pleasure no lessthan any; but she had a secret misgiving that we were being veryvulgarly comfortable in an underhand way. She would never, by anymeans, go off by herself to eat with her fingers. 

Delia Waite said she never came to our house that she did not get somenew ideas to carry home to Arabel. 

Arabel Waite was fifty years old, or more; she was the oldest child ofone marriage and Delia the youngest of another. All the Waites betweenthem had dropped away, --out of the world, or into homes here and thereof their own, --and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ranup small. 

Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker. She _could_ make two skirts to adress, one shorter, the other longer; and she could cut out the upperone by any new paper pattern; and she could make shell-trimmings andflutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them onexquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adaptedherself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a biasto save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leavethe rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest ofwooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Deliasewed with her, abroad and at home, --abroad without her, also, as shewas doing now for us. A pattern for a sleeve, or a cape, or apanier, --or a receipt for a tea-biscuit or a johnny-cake, wassomething to go home with rejoicing. 

Arabel Waite and Delia could only use three rooms of the old house;the rest was blinded and shut up; the garret was given over to thesquirrels, who came in from the great butternut-trees in the yard, andstowed away their rich provision under the eaves and away down betweenthe walls, and grew fat there all winter, and frolicked like a troopof horse. We liked to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all theother queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a wayof living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as astory. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her theatmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away intheir by-places, and stories of the far past that had been livedthere, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packedinto trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, where there hadbeen parties once, and weddings and funerals and children's games innurseries; and strange fellowship of little wild things that strayedin now, --bees in summer, and squirrels in winter, --and brought thewoods and fields with them under the old roof. Why, I think we shouldhave missed it more than she would, if we had put her into some backroom, and poked her sewing in at her, and left her to herself!

The only thing that wasn't nice that week was Aunt Roderick comingover one morning in the very thick of our work, and Lucilla's too, walking straight up stairs, as aunts can, whether you want them ornot, and standing astonished at the great goings-on. 

"Well!" she exclaimed, with a strong falling inflection, "are any ofyou getting ready to be married?"

"Yes'm, " said Barbara, gravely, handing her a chair. "All of us. "

Then Barbara made rather an unnecessary parade of ribbon that she wasquilling up, and of black lace that was to go each side of it upon alittle round jacket for her blue silk dress, made of a piece laid awayfive years ago, when she first had it. The skirt was turned now, andthe waist was gone. 

While Aunt Roderick was there, she also took occasion to toss over, more or less, everything that lay about, --"to help her in herinventory, " she said after she went away. 

"Twelve new embroidered cambric handkerchiefs, " repeated she, as sheturned back from the stair-head, having seen Aunt Roderick down. 

Barbara had once, in a severe fit of needle-industry, inspired by thediscovery of two baby robes of linen cambric among mother's oldtreasures, and their bestowal upon her, turned them into theseelegances, broadly hemmed with the finest machine stitch, and markedwith beautiful great B's in the corners. She showed them, in herpride, to Mrs. Roderick; and we knew afterward what her abstractreport had been, in Grandfather Holabird's hearing. GrandfatherHolabird knew we did without a good many things; but he had animpression of us, from instances like these, that we were seized withsudden spasms of recklessness at times, and rushed into Frenchembroideries and sets of jewelry. I believe he heard of mother's onehandsome black silk, every time she wore it upon semiannual occasions, until he would have said that Mrs. Stephen had a new fifty-dollardress every six months. This was one of our little family trials. 

"I don't think Mrs. Roderick does it on purpose, " Ruth would say. "Ithink there are two things that make her talk in that way. In thefirst place, she has got into the habit of carrying home all the newsshe can, and making it as big as possible, to amuse Mr. Holabird; andthen she has to settle it over in her own mind, every once in a while, that things must be pretty comfortable amongst us, down here, afterall. "

Ruth never dreamed of being satirical; it was a perfectlystraightforward explanation; and it showed, she truly believed, twoquite kind and considerate points in Aunt Roderick's character. 

After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstynewent down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors, --peoplewhom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the _hautevolée_ was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of ourown life once more. 

"It's rather nice to knit on straight, " said Barbara; "without anywidening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well tocome to a plain place. "

Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but sheaccommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she couldbe. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put onanything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. Shewould have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-patternthat could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing whichmother taught us all. 

"Your life will come to you; you need not run after it, " she wouldsay, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way outof the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, and then you can take the chances as they arrive. "

"Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows, " Barbaraonce replied. 

"No, " said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. Agreat deal that is good--a great deal of the best--comes in at theback-doors. "

Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as wedid. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses. 

Our "back yett was ajee, " now, at any rate. 

Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so didher cousin and Dakie. [Footnote: Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin, and Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have everthought to put this in before. ]

Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sendingfor old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day. 

Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and fiveyears ago, was christened "Beatrix. " She plays backgammon in thetwilights, with mother, and makes a table at whist, at once lively andsevere, in the evenings, for father. At this whist-table, Barbarausually is the fourth. Rosamond gets sleepy over it, and Ruth--MissTrixie says--"plays like a ninkum. "

We always wanted Miss Trixie, somehow, to complete comfort, when wewere especially comfortable by ourselves; when we had somethingparticularly good for dinner, or found ourselves set cheerilydown for a long day at quiet work, with everything early-niceabout us; or when we were going to make something "contrive-y, ""Swiss-family-Robinson-ish, " that got us all together over it, in thehilarity of enterprise and the zeal of acquisition. Miss Trixie couldappreciate homely cleverness; darning of carpets and covering of oldfurniture; she could darn a carpet herself, so as almost to improveupon--certainly to supplant--the original pattern. Yet she always hada fresh amazement for all our performances, as if nothing notable hadever been done before, and a personal delight in every one of ourimprovements, as if they had been her own. "We're just as cosey as wecan be, already, --it isn't that; but we want somebody to tell us howcosey we are. Let's get Miss Trixie to-day, " says Barbara. 

Once was when the new drugget went down, at last, in the dining-room. It was tan-color, bound with crimson, --covering three square yards;and mother nailed it down with brass-headed tacks, right afterbreakfast, one cool morning. Then Katty washed up the darkfloor-margin, and the table had its crimson-striped cloth on, andmother brought down the brown stuff for the new sofa-cover, and thegreat bunch of crimson braid to bind that with, and we drew up ourcamp-chairs and crickets, and got ready to be busy and jolly, and tohave a brand-new piece of furniture before night. 

Barbara had made peach-dumpling for dinner, and of course Aunt Trixiewas the last and crowning suggestion. It was not far to send, and shewas not long in coming, with her second-best cap pinned up in ahandkerchief, and her knitting-work and her spectacles in her bag. 

The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor hadMiss Trixies to spend the day. That was because they had no back-doorto their house. 

I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story. Thereare; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to dowith our story every day; but we don't mean to tell you all _their_stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meetthem in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, althoughwe know very well also that passing introductions are going out offashion. 

We had Dakie Thayne's last visit that day, in the midst of thehammering and binding. Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she cameback from her hour with Reba Hadden. It was to bid us good by; hisfurlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday. 

[Illustration]

"Another two years' pull, " he said. "Won't you all come to West Pointnext summer?"

"If we take the journey we think of, " said Barbara, composedly, --"tothe mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; andthen back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way toSaratoga and Niagara. We might keep on to West Point first, and have aday or two there. "

"Barbara, " said mother, remonstratingly. 

"Why? _Don't_ we think of it? I'm sure I do. I've thought of it tillI'm almost tired of it. I don't much believe we shall come, after all, Mr. Thayne. "

"We shall miss you very much, " said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara'snonsense. 

"Our summer has stopped right in the middle, " said Barbara, determinedto talk. 

"I shall hear about you all, " said Dakie Thayne. "There's to be aWestover column in Leslie's news. I wish--" and there the cadetstopped. 

Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry. 

"I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid thatwould be impertinent. When a fellow has only eight weeks in the yearof living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don't knowhow he hangs on to those eight weeks, --and how they hang on to himafterwards. "

Mother looked so motherly at him then!

"We shall not forget you--Dakie, " she said, using his first name forthe first time. "You shall have a message from us now and then. "

Dakie said, "Thank you, " in a tone that responded to her "Dakie. "

We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much. Homes and mothers arebeautiful things to boys who have had to do without them. 

He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go. He shook handsalso with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened tosee before. Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie, --as it was ourcordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do, --through the hall tothe door. Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room totake off her things. She stood there, up two steps, as they wereleaving. 

Dakie Thayne said good by again to Rosamond, at the door, as wasnatural; and then he came quite back, and said it last of all, oncemore, to little Ruth upon the stairs. He certainly did hate to go awayand leave us all. 

"That is a very remarkable pretty-behaved young man, " said MissTrixie, when we all picked up our breadths of waterproof, and got inbehind them again. 

"The world is a desert, and the sand has got into my eyes, " saidBarbara, who had hushed up ever since mother had said "Dakie. " Whenanybody came close to mother, Barbara was touched. I think her lovefor mother is more like a son's than a daughter's, in the sort ofchivalry it has with it. 

 * * * * *

It was curious how suddenly our little accession of social importancehad come on, and wonderful how quickly it had subsided; more curiousand wonderful still, how entirely it seemed to stay subsided. 

We had plenty to do, though; we did not miss anything; only we hadquite taken up with another set of things. This was the way it waswith us; we had things we _must_ take up; we could not have sparedtime to lead society for a long while together. 

Aunt Roderick claimed us, too, in our leisure hours, just then; shehad a niece come to stay with her; and we had to go over to the "oldhouse" and spend afternoons, and ask Aunt Roderick and Miss Bragdownein to tea with us. Aunt Roderick always expected this sort ofattention; and yet she had a way with her as if we ought not to try toafford things, looked scrutinizingly at the quality of our cake andpreserves, and seemed to eat our bread and butter with consideration. 

It helped Rosamond very much, though, over the transition. We, also, had had private occupation. 

"There had been family company at grandfather's, " she told JeannieHadden, one morning. "We had been very much engaged among ourselves. We had hardly seen anything of the other girls for two or threeweeks. "

Barbara sat at the round table, where Stephen had been doing hisgeometry last night, twirling a pair of pencil compasses about on asheet of paper, while this was saying. She lifted up her eyes alittle, cornerwise, without moving her head, and gave a twinkle ofmischief over at mother and Ruth. When Jeannie was gone, she kept onsilently, a few minutes, with her diagrams. Then she said, in herfunniest, repressed way, --

"I can see a little how it must be; but I suppose I ought tounderstand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles arewonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. Rose, when do you think we shall get round again?"

She held up her bit of paper as she spoke, scrawled over withintersecting circles and arcs and ellipses, against whose curves andcircumferences she had written names: Marchbanks, Hadden, Goldthwaite, Holabird. 

"It's a mere question of centre and radius, " she said. "You may be bigenough to take in the whole of them, or you may only cut in at thesides. You may be just tangent for a minute, and then go off intospace on your own account. You may have your centre barely inside of agreat ring, and yet reach pretty well out of it for a good part; you_must_ be small to be taken quite in by anybody's!"

"It doesn't illustrate, " said Rose, coolly. "Orbits don't snarl up inthat fashion. "

"Geometry does, " said Barbara. "I told you I couldn't work it all out. But I suppose there's a Q. E. D. At the end of it somewhere. "

 * * * * *

Two or three days after something new happened; an old thing happenedfreshly, rather, --which also had to do with our orbit and itseccentricities. Barbara, as usual, discovered and announced it. 

"I should think _any_ kind of an astronomer might be mad!" sheexclaimed. "Periods and distances are bad enough; but then come theperturbations! Here's one. We're used to it, to be sure; but we neverknow exactly where it may come in. The girl we live with has formedother views for herself, and is going off at a tangent. What _is_ thereason we can't keep a satellite, --planet, I mean?"

"Barbara!" said mother, anxiously, "don't be absurd!"

"Well, what shall I be? We're all out of a place again. " And she satdown resignedly on a very low cricket, in the middle of the room. 

"I'll tell you what we'll do, mother, " said Ruth, coming round. "I'vethought of it this good while. We'll co-operate!"

"She's glad of it! She's been waiting for a chance! I believe she putthe luminary up to it! Ruth, you're a brick--moon!"

CHAPTER VI. 

CO-OPERATING. 

When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said, right off, --

"I'm sure I wish they would!"

"Would what, mother?" asked Barbara. 

"Co-operate. "

"O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to theMicawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when theycome into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to youradvantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don'tbelieve '_they_' will ever do much for '_us_'!"

"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chairwink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine. 

Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivoryknitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably. 

"Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am, " said Barbara. 

"Oh! Yes. That is what they _used_ to have, in old times, when welived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it. All the women in a house co-operated--to keep it; and all theneighborhood co-operated--by living exactly in the same way. Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?"

One never could quite tell whether Mrs. Hobart was more simple orsharp. 

That was all that was said about co-operative housekeeping at thetime. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for awhile, as appeared in something she came out with a few days after. 

"I could--almost--write a little poem!" she said, suddenly, over herwork. "Only that would be doing just what the rest do. Everythingturns into a poem, or an article, nowadays. I wish we'd lived in thetimes when people _did_ the things!"

"O Barbara! _Think_ of all that is being done in the world!"

"I know. But the little private things. They want to turn everythinginto a movement. Miss Trixie says they won't have any eggs from theirfowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll dowill be to sit in a row on the fence and crow! I think the world isrunning pretty much to roosters. "

"Is that the poem?"

"I don't know. It might come in. All I've got is the end of it. Itcame into my head hind side before. If it could only have a beginningand a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where theyhave to give an account, you know, and what they'll have to show forit, and the thing that really amounts, after all. "

"Well, tell us. "

"It's only five lines, and one rhyme. But it might be written up to. They could say all sorts of things, --one and another:--

 "_I_ wrote some little books; _I_ said some little says; _I_ preached a little preach; _I_ lit a little blaze; _I_ made things pleasant in one little place. "

There was a shout at Barbara's "poem. "

"I thought I might as well relieve my mind, " she said, meekly. "I knewit was all there would ever be of it. "

But Barbara's rhyme stayed in our heads, and got quoted in the family. She illustrated on a small scale what the "poems and articles" _may_sometimes do in the great world, We remembered it that day when Ruth said, "Let's co-operate. "

We talked it over, --what we could do without a girl. We had talked itover before. We had had to try it, more or less, during interregnums. But in our little house in Z----, with the dark kitchen, and withBarbara and Ruth going to school, and the washing-days, when we had tohire, it always cost more than it came to, besides making what Barbcalled a "heave-offering of life. "

"They used to have houses built accordingly, " Rosamond said, speakingof the "old times. " "Grandmother's kitchen was the biggest andpleasantest room in the house. "

"Couldn't we _make_ the kitchen the pleasantest room?" suggestedRuth. "Wouldn't it be sure to be, if it was the room we all stayed inmornings, and where we had our morning work? Whatever room we do thatin always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girlshave just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and thedish-cloth all wabbled up in the sink, and all the tins and ironswanting to be cleaned. But if we once got up a real ladies' kitchen ofour own! I can think how it might be lovely!"

"I can think how it might be jolly-nificent!" cried Barbara, relapsinginto her dislocations. 

"_You_ like kitchens, " said Rosamond, in a tone of quiet ill-usedness. 

"Yes, I do, " said Barbara. "And you like parlors, and prettinesses, and feather dusters, and little general touchings-up, that I can'thave patience with. You shall take the high art, and I'll have the lowrealities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, andthe home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the headand the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's just seewhat we _shall_ come to! People don't turn out what they're meant, whohave Irish kitchens and high-style parlors, all alike. There's a greatdeal in being Holabirdy, --or whatever-else-you-are-y!"

"If it only weren't for that cellar-kitchen, " said Mrs. Holabird. 

"Mother, " said Ruth, "what if we were to take this?"

We were in the dining-room. 

"This nice room!"

"It is to be a ladies' kitchen, you know. "

Everybody glanced around. It was nice, ever so nice. The dark stainedfloor, showing clean, undefaced margins, --the new, prettydrugget, --the freshly clad, broad old sofa, --the high wainscotedwalls, painted in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly, --theceiling faintly tinted with buff, --the buff holland shades to thewindows, --the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, withits glass upper-halves to the doors, showing our prettiest china and agleam of silver and glass, --the two or three pretty engravings in thefew spaces for them, --O, it was a great deal too nice to take for akitchen. 

But Ruth began again. 

"You know, mother, before Katty came, how nice everything was downstairs. We cooked nearly a fortnight, and washed dishes, andeverything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there neverwas a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled. Itwould be so different from a girl! It seems as if we _might_ bring thekitchen up stairs, instead of going down into the kitchen. "

"But the stove, " said mother. 

"I think, " said Barbara, boldly, "that a cooking-stove, all polishedup, is just as handsome a thing as there is in a house!"

"It is clumsy, one must own, " said Mrs. Holabird, "besides beingsuggestive. "

"So is a piano, " said the determined Barbara. 

"I can _imagine_ a cooking-stove, " said Rosamond, slowly. 

"Well, do! That's just where your gift will come in!"

"A pretty copper tea-kettle, and a shiny tin boiler, made toorder, --like an urn, or something, --with a copper faucet, and nothingelse ever about, except it were that minute wanted; and all the tinsand irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanutdippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived asthey are for other kinds of rooms that ladies use; it _might_ be likethat little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or likeMarie Antoinette's Trianon. "

"That's what it _would_ come to, if it was part of our living, just aswe come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should giveeach other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should haveas much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, thewhole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste _hasn't_ gotinto. Let's have an art-kitchen!"

"We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, ifwe are to save the waste and expense of a servant, " said Mrs. Holabird. 

The idea grew and developed. 

"But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurringafresh. 

"There's always the brown room, and the handing round, " said Barbara, "for the people you can't be intimate with, and _think_ how crowsythis will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!"

"We shall just settle _down_, " said Rose, gloomily. 

"Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till itdoes that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life. "

"We shall always gather to us what _belongs_. Every little crystaldoes that, " said mother, taking up another simile. 

"What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth. 

"I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't managewith one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted toget a place together. "

And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderickfound out what it really meant. 

We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had madeup our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an'she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl. "

"Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment, " was the reply; which causedthe whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids andthe irids. 

There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while wehad not quite irrevocably fixed our plans. 

Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girlsaid. 

"She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she iswilling to come for a trial. "

"They all do that, " said Barbara, gravely. "I think--asProtestants--we've hired enough of them. "

Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, ofour indecisions. 

We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed fromthe wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottlewashed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that italmost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, and had the stove taken up stairs. We only carried up such lessermovables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulationbehind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnishas we went along. 

Ruth brought home a lovely little spice-box as the first donation tothe art-kitchen. Father bought a copper tea-kettle, and the sheet-ironman made the tin boiler. There was a wide, high, open fireplace in thedining-room; we had wondered what we should do with it in the winter. It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stonehearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had anice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around thefunnel-hole. The stove stood modestly sheltered, as it were, in itsnew position, its features softened to almost a sitting-roomcongruity; it did not thrust itself obtrusively forward, and force itshomely association upon you; it was low, too, and its broad top lookedsmooth and enticing. 

There was a large, light closet at the back of the room, where was seta broad, deep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. Thiscloset had double sliding doors; it could be thrown all open for busyuse, or closed quite away and done with. 

There were shelves here, and cupboards. Here we ranged our tins andour saucepans, --the best and newest; Rosamond would have nothingto do with the old battered ones; over them we hung our spoonsand our little strainers, our egg-beaters, spatulas, and quartmeasures, --these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards;in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; inthe cupboards were our porcelain kettles, --we bought two new ones, alittle and a big, --the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, outside and in, the roasting-pans, and the one iron pot, which wenever meant to use when we could help it. The worst things we couldhave to wash were the frying and roasting pans, and these, we soonfound, were not bad when you did it all over and at once every time. 

[Illustration]

Adjoining this closet was what had been the "girl's room, " openinginto the passage where the kitchen stairs came up, and the passageitself was fair-sized and square, corresponding to the depth of theother divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrelfor coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could bereplenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. The"girl's room" would be a spare place that we should find twenty usesfor; it was nice to think of it sweet and fresh, empty and available;very nice not to be afraid to remember it was there at all. 

We had a Robinson-Crusoe-like pleasure in making all thesearrangements; every clean thing that we put in a spotless place uponshelf or nail was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really didnot need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl orplate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she couldstir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybodyto the extent of having the ashes taken up with it. 

By Friday night we had got everything to the exact and perfectstarting-point; and Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts thatwere to her like a tin-and-wooden wedding; we felt, on our part, thatwe had celebrated ours by clearing them out. 

The bread-box was sweet and empty; the fragments had been all daintilycrumbled by Ruth, as she sat, resting and talking, when she had comein from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing or boiledfor brewis or a pudding. Mother never has anything between loaves andcrumbs when _she_ manages; then all is nice, and keeps nice. 

"Clean beginnings are beautiful, " said Rosamond, looking around. "Itis the middle that's horrid. "

"We won't have any middles, " said Ruth. "We'll keep making cleanbeginnings, all the way along. That is the difference between work andmuss. "

"If you can, " said Rose, doubtfully. 

I suppose that is what some people will say, after this Holabird storyis printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother makea pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more makea jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at herdressing-table. It only needs an accustomed and delicate touch. 

I will tell you something of how it was, I will take that Mondaymorning--and Monday morning is as good, for badness, as you cantake--just after we had begun. 

The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night. There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boilerwere filled, --father did that just before he locked up the house; wehad only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, inthe morning. 

Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikinin the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on abeam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairsMrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had donenearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfaston a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she wouldbring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. Weshould pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up allbelow, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours'ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin. 

Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmedthree-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bowbehind, mother had let down the ashes, --it isn't a bad thing to dowith a well-contrived stove, --and set the pan, to which we had aduplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into theclean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, oneor two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. Thedraughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In thesefive minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushedup, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was notlike an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room withits volcanic margin of cinders and ashes. 

Then--that Monday morning--we had brewis to make, a little butteredtoast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got itsration of fragrant, beaten paste, --the brown ground kernels mixed withan egg, --and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The twofrying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet freshbutter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;--"one can giveone's self _carte-blancher_, " Barbara said, "than it will do to give agirl";--and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a whiteporcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eatdaintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; thiswent on when the coffee-pot--which had got its drink when the milkboiled, and been puffing ever since--was ready to come off; over itstood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the wholewas just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not oneof which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and thecoffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had beenbeaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and thebreakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast andbutter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving thecups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookerythings, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had heldthem beside the stove, into its corner. 

Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now forthe day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, inwhich was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of thewhite waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; andthe smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at thethree cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking andreminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and beforewhich stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond hadrecollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara andher toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes asany bit of pretty play or pageant. 

Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotchgingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, withbows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be allpoints, " now that there was an apology for them. I think we were allmore particular about our outer ladyhood than usual. 

After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on itput a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it wassomething really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliantknife, as a painter might cleanse his palette, --we had, in fact, apalette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our owndishes, --and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on thepembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sitmaking tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, softclean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to haveplenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on theMondays. 

After the china and glass were done and put up, came forth thecoffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their littlescour, --a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of aniron utensil, in mother's hands; and _that_ was clean work, and theiron thing never got to be "horrid, " any more than a china bowl. Itwas only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not comeoff. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, thatmakes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottleof ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when shecomes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it doeswonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off inthat, and chemically disappears. 

It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we hadsat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house thatmorning. 

We kept our butter and milk in the brick buttery at the foot of thekitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbaraset away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scaldedthe yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in arow--flashing up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent--onthe back platform. 

She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; andin an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoonorder, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come. 

We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always doesremember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in newhousekeeping. William, the chore-man, had killed and picked and drawnthem, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided theselast processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. Theywere hanging in the buttery, with their hearts and livers inside them;mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little saltbath before cooking. 

I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens. They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wingswere fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round andcomfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laidthem out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and coseyway that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgarneed. 

We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; itwas only restful change to come down and put the chickens into theoven, and set the dinner-table. 

Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out uponthe piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by theparlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up theAtlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times whenthe fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, while the potatoes were boiling. 

Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about thatjelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie ofSaturday's making on the side-board, and the green screen up beforethe stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hotwater and ammonia in it. 

"Mother, " said Barbara, "I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!"

"It is the girl that makes the kitchen, " said Ruth. 

"And then the kitchen that has to have the girl, " said Mrs. Holabird. 

Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with thecrumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put onfather's cheese. 

Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any "tending. "

"We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows, " said mother in alow tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her. 

"Nor have to scrinch all up, " said Stephen, quite out loud, "for fearshe'd touch us!"

I'll tell you--in confidence--another of our ways at Westover; what, we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons andevenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; wepoured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the coverdown; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all thedish-washing for the day. 

 * * * * *

"Who folded all those clothes?" Why, we girls, of course. But youcan't be told everything in one chapter. 

CHAPTER VII. 

SPRINKLES AND GUSTS. 

Mrs. Dunikin used to bring them in, almost all of them, and leave themheaped up in the large round basket. Then there was the second-sizedbasket, into which they would all go comfortably when they were foldedup. 

One Monday night we went down as usual; some of us came in, --for wehad been playing croquet until into the twilight, and the Haddens hadjust gone away, so we were later than usual at our laundry work. Leslie and Harry went round with Rosamond to the front door; Ruthslipped in at the back, and mother came down when she found thatRosamond had not been released. Barbara finished setting thetea-table, which she had a way of doing in a whiff, put on the sweetloaf upon the white trencher, and the dish of raspberry jam and thelittle silver-wire basket of crisp sugar-cakes, and then there wasnothing but the tea, which stood ready for drawing in the smallJapanese pot. Tea was nothing to get, ever. 

"Mother, go back again! You tired old darling, Ruth and I are going todo these!" and Barbara plunged in among the "blossoms. "

That was what we called the fresh, sweet-smelling white things. Thereare a great many pretty pieces of life, if you only know about them. Hay-making is one; and rose-gathering is one; and sprinkling andfolding a great basket full of white clothes right out of the grassand the air and the sunshine is one. 

Mother went off, --chiefly to see that Leslie and Harry were kept totea, I believe. She knew how to compensate, in her lovely littleunderhand way, with Barbara. 

Barbara pinned up her muslin sleeves to the shoulder, shook out alittle ruffled short-skirt and put it on for an apron, took one end ofthe long white ironing-table that stood across the window, pushed thewater-basin into the middle, and began with the shirts and thestarched things. Ruth, opposite, was making the soft underclothinginto little white rolls. 

Barbara dampened and smoothed and stretched; she almost ironed withher fingers, Mrs. Dunikin said. She patted and evened, laid collarsand cuffs one above another with a sprinkle of drops, just from herfinger-ends, between, and then gave a towel a nice equal shower with acorn-whisk that she used for the large things, and rolled them up init, hard and fast, with a thump of her round pretty fist upon themiddle before she laid it by. It was a clever little process towatch; and her arms were white in the twilight. Girls can't do all thepossible pretty manoeuvres in the German or out at croquet, if theyonly once knew it. They do find it out in a one-sided sort of way: andthen they run to private theatricals. But the real every-day scenesare just as nice, only they must have their audiences in ones andtwos; perhaps not always any audience at all. 

Of a sudden Ruth became aware of an audience of one. 

Upon the balcony, leaning over the rail, looking right down into thenearest kitchen window and over Barbara's shoulder, stood HarryGoldthwaite. He shook his head at Ruth, and she held her peace. 

Barbara began to sing. She never sang to the piano, --only about herwork. She made up little snatches, piecemeal, of various things, andput them to any sort of words. This time it was to her own, --her poem. 

 "I wrote some little books; I said some little says; I preached a little pre-e-each; I lit a little blaze; I made--things--pleasant--in one--little--place. "

She ran down a most contented little trip, with repeats and returns, in a G-octave, for the last line. Then she rolled up a bundle ofshirts in a square pillow-case, gave it its accolade, and pressed itdown into the basket. 

"How do you suppose, Ruth, we shall manage the town-meetings? Do youbelieve they will be as nice as this? Where shall we get our littleinspirations, after we have come out of all our corners?"

"We won't do it, " said Ruth, quietly, shaking out one of mother'snightcaps, and speaking under the disadvantage of her privateknowledge. 

"I think they ought to let us vote just once, " said Barbara; "to saywhether we ever would again. I believe we're in danger of being putupon now, if we never were before. "

"It isn't fair, " said Ruth, with her eyes up out of the window atHarry, who made noiseless motion of clapping his hands. How could shetell what Barbara would say next, or how she would like it when sheknew?

"Of course it isn't, " said Barbara, intent upon the gathers of a whitecambric waist of Rosamond's. "I wonder, Ruth, if we shall have to readall those Pub. Doc. S that father gets. You see women will make awfulhard work of it, if they once do go at it; they are so used to doingevery--little--thing"; and she picked out the neck-edging, andsmoothed the hem between the buttons. 

"We shall have to take vows, and devote ourselves to it, " Barbara wenton, as if she were possessed. "There will have to be 'Sisters ofPolity. ' Not that I ever will. I don't feel a vocation. I'd rather bea Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life. "

"Mr. Goldthwaite!" said Ruth. 

"May I?" asked Harry, as if he had just come, leaning down over therail, and speaking to Barbara, who faced about with a jump. 

She knew by his look; he could not keep in the fun. 

"'_May_ you'? When you have, already!"

"O no, I haven't! I mean, come down? Into the one-pleasant-little-place, and help?"

"You don't know the way, " Barbara said, stolidly, turning back again, and folding up the waist. 

"Don't I? Which, --to come down, or to help?" and Harry flung himselfover the rail, clasped one hand and wrist around a copper water-pipethat ran down there, reached the other to something-above thewindow, --the mere pediment, I believe, --and swung his feet lightly tothe sill beneath. Then he dropped himself and sat down, close byBarbara's elbow. 

"You'll get sprinkled, " said she, flourishing the corn-whisk over atable-cloth. 

"I dare say. Or patted, or punched, or something. I knew I took therisk of all that when I came down amongst it. But it looked nice. Icouldn't help it, and I don't care!"

Barbara was thinking of two things, --how long he had been there, andwhat in the world she had said besides what she remembered; and--howshe should get off her rough-dried apron. 

"Which do you want, --napkins or pillow-cases?" and he came round tothe basket, and began to pull out. 

"Napkins, " says Barbara. 

The napkins were underneath, and mixed up; while he stooped andfumbled, she had the ruffled petticoat off over her head. She gave ita shower in such a hurry, that as Harry came up with the napkins, hedid get a drift of it in his face. 

"That won't do, " said Barbara, quite shocked, and tossing the whiskaside. "There are too many of us. "

She began on the napkins, sprinkling with her fingers. Harry spread upa pile on his part, dipping also into the bowl. "I used to do it whenI was a little boy, " he said. 

Ruth took the pillow-cases, and so they came to the last. Theystretched the sheets across the table, and all three had a hand insmoothing and showering. 

"Why, I wish it weren't all done, " says Harry, turning over threeclothes-pins in the bottom of the basket, while Barbara buttoned hersleeves. "Where does this go? What a nice place this is!" lookinground the clean kitchen, growing shadowy in the evening light. "Ithink your house is full of nice places. "

"Are you nearly ready, girls?" came in mother's voice from above. 

"Yes, ma'am, " Harry answered back, in an excessively cheery way. "We're coming"; and up the stairs all three came together, greatly toMrs. Holabird's astonishment. 

"You never know where help is coming from when you're trying to doyour duty, " said Barbara, in a high-moral way. "Prince Percinet, Mrs. Holabird. "

"Miss Polly-put--" began Harry Goldthwaite, brimming up with ahalf-diffident mischief. But Barbara walked round to her place at thetable with a very great dignity. 

People think that young folks can only have properly arranged andelaborately provided good times; with Germania band pieces, andbouquets and ribbons for the German, and oysters and salmon-salad andsweatmeat-and-spun-sugar "chignons"; at least, commerce games andbewitching little prizes. Yet when lives just touch each othernaturally, as it were, --dip into each other's little interests anddoings, and take them as they are, what a multiplication-table ofopportunities it opens up! You may happen upon a good time anyminute, then. Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; lifeused to be "co-operative. "

Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away. 

"Only you can't get them into it again, " objected Rosamond. "It's acase of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on. "

"_One_ world will, " said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You canset up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itselfround it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything thatbelongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before youknow it. I think myself that's what the Ark means, and Mount Ararat, and the Noachian--don't they call it?--new foundation. That's the waythey got up New England, anyhow. "

"Barbara, what flights you take!"

"Do I? Well, we have to. The world lives up nineteen flights now, youknow, besides the old broken-down and buried ones. "

It was a few days after that, that the news came to mother of AuntRadford's illness, and she had to go up to Oxenham. Father went withher, but he came back the same night. Mother had made up her mind tostay a week. And so we had to keep house without her. 

One afternoon Grandfather Holabird came down. I don't know why, but ifever mother did happen to be out of the way, it seemed as if he tookthe time to talk over special affairs with father. Yet he thoughteverything of "Mrs. Stephen, " too, and he quite relied upon herjudgment and influence. But I think old men do often feel as if theyhad got their sons back again, quite to themselves, when the Mrs. Stephens or the Mrs. Johns leave them alone for a little. 

At any rate, Grandfather Holabird sat with father on the north piazza, out of the way of the strong south-wind; and he had out a big wallet, and a great many papers, and he stayed and stayed, from just afterdinner-time till almost the middle of the afternoon, so that fatherdid not go down to his office at all; and when old Mr. Holabird wenthome at last, he walked over with him. Just after they had gone LeslieGoldthwaite and Harry stopped, "for a minute only, " they said; for thesouth-wind had brought up clouds, and there was rain threatening. Thatwas how we all happened to be just as we were that night of theSeptember gale; for it was the September gale of last year that wascoming. 

The wind had been queer, in gusts, all day; yet the weather had beensoft and mild. We had opened windows for the pleasant air, and shutthem again in a hurry when the papers blew about, and the picturesswung to and fro against the walls. Once that afternoon, somebody hadleft doors open through the brown room and the dining-room, where awindow was thrown up, as we could have it there where the three wereall on one side. Ruth was coming down stairs, and saw grandfather'spapers give a whirl out of his lap and across the piazza floor uponthe gravel. If she had not sprung so quickly and gathered them all upfor him, some of them might have blown quite away, and led father achase after them over the hill. After that, old Mr. Holabird put themup in his wallet again, and when they had talked a few minutes morethey went off together to the old house. 

[Illustration]

It was wonderful how that wind and rain did come up. The few minutesthat Harry and Leslie stopped with us, and then the few more they tookto consider whether it would do for Leslie to try to walk home, justsettled it that nobody could stir until there should be some sort oflull or holding up. 

Out of the far southerly hills came the blast, rending and crashing;the first swirls of rain that flung themselves against our windowsseemed as if they might have rushed ten miles, horizontally, beforethey got a chance to drop; the trees bent down and sprang again, andlashed the air to and fro; chips and leaves and fragments of allstrange sorts took the wonderful opportunity and went soaring aloftand onward in a false, plebeian triumph. 

The rain came harder, in great streams; but it all went by in white, wavy drifts; it seemed to rain from south to north across thecountry, --not to fall from heaven to earth; we wondered if it _would_fall anywhere. It beat against the house; that stood up in its way; itrained straight in at the window-sills and under the doors; we ranabout the house with cloths and sponges to sop it up from cushions andcarpets. 

"I say, Mrs. Housekeeper!" called out Stephen from above, "look outfor father's dressing-room! It's all afloat, --hair-brushes out onvoyages of discovery, and a horrid little kelpie sculling round on ahat-box!"

Father's dressing-room was a windowed closet, in the corner spacebeside the deep, old-fashioned chimney. It had hooks and shelves inone end, and a round shaving-stand and a chair in the other. We had topull down all his clothes and pile them upon chairs, and stop up thewindow with an old blanket. A pane was cracked, and the wind, althoughits force was slanted here, had blown it in, and the fine driven spraywas dashed across, diagonally, into the very farthest corner. 

In the room a gentle cascade descended beside the chimney, and apicture had to be taken down. Down stairs the dining-room sofa, standing across a window, got a little lake in the middle of it beforewe knew. The side door blew open with a bang, and hats, coats, andshawls went scurrying from their pegs, through sitting-room and hall, like a flight of scared, living things. We were like a little garrisonin a great fort, besieged at all points at once. We had to boltdoors, --latches were nothing, --and bar shutters. And when we couldpause indoors, what a froth and whirl we had to gaze out at!

The grass, all along the fields, was white, prostrate; swept fiercelyone way; every blade stretched out helpless upon its green face. Thelittle pear-trees, heavy with fruit, lay prone in literal "windrows. "The great ashes and walnuts twisted and writhed, and had theirbranches stripped upward of their leaves, as a child might draw a headof blossoming grass between his thumb and finger. The beautiful elmswere in a wild agony; their graceful little bough-tips were allsnapped off and whirled away upon the blast, leaving them in a raggedblight. A great silver poplar went over by the fence, carrying theposts and palings with it, and upturned a huge mass of roots andearth, that had silently cemented itself for half a century beneaththe sward. Up and down, between Grandfather Holabird's home-field andours, fallen locusts and wild cherry-trees made an abatis. Over andthrough all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; theair was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through itby snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down belowus, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half afurlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locksthrough the air. 

It began to grow dark. We put a bright, steady light in the brownroom, to shine through the south window, and show father that we wereall right; directly after a lamp was set in Grandfather Holabird'snorth porch. This little telegraphy was all we could manage; we wereas far apart as if the Atlantic were between us. 

"Will they be frightened about you at home?" asked Ruth of Leslie. 

"I think not. They will know we should go in somewhere, and thatthere would be no way of getting out again. People must be caughteverywhere, just as it happens, to-night. "

"It's just the jolliest turn-up!" cried Stephen, who had been in anecstasy all the time. "Let's make molasses-candy, and sit up allnight!"

Between eight and nine we had some tea. The wind had lulled a littlefrom its hurricane force; the rain had stopped. 

"It had all been blown to Canada, by this time, " Harry Goldthwaitesaid. "That rain never stopped anywhere short, except at the walls andwindows. "

True enough, next morning, when we went out, the grass was actuallydry. 

It was nearly ten when Stephen went to the south window and put hishands up each side of his face against the glass, and cried out thatthere was a lantern coming over from grandfather's. Then we all wentand looked. 

It came slowly; once or twice it stopped; and once it moved down hillat right angles quite a long way. "That is where the trees are down, "we said. But presently it took an unobstructed diagonal, and camesteadily on to the long piazza steps, and up to the side door thatopened upon the little passage to the dining-room. 

We thought it was father, of course, and we all hurried to the door tolet him in, and at the same time to make it nearly impossible that heshould enter at all. But it was Grandfather Holabird's man, Robert. 

"The old gentleman has been taken bad, " he said. "Mr. Stephen wants toknow if you're all comfortable, and he won't come till Mr. Holabird'sbetter. I've got to go to the town for the doctor. "

"On foot, Robert?"

"Sure. There's no other way. I take it there's many a good winter'sfiring of wood down across the road atwixt here and there. There ain'tmuch knowing where you _can_ get along. "

"But what is it?"

"We mustn't keep him, " urged Barbara. 

"No, I ain't goin' to be kep'. 'T won't do. I donno what it is. It's akind of a turn. He's comin' partly out of it; but it's bad. He had akind of a warnin' once before. It's his head. They're afraid it'sappalectic, or paralettic, or sunthin'. "

Robert looked very sober. He quite passed by the wonder of the gale, that another time would have stirred him to most lively speech. Robert"thought a good deal, " as he expressed it, of Grandfather Holabird. 

Harry Goldthwaite came through the brown room with his hat in hishand. How he ever found it we could not tell. 

"I'll go with him, " he said. "You won't be afraid now, will you, Barbara? I'm _very_ sorry about Mr. Holabird. "

He shook hands with Barbara, --it chanced that she stoodnearest, --bade us all good night, and went away. We turned backsilently into the brown room. 

We were all quite hushed from our late excitement. What strange thingswere happening to-night!

All in a moment something so solemn and important was put into ourminds. An event that, --never talked about, and thought of as little, Isuppose, as such a one ever was in any family like ours, --had yetalways loomed vaguely afar, as what should come some time, and wouldbring changes when it came, was suddenly impending. 

Grandfather might be going to die. 

And yet what was there for us to do but to go quietly back into thebrown room and sit down?

There was nothing to say even. There never is anything to say aboutthe greatest things. People can only name the bare, grand, awful fact, and say, "It was tremendous, " or "startling, " or "magnificent, " or"terrible, " or "sad. " How little we could really say about the gale, even now that it was over! We could repeat that this and that treewere blown down, and such a barn or house unroofed; but we could notget the real wonder of it--the thing that moved us to try to talk itover--into any words. 

"He seemed so well this afternoon, " said Rosamond. 

"I don't think he _was_ quite well, " said Ruth. "His hands trembled sowhen he was folding up his papers; and he was very slow. "

"O, men always are with their fingers. I don't think that wasanything, " said Barbara. "But I think he seemed rather nervous whenhe came over. And he would not sit in the house, though the wind wascoming up then. He said he liked the air; and he and father got theshaker chairs up there by the front door; and he sat and pinched hisknees together to make a lap to hold his papers; it was as much as hecould manage; no wonder his hands trembled. "

"I wonder what they were talking about, " said Rosamond. 

"I'm glad Uncle Stephen went home with him, " said Ruth. 

"I wonder if we shall have this house to live in if grandfather shoulddie, " said Stephen, suddenly. It could not have been his _first_thought; he had sat soberly silent a good while. 

"O Stevie! _don't_ let's think anything about that!" said Ruth; andnobody else answered at all. 

We sent Stephen off to bed, and we girls sat round the fire, which wehad made up in the great open fireplace, till twelve o'clock; then weall went up stairs, leaving the side door unfastened. Ruth broughtsome pillows and comfortables into Rosamond and Barbara's room, madeup a couch for herself on the box-sofa, and gave her little white oneto Leslie. We kept the door open between. We could see the light ingrandfather's northwest chamber; and the lamp was still burning in theporch below. We could not possibly know anything; whether Robert hadgot back, and the doctor had come, --whether he was better orworse, --whether father would come home to-night. We could only guess. 

"O Leslie, it is so good you are here!" we said. 

There was something eerie in the night, in the wreck and confusion ofthe storm, in our loneliness without father and mother, and in thepossible awfulness and change that were so near, --over there inGrandfather Holabird's lighted room. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

HALLOWEEN. 

Breakfast was late the next morning. It had been nearly two o'clockwhen father had come home. He told us that grandfather was better;that it was what the doctor called a premonitory attack; that he mighthave another and more serious one any day, or that he might live onfor years without a repetition. For the present he was to be kept aseasy and quiet as possible, and gradually allowed to resume his oldhabits as his strength permitted. 

Mother came back in a few days more; Aunt Radford also was better. Thefamily fell into the old ways again, and it was as if no change hadthreatened. Father told mother, however, something of importance thatgrandfather had said to him that afternoon, before he was taken ill. He had been on the point of showing him something which he looked foramong his papers, just before the wind whirled them out of his hands. He had almost said he would complete and give it to him at once; andthen, when they were interrupted, he had just put everything up again, and they had walked over home together. Then there had been theexcitement of the gale, and grandfather had insisted upon going to thebarns himself to see that all was made properly fast, and had comeback all out of breath, and had been taken with that ill turn in themidst of the storm. 

The paper he was going to show to father was an unwitnessed deed ofgift. He had thought of securing to us this home, by giving it intrust to father for his wife and children. 

"I helped John into his New York business, " he said, "by investingmoney in it that he has had the use of, at moderate interest, eversince; and Roderick and his wife have had their home with me. None ofmy boys ever paid me any _board_. I sha'n't make a will; the law givesthings where they belong; there's nothing but this that wants evening;and so I've been thinking about it. What you do with your share of myother property when you get it is no concern of mine as I know of; butI should like to give you something in such a shape that it couldn'tgo for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of _them_; whatlittle I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; Inever go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honestcomprehension, --and Roderick and John are both honest, --if I left itas it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll see about it. "

That was what grandfather had said; mother told us all about it;there were no secret committees in our domestic congress; all was donein open house; we knew all the hopes and the perplexities, only theycame round to us in due order of hearing. But father had not reallyseen the paper, after all; and after grandfather got well, he nevermentioned it again all that winter. The wonder was that he hadmentioned it at all. 

"He forgets a good many things, since his sickness, " father said, "unless something comes up to remind him. But there is the paper; hemust come across that. "

"He may change his mind, " said mother, "even when he does recollect. We can be sure of nothing. "

But we grew more fond than ever of the old, sunshiny house. In OctoberHarry Goldthwaite went away again on a year's cruise. 

Rosamond had a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, from New York. She foldedit up after she had read it, and did not tell us anything about it. She answered it next day; and it was a month later when one night upstairs she began something she had to say about our winter shoppingwith, --

"If I had gone to New York--" and there she stopped, as if she hadaccidentally said what she did not intend. 

"If you had gone to New York! Why! When?" cried Barbara. "What do youmean?"

"Nothing, " Rosamond answered, in a vexed way. "Mrs. Van Alstyne askedme, that is all. Of course I couldn't. "

"Of course you're just a glorious old _noblesse oblige_-d! Why didn'tyou say something? You might have gone perhaps. We could all havehelped. I'd have lent you--that garnet and white silk!"

Rosamond would not say anything more, and she would scarcely bekissed. 

After all, she had co-operated more than any of us. Rose was alwaysthe daughter who objected and then did. I have often thought thatyoung man in Scripture ought to have been a woman. It is more awoman's way. 

The maples were in their gold and vermilion now, and the round massesof the ash were shining brown; we filled the vases with their leaves, and pressed away more in all the big books we could confiscate, andhunted frosted ferns in the wood-edge, and had beautiful pine blazesmorning and evening in the brown room, and began to think howpleasant, for many cosey things, the winter was going to be, out hereat Westover. 

"How nicely we could keep Halloween, " said Ruth, "round this greatopen chimney! What a row of nuts we could burn!"

"So we will, " said Rosamond. "We'll ask the girls. Mayn't we, mother?"

"To tea?"

"No. Only to the fun, --and some supper. We can have that all ready inthe other room. "

"They'll see the cooking-stove. "

"They won't know it, when they do, " said Barbara. 

"We might have the table in the front room, " suggested Ruth. 

"The drawing-room!" cried Rosamond. "That _would_ be a make-shift. Whoever heard of having supper there? No; we'll have both rooms open, and a bright fire in each, and one up in mother's room for them totake off their things. And there'll be the piano, and the stereoscope, and the games, in the parlor. We'll begin in there, and out here we'llhave the fortune tricks and the nuts later; and then the supper, bravely and comfortably, in the dining-room, where it belongs. If theyget frightened at anything, they can go home; I'm going to new coverthat screen, though, mother; And I'll tell you what with, --that pieceof goldy-brown damask up in the cedar-trunk. And I'll put an arabesqueof crimson braid around it for a border, and the room will be allgoldy-brown and crimson then, and nobody will stop to think which isbrocade and which is waterproof. They'll be sitting on the waterproof, you know, and have the brocade to look at. It's just old enough toseem as if it had always been standing round somewhere. "

"It will be just the kind of party for us to have, " said Barbara. 

"They couldn't have it up there, if they tried. It would be sure to beMarchbanksy. "

Rosamond smiled contentedly. She was beginning to recognize her ownspecial opportunities. She was quite conscious of her own tact inutilizing them. 

But then came the intricate questions of who? and who not?

"Not everybody, of course, " said Rose, "That would be a confusion. Just the neighbors, --right around here. "

"That takes in the Hobarts, and leaves out Leslie Goldthwaite, " saidRuth, quietly. 

"O, Leslie will be at the Haddens', or here, " replied Rosamond. "Grace Hobart is nice, " she went on; "if only she wouldn't be 'real'nice!"

"That is just the word for her, though, " said Ruth. "The Hobarts _are_real. "

Rosamond's face gathered over. It was not easy to reconcile things. She liked them all, each in their way. If they would only all come, and like each other. 

"What is it, Rose?" said Barbara, teasing. "Your brows are knit, --yournose is crocheted, --and your mouth is--tatted! I shall have to comeand ravel you out. "

"I'm thinking; that is all. "

"How to build the fence?"

"What fence?"

"That fence round the pond, --the old puzzle. There was once a pond, and four men came and built four little houses round it, --close to thewater. Then four other men came and built four big houses, exactlybehind the first ones. They wanted the pond all to themselves; but thelittle people were nearest to it; how could they build the fence, youknow? They had to squirm it awfully! You see the plain, insignificantpeople are so apt to be nearest the good time!"

"I like to satisfy everybody. "

"You won't, --with a squirm-fence!"

If it had not been for Ruth, we should have gone on just as innocentlyas possible, and invited them--Marchbankses and all--to our Halloweenfrolic. But Ruth was such a little news-picker, with her musiclessons! She had five scholars now; beside Lily and Reba, there wereElsie Hobart and little Frank Hendee, and Pen Pennington, a girl ofher own age, who had come all the way from Fort Vancouver, over thePacific Railroad, to live here with her grandmother. Between the fourhouses, Ruth heard everything. 

All Saints' Day fell on Monday; the Sunday made double hallowing, Barbara said; and Saturday was the "E'en. " We did not mean to inviteuntil Wednesday; on Tuesday Ruth came home and told us that Olivia andAdelaide Marchbanks were getting up a Halloween themselves, and thatthe Haddens were asked already; and that Lily and Reba were intransports because they were to be allowed to go. 

"Did you say anything?" asked Rosamond. 

"Yes. I suppose I ought not; but Elinor was in the room, and I spokebefore I thought. "

"What did you tell her?"

"I only said it was such a pity; that you meant to ask them all. AndElinor said it would be so nice here. If it were anybody else, wemight try to arrange something. "

But how could we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia andAdelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for grantedthat they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting acompromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, and said not anotherword. 

In the afternoon of Wednesday Adelaide and Maud Marchbanks rode by, homeward, on their beautiful little brown, long-tailed Morgans. 

"They don't mean to, " said Barbara. "If they did, they would havestopped. "

"Perhaps they will send a note to-morrow, " said Ruth. 

"Do you think I am waiting, in hopes?" asked Rosamond, in herclearest, quietest tones. 

Pretty soon she came in with her hat on. "I am going over to invitethe Hobarts, " she said. 

"That will settle it, whatever happens, " said Barbara. 

"Yes, " said Rosamond; and she walked out. 

The Hobarts were "ever so much obliged to us; and they would certainlycome. " Mrs. Hobart lent Rosamond an old English book of "HolidaySports and Observances, " with ten pages of Halloween charms in it. 

From the Hobarts' house she walked on into Z----, and asked LeslieGoldthwaite and Helen Josselyn, begging Mrs. Ingleside to come too, ifshe would; the doctor would call for them, of course, and should havehis supper; but it was to be a girl-party in the early evening. 

Leslie was not at home; Rosamond gave the message to her mother. Thenshe met Lucilla Waters in the street. 

"I was just thinking of you, " she said. She did not say, "coming toyou, " for truly, in her mind, she had not decided it. But seeing hergentle, refined face, pale always with the life that had little frolicin it, she spoke right out to that, without deciding. 

"We want you at our Halloween party on Saturday. Will you come? Youwill have Helen and the Inglesides to come with, and perhaps Leslie. "

Rosamond, even while delivering her message to Mrs. Goldthwaite forLeslie, had seen an unopened note lying upon the table, addressed toher in the sharp, tall hand of Olivia Marchbanks. 

She stopped in at the Haddens, told them how sorry she had been tofind they were promised; asked if it were any use to go to theHendees'; and when Elinor said, "But you will be sure to be asked tothe Marchbankses yourselves, " replied, "It is a pity they should cometogether, but we had quite made up our minds to have this littlefrolic, and we have begun, too, you see. "

Then she did go to the Hendees', although it was dark; and MariaHendee, who seldom went out to parties, promised to come. "They woulddivide, " she said. "Fanny might go to Olivia's. Holiday-keeping wasdifferent from other invites. One might take liberties. "

Now the Hendees were people who could take liberties, if anybody. Lastof all, Rosamond went in and asked Pen Pennington. 

It was Thursday, just at dusk, when Adelaide Marchbanks walked over, at last, and proffered her invitation. 

"You had better all come to us, " she said, graciously. "It is a pityto divide. We want the same people, of course, --the Hendees, and theHaddens, and Leslie. " She hardly attempted to disguise that weourselves were an afterthought. 

Rosamond told her, very sweetly, that we were obliged, but that shewas afraid it was quite too late; we had asked others; the Hobarts, and the Inglesides; one or two whom Adelaide did not know, --HelenJosselyn, and Lucilla Waters; the parties would not interfere much, after all. 

Rosamond took up, as it were, a little sceptre of her own, from thatmoment. 

Leslie Goldthwaite had been away for three days, staying with herfriend, Mrs. Frank Scherman, in Boston. She had found Olivia's note, of Monday evening, when she returned; also, she heard of Rosamond'sverbal invitation. Leslie was very bright about these things. She sawin a moment how it had been. Her mother told her what Rosamond hadsaid of who were coming, --the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were notthen asked. 

Olivia did not like it very well, --that reply of Leslie's. She showedit to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it. 

"Please forgive me, " the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitationfor the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I seeyou have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose someof the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much itwere possible to have both pleasures. "

That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. "ButLeslie Goldthwaite, " Barbara said, "always was as brave as a littlebumble-bee!"

How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand. It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; itseemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all atonce, quietly and of course, asserted. 

Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she wasbeating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for thesalad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before. 

"You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, butit isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?"

Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "Ithink, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we'vehad real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own. "

It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between. "

Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in thebronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the widechimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balancedsticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solidlogs behind, --a picture which it only needed the touch of flame tofinish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and claspedthrough and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor, and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to anoutline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to lookat: and they never tumbled down. 

She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speakto Miss Pennington. 

"Don't mind me, " said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle. 'That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up. "

Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they madepretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. 

"I should like to be here to-night, " said Miss Elizabeth, stilllooking at the fire-pile. "Would you let an old maid in?"

"Miss Pennington! Would you come?"

"I took it in my head to want to. That was why I came over. Are yougoing to play snap-dragon? I wondered if you had thought of that. "

"We don't know about it, " said Ruth. "Anything, that is, except thename. "

"That is just what I thought possible. Nobody knows those old gamesnowadays. May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, andsuperintend that part? Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, andwe have the identical bowl. We always used to bring it out atChristmas, when we were all at home. "

"O Miss Pennington! How perfectly lovely! How good you are!"

"Well, I'm glad you take it so. I was afraid it was terriblymeddlesome. But the fancy--or the memory--seized me. "

How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out!

And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time whenthings are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they willtake, now and then, even in this vexed world. 

There was our lovely little supper-table all ready. People who haveservants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they areentertaining in the drawing-room, don't have half the pleasure, afterall, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the lasttouches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress. 

The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had puttogether all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, fromwhatever holiday; there were mother's Italian creams, and amber andgarnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the littlemacaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, ofspring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the coldroom, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at thelast; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to putthem into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin thewhite napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was toworry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet thewhole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, whichStephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation ofours. Truly it is a charming thing, --all to itself, in a family!

To be sure, we had coffee and bread and butter and cold ham for dinnerthat day; and we took our tea "standed round, " as Barbara said; andthe dishes were put away in the covered sink; we knew where we couldshirk righteously and in good order, when we could not accomplisheverything; but there was neither huddle nor hurry; we were as quietand comfortable as we could be. Even Rosamond was satisfied with thevery manner; to be composed is always to be elegant. Anybody mighthave come in and lunched with us; anybody might have shared that easy, chatty cup of tea. 

The front parlor did not amount to much, after all, pleasant andpretty as it was for the first receiving; we were all too eager forthe real business of the evening. It was bright and warm with thewood-fire and the lights; and the white curtains, nearly filling upthree of its walls, made it very festal-looking. There was the openpiano, and Ruth played a little; there was the stereoscope, and someof the girls looked over the new views of Catskill and the Hudson thatDakie Thayne had given us; there was the table with cards, and weplayed one game of Old Maid, in which the Old Maid got lostmysteriously into the drawer, and everybody was married; and then MissPennington appeared at the door, with her man-servant behind her, andthere was an end. She took the big bowl, pinned over with a greatdamask napkin, out of the man's hands, and went off privately withBarbara into the dining-room. 

"This is the Snap, " she said, unfastening the cover, and producingfrom within a paper parcel. "And that, " holding up a little whitebottle, "is the Dragon. " And Barbara set all away in the dresser untilafter supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in thebrown room. 

We hung wedding-rings--we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had broughtover Madam Pennington's--by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; andthey vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, untilthey rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floatedneedles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watchedthem turn and swim and draw together, --some point to point, some headsand points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to themargin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, oran interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured itinto water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars;and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle andpills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and--really--a littlepalette with a hole in it. 

[Illustration]

And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Eachgirl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some littlesecret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest andsurest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Somelittle crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while itscompanion would pop off, away from it; some would take flighttogether, and land in like manner, without ever parting company; thesewere to go some long way off; some never moved from where they began, but burned up, stupidly and peaceably, side by side. Some snappedinto the fire. Some went off into corners. Some glowed beautiful, andsome burned black, and some got covered up with ashes. 

Barbara's pair were ominously still for a time, when all at once thelarger gave a sort of unwilling lurch, without popping, and rolled offa little way, right in toward the blaze. 

"Gone to a warmer climate, " whispered Leslie, like a tease. And thencrack! the warmer climate, or something else, sent him back again, with a real bound, just as Barbara's gave a gentle little snap, andthey both dropped quietly down against the fender together. 

"What made that jump back, I wonder?" said Pen Pennington. 

"O, it wasn't more than half cracked when it went away, " said Stephen, looking on. 

Who would be bold enough to try the looking-glass? To go out alonewith it into the dark field, walking backward, saying the rhyme to thestars which if there had been a moon ought by right to have been saidto her:--

 "Round and round, O stars so fair! Ye travel, and search out everywhere. I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me, This night, who my future husband shall be!"

Somehow, we put it upon Leslie. She was the oldest; we made that thereason. 

"I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girlwho tried it once, and saw a shroud!"

But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. Shetook the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on ashawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. 

"Round the piazza, and down the bank, " said Barbara, "and backwardall the way. "

So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instantafter, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had steppedbackward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. 

Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was afriend of his, just arrived in Z----. "Doctor John Hautayne, " he said, introducing him by his full name. 

We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the armysurgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden astray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right infront of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still andshouted. 

It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. 

We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had rememberedthe oysters. 

Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at herwith a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in thefull light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettierin all her life. 

After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in hersnaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. 

Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. 

"Ancient and honorable, " said Miss Pennington, laughing. 

Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. 

"You thought of your own fingers, " said her aunt. 

"A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. 

"It came from the Mediterranean, " said Mrs. Ingleside, over hershoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. 

Ruth got a sugared almond. 

"Only a _kernel_, " said the merry doctor's wife, again. 

The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. 

"Warm-hearted and useful, that is all, " said Mrs. Ingleside. 

"And tolerably pungent, " said the doctor. 

Doctor Hautayne drew forth--angelica. 

Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. 

"That's the analogy, " said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk ofgetting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares, ' after all. "

It was great fun, though. 

Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. 

If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meantsomething. And the year is not out yet, you see. 

But there was no doubt of one thing, --that our Halloween at Westoverwas a famous little party. 

 * * * * *

"How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on thehearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts shehad picked up about the carpet into the coals. 

We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set themon a great spare table that we kept there. "The room is as good as thegirl, " said Barbara. It _is_ a comfort to put by things, with a clearconscience, to a more rested time. We should let them be over theSunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then therewould be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and weshould have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning. 

"How do you feel about it?"

"I feel as if we had had a real _own_ party, ourselves, " said Ruth;"not as if 'the girls' had come and had a party here. There wasn'tanybody to _show us how_!"

"Except Miss Pennington. And wasn't it bewitchinating of her to come?Nobody can say now--"

"What do you say it for, then?" interrupted Rosamond. "It was verynice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party. Otherwise, why shouldn't she?"

CHAPTER IX. 

WINTER NIGHTS AND WINTER DAYS. 

"That was a nice party, " said Miss Pennington, walking home withLeslie and Doctor John Hautayne, behind the Inglesides. "What made itso nice?"

"You, very much, " said Leslie, straightforwardly. 

"I didn't begin it, " said Miss Elizabeth. "No; that wasn't it. It wasa step out, somehow Out of the treadmill. I got tired of parties longago, before I was old. They were all alike. The only difference wasthat in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, and in another on the left, --now and then, perhaps, at the back; andwhen you came down again, the lady near the drawing-room door might beMrs. Hendee one night and Mrs. Marchbanks another; but after that itwas all the same. And O, how I did get to hate ice-cream!"

"This was a party of 'nexts, '" said Leslie, "instead of a selfsame. "

"What a good time Miss Waters had--quietly! You could see it in herface. A pretty face!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, forLucilla was just before the Inglesides, with Helen and Pen Pennington. "She works too hard, though. I wish she came out more. "

"The 'nexts' have to get tired of books and mending-baskets, while thefirsts are getting tired of ice-creams, " replied Leslie. "Dear MissPennington, there are ever so many nexts, and people don't thinkanything about it!"

"So there are, " said Miss Elizabeth, quietly. "People are very stupid. They don't know what will freshen themselves up. They think thetrouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon andpistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh people are better thanfresh flavors. But I think we had everything fresh to-night. What abeautiful old home-y house it is!"

"And what a home-y family!" said Doctor John Hautayne. 

"_We_ have an old home-y house, " said Miss Pennington, suddenly, "withlandscape-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. Andwe don't half use it. Doctor Hautayne, I mean to have a party! Willyou stay and come to it?"

"Any time within my two months' leave, " replied Doctor Hautayne, "andwith very great pleasure. "

"So she will have it before very long, " said Leslie, telling us aboutthe talk the next day. 

It! Well, when Miss Pennington took up a thing she _did_ take it up!That does not come in here, though, --any more of it. 

The Penningtons are very proud people. They have not a very great dealof money, like the Haddens, and they are not foremost in everythinglike the Marchbankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take thetrouble for that; but they are so _established_; it is a family likean old tree, that is past its green branching time, and makes littlespread or summer show, but whose roots reach out away underneath, andgrasp more ground than all the rest put together. 

They live in an old house that is just like them. It has not anew-fashioned thing about it. The walls are square, plain brick, painted gray; and there is a low, broad porch in front, and thenterraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds ateach side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and moreroses and lilies and larkspurs and foxgloves and narcissus thanflowers of any newer sort; and there are great bushes of box andsouthernwood, that smell sweet as you go by. 

Old General Pennington had been in the army all his life. He was acaptain at Lundy's Lane, and got a wound there which gave him a stiffelbow ever after; and his oldest son was killed in Mexico, just afterhe had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now, --theyounger brother, --out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. Whenher mother died, away out there, he had to send her home. ThePenningtons are just as proud as the stars and stripes themselves; andtheir glory is off the selfsame piece. 

They made very much of Dakie Thayne when he was here, in their quiet, retired way; and they had always been polite and cordial to theInglesides. 

One morning, a little while after our party, mother was making anapple-pudding for dinner, when Madam Pennington and Miss Elizabethdrove round to the door. 

Ruth was out at her lessons; Barbara was busy helping Mrs. Holabird. Rosamond went to the door, and let them into the brown room. 

"Mother will be sorry to keep you waiting, but she will come directly. She is just in the middle of an apple-pudding. "

Rosamond said it with as much simple grace of pride as if she had hadto say, "Mother is busy at her modelling, and cannot leave her claytill she has damped and covered it. " Her nice perception went to thevery farther-most; it discerned the real best to be made of things, the best that was _ready_ made, and put that forth. 

"And I know, " said Madam Pennington, "that an apple-pudding must notbe left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an old woman who haslived in barracks come to her where she is?"

Rosamond's tact was superlative. She did not say, "I will go and see";she got right up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way, "and opened the door, with a sublime confidence, full and withoutwarning, upon the scene of operations. 

"O, how nice!" said Miss Elizabeth; and Madam Pennington walkedforward into the sunshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, andsmiling all the way from her smooth old forehead down to the "seventhbeauty" of her dimple-cleft and placid chin. 

"Why, this is really coming to see people!" she said. 

Mrs. Holabird's white hand did not even want dusting; she just laiddown the bright little chopper with which she was reducing her flourand butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicelygloved fingers into her own, without a breath of apology. Apology! Itwas very meek of her not to look at all set up. 

Barbara rose from her chair with a red ringlet of apple-paring hangingdown against her white apron, and seated herself again at her workwhen the visitors had taken the two opposite corners of the deep, cushioned sofa. 

The red cloth was folded back across the end of the dining-table, andat the other end were mother's white board and rolling-pin, thepudding-cloth wrung into a twist out of the scald, and waiting upon aplate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against itssides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincingwith the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. Thesunshine--work and sunshine always go so blessedly together--pouredin, and filled the room up with life and glory. 

"Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said MissElizabeth. 

"That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into akitchen, " said Barbara. 

"You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!"

"I don't think we are quite sure what it is, " replied Barbara, laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room;and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!"

"You are wonderful people!"

"You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters, " saidMrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitchingyou would have been always getting turned out. "

"Turned out?"

"Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turnsout the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for thesole of your foot till you're a general. "

Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gatheredinto a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a freequick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbarabrought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them intothe round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linencloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbaradisappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steamwent up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabirdwent into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never reallycame to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbaracarried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth wasdrawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubblein the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. 

"I wish it had lasted longer, " said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid Ishall feel like company again now. "

"I am ashamed to tell you what I came for, " said Madam Pennington. "It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?"

"I wish you could, " said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. 

"She needs doing with" said Barbara. 

"Your having her would be different from our doing so, " said Mrs. Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-questionis the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keepbut one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go toyou. "

"The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say, " said Barbara. 

"Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a worldfull of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'generalhousework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. Whatshould we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work'so?"

"There won't be any Lucys long, " said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. "What are homes coming to?"

"Back to _homes_, I hope, from _houses_ divided against themselvesinto parlors and kitchens, " said mother, earnestly. "If I should tellyou all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then theLucys will grow again. "

"Modern establishments are not homes truly, " said Madam Pennington. 

"We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on, "said mother, --"hotels. "

"And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. Irishocracy is a despotism in the land. "

"Only, " said mother, in her sweetest, most heartfelt way, "bylearning how true it is that one must be chief to really serve; thatit takes the highest to do perfect ministering; that the brightestgrace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon thislittle, every-day living, which is all that the world works for afterall. The whole heaven is made that just the daily bread for humansouls may come down out of it. Only the Lord God can pour this roomfull of little waves of sunshine, and make a still, sweet morning inthe earth. "

Mother and Madam Pennington looked at each other with soulful eyes. 

"'We girls, '" began mother again, smiling, --"for that is the way thechildren count me in, --said to each other, when we first tried thisnew plan, that we would make an art-kitchen. We meant we would havethings nice and pretty for our common work; but there is somethingbehind that, --the something that 'makes the meanest task divine, '--thespiritual correspondence of it. When we are educated up to that Ithink life and society will be somewhat different. I think we shallnot always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each otheron the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girlsand single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to gointo homes which they need, and which need them, and give the bestthat they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they arewilling now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem tothem as great and beautiful a thing to do. They won't be buried, either. When they take the work up, and glorify it, it will glorifythem. We don't know yet what households might be, if now we have gotthe wheels so perfected, we would put the living spirit into thewheels. They are the motive power; homes are the primary meetings. They would be little kingdoms, of great might! I _wish_ women would becontent with their mainspring work, and not want to go out and pointthe time upon the dial!"

Mother never would have made so long a speech, but that beautiful oldMrs. Pennington was answering her back all the time out of her eyes. There was such a magnetism between them for the moment, that shescarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in theircheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought itwas as good a Woman's Convention as if there had been two thousand ofthem instead of two. And when some of the things out of the closetsget up on the house-tops, maybe it will prove so. 

Madam Pennington leaned over and kissed mother when she took her handat going away. And then Miss Elizabeth spoke out suddenly, --

"I have not done my errand yet, Mrs. Holabird. Mother has taken up allthe time. I want to have some _nexts_. Your girls know what I mean;and I want them to take hold and help. They are going to be 'nextThursdays, ' and to begin this very coming Thursday of all. I shallgive primary invitations only, --and my primaries are to findsecondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, fromsomewhere else. I am going to try if one little bit of social lifecannot be exogenous; and if it can, what the branching-out will cometo. I think we want sapwood as well as heartwood to keep us green. Ifanybody doesn't quite understand, refer to 'How Plants Grow--Gray. '"

She went off, leaving us that to think of. 

Two days after she looked in again, and said more. "Besides that, every primary or season invitation imposes a condition. Each member isto provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' isalways to be in charge of somebody. You may do what you like, or can, with it. I'll manage the first myself. After that I wash my hands. "

Out of it grew fourteen incomparable Thursday evenings. Pretty muchall we can do about them is to tell that they were; we should wantfourteen new numbers to write their full history. It was like Mr. Hale's lovely "Ten Times One is Ten. " They all came from that oneblessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there_is_ such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can'thelp yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, and the Ark, and the Loaves and Fishes, and the Hundred and Forty-fourThousand sealed in their foreheads, tell of it, all through the Bible, from first to last. "Multiply!" was the very next, inevitablecommandment, after the "Let there be!"

It was such a thing as had never rolled up, or branched out, though, in Westover before. The Marchbankses did not know what to make of it. People got in who had never belonged. There they were, though, in thestately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing;and when they were once there you really could not tell thedifference; unless, indeed, it were that the old, middle wood was thedeadest, just as it is in the trees; and that the life was in the newsap and the green rind. 

Lucilla Waters invented charades; and Helen Josselyn acted them, ascharades had never been acted on West Hill until now. When it came tothe Hobarts' "Next Thursday" they gave us "Dissolving Views, "--everysuccessive queer fashion that had come up resplendent and gone downgrotesque in these last thirty years. Mrs. Hobart had no end of oldrelics, --bandbaskets packed full of venerable bonnets, that in theirclose gradation of change seemed like one individual Indur passingthrough a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that wereodder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue oneswith brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide withruffles _rayonnantes_; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, andbarrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, and high black stocks, and great bundling neckcloths; the verypocket-handkerchiefs were as ridiculous as anything, from thewaiter-napkin size of good stout cambric to a quarter-dollar bit of amiddle with a cataract of "chandelier" lace about it. She could telleverybody how to do their hair, from "flat curls" and "scallops" downor up to frizzes and chignons; and after we had all filed in slowly, one by one, and filled up the room, I don't think there ever couldhave been a funnier evening!

We had musical nights, and readings. We had a "Mutual Friend"Thursday; that was Mrs. Ingleside's. Rosamond was the Boofer Lady;Barbara was Lavvy the Irrepressible; and Miss Pennington herself wasMrs. Wilfer; Mr. And Mrs. Hobart were the Boffins; and DoctorIngleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in thelight of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, asPleasant Riderhood, --Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslielooked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brought with herfor her secondary that night the very, real little doll's dressmakerherself, --Maddy Freeman, who has carved brackets, and painted lovelybook-racks and easels and vases and portfolios for almost everybody'sparlors, and yet never gets into them herself. 

[Illustration]

Leslie would not have asked her to be Jennie Wren, because she reallyhas a lame foot; but when they told her about it, she said right off, "O, how I wish I could be that!" She has not only the lame foot, butthe wonderful "golden bower" of sunshiny hair too; and she knows thedoll's dressmaker by heart; she says she expects to find her sometime, if ever she goes to England--or to heaven. Truly she was up tothe "tricks and the manners" of the occasion; nobody entered into itwith more self-abandonment than she; she was so completely Jennie Wrenthat no one--at the moment--thought of her in any other character, orremembered their rules of behaving according to the square of thedistance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings toher very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured thefestoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid orabashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and agenius. She stepped right _out_ of Dickens's story, not _into_ it, asthe rest of us did; neither did she even seem to step consciously intothe grand Pennington house; all she did as to that was to go "uphere, " or "over there, " and "be dead, " as fresh, new-world delightsattracted her. Lizzie Hexam went too; they belonged together; andT'other Governor would insist on following after them, and beingcomfortably dead also, though Society was behind him, and theVeneerings and the Podsnaps looking on. Mrs. Ingleside did not provideany Podsnaps or Veneerings; she said they would be there. 

Now Eugene Wrayburn was Doctor John Hautayne; for this was only ourfourth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except theperson whose "next" it was; people had simply to take what they werehelped to. 

We began to be a little suspicious of Doctor Hautayne; to wonder abouthis "what next. " Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; Ibelieve it seemed to her as if she always had; some lives meet in away like that. 

It did not end with parties, Miss Pennington's exogenous experiment. She did not mean it should. A great deal that was glad and comfortablecame of it to many persons. Miss Elizabeth asked Maddy Freeman to"come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there everyweek now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designsout of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravings and drawings ofancient ornamentations; and half the time they keep her to luncheon orto tea. Lucilla Waters knows them now as well as we do; and she istaking German lessons with Pen Pennington. 

It really seems as if the "nexts" would grow on so that at last itwould only be our old "set" that would be in any danger of gettingleft out. "Society is like a coral island after all, " says LeslieGoldthwaite. "It isn't a rock of the Old Silurian. "

It was a memorable winter to us in many ways, --that last winter of thenineteenth century's seventh decade. 

One day--everything has to be one day, and all in a minute, when itdoes come, however many days lead up to it--Doctor Ingleside came inand told us the news. He had been up to see Grandfather Holabird;grandfather was not quite well. 

They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knewwhat they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his newsas anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters?

Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne. 

Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. Andyet--"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thingpeople do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact. Take it in; shut your door upon it; and--think! It is something thatbelongs to heart and soul. 

We counted up; it was only seven weeks. 

"As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if theLord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just thismeeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she hasnever been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for thesake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has comeright here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both ofthem; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in, each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, asforeordained, and there's no other way for them to go. "

Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night, --Thursday. DoctorHautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington'sthat evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us, --we looked intonew depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt theintenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was thateverybody could not see how quite another thing than any merelywritten poetry was really "next" that night for Leslie and for JohnHautayne. 

That was in December; it was the first of March when GrandfatherHolabird died. 

At about Christmas-time mother had taken a bad cold. We could not lether get up in the mornings to help before breakfast; the winter workwas growing hard; there were two or three fires to manage besides thefurnace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" cameand split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were allpretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began tobegin to say things to each other which nobody actually finished. "Ifmother doesn't get better, " and "If this cold weather keeps on, " and"_Are_ we going to co-operate ourselves to death, do you think?" fromBarbara, at last. 

Nobody said, "We shall have to get a girl again. " Nobody wanted to dothat; and everybody had a secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and herprophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long. " But we were crippled andreduced; Ruth had as much as ever she could do, with the short daysand her music. 

"I begin to believe it was easy enough for Grant to say 'all_summer_, '" said Barbara; "but _this_ is Valley Forge. " The kitchenfire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3° above. Motherwas worrying up stairs, we knew, because we would not let her comedown until it was warm and her coffee was ready. 

That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for thehour. 

"The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey, " said he. "Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here. "

"Arctura Fish won't go, " said Rosamond, instantly. 

"Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap, " saidBarbara, regardless of elegance; "and--since nobody else will everdare to give in--I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, for us!"

"It isn't giving in; it is going on, " said Mrs. Holabird. 

It certainly was not going back. 

"We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and thenharvest, " said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovatedearth, the first millennial specimen, --see if we don't!--of what wassupposed to be an extinct flora, --the _Domestica antediluviana_. "

Arctura Fish came to us. 

If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenienceof any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasionswhich prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? Wecould not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his footskating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle. 

And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatalattack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all thetime during the three weeks that he lived. 

When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, ofany kind; neither was that deed of gift. 

Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything aboutit. She had been the "family bosom, " Barbara said, ever since shecuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, andthat little pig, " while she warmed our toes. 

"Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked theRoderick Holabirds. 

We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was, indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence, to force itself upon us. 

After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And theworst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobodythought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there itwas. We could not think how such a declared determination and act ofGrandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and AuntRoderick "could not see what we could expect about it; there wasnothing to show; and there were John and John's children; it was notfor any one or two to settle. "

Only Ruth said "we were all good people, and meant right; it must allcome right, somehow. "

But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep theplace. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was leftmust do for us; the house must go into the estate. 

It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer, --untilaffairs were settled. 

"It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie. 

CHAPTER X. 

RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY. 

The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights, --well, we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset, " and think how therewould be June after June here for somebody, and we should only havehad just two of them out of our whole lives. 

Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And whatcould have become of it since? And what if it were found some time, after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear oldplace" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, andthough Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we couldchoose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an oldhomestead; it wouldn't be so much of a change for us, if we made upour minds not to take it in, as if we had always lived there. "

Why, we _had_ always lived there! That was just the way we had alwaysbeen trying to spell "home, " though we had never got the right lettersto do it with before. When exactly the right thing comes to you, it isa thing that has always been. You don't get the very sticks and stonesto begin with, maybe; but what they stand for grows up in you, andwhen you come to it you know it is yours. The best things--the mostglorious and wonderful of all--will be what we shall see to have been"laid up for us from the foundation. " Aunt Roderick did not see onebit of how that was with us. 

"There isn't a word in the tenth commandment about not coveting your_own_ house, " Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we didgrieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts, " we feltthat Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle Johnwere hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business. "And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe thatGrandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up. " He hadnot had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he_was_ well, and had a mind, we knew what he had meant to do. 

If Uncle Roderick and Uncle John had not believed a word of whatfather told them, they could not have behaved very differently. Wehalf thought, sometimes, that they did not believe it. And very likelythey half thought that we were making it appear that they had donesomething that was not right. And it is the half thoughts that arethe hard thoughts. "It is very disagreeable, " Aunt Roderick used tosay. 

Miss Trixie Spring came over and spent days with us, as of old; andwhen the house looked sweet and pleasant with the shaded summer light, and was full of the gracious summer freshness, she would look roundand shake her head, and say, "It's just as beautiful as it can be. Andit's a dumb shame. Don't tell _me_!"

Uncle Roderick was going to "take in" the old homestead with hisshare, and that was as much as he cared about; Uncle John was used tonothing but stocks and railway shares, and did not want"encumbrances"; and as to keeping it as estate property and payingrent to the heirs, ourselves included, --nobody wanted that; they wouldrather have things settled up. There would always be questions ofestimates and repairs; it was not best to have things so in a family. Separate accounts as well as short ones, made best friends. We knewthey all thought father was unlucky to have to do with in suchmatters. He would still be the "limited" man of the family. It wouldtake two thirds of his inheritance to pay off those old '57 debts. 

So we took our lovely Westover summer days as things we could not haveany more of. And when you begin to feel that about anything, it wouldbe a relief to have had the last of it. Nothing lasts always; but welike to have the forever-and-ever feeling, however delusive. A childhates his Sunday clothes, because he knows he cannot put them on againon Monday. 

With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house, --Arctura. We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of aserving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaosto come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn withus the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned. We did not move thekitchen down stairs again; we were determined not to have a kitchenany more. 

Arctura was strong and blithe; she could fetch and carry, make fires, wash dishes, clean knives and brasses, do all that came hardest to us;and could do, in other things, with and for us, what she saw us do. Weall worked together till the work was done; then Arctura sat down inthe afternoons, just as we did, and read books, or made her clothes. She always looked nice and pretty. She had large dark calico apronsfor her work; and little white bib-aprons for table-tending anddress-up; and mother made for her, on the machine, little linencollars and cuffs. 

We had a pride in her looks; and she knew it; she learned to work asdelicately as we did. When breakfast or dinner was ready, she was asfit to turn round and serve as we were to sit down; she was astonishedherself, at ways and results that she fell in with and attained. 

"Why, where does the dirt go to?" she would exclaim. "It never gethersanywheres. "

"GATHERS, --_anywhere_" Rosamond corrected. 

Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by theway. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was nogreat gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the rightend of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had comeout of our year at Westover. 

"Things seem so easy, " the girl would say. "It is just like two timesone. "

So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and CompoundProportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table. She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution andgeometrical progression without knowing how she got there. If you wanta house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke;if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must _build_ one, just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be "knockedtogether. " And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wantinggreat work out of doors, this is just what "we girls, " some ofus, --and some of the best of us, perhaps, --have got to stay at homeawhile and do. 

"It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good whileto be done, " says Barbara; "and Miss Pennington has found out another. 'There may be, ' she says, 'need of women for reorganizing townmeetings; I won't undertake to say there isn't; but I'm _sure_ there'sneed of them for reorganizing _parlor_ meetings. They are getting tobe left altogether to the little school-girl "sets. " Women who havegrown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have theposition and power to break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you thinkso? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to seeto this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her, --right up, respectful, --Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!"

Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on WestHill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that. 

A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What withthe family worries, --which Ruth always had a way of gathering toherself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep thenettles from other people's fingers, --and her hard work at her music, she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take avacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all atonce, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and LakeGeorge, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and askedRuth to go too. 

"If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to havecome of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'mnervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; Ishould be miserable company for one, always distracted after thewhistles. "

Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubtin them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be. 

"What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Penningtonleft. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruthcolored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicestpossible way to go, if she were to go at all. "

Barbara meant--or meant to be understood that she meant--that MissPennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers;Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go byan invitation like this from people out of her own family. 

"But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" sheasked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?"

"Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked. "

"I wish--everybody--knew that, " said Ruth. 

Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But shewent, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went outinto the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life. 

This is one of her letters:--

DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:--It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you couldsit where I do this morning, looking up the still river in the brightlight, with the tender purple haze on the far-off hills, and long, low, shady Constitution Island lying so beautiful upon the water onone side, and dark shaggy Cro' Nest looming up on the other. TheParrott guns at the foundry, over on the headland opposite, aretrying, --as they are trying almost all the time, --against the face ofthe high, old, desolate cliff; and the hurtling buzz of the shellskeeps a sort of slow, tremendous time-beat on the air. 

I think I am almost more interested in Constitution Island than in anyother part of the place. I never knew until I came here that it wasthe home of the Misses Warner; the place where Queechy came from, andDollars and Cents, and the Wide, Wide World. It seems so strange tothink that they sit there and write still, lovely stories while allthis parade and bustle and learning how to fight are going on closebeside and about them. 

The Cadets are very funny. They will do almost any thing formischief, --the frolic of it, I mean. Dakie Thayne tells us veryamusing stories. They are just going into camp now; and they haveparades and battery-practice every day. They have target-firing at oldCro' Nest, --which has to stand all the firing from the north battery, just around here from the hotel. One day the cadet in charge made avery careful sighting of his piece; made the men train the gun up anddown, this way and that, a hair more or a hair less, till they werenearly out of patience; when, lo! just as he had got "a beautifulbead, " round came a superintending officer, and took a look too. Thebad boy had drawn it full on a poor old black cow! I do not believe hewould have really let her be blown up; but Dakie says, --"Well, herather thinks, --if she would have stood still long enough, --he wouldhave let her be--astonished!"

The walk through the woods, around the cliff, over the river, isbeautiful. If only they wouldn't call it by such a silly name!

We went out to Old Fort Putnam yesterday. I did not know how afraidMiss Pennington could be of a little thing before. I don't know, now, how much of it was fun; for, as Dakie Thayne said, it was agonizinglyfunny. What must have happened to him after we got back and he left usI cannot imagine; he didn't laugh much there, and it must have been amisery of politeness. 

We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at thedark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edgeof the broken embankment, which we were following along to where itsloped down safely again, --when, just at the very middle and highestand most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had beenfrightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone. "No;nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet againin that dreadful place. " She laughed in the midst of it; but she wasreally frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried tohelp her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped. "What wouldcome of it?" "She didn't know; she supposed that was the end of her;_she_ couldn't do anything. " "But, dear Miss Pennington, " says Dakie, "are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make aLady Simon Stylites of yourself?" "For all she knew; she never couldget down. " I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, nearly half an hour, before she began to _hitch_ along; for walk shewouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nicesilk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoistafter hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocksand began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she couldstand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum, --"a noble wreck in ruinousperfection. " She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll themup in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two orthree breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silkpetticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we didall we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs. 

"What _has_ happened to Miss Pennington?" said Mrs. General M----, aswe came up on the piazza. 

"Nothing, " said Dakie, quite composed and proper, "only she got tiredand sat down; and it was dusty, --that was all. " He bowed and went off, without so much as a glance of secret understanding. 

"A joke has as many lives as a cat, here, " he told Pen and me, afterwards, "and that was _too_ good not to keep to ourselves. "

Dear little mother and girls, --I have told stories and describeddescribes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner _such_ athing that Dakie Thayne wants to do! We got to talking about Westoverand last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn'thelp telling him something about the worry. I know I had no businessto; and I am afraid I have made a snarl. He says he would like to buythe place! And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn't rent it ofhim if he did! Just think of it, --that boy! I believe he really meansto write to Chicago, to his guardian. Of course it never came into myhead when I told him; it wouldn't at any rate, and I never think of_his_ having such a quantity of money. He seems just like--as far asthat goes--any other boy. What shall I do? Do you believe he will?

P. S. Saturday morning. I feel better about that Poll Parroting ofmine, to-day. I have had another talk with Dakie. I don't believe hewill write; now, at any rate. O girls! this is just the most perfectmorning!

Tell Stephen I've got a _splendid_ little idea, on purpose for him andme. Something I can hardly keep to myself till I get home. DakieThayne put it into my head. He is just the brightest boy, abouteverything! I begin to feel in a hurry almost, to come back. I don'tthink Miss Pennington will go to Lake George, after all. She says shehates to leave the Point, so many of her old friends are here. But Penand I think she is afraid of the steamers. 

 * * * * *

Ruth got home a week after this; a little fatter, a little browner, and a little merrier and more talkative than she had ever been before. 

Stephen was in a great hurry about the splendid little mysteriousidea, of course. Boys never can wait, half so well as girls, foranything. 

We were all out on the balcony that night before dusk, as usual. Ruthgot up suddenly, and went into the house for something. Stephen wentstraight in after her. What happened upon that, the rest of us did notknow till afterward. But it is a nice little part of the story, --justbecause there is so precious little of it. 

Ruth went round, through the brown room and the hall, to the frontdoor. Stephen found her stooping down, with her face close to thepiazza cracks. 

"Hollo! what's the matter? Lost something?"

Ruth lifted up her head. "Hush!"

"Why, how your face shines! What _is_ up?"

"It's the sunset. I mean--that shines. Don't say anything. Oursplendid--little--idea, you know. It's under here. "

"Be dar--never-minded, if mine is!"

"You don't know. Columbus didn't know where his idea was--exactly. Doyou remember when Sphinx hid her kittens under here last summer?Brought 'em round, over the wood-pile in the shed, and they neverknew their way out till she showed 'em?"

"It _isn't_ about kittens!"

"Hasn't Old Ma'amselle got some now?"

"Yes; four. "

"Couldn't you bring up one--or two--to-morrow morning _early_, andmake a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back thesod, and fasten 'em up?"

"What--_for_?" with wild amazement. 

"I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tellyou the rest to-morrow morning. " And Ruth was up on her two littlefeet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, andround again to the balcony, before he could say another word. 

Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-earlyplan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up hismind to be on hand. 

Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, shewent softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her littlewrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes, " shewhispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. 

"Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. 

And Ruth "scatted. "

Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended thetucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet andwedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at aprecise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The catbabies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length ontheir miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given todoing. 

"They won't go far, " said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up. "

"What--_for_?" cried Stephen, again. 

"To get them out, of course, " says Ruth. 

"Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!"

"Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I _believe_--but I don't dare say a wordyet--there's something there!"

"Of course there is. Two little yowling--"

"Something we all want found, Steve, " Ruth whispered, earnestly. "ButI don't know. Do hush! Make haste!"

Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a longserious peep. When he took his face back again, "I _see_ something, "he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, Ruth--? My cracky! if you do!"

"We won't suppose, " said Ruth. "We'll hammer. "

Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then hegot the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering andprying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped thewedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to themiddle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and alittle smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrenchlifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under thehouse-boarding. 

Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts ofdust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, and weather had not badly injured it. 

"Stephen, I am sure!" said Ruth, holding Stephen back by the arm. "Don't touch it, though! Let it be, right there. Look at that corner, that lies opened up a little. Isn't that grandfather's writing?"

[Illustration]

It lay deep down, and not directly under. They could scarcely havereached it with their hands. Stephen ran into the parlor, and broughtout an opera-glass that was upon the table there. 

"That's bright of you, Steve!" cried Ruth. 

Through the glass they discerned clearly the handwriting. They readthe words, at the upturned corner, --"heirs after him. "

"Lay the board back in its place, " said Ruth. "It isn't for us tomeddle with any more. Take the kittens away. " Ruth had turned quitepale. 

Going down to the barn with Stephen, presently, carrying the twokittens in her arms, while he had the mallet and wedge, --

"Stephen, " said she, "I'm going to do something on my ownresponsibility. "

"I should think you had. "

"O, that was nothing. I had to do that. I had to make sure before Isaid anything. But now, --I'm going to ask Uncle and Aunt Roderick tocome over. They ought to be here, you know. "

"Why! don't you suppose they will believe, _now_?"

"Stephen Holabird! you're a bad boy! No; of course it isn't _that_. "Ruth kept right on from the barn, across the field, into the "oldplace. "

Mrs. Roderick Holabird was out in the east piazza, watering her houseplants, that stood in a row against the wall. Her cats always hadtheir milk, and her plants their water, before she had her ownbreakfast. It was a good thing about Mrs. Roderick Holabird, and itwas a good time to take her. 

"Aunt Roderick, " said Ruth, coming up, "I want you and Uncle to comeover right after breakfast; or before, if you like; if you please. "

It was rather sudden, but for the repeated "ifs. "

"_You_ want!" said Mrs. Roderick in surprise. "Who sent you?"

"Nobody. Nobody knows but Stephen and me. Something is going tohappen. " Ruth smiled, as one who has a pleasant astonishment in store. She smiled right up out of her heart-faith in Aunt Roderick andeverybody. 

"On the whole, I guess you'd better come right off, --_to_ breakfast!"How boldly little Ruth took the responsibility! Mr. And Mrs. Roderickhad not been over to our house for at least two months. It had seemedto happen so. Father always went there to attend to the "business. "The "papers" were all at grandfather's. All but this one, that the"gale" had taken care of. 

Uncle Roderick, hearing the voices, came out into the piazza. 

"We want you over at our house, " repeated Ruth. "Right off, now;there's something you ought to see about. "

"I don't like mysteries, " said Mrs. Roderick, severely, covering hercuriosity; "especially when children get them up. And it's no matterabout the breakfast, either way. We can walk across, I suppose, Mr. Holabird, and see what it is all about. Kittens, I dare say. "

"Yes, " said Ruth, laughing out; "it _is_ kittens, partly. Or was. "

So we saw them, from mother's room window, all coming along down theside-hill path together. 

We always went out at the front door to look at the morning. Arcturahad set the table, and baked the biscuits; we could breathe a littlefirst breath of life, nowadays, that did not come out of the oven. 

Father was in the door-way. Stephen stood, as if he had been putthere, over the loose board, that we did not know was loose. 

Ruth brought Uncle and Aunt Roderick up the long steps, and so around. 

"Good morning, " said father, surprised. "Why, Ruth, what is it?" Andhe met them right on that very loose board; and Stephen stood stockstill, pertinaciously in the way, so that they dodged and blunderedabout him. 

"Yes, Ruth; what is it?" said Mrs. Roderick Holabird. 

Then Ruth, after she had got the family solemnly together, began to bestruck with the solemnity. Her voice trembled. 

"I didn't mean to make a fuss about it; only I knew you would allcare, and I wanted--Stephen and I have found something, mother!" Sheturned to Mrs. Stephen Holabird, and took her hand, and held it hard. 

Stephen stooped down, and drew out the loose board. "Under there, "said he; and pointed in. 

They could all see the folded paper, with the drifts of dust upon it, just as it had lain for almost a year. 

"It has been there ever since the day of the September Gale, father, "he said. "The day, you know, that grandfather was here. "

"Don't you remember the wind and the papers?" said Ruth. "It wasremembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of thecracks and--" with a little, low, excited laugh--"the 'total depravityof inanimate things, ' till--just a little while ago. "

She did not say a word about that bright boy at West Point, now, before them all. 

Uncle Roderick reached in with the crook of his cane, and drewforward the packet, and stooped down and lifted it up. He shook offthe dust and opened it. He glanced along the lines, and at thesignature. Not a single witnessing name. No matter. Uncle Roderick isan honest man. He turned round and held it out to father. 

"It is your deed of gift, " said he; and then they two shook hands. 

"There!" said Ruth, tremulous with gladness. "I knew they would. Thatwas it. That was why. I told you, Stephen!"

"No, you didn't, " said Stephen. "You never told me anything--butcats. "

"Well! I'm sure I am glad it is all settled, " said Mrs. RoderickHolabird, after a pause; "and nobody has any hard thoughts to lay up. "

They would not stop to breakfast; they said they would come anothertime. 

But Aunt Roderick, just before she went away, turned round and kissedRuth. She is a supervising, regulating kind of a woman, and verystrict about--well, other people's--expenditures; but she was gladthat the "hard thoughts" were lifted off from her. 

 * * * * *

"I knew, " said Ruth, again, "that we were all good people, and that itmust come right. "

"Don't tell _me!_" says Miss Trixie, intolerantly. "She couldn't helpherself. "

CHAPTER XI. 

BARBARA'S BUZZ. 

Leslie Goldthwaite's world of friendship is not a circle. Or if it is, it is the far-off, immeasurable horizon that holds all of life andpossibility. 

"You must draw the line somewhere, " people say. "You cannot beacquainted with everybody. "

But Leslie's lines are only radii. They reach out to wherever there isa sympathy; they hold fast wherever they have once been joined. Consequently, she moves to laws that seem erratic to those for whom apair of compasses can lay down the limit. Consequently, her weddingwas "odd. "

If Olivia Marchbanks had been going to be married there would havebeen a "circle" invited. Nobody would have been left out; nobody wouldhave been let in. She had lived in this necromantic ring; she wouldbe married in it; she would die and be buried in it; and of all thewide, rich, beautiful champaign of life beyond, --of all its nobleheights, and hidden, tender hollows, --its gracious harvest fields, andits deep, grand, forest glooms, --she would be content, elegantly andexclusively, to know nothing. To her wedding people might come, indeed, from a distance, --geographically; but they would come out of aprecisely corresponding little sphere in some other place, and fitright into this one, for the time being, with the most edifyingsameness. 

From the east and the west, the north and the south, they began tocome, days beforehand, --the people who could not let LeslieGoldthwaite be married without being there. There were no proclamationcards issued, bearing in imposing characters the announcement of"Their Daughter's Marriage, " by Mr. And Mrs. Aaron Goldthwaite, afterthe like of which one almost looks to see, and somewhat feels the needof, the regular final invocation, --"God save the Commonwealth!"

There had been loving letters sent here and there; old Miss Craydocke, up in the mountains, got one, and came down a month earlier inconsequence, and by the way of Boston. She stayed there at Mrs. FrankScherman's; and Frank and his wife and little Sinsie, the baby, --"sheisn't Original Sin, as I was, " says her mother, --came up to Z----together, and stopped at the hotel. Martha Josselyn came from NewYork, and stayed, of course, with the Inglesides. 

Martha is a horrible thing, girls; how do you suppose I dare to puther in here as I do? She is a milliner. And this is how it happens. Her father is a comparatively poor man, --a book-keeper with a salary. There are ever so many little Josselyns; and Martha has always feltbound to help. She is not very likely to marry, and she is not one totake it into her calculation, if she were; but she is of the sort whoare said to be "cut out for old maids, " and she knows it. She couldnot teach music, nor keep a school, her own schooling--not hereducation; God never lets that be cut short--was abridged by the needof her at home. But she could do anything in the world with scissorsand needle; and she can make just the loveliest bonnets that ever wereput together. 

So, as she can help more by making two bonnets in a day, and gettingsix dollars for them beside the materials, she lets her step-motherput out her impossible sewing, and has turned a little second-storyroom in her father's house into a private millinery establishment. Shewill only take the three dollars apiece, beyond the actual cost, forher bonnets, although she might make a fortune if she would berapacious; for she says that pays her fairly for her time, and she hasmade up her mind to get through the world fairly, if there is anybreathing-space left for fairness in it. If not, she can stopbreathing, and go where there is. 

She gets as much to do as she can take. "Miss Josselyn" is one of thelittle unadvertised resources of New York, which it is very knowing, and rather elegant, to know about. But it would not be at all elegantto have her at a party. Hence, Mrs. Van Alstyne, who had a littlebonnet, of black lace and nasturtiums, at this very time, that MarthaJosselyn had made for her, was astonished to find that she was Mrs. Ingleside's sister and had come on to the marriage. 

General and Mrs. Ingleside--Leslie's cousin Delight--had come fromtheir away-off, beautiful Wisconsin home, and brought littlethree-year-old Rob and Rob's nurse with them. Sam Goldthwaite was athome from Philadelphia, where he is just finishing his medicalcourse, --and Harry was just back again from the Mediterranean; so thatMrs. Goldthwaite's house was full too. Jack could not be here; theyall grieved over that. Jack is out in Japan. But there came awonderful "solid silk" dress, and a lovely inlaid cabinet, forLeslie's wedding present, --the first present that arrived fromanybody; sent the day he got the news;--and Leslie cried over them, and kissed them, and put the beautiful silk away, to be made up in thefashion next year, when Jack comes home; and set his picture on thecabinet, and put his letters into it, and says she does not know whatother things she shall find quite dear enough to keep them company. 

Last of all, the very day before the wedding, came old Mr. MarmadukeWharne. And of all things in the world, he brought her a telescope. "To look out at creation with, and keep her soul wide, " he says, and"to put her in mind of that night when he first found her out, amongthe Hivites and the Hittites and the Amalekites, up in Jefferson, andtook her away among the planets, out of the snarl. "

Miss Craydocke has been all summer making a fernery for Leslie; andshe took two tickets in the cars, and brought it down beside her, onthe seat, all the way from Plymouth, and so out here. How they couldget it to wherever they are going we all wondered, but Dr. Hautaynesaid it should go; he would have it most curiously packed, in a box onrollers, and marked, --"Dr. J. Hautayne, U. S. Army. Valuable scientificpreparations; by no means to be turned or shaken. " But he did say, with a gentle prudence, --"If somebody should give you an observatory, or a greenhouse, I think we might have to stop at _that_, dear. "

Nobody did, however. There was only one more big present, and that didnot come. Dakie Thayne knew better. He gave her a magnificent copy ofthe Sistine Madonna, which his father had bought in Italy, and hewrote her that it was to be boxed and sent after her to her home. _He_ did not say that it was magnificent; Leslie wrote that to usafterward, herself. She said it made it seem as if one side of herlittle home had been broken through and let in heaven. 

We were all sorry that Dakie could not be here. They waited tillSeptember for Harry; "but who, " wrote Dakie, "could expect a militaryengagement to wait till all the stragglers could come up? I have givenmy consent and my blessing; all I ask is that you will stop at WestPoint on your way. " And that was what they were going to do. 

Arabel Waite and Delia made all the wedding dresses. But Mrs. Goldthwaite had her own carefully perfected patterns, adjusted to aline in every part. Arabel meekly followed these, and saved her whole, fresh soul to pour out upon the flutings and finishing. 

It was a morning wedding, and a pearl of days. The summer had not gonefrom a single leaf. Only the parch and the blaze were over, andbeautiful dews had cooled away their fever. The day-lilies were whiteamong their broad, tender green leaves, and the tube-roses had come inblossom. There were beds of red and white carnations, heavy withperfume. The wide garden porch, into which double doors opened fromthe summer-room where they were married, showed these, among thegrass-walks of the shady, secluded place, through its own splendidvista of trumpet-hung bignonia vines. 

Everybody wanted to help at this wedding who could help. Arabel Waiteasked to be allowed to pour out coffee, or something. So in a blacksilk gown, and a new white cap, she took charge of the little room upstairs, where were coffee and cakes and sandwiches for the friends whocame from a distance by the train, and might be glad of something toeat at twelve o'clock. Delia offered, "if she only might, " to assistin the dining-room, where the real wedding collation stood ready. Andeven our Arctura came and asked if she might be "lent, " to "opendoors, or anything. " The regular maids of the house found labor sodivided that it was a festival day all through. 

Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, inher brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around herhead and frizzed a little, gently, at the front, --since why shouldn'tshe, too, have a bit of the fashion?--and tied round with a soft, simple white ribbon. Delia had on a violet-and-white striped pique, quite new, with a ruffled apron also; and her ribbon was white, too, and she had a bunch of violets and green leaves upon her bosom. Wecared as much about their dress as they did about ours. Barbaraherself had pinched Arctura's crimps, and tied the little white bowamong-them. 

Every room in the house was attended. 

"There never was such pretty serving, " said Mrs. Van Alstyne, afterward. "Where _did_ they get such people?--And beautiful serving, "she went on, reverting to her favorite axiom, "is, after all, the verysoul of living!"

"Yes, ma'am, " said Barbara, gravely. "I think we shall find that truealways. "

Opposite the door into the garden porch were corresponding ones intothe hall, and directly down to these reached the last flight of thestaircase, that skirted the walls at the back with its steps andlandings. We could see Leslie all the way, as she came down, with herhand in her father's arm. 

She descended beside him like a softly accompanying white cloud; herdress was of tulle, without a hitch or a puff or a festoon about it. It had two skirts, I believe, but they were plain-hemmed, and felllike a mist about her figure. Underneath was no rustling silk, orshining satin; only more mist, of finest, sheerest quaker-muslin; youcould not tell where the cloud met the opaque of soft, unstarchedcambric below it all. And from her head to her feet floated theshimmering veil, fastened to her hair with only two or three tube-roseblooms and the green leaves and white stars of the larger myrtle. There was a cluster of them upon her bosom, and she held some in herleft hand. 

Dr. Hautayne looked nobly handsome, as he came forward to her sidein his military dress; but I think we all had another picture ofhim in our minds, --dusty, and battle-stained, bareheaded, in hisshirt-sleeves, as he rode across the fire to save men's lives. When aman has once looked like that, it does not matter how he ever merely_looks_ again. 

Marmaduke Wharne stood close by Ruth, during the service. She saw hisgray, shaggy brows knit themselves into a low, earnest frown, as hefixedly watched and listened; but there was a shining underneath, asstill water-drops shine under the gray moss of some old, cleft rock;and a pleasure upon the lines of the rough-cast face, that was likethe tender glimmering of a sunbeam. 

When Marmaduke Wharne first saw John Hautayne, he put his hand uponhis shoulder, and held him so, while he looked him hardly in the face. 

"Do you think you deserve her, John?" the old man said. And Johnlooked him back, and answered straightly, "No!" It was not mere aptand effective reply; there was an honest heartful on the lips and inthe eyes; and Leslie's old friend let his hand slip down along thestrong, young arm, until it grasped the answering hand, and saidagain, --

"Perhaps, then, John, --you'll do!"

"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" That is what thechurch asks, in her service, though nobody asked it here to-day. Butwe all felt we had a share to give of what we loved so much. Herfather and her mother gave; her girl friends gave; Miss Trixie Spring, Arabel Waite, Delia, little Arctura, the home-servants, gathered inthe door-way, all gave; Miss Craydocke, crying, and disdaining herpocket-handkerchief till the tears trickled off her chin, because shewas smiling also and would not cover _that_ up, --gave; and nobody gavewith a more loving wrench out of a deep heart, than bluff old frowningMarmaduke Wharne. 

[Illustration]

 * * * * *

Nobody knows the comfort that we Holabirds took, though, in thoseautumn days, after all this was over, in our home; feeling everybright, comfortable minute, that our home was our own. "It is so niceto have it to love grandfather by, " said Ruth, like a little child. 

"Everything is so pleasant, " said Barbara, one sumptuous morning. "I've so many nice things that I can choose among to do. I feel like abee in a barrel of sugar. I don't know where to begin. " Barbara had anew dress to make; she had also a piece of worsted work to begin; shehad also two new books to read aloud, that Mrs. Scherman had broughtup from Boston. 

We felt rich in much prospectively; we could afford things better now;we had proposed and arranged a book-club; Miss Pennington and we wereto manage it; Mrs. Scherman was to purchase for us. Ruth was to haveplenty of music. Life was full and bright to us, this goldenautumn-time, as it had never been before. The time itself was radiant;and the winter was stored beforehand with pleasures; Arctura was asglad as anybody; she hears our readings in the afternoons, when shecan come up stairs, and sit mending stockings or hemming aprons. 

We knew, almost for the first time, what it was to be without anypressure of anxiety. We dared to look round the house and see what waswearing out. We could replace things--_some_, at any rate--as well asnot; so we had the delight of choosing, and the delight of putting by;it was a delicious perplexity. We all felt like Barbara's bee; andwhen she said that once she said it for every day, all through the newand happy time. 

It was wonderful how little there was, after all, that we did want inany hurry. We thought it over. We did not care to carpet thedining-room; we liked the drugget and the dark wood-margins better. Itcame down pretty nearly, at last, so far as household improvementswere concerned, to a new broadcloth cover for the great family tablein the brown-room. 

Barbara's _bee_-havior, however, had its own queer fluctuations atthis time, it must be confessed. Whatever the reason was, it was notaltogether to be depended on. It had its alternations of hummingcontent with a good deal of whimsical bouncing and buzzing and themost unpredictable flights. To use a phrase of Aunt Trixie's appliedto her childhood, but coming into new appropriateness now, Barbara"acted like a witch. "

She began at the wedding. Only a minute or two before Leslie camedown, Harry Goldthwaite moved over to where she stood just a littleapart from the rest of us, by the porch door, and placed himselfbeside her, with some little commonplace word in a low tone, asbefitted the hushed expectancy of the moment. 

All at once, with an "O, I forgot!" she started away from him in theabruptest fashion, and glanced off across the room, and over into alittle side parlor beyond the hall, into which she certainly had notbeen before that day. She could have "forgotten" nothing there; butshe doubtless had just enough presence of mind not to rush up thestaircase toward the dressing-rooms, at the risk of colliding with thebridal party. When Leslie an instant later came in at the doubledoors, Mrs. Holabird caught sight of Barbara again just sliding intothe far, lower corner of the room by the forward entrance, where shestood looking out meekly between the shoulders and the floatingcap-ribbons of Aunt Trixie Spring and Miss Arabel Waite during thewhole ceremony. 

Whether it was that she felt there was something dangerous in the air, or that Harry Goldthwaite had some new awfulness in her eyes frombeing actually a commissioned officer, --Ensign Goldthwaite, now, (Rose had borrowed from the future, for the sake of euphony andeffect, when she had so retorted feet and dignities upon her lastyear, )--we could not guess; but his name or presence seemed all atonce a centre of electrical disturbances in which her whisks andwhirls were simply to be wondered at. 

"I don't see why he should tell _me_ things, " was what she said toRosamond one day, when she took her to task after Harry had gone, formaking off almost before he had done speaking, when he had beentelling us of the finishing of some business that Mr. Goldthwaite hadmanaged for him in Newburyport. It was the sale of a piece of propertythat he had there, from his father, of houses and building-lots thathad been unprofitable to hold, because of uncertain tenants and hightaxes, but which were turned now into a comfortable round sum ofmoney. 

"I shall not be so poor now, as if I had only my pay, " said Harry. Atwhich Barbara had disappeared. 

"Why, you were both there!" said Barbara. 

"Well, yes; we were there in a fashion. He was sitting by you, though, and he looked up at you, just then. It did not seem very friendly. "

"I'm sure I didn't notice; I don't see why he should tell me things, "said whimsical Barbara. 

"Well, perhaps he will stop, " said Rose, quietly, and walked away. 

It seemed, after a while, as if he would. He could not understandBarbara in these days. All her nice, cordial, honest ways were gone. She was always shying at something. Twice he was here, when she didnot come into the room until tea-time. 

"There are so many people, " she said, in her unreasonable manner. "They make me nervous, looking and listening. "

We had Miss Craydocke and Mrs. Scherman with us then. We had askedthem to come and spend a week with us before they left Z----. 

Miss Craydocke had found Barbara one evening, in the twilight, standing alone in one of the brown-room windows. She had come up, inher gentle, old-friendly way, and stood beside her. 

"My dear, " she said, with the twilight impulse of nearness, --"I am anold woman. Aren't you pushing something away from you, dear?"

"Ow!" said Barbara, as if Miss Craydocke had pinched her. And poorMiss Craydocke could only walk away again. 

When it came to Aunt Roderick, though, it was too much. Aunt Roderickcame over a good deal now. She had quite taken us into unqualifiedapproval again, since we had got the house. She approved herself also. As if it was she who had died and left us something, and looked backupon it now with satisfaction. At least, as if she had been theSeptember Gale, and had taken care of that paper for us. 

Aunt Roderick has very good practical eyes; but no sentiment whatever. "It seems to me, Barbara, that you are throwing away youropportunities, " she said, plainly. 

Barbara looked up with a face of bold unconsciousness. She wasbrought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she couldnot touch the nerve, as dear Miss Craydocke could. 

"I always am throwing them away, " said Barbara. "It's my fashion. Inever could save corners. I always put my pattern right into themiddle of my piece, and the other half never comes out, you see. Whathave I done, now? Or what do you think I might do, just at present?"

"I think you might save yourself from being sorry by and by, " saidAunt Roderick. 

"I'm ever so much obliged to you, " said Barbara, collectedly. "Just asmuch as if I could understand. But perhaps there'll be some lightgiven. I'll turn it over in my mind. In the mean while, Aunt Roderick, I just begin to see one very queer thing in the world. You've livedlonger than I have; I wish you could explain it. There are some thingsthat everybody is very delicate about, and there are some that theytake right hold of. People might have _pocket_-perplexities for yearsand years, and no created being would dare to hint or ask a question;but the minute it is a case of heart or soul, --or they think itis, --they 'rush right in where angels fear to tread. ' What _do_ yousuppose makes the difference?"

After that, we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw thatthere could be no meddling without marring. She had been too consciousof us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no realmischief done, already. 

"It's all of them, every one!" she repeated, half hysterically, thatday, after her shell had exploded, and Aunt Roderick had retreated, really with great forbearance. "Miss Craydocke began, and I had toscream at her; even Sin Scherman made a little moral speech about herown wild ways, and set that baby crowing over me! And once Aunt Trixie'vummed' at me. And I'm sure I ain't doing a single thing!" Shewhimpered and laughed, like a little naughty boy, called to accountfor mischief, and pretending surprised innocence, yet secretly at onceenjoying and repenting his own badness; and so we had to let heralone. 

But after a while Harry Goldthwaite stayed away four whole days, andthen he only came in to say that he was going to Washington to be gonea week. It was October, now, and his orders might come any day. Thenwe might not see him again for three years, perhaps. 

On the Thursday of that next week, Barbara said she would go down andsee Mrs. Goldthwaite. 

"I think it quite time you should, " said Mrs. Holabird. Barbara hadnot been down there once since the wedding-day. 

She put her crochet in her pocket, and we thought of course she wouldstay to tea. It was four in the afternoon when she went away. 

About an hour later Olivia Marchbanks called. 

It came out that Olivia had a move to make. In fact, that she wantedto set us all to making moves. She proposed a chess-club, for thewinter, to bring us together regularly; to include half a dozenfamilies, and meet by turn at the different houses. 

"I dare say Miss Pennington will have her neighborhood partiesagain, " she said; "they are nice, but rather exhausting; we wantsomething quiet, to come in between. Something a little more amongourselves, you know. Maria Hendee is a splendid chess-player, and sois Mark. Maud plays with her father, and Adelaide and I are learning. I know you play, Rosamond, and Barbara, --doesn't she? Nobody cancomplain of a chess-club, you see; and we can have a table at whistfor the elders who like it, and almost always a round game for theodds and ends. After supper, we can dance, or anything. Don't youthink it would do?"

"I think it would do nicely for _one_ thing, " said Rose, thoughtfully. "But don't let us allow it to be the _whole_ of our winter. "

Olivia Marchbanks's face clouded. She had put forward a little pawn ofcompliment toward us, as towards a good point, perhaps, for tempting abreak in the game. And behold! Rosamond's knight only leaped rightover it, facing honestly and alertly both ways. 

"Chess would be good for nothing less than once a week, " said Olivia. "I came to you almost the very first, out of the family, " she added, with a little height in her manner. "I hope you won't break it up. "

"Break it up! No, indeed! We were all getting just nicely joinedtogether, " replied Rosamond, ladylike with perfect temper. "I thinklast winter was so _really good_, " she went on; "I should be sorry tobreak up what _that_ did; that is all. "

"I'm willing enough to help in those ways, " said Olivia, condescendingly; "but I think we might have our _own_ things, too. "

"I don't know, Olivia, " said Rosamond, slowly, "about these 'ownthings. ' They are just what begin to puzzle me. "

It was the bravest thing our elegant Rosamond had ever done. OliviaMarchbanks was angry. She all but took back her invitation. 

"Never mind, " she said, getting up to take leave. "It must be sometime yet; I only mentioned it. Perhaps we had better not try to gobeyond ourselves, after all. Such things are sure to be stupid unlesseverybody is really interested. "

Rosamond stood in the hall-door, as she went down the steps and away. At the same moment, Barbara, flushed with an evidently hurried walk, came in. "Why! what makes you so red, Rose?" she said. 

"Somebody has been snubbing somebody, " replied Rose, holding her royalcolor, like her namesake, in the midst of a cool repose. "And I don'tquite know whether it is Olivia Marchbanks or I. "

"A color-question between Rose and Barberry!" said Ruth. "What have_you_ been doing, Barbie? Why didn't you stay to tea?"

"I? I've been walking, of course. --That boy has got home again, " sheadded, half aloud, to Rosamond, as they went up stairs. 

We knew _very_ well that she must have been queer to Harry again. Hewould have been certain to walk home with her, if she would have lethim. But--"all through the town, and up the hill, in the daylight!Or--stay to tea with _him_ there, and make him come, in the dark!--And_if_ he imagined that I knew!" We were as sure as if she had said it, that these were the things that were in her mind, and that these werewhat she had run away from. How she had done it we did not know; wehad no doubt it had been something awful. 

The next morning nobody called. Father came home to dinner and saidMr. Goldthwaite had told him that Harry was under orders, --to the"Katahdin. "

In the afternoon Barbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Thenshe put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting fora week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to SouthHollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery. 

"You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at thosevines, " said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much inthese buzzes. 

"I want the exercise, " said Barbara, turning away her face that was atonce red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me. " Then shecame back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away. 

CHAPTER XII. 

EMERGENCIES. 

Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown. " That is what she calls it; she made itfor a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bedwithout hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is ofdouble, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and aflannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, witha big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down thefront--not too near together--are more big, reliable, easy-goingbuttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick solesbelong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goesto bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil inher vessel. 

If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, andwhat it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years, she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bredparlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs. Hobart called. 

Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep, rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whosepriceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and inthese she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule, leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; neverdoubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really makingpies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it wasit always happened so with her. 

In her fire-gown she was destined to go in. 

Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's, and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it alwaysbreaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy bynine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had afair half night of rest before the alarm came. 

It was about one in the morning when Barbara woke, as people do who goto bed achingly tired, and sleep hungrily for a few eager hours. 

"My gracious! what a moon! What ails it?"

The room was full of red light. 

Rosamond sat up beside her. 

"Moon! It's fire!"

Then they called Ruth and mother. Father and Stephen were up and outof doors in five minutes. 

The Roger Marchbanks's stables were blazing. The wind was carryinggreat red cinders straight over on to the house roofs. The buildingswere a little down on our side of the hill, and a thick plantation ofevergreens hid them from the town. Everything was still as death butthe crackling of the flames. A fire in the country, in the dead ofnight, to those first awakened to the knowledge of it, is a stealthilyfearful, horribly triumphant thing. Not a voice nor a bell smiting theair, where all will soon be outcry and confusion; only the fierce, busy diligence of the blaze, having all its own awful will, and makingsteadfast headway against the sleeping skill of men. 

We all put on some warm things, and went right over. 

Father found Mr. Marchbanks, with his gardener, at the back of thehouse, playing upon the scorching frames of the conservatory buildingwith the garden engine. Up on the house-roof two other men-servantswere hanging wet carpets from the eaves, and dashing down buckets ofwater here and there, from the reservoir inside. 

Mr. Marchbanks gave father a small red trunk. "Will you take this toyour house and keep it safe?" he asked. And father hastened away withit. 

Within the house, women were rushing, half dressed, through the rooms, and down the passages and staircases. We went up through the backpiazza, and met Mrs. Hobart in her fire-gown at the unfastened door. There was no card to leave this time, no servant to say that Mrs. Marchbanks was "particularly engaged. "

Besides her gown, Mrs. Hobart had her theory, all ready for a fire. Just exactly what she should do, first and next, and straight through, in case of such a thing. She had recited it over to herself and herfamily till it was so learned by heart that she believed no flurry ofthe moment would put it wholly out of their heads. 

She went straight up Mrs. Marchbanks's great oak staircase, to go upwhich had been such a privilege for the bidden few. Rough feet wouldgo over it, unbidden, to-night. 

She met Mrs. Marchbanks at her bedroom door. In the upper story thecook and house-maids were handing buckets now to the men outside. Thefine parlor-maid was down in the kitchen at the force-pump, withOlivia and Adelaide to help and keep her at it. A nursery-girl wastrying to wrap up the younger children in all sorts of wrong things, upside down. 

"Take these children right over to my house, " said Mrs. Hobart. "Barbara Holabird! Come up here!"

"I don't know what to do first, " said Mrs. Marchbanks, excitedly. "Mr. Marchbanks has taken away his papers; but there's all the silver--andthe pictures--and everything! And the house will be full of mendirectly!" She looked round the room nervously, and went and picked upher braided "chignon" from the dressing-table. Mrs. Marchbanks could"receive" splendidly; she had never thought what she should do at afire. She knew all the rules of the grammar of life; she had notlearned anything about the exceptions. 

"Elijah! Come up here!" called Mrs. Hobart again, over the balusters. And Elijah, Mrs. Hobart's Yankee man-servant, brought up on herfather's farm, clattered up stairs in his thick boots, that sounded onthe smooth oak as if a horse were coming. 

Mrs. Marchbanks looked bewilderedly around her room again. "They'llbreak everything!" she said, and took down a little Sèvres cup from abracket. 

"There, Mrs. Marchbanks! You just go off with the children. I'll seeto things. Let me have your keys. "

"They're all in my upper bureau-drawer, " said Mrs. Marchbanks. "Besides, there isn't much locked, except the silver. I wish Matildawould come. " Matilda is Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks. "The children can gothere, of course. "

"It is too far, " said Mrs. Hobart. "Go and make them go to bed in mygreat front room. Then you'll feel easier, and can come back. You'llwant Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's house for the rest of you, and plenty ofthings besides. "

While she was talking she had pulled the blankets and coverlet fromthe bed, and spread them on the floor. Mrs. Marchbanks actually walkeddown stairs with her chignon in one hand and the Sèvres cup in theother. 

"People _do_ do curious things at fires, " said Mrs. Hobart, cool, andnoticing everything. 

She had got the bureau-drawers emptied now into the blankets. Barbarafollowed her lead, and they took all the clothing; from the closetsand wardrobe. 

"Tie those up, Elijah. Carry them off to a safe place, and come back, up here. "

Then she went to the next room. From that to the next and the next, she passed on, in like manner, --Barbara, and by this time the rest ofus, helping; stripping the beds, and making up huge bundles on thefloors of the contents of presses, drawers, and boxes. 

"Clothes are the first thing, " said she. "And this way, you arepretty sure to pick up everything. " Everything _was_ picked up, fromMrs. Marchbanks's jewel-case and her silk dresses, to Mr. Marchbanks'sshaving brushes, and the children's socks that they had had pulled offlast night. 

Elijah carried them all off, and piled them up in Mrs. Hobart's greatclean laundry-room to await orders. The men hailed him as he went andcame, to do this, or fetch that. "I'm doing _one_ thing, " he answered. "You keep to yourn. "

"They're comin', " he said, as he returned after his third trip. "Thebells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill, --two ingines, an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry doorlocked, an' a lettin' on me in. "

Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on herown lawn. She could hardly believe even yet in this inevitableirruption of the Great Uninvited. 

Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Maud met her and came in with her. Mr. Marchbanks and Arthur had hastened round to the rear, where the othergentlemen were still hard at work. 

"Now, " said Mrs. Hobart, as lightly and cheerily as if it had been theputting together of a Christmas pudding, and she were ready for thecitron or the raisins, --"now--all that beautiful china!"

She had been here at one great, general party, and remembered thechina, although her party-call, like all her others, had been afailure. Mrs. Marchbanks received a good many people in a grand, occasional, wholesale civility, to whom she would not sacrifice anyfraction of her private hours. 

Mrs. Hobart found her way by instinct to the china-closet, --thechina-room, more properly speaking. Mrs. Marchbanks rather followedthan led. 

The shelves, laden with costly pottery, reached from floor to ceiling. The polish and the colors flashed already in the fierce light of theclosely neighboring flames. Great drifts and clouds of smoke againstthe windows were urging in and stifling the air. The first rush ofwater from the engines beat against the walls. 

"We must work awful quick now, " said Mrs. Hobart. "But keep cool. Weain't afire yet. "

She gave Mrs. Marchbanks her own keys, which she had brought downstairs. That lady opened her safe and took out her silver, whichArthur Marchbanks and James Hobart received from her and carried away. 

Mrs. Hobart herself went up the step-ladder that stood there beforethe shelves, and began to hand down piles of plates, and heavy singlepieces. "Keep folks out, Elijah, " she ordered to her man. 

We all helped. There were a good many of us by this time, --Olivia, andAdelaide, and the servant-girls released from below, besides the otherMarchbankses, and the Hobarts, and people who came in, until Elijahstopped them. He shut the heavy walnut doors that led fromdrawing-room and library to the hall, and turned the great keys intheir polished locks. Then he stood by the garden entrance in thesheltered side-angle, through which we passed with our burdens, anddefended that against invasion. There was now such an absolute orderamong ourselves that the moral force of it repressed the excitementwithout that might else have rushed in and overborne us. 

"You jest keep back; it's all right here, " Elijah would say, deliberately and authoritatively, holding the door against unlicensedcomers; and boys and men stood back as they might have done outsidethe shine and splendor and privilege of an entertainment. 

It lasted till we got well through; till we had gone, one by one, downthe field, across to our house, the short way, back and forth, leavingthe china, pile after pile, safe in our cellar-kitchen. 

Meanwhile, without our thinking of it, Barbara had been locked outupon the stairs. Mother had found a tall Fayal clothes-basket, and hadcollected in it, carefully, little pictures and precious things thatcould be easily moved, and might be as easily lost or destroyed. Barbara mounted guard over this, watching for a right person to whomto deliver it. 

Standing there, like Casabianca, rough men rushed by her to get up tothe roof. The hall was filling with a crowd, mostly of the curious, untrustworthy sort, for the work just then lay elsewhere. 

So Barbara held by, only drawing back with the basket, into an angleof the wide landing. Nobody must seize it heedlessly; things were onlylaid in lightly, for careful handling. In it were children sphotographs, taken in days that they had grown away from; littletreasures of art and remembrance, picked up in foreign travel, orgifts of friends; all sorts of priceless odds and ends that peoplehave about a house, never thinking what would become of them in anight like this. So Barbara stood by. 

Suddenly somebody, just come, and springing in at the open door, heardhis name. 

"Harry! Help me with this!" And Harry Goldthwaite pushed aside two menat the foot of the staircase, lifted up a small boy and swung him overthe baluster, and ran up to the landing. 

"Take hold of it with me, " said Barbara, hurriedly. "It is valuable. We must carry it ourselves. Don't let anybody touch it. Over to Mrs. Hobart's. "

"Hendee!" called out Harry to Mark Hendee, who appeared below. "Keepthose people off, will you? Make way!" And so they two took the bigbasket steadily by the ears, and went away with it together. The firstwe knew about it was when, on their way back, they came down upon ourline of march toward Elijah's door. 

Beyond this, there was no order to chronicle. So far, it seems longerin the telling than it did in the doing. We had to work "awful quick, "as Mrs. Hobart said. But the nice and hazardous work was all done. Even the press that held the table-napery was emptied to the lastnapkin, and all was safe. 

Now the hall doors were thrown open; wagons were driven up to theentrances, and loaded with everything that came first, as things areordinarily "saved" at a fire. These were taken over to Mrs. LewisMarchbanks's. Books and pictures, furniture, bedding, carpets;quantities were carried away, and quantities were piled up on thelawn. The men-servants came and looked after these; they had done allthey could elsewhere; they left the work to the firemen now, and therewas little hope of saving the house. The window-frames were smoking, and the panes were cracking with the heat, and fire was running alongthe piazza roofs before we left the building. The water was givingout. 

After that we had to stand and see it burn. The wells and cisternswere dry, and the engines stood helpless. 

The stable roofs fell in with a crash, and the flames reared up asfrom a great red crater and whirlpool of fire. They lashed forth andseized upon charred walls and timbers that were ready, without theirtouch, to spring into live combustion. The whole southwest front ofthe mansion was overswept with almost instant sheets of fire. Firepoured in at the casements; through the wide, airy halls; up and intothe rooms where we had stood a little while before; where, a littlebefore that, the children had been safe asleep in their nursery beds. 

Mrs. Marchbanks, like any other burnt-out woman, had gone to the homethat offered to her, --her sister-in-law's; Olivia and Adelaide weregoing to the Haddens; the children were at Mrs. Hobart's; the thingsthat, in their rich and beautiful arrangement, had made _home_, aswell as enshrined the Marchbanks family in their sacredness ofelegance, were only miscellaneous "loads" now, transported anddischarged in haste, or heaped up confusedly to await removal. And thesleek servants, to whom, doubtless, it had seemed that their Romecould never fall, were suddenly, as much as any common Bridgets andPatricks, "out of a place. "

Not that there would be any permanent difference; it was only thestory and attitude of a night. The power was still behind; the"Tailor" would sew things over again directly. Mrs. Roger Marchbankswould be comparatively composed and in order, at Mrs. Lewis's, in a few days, --receiving her friends, who would hurry to make"fire-calls, " as they would to make party or engagement or otherspecial occasion visits; the cordons would be stretched again; not oneof the crowd of people who went freely in and out of her burning roomsthat night, and worked hardest, saving her library and her picturesand her carpets, would come up in cool blood and ring her door-bellnow; the sanctity and the dignity would be as unprofanable as ever. 

It was about four in the morning--the fire still burning--when Mrs. Holabird went round upon the out-skirts of the groups of lookers-on, to find and gather together her own flock. Rosamond and Ruth stood ina safe corner with the Haddens. Where was Barbara?

Down against the close trunks of a cluster of linden-trees had beenthrown cushions and carpets and some bundles of heavy curtains, andthe like. Coming up behind, Mrs. Holabird saw, sitting upon this heap, two persons. She knew Barbara's hat, with its white gull's breast; butsomebody had wrapped her up in a great crimson table-cover, with abullion fringe. Somebody was Harry Goldthwaite, sitting there besideher; Barbara, with only her head visible, was behaving, out here inthis unconventional place and time, with a tranquillity and composurewhich of late had been apparently impossible to her in parlors. 

[Illustration]

"What will Mrs. Marchbanks do with Mrs. Hobart after this, I wonder?"Mrs. Holabird heard Harry say. 

"She'll give her a sort of brevet, " replied Barbara. "For gallant andmeritorious services. It will be, 'Our friend Mrs. Hobart; a nearneighbor of ours; she was with us all that terrible night of the fire, you know. ' It will be a great honor; but it won't be a fullcommission. "

Harry laughed. 

"Queer things happen when you are with us, " said Barbara. "First, there was the whirlwind, last year, --and now the fire. "

"After the whirlwind and the fire--" said Harry. 

"I wasn't thinking of the Old Testament, " interrupted Barbara. 

"Came a still, small voice, " persisted Harry. "If I'm wicked, Barbara, I can't help it. You put it into my head. "

"I don't see any wickedness, " answered Barbara, quickly. "That was thevoice of the Lord. I suppose it is always coming. "

"Then, Barbara--"

Then Mrs. Holabird walked away again. 

The next day--_that_ day, after our eleven o'clock breakfast--Harrycame back, and was at Westover all day long. 

Barbara got up into mother's room at evening, alone with her. Shebrought a cricket, and came and sat down beside her, and put her cheekupon her knee. 

"Mother, " she said, softly, "I don't see but you'll have to get meready, and let me go. "

"My dear child! When? What do you mean?"

"Right off. Harry is under orders, you know. And they may hardlyever be so nice again. And--if we _are_ going through the worldtogether--mightn't we as well begin to go?"

"Why, Barbara, you take my breath away! But then you always do! Whatis it?"

"It's the Katahdin, fitting out at New York to join the Europeansquadron. Commander Shapleigh is a great friend of Harry's; his wifeand daughter are in New York, going out, by Southampton steamer, whenthe frigate leaves, to meet him there. They would take me, he says;and--that's what Harry wants, mother. There'll be a little whilefirst, --as much, perhaps, as we should ever have. "

"Barbara, my darling! But you've nothing ready!"

"No, I suppose not. I never do have. Everything is an emergency withme; but I always emerge! I can get things in London, " she added. "Everybody does. "

The end of it was that Mrs. Holabird had to catch her breath again, asmothers do; and that Barbara is getting ready to be married just asshe does everything else. 

Rose has some nice things--laid away, new; she always has; and motherhas unsuspected treasures; and we all had new silk dresses forLeslie's wedding, and Ruth had a bright idea about that. 

"I'm as tall as either of you, now, " she said; "and we girls are allof a size, as near as can be, mother and all; and we'll just wear thedresses once more, you see, and then put them right into Barbara'strunk. They'll be all the bonnier and luckier for her, I know. We canget others any time. "

We laughed at her at first; but we came round afterward to think thatit was a good plan. Rosamond's silk was a lovely violet, and Ruth'swas blue; Barbara's own was pearly gray; we were glad, now, that notwo of us had dressed alike. The violet and the gray had been chosenbecause of our having worn quiet black-and-white all summer forgrandfather. We had never worn crape; or what is called "deep"mourning. "You shall never do that, " said mother, "till the deepmourning comes. Then you will choose for yourselves. "

We have had more time than we expected. There has been some beautifuldelay or other about machinery, --the Katahdin's, that is; andCommander Shapleigh has been ever so kind. Harry has been back andforth to New York two or three times. Once he took Stephen with him;Steve stayed at Uncle John's; but he was down at the yard, and onboard ships, and got acquainted with some midshipmen; and he has quitemade up his mind to try to get in at the Naval Academy as soon as heis old enough, and to be a navy officer himself. 

We are comfortable at home; not hurried after all. We are determinednot to be; last days are too precious, "Don't let's be all taken up with 'things, '" says Barbara. "I can_buy_ 'things' any time. But now, --I want you!"

Aunt Roderick's present helped wonderfully. It was magnanimous of her;it was coals of fire. We should have believed she was inspired, --orpossessed, --but that Ruth went down to Boston with her. 

There came home, in a box, two days after, from Jordan and Marsh's, the loveliest "suit, " all made and finished, of brown poplin. To thinkof Aunt Roderick's getting anything _made_, at an "establishment"! ButRuth says she put her principles into her unpickable pocket, and justtook her porte-monnaie in her hand. 

Bracelets and pocket-handkerchiefs have come from New York; all the"girls" here in Westover have given presents of ornaments, or littlethings to wear; they know there is no housekeeping to provide for. Barbara says her trousseau "flies together"; she just has to sit andlook at it. 

She has begged that old garnet and white silk, though, at last, frommother. Ruth saw her fold it up and put it, the very first thing, intothe bottom of her new trunk. She patted it down gently, and gave it alittle stroke, just as she pats and strokes mother herself sometimes. 

"_All_ new things are only dreary, " she says. "I must have some of theold. "

"I should just like to know one thing, --if I might, " said Rosamond, deferentially, after we had begun to go to bed one evening. She wassitting in her white night-dress, on the box-sofa, with her shoein her hand. "I should just like to know what made you behave sobeforehand, Barbara?"

"I was in a buzz, " said Barbara. "And it _was_ beforehand. I suppose Iknew it was coming, --like a thunderstorm. "

"You came pretty near securing that it _shouldn't_ come, " saidRosamond, "after all. "

"I couldn't help that; it wasn't my part of the affair. "

"You might have just kept quiet, as you were before, " said Rose. 

"Wait and see, " said Barbara, concisely. "People shouldn't comebringing things in their hands. It's just like going down stairs toget these presents. The very minute I see a corner of one of thosewhite paper parcels, don't I begin to look every way, and say allsorts of things in a hurry? Wouldn't I like to turn my back and runoff if I could? Why don't they put them under the sofa, or behind thedoor, I wonder?"

"After all--" began Rosamond, still with the questioning inflection. 

"After all--" said Barbara, "there was the fire. That, luckily, wassomething else!"

"Does there always have to be a fire?" asked Ruth, laughing. 

"Wait and see, " repeated Barbara. "Perhaps you'll have an earthquake. "

We have time for talks. We take up every little chink of time to haveeach other in. We want each other in all sorts of ways; we neverwanted each other so, or _had_ each other so, before. 

Delia Waite is here, and there is some needful stitching going on; butthe minutes are alongside the stitches, they are not eaten up; thereare minutes everywhere. We have got a great deal of life into a littlewhile; and--we have finished up our Home Story, to the very presentinstant. 

 * * * * *

Who finishes it? Who tells it?

Well, --"the kettle began it. " Mrs. Peerybingle--pretty much--finishedit. That is, the story began itself, then Ruth discovered that it wasbeginning, and began, first, to put it down. Then Ruth grew busy, andshe wouldn't always have told quite enough of the Ruthy part; and Mrs. Holabird got hold of it, as she gets hold of everything, and she wouldnot let it suffer a "solution of continuity. " Then, partly, sheobserved; and partly we told tales, and recollected and reminded; andpartly, here and there, we rushed in, --especially I, Barbara, --and didlittle bits ourselves; and so it came to be a "Song o' Sixpence, " andat least four Holabirds were "singing in the pie. "

Do you think it is--sarcastically--a "pretty dish to set before theking"? Have we shown up our friends and neighbors too plainly? Thereis one comfort; nobody knows exactly where "Z----" is; and there arefriends and neighbors everywhere. 

I am sure nobody can complain, if I don't. This last part--theBarbarous part--is a continual breach of confidence. I have a greatmind, now, not to respect anything myself; not even that cadet button, made into a pin, which Ruth wears so shyly. To be sure, Mrs. Hautaynehas one too; she and Ruth are the only two girls whom Dakie Thayneconsiders _worth_ a button; but Leslie is an old, old friend; olderthan Dakie in years, so that it could never have been like Ruth withher; and she never was a bit shy about it either. Besides--

Well, you cannot have any more than there is. The story is told as faras we--or anybody--has gone. You must let the world go round the sunagain, a time or two; everything has not come to pass yet--even with"We Girls. "

THE END.