Title: Successful Venture
Author: Deland, Ellen Douglas
Language: English
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                [Picture: “I always keep my engagements”]



                                    A
                            SUCCESSFUL VENTURE


                                * * * * *

                                    BY
                           ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND
                  AUTHOR OF “MALVERN,” “OAKLEIGH,” ETC.

                                * * * * *

    “Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
       And merrily hent the stile-a.
    A merry heart goes all the day,
       Your sad tires in a mile-a.”

                                                               SHAKESPEARE

                                * * * * *

                              ILLUSTRATED BY
                          ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                                  BOSTON

                          W. A. WILDE & COMPANY

                           25 BROMFIELD STREET

                                * * * * *

                             COPYRIGHT, 1897,
                        BY W. A. WILDE & COMPANY.
                          _All rights reserved_.

                                * * * * *

                          A SUCCESSFUL VENTURE.



CONTENTS.

    CHAPTER                                                PAGE
         I.  MRS. WENTWORTH WARD VISITS GLEN ARDEN            9
        II.  THE STARRS HOLD A FAMILY COUNCIL                26
       III.  A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE                   44
        IV.  KATHERINE AS A FINANCIER                        61
         V.  PETER SEEKS INFORMATION                         81
        VI.  PETER’S NEW ACQUAINTANCES                       99
       VII.  VICTORIA GOES IN SEARCH OF FUNDS               117
      VIII.  UNEXPECTED GENEROSITY                          134
        IX.  SOPHY HAS AN ADVENTURE                         153
         X.  THE NEW NEIGHBORS ON THE HILL                  171
        XI.  VICTORIA DECIDES TO KEEP IT SECRET             188
       XII.  ROGER MADISON TELLS A STORY                    206
      XIII.  PETER MEETS WITH A SERIOUS ACCIDENT            224
       XIV.  SOPHY WAYLAYS ROGER MADISON                    242
        XV.  VICTORIA MEETS WITH DIFFICULTIES               261
       XVI.  MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS                             281
      XVII.  ON THE RIVER                                   301
     XVIII.  MRS. WENTWORTH WARD CHANGES HER OPINION        320



ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                                  PAGE
“‘I always keep my engagements’”                               F’piece
“The girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the            79
hall below”
“‘It is a gem’”                                                    136
“There, beneath one of the old trees, she found a rustic           188
bench”
“She found her eldest sister sitting on a rustic bench,            269
under the trees, with her work in her hands”



CHAPTER I.
MRS. WENTWORTH WARD VISITS GLEN ARDEN.


IT was raining heavily, and a strong wind from the northeast blew the
drops with relentless force against the dining-room windows. The few
leaves that remained upon the trees were fast dropping, falling in sodden
unloveliness upon the drenched lawn. It was a day for all those who could
do so to remain within doors.

The four girls were in the dining-room. It was the most cheerful place in
which to sit on a rainy day, and the fire that burned on the hearth
lighted up the room, and gave it an aspect of cosiness that was very
pleasant.

Honor Starr, the eldest of the family, was lying upon the sofa, which had
been drawn forward from its usual corner and placed within reach of the
warmth. She had a book in her hand, although she was not reading at the
moment. She also held a bottle of camphor, which she applied frequently
to her nose.

Sophy, the youngest sister, who was only eight years old, sat at a table
near the side window, brandishing first a large pair of shears, and then
a paint or a paste brush, while sheets of tissue paper, of every hue
known to a maker of paper dolls, lay about her on the floor, and were
mingled with the contents of an overflowing waste-basket which had just
been upset.

Katherine, who was eighteen, and who came next in age to Honor, had been
showing to her sisters a very handsome silver-backed handglass, which she
had bought the day before in Boston, and apparently there had been some
argument on the subject, for Katherine’s pretty face wore a perturbed
expression, and she glanced somewhat resentfully at Honor, who was then
devoting herself to the camphor bottle with conspicuous attention.

Victoria, the third sister, a girl of fifteen, knelt before the fire, to
which she energetically applied the poker. Victoria was apt to use energy
in the smallest affairs of life. The girls were all dressed in black,
which perhaps added to the effect of dreariness caused by the weather.

“Surely, she won’t come to-day!” said Katherine, laying down the mirror
and going to the window, whence a view of the drive was to be had. The
house was set low, and was at some distance from the main road. The
avenue leading to the house wound in and out among the trees, but there
was one portion of it which was open, and could be seen easily from the
windows. This open space Katherine was watching with scrupulous care.

“A dog wouldn’t put his nose out of doors to-day, if he could help it,”
she continued.

“Aunt Sophia is no dog,” observed Victoria, coming behind her and peering
over her shoulder; “she is a Woman, spelt with a capital W; therefore
wind and weather will never keep her at home. I heard the whistle of the
train, ages ago. And—yes, there she is!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the four sisters together, as a depot carriage came
rapidly into sight and was then lost again among the trees.

“Sophy, do straighten up that table! Your chips are everywhere! And pick
up the waste-basket!” cried Katherine, turning hastily from the window.
“Why did you choose to-day of all others to make paper-doll dresses?”

“Why, Kathie, you know I _always_ play paper dolls on Saturday,
especially if it is a rainy one!” exclaimed Sophy, with reproachful
emphasis; “and you told me yourself—”

“Children, don’t waste the time in useless arguments,” interrupted
Victoria. “Aunt Sophia is here, and we ought to have been ready for her,
for we might have known she would come. Honor, it will give her fifty
fits on the spot if she finds you on the sofa reading a novel at this
hour. _Do_ get up and look brisk, even if you don’t feel so!”

Victoria was flying about the room, as she spoke, moving a chair here,
and straightening a rug there, beating up a down pillow which still bore
the indentation left by the last person who had leaned against it, and
whisking out of the way the large box which was standing open upon the
table.

“Here is your bargain of a silver handglass, Katherine. I advise you to
keep that well out of Aunt Sophia’s sight,” she said; and then steps were
heard upon the piazza, the front door was opened, and there came in at
the same time and with equal force, Mrs. Wentworth Ward of Boston and a
strong gust of wind from the northeast.

“Why, Aunt Sophia!” exclaimed Honor, rising slowly from her sofa, which
was in full view of the hall. “Is it really you?”

“It is really I,” replied her aunt; “and who else should it be, or why
should it not be I? How do you all do? Honor, what is the matter that you
are lying down at this hour of the day? Victoria, take my waterproof to
the kitchen to be dried, if you please. Katherine, your hand, while I
take off my overshoes! Sophia, come here, child, and give me a kiss! You
smell of flour paste and are very sticky. What have you been doing?
There, now I am ready to sit down.”

She walked into the dining-room and placed herself in a large chair at a
discreet distance from the fire. She was a tall woman—all the Starrs were
tall—and of proportionate width. Her forehead was broad and high, and
above it the gray hair was parted and brushed smoothly back on either
side of her face. Her nose was rather large and was perfectly straight,
her teeth were exceptionally good, and her complexion might have been
called “high colored.” She was president, or vice-president, or at least
director, of no one knows how many charitable, literary, and musical
societies in Boston, and she was noted for her rare executive ability.
Among the other things which she tried to manage were her nieces the
Starrs, and she found them by no means the least difficult.

“You are brave to come to the country on such a day as this,” murmured
Honor, sinking again upon the sofa, but not actually lying down. She was
conscious that she was inviting censure both by speech and action.

“I always keep my engagements,” replied Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “If women
did not keep their engagements, what would become of mankind? Ten days
ago I wrote on my memorandum calendar for November third, ‘Glen Arden, 9
A.M. train.’ A woman should be as exact as a railroad time-table,
whatever the weather. It is the only way to accomplish anything in this
world. The 9 A.M. train has arrived, and so have I.”

She paused, but no one spoke. It was apparent that she intended to
enforce a lesson, and she gave her nieces a moment in which to digest it.
In the meantime Victoria returned from her expedition to the kitchen with
her aunt’s waterproof, and as she entered the room she glanced hastily
about.

Victoria, though only fifteen, was keenly sensitive, and it seemed to her
that the intellectual atmosphere was surcharged with a high explosive,
ready to go off with a loud report should a match be applied to it. She
was quite sure that her aunt held the match and had come to Glen Arden
this rainy day for the express purpose of striking it.

“And now to business,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward—she preferred that the
two names should be mentioned in conjunction. “As you may suppose, I had
an especial purpose in coming out here to-day. I have come to the
conclusion, and I think your guardian will fully agree with me, that you
cannot live here any longer.”

Yes, it was just as Victoria had suspected. Aunt Sophia had struck her
match, and an explosion had promptly followed.

“And why not, may I ask?” demanded Honor, sitting upright upon the sofa.

“How perfectly absurd!” exclaimed Katherine, with a vehemence that was
scarcely respectful.

“Oh, Aunt Sophia, you are trying to frighten us!” remarked Victoria,
assuming an air of gaiety that appeared forced.

“But we don’t want to live anywhere else,” added Sophy, as if that reason
were conclusive. Sophy, being only eight, had not yet fully realized the
aunt for whom she was named.

Mrs. Wentworth Ward looked from one to the other of her four nieces. She
appeared to be quite unmoved by their excitement. There can be no
surprise for the one who strikes the match on occasions of this kind, and
Mrs. Wentworth Ward prided herself always upon being equal to an
occasion.

“I felt so at the time that your father died,” she continued, “but I said
nothing. There was no one who could come here then to live with you, and
it was not convenient for me to ask you to live with me; but in the three
months which have elapsed since then, I have reached a decision. It is my
way, as you know, to think over my plans carefully before making them
known to others. I have thought them over, and now I tell you. It is
neither seemly nor proper—and there are other reasons, too, which make it
impossible—that my nieces and nephew should continue to live here alone.
By the way, where is Peter?”

Peter’s sisters did not seem inclined to reply, until Victoria, fearing
lest the silence should exasperate her aunt, volunteered the information
that he was down at the barn.

“He went an hour ago to attend to his rabbits,” she said. “I suppose he
is there still.”

“Did he not know that I was coming?” asked her aunt. “Why rabbits when I
am expected? But, after all, that is neither here nor there. You are all
to come and live with me. In other words, my house shall be your home
henceforth. Honor shall act as my secretary. Honor, you have the ability,
and there is no reason why you should not turn it to account, instead of
spending your time on a sofa. Indeed, I have not yet been told why you
are on the sofa. Are you ill?”

“I have a cold. But, Aunt Sophia, suppose I don’t care to be your
secretary?”

“I cannot suppose anything so impossible,” returned Mrs. Wentworth Ward,
imperturbably; “for of course you will be only too glad to do something
for me in return for the many advantages which life in town will give
you. Katherine can perfect herself in music, at the same time taking
charge of the _bric-á-brac_. That shall be her duty. I have decided it
all.”

“So it appears,” observed Katherine. “I invariably break _bric-á-brac_
when I handle it. I should advise you to make a different arrangement.”

“Victoria shall continue to go to school,” continued her aunt, ignoring
this suggestion. “In fact, she and Sophy and Peter are to go to
boarding-school. I have already written and made the necessary
arrangements. They can spend their holidays with me on Beacon Street. I
shall take you into society, when our period of mourning is over. Next
winter you can begin to go out a little. In fact, you can go to concerts
this winter, and to lectures. It will be quite proper. I intend that your
minds shall be improved. Honor, what is that book which I see peeping
from beneath your pillow?”

The awkward pause which followed was broken by Victoria, who hastened to
divert her aunt’s mind.

“Poor Honor has such a cold,” said she. “I gave her some of your remedy,
Aunt Sophia, and it has worked wonders. Did you tell us to take it every
three or every four hours?”

“Every three hours, until the cold begins to mend, and after that, every
four. You did quite right, Victoria. There is nothing like it. I cured
your uncle once in less than a day and a half. And what did you say was
the name of the book, Honor?”

“I doubt if you have ever heard of it, Aunt Sophia,” said Honor, as she
drew it forth from its hiding-place. “The name of it—”

“Oh, please don’t stop to discuss books!” cried Katherine. “There is
something else far more important to be talked about. We don’t want to go
to Boston to live, Aunt Sophia. We don’t want to be your secretary and
dust your _bric-á-brac_. We don’t want to go to boarding-school.”

Mrs. Wentworth Ward looked at her calmly.

“My dear, that makes no particular difference,” said she. “We cannot
always do what we wish. I am your father’s sister, and it is proper that
you should live with me. It was very much like your father to omit making
me your legal guardian. Why he should have appointed Dickinson Abbott
instead of me, I cannot imagine, but he did, and what is done cannot be
undone. However, that is neither here nor there. I offer you a home with
me. You are too young to live here alone, and there are other reasons
against it also. It is quite out of the question.”

A profound silence followed this speech. The plan proposed by their aunt
was so appalling that the girls were unable to collect their ideas
sufficiently to reply. Mrs. Wentworth Ward took out her watch.

“I must return in the next train,” said she. “I have a charity
association meeting at half after eleven. I preferred to see you all
together and tell you this, rather than send for one of you to come to
me, or rather than write to you. This room looks rather disorderly, I
think. Honor, that is a wretched waitress of yours. When you come to
Beacon Street, I will give you lessons in housekeeping. This place had
better be rented; you cannot keep it up otherwise. Katherine, what have
you been buying?”

The lady had risen and had been walking about the room on a tour of
inspection, while she thus criticised. She was standing now in a little
recess formed by the window curtain. On a table within it was the
silversmith’s box, the lid half off, and in the paper which had wrapped
it, the address “Miss Katherine Starr” being in full view. The tissue
papers which covered the contents were ruthlessly drawn aside by Mrs.
Wentworth Ward, and the silver mirror exposed to view.

“Surely you have not been buying this!” she exclaimed, holding it up and
looking first at her own countenance reflected in the one side and then
at the large monogram of “K. R. S.” engraved upon the frosted surface of
the other.

“Why yes, Aunt Sophia! Why not?” returned her niece.

“How much did you give for it?”

“That is an awfully odd question, Aunt Sophia, but fortunately I don’t
mind telling you. It was only fifteen dollars. It is a gem, isn’t it, for
the price? And it matches the rest of my silver beautifully.”

“But where did you get the money to buy such a thing as this with?”

“Aunt Sophia! My own money, of course.”

“Your own money! Then let me tell you, Katherine, that there is very
little money for you to call your own, and none to throw away on silver
handglasses. I really don’t know what you are thinking of, nor Dickinson
Abbott, either! When you come to live with me I shall teach you economy.”

“When we do!” murmured Katherine, as she replaced the glass in its
wrappings and put it back in the box. Fortunately the rustle of the paper
rendered her remark inaudible.

“Honor, it is absurd!” continued Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “What do you mean
by allowing Katherine to spend money in this way? You are simply a parcel
of children, and it is more than time that there was some one to keep you
in order.”

“Katherine has a perfect right to spend her money as she pleases, Aunt
Sophia,” said Honor. She had been remonstrating sharply with her sister
upon this very subject before the arrival of their aunt, but now she
warmly espoused her cause in the presence of their common enemy. “It is
her money. I have nothing to say about it.”

And she again removed the stopper of the camphor bottle.

“Nonsense! you are the eldest of the family, and the responsibility lies
with you. That eternal application of camphor is bad for you, Honor. It
does not really cure you, either. The relief is only temporary.”

“It may be temporary, but is very pleasant,” said Honor; “as pleasant as
anything can be when one has a bad cold.”

“You will come to me the first of December,” continued Mrs. Ward, paying
no further attention to these matters of minor importance, but reverting
to her chief topic. “Peter and the younger girls will go next week to
school, as the term has begun, and no time should be lost. It will be
just as well to have them out of the way when you are closing up here.”

“But, Aunt Sophia,” cried Honor, “you can’t really mean all this! Why
should we do it? Why should we leave our home? Why can’t we stay on here
as our dear father intended we should? I am twenty-one, and quite capable
of looking after the others, and the children are well placed at school.
You are very kind to make all these arrangements for us, but though we
thank you very much, we don’t want to accept them. We prefer to stay as
we are.”

“Victoria, kindly see if the carriage has come back for me. I told the
man to be here without fail,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward, snapping the lid
of her watch as she spoke. “Katherine, help me with my cloak, if you
please. Is it dry? Ah, yes, Honor, when you see Dickinson Abbott, you
will be made to understand why these arrangements have become necessary.
It is easy to talk of living on here, but it requires money to do
that—money, and you have scarcely a cent. The carriage has come,
Victoria? Very well, then, good-bye! Tell Peter he should have come in to
see me. You will hear from me again next week. In the meantime you had
better begin your packing. I will come out and help you to put the house
in order to let. I am sorry I have not time to stay longer, but after
all, further discussion is unnecessary.”

And again the front door was opened, again the northeast wind blew in,
and Mrs. Wentworth Ward of Boston went out.

The door had scarcely closed behind her when that leading from the back
of the house to the hall was carefully opened, and a boy’s face appeared
at the crack.

“Has she gone?” inquired the owner of the face in a loud whisper. “I say,
Vic, has she gone?”

But Victoria did not reply. She had hastened to rejoin her sisters in the
dining-room after bidding her aunt good-bye, and they were now looking at
one another in consternation. What did Aunt Sophia mean?

Peter, seeing for himself that the coast was clear, sauntered into the
room.



CHAPTER II.
THE STARRS HOLD A FAMILY COUNCIL.


PETER STARR was the only boy among four sisters. Had he been questioned
closely upon the subject, he probably would have replied, “Yes, and there
are four too many!” This is what he would have said, perhaps, but it is
doubtful if such a reply would have been altogether truthful. Peter’s
sisters were very useful to him, at times, although there were occasions
when it would have been pleasant to do exactly that which he, and he
alone, wished to do, instead of being dragged in four different
directions by the conflicting opinions of his four sisters.

Sophy he could manage, it was true, and Victoria he thought he managed,
though sometimes it occurred to him to wonder if Vic were not in reality
managing him, unknown to himself. But Honor and Katherine openly defied
him, and were fond of ordering him about in a manner which was annoying,
to say the least. Peter spent the greater part of his time in endeavoring
to frustrate the plans made by Honor and Katherine in his behalf.

To-day, fortunately for him, Honor’s cold prevented her from being aware
of the odor of the barn which accompanied him into the room, and
Katherine was too much absorbed in the conversation to remark upon it.
Victoria and Sophy did not notice those things.

“Has the ancient war-horse gone?” asked Peter.

“My dear boy, you oughtn’t!” remonstrated Honor; “indeed you shouldn’t
call her that.”

“Why not? I am sure she is ancient, and she is a war-horse, for she loves
a battle and the sound of prancings. She’s always arguing about something
or other. What was it to-day? I heard her talking, so I stayed in the
kitchen till she had gone.”

Honor tried to look shocked, but the others laughed audibly and then
quickly became silent.

“We had better send for Mr. Abbott,” said Victoria, “and find out just
what Aunt Sophia means. If she only could have taken time to explain to
us a little!”

“That is a good idea,” said Honor and Katherine together.

“We will telegraph him this morning and ask him to come out as soon as
possible,” added Honor. “Perhaps he will come this afternoon.”

“In all this storm?” asked Victoria, glancing at the weather.

The rain was descending in torrents, pattering on the tin roof of the
piazza, and pouring in a steady stream from the water-spout.

“Why not?” said Honor. “Aunt Sophia came, and Mr. Abbott doesn’t mind
weather. You know he told us to send for him whenever we needed him, and
I am sure we need him now. Probably he will come out this afternoon.
Peter, put on your rubber coat, please, and be sure to wear your rubber
boots.”

“What for?” asked Peter, calmly. “I am very comfortable as I am.”

“To go to the station with a telegram, child, of course! Vic, give me a
pencil and paper, please, and I will write it. I wish you would get some
telegraph blanks, Peter. Do bring some home with you, for they are such a
convenience. Now, let me see. ‘Mr. Dickinson Abbott,—State Street,
Boston. Aunt Sophia has been here and has told us’—dear me, that is nine
words before I began to tell him what she has told us,” said Honor,
biting the end of her pencil.

“Oh, there is ever so much you can scratch out,” said Katherine, taking
the paper. “‘Sophia,’ for one. He knows we have only one aunt—for which
blessing let us be thankful! ‘Aunt has been here and says—’ no, ‘Aunt
here and says we must go there to live because—’”

“Will it do to put all that in a telegram?” queried Victoria. “Why not
just say, ‘Please come and see us; we want to talk to you on matters of
importance.’”

“That will do very well,” said Katherine, writing it, “and only fifteen
words. Those extra five won’t cost much more.”

“We could leave out ‘please,’” said Victoria.

“That wouldn’t be polite.”

“It isn’t necessary to be so very polite in a telegram,” remarked Honor,
as she erased the word, “and if it is true that we have no money, we had
better begin at once to be economical. And we could say ‘important
matters,’ instead of ‘matters of importance.’ That would bring it down.”

“And save five cents, I suppose,” laughed Katherine, derisively.
“However, far be it from me to frustrate your good intentions.”

“There,” said Honor, laying down her pencil and reading the amended
message; “‘Come see us. We want to talk on important matters.’ Exactly
ten words, and now my name—‘Honor Starr.’ Peter, are you ready? Why, you
haven’t stirred! Peter!”

And all his sisters with one voice exclaimed reproachfully, “Peter!”

“Well, what’s the matter with Peter?” inquired that youth as he extended
first one foot and then the other to the genial warmth of the blaze. He
was sitting in an arm-chair before the fire. He was leaning back, and his
hands were in his pockets. Peter was tall for his age, which was
thirteen, and well developed. His hair and eyes were brown, as were those
of all the family but Victoria, and he looked very much like Katherine.

“Why are you not ready? You know we want you to go to the telegraph
office. There is no time to be lost, for Mr. Abbott will have gone home.
It is Saturday, and you know he always leaves the office early on
Saturday. _Do_ hurry, Peter!”

All the sisters were talking at once, even Sophy adding her voice to the
clamor.

“Keep cool! keep cool!” remarked Peter, continuing to warm his feet;
“who’s the telegram to?”

“Mr. Abbott, you _know_, Peter!”

“What for?”

“To ask him to come. You have heard us talking, Peter! Surely you are not
deaf. Do hurry!”

“What’s the use? You needn’t telegraph him.”

“Why not? Oh, don’t stop to argue, you dreadful boy!” cried Katherine.
“Just go at once. We want Mr. Abbott.”

“Well, you’re going to get him, and I’m not going out in this storm when
there’s no reason for it. Mr. Abbott is coming this afternoon.”

“Why, Peter, how do you know?”

“A telegram came from him this morning. I was at the station when it
came, and the operator read it off to me while it was coming, as he said
it was to us. I’m going to learn telegraphy some day. It must be lots of
fun to read all the messages and know what everybody is telegraphing
about.”

He was searching in his pockets as he spoke.

“I must have left it down at the barn, but it was only to say he was
coming on the two-twenty train. I’ll get it when I go down to give the
rabbits their dinner.”

“I don’t think there ever was such a provoking boy as you!” exclaimed
Honor, lying back upon the sofa, quite exhausted by her brief moment of
activity in writing the telegram. “If you only could have told us this
before!”

“You didn’t ask me, and you didn’t give me a chance, either,” responded
Peter. “And now I wish you’d tell me something. What is all this fuss
about, and what do you want Mr. Abbott for? What kind of a shindy has the
war-horse been cutting up?”

“She says that you children are to go to boarding-school, and that Honor
and I are to go live with her,” replied Katherine.

Peter gave a long, low whistle and stared at the fire.

“Are you going to?” asked he.

“Not if we can help it,” was the reply.

“Good for you! Neither am I. Go to boarding-school! Live with Aunt
Sophia! Whew!”

And the five sat there in silence for a few moments, while the wind blew
and the rain poured down without, and their Aunt Sophia was being borne
rapidly back to Boston in the train, satisfied that she had accomplished
her object and had done her duty, and that even now her nieces had begun
to make ready for their flight from the old home.

The Starrs had lived at Glen Arden all their lives. They were all born in
the old house, as had been also their father and their grandfather. So
had their Aunt Sophia, as to that matter; but apparently her early
marriage had counteracted the effect of old associations. She had no time
to give to sentiment, and she considered that a home on Beacon Street
would amply compensate her brother’s children for whatever they should be
forced to forego.

She was sorry for them, it is true, but her sympathy was somewhat diluted
by the reflection that she had always said that her brother and her
brother’s wife were extravagant. The state of the family finances at
present only went to prove the truth of this statement, and she was more
than convinced that Katherine had inherited the expensive tastes of her
parents. Fifteen dollars for a handglass! Mrs. Wentworth Ward bristled
with indignation at the thought of it.

It was three months now since Mr. Peter Starr had died. His wife had been
dead for some years, and the children might be said to have brought
themselves up. There had been no one to go there to take charge when
their mother died, and though there had been an occasional governess, she
had been granted but little authority, and affairs went more smoothly
when there was no one.

The girls adored their father, and his slightest word was law when he
chose to speak it; but as a rule he refrained from directing his family
in the smaller matters of life. He was an indolent, dreamy man, who since
his wife’s death had spent the greater part of his time among his books.
Mrs. Wentworth Ward had frequently remonstrated with him upon the laxity
of his management of his children, but he had acquired the habit of
thinking that Sophia was unduly particular, and therefore he paid but
little attention to her criticisms. Honor kept house very well, he always
said, and the children never gave him any trouble. He liked them to be
natural.

It was in August that Mr. Starr died, so suddenly that it was many weeks
before his family could realize the fact that the gentle, kindly presence
was no longer among them. They missed their father sadly, and Honor
sometimes felt overburdened with a sense of the responsibility which was
now hers. To be sure, she had kept house for years, and had practically
brought up the younger children; but there had always been her father to
turn to in matters of importance, there had always been his smile to
encourage her, his few words of appreciation to cheer her when the
children had been troublesome, or household affairs had gone wrong.

Mr. Dickinson Abbott, an old friend of Mr. Starr’s, had, according to his
will, been appointed guardian of the family and trustee of the estate.
There had always been plenty of money, and Honor had supposed that there
always would be. She could not imagine what her Aunt Sophia had meant by
her remarks that morning.

Katherine had finished school, but intended to devote herself to her
music this winter, going to Boston several times a week for the purpose,
and practising with great regularity and industry. Katherine, though
inclined to be flighty and unmanageable at times, was wholly devoted to
music. Victoria, Sophy, and Peter went to private schools in Fordham,
upon the outskirts of which suburban town Glen Arden was situated.

Glen Arden itself was a beautiful old place on the banks of the Charles
River. A pine grove hid the view of the river from the house, but the
gentle, winding stream was there within a stone’s throw of the barn, and
at the foot of the steep bank with which the grove terminated. A small
branch railroad crossed the river at the Starrs’ place, and a tiny
station was situated near the entrance to their grounds. The main station
was half a mile away in “the village,” as the Starrs continued to
designate it, although it had long ago been incorporated into the city of
Fordham.

Shortly after twelve o’clock of this eventful Saturday in November the
rain abated somewhat, and at three, when the train arrived upon which Mr.
Abbott was expected, it had actually ceased for the time being at least.

The girls were in the parlor, Katherine at the piano, and Honor with a
bit of work in her hands. She had revived somewhat, and sat curled up in
a corner of the divan which occupied the western window. There was never
much light in the parlor of Glen Arden even on a clear day, for the trees
grew so thick near the house. Mr. Starr and his father before him had
loved each individual tree, and many of them had been planted with their
own hands, usually upon some occasion for family rejoicing. The love of
their trees was a family heritage.

Victoria was on her knees before the hearth, coaxing into a blaze the
logs which had been heaped there. With each puff of the bellows a small
flame leaped up, lighting her face and dancing before her intently gazing
brown eyes. Vic was not considered to be as pretty as Honor or Katherine,
but already a fair amount of character was depicted in her face. Her
features were too irregular for beauty, but her hair was pretty. There
was not much of it, for it was so curly that it had never grown beyond
her shoulders, but its color of reddish gold was very striking, and in
the firelight this afternoon it looked like a golden halo which framed
her flushed face.

No one knew yet in just which direction Victoria’s character would
develop, but her family had a latent conviction that she would “be
something,” for in many ways she was so unlike other people.

Peter and Sophy had gone to the train to meet Mr. Abbott, who was a prime
favorite with them all, and presently they were seen coming along the
grassy path, which led under the trees across the lawn directly from the
little station, and was a much shorter course than to follow the road.

“Well, here you all are!” said Mr. Abbott, when he had divested himself
of his mackintosh in the hall and had come into the parlor. “Every one of
you; and Vic has made a grand fire to cheer the wanderer and the wayfarer
this rainy day. Nasty weather, this! Honor, how did you get such a cold?
You must take care of it, child. I don’t like those pale cheeks.”

“How good you are to come out such a day, Mr. Abbott!” said Honor, as she
drew forward an arm-chair for her guest. “Just as good as you can be. We
want to see you so much, and were on the point of telegraphing to you
when we heard of your message to us.”

“Ah, that is good!” said he, leaning forward and warming his hands at the
blaze. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of about sixty-five, with gray
hair and beard, and kindly eyes. The Starrs all loved him dearly, and he
had been their father’s most valued friend.

“I like to come where I am wanted,” he continued, “and I am always glad
to come here. Dear me, though, I can’t get used to it without your
father.”

“Neither can we,” said Honor, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke.
“Everything is changed without him, and Aunt Sophia has been here to-day
and wants to make more changes.”

“Ah, your aunt has been here, has she?” exclaimed Mr. Abbott, quickly.
“And what plan did she suggest?”

“Why, do you know about it, and is it really true, then?” asked Honor,
wonderingly. “And have you come to tell us the same thing?”

“How do I know, my dear, until I hear what she has told you?” said he,
with an attempt at lightness.

“The most absurd thing you ever heard of,” said Katherine. “She says we
must go there to live. Just fancy us living with Aunt Sophia!”

“And that we are to go to boarding-school,” put in Sophy, who had seated
herself on the arm of her guardian’s chair.

“And that we must rent the place,” continued Honor. “Rent this place
where no one has ever lived but Starrs! Just imagine what father’s
feelings would have been if it had ever been suggested to him that
strangers should have Glen Arden!”

“Catch me going to Boston to live,” remarked Peter. “I could stand
boarding-school on a pinch, but Boston, never!”

Victoria said nothing, but she watched Mr. Abbott’s face. She noticed
that it had become very grave.

“And you wouldn’t like it?” said he.

“Like it! Why, Mr. Abbott, why should we do it? Of course we don’t like
it. The very idea is absurd.” They were all talking together.

“Why should Aunt Sophia suggest such a preposterous arrangement?”
continued Honor. “We are very much alone, it is true; but we can’t help
that. I have always been in the habit of keeping house; father really had
very little to do with it. Of course it is very hard to be without him,
but we must make up our minds to that, and get along as best we can. We
can do that better here, where every corner of the house and place is
associated with him, and which he loved, than we could if we went to live
with Aunt Sophia. Why, Mr. Abbott, it would simply kill us all to live
with Aunt Sophia.”

“Indeed it would,” added the others, with conviction.

“For all that,” said their guardian, gravely, “your Aunt Sophia is very
good to offer to do all this for you. I didn’t know whether she would or
not. But I have known her for forty years or more, and I have always
found that she did what she considered to be her duty. Trust a New
England woman for that.”

“But what do you mean?” asked Honor, in alarm. “Why is it her duty, Mr.
Abbott? Father intended that we should live here. He left it so in his
will, didn’t he? Why should Aunt Sophia suggest anything different?”

“My dear,” said Mr. Abbott, rising as he spoke, and standing with his
back to the fire, “I may as well tell you plainly. It is what I came this
afternoon to do. There is very little money for you to live on. Your
father’s affairs were—well, were somewhat involved. An investment which
he thought very highly of, and in which he put about all he owned, has
gone to pieces since his death. I am glad he never knew it. There is all
this real estate, to be sure; but that means nothing in the present state
of the market. You have,—I must speak plainly, my dear children,—you have
practically nothing to live upon at present. Your aunt is very good to
offer you a home and your education. I went to see her a week ago, to
tell her the state of affairs, and since then I have been thinking over
how it was best to tell you, and what had better be done. I could not put
it off any longer.”

“Do you mean that we are really poor?” asked Honor, in a quiet voice,
when he had finished speaking.

“Very poor, indeed. You have scarcely anything.”

“Exactly what do you mean by ‘scarcely anything’?”

“You have the place, which is an expensive one to keep up, and a very few
hundred dollars a year, upon which to live and be educated and clothed.
Your aunt’s offer is a relief to me. I am glad she made it, but, as I
say, I thought she would. Sophia Ward may be peculiar, and perhaps a
trifle aggravating, but she is certainly conscientious.”

The Starrs gazed at one another blankly. An unkind fate appeared to be
descending upon them, in a great black cloud. They did not realize yet
the fact that they were poor. This knowledge was entirely swallowed up by
the deplorable prospect of carrying out the views of their Aunt Sophia,
by going to live with her. They had counted upon their guardian’s support
in declining her invitation, and now to their surprise he declared that
they were fortunate to have received it. They were too ignorant of
poverty to know what other significance his words might have.

It was Victoria who reverted to this part of the subject.

“Do you really mean,” said she, “that we haven’t got enough money to live
on? That if we stay here, we—it really seems absurd to say it, but I want
to know exactly, Mr. Abbott—we shan’t have enough to eat, perhaps?”

“I really mean it,” replied her guardian.

He did not tell them that there was actually no money which they could
call their own. The “few hundreds” of which he had vaguely spoken, he
intended to give them from his own income, and he was far from being a
rich man.



CHAPTER III.
A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.


IT was evening, and Mr. Abbott had returned to Boston. He had declined
staying to dinner, but had promised to come again early in the week. By
that time the Starrs would have more fully realized the situation, and
would be able to talk more rationally, he thought. He must give them time
to accustom themselves to the great change in their prospects. At present
they seemed to be stunned, and no wonder.

“It is terrible, terrible!” said Mr. Abbott as he left Glen Arden. “Poor
children! I am sorry for them. I am only thankful that my old friend was
spared the knowledge of it all. Peter never was a business man, and if he
had taken my advice, his money would never have gone into such a
worthless concern as that railroad has proved to be. Poor children, I am
sorry enough!”

Mr. Abbott had no children of his own, but he had a father’s heart, and
it ached as he thought of the sad-faced group which he had just left.
They knew so little of life, and it seemed to be beginning badly for
them.

Dinner was eaten almost in silence, but afterwards, when the family had
returned to the parlor and the lamps were lighted, and the room looked
just as they had always known it since they could remember,—except that
the dear father was no longer there,—Honor’s self-control, which she had
bravely kept until now, deserted her for an instant. She covered her face
with her handkerchief and gave a little sob. Then she quickly dried her
eyes.

“I _will not_ give way!” she said. “If I once do, it will be the end of
everything; and we must keep calm and try to think clearly. I see no way
out of it, girls. It really seems as if we must give up, and go live-with
Aunt Sophia.”

Katherine started from her chair and began to walk rapidly up and down
the room. Katherine was tall and very slender, and her eyes and hair were
the darkest of the family. She was an excitable person, and this remark
of Honor’s, although it entirely coincided with what she feared, had a
most exasperating effect upon her.

“Never!” she said. “Honor, how can you say such a thing? Are you going to
meekly give in and do just what Aunt Sophia says, after all? I should
think you would have more spirit. I—I would rather do anything than that.
Scrubbing floors would be better than dusting Aunt Sophia’s ugly china,
and writing her endless notes about stupid meetings. Really, Honor, I am
surprised that you can sit there and calmly say you are willing to do
it!”

“I didn’t say that I was willing,” said Honor; “and, Katherine, you know
I am not. And, as for being calm—but what is the use of discussing that?
We have got to live, and we have no money; therefore, if some one offers
us homes and educations, I suppose there is nothing for us to do but say,
‘thank you,’ and meekly take them.”

“You may, but I never will.”

“What will you do?”

“Give music lessons.”

“But where will you live?”

“Board somewhere alone, I suppose. Lots of women do that who have to
support themselves.”

“But not women that are as young as you are, and who have been brought up
as you have been.”

“I can’t help my bringing up, and I shall rapidly grow older, and I _will
not_ go to Aunt Sophia’s.”

“I have an idea,” said Victoria. “I have been thinking about it since
before dinner, and what Katherine says about supporting herself just fits
in with it.”

“What is it?” asked Honor and Katherine together. They had a great
respect for Victoria’s “ideas.”

“Why shouldn’t we all do something to support ourselves? Lots of girls
do.”

“Of course they do!” cried Katherine. “Vic, you’re a girl after my own
heart. _You’re_ not going to sit quietly down on Beacon Street and be
ordered about by Aunt Sophia!” This with a glance at Honor, who was too
much interested in Victoria’s proposition, however, to notice it.

“Do you really think we could?” she asked. “What could we do? Katherine
has her music, I know, but there is no particular talent that I have, and
you haven’t finished school, and there are Peter and Sophy. They couldn’t
do anything. And I suppose we should have to leave the place just the
same.”

“That is just what I am coming to,” replied Victoria. “It popped into my
head before Mr. Abbott went, and I have been thinking about it ever
since, and Peter could help a lot if we carry it out, and Sophy too. Why
can’t we stay on here, and turn the place to some account?”

“Child, what do you mean?” cried Honor; and even Peter, who had been
sitting moodily by a distant table, taking no apparent interest in the
conversation, but absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, dropped the
paper-cutter which he had been handling and drew nearer.

“What do you mean, Vic?” he asked; “and what can I do to help? It has
been bothering me that I can’t do anything as long as I am the only boy
in the family.”

Victoria looked at him lovingly. She wished that she might venture to
give him a hug for that speech, but she knew that Peter would not like
it, so she refrained.

“I mean,” said she, “that we might live on here and make the place pay.
We could sell the farm produce, sell the milk—you know we have all those
cows. Surely we can’t use all the milk and cream they must give, and
there must be horrible waste. Then we could raise other things. I have a
thousand ideas. Or hens! We might keep hens and sell the eggs. Or
violets! Or mushrooms! I heard of some one not long ago who made a
fortune and went abroad on mushrooms and violets.”

Victoria’s voice rose with her rapidly increasing enthusiasm. She could
see that she had made a point. Her sisters were distinctly impressed.

“And we shouldn’t have to give up the place, after all!” cried Honor.
“Victoria, you are brilliant! Come here, child, and let me kiss you.”

“Or we could have a school,” continued Victoria. “Katherine could teach
the music, and I the small children, while you, Honor, would be the
principal. It might even be a boarding-school. We have lots of room.
Indeed, girls, there are ever so many things we can do if we only put our
minds to it. The farming project seems really the best plan, though, for
Peter could be of such use there. He loves out-of-door things so much.”

“But about the children’s schooling?” suggested Honor. “If we had a
school here, we could teach Sophy.”

“I know,” said Victoria, “I thought of that. We have got to talk the
whole thing over and consult with Mr. Abbott. It requires a lot of
thought. But I am glad you see some good in the idea. I was almost afraid
to suggest it for fear you would frown it down.”

“Frown down anything that would save us from a life at No.—Beacon
Street?” cried Katherine. “Never! Victoria, my child, you have preserved
my reason. I verily believe I should have become quite insane if we had
been made to go to Aunt Sophia’s, after all. I must give vent to my
feelings.”

And she seated herself at the piano and played so madly and yet so
brilliantly that the others were forced to listen to her, partly because
they wanted to and partly because they could not hear one another’s
voices above the din of the crashing chords. When she had finished, she
twirled around on the piano stool.

“There!” she exclaimed. “Now I feel better and can discuss it calmly. I
already see myself sailing for Germany to study under foreign masters, my
pockets stuffed with the proceeds of music lessons and violets. How shall
we sell them? Shall we send Sophy in to stand at the corner of Tremont
Street and Temple Place with little bunches?”

“Kathie!” cried Sophy, reproachfully. “Must I really, Honor?”

“No, of course not,” said Honor, reassuringly. “Katherine is only teasing
you. The idea of our letting our baby do that!” While Katherine laughed
immoderately at Sophy’s startled face. “Now we must talk it over calmly
and get our ideas into shape before we see Mr. Abbott again, so that we
can convince him at once,” continued Honor. “Suppose we discuss it
to-night, and then think it over to ourselves to-morrow, and to-morrow
night, at this time, we will each say what we think we had better do.
Then we can see which will be the best plan. Oh, Vicky dear, you are a
perfect treasure!”

“My sister Vic is a perfect brick!” cried Katherine, hugging her as she
spoke.

Peter said nothing, but walked slowly out of the room, with his hands in
his pockets.

“Peter has gone up to the workshop to think about it,” remarked Sophy,
sagely.

“Yes; he reminds me of father in that,” said Honor. “He always went there
after he had had a disagreeable business letter, or something
troublesome. Dearest father! I am glad he never knew that we were going
to be poor, he would have felt so badly. But do you know, girls, I really
don’t mind it a bit, now. I feel as if it were going to be interesting.
Just think of the satisfaction it will be to support ourselves!”

“I am going to see about my Symphony concert tickets right away,” said
Katherine. “I didn’t know whether I had better go this winter when I
heard that we had no money, but now that we are going to make so much I
shall be able to, and I really ought to do everything to improve my music
if I am going to give lessons.”

“Yes,” said Honor, though somewhat doubtfully, Katherine thought. “I—I
think, though, that we shall have to be very economical even though we
are going to make so much. I won’t order the jacket at Hollander’s I was
thinking of. I’ll try at some cheaper place. If you think it will be very
extravagant to have one made to order, I will try to find one ready made.
What do you think?”

She looked at Victoria as she spoke. Victoria hesitated.

“I hate to say it, Honor,” she said at last, “for you are so generous and
good, but it really seems as if we ought to get on with as few clothes as
possible if we are so very poor. Do you—don’t you think—at least, is your
last winter’s coat really hopeless? Wouldn’t it do this year?”

“Why of course it would _do_,” said Honor. “It isn’t much worn, and it is
plain black, but it is frightfully old-fashioned. It has immense sleeves,
and they have gone down so this year; but I could have them altered at a
cheap tailor’s. You are right, Vic. I won’t get a new one.”

“And there are other things we might be economical in besides clothes,”
continued Victoria, staring pensively at the fire. “The table, for
instance.”

“My dear child!” cried Honor and Katherine with one voice. “Surely you
don’t think we ought to starve ourselves?”

“No, of course not, but we really needn’t have quite so many things.
Salad every day at dinner, for instance, and olives. And we don’t need
preserves always for lunch, nor such a lot of cake made, and—oh, a great
many things. When I was staying at the Carsons’ last year I noticed that
they didn’t have nearly so many things as we do, and yet there was always
enough, and everything was very good.”

“I hate the idea of a skimpy table,” said Honor. “You know father always
liked everything to be very nice. Oh no, my dear! Most of your ideas are
good ones, but I really don’t think we ought to starve ourselves.”

“Nor I either,” said Katherine. “I think Honor is right there. Nothing is
more horrible than the idea of not having enough food on the table.”

“But I don’t mean that,” persisted Victoria. “I only mean that we don’t
need olives and salad and preserves to keep us from being hungry.”

“The preserves don’t cost us a cent but the sugar,” said Honor. “We raise
the currants and the pears and the cherries on the place, and even some
of the strawberries, so there is no extravagance in turning them into
preserves and eating them.”

“That suggests another idea!” exclaimed Victoria. “We might sell
preserves at the Woman’s Exchange or somewhere. To be sure, we have
always paid a woman to do ours, but we might learn to do them ourselves,
and make some money that way.”

The girls discussed long and earnestly the new aspect of affairs, and
their many plans for bettering their fortune, and Sophy sat up unnoticed
until past her usual bedtime, so absorbed were they all in the
unlooked-for problem which had been presented to them that afternoon.

Peter did not appear again, but they heard him whistling in the workshop
when they at last went upstairs to bed. Victoria went to the door and
found him idly sharpening some tools, apparently giving little thought to
the work. She wanted him to go to bed, but she knew that if she told him
so, he would probably prolong his labors until far into the night.

“We have been talking it all over, Peter,” said she gaily, “and we are
going to think it out by ourselves over Sunday; and then Monday night we
are going to tell each other how we want most to set about it,—making our
fortunes, I mean. I am going to bed, for I can think better in the dark.
I don’t suppose I shall go to sleep for ages. You needn’t hurry, but
please put out the light in the back hall when you do come.”

And the mere assurance that he need not hurry sent Peter to his room
within five minutes.

The next day was Sunday. When the Starr family awoke, the clouds were
still thick, and the air was heavy with dampness; but by nine o’clock the
sun was out, and at service time the day was clear. Peter and his four
sisters went to church, as usual, and took their places in the family
pew,—Peter at the end where his father had always sat, even on the very
Sunday before he died. If the minds of the little group in black were
occupied with other thoughts than those suggested by the service, they
gave no outward sign of it. In the afternoon they all went to Sunday
school as usual,—Honor and Katherine to teach, and the others to be
taught; and after it was over Katherine and Victoria stayed to the
afternoon service. Honor’s cold forced her to go home, and Peter and
Sophy accompanied her.

No one mentioned the subject in which they were all so vitally
interested, until the next evening, when they were once more gathered
about the parlor fire.

“Now,” said Honor, drawing up a chair, and settling herself as if for the
evening, “the time has at last come! I have scarcely been able to wait
for night, for every one of you have looked as if you were bristling with
ideas all day; but I thought I had better not begin the subject by asking
for anything. Suppose we all take turns, beginning with the youngest, and
each say what we think will be the quickest and the surest way of making
our fortunes.”

But Sophy felt shy at being called upon, and they all insisted that Honor
should state her own views first, as she was the eldest. Her idea was to
open a boarding-school during the winter, and to take boarders in summer.

“When the place looks so lovely,” said she, “and there would be no
necessity if we did that for us to alter our way of living, as regards
the table. We should be obliged to have everything very nice if people
were boarding here, and that would be such a comfort.”

Katherine approved of a school, though perhaps not a boarding-school, and
she thought it would be well for them to have a little time to themselves
in summer.

“We shall want to go away for a while to get rested,” she remarked; “to
the seashore or the mountains, you know, so we had better not have a
houseful of boarders. The school would be better, and I can teach other
things in it besides music.”

Victoria inclined towards working the farm in some way, in which Peter
agreed with her. She pointed out that boarders in summer would perhaps be
hard to procure, and also that it would be impossible to go to the
mountains or the sea, as Katherine suggested, and leave the place to take
care of itself, even if there were no boarders, and even if they had made
enough money to warrant such an expense. On the other hand, the working
of the farm presented endless possibilities. There was much good sense in
what she said, as Honor and Katherine were forced to admit. They
determined to wait, however, before actually deciding upon their future
course, until they should see Mr. Abbott; and Honor wrote to him that
night, begging him to come to Glen Arden again as soon as it should be
convenient, as they wished his advice.

“We have some new ideas,” she wrote, “and we cannot rest until we hear
you say they are good ones.”

Mr. Abbott replied in person to the note; for he was sincerely anxious
about the welfare of his wards, and was also curious to know what they
had thought of as a means of escape from the grasp of their Aunt Sophia.
He came, therefore, on Tuesday afternoon.

At first he was sceptical. The mere idea that five young persons, all
under twenty-two, and four of them girls, should set out to support
themselves, with no experience to call upon, and in absolute ignorance of
the magnitude of that which they were about to undertake, seemed to him
preposterous, and he did not hesitate to tell them so.

But in spite of himself, he was soon impressed by their earnestness.
Their enthusiasm was contagious, and there was certainly a fair amount of
common sense in their remarks. Mr. Abbott allowed himself to be persuaded
to stay to dinner, and before the evening was over, he was discussing as
eagerly as any one of them the possibilities of selling butter and of
teaching children their alphabet; while the idea of raising violets
appealed strongly to his flower-loving soul.

He promised, when he bade his wards good night, to call upon their aunt
the next day, and place the subject before her; and he would do his best
to win her approval, difficult as he knew that would be. In the meantime,
they might be sure of his consent and support. He only wished to impress
upon them, however, that they should decide upon a course which would
necessitate as little outlay as possible.

“Saving money counts for as much as making it, in the long run,” said he.
“Don’t forget that. And I am glad that you live in a place which has good
public schools. Peter’s education must not be forgotten, nor should
Victoria’s and Sophy’s. I shall not approve at all of any scheme which
would interfere with their schooling. Don’t forget that, either.”



CHAPTER IV.
KATHERINE AS A FINANCIER.


NEEDLESS to say, Mrs. Wentworth Ward disapproved absolutely of her
nieces’ projects. The mere fact of their defiance of her authority was
unheard of, and that they should dream of such impossible plans for their
self-support she considered at first beneath her notice. The children
could not be in earnest, she said, and she thought it was scarcely the
time for jesting.

When she was finally made to understand that the children were very much
in earnest, she cancelled all her engagements for that afternoon and
hurried to the Boston and Albany station. She must lose no time in
informing them that they should never have her consent, and that they
must at once give up any such absurd ideas as these undoubtedly were.

Long were the arguments and futile were the discussions which ensued upon
her arrival. She found that her brother’s children had inherited no small
amount of the Starr determination, not to say obstinacy, and when they
parted she was forced to acknowledge herself vanquished, for the time
being at least. Mrs. Wentworth Ward comforted herself with the
reflection, which she did not hesitate to put into words, that the time
would come when they would grow weary of their efforts and be glad to
yield and come to her for help.

“And my home is still open to you,” she said as she took her departure.
“Though you defy my authority and persist in your headstrong course, I
shall never forget that you are my brother’s children. The time will come
when you will remember this. Mark my words!”

“Wouldn’t it be too dreadful if we did have to go to her for help, after
all?” said Honor, as the train moved away. The three older girls had
accompanied their aunt to the little station. “Wouldn’t she simply shriek
at us, ‘I told you so!’”

“She will never have the chance if I can prevent it,” returned Katherine.
“Rather than go to Aunt Sophia for help after all that has been said this
afternoon I would rather—I would rather scrub floors.”

Which was Katherine’s favorite simile for the extreme of hard work,
although the wildest flights of the imagination could scarcely picture
her in such an employment.

“I shall never give Aunt Sophia any such satisfaction as that,” she
added, with decision.

“I am perfectly astonished that she gave in at last,” remarked Victoria,
as the three walked arm in arm across the lawn. “I really thought she
would stick it out to the very end, and perhaps refuse to have anything
more to do with us.”

“I didn’t,” said Katherine. “Do you know I think it is almost a relief to
Aunt Sophia that she isn’t obliged to have us there, after all. We should
interfere dreadfully with her regular ways, even if she did turn us to
account, with her writing and her dusting, and I also think she is very
curious to see what we do, and how we come out. She is already looking
forward, I plainly see, to the time, when she can prove that she knows
more than anybody else, and that we are all dismal failures. For that
reason, girls, if for nothing else, we must prove that we are not. We
_must_ succeed!”

“Do you think we were at all disrespectful to her?” said Honor.

“No, not a bit. We had to be emphatic. It was the only way to make her
understand that we were in earnest.”

“I know, but she is father’s sister and our only near relative, even if
she is aggravating, and I think she is fond of us in her own way. It was
very good and generous of her to offer to do so much for us.”

“It is certainly in ‘her own way’ that she loves us, if she loves us at
all,” said Katherine. “Honor, it must be a terrible bore to have such a
conscience as you are burdened with. I’m glad it’s yours, and not mine,
and I’m glad, too, that we came out victorious in the scrimmage with our
beloved aunt, fond of us though she may be.”

By the end of the week, their plans were made, and they were ready to put
them at once into action. The idea of a boarding-school was abandoned.
That was absolutely impracticable, as they soon saw for themselves. They
had no experience upon which to go to work, and no influence upon which
they could depend to bring them pupils.

Honor, however, opened a day school for small children. There happened to
be none already in Fordham, and among the friends of the Starrs there
were a number who were glad, not only to help the girls in their efforts
for self-support, but also to have a class formed for the children whom
it was not desirable, because of their extreme youth, to send to the
larger schools.

Katherine had already secured several music scholars and hoped for more,
while she also intended to help Honor with the school, in which Sophy was
to be a pupil. Victoria and Peter left the private schools which they had
attended and were transferred to public ones, although Victoria secretly
determined that this should be her last winter of study. She felt that
she must unite with the others in working for the support of the family.
Had not she been the one who had first suggested the idea? In the
meantime she planted her violet bed and proceeded to investigate the
cultivation of mushrooms.

The house servants were all informed that they must go, and a new “maid
of all work” was engaged, who was expected to perform wonders in the
kitchen and elsewhere. The gardener and the coachman were also dismissed,
and the horses and cows were sold. The girls had concluded that it would
be unwise at present to attempt to make butter, for with their many other
duties it would be impossible to attend to it. A man who lived near could
be called upon to come occasionally if one were needed upon the place,
and when spring approached they could engage some one regularly, if they
decided to raise vegetables for sale.

At present their chief thought was the school. A room on the second floor
was to be used for the purpose, the bedstead and bureau removed, and some
desks, which Katherine went to Boston to buy, were to be placed there in
readiness for the pupils. There had been some discussion about the
purchase of these desks, Victoria suggesting that tables would do for the
present, until they should have a little more ready money, and should
also be able to see whether the number of scholars would warrant such an
outlay.

But Katherine was strongly of the opinion that desks would add greatly to
the professional appearance of the room, and would have, in consequence,
a beneficial effect upon the children, and as Honor agreed with her in
this, she went off triumphantly to Boston with the money in her pocket
with which she was to pay for them. Neither Honor nor Victoria was able
to go with her, but she professed herself quite equal to the task of
choosing the necessary articles without her sisters’ help.

When she returned she announced to them that she had bought not only six
small desks with chairs to match, but also a larger desk for Honor, a map
of the world to hang upon the wall, and a blackboard.

“You know it is really important to have all these things,” said she. “A
schoolroom without a map would be like bread without butter, and this is
the cheapest and the most complete thing you ever saw. The United States
on one side, and the whole world on the other, and only a dollar. And you
needn’t shake your head over the desk for Honor, Victoria! Of course she
ought to have a desk.”

“I’m afraid our bread will soon be without butter if you go on in this
way,” remarked Victoria. “Honor could have used a table with a drawer.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all!” said Katherine, impatiently. “You have
such scrimpy ideas, Vic; I don’t see where you get them. And besides, I
did a stroke of business. They allowed me a discount of ten per cent at
the furniture store because I was a professional, so it really paid to
get all those things. It is great fun to be a professional. I get music
cheaper at the music stores, just because I give lessons.”

“But did you have enough money for so many things?” asked the practical
younger sister.

“Oh, I haven’t paid for them yet,” rejoined Katherine, easily. “They
asked me if I would have them charged, and I said yes. I really thought
it would be better to have a bill for them, and there may be more ready
money when it comes in, and besides, I needed that money for something
else—something that is to be a grand surprise for you all and is to help
us make our fortunes. It is coming out by express this afternoon.”

“Katherine, what have you been getting?” exclaimed Honor and Victoria
together.

“Oh, just wait!” cried Katherine, gaily, as she left them and went to her
room to take off her hat and coat. “I tell you, it is to be a grand
surprise. It is coming with the desks and chairs.”

“What do you suppose it is?” asked Honor.

“I am afraid to think,” returned Victoria, “and I think it was a great
pity she had those things charged. Perhaps we shan’t have any money at
all when the bill comes in.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid, child! Katherine is extravagant, I must confess,
but we have six pupils promised, you know, for the school, and she has
eight music scholars. We shall be all right, I hope.”

But in spite of these reassuring words Honor felt as uneasy as did
Victoria about Katherine’s “surprise.”

“What do you think of the new maid?” asked Victoria, presently. The
sisters were in Honor’s room, darning the family stockings by the waning
light of the short November day.

“I don’t know what to think,” replied Honor, running her long needle in
and out as she crossed and re-crossed a large hole. “I suppose Peter
wears out his stockings so quickly because he is such a tramper, but this
one is discouraging. Do you think it is worth while to spend our precious
time over such a hole as this, Vic?”

“I think the stocking would stand a little more wear,” said Vic, laying
down her own work and examining critically that of her sister. “I like a
good big hole if I am going to darn at all. Running over thin places
bores me to death. It is just like life. A big hole is like a big
calamity; you can rise above it. But the little botherations are like the
thin places. You have got to go over them and patch them up, or else they
will go altogether, and yet there is really nothing to show for it in the
end, and the doing it tires you out. With a big hole or a big trouble you
know just where you are and how you stand. But tell me what you think of
the new maid.”

“I am afraid she is like the thin places in the stockings,” said Honor,
laughing as she made the comparison. “She requires a great deal of
attention, and I don’t know where she is going to burst out next.”

“What is her name?”

“That is the queerest part of her. She told me it was ‘B.’ Lafferty.”

“Bee?” repeated Victoria. “What a curious name! Do you suppose it is
short for Beatrice?”

“Not at all. It is the letter B, and it really stands for Bridget, but
she told me she never liked the name of Bridget and didn’t wish to be
called that. I told her I thought I should, upon which she said she
should take the next train back to Boston if we did. Her friends called
her ‘B.,’ and we must call her ‘B.,’ or if not ‘B.’ it could be ‘Blanch.’
On the whole, she preferred Blanch, so I suppose it has got to be that,
though I can’t imagine anything more inappropriate.”

“You may be thankful she didn’t request us to call her ‘Miss Lafferty,’”
laughed Victoria. “I think she is going to be amusing.”

“I hope so,” said Honor, somewhat grimly. “To me at present it seems more
tragic than amusing. She won’t have late dinner, for one thing. We have
got to dine in the middle of the day after to-night. It really seems as
if she meant to rule us, but I shan’t let her.”

The family were engaged in eating the last dinner which they were to be
allowed to enjoy in the evening when the Fordham and Boston express wagon
was heard coming down the Glen Arden avenue, and shortly afterwards the
door which led into the front hall from the kitchen department was flung
open by B. Lafferty, who announced as she did so that “a whole lot of
furniters had come, and what was she to be afther doin’ wid ’em?”

“Bring them right in here, please,” said Honor. “Peter, won’t you go and
help? We shall have to do a good deal ourselves, I suppose, now that we
have only one girl,” she added, as Blanch’s heavy tread echoed in the
distance, and Peter, who had heard of Katherine’s shopping expedition and
was possessed of a lively curiosity, went willingly enough to investigate
the result.

The chairs, desks, blackboard, and map had all been brought in, also a
globe and a package containing chalk, pencils, copy-books, blank-books,
and school stationery of all kinds, which Katherine had forgotten to
mention, and then Peter appeared, staggering beneath the weight of a
square box. It seemed to be heavy, and he set it down with a sigh of
relief.

“There!” said he. “I suppose that is your surprise, Katherine. It weighs
a ton, whatever it is.”

“Yes, that is it!” cried Katherine. “Oh, girls, I wonder what you will
say when you see it! But look at the desks before we open it. Aren’t they
too sweet for anything? And so cheap, too. I forgot to tell you I got a
globe. You know a schoolroom is nothing without a globe.”

“But the surprise,” interposed Sophy. “Do show it to us quick, Kathie.”

“I’ve a good mind to make you all guess,” said Katherine, mischievously.
She glanced from one to the other as she spoke. It almost seemed as if
she were afraid to let them see it, Victoria thought, though she had
assumed this air of triumph.

“Oh no, we can’t stop to guess,” said they, and Peter had already begun
to remove the lid of the box.

“My eye!” exclaimed he. “Oh, my two eyes, what do I see? Katherine’s been
and gone and done it this time!” And he burst into shouts of derisive
laughter.

“What _is_ it?” cried the others, as they crowded about and pushed the
desks and chairs out of the way, in their haste to see the contents of
the mysterious box.

“It is a typewriter,” announced Katherine.

“_A typewriter_!” repeated her sisters. “What—what for? Why did you buy a
typewriter?”

“Why, you stupid children, to typewrite with, of course!”

“But do you know how?”

“No; certainly not. How should I? But I am going to learn. It was a
tremendous bargain, and I have been thinking of them for some time
without saying anything about it. You know the magazines are full of
advertisements of them, and they have made me simply wild to have one. I
thought it would be so useful for us to have one in the house, and we can
make a lot of money with it.”

“How?” asked Honor.

Something in her voice made Katherine glance at her sister’s face; but
Honor was standing in the shadow cast by the staircase, which went up
from the centre of the hall.

“Doing typewriting for people, of course. You hear all the time of girls
who are typewriters. How dull of comprehension you are to-night, Honor!”

“How much did you give for it?”

“My dear, it was awfully cheap! The man assured me it was a wonderful
bargain!”

“They usually do,” remarked Honor, “but you haven’t yet named the price.
How much was it, Katherine?”

“It is really a hundred-dollar machine, but they call it second-hand,
though it has only been used a little, and so I got it for forty.”

“Forty dollars!” cried Victoria, while Honor’s feelings prevented her for
the moment from finding words, and Peter gave utterance to a prolonged
whistle of astonishment. “You don’t mean, Katherine, that you have
actually spent forty dollars on _that_?”

“I do,” said Katherine, with an assumption of boldness that she was far
from feeling. “Only forty dollars. I assure you it is the cheapest thing
I ever saw. I never dreamed of being able to get a decent one for less
than fifty at the lowest—and when we are making money with it, you will
thank me.”

“But _how_ are we to make money with it?” asked Victoria, while Peter
laughed with malicious glee. He had been so often remonstrated with
himself for various misdemeanors that he was glad to see his chief critic
undergoing the same unpleasant experience. “Do you know how to use it?”

“No, not yet; but that is easily learned. The man offered to give me a
lesson, but I was in a hurry, and so he said I could come in any time. He
showed me some books on the subject, which I bought, and I can easily
puzzle it out myself, I think. It will be something to do in the
evening.”

“Have you paid for it, or did you have it charged, too?”

It was Honor who asked the question. She had not spoken for some time,
and her voice had the same note which Katherine, who was susceptible to
voices, had remarked upon before.

“I paid for it,” she replied. “That is what I wanted the ready money for.
I saw it in the window of a typewriter place as I was on my way to the
furniture store. I knew I should have to pay ‘cash down’ for it, as they
didn’t know me there, while they did at the furniture place. I hope you
think I did right, girls. I hope you agree with me.”

“I think,” said Honor, turning slowly and looking at her sister,—“I think
you are the most foolish and the most extravagant person I ever saw or
heard of. The idea of your spending forty dollars on a typewriter, when
we are so poor we can scarcely buy our food, and it was just as much as
we could do to scrape the forty dollars together for you to take to
Boston to buy the schoolroom furniture with. Oh, that we had never let
you go! Can the thing be taken back?”

“No,” said Katherine, shortly.

“Why not?”

“Why of course it can’t, Honor, unless in exchange for another
typewriter! Of course the man isn’t going to give me back the money. How
foolish you are!”

“Foolishness must run in the family,” said Honor. “I think Aunt Sophia
was quite right when she said we were nothing but children and not fit to
take care of ourselves. If you go on in this way, we shall soon have to
take refuge in Beacon Street, after all. I think you might at least have
consulted us before you bought it. I suppose you were afraid to. That is
the reason you were so anxious to go yourself to buy the desks. You had
made up your mind before you went, to get this thing.”

“I hadn’t at all, Honor,” cried Katherine, stung by this accusation. “I
hadn’t the least idea of doing it until I saw them in the window. If I
had happened to go through any other street, I should never have dreamed
of getting it. It was evidently intended that we should own a typewriter,
for I was led right up to the window.”

“An easy sort of philosophy,” remarked Honor.

“Oh well,” interposed Victoria, “it is done, so there is no use in
lamenting. We may as well make the best of it, though the next time you
go to Boston, Katherine, I think Honor and I had better be on each side
of you to keep you from being ‘led up’ to windows. If you had been ‘led’
to Toppan’s window, would you have bought all that you saw there? Or to
Shreve’s, or Bigelow’s? Oh, Katherine!”

And then Victoria, who had been undecided for some time as to whether she
should laugh or cry, began to laugh.

“I think it is too funny!” she exclaimed. “I feel as if we had a white
elephant in the house. In addition to everything else that we have to do
we have all got to learn typewriting, so as to make it pay! Oh,
Katherine, Katherine!”

Honor hesitated a moment. The situation was amusing, and Victoria’s mirth
was contagious, but she felt very angry. Then seeing that Katherine was
looking troubled, she decided that she too had better try to laugh it
off. After all, it was very funny. And presently they were all laughing
so uproariously, that B. Lafferty again opened the door and peeped in at
them, wondering what amusing article had come by express.

Suddenly, however, Katherine became sober.

 [Picture: “The girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the hall
                                 below”]

“You will see,” she said, “that after all I was wise to get it. When the
money begins to pour in from it, you will see what a brilliant idea it
was.”

“I can’t imagine how it is going to pour in, unless you are going to
manufacture bank notes with it,” remarked Honor; “but we will see.”

They went back to their forgotten dinner, and after it was finished, they
proceeded to arrange the schoolroom. It was again Saturday, and school
was to open the following Monday.

Katherine slipped away before long, her absence being at first unnoticed
by the others. Presently Peter also disappeared from the room, but he
soon returned.

“If you want to see something rich,” said he, “come look over the
banisters.”

As has been said, the stairway ascended from the centre of the large
square hall. It was very broad, and a gallery ran around the second
story, upon which opened the doors of the bedrooms. By leaning over the
railing which guarded this gallery, the girls and Peter could see
Katherine, who sat in the hall below. She was at work upon the
typewriter, the “clickety-click” of the keys coming at long intervals,
while she studied the book of instructions.

“The lightning writer!” whispered Peter. “Don’t you wish you could write
with a pen as fast as that?”

“Hush!” said Victoria; “don’t let her hear you. But, oh, Honor, we shall
have to work extra hard to make up for Katherine’s extravagance! What
_shall_ we do with her?”



CHAPTER V.
PETER SEEKS INFORMATION.


“PETER is in one of his moods. He won’t come.”

So announced Sophy, returning from the barn for the third time one day
towards the end of the following week.

“But we want him, Sophy. Did you tell him so?” asked Honor.

“That is just the reason he won’t come. When I said, ‘They want you,’ he
said, ‘Let ’em want. I’ve got something else to do than be tied to
Honor’s apron strings.’ What did he mean, Honor? You hardly ever wear an
apron, and I never saw you tie Peter.”

Katherine, who was also present, laughed, as she invariably did when
Sophy made a remark of this kind.

“You are the most literal young one I ever saw,” said she. “Did you
really suppose, now, that—”

“Never mind!” interposed Honor, who saw that Sophy, always easily moved
to tears by Katherine’s criticisms, looked ready to cry. “He means by
that that he doesn’t want to do things for us. Very disobliging of him, I
think. What is he doing?”

“Sitting on the fence just outside of the barn.”

“Dear me, I wish he would come! Well, Katherine, we shall have to do it
ourselves. A boy can be so useful, and it does seem provoking to have one
right in the family and not be able to turn him to account. I will hold
the step-ladder while you go up. Isn’t it horrid to have to do all this
ourselves? I do miss the servants dreadfully.”

The girls were hanging the parlor curtains for the first time in their
lives.

“They are going to look horribly, too,” said Katherine. “I really think
it would pay, Honor, to have a man come up from Fordham and do it. It
wouldn’t cost much.”

“It would cost more than we have got at present,” replied Honor. “No,”
she added a little drearily after a moment’s silence, “we’ve got to learn
to do these things ourselves. Other people do, and there is no reason why
we shouldn’t. Be careful, Katherine. You’re putting that ever so much
higher on the right than you did on the left.”

In the meantime Sophy returned once more to the barn. She found that
Peter had not moved from his position upon the fence, and as far as she
could judge he was still in “one of his moods.” When he saw Sophy
approaching for the fourth time, he fixed his gaze yet more intently upon
the river, which gleamed beyond the tall pine trees in the grove.

Sophy was a small and slenderly built child of eight. The fact that she
was so much younger than her sisters had perhaps caused her to be
considered the baby of the family longer than would otherwise have been
the case. She was not a pretty child, for her eyes were too large and
staring for the small thin face, and the temporary absence of two of her
front teeth gave her a grotesque expression. Her hair, which was
straight, had been cut short for the sake of convenience, and her cheeks
were pale for those of a country child.

Sophy adored her only brother with all the ardor of her childish heart.
She considered him the tallest, the strongest, and the handsomest boy in
all the town of Fordham, or Boston either, for that matter, and she was
his willing slave at all times—a state of affairs which Peter was not
slow to recognize and of which he availed himself on every possible
occasion.

When Peter was “in one of his moods” he was to Sophy more fascinating
than ever. She hung near him, wondering what was the matter, what
troublesome thoughts were thronging his brain, and whether it would be
possible to offer him any help. She longed to comfort him on these
occasions, but never knew how to do it.

This afternoon she seated herself upon a convenient rock and leaned her
chin upon her hand, her great brown eyes fastened upon her brother, who
was perched upon the fence rail. Peter at first paid no attention to her
presence. Then he stirred uneasily. He turned and looked at her, and then
looked quickly away again. The stare of those big brown eyes was so
unflinching.

“I wish you would go away,” said he at last.

“Why?” asked Sophy.

“Because I’m thinking, and—and you’re such a stare-cat.”

“I won’t any longer,” returned the obliging Sophy, and fixed her eyes at
once upon the ground, only now and then raising them for a furtive glance
at the motionless figure upon the fence. The mood was lasting a long
time, she thought.

It was a mild day in November, and the purple haze in the atmosphere
proved that it was Indian summer. There was a delicious smell of autumn
in the air, and the smoke of burning brush was borne to them from the
distance. One could hear sounds that seemed to come from far away, and in
the pasture which lay to the right of the pine grove, a vast number of
crows had alighted. Presently, having finished their conference, they
rose with one accord and soared far above the tops of the tallest pine
trees, cawing to one another as they went. Peter glanced up at them.

“I wish I were a crow,” said he.

Sophy gave a little sigh of relief. He had spoken; he was coming out of
his mood.

“Why?” she asked, with alacrity.

“Oh, because—” And then he stopped. Sophy sighed again, this time with
disappointment. He was not going to tell her! Presently, he again broke
the silence.

“I wish I were anything,” said he; “anything but what I am.”

“Do you wish you were a girl?” asked his little sister.

“No!” exclaimed Peter; “of course not a _girl_! But anything else. A
bird, a beetle, a squirrel. Something alive.”

This was difficult philosophy for Sophy to comprehend. Would the life of
a beetle, or even of a bird, be preferable to that of a girl? And was not
a girl “alive”? She was about to inquire further, when her brother spoke
again.

“I’m tired of it,” said he. “Just tired of it! I’m not going to stand it
any longer. I’m going to run away to sea. But if I disappear, Sophy,
don’t you tell them where I’ve gone. Don’t tell the girls that I ever
said anything about running away to sea; now mind!”

“No,” said Sophy, “I won’t, but I hope you won’t decide to go, Peter. It
wouldn’t be a bit nice without you. Why do you want to go?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Peter, leaping to the ground, and seating himself
upon a rock. The fence rail had ceased to be comfortable.

“There is nothing for me to do. We are all poor, and the girls have to
work, and I can’t do a thing. If I were as old as Honor, I could go into
business right away, and make a fortune, and support you all. I’m the
only boy in the family, and I ought to be the one to do it. I don’t see
why I wasn’t the oldest instead of having three girls older than me to
order me around. It just makes me mad. Why, if I had only been the
oldest, I’d be finishing college now, and going into a law office, or I’d
be a doctor and have lots of patients, or I’d go into business; stocks,
or a bank, or something or other. Instead of that I’ve got to knock round
here and fuss over little things the girls want me to do, and go to that
hateful Hastings School down at Fordham. But what’s the use of talking to
you? You don’t understand. You’re nothing but a girl, and a baby one at
that.”

Sophy’s great brown eyes filled with tears.

“I know I’m a girl,” she faltered. “I wish I wasn’t, Peter. Indeed I do!
I wish you’d please excuse me for being one, for I can’t really help it,
but—but—I don’t think I’m such a baby.”

“I’d like to know what you are, then,” said her brother, crossly. “You’re
crying now. That proves that you’re a baby. Do you suppose a boy would
cry as easily as you do, or any one who wasn’t a baby?”

“What _is_ the matter?” cried a gay voice, as the rustle of dead leaves
on the pasture path was heard, and Victoria came into sight. “I heard you
ever so far off, and it sounded exactly as if you were scolding, Peter. I
got off the train at Waterview and walked up, as I missed the one that
connected. I’ve been thinking over something, and I want your advice,
Peter.”

She saw at a glance that Sophy had been made unhappy, but she thought it
wiser to pass it over unnoticed for the present.

“What is it?” asked her brother, interested in spite of himself. Then he
added hastily: “But you’re only making that up to change the subject. You
don’t really want my advice. You think I’m scolding Sophy, and so I am.
Why, she cries if you say—”

“I do want your advice,” interrupted Victoria; “and if you can’t give it
to me, I shall have to ask some other boy or man. It is about mushrooms.
Do you know anything at all about them, and do you think it would pay to
raise them? I have been reading up about them to-day in the Encyclopædia
at school. That was the reason I missed the other train. It seems as if
we could make some money out of them if we only tried. It says in the
Encyclopædia that the cultivated ones don’t taste as good as the wild
ones, but there must be a demand for them, for people use them when the
others are out of season. I was wondering whether you would want to
undertake it.”

“Do you mean me alone?” asked Peter.

“Yes. You see I have the violets to attend to, and lots of things in the
house. We have so much dusting and all that sort of thing to do, now that
we have only one maid, and with all I have to study, I really don’t think
I can undertake anything more. Couldn’t you read up about them, and find
out all you can? You might make a good deal that way.”

A gleam of something like interest had come into Peter’s hitherto
depressed-looking face. It quickly faded, however.

“It’s such a little thing,” said he.

“Little? How do you mean?”

“Why, it doesn’t really amount to anything. What is raising mushrooms?
Anybody could do that. I want to do something big. If I were only a man,
now, I could support you all.”

“Yes, I know you could,” rejoined Victoria, quickly, “and it would be too
lovely for anything; but you will be a man some day, Peter, and then you
can do it, and in the meantime it seems as if the little things would
count. And mushrooms are not so little, either. I mean the raising of
them. You _might_ be able to make a good deal that way, and in other
gardening.”

“They’d call me a mushroom, I suppose,” said Peter, gloomily, after he
had reviewed the situation for a few moments in silence.

“What _do_ you mean?”

“A mushroom, or perhaps a toadstool. More likely a toadstool.”

“Peter! Who would?”

“Those Hastings school-boys.”

“Would they? Why?”

“Because they are hateful,” said Peter, rising and walking about with his
hands in his pockets. “The class I am in is nothing but a set of
ruffians. I’d like to fight ’em, every one of ’em, and I will some day.
They call me the ‘Glen Arden dude’ now. You see I’m the only boy there
who has been to a private school. I wish father had never sent me to that
school in Boston. I wish—”

“Never mind!” said Victoria, quickly. “Father always did what was quite
right. What else do they say?”

“They say I’m tied to my sisters’ apron strings, just because they saw me
with Honor and Katherine yesterday when I was carrying the bundles. I’ll
never go to Fordham with any of you girls again, and I’m not going to
carry your bundles if I do go.”

Quickly a look of scorn gathered in Victoria’s expressive face. Her brown
eyes fairly gleamed with it as they regarded her brother.

“What a poor-spirited boy you must be, Peter!” said she.

“Poor-spirited!” exclaimed Peter. “Why, I’m willing to fight any boy or
any two boys in that school, and I will yet. I’d like to know what you
mean by that, Vic!”

“Oh, I don’t mean that you are not brave enough if there is any fighting
to be done,” said she. “I’d trust you quickly enough for that, but I
think you are very poor-spirited to be afraid to carry our bundles or be
seen with any of us, just because those common boys that go to the
Hastings School in Fordham chose to laugh at you for doing it. If you go
on in this way, you won’t be the kind of man father was, or that Mr.
Abbott is. Mr. Abbott is only too glad to do things for women, and father
was just like him in that. And if you are not willing to do these little
things for us now, I don’t believe you will take care of us when you grow
up, so we may as well get accustomed to taking care of ourselves.”

Peter’s face flushed. He recognized the truth of Victoria’s remarks,
although he had no intention of acknowledging it.

“See here,” said he, “I wish you’d stop! There is no one else in the
world that I’d let say those things to me. If you were a fellow, I’d
knock you down.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t,” said Victoria, laughing good-humoredly, “for the
very good reason that I should be engaged in knocking you down! You think
over that mushroom plan, Peter,” she continued, as she rose from the rock
upon which she had been sitting. “I must go into the house now and see
what there is to be done. Come along, Sophy, and tell me how school went
to-day.”

The sisters walked away together, leaving Peter to ruminate over
Victoria’s remarks. He looked after them for a moment and then himself
departed. He had suddenly determined to go to a certain florist who owned
some large greenhouses in Fordham, and consult with him as to the best
method of raising mushrooms. Perhaps it could be kept a secret from the
boys at school. At any rate, the subject was worth considering.

He walked over to the village and took an electric car, which carried him
in a short time almost to his destination, although it was a distance of
some miles. Upon leaving the car, he had a walk of several blocks, and
his way was through the most crowded street of Fordham,—the main street,
in fact, upon which were most of the shops, and which at this hour of the
afternoon, when the trains arrived at short intervals from Boston, was
well filled with people.

Peter walked along, paying little attention to the passers-by, as his
mind reviewed the late conversation with Victoria, when he was attracted
by some squirrels in a cage. The cage was standing upon a barrel outside
of a provision store. The store was on a corner, and the squirrels were
on the side street, which was a small one.

They were skipping about in the revolving cage, engaged in an
ever-failing attempt to make progress, and compelled to pursue their
ceaseless round of futile activity. Peter, as he watched them, wished
that he could set them free. He wondered how much the provision dealer
would sell them for. Then he remembered that there was little enough
money to spare, and none with which to free squirrels.

For a wonder, no one else was watching the little animals. When they had
first been placed there, a small crowd had gathered daily to look at
their antics; but the Fordham youth had grown accustomed to them now, and
Peter was the only one who stopped. Presently, however, another boy
sauntered up, and stood a little beyond Peter. He was very shabbily
dressed, and Peter, who was observant, noticed that he looked hungry.
Instead of watching the squirrels, he found himself watching the boy, who
was quite unconscious of it.

Presently the boy put out his hand and quietly abstracted an apple from a
barrel that was standing there, and dropped it into his pocket. In a
moment he repeated the operation. Then he moved slightly, and his gaze
encountered Peter’s. Instantly his fist doubled up.

“If you’re going to tell on me, I’ll knock you down,” he said.

“I’m not going to tell on you, though I’m not afraid of your knocking me
down,” returned Peter. “But what are you doing it for? It seems to me
it’s a pretty mean thing to do.”

“I guess you’d do it if you was as hungry as me,” said the boy. “I mean
to take another—there ain’t nobody looking.”

“Oh, I say, don’t!” said Peter. “Haven’t you got any money to pay for
them?”

“Money! I ain’t seen a nickel for a week, and I ain’t had nothin’ to eat
since yesterday morning.”

Peter put his hand in his pocket.

“I haven’t got much myself,” said he, pulling out a dime, a five-cent
piece, and some pennies, which he placed in the palm of one hand while he
searched the depths of his pockets with the other. “We haven’t got much
money ourselves, nowadays, but we’ve got enough to eat. It must be pretty
bad to be hungry. I’ve got to keep five cents to get back to Fordham
Falls, but I’d be glad if you’d take the rest, and I wish you’d go in and
pay for those apples.”

He placed the money upon the top of the barrel which held the squirrels’
cage, and walked quickly away. The boy looked after him in astonishment.
Then he took the money and went into the store with the apples which he
had appropriated in his hand. He paid for them, and also for a loaf of
bread, and then he hurried up the main street in the direction in which
Peter had walked. He could not overtake him, however, and when he had
reached the less thickly populated part of the town and still saw nothing
of his benefactor, he turned aside into a narrow road, and sitting down,
he began to devour the bread and apples, from time to time looking, as he
ate, at the eight cents which remained of what Peter had given him. He
felt like a millionaire.

In the meantime Peter went to the florist’s, and fortunately finding him
at home, proceeded to question him closely on the subject for which he
had come. After spending a half-hour in interesting conversation he left
the place, and as it was yet too early for his car back to Fordham Falls,
he took a roundabout way for the sake of using up his superfluous time.

As he walked he thought he heard the cry of an animal in pain. Peter was
passionately fond of living creatures, be they insects, birds, or beasts,
and the sound that he heard was undoubtedly the yelp of a suffering dog.
He ran in the direction from which it proceeded, and very soon, upon
turning a corner in the road, came upon two boys who were engaged in
torturing a dog which they had tied to the fence rail.

Before they knew what had happened, one boy was rolling in the ditch by
the side of the road, and the other was being pommelled and shaken by an
infuriated person, who had apparently sprung out of the ground, so
unexpectedly had his presence become known to them.

At first the surprise completely paralyzed the boys, one of whom was
larger than Peter, the other smaller; but they soon recovered themselves,
and it would undoubtedly have gone hard with the aggressor had he not
been suddenly reinforced by help from the most unlooked-for quarter.

The boy whom Peter had met in front of the provision store, had been
eating his bread and apples not far from the scene of the fight. Hearing
the sound of a scuffle, he ran down the road, and saw at once that his
late benefactor was evidently getting the worst of it. Gratitude, added
to the food which Peter had given him, gave strength to the newcomer, and
in a few moments the victory was won.

The two young ruffians were prostrate in the road, and Peter walked away
with the injured dog in his arms, accompanied by his new friend.



CHAPTER VI.
PETER’S NEW ACQUAINTANCES.


WHEN Victoria and Sophy reached the house after their conversation with
Peter, they found Honor and Katherine still struggling with the parlor
curtains. Two windows were finished, and Katherine was in the act of
mounting the step-ladder at the third, when her younger sisters appeared.
At the same moment Blanch thrust her head in the doorway at the back of
the hall.

“I forgot to tell yers,” said she, “there ain’t no bread in the house for
supper.”

“Oh, Blanch!” cried Honor, turning to look at her, while she steadied the
ladder. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I never thought of it. I thought yers’d know it yerselves.”

“How could we know it? I can’t spend all my time looking into the
bread-box, and I had no idea the last baking would have given out so
soon. You will have to make some biscuits or some corn bread.”

“I ain’t never made any. Of course I know how to make ’em, but as I ain’t
never made any, yers mightn’t like ’em.”

“Very well,” replied Honor, with as much majesty of demeanor as she could
assume when embracing a step-ladder. “I will show you how presently.”

Though Honor was not as tall as Katherine, and was very slight, she could
be extremely dignified when she chose.

Blanch’s head disappeared, and the door closed with a bang.

“Why, Honor, do you know how yourself?” asked Victoria.

“No, I haven’t the least idea, but I’m not going to tell her so. I will
look it up in the recipe book. It is a curious thing about B. Lafferty.
She never will acknowledge that she can’t do a thing. She is the most
conceited person, as well as the most aggravating, that I ever met.”

Katherine at the top of the ladder laughed as she adjusted the curtain.

“You must be taking lessons from her,” she said, “telling her that you
would show her how to make biscuits. I wonder what they will be like! It
is bad enough to have had to give up dining late to suit Miss B.
Lafferty’s fancies, without having to go without bread for supper.”

“You take my place at the ladder, Vic,” said Honor, with the air of one
who had determined to defy fate, “and I will find the recipe book and
_make the biscuits_!”

“How did school go to-day?” asked Victoria, when Honor had left them.

“Oh, beautifully! Minnie Chase pinched Bertha Hickens, which naturally
had the effect of making Bertha howl loudly, and that frightened Carry
Deane so badly that she began to cry, which so affected Tommy Deane that
he began to cry, and presently the whole school was weeping and in an
uproar. Lessons had to be stopped for at least twenty minutes while Honor
and I wiped eyes and patted shoulders and scolded Minnie for being the
cause of it all. Oh, it went beautifully! Another tack please, Vic, and a
good big one. There, that is the last! Dear me,” continued Katherine,
standing in the middle of the room and looking about her, “they don’t
look as they ought to, but I can’t help it! Honor won’t have the man from
Fordham, so we shall have to go with crooked curtains. I must rush now,
for I have a music lesson to give. I would so much rather stay at home
and practise!”

Honor had been wrestling with her recipe books and her biscuits for more
than an hour, Katherine had given her music lesson and returned, and
Victoria, aided by Sophy,—who was perhaps more of a hindrance than a
help, but whom it pleased to be called into service,—had performed
various household duties, and still Peter did not come back.

It was no unusual matter for him to be off in the woods and meadows for
hours at a time, and therefore his sisters were not in the least alarmed
by his absence, especially as Victoria suspected that he had acted upon
her suggestion and had gone to consult the Fordham florist.

When the clock struck six, however, and he had not yet come, they began
to wonder as to his whereabouts, and Sophy went to one of the
second-story windows and took up her station there. The sun had set, but
a young moon was shining brightly, and she could see plainly the
beautiful lawn, dotted with the fine old trees now quite bare of leaves,
across which Peter might be expected to come if he had gone to Fordham by
the electric car, as Victoria supposed.

Sophy watched for some time in silence, but at last her scrutiny was
rewarded.

“Here he comes,” she cried, “and he is carrying something, and there’s
somebody with him! Who do you s’pose it is? It is a boy, and he looks
raggedy, and it’s a dog! I really think it’s a truly dog! Vic, where are
you?”

Sophy, in great excitement, ran from her post of observation and hurried
down the stairs. The front door was thrown open, and Peter entered,
tenderly carrying a good-sized yellow dog, whose leg was bound up and
whose head lay limply upon his arm, and accompanied by a boy who, as
Sophy had said, was “raggedy.”

The four sisters gathered from different parts of the house and surveyed
the newcomers, surprise mingled with disapprobation being unmistakably
depicted on the countenances of all, with the exception, perhaps, of
Sophy’s.

“I want some witch hazel,” said Peter, “and some kind of an ointment or
something. Vic, get it for me, will you? This dog’s leg is broken, and he
has a lot of wounds. This is Dave Carney. He’s going to stay to tea.”

“Peter!” said four voices.

“Well,” said he, “what’s the matter?”

“You look exactly as if you had been in a fight.”

“So I have.”

“Oh, Peter! But are you—are you going to fix the dog’s leg here?”

“Oh, I’ll take him down to the barn, if you like. I suppose you will all
make a terrible fuss, if I don’t. Isn’t he a nice dog? Some fellows were
hurting him, but we floored ’em, Carney and I.”

Carney, in the meantime, had retired to the least conspicuous position
that he could find. He stood far back by the door, and he twirled his
shabby cap in his hand, looking the while as though he would prefer to be
in any place but that in which he found himself.

Honor and Victoria, who were on the broad staircase, turned towards one
another. Honor’s pretty eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, and her
face said as plainly as though she had spoken, “What are we to do about
it?”

“I will get the witch hazel,” said Victoria, aloud, “and will bring it
down to the barn. You and—and your friend had better take the dog down
there now, Peter, and make a bed for him.”

“Bring some old rags,” commanded Peter, “and something nice and soft for
him to lie on. This would do,” he added, picking up a white chudda shawl
which hung over the back of one of the hall chairs.

“My best white shawl!” cried Katherine, springing forward just in time to
rescue it before it was wrapped about the suffering animal. “What are you
thinking of, Peter? Do take that dirty dog out of the house! I never saw
such a boy.”

Victoria, as she hurried up the stairs, sighed to herself.

“Oh, dear!” she thought. “I am afraid Katherine will say just the wrong
thing, and before we know it Peter will insist upon keeping the dog in
the house, and having the boy at the supper-table. Where did he pick them
up?”

But Peter, whatever may have been his first impulse, decided that, after
all, it would be the wiser course to repair to the barn, and here
Victoria found him with his new friend, when she and Sophy followed with
the remedies.

The dog was, without doubt, very much hurt; but he seemed to appreciate
all that was being done for him, and he looked lovingly at Peter as he
bathed his wounds and bound up his leg.

“How would you like to have your supper out here, Peter?” said Victoria,
who had been pondering the situation. “Then you could stay near the dog
and see that he is all right.”

“Well,” said Peter, slowly, “I don’t know but it would be a good plan.
What do you say, Carney?”

But Carney was too bashful to speak.

It was a happy solution of the difficulty, and Victoria and Sophy hurried
back to the house, and had soon packed a basket for the picnic in the
barn. Honor’s biscuits, made so early in the afternoon, had risen and
fallen again long since, and were now little lumps of hard and sodden
dough; but the sisters thought that the boys would doubtless enjoy them,
and they bestowed them with a generous hand.

“We can eat crackers ourselves,” said Katherine. “I don’t want to hurt
your feelings, Honor, but—but—_do_ look in the bread-box to-morrow,
please!”

Honor had seated herself in her place at the head of the table. The old
silver service and the delicate cups and saucers gleamed in the light
which fell from the candles. The table was covered with a cloth of the
finest damask, a silver _jardinière_ of ferns ornamented the centre, and
at the four corners stood tall silver candlesticks of massive design. No
one would ever have dreamed that the family who were to gather about this
table had not all the money they needed.

The eldest sister leaned back in her chair and sighed.

“It is perfectly dreadful,” she exclaimed, “that I don’t know the first
thing about cooking! What am I to do? I went into the kitchen determined
that that odious B. Lafferty should never suspect that I hadn’t made
biscuits every day of my life, but I couldn’t have impressed her that
way, for she stood looking at me with the most supercilious expression.
She insisted upon taking the dough and the roller right out of my hands.
She declared that she knew better than I did about making them, and the
worst of it was, I didn’t know whether she did or not, and these are the
result. Hear them!”

Honor lifted one of the biscuits and let it drop upon the table. It
sounded like the fall of a little stone.

“You will have to take cooking lessons,” said Katherine. “They don’t
really cost much, and it would pay in the end.”

“They may not cost much, but when we have scarcely a cent in our pockets
and _owe bills_, we can’t afford lessons in anything. No, I shall have to
keep a sharp lookout on the bread-box, and trust to luck about other
things. I am afraid she only knows how to make two puddings, for when I
speak about the dessert, there is always some reason why it must be
either cornstarch or tapioca. I am perfectly certain they are the only
kinds she can make.”

“Why not give up having dessert?” suggested Victoria, as she adjusted the
cover of the basket. “It would save a little money.”

“Victoria!” exclaimed her sisters together.

“We are coming down pretty low, if we can’t have dessert,” said
Katherine. “What are you thinking of?”

“Only of saving money; and a lamp on the supper table would be cheaper
than candles,” said Vic, as she took up the basket and left the room.
“Come, Sophy. You carry the pitcher of milk. Don’t spill it, child.”

“I don’t know where Vic gets those scrimpy ideas,” said Katherine, when
they had gone. “She actually said again to-day that she thought we could
do without salad, that the sweet oil for the dressing was so expensive;
and when we went to Boston together the other day, she insisted upon
walking all the way from the station to Aunt Sophia’s, just to save five
cents! She was perfectly horrified at my getting those embroidered
handkerchiefs, and yet they were so cheap. It is a perfect bore to have
her so.”

Honor said nothing. She thought that Victoria went to an extreme,
perhaps; but it was better for the family purse than Katherine’s course,
and the suggestion about the candles contained a good deal of common
sense. A lamp would do just as well, and candles were expensive; but then
they made the table look so much prettier. How provoking it was, thought
Honor, to be obliged to do without so small and simple a luxury as
candles on the supper-table!

With an air of resignation, she rose and lighted a lamp, which she placed
upon the table. Then she blew out the candles, and removed them to the
mantelpiece.

“Oh, Honor!” cried Katherine. “Why do you do that? You are getting to be
as bad as Vic herself. You might at least leave them on the table
unlighted.”

“For the mere show of them?” said Honor. “Never! and Vic is right.
Candles are expensive. I wonder if there is anything else we can give
up.”

And she looked about with a gesture of despair.

“Sugar in our tea, I suppose,” said Katherine, with what she considered
fine sarcasm, “or even tea itself. Perhaps you would like to do without
forks. We can sell the silver, for instance. For my part, I shall never
give in to this stingy spirit that is taking possession of the rest of
you. I am sure we are not as poor as all that, and we are certainly
making money.”

Honor made no reply. When Katherine talked in this strain, it was useless
to argue with her, and presently Victoria and Sophy returned, and they
took their places at the table.

Dave Carney spent some time with Peter in the barn, and when he left, he
promised to return the next day, and see how the dog was progressing.
When Peter asked him where he lived, he returned an evasive answer. The
two boys, so differently placed in the world, found that they had much in
common. Dave knew almost as much as Peter did about the ways of animals
and birds, and was deeply interested in all that his new friend had to
say upon the subject, besides recounting many of his own experiences in
the woods.

When he came the next day, he offered to help Peter with his mushrooms,
and in return for this Peter, at Victoria’s suggestion, presented him
with a full suit of outgrown clothes which fitted him exactly; for
although he was older than Peter, he was of slighter build and was
shorter. Peter superintended his toilet when he tried on the garments at
the barn, fastening his collar for him, and even tying a blue cravat
about his neck. Finally he placed a brown cap upon his head.

“There,” said he, “you look like a regular dude.”

Dave surveyed himself in the little mirror and then glanced at his nice
trousers and whole shoes. A pleased smile stole over his face, and then
he looked at Peter.

“I’ll never forgit it,” said he.

It was finally arranged that Carney should come to Glen Arden every day
to do whatever came to hand, in return for his three meals and a small
sum weekly. He was to take part in the mushroom culture and to assist
Victoria with her violets, and also to carry coal for B. Lafferty. Even
Honor, who had at first disapproved of this arrangement, found him useful
in many different ways. He was always ready to go to the village upon an
errand, or to make himself useful about the house. In fact, Dave Carney
soon came to be regarded as an important and indispensable member of the
family, and as he ate with Blanch in the kitchen, that difficulty no
longer existed.

Peter told no one, not even Victoria, of the incident which led to his
acquaintance with Carney, and the boy knew this, and his gratitude
increased tenfold.

Peter made two warm friends that day. The dog soon recovered, and his
devotion to the boy who had saved his life was touching in the extreme.
When Peter was at home he never left him, and when he was at school he
wandered disconsolately about the house or place, taking up his position
at the head of the avenue when the time approached for his master to
return, and rushing to meet him when he appeared in the distance.

Since his recovery and owing to the numerous baths which Peter and Carney
gave him he had so far improved in appearance that the sisters consented
to his presence in the house; and they soon became greatly attached to
him, although he paid but little attention to any one but his master. He
was not a handsome dog, being tall and ungainly, with a coat of yellowish
bristly hair. He was unmistakably a mongrel, and perhaps for that very
reason was unusually intelligent. He knew each one of the family by name
almost immediately, and seemed to understand everything that was said to
him. Victoria declared that he was the brightest of the Starrs, and hence
came his name.

There was great discussion upon this point, and for days the newcomer
went unchristened. Apparently he had never had a name before, for
although they tried every title by which a dog could possibly be known,
he failed to respond, and only smiled roguishly at their efforts, for he
was a happy-hearted dog with a most cheerful smile. Nothing that was
suggested satisfied the critical Peter. Finally Honor said, “He will just
have to go without a name. He will have to be known as the Starr dog.”

“Or the dog Starr,” said Victoria, quickly. “Do you see? The dog-star! By
the way, what is the name of the dog-star. Let us look it up in the
Encyclopædia.”

They did so, and found that it was “Sirius,” and also that Sirius was the
brightest of the fixed stars.

“And this is the brightest of these Starrs,” cried Victoria, as she
hugged the long-suffering but none the less fortunate animal. “Do, Peter,
name him Sirius!”

And for a wonder Peter consented; and although “Sirius” was a difficult
name to call when one was in a hurry, for instance, it was such an
appropriate title that no one objected.

In the meantime the month of November drew to a close, and on the first
day of December the amount of mail for the family at Glen Arden was
unusually large. There was the grocer’s bill, and the butcher’s bill, and
there were other household accounts; but in addition to these there was
the one from the school-furniture store in Boston. It was addressed to
Honor, and with an exclamation of dismay she glanced at the amount.
Fifty-five dollars and eighty cents!

“Oh, Katherine!” she said, looking at her sister, and letting the bill
fall into her lap.

“What is the matter?” asked Katherine. “You look as if you had seen a
ghost.”

“I have,” said Honor, solemnly. “This is the bill for the schoolroom
furniture.”

“Well, you expected it, didn’t you? How much is it?”

“Fifty-five dollars and eighty cents!”

“I am sure that isn’t very much,” returned Katherine, easily. “Scarcely
more than fifty dollars.”

“But we haven’t got it. How are we going to pay for it, and why did you
get all these things?” groaned Honor, as she looked at the items. “Five
dollars for the globe, and we could easily have done without it, or used
a little cheap one. Five dollars for the blackboard! And all this for
copy-books and blank-books! You ought never to have bought them, and if
you did, you oughtn’t to have had them charged. And have you begun to
make any money with your typewriter yet?”

Katherine did not reply.

“Have you even learned to use it yet? Have you done _anything_ with it?
The money you spent on that typewriter might just as well have been
thrown into the river. Katherine, Katherine, how could you do it! I
verily believe we shall have to apply to Aunt Sophia for help.”

Katherine sprang from her seat.

“Never!” she said. “Honor, you are too absurd. I tell you, we are making
money with the school and the music scholars. As for the typewriter, you
are too disagreeable! Of course it will pay in time. I—I haven’t had time
to learn to use it yet.”

She dared not add that her ardor had been somewhat lessened by a small
paragraph which she had chanced to see in the newspaper. It was to the
effect that the use of the typewriter unfitted the fingers for the piano,
that they were apt to become stiff and to lose their accustomed skill. It
was only a newspaper paragraph, to be sure, but it had frightened
Katherine. She even acknowledged to herself that she regretted her
purchase, but she had no intention of making this known to her sisters.

And in the meantime, how should the bills be paid?



CHAPTER VII.
VICTORIA GOES IN SEARCH OF FUNDS.


HONOR thought over the subject during the day and decided that they must
hold a council of war. Some means must be decided upon for paying the
bills. It was precisely one month since they had undertaken to support
themselves, and already they were in difficulty. It would be humiliating
to be forced to appeal so soon to Mr. Abbott for help, and yet they would
far rather ask him than their Aunt Sophia. But perhaps there was some
other way.

The school bills had been sent out,—they were issued in advance,—but as
yet there had been no response, and even when there was, the amount would
help very little. Six children at twenty dollars each for the term, one
hundred and twenty dollars. The household bills for the month of November
amounted to what seemed a large sum in these straitened times,—and they
did not include the one for the school furniture,—and the money which
they should receive from the pupils would be for the next four months.

There were the music scholars, to be sure, but they were but five, and
Katherine received only fifty cents an hour. Mushrooms and violets,
though a paying industry in theory, had not yet begun to show practical
results. Six hundred dollars a year came to them, as they supposed, from
their father’s estate, and there were five persons to be clothed and fed.
Had they been foolish, after all, not to accept their aunt’s offer?
Honor, sitting in the western window of the parlor that afternoon in
December, while she waited for her sisters to join her there, wondered if
they had made a mistake.

There had been a light fall of snow that day, just enough to whiten the
ground and to rest lightly upon the branches of the cedar trees. The sun
was shining now, shortly before setting, and the world looked very
beautiful. But Honor was in no mood to enjoy the prospect. She felt an
overburdening sense of responsibility. She was the eldest, the family
were practically left in her care, and she missed her father more than
words could express. Was she doing right to refuse the help which her
father’s sister had offered?

Presently the front door opened, and Victoria walked in. She was singing,
to a tune of her own invention, her favorite quotation from Shakespeare:

    “Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
    And merrily hent the stile—a.
    A merry heart goes all the way,
    Your sad tires in a mile—a.”

She was about to begin it for the second time, when she saw Honor sitting
on the sofa in the bay-window. Her very attitude appeared depressed, for
she was leaning her head on her hand, as her elbow rested on the back of
the sofa, and she idly swung one foot to and fro.

“It is just perfect out,” said Victoria, coming into the room. A bright
color glowed in her cheeks, and her voice was gay and exhilarated from
her walk in the fresh air. “It is growing colder, and there is a snap
about everything. Have you been out, Honor?”

“No.”

“Not all day? Oh, put on your things and come out for a walk! It is just
the afternoon for it.”

“No,” said Honor, “I am waiting for you and Katherine. I don’t know where
she can be.”

“What do you want us for?” asked Victoria, feeling a pang of something
like depression, her sister’s tone was so dreary.

“I want to talk things over, and here comes Katherine at last. I thought
you were never coming. Where have you been, Katherine? Indeed, somebody
must suggest some way of getting money at once. Those bills are weighing
upon me.”

“There is a way,” said Victoria, taking the other corner of the sofa,
while Katherine threw herself into an arm-chair. “There is a way, but I
suppose you will both be perfectly horrified if I even suggest it.”

“What is it?” asked her sisters.

“Will you promise not to exclaim?”

“It couldn’t possibly surprise us after your other suggestions,” remarked
Katherine, gloomily. “I shall be quite resigned, even if you tell us we
are to live on bread and water and wear ready-made clothes at five
dollars a suit.”

“We might do worse,” said Victoria, “but this is quite different. We have
so many things” (she looked about the room as she spoke), “why—indeed,
girls, I scarcely dare say it—why can’t we sell something?”

There was a moment of silence. Honor was the first to find her voice.

“Sell something!” she exclaimed. “Sell what?”

“Oh, a picture or two, or some books, or a piece of silver. Or isn’t
there any jewelry?”

“Why, Victoria, you can’t really mean it?” cried Katherine, in an
incredulous voice. “I can’t think that you really mean it.”

“Sell our family heirlooms?” exclaimed Honor, starting to her feet and
gazing at her younger sister with the air of a tragedy queen. “Sell the
books and the pictures that father collected with so much pride? Sell the
silver which belonged to our great-great-grandmother? Victoria, are you
perfectly crazy?”

“No,” said Victoria, stoutly, “not at all so, but I knew you would take
it in that way. Of course, I don’t mean the family things, but I mean
some of the books, or those etchings that are in the portfolio. I know
well enough how dearly father loved them, but he certainly loved us more,
and if he were here now and knew how poor we are, he would be the first
to say that we must do something to get money, and that we had better
sell such useless things as those etchings are. They don’t do us any
good, for we never look at them, and he would far rather have us sell
them than owe money. You know father had a perfect horror of unpaid
bills.”

Victoria spoke rapidly, for she had become excited. The opposition
manifested by her sisters only served to strengthen her belief in the
common sense of her suggestion, and she felt confident that her plan was
a good one.

“I was wondering if Aunt Sophia wouldn’t buy something of us.”

“Victoria!!”

“Well, you needn’t be so shocked. Aunt Sophia with all her
aggravatingness is very kind-hearted, and she is fond of us in a way. She
might buy something of us, and when we grow rich we could buy it back
again.”

“When we do!” said Katherine, with fine sarcasm. “All I can say is that
if Aunt Sophia is to be applied to, I shall have nothing to do with it.
Victoria can run the affair herself.”

“Very well,” returned Victoria, “if Honor is willing, I will. I will go
to town to-morrow, and see Aunt Sophia. I only wish Mr. Abbott were at
home, but he said his business would keep him away two weeks. Shall I go,
Honor?”

“I suppose so,” said Honor, drearily. “I have nothing more to say.”

“To-night we can talk over what we had better offer for sale,” continued
Victoria. “I think it will be quite good fun, girls.”

“It is not my idea of fun,” said Honor, “but I am willing to do almost
anything for a little money. How little we supposed this time last year
that we should ever be in such need! It just shows that we can’t be sure
of anything.”

“By the way,” said Victoria, abruptly changing the subject, “did you know
that the house on the hill has been taken?”

“One of my scholars said something about it to-day,” said Katherine. “She
said their name was Madison, and there are a girl and a boy, I believe. I
wonder if they are nice.”

“I hope so, as they are to be such near neighbors.”

“That won’t make any difference,” remarked Honor, “for we shall see
nothing of them. We have no time to make new acquaintances and we are too
poor. If they have taken the house on the hill, they must be very well
off, and that is all the more reason for us to avoid them. We are nothing
but paupers, working for our living.”

“Honor, how morbid you are getting on that subject!” cried Victoria,
while Katherine laughed somewhat bitterly. “If they are nice, I shall be
glad to know them, and so will you. Do cheer up a bit,” she added, rising
as she spoke. “I am going to find Peter now and see how they are
progressing with the mushroom bed. Don’t worry, Honor. It will all come
right some day.

    “Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
    And merrily hent the stile—a.’”

The sisters heard the fresh young voice as Victoria, having put on her
jacket again, departed in search of Peter. Katherine seated herself at
the piano, as she was apt to do when under any stress of emotion, and
Honor went to her own room. She was determined that no one should see her
cry if she could help it, but life was at present very disheartening, let
Victoria suggest and sing as she would.

Vic on her way to the barn met Sophy, and together they sought their
brother. They found him sitting with Dave Carney in the harness-room.

“Oh, come along in,” said he with unexpected cordiality, while Carney
rose from the box upon which he was seated, and Sirius rapped a welcome
on the floor with his long tail. The oddest part of Sirius’s somewhat
grotesque appearance was the great length of his tail.

“We were just talking about the mushroom bed, and we can’t decide whether
to have it in the cellar, or in the shed, or in the barn, or out of
doors. Of course you don’t really know any more about it, Vic, than I do,
but what do you think?”

“Did you send for the books?” asked his sister, as she seated herself.

“Yes, and they came by the noon mail. A lot about edible mushrooms, and
here it tells how to raise them,” said Peter, giving her two or three
pamphlets which he had been studying.

He had, upon the suggestion of the florist at Fordham, sent to Washington
for these pamphlets, which were printed and published by the Department
of Agriculture.

“I really believe it is going to be a good thing, Vic. They seem easy to
raise, and I shouldn’t wonder if there was money in them. We might live
on them ourselves, and save butcher’s bills. You know the Chinese eat
them a lot.”

“Yes, I know,” responded Victoria, although somewhat doubtfully; “but
then it always seems as if the Chinese ate such queer things—mice, for
instance. I don’t think I should like to copy the Chinese.”

“Pooh! You don’t really believe that they eat mice, do you?” said Peter,
with lofty scorn. “A lot is made up about the Chinese, because we don’t
really know much about them. But they do a large business in mushrooms,
or ‘edible fungi,’ as they are called. They import them from Japan and
Tahiti, and even from Australia and New Zealand. They make soup out of
fungus in China; and do you know in New Zealand they eat a fungus that
grows out of the body of a big caterpillar.”

“Oh, horrible!” cried Victoria. “Sophy’s eyes look as big as saucers.
Don’t tell any more such dreadful tales, Peter. We won’t raise that kind,
at any rate. Have you decided where to have the beds?”

“That’s just what we were talking about before you came out. I was
thinking of the shed at the back of the barn, and Carney thinks that
would be a good place. I don’t believe out of doors will do in our
climate; and Smith, the man at Fordham, said the shed was the best. I
wish we could make a regular mushroom house, like the ones they show
pictures of in these pamphlets, but I suppose it would cost a good deal.”

“We had better wait until next year for that,” said the practical
Victoria. “Then we can tell whether they are going to pay or not.”

They discussed the matter for some time, until the gathering darkness
warned Victoria that it was time for her and Sophy to go back to the
house; and they left the boys still absorbed in the subject.

The next day was Saturday, and it was decided to make use of the holiday
by arranging the mushroom bed. The boys followed closely the directions
for doing this, which were given in their pamphlets; but after making the
bed, they were forced to wait for a few days before introducing the seed,
or spawn, until the temperature of the bed should have reached the proper
degree. This they were to discover by means of the ground thermometer
which Peter had purchased.

The day being Saturday, Victoria was free to go to Boston to call upon
her aunt. The girls had further discussed the matter the evening before,
and had decided that Victoria’s plan must be followed, if they wished to
avert the ruin which seemed to be staring them in the face. If Aunt
Sophia declined to buy the pictures which they had determined to sell,
they must be disposed of in some other way. Victoria had a private plan
of her own for raising some ready money, but of this she had said nothing
to her sisters.

She went to Boston in one of the early trains with a large flat package
under her arm, and a small but heavy one in her pocket. The day was a
fine one, and the streets were filled with Christmas shoppers, the stores
being already crowded, early in the morning though it was.

Victoria walked quickly from the station to her aunt’s house. The world
seemed very bright this morning, even though bills were unpaid and
prospects dreary. As the young girl hurried along, one might easily have
imagined from her happy face and her well-dressed figure that she was in
the most comfortable circumstances possible, and that her package was a
Christmas present which she had purchased, instead of being four of her
father’s precious etchings with which the sisters, after much hesitation
and disinclination, had decided to part.

“I wonder what kind of a person I am,” thought Victoria as she walked. “I
wonder what sort of a character I really have. I don’t seem to get as
gloomy as Honor or as furious as Katherine over being poor. Does it mean
that I don’t realize as they do how very bad things are? It always seems
as if there must be some way out, no matter how gloomy and awful things
may look. Perhaps I’m rather shallow and can’t grasp the situation. Some
day when I have time I am going to sit down and study my own nature, but
there are ever so many things that must be done first. And after all, it
doesn’t seem worth while to waste time over that. I might find out that I
was absolutely worthless, and that would be so discouraging. I suppose a
great many people would say that I ought to examine myself more, and
correct my faults, and all that, and I suppose I ought; but if I did I
know I should get depressed, and it really seems as if one of us should
try to keep bright and cheerful, and I seem to be the one that it comes
easiest to. I wish I had some one to ask about such things—a mother, for
instance. Holloa, here I am at Aunt Sophia’s already. I hope she is at
home.”

But inquiry proved that already Mrs. Wentworth Ward had gone out. She
would not return until five o’clock that afternoon, the maid said. She
had gone to Providence to attend a meeting. Would not Miss Victoria come
in and rest a bit?

But Victoria declined the invitation. She had quickly determined to put
her other plans into action, and no time should be lost.

It did not take long to reach a certain silversmith’s of whom she had
heard, and whom she knew to be honest, although his shop was neither
large nor fashionable. Fortunately no customers were in the store, and
the proprietor could attend to her himself. She produced the small heavy
package from her pocket, and proceeded to untie it. In it were a pair of
old-fashioned gold earrings, a watch and chain, and one or two chased
rings. These articles had been left to Victoria by the will of her
grandmother. The watch, which was very old, and had long since ceased to
go, was of no great value as a timepiece, she supposed.

“I want to sell these things,” said she, bravely. “Will you buy them?”

The old man, who had kind eyes, Victoria thought, looked at them
critically. Then he glanced benignly at the owner of the trinkets.

“Do you really want to sell them?” said he.

“Yes, I really do,” returned Victoria. “I need the money. How much will
you give me for them?”

“I can’t tell that until I’ve taken them apart and weighed the gold. Come
back next week, and I’ll tell you.”

“Next week!” cried Victoria. “Oh, can’t you do it now? I do want to take
the money home to-day.”

“And ain’t you going to buy Christmas presents with it?” asked the old
man.

“No indeed, I’m not. We really need the money. Couldn’t you tell me if I
were to come back this afternoon? At three o’clock, for instance?”

“Very well. Come in at three, and I’ll try to have them weighed before
that. These earrings are hollow, I guess, and there ain’t so very much
gold in this open-faced watch. Here’s a receipt.”

He scrawled something on a bit of paper which he gave to Victoria, and
she thanked him and left the shop. She then took her way to a picture
store. It was a large one that was much frequented, and it required some
determination on her part to go in and display her wares. The clerks were
such fashionably dressed young men that she felt somewhat in awe of them,
and they all appeared to be so busy that it was long before she was
noticed at all.

At last, however, one of them stepped up to her and asked her what she
wished. For a moment Victoria could not find her voice, and when she
finally spoke it was so low and trembling that the clerk could not
understand her.

“You wish to look at etchings?” said he. “Right over here, please.
Summers, show this young lady some etchings. I have another customer.”
And he turned to a gentleman who was looking at some pictures with the
air of intending to buy one if not more.

“Oh, no,” said Victoria. “You have made a mistake. I don’t want to look
at etchings. I want to sell those I have here. I thought that—that
perhaps—you would buy them.”

Her voice was now perfectly audible. In her effort to make herself
understood it reached farther than she intended. The two clerks and the
gentleman who stood there all turned and looked at Victoria, and she with
her package under her arm felt as though she should like to sink through
the floor and disappear forever from their sight.



CHAPTER VIII.
UNEXPECTED GENEROSITY.


BUT this was no time in which to give way to embarrassment. Having
undertaken the expedition in search of funds, Victoria felt that she must
carry it bravely through, come what would. With fingers that trembled
conspicuously she untied the cord and removed the wrappings, and
presently disclosed to the view of the three men four etchings of such
rare merit that they exclaimed with admiration.

“Ah, artist’s proofs!” said the gentleman who had been looking at
pictures. “And a signature worth having,” he added, as he glanced at the
name written beneath the etching he held in his hand. “May I ask what the
price of this one is?”

“I—I don’t exactly know,” faltered Victoria. “I thought they could tell
me here what they are worth. You see my father bought them and—”

She stopped abruptly. She did not wish to take these strangers into her
confidence, but the three men saw her black dress and imagined the rest.
And yet she did not look as if she were in need of money.

“I should think they were worth twenty-five dollars apiece, should not
you?” said the gentleman, turning to the clerks.

They were unwilling to mention any price, and one of them went in search
of the owner of the store. Victoria could scarcely repress a little gasp
of surprise. She had no idea that the pictures were worth so much, for
they were small ones. If she succeeded in selling all of them in addition
to the gold which she had left with the jeweller, she would go home with
a large fortune in her pocket, and the unpaid bills could be settled at
once.

She glanced at the young man, who appeared to be absorbed in examination
of the etchings while he waited to hear their value. He was very tall and
slight, with straight features, and neither beard nor moustache, which
made him look younger than perhaps he really was. Victoria decided that
he was nice looking, and was probably about twenty-five. He seemed to be
well known at the shop, for the clerks treated him with marked attention
and called him by name, but Victoria could not hear it distinctly enough
to know what it was.

Again she told herself that he was very nice looking, and that he had the
most charming manners she had ever seen, though perhaps she was
influenced by his interest in her pictures and his evident desire to buy
one. Presently the picture-dealer himself came forward and examined
critically the four etchings.

“They are genuine artist’s proofs,” said he, “and I shall try to sell
them myself at twenty dollars each. Probably they cost more than that,
but in the present state of business they will not bring as much as they
did. I will give you fifteen apiece for them and take the four.”

“And I will give you twenty-five for this one,” said the young man,
holding up the one that he had first looked at. “It is a gem, and I will
get you to frame it for me,” he added, turning to the dealer. “Do it for
me as soon as you can, for I want to give it away for a Christmas
present.”

He took out a roll of bills from his pocket, and counting out twenty-five
dollars he handed the money to Victoria, taking off his hat as he did so.

                        [Picture: “‘It is a gem’”]

“Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity of securing such a
prize,” he said.

Victoria hesitated and blushed scarlet.

“I don’t exactly like to take it,” she said simply, as she looked up at
him. “You are giving me too much. You could buy it of the shop for twenty
dollars. Please don’t give me more than that.”

“I prefer to pay five dollars more for the privilege of—of having first
choice,” he said, abruptly changing the termination of his sentence.

Victoria said no more, but took the money, and at the same time one of
the clerks brought her forty-five dollars for the remaining three. She
thanked them all and hurried from the shop.

“Rather an odd case,” said the picture-dealer to the young man. “The man
who bought those etchings in the first place knew what he was about. I
daresay I shan’t sell them, but I didn’t want to let such good things go;
and besides, she seemed like a nice little girl. I have a daughter just
about her age and—well, no matter. Now, sir, what kind of a frame do you
wish, and how about those other pictures you were looking at?”

The young man turned to look at samples of frames, but his mind was more
occupied with the incident which had just taken place than with his
purchases. He, too, felt sorry for the girl. She was unmistakably a lady,
and it must have been a trying position for her. He would not care to
have his sister in such a predicament, he said to himself.

He was a man of somewhat old-fashioned notions, one who believed that the
men of the family should take care of the women. He wondered if there was
no one to look out for this young girl, who seemed to be not more than
fifteen,—no older person who could have come with her. Then dismissing
the subject from his thoughts for the time being, he devoted his whole
attention to the choice of a frame.

Victoria, when she left the shop, felt that all their difficulties were
at an end. She had a roll of bills in her pocket,—she put her hand in
more than once as she walked, to make sure that the money was safe,—and
if all went as smoothly as she hoped, she would have more before the day
was over. She had left home that morning with her railroad ticket and
twenty-five cents for emergencies; she expected to return in affluence,
and it had all been done without the intervention of Aunt Sophia. How
fortunate it was that Aunt Sophia had elected to go to Providence on this
day of all others! What would she say to such a proceeding if she ever
happened to hear of it?

Victoria smiled to herself at the idea. Very probably Aunt Sophia dealt
at that picture store herself. How little the dealer suspected that she
was the niece of Mrs. Wentworth Ward of Beacon Street,—or the young man
who had given her twenty-five dollars. Then in a flash the other side of
the occurrence presented itself. Should she have taken so much from him?
Was the etching worth that much? Why should she have calmly allowed
herself to accept twenty-five dollars from him and only fifteen from the
dealer? Had she made herself an object of charity?

She had walked across the Common, and was about to cross Tremont Street
when she reached this point in her reflections, and so absorbed was she
in the subject that she barely escaped being run over by one of the
innumerable electric cars which were passing in long succession,
interspersed with dashing herdics and hurrying cabs. All the world seemed
to be in haste this sharp winter morning, and a motorman shouted angrily
to her as she attempted to cross in front of his car.

She reached the other side of the street in safety, and then she wondered
what she should do next. She had no Christmas shopping to consume her
time, for their gifts to one another were to be very simple this year and
were to be made at home. The stores on Temple Place were packed with
people, and as she walked she was jostled and almost bruised by the
inevitable handbags, without which Boston shoppers are rarely seen. It
was now only half-past ten, and she must stay in town until after three,
the hour of her appointment with the jeweller. She determined to go back
to her aunt’s, and remain there until the afternoon, and there she could
think quietly of the events of the morning.

She did this, and was shown by the maid into the library and told to make
herself at home. Although Mrs. Wentworth Ward was their own aunt, the
Starrs had never felt for her the affection which is so common in that
relationship. It had always been more or less of an effort for them to go
to her house, and their calls there were unmistakably “duty visits.” Mrs.
Ward was without doubt very trying at times, and the girls were in her
opinion absurdly independent.

There were faults on both sides, perhaps, as there usually are in such
cases. Victoria, sitting in the luxurious library, thought it all over.

“If Aunt Sophia were only like some aunts,” she said to herself, “how
nice it would have been to come and live with her! Think of this big
house and no one in it but herself; but oh, I hope we shall never have to
do it! I do wonder what the girls will say about my sales this morning. I
felt exactly like a book agent or a pedler. Dear me, I only hope I shall
never see that young man again! He was just as nice as he could be, but I
don’t want ever to meet him! He really made me a present of ten dollars,
you might say. What will Honor think of it all?”

Three o’clock came at last, and as the hands of the clock on the steeple
of the Old South Church pointed to the hour, Victoria entered the shop
where she had left her gold that morning. She knew little of the value of
watches, but she fancied that when new they cost not less than one
hundred dollars, and often very much more; therefore she hoped for at
least fifty for hers. Her disappointment was consequently very great when
she learned that it was worth exactly thirteen dollars and seventy-five
cents, while the other trinkets would bring but seven and a half.

“The chain and the earrings are hollow,” said the man, “and the works of
the watch are good for nothing. You may be glad to get this much.”

She thanked him and left the store feeling somewhat crestfallen, although
twenty-one dollars and a quarter made a sum not to be despised.

The girls were eagerly awaiting her return, and when she displayed her
roll of bills and informed them that she had brought them ninety-one
dollars and twenty-five cents, they could scarcely believe her. Honor
looked grave over the account of the young man’s generosity, as Victoria
had supposed that she would, and she also expressed the hope that they
might never see him again.

“It would be simply unendurable to feel that we were under obligations to
him,” said she; “but it isn’t at all likely that we shall ever meet him.
We don’t see many people but those who live in Fordham, and if he lived
anywhere in this neighborhood, you would have known him by sight. You are
sure you never saw him before, Vic?”

“Perfectly sure. He was probably some Boston swell, but he was an awfully
nice one, and if it were not for that ten dollars, I should really like
to know him.”

“You may as well say if it were not for that whole ninety-one dollars and
twenty-five cents,” said Honor. “I am glad enough to get the money, but I
can’t bear to think of your having to go to those shops by yourself and
sell things. I ought to have gone with you, Vic. Indeed, I ought! It was
very cowardly and selfish for me to let you go alone—a young thing like
you. Some one might have been impertinent to you, and then I should never
have forgiven myself.”

“Oh, nonsense, Honor!” laughed her young sister. “You are not so very
much older yourself, and I went to such respectable places that of course
no one would be impertinent. And, besides, I wanted to surprise you about
the gold. I wanted to go alone.”

But Honor shook her head. She knew that she had been remiss, and that her
father would not have approved of Victoria’s solitary expedition. If the
young man whom she had met was truly a gentleman, as Vic declared that he
was, what could he have thought of such a proceeding? He certainly must
suppose that her relatives were very careless and very peculiar people,
to say the least, and Honor hoped with all her heart that he would never
cross her path again.

But it was a great source of comfort to feel that their bills could now
be paid; and the girls went to bed that night feeling comparatively
happy, for the consciousness of their debts had weighed upon them all.
Katherine—though she would not acknowledge it—had felt particularly
uncomfortable, for the unused typewriter continued to stare her in the
face. Now she felt quite relieved about it, and she had serious thoughts
of running into Boston Monday afternoon to buy Christmas presents for the
family. It would be such a surprise to them, and she should of course use
her own money.

Within half an hour she had fully made up her mind to do this, and was
already planning what she should bestow upon each one, when a remark of
Honor’s warned her that it would be wiser not to carry out her
intentions.

“I hope,” said the eldest sister, “that we shall not lose our heads over
our unexpected good fortune. We mustn’t spend a bit more than we can
possibly help. Remember, we don’t want any more bills!”

The winter days passed quickly, filled as they were with things of
importance to do. The first planting of mushrooms was successful; and
Peter, upon his return from the Boston market, to which he took them,
proudly added his earnings to the family purse. He pretended that he felt
it but a small thing to do, and that the future would prove that he was
considering deeds of far greater moment than the cultivation of
mushrooms; but in reality he was becoming immensely interested in the
pursuit.

Victoria’s violets bloomed in February, and they also were taken to
Boston, and disposed of to a florist. Dave Carney attended to this part
of the business for her, and was indeed most useful in every way. The
Starrs had never been able to discover anything about the antecedents of
this member of the household, and in fact they had not made any great
effort to do so. They liked the boy, and they found him both obliging and
dependable. Peter knew that he had a brother, for he saw one day in
Fordham a young man who so closely resembled Dave that he was on the
point of speaking to him; and when he questioned Dave upon the subject,
the boy told him briefly that it was his brother, and that he was a few
years older than himself. He said nothing more, and Peter did not ask for
further information, as was characteristic of him.

It was a mild winter, and although there were frequent falls of snow,
they were always succeeded by days of such springlike warmth that there
was neither sleighing nor coasting, and scarcely any skating.

His sisters suspected that Peter was not particularly happy in his school
life, but he did not tell them so. He was a boy who did not make friends
easily, and the mere knowledge that he was looked upon as an interloper
by the boys at the school which he attended, drove him still farther into
his shell, as it were. He had little to do with them, and usually came
home as soon as the day’s session was over.

Sophy and Sirius together always watched eagerly for his return, both
consumed with the same hope and desire that Peter would invite them to
join him in whatever he intended to do—a hope which was more apt to be
fulfilled in the case of Sirius than of Sophy. An eight-year-old sister
is by no means so interesting a companion, Peter thought, as an active
and particularly intelligent dog.

There were occasions, however, when Sophy was bidden to bear him company;
and, on a certain afternoon, the little girl was made happy by the
announcement that Peter was going for a walk, and if she wanted to go,
and would promise not to get tired, and not to make a fuss if they came
across any muskrats or field mice, and, in fact, to show no signs of fear
about anything which they might meet, she should be allowed to accompany
her brother and his dog.

Sophy, transported with delight, and ready to promise anything in the way
of courage, ran for her hat and jacket and quickly followed Peter to the
barn, whither he gone to inspect the mushroom bed. It was a mild day in
early spring. The young leaves had just burst forth upon the trees, and
the smell of earth, and the gentle murmurings of the little brooks in
pasture and woods, and the soft freshness of the breeze, showed that
another winter had passed. Many of the birds had returned to their summer
homes and were busily engaged in nest-building, and little chipmunks
darted about in a ceaseless game of tag, pausing for a moment to peer
inquisitively at Sophy with their bright eyes, and then vanishing from
sight. Peter, having attended to his affairs at the barn, took his way
across the pasture. Sirius scampered on in advance, nosing here and there
along the path, stopping to investigate every hole and barking noisily at
a gray squirrel, which climbed the trunk of a tree at his approach, and
then sat on a branch in safety, but extreme indignation. “Do squirrels go
to sleep in winter, Peter?” asked Sophy, as she trudged along close to
his side.

“They do usually, but it was so warm this winter I guess they didn’t get
so sound asleep. I’ll tell you something, Soph. Carney and I both think
the same thing. You know people always say that when there are a lot of
nuts, it means that we are going to have a cold winter and the squirrels
will have plenty to eat. Well, you know there were plenty of nuts last
fall, and look at the winter we’ve had! As warm as toast. I think, and
Carney thinks so, too, that it means a warm winter to have so many nuts.
The squirrels are not going to sleep so much, and so they will need more
food. And look at last year; scarcely any nuts in the fall and an awfully
cold winter. I’m going to write to the _Transcript_ about it sometime,
and see what people say. Other people will answer, and it will be lots of
fun. Sophy, I’ll tell you something if you’ll promise never to tell. Will
you?”

“Do you mean _never_?”

“Yes, never, until I’ve done it. Then I’ll tell it myself.”

“All right, Peter, I’ll promise,” said the little sister. The absence of
the front teeth made her lisp slightly, and Peter was alarmingly apt to
make fun of this defect when she used the letter “s”; but he was too much
engrossed with his subject at present to remark upon it, greatly to
Sophy’s relief. A wave of gratification filled her heart, both because of
this and because her brother was apparently about to make a confidante of
her.

“I’ll promise,” she repeated solemnly. “What is it?”

“When I grow up,” said Peter, “in a very few years, I’m going to write a
book.”

“Peter! A real printed book?”

“Of course, child. What other kind of a book could it be?”

“And what will it be about? A story like _Alice in Wonderland_ or _Little
Women_?”

“_Little Women_! A girl’s story! No indeed. There won’t be a girl in the
book, that is one thing certain. But it is to be about everything else.
You know I really know a lot about all sorts of things, and I intend to
write about everything that I know the least thing about.”

“Goody me!” exclaimed the astonished Sophy. “It will be an awful big
book, Peter!”

“Of course it will. It will probably be in a great many volumes, all
bound alike. It will be a regular Encyclopedia, and people will probably
look into it when they want to find out about anything. I’m going to tell
about squirrels and birds and mushrooms and muskrats and ants and bees
and boys’ games and schools—I’m going to tell a lot about schools, how to
keep them, and all that—and travels—I mean to travel as soon as I get
enough money and have made enough for you girls to live on, and I shall
write about every place I visit, and oh, everything!”

“I should think you would have a little room in so many volumes to say
something about girls,” murmured Sophy.

“But what for?” demanded Peter. “Why should I waste my time writing about
them? You know very well, Sophy, that girls aren’t at all interesting, as
ants or birds are, for instance. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Sophy, humbly; “I know that because you have often told me
so, but then, Peter, you can talk to a girl, but you can’t talk to an ant
or a bird. Doesn’t that make some difference?”

“Not much,” he replied. “I would rather watch a colony of ants any day
than talk to a girl. Now mind, Sophy, you don’t tell any one about my
book.”

“Indeed I won’t, Peter, and I think it’s going to be a splendid book,
even if there are no girls in it. I wish it was all made, though.”

“So do I,” said he; “but it won’t take long when I once get started on
it. Hark! What’s that?”

A strange wild cry rang through the woods. Sirius stopped short in the
path, with ears erect and motionless tail, while Sophy gave a little
shriek and clung to her brother’s arm.



CHAPTER IX.
SOPHY HAS AN ADVENTURE.


“WHAT is it?” whispered Sophy. “Oh, Peter, is it a ghost?”

“A ghost! Pooh, what nonsense! I’ll never bring you again, Sophy. You
promised you wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”

“Oh, but, Peter, that was such a queer noise, and so dreadful! If you
could only tell me what it was!”

“An owl, very likely. Sometimes they make queer noises like that. Let’s
try to find it. Sik ’em, Sirius, sik ’em, sir!” And disengaging himself
from Sophy’s detaining hand he and the dog dashed into a by-path and
disappeared from sight.

Sophy tried to follow, but there were many intersecting paths or tracks
in this part of the woods, and she was not in the least sure which one
her brother had taken. She ran along one, only to find that it was
rendered impassable by some brambles, so she turned and went back to her
starting-point to try another. She hoped that she should not again hear
that terrible cry. It might be an owl, as Peter had suggested, but then
again it might not. Peter did not really know for a certainty what it
was. And then, as suddenly as it had come before, rang out once more this
unearthly shriek. Sophy covered her face with her hands for an instant.
Then, indifferent as to what might become of her if only she could get as
far as possible from this terrible creature, whatever it might be, she
fled in the opposite direction to that from which the sound appeared to
come.

Peter and Sirius pursued their way with unerring instinct to a large
tree, upon the unleaved branch of which sat an immense owl. What had at
first disturbed it Peter could not guess, but at his approach the owl
gave another cry and then, spreading its wings, flew aimlessly away into
the deeper woods, flapping blindly among the trees as it went.

It was unusual to see an owl so active in the daytime, and Peter, his
naturalist’s nature all alive, followed closely, anxious to see what
would happen next. He stopped long enough, however, to try to discover
what had frightened the bird, but could find nothing. Then he concluded
that the enemy, whatever it was, must have disappeared.

It was a great horned owl, he was almost sure, and he knew that one of
that species was rarely seen so near civilization. He followed it as
closely as possible, but during his short stop to look for the cause of
its fright the owl had disappeared, and Peter did not see it again. After
spending some time in a fruitless search for it, he returned to the edge
of the wood, supposing that he should find Sophy where he had left her;
but his thoughts were now distracted by something else.

The excited barking of Sirius proved that he had come upon prey of some
sort, and sure enough, when Peter reached the dog he saw that he had
discovered the entrance to a nest of field mice beneath an old log, and
already he had killed one of the parents. Peter hoped to be in time to
save the other, but he was not, and scarcely liked to scold Sirius for
the double murder, for he knew the dog was only following the instincts
of his kind. He determined to secure the young ones, however, if young
ones there were.

He turned over the log, and there beneath it he found a neatly made nest
of long grasses, built between the detached bark and the log itself, and
containing a number of tiny baby-mice. They were orphans now, alas! the
father and mother having both been killed by Sirius, but Peter determined
that the little ones should not suffer for this misfortune. Carefully
removing the nest from its resting-place, he laid it in his cap and
started for home. He would have liked to examine the log further, for it
seemed to be an interesting place. A colony of large black ants, which
had fashioned for themselves a most elaborate dwelling, were running
about now in a distracted manner, owing to the sudden upheaval of the
log, which had probably been their undisturbed home for a long time; and
Peter would have been glad to watch them.

But from the way in which Sirius was barking and sniffing at a hole in
the log, Peter was led to suspect that another nest of mice might be
there, and rather than have that family also broken up, and because he
had no way of disposing of the little creatures in his cap, he hurried
away from the fascinating scene, calling to the dog to follow.

He took a short cut across the woody pasture, which lay on the outskirts
of the thicker woods, his mind so absorbed with the adventure, that there
was no room for thought of Sophy. He had forgotten her as completely as
though she did not exist.

Then, too, to his delight and surprise, he came across some fungi. They
were growing in a grassy place at the border of the field, and just above
the river. It seemed very early in the season for mushrooms, but still
these might be of an edible variety, and if they were, would it not be an
excellent plan to take them home for supper? The family refrained always
from eating the cultivated mushrooms which Peter could sell, but if they
were beginning already to grow wild, they surely might be indulged in.

Peter placed his cap on the top of a rock, which was too high and too
steep for Sirius to scale, and proceeded to test the fungi. Were they
edible or not? Unfortunately they were not, as he soon discovered by
bruising the gills. A white milk exuded, and his reading had taught Peter
that such were to be avoided. Greatly disappointed, he picked up his
capful of mice once more and continued on his way.

Arrived at the barn, he made the little orphans as comfortable as
possible in a place which was quite protected from an attack by Sirius.
He looked for Carney, but the boy was not to be found. Victoria, however,
was busy with her violets, and Peter consulted with her as to the best
method of disposing of his new pets.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Victoria, when he showed them to her. “They are the
cunningest things I ever saw, but you are not going to keep them, are
you, Peter? Why not set them free?”

“Vic, you must be perfectly crazy,” said Peter. “Set them free, these
poor little things without any father or mother? They would be eaten
right up by something. I had no idea you were so cruel. I am going to
keep them until they’re old enough to look out for themselves, and then
I’ll take them out to the pasture and let them go, if they want to.”

“I don’t know what Katherine will say, she hates mice so.”

“Katherine needn’t know anything about them. She never comes near the
barn.”

“Do you know where Sophy is?” Victoria called after him as he walked off,
but Peter did not hear her. He had placed his new pets as comfortably as
possible, and now he hastened back to the fascinating log, a good mile
away though it was.

Sirius accompanied him, but was ordered to remain at a safe distance,
lest the other families of mice should be disturbed, and the dog was
forced to content himself with digging a hole and burrowing so deep after
imaginary prey, that nothing could be seen but a wagging tail above the
ground.

Peter remained there until almost dark, watching the ants, which had
apparently recovered from the shock of the disturbance, and were trying
now to make themselves as comfortable as possible after the fright. Some
were carrying the eggs to a more retired place than that in which they
were, now that the log had been turned upon another side, while others
were engaged in repairing the injured passage-ways of their dwelling.

At last the pangs of hunger warned Peter that it must be nearly supper
time, and he again went home, Sirius following, covered with brown earth,
but happy as a king, even though his search underground had failed to
bring anything to light that was desirable.

When Peter reached home, his three elder sisters came hurrying to meet
him.

“Where is Sophy?” they cried with one voice. “What have you done with
her?”

Peter stopped short in his walk across the grass.

“I don’t know,” said he, a sudden dismay striking him as he spoke.
“Didn’t she come home?”

“No! We haven’t seen her since she went with you. Oh, Peter, where is the
child?”

                                * * * * *

Sophy in the meantime had wandered far into the woods. In her desire to
escape from the creature, whoever or whatever it might be, that had so
frightened her, she paid no heed to her whereabouts. Blindly she ran on,
stumbling, falling, and picking herself up again only to run and fall
once more. These woods were not very extensive, but the paths in them
were many and were confusing, and Sophy without being in the least aware
of it went around and around in a complete circle more than once.

At one time she was very near the road, and had a carriage chanced to
pass at that moment she would have heard it and would have discovered
where she was, and could then have easily made her way home by the road;
but there was no sound but the chirping and twittering of the newly
arrived birds among the branches of the tall trees of this little forest.

When she paused from sheer exhaustion, she heard a stealthy rustling
among the dead leaves and the underbrush, and presently a snake emerged,
raising its head when it saw her, and darting out its forked tongue in
anger. It was a harmless little creature, and no doubt was as anxious to
escape from this intruder as she could be to avoid the snake, but Sophy
did not stop to consider this. She forgot completely that Peter had often
told her that the snakes which frequented these woods and meadows were
not dangerous, and she fled precipitately from the spot.

At last her aimless wandering brought her to the extreme edge of the wood
at the point farthest away from home. To her joy she saw an open space
before her, and actually a piece of the sky was visible. It was growing
late apparently. The shadows of evening had crept upon her in the woods
without her being conscious of them. Now it seemed as if it must be
twilight, although it was yet far from being dark.

As she trudged along, too tired to run, she fancied that she heard the
voices of men. She paused for a moment, fearing new dangers. Yes, some
men were not far off, and as they were speaking some strange jargon,
Sophy suspected that they were Italians. She was very much afraid of
Italians, with their dark skins and fiery black eyes. There were many at
work upon the railroad, and the child would go a long way around to avoid
meeting them even in broad daylight, and when she was with some one else.
Now when she was alone, and it was almost dark, she was terrified indeed.
The dangers of the forest were as nothing to this. She was about to turn
and run back when she heard their voices growing fainter. Apparently they
were leaving the spot for the night. If she waited long enough, she could
go home.

Sophy thought that she should feel safer if she were to say her prayers,
so she knelt down in the dead leaves and repeated “Our Father” very
softly, adding before she rose, “And please, God, take me safe home. I’m
so frightened. For Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen.” When she had finished she
felt braver. It was all very quiet, and the men had gone. She walked out
of the wood and found in the dim light a footpath, which she followed. It
led past the base of the embankment of the railroad, a sandy embankment
which towered far above her, and she soon reached the carriage road which
passed under the railroad at this point.

Sophy knew this road well, and she knew that by following it towards the
right she should eventually reach home, although it was a long distance.
She wondered where Peter was, if he had come back to look for her, if he
was in the forest now, searching for her. And the girls, what were they
doing? Were they sitting down to supper now without her? She wondered if
her silver mug had been filled with nice rich milk as usual, and if there
was toast to-night for supper. Perhaps Honor was cooking something on the
chafing-dish, as she did sometimes by way of a great treat. Sophy did
wish that she was there. She was so hungry and it was so far! It seemed
as if she must keep walking all night in order to reach there.

At last, quite exhausted, she sat down upon a rock by the roadside. She
must rest for a few moments at the foot of the long hill which loomed up
before her. There was a little house at the top, she knew, and a short
distance farther on their own place began, although their house was a
half-mile beyond. She had just made up her mind to continue her weary
march, when she saw two young men or boys emerge from the woods from the
other side of the road from those in which she had been. She was sitting
in the shadow of some large bushes, and she thought if she kept very
still that they might not notice her. She scarcely dared to breathe, but
she heard very distinctly the beating of her heart, and the sound
frightened her. As the boys approached, she heard one of them say:

“An’ yer won’t tell me nothin’? Well, then, yer don’t git any of the
stuff.”

“I don’t want it,” replied the other, as they passed her.

To Sophy’s astonishment, she recognized the voice as that of Dave Carney.
Was it—could it possibly be he? She peered after him, and then springing
to her feet she ran as fast as she could up the road in pursuit.

“Dave! Dave!” she cried. “Wait for me! I’m lost, and I’m so glad to see
you. Oh, _so_ glad!”

And then to Carney’s astonishment a small hand was thrust into his hand,
and a small and anxious face was turned up towards his face.

“Why, where’d you come from?” he asked, stopping abruptly in his walk,
while his companion uttered an exclamation of anger.

“I went to the woods with Peter, and I got lost. There was a terrible
scream, and it frightened me dreadfully, and I’ve been all this time
trying to find my way home. Oh, Dave, I’m _so_ glad to see you!” said the
child, forgetting her fatigue, and dancing with glee, while she still
tightly grasped his hand. “You’ve no idea how dreadful it was. Who is
that, Dave? Is it your brother? He looks just like you.”

“No matter who I am,” said the stranger, roughly. “I ain’t got no use for
yer, that’s one thing, sure. Now just yer remember, Dave! yer can’t work
yer pious notions on me, an’ I’ll do as I like. I’ve been crooked a good
long time, now, an’ I’ll stay crooked. Yer was as crooked yerself once,
an’ I guess yer are yet, only yer find it don’t pay just at the present
time. I’ll leave yer here,” he added with an oath, and suddenly
disappeared among the trees by the roadside.

“That surely can’t be your brother, Dave,” said Sophy, disapprovingly. “I
don’t like the way he talks, at all. I’m glad he went away. Oh, I’m so
glad I saw you, though! I don’t feel half as tired now.”

Dave said little,—he was a lad of few words,—but he held the little
girl’s hand and helped her over the rough or the steep places in the
road; and at last they were in sight of the house, and the light which
shone from an upper window seemed like a beacon of hope to the little
wanderer.

And presently she was in the house, with Honor’s arms about her, and
Katherine taking her hat and coat, while Victoria ran to the barn,
calling to Peter that she was found. He and Victoria had been to the
place in the woods where he had left her, and then had come back to get
lanterns, and to ask some neighbors to join in the search. The brother
and sisters had been quite beside themselves with anxiety, and their joy
and relief when Sophy appeared was almost too great for words.

As for Sophy herself, she felt amply repaid for her fatigue and fear when
she found herself the centre of importance. She was led in state to the
supper table, she was helped before any of the others with the choicest
viands, including an egg which B. Lafferty cooked in a little dish
especially for her, and brought to her with much circumstance, and,
crowning feature of the occasion, a vase of wild flowers which Katherine
had gathered that afternoon was placed beside her plate.

When her appetite was somewhat appeased, Sophy recounted her adventures,
and even Peter refrained from condemning her with cold criticism, when
she described her fear of the snake which had “stuck out its tongue at
her.” In fact, she was in every sense of the word the heroine of the
evening, and it was so unusual an experience that she could not help
enjoying it.

“I wonder where Dave had been,” remarked Honor. “It was odd that he
should have come along just at the right moment for you, Sophy. I am
perfectly thankful that he did. Do you suppose that was his brother,
Peter?”

“Don’t know,” replied Peter, as he helped himself to toast, and proceeded
to butter it with a lavish hand. “Carney’s got a brother, only he never
says much about him.”

“Peter, it is very bad form to spread butter on your bread or your toast
like that!” said Katherine. “You ought to put it on just where you are
going to eat it.”

“Pshaw! Who cares for form?” demanded Peter, crunching his toast with an
air of distinct enjoyment. “What I want is taste, not form, Miss K. R.
Starr.”

“It really tastes better Katherine’s way,” remarked Victoria, “if you
have never tried it; but don’t change on our account, for the world! By
the way, the people are really moving into the house on the hill. I saw
some wagon loads of furniture going up there to-day. I do hope we shall
like them.”

“I can’t see that it makes any difference whether we like them or not,”
said Honor. “We shan’t see anything of them.”

“But why not, Honor?” asked Katherine. “They are going to be very near
neighbors, and I can’t see why, if they are nice people, we shouldn’t be
neighborly to them.”

“Father always liked us to be neighborly to our neighbors, even if he
didn’t go about much himself,” added Victoria.

“It was very different then,” said Honor. “We weren’t working for our
living. Those people, if they are rich and don’t know anything about us,
will probably look down upon us, and I shall never expose myself to
anything of that sort. No indeed. Let us keep to ourselves as much as we
can, and to the old friends who know about us.”

“Well, I am interested in them anyhow,” said Victoria. “There are a
father and mother and two children, I believe, and the boy’s name is
Roger. I hope it will be some one for Peter. I heard all that from the
postmistress, in case you want to know my authority.”

“I wish you wouldn’t gossip with the postmistress, Vic,” said Honor, with
some severity. “It seems to me it is a queer thing to do.”

“But why?” asked her sister, imperturbably. “She’s known me and I’ve
known her all my life. Why shouldn’t we have a little agreeable
conversation together when I go for the letters? She told me this morning
when she handed me Aunt Sophia’s postal card saying she was coming to see
us next week, that she guessed—the postmistress guessed, I mean—that my
Aunt Ward would be out here before long. Now that shows that she is a
clever woman, as well as an honest one, for Aunt Sophia had only signed
her initials, S.S.W,’ and yet she knew right away who it was from. And it
wasn’t really necessary for her to let me know she had read the postal
card, was it? So that was very honest. Oh, I like her, and she tells me a
lot I want to know.”



CHAPTER X.
THE NEW NEIGHBORS ON THE HILL.


MRS. WENTWORTH WARD, true to the word written upon her postal card,
appeared at Glen Arden early in the ensuing week. Upon this occasion she
made known to her nieces her intention of spending the greater part of
the next five months at Glen Arden, and naturally this announcement was
received with some dismay.

“You should have some one with you part of the year, at least,” said
their aunt, “and it suits me to come here. I had thought of going abroad
for the summer, and of taking one of you with me, but there are various
matters of importance which must be attended to, and which will suffer
frightfully if I am not here to look after them. It is necessary for me
to be near town. I shall board with you, of course. I may just as well
pay the money to you that I should at a hotel at Magnolia or Nahant, and
I don’t care for the sea this year. And I am sure you must be in need of
the money. I can’t imagine how you manage to get along on so little.”

Honor ignored the close of this speech, and politely expressed her
pleasure at the prospect of such an extended visit from her aunt, though
it is to be feared that her tone was not very hearty. She was the only
one of the family who could see her, Katherine being in the schoolroom,
and Victoria and Peter at school in Fordham. This was one of Mrs.
Wentworth Ward’s customs which her nieces considered most aggravating.
She invariably came to Glen Arden during school hours, and expected their
undivided attention.

Though she paid close observance to her own engagements, she had small
regard for those of other people, and her nieces’ methods of supporting
themselves she could never be induced to take seriously.

“The first of May will be next Thursday, a week from to-day,” continued
she, “and I shall come on the three o’clock train. You may give me your
father’s old room. It was mine when I lived here, you know, and I like
it.”

“Yes,” murmured Honor, remembering that Katherine now occupied the room,
and wondering what she would say to being turned out. “And is there
anything else you would like, Aunt Sophia? I think perhaps I had better
get another cook, and let B. Laf—I mean Blanch—do the upstairs work. She
is not a very superior cook, and with such a large family we shall need
two servants.”

“I will bring my waitress, Ellen Higgins, who has been with me so long,”
rejoined Mrs. Ward, briskly. “I intended to suggest it, and she is an
excellent cook herself, and can give Blanch—extraordinary name for an
Irishwoman, Honor!—she can give Blanch lessons in cooking. I will also,
and there are a number of other things that I want to teach you.
Therefore you may expect me in the 3 P.M. train on Thursday, the first
day of May. I shall bring my own desk, and my two canaries, my
typewriter, and a number of other little things.”

“We have a typewriter,” said Honor, somewhat appalled by this list.
“Perhaps you could use it, and not bring your own.”

“You have a typewriter? Where did you get it, and whose is it?”

“It is Katherine’s.”

“Indeed! And does she use it with ease?”

“Er—not exactly,” faltered Honor, who felt all too surely that she had
made a misstep, and perhaps a fatal one. What would their aunt say if she
knew that they had owned a typewriter for nearly six months, and that not
one of them could make use of it? And she would find it out, she surely
would! Why, oh why, had Honor ever given her this superfluous bit of
information? Without it she need never have known that there was such a
thing in the house.

“Very well, then, I shall not bring my own,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward,
rising as she spoke. “On the contrary, I will engage Katherine to be my
secretary, and of course she will prefer to use her own machine which she
is accustomed to. You tell her, will you, Honor, that I shall pay her an
ample salary. And now good-bye, my dear! It will really be very pleasant
to be with you all. My love to the others. I am not going to take the
train yet. The carriage that is waiting will carry me down to Fordham,
where I have a meeting. Good-bye.”

And in a moment she was gone. Honor stood on the piazza, looking at the
back of the carriage as it rolled up the avenue. One more week, and then,
good-bye, indeed! It would be the end of their careless freedom, their
independence, their good times. For although it had been a sad winter in
many ways, although they had missed the dear father more than words could
express, although the question of money had at times pressed heavily upon
them, yet in spite of all they had been happy with one another, they had
enjoyed the sense of independence which they had gained from the fact
that they were supporting, or trying to support, themselves, and there
had been intense satisfaction in the mere feeling that they were earning
money. Little though it was, it was theirs by the right of labor, and
Honor was proud of it.

To be sure, they should now earn more, for she knew that her aunt would
pay them generously; but she saw an endless line of small vexations
rising and stretching themselves through the summer, the little trials
that are not much in themselves, but which, when they come in rapid
succession, are wearing and annoying, to say the least. Katherine, for
one, would not brook the interference which was sure to come from her
aunt. And what would she say to being obliged to give up her room, and to
being engaged as secretary and typewriter?

Depressed and disturbed though she was feeling, Honor laughed aloud at
the thought of the wonders which Katherine was expected to perform upon
her writing-machine. As far as her present knowledge went she might just
as well be required to translate something from the Sanscrit.

And then, Honor, after one more look across the lawn where her father’s
dear trees were in full leaf now, and the grass was green, and the robins
were hopping about in ecstasy over the coming of spring, left the piazza
and went back to the schoolroom. She determined to say nothing of these
plans of her Aunt Sophia’s until Victoria should come home. It was
curious, said Honor to herself, that they were all growing to lean upon
Victoria.

Therefore, it was not until the afternoon, when they had a few moments of
leisure before Katherine should go to one of her music pupils, that Honor
imparted to them her dire intelligence.

It had precisely the effect which she had feared. Katherine flatly
declined to give up her room to her aunt, and declared that it was an
imposition to have her come there at all. She, for one, refused to endure
it. As to acting as her secretary, it was out of the question. Besides,
she could not use the typewriter. Why had Honor ever led Aunt Sophia to
suppose that she could? Honor had drawn them into this scrape; now she
must get them out of it. She need not have told Aunt Sophia that they
owned a typewriter.

Katherine walked up and down the shady end of the piazza, looking very
tall and extremely angry. Indignation was written in every line of her
beautiful face. She had, oddly enough, the perfectly straight features of
the aunt whom she did not particularly love; but her eyes and hair were
very dark and her forehead was low and broad. It would have annoyed her
extremely to be told that she looked like Mrs. Wentworth Ward, who,
nevertheless, was a handsome woman.

“I see no way out of it,” said Honor. She was sitting in the hammock, and
swung herself to and fro while she watched Katherine’s rapid movements.
Victoria had perched herself upon the railing of the piazza, and was
looking out across the lawn.

“And, Katherine, you bought the typewriter. You are responsible for its
being in the house, so I really don’t think you ought to blame me for
this complication. I know it was foolish of me ever to tell Aunt Sophia,
but I was so taken aback when I heard that she was coming for five
months, and was going to bring all those things with her, including that
patronizing Ellen Higgins, whom I can’t bear, that I said the first thing
that came into my head. I thought if she used ours,—yours, I mean,—it
would be one thing less to bring with her.”

“I don’t see why you took the news so meekly,” said Katherine. “Why
didn’t you tell her right up and down that she couldn’t come?”

“Oh, of course Honor couldn’t do that!” said Victoria. “It would have
been very rude, and, besides, Katherine, she is our own aunt.”

“Very well, then, you can give up your room to her, and you can be her
secretary. It is easy for you to say we ought to have her here, for you
don’t have to do anything. I have to give up my dear room, which I love
because it was father’s, and go to that hot third-story one, I suppose.
As for the typewriter, it is simply out of the question. I can’t use it,
and I won’t learn to use it just to please Aunt Sophia; and if Honor is
going to keep flinging it in my face, she can keep on flinging, that is
all. And now it is time for me to go.”

She picked up her music case and was soon walking rapidly away from them
across the lawn.

“What are we to do about it?” sighed Honor. “I knew Katherine would be
frantic, and I suppose it is provoking for her, but I don’t see why she
need be so furious with me.”

“Oh, never mind!” said Victoria, looking after Katherine’s hurrying
figure. “Katherine’s bark is worse than her bite, you know, and she will
probably have gotten over some of it, before she comes back. I am sorry
for her scholars, though, this afternoon! But, Honor, I have an idea.”

“What is it, Vic? If it is a cheering one, as I suppose it is, do hurry
and tell me, for I feel bowed to the earth with gloom.”

“I will learn to use the typewriter, and I will be Aunt Sophia’s
secretary through the summer. I have been wild to try it, but I have had
so much to do, I couldn’t. I will learn to use it before she comes and
practise on it in secret, after she gets here, and by the time school is
over, I shall be ready for work. She can’t expect any of us to do it
before June, while we are so busy, and we can make Katherine’s music an
excuse for her not to do it at all. She will have to practise very hard
through the summer, we can say. You write a nice note to Aunt Sophia and
tell her how it is, so that she may be prepared.”

“Oh, Vic, what a dear you are! You do help me out of so many
difficulties. Do you really think, though, that you can learn to use it
in so short a time?”

“Of course,” replied Victoria. “One can do anything one sets out to do,
if one only tries, and I mean to conquer that white elephant of a
typewriter, if only for the sake of feeling that the forty dollars wasn’t
wasted; and then, too, if Aunt Sophia pays me well, it will be quite a
nice sum for us to make. I will go tinker at it now, for I have a little
time, and those books of lessons are quite a help. So, cheer up, Honor!
We may get some fun out of Aunt Sophia’s visit, after all.

    “‘Jog on, jog on the footpath way,’”

she hummed, as she went into the house and sought the hitherto neglected
writing-machine.

In the meantime, Katherine pursued her way across the fields to the
village, where she intended to take an electric car. She was still very
angry and greatly irritated by her late conversation, and by the prospect
of five months of Aunt Sophia’s uninterrupted society. How hateful it was
that they were so poor that they were forced to submit to the imposition,
as she termed it. If Aunt Sophia were coming as a visitor, it would be
different, but as a boarder she would, no doubt, consider herself
privileged to say and do exactly what she wished, and how could she be
expected to give up her room to her? And besides all this, as Katherine
really felt guilty about the purchase of the typewriter, every word that
Honor spoke upon the subject went home.

After a while, however, her better nature prevailed. It was always thus
with Katherine, as her sisters knew. If sufficient time were given her,
she was sure to come out of her fits of temper in the sweetest possible
frame of mind, so repentant for all that she had said, and so desirous to
atone for it, that it was impossible to help loving her more than ever.
On this occasion, before she had reached Fordham she had begun to be
sorry, and by the time she had returned to the village, after giving two
music lessons, she was ready to do all and more than her sisters required
of her.

She left the electric car at the post-office and found there several
letters for the family; and then, the afternoon being so beautiful, she
concluded to walk home by a somewhat indirect way, one which led her past
the entrance to the house on the hill, as the Starrs had been in the
habit of calling it. This house was a handsome one which had been vacant
for two years. The grounds about it were not extensive, but they had
always been well kept until the death of the owner. Since then they had
been somewhat neglected; but now the place had been rented, and Katherine
was glad to see, as she approached, that men were at work on the lawn and
on the avenue which led up a rather steep incline to the house.

She paused for a moment to watch them, and then remembering that the
family were probably already there, she hurried on, hoping that she had
not been seen. She had not gone more than a few yards, however, before
she heard a footstep behind and a voice said:

“Miss Starr, I beg your pardon, but is not this yours?”

Turning, Katherine saw a lady, who held towards her a letter.

“Oh, thank you ever so much!” said Katherine. “I slipped them into my
music case at the post-office. I wonder if any more have dropped out?”

“I think not,” said the lady, smiling in a friendly way which won
Katherine’s heart upon the spot. “I have been behind you all the way, and
this did not fall until just as you reached our place. I couldn’t help
seeing the address on it, and so I knew you were one of the Miss Starrs,
whom we have heard so much about and are so anxious to meet. I hope you
are going to be very neighborly.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Katherine, cordially. She was charmed with the lady’s
manner, and quite forgot Honor’s intention to have nothing to do with the
newcomers. “We will come and call upon you very soon. You are Mrs.
Madison, I suppose.”

“Not Mrs., but Miss,” corrected her new friend, again with the lovely
smile that had so attracted the young girl. She was a beautiful woman,
with fair hair and eyes of deep blue, and there was that in her face
which won Katherine’s love at first sight. She felt that she had found a
friend, and, with all the enthusiasm of her young and ardent nature, she
loved her before she knew her.

“My name is Margaret Madison. I think you must be the musical one, as you
have a familiar-looking roll in your hand. You must come and see my
music-room. I play the violin myself, and I should so much enjoy playing
with you.”

Katherine’s dark eyes grew round with excitement and the color deepened
in her face.

“The violin!” she exclaimed. “And you want me to accompany you? How
perfectly lovely it will be!”

“We shall have some good music,” said Miss Madison; “you on the piano,
and I on the violin. And my brother sings a little.”

“Oh, your brother!” said Katherine. “I’m so glad you have a brother, for
we were hoping that he would do for Peter.”

Miss Madison looked somewhat astonished at this remark, but she said
nothing.

“Peter is my brother,” continued Katherine, “and he doesn’t care for many
boys, so I do hope your brother and he will get on together. We were so
glad when we heard that another boy was coming. My sisters and I will
call upon you very soon. Good-bye!”

She did not notice that Miss Madison laughed outright as she left her, so
excited was she at the tempting prospect held out to her of the music
which was to be enjoyed. She hurried home to tell her sisters of the
meeting, and to beg Honor to reconsider her determination to have nothing
to do with the new neighbors, but to go at once to call, and in the same
breath she assured them that Aunt Sophia could have her room and she
would try to use the typewriter.

She was greatly relieved, however, when her sisters told her that her
last offer was unnecessary. Victoria had succeeded so well with her first
efforts that she felt quite enthusiastic about it and would on no account
give up the position to Katherine.

At first Honor would not listen to the suggestion that they should call
upon the Madisons. It was only after much urging from both Katherine and
Victoria that she finally consented; and then she took pains to make it
very clear to them that she would go chiefly and solely because she
wanted Peter to have a companion, and as there was a brother there who
would no doubt be a desirable boy for him to know, it would perhaps
prevent awkwardness for them to become acquainted with the other members
of the family. The next afternoon, therefore, was set apart for making
the visit.

This formality devolved naturally upon Honor and Katherine, but at the
last moment Victoria announced that she should accompany them, so anxious
was she to see the music-room and the other interesting things which were
sure to be there, as well as the beautiful Miss Madison herself, of whom
Katherine had talked so enthusiastically ever since she had met her the
day before.

The three sisters made ready for their call, and before long were
climbing the steep hill. They were about to ring the bell, when the door
was opened for them by Miss Madison.

“I saw you coming,” she said, “and I thought I would let you in myself.
How good of you to come so soon. I am delighted to see you. Now you must
tell me which is Honor and which is Katherine and which Victoria,” she
added as she shook hands with each. “You see I know all your names though
I don’t know you apart. Come into the house, and I will send for my
mother.”

They went into the parlor, and as they did so a gentleman rose and came
forward. He was a good-looking young man with blue eyes like Miss
Madison’s, though his hair was darker than hers. Before the girls had
time to wonder who he was their hostess introduced him.

“This is my brother Roger,” said she. “Do you think he will ‘do for
Peter’?” she added, laughing as she turned to Katherine.

“Oh,” exclaimed Katherine, wanting to laugh herself, but fearing that
Honor would be shocked; “what must you have thought of me yesterday! We
were told that he was a boy.”

“So I am in a great many respects,” said Roger Madison. “I’m sure that
I’ll ‘do for Peter.’”

In the meantime, what had become of Victoria? She had paused for a moment
in the doorway and then had turned and disappeared. Her one thought was
flight, and like a flash she ran down the avenue and was lost to sight
beneath the brow of the hill.

Miss Madison’s brother was the man who had bought the etching! What would
Honor say?



CHAPTER XI.
VICTORIA DECIDES TO KEEP IT SECRET.


WHAT would Honor say? This was Victoria’s chief thought as she rushed
headlong down the hill, not pausing until she had reached the safe
shelter of their own place. There beneath one of the old trees she found
a rustic bench, and sinking down upon it, quite breathless from her run,
she tried to consider calmly the situation.

What would Honor say? She who had hoped that they might never see the
young man again because in her eyes the affair had been so mortifying!
And so it had been, Victoria said to herself. What would Mr. Madison
himself think when he learned that one of his new neighbors was actually
the girl whom he had encountered in a Boston picture store peddling her
wares, and of whom he had bought something purely as an act of charity?

Victoria, looking back at the occurrence, felt perfectly confident that
it was chiefly owing to his good nature that he had bought the etching.

    [Picture: “There, beneath one of the old trees, she found a rustic
                                 bench”]

He was sorry, probably, for a girl who was forced to do such a thing, and
had given her an extra five or ten dollars merely out of charity.
Victoria writhed in spirit.

She did not regret her expedition to Boston, for they had been in sore
need of the money, and to part with the pictures and the jewelry had been
a perfectly honorable means of getting it. She did not feel in the least
degree ashamed of having sold the etchings, but she was deeply mortified
when she remembered that she had allowed herself to accept the higher
price from one who was a complete stranger to her, and one who certainly
did appear to be sorry for her.

The Starr family pride—of which this daughter of the house had no small
share—was up in arms. She felt that she could never look Roger Madison in
the face. That he would remember her as clearly as she remembered him,
she had not the smallest doubt.

And then again, what would Honor say? She would probably flatly refuse to
have anything more to do with the Madisons, which would be unfortunate,
for Katherine had set her heart upon the anticipated music that she was
to enjoy with Miss Madison. Katherine was of an ardent temperament, and
her likings were as strong and unchangeable as her dislikes. Already she
loved and admired Miss Madison with all the enthusiasm at her command,
and it would be a bitter disappointment to her if Honor should decree
that the two families were to have no further intercourse. Indeed,
Katherine would in all probability decline to listen to Honor, and that
would make trouble. What should be done to avert these consequences?

There was but one course to pursue, and that was to keep her family in
ignorance of the fact that she had ever seen Roger Madison before.
Victoria fairly gasped as this solution of the difficulty presented
itself. Could she keep such a secret? The sisters were in the habit of
talking freely together and of telling one another all the events both
large and small that came into their day. Not to make known to Honor and
Katherine the fact that Victoria had met Mr. Madison before, and under
the peculiar circumstances which had made the incident a matter of family
history, required some determination. It meant far more to her than it
would to many another girl. To Victoria it seemed like an act of
deliberate deception, and she hesitated before taking the step.

“I don’t want to deceive them, I am sure,” she said to herself, as she
sat under the trees this beautiful afternoon in the last week of April,
looking with troubled eyes towards the house on the hill; “but it does
seem a pity to deprive Katherine of the music, and if Honor knows about
it, she will probably be almost rude to the Madisons, for she will be so
anxious to show her pride about it, and that seems a pity, for they are
so pleasant and evidently want to be friendly. I can keep out of Mr.
Madison’s way, and perhaps it will be a long time before he discovers me.
I wish I had some older person to ask. I wish I had a mother. It must be
so lovely to have one to go to whenever anything troublesome comes up. I
wonder if girls who have mothers realize how terrible it is not to have
one.”

Victoria’s mind wandered from her present anxiety to the thought of the
mother who had died when Sophy was a baby. She had been only seven years
old herself at the time, but she remembered her perfectly, and the change
which it had made in her father. He had become so grave and quiet after
that, and although he was always devoted to his children, he was
different, Honor always said, from what he had been before. Honor had
tried so faithfully to be a mother to the younger ones, thought Victoria.

“But then Honor is really so little older than I am, that sometimes it
seems as if she didn’t know a great deal more herself. If only Aunt
Sophia were different! But she would be no help. No, I must decide for
myself and—_I decide to keep it a secret_!”

Victoria said the last few words aloud, with slow and deliberate
emphasis. Then she rose.

“What must they have thought of me, running away in that style? And what
shall I say to the girls? I shall just have to tell them that I was
overwhelmed with shyness just as we were going into the room. They won’t
believe me, because I’m not often shy, but I am sure it was the truth. I
was frightened to pieces. What a time I shall have making up excuses for
not going there, or seeing Mr. Madison if he comes here—if he comes! Very
probably he won’t. And I must be careful about the trains. It would be
awkward enough to meet him at our little station. Dear me, what a summer
it is going to be! Aunt Sophia at Glen Arden, and the man who bought the
etching in the house on the hill!

    “‘Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
    And merrily hent the stile—a!’

I will divert my mind by working in the garden a little. Or no, I will
practise on the typewriter! If I don’t learn to do it easily soon, Aunt
Sophia will suspect the plot. How many secrets we’re having now. I don’t
mind having them from Aunt Sophia, but I do hate to have anything on my
mind that Honor and Katherine are not to know.”

She had not been long at work before she heard footsteps upon the piazza,
and the voices of her two sisters.

“Where do you suppose Vic can be?” Honor was saying. “I really feel quite
anxious about her. Vic, are you here?” she called, coming into the house.
“Why, child, what happened to you? Here she is, Katherine, working on the
typewriter. What made you run away, Vic?”

“Shy,” replied Victoria, as she slowly fingered the keys.

“Nonsense!” said Katherine. “It was something else, Vic. You never were
shy in your life.”

“Frightened, then,” said Victoria.

“Frightened? What at?”

“Miss Madison’s big brother.” Which was certainly the truth.

“Vic, how absurd!” cried Katherine. “He is just as nice as he can be.
Wasn’t it too ridiculous that we should have supposed that he was a small
boy of Peter’s age? We had a great laugh over it, and I was really glad
that we had made the mistake, for it was such a joke it quite broke the
ice. I feel as if I had known them both for years, don’t you, Honor?”

“Yes, they are very nice, both of them,” replied her sister, “and I am
very glad, girls, that you made me go there to call. After all, it would
have been silly to hold aloof from them just because we are poor. I don’t
think they are at all the kind to look down on us because we are—”

“Of course not,” said Katherine with some impatience. “They are true
gentle-people, and not in the least snobbish. The mother is lovely, Vic.”

“Is she?”

Victoria bent over her machine, examining the result of her labor. She
was indeed glad that she had decided not to divulge her secret, now that
she heard what a pleasant impression the new neighbors had made,
especially upon Honor; but she wished that she were at liberty to enjoy
their society herself.

“I am doing this quite nicely,” said she, taking out the paper and
showing it to her sisters.

“Why, so you are!” exclaimed Katherine. “I had no idea you would learn so
quickly, though you have spelled some of these words in a new and rather
remarkable way. But, Vic, how funny you are! You were wild to have us
call on the Madisons, and apparently most anxious to go there yourself,
and now you seem to take so little interest in them, and you rushed away
after you were actually in the house. It was a frightfully rude thing to
do, and they didn’t know what to make of it. Honor and I had the greatest
time explaining to them.”

“What did you tell them?” asked Victoria.

“Oh, we said that you were very busy, as you were still at school, and
had probably remembered some lesson, or something that you hadn’t done.
We were perfectly at a loss to know what to say, weren’t we, Honor?”

“Yes. It was really rude, Vic. I think you ought to apologize to Miss
Madison. You had better go there very soon and explain, though I can’t
imagine what you are going to tell her. It will be rather peculiar to say
that you were frightened. They are coming here very soon and perhaps you
can make it right then.”

“All of them?” asked Victoria.

“No; only Miss Madison and her brother. Mrs. Madison is an invalid and
doesn’t go anywhere, but they are coming.”

Victoria groaned in spirit, but she made no audible comment, and
presently her sisters left her. She would now have a difficult road to
travel, she said to herself. She must watch with increasing vigilance and
promptly disappear if there was the slightest chance of meeting Roger
Madison. She was leaning back in her chair, pondering the situation, her
brow puckered by the deep thought in which she was engaged, when Peter
entered the room, followed closely by Sophy and Sirius.

Since the day last week when he had deserted Sophy in the woods Peter had
been unusually attentive to his small sister. He had said little upon the
subject, but he had thought about it, and he undoubtedly felt some
remorse for his share in the events of that afternoon. It was very stupid
of Sophy to have allowed herself to lose her way, he thought, but then
she was only a girl and a little one at that. What else could one expect
of so benighted an individual? And he was fond of Sophy after a fashion,
he said to himself with superb condescension, and was sorry that she had
been frightened. Therefore he had allowed her to bear him company more
constantly than usual during the past few days, and Sophy was in the
seventh heaven of delight in consequence.

At the present moment they were engaged in a spirited discussion, which
was not uncommon, or, to be more exact, Peter was in the act of laying
down the law to Sophy, this being one of his favorite pastimes.

“You are a perfect little goose, Sophy! I can’t imagine what you are
thinking of. A wheelwright! I told you the other day what I was going to
do. Have you forgotten already? Your memory isn’t worth a cent. But what
else can you expect of a girl?”

Sophy became visibly depressed.

“I wish I could remember, Peter,” she said, searching in the depths of
her memory for Peter’s words of wisdom too precious to be lost. “Did you
tell me long ago?”

“Not long ago, at all. It was the day you got scared in the woods. If you
remember, don’t say anything, for Vic is here, and you know it’s a
secret. Don’t you know the thing that’s going to have nothing about
girls? Well, no matter. All the less chance of the secret’s getting out
if you’ve forgotten it. What do you suppose Sophy wants me to be, when
I’m grown up, Vic?”

“I can’t imagine,” said Victoria. “A clergyman?”

“No, indeed. The most ridiculous thing you ever heard of: a wheelwright!”

“A wheelwright?” repeated Victoria. “Where in the world did you get that
idea, child?”

Sophy looked ready to cry. She felt that it was hard, indeed, that even
her beloved Vic should question her sagacity.

“I only meant because it’s so safe,” she faltered. “I do want Peter to do
something he won’t be killed in. I didn’t think about the clergyman. He
could be that, of course, and not be killed. But my history lesson this
morning was all about wars and battles, and I felt so worried about
Peter, in case he should be a soldier or a sailor when he grows up. The
soldiers get shot, and the sailors get drownded, and I was thinking of
the safest thing he could be, and it was a wheelwright. They just have to
mend wagons and carriages; and Peter likes to mend things up in the shop,
you know. It is safer than a blacksmith, for a horse might kick a
blacksmith, you know, and perhaps kill him.”

Peter roared with laughter, and even Victoria had to raise her hand to
her mouth to hide a smile; but she saw that Sophy was very much in
earnest, and she would not hurt her feelings for the world. Peter’s
laugh, however, was the finishing touch. Sophy hid her face in her
sister’s lap, and her small shoulders shook with sobs.

“You’re real mean!” she cried. “I only want to save your life. You’re my
only brother!”

Victoria frowned fiercely at Peter while she endeavored to soothe Sophy,
and Peter himself felt a little remorseful for his unfeeling mirth. He
attempted to mend matters.

“I’m laughing at Sirius!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t he too absurd? Sirius, you
ridiculous dog, ha! ha! ha! Oh, Sophy—I mean Sirius, how funny you are!”

Upon which Sirius in his turn was sorely offended. With lowered tail and
with an appearance of great dejection, he crept under the sofa. Like the
rest of his race he disliked being laughed at, and he felt that he had
done nothing to subject himself to such an insult. He had been lying at
his master’s feet, quite sound asleep, and no doubt enjoying the dream of
an entrancing walk in the woods, when he had been recalled to real life
by this extravagant burst of laughter mingled with the sound of his own
name. Truly he had a right to feel aggrieved. And sitting in the most
remote corner beneath the sofa he thought over his wrongs.

“After all, your idea is not such a bad one, Sophy,” said Victoria. “You
are quite right about it being better for Peter to do something safe; but
I don’t think wheelwrights make a great deal of money, and as Peter is
the only man in our family, it is rather necessary that he should earn as
much as possible. By the way, Peter, do you know where Dave is this
afternoon?”

“No, I can’t find him. He must be off somewhere.”

“Where do you suppose he goes?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Peter, indifferently. “Perhaps he goes
down to see his people in Fordham.”

“Perhaps he goes to walk with that brother,” suggested Sophy, who had
dried her eyes and quickly recovered from her recent mortification. “He
isn’t a nice brother, though, and he talked regular swear-words. I
shouldn’t think Dave would like him to do it.”

“Neither should I,” said Victoria, “and I wish he wouldn’t go off so
much. I think Honor had better speak to him. Even though we have another
man at work, he needs Dave’s help if we are going to make anything out of
the vegetables.”

The girls had determined to turn their garden to account this summer, and
to send their vegetables and perhaps some of their fruit to the markets
for sale. They had engaged a gardener for the purpose, and although his
wages took a large slice of their earnings, they had decided after
consulting with Mr. Abbott that it would be a wise thing to do. Mr.
Abbott had been ill the greater part of the winter and had been unable to
come to Glen Arden for several months, but his wards heard from him
frequently, and they seldom undertook any important project without
asking his advice.

“I will speak to Honor about it now,” continued Victoria. “Come, Sophy!
Come with me, and then we’ll go down to the garden afterwards and see how
things are going there. Fortunately it is Friday, so we have no lessons
to learn.”

Leaving Peter to conciliate the offended Sirius as best he could,
Victoria and Sophy went upstairs.

The following week passed quickly enough, and all too soon came the day
before that on which Mrs. Wentworth Ward was to descend upon them.
Katherine, in spite of the entreaties of her sisters, had deferred until
the last possible moment her removal to another room. At length, however,
further delay became out of the question, and on Wednesday evening she
announced that she should begin to remove her effects to the third story
if her family would assist in the operation.

Peter and Victoria had each offered to take the third-story apartment and
give either of theirs on the second floor to Katherine if she desired,
but she had finally decided that she preferred to go up herself. There
were two rooms there with a square hall between, and she rather fancied
the idea of having a whole suite to herself, where she would be quite
free from interruption or criticism. It was not probable that her Aunt
Sophia would often mount those steep stairs, she thought.

“If we get everything moved up to-night, B. Lafferty can clean my room
to-morrow, and it will be all ready for our dear aunt by the time she
arrives,” said Katherine. So after supper the four girls ascended and
began the task of “moving” Katherine.

Peter took no part in the proceedings, but retired to the “shop,” where
he had some work in which he was interested. Very soon they were all
actively engaged, one carrying skirts and hats, another staggering under
a pile of boxes, still another rummaging in the depths of the closet,
bringing to light all sorts of things which Katherine had stowed away
there in some remote period of the past, and had apparently forgotten.
Occasionally Honor or Victoria would pause in dismay as some new article
appeared which they did not know that Katherine possessed.

“Where did you get that, Katherine?” they asked more than once.

“Oh, I bought it a long time ago, when we had more money. Not this winter
of course, girls. I really thought I needed it at the time, and it is so
pretty.”

Sophy enjoyed the experience to the utmost. She had always longed to
investigate Katherine’s possessions, which she knew to be more
interesting than those of her other sisters, but she had never hitherto
been allowed this privilege. Now that the desired opportunity had come,
she determined to make the most of it. Unheeded by her busy sisters, she
sat on the floor and explored box after box of ribbons, and odds and ends
of finery, feeling that at last the millennium was here.

It occurred to Victoria’s frugal mind, as she glanced from the gallery to
the hall below during one of her trips to the third story, that it was
scarcely worth while to have so much light downstairs, as there was no
one there to make use of it. Surely it was extravagant to burn so much
oil unnecessarily, so without mentioning it to the others, who would have
been sure to expostulate, she ran down and put out the lamps, at the same
time bolting the front door and attending to the fastenings of the
windows. Then she went upstairs again and continued her work.

Ten minutes later the sound of the door-bell was heard through the house.
Sirius, who had been lying at the head of the stairs, broke into loud and
furious barking and rushed to the front door. The girls looked at one
another in consternation.

“Who can it be at this hour?” exclaimed Honor. “It must be very late.”

“It is only a little after eight,” said Victoria, “and all the lights are
out downstairs! Hurry and fix yourselves up, girls! Blanch, Blanch,
wait!” she exclaimed in an agitated whisper as the maid’s heavy footsteps
were heard in the hall below. Victoria flew down the stairs almost as
quickly as Sirius had gone.

“Don’t open the door till I light the lamps,” she said.



CHAPTER XII.
ROGER MADISON TELLS A STORY.


IT did not really take long to light the lamps, but to Victoria it seemed
an age. Matches broke in her hand as she struck them, her trembling
fingers allowed a chimney to slip from their grasp to be dashed in a
thousand atoms upon the floor, and in the meantime she heard voices upon
the piazza, while Blanch, standing close to the front door, asked her in
loud and penetrating tones if she were not yet ready to have it opened.

At last, signalling to her that the time had come to admit the visitors,
whoever they might be, Victoria disappeared through the door which led to
the back of the house and listened at its crack while Blanch drew back
the bolts with a clatter and noisily turned the key in the lock.

“Are the young ladies at home?” she heard a voice ask which she felt sure
was Miss Madison’s. She hoped devoutly that Blanch’s reply would be a
discreet one. Unfortunately Blanch was so apt to be loquacious.

“Yes’m, they’re home,” replied B. Lafferty, “but I guess they’ve gone to
bed. The lights was all out, but Miss Vic come down an’ lit ’em. I’ll see
if the others is up.”

Victoria groaned aloud. All her ingenuity had been of no avail, and
Blanch had capped the unfortunate climax by speaking of her as “Miss
Vic!”

“Oh, we have come too late!” exclaimed Miss Madison. “I was afraid that
we were. We will come another time. Don’t disturb them now.”

“All right,” returned Blanch, affably. “Just as you say, mum.”

Victoria felt ready to dart from her hiding-place and detain the visitors
by force, but at that moment Honor’s light step was heard upon the
stairs.

“We haven’t gone to bed at all,” said she, “and are delighted to see you.
We were upstairs this evening, and some one put out the lamps by
mistake.”

And then a man’s voice was heard, and Victoria knew that the dreaded
Roger was also there. She hastened up the back stairs as Katherine in her
turn went down the front, and proceeded to devote herself to finishing
the task of the evening, congratulating herself that she had not been
caught.

Sophy meanwhile had disappeared, and Victoria in thinking over the
excitement of the last few minutes completely forgot her. In fact, she
supposed that she was in bed as she usually was at this hour. The little
girl, however, had been engaged in making hay while the sun shone. In
other words, she had retired to the room which she shared with Victoria,
and had taken with her a large box of treasures which she had abstracted
from Katherine’s belongings, in which she proceeded to array herself.

Upon her head she placed a wreath of artificial roses from an old hat of
Katherine’s, which, owing to her short hair, it was a difficult matter to
adjust. Finally, however, this was arranged to her satisfaction, and she
then draped about her shoulders a large white lace scarf, which she
fastened at one side with an immense bow of yellow satin. Katherine when
she wore colors had been fond of brilliant ones, and was constantly
buying all varieties of flowers, ribbons, and what not for her personal
adornment. Just as Sophy had finished thus decking herself had come the
flurry which ensued upon the ringing of the door-bell, and then the girls
had gone down to receive the visitors.

Sophy had heard so much of these new neighbors during the last few days
that she was most desirous of seeing them. She had walked past the house
on the hill more than once in the hope that her curiosity might be
gratified, but to no avail. Now they were actually in the house. It was
too good an opportunity to let slip. Shortly after Victoria came up the
back stairs, Sophy crept down by the same route. Softly she opened the
door which led to the front of the house and stealthily she took her way
into the square hall.

A screen usually stood near the door at the back of the parlor. She hoped
that she should find it there now, and that no one would be sitting at
that end of the parlor. In that case she could peep from behind the
screen or perhaps through its crack. She found to her satisfaction that
the screen was there, and that her sisters with their guests were sitting
at the farther end of the room,—it was a large one with two doors,—and
she immediately placed herself in a position from which she fancied that
she could command a view of the room without being perceived herself. She
was also pleased to discover that her sisters were sitting with their
backs to her, while their visitors faced her. She could thus see exactly
what they looked like.

Mr. Madison was telling Katherine a story. It appeared to be an
interesting tale as well as an amusing one, for Katherine was laughing
heartily, and presently Honor and Miss Madison gave up their conversation
and listened also. Sophy, thinking the crack unsatisfactory and growing
bolder, peered around the corner of the screen for a second at a time.
She found it a fascinating pursuit.

Mr. Madison continued his story. It was a favorite one with him, and he
had seldom found more appreciative listeners than the two Miss Starrs. He
was approaching his point, leading up to it with the skill of an
accomplished storyteller when—what was that? His eye caught something
that moved, at the other end of the room. Probably the dog which had
barked upon their arrival and had since disappeared. He continued his
tale, but there it was again! Surely it was no dog that he saw, but pink
roses, yellow ribbon, white lace, appearing, vanishing, and reappearing
from behind the screen.

He faltered for a moment in the story, and his sister wondered what was
the matter. She looked at him, and then followed his glance. It was
resting upon an extraordinary vision. A small pale face, with large brown
eyes wide open with wonder at the tale, the face surmounted by a wreath
of pink roses, was thrust from behind the screen. Roger controlled his
amusement with difficulty, and brought the story to an abrupt
termination.

“Is that really true?” asked a voice from the back of the room when the
laughter had ceased.

The sisters turned. There stood Sophy in her fantastic costume, emerging
boldly from her hiding-place and bent as usual upon probing the truth of
the story to the core.

“Is it true?” she repeated.

“Why, Sophy!” exclaimed Honor and Katherine together. “What are you doing
there? What _have you_ got on? And why aren’t you in bed?”

“I want to know if that story is true.”

It was always impossible to turn Sophy from the subject which at the
moment chanced to absorb her.

“I’m afraid it isn’t,” replied Roger Madison, laughing, “but if you will
come over here, I will tell you one that is.”

“Sophy, you ought to be in bed,” said Honor, severely. “I can’t imagine
what you mean by coming down to the parlor dressed up in those
extraordinary things.”

“I didn’t know they were strordinary, Honor. I thought they were pretty.
They’re Kathie’s things,” she continued, for the benefit of the visitors,
“out of her boxes. We’re moving Kathie to the third story ’cause Aunt
Sophia’s coming to-morrow. Kathie has to give up her room to her, but she
doesn’t want to.”

“Sophy!” exclaimed Honor, in a tone of warning, while the Madisons
laughed aloud.

“It is perfectly true, Honor. You know Kathie said at first she
wouldn’t.”

Honor rose to her feet, but Katherine concluded that the better plan
would be to laugh off a situation which was rapidly becoming awkward.

“It is quite true,” she said. “Our small sister has let the cat out of
the bag, and we may as well tell you the rest. Our aunt, Mrs. Wentworth
Ward, is coming to-morrow to stay all summer, and I didn’t want to give
up my room at all, but she wanted it and—well, Aunt Sophia usually has
what she wants.”

“I don’t wonder you were busy to-night, then,” said Miss Madison, who
liked Katherine all the better for her frankness. She was about to say
more when Sophy’s solemn voice was again heard.

“Kathie, I don’t know what you mean. We haven’t any cat. You know we
can’t have one on account of Sirius, and so I couldn’t possibly let it
out of a bag. I think you’re making up a story, Kathie.”

This speech was received with such shouts of laughter that Sophy fled
from the room and up to Victoria, who was listening at the head of the
stairs. She had missed Sophy, and, after looking for her in vain, had
finally detected her whereabouts. Now she received her weeping sister,
and led her to the safe seclusion of their own room.

“I think you are a very interesting family,” said Miss Madison, when she
and her brother finally rose to take leave. “Don’t scold Sophy for coming
down, will you? I take it as a great compliment that she wanted to see
us. We have yet to meet your brother and the sister who disappeared so
suddenly the other day. Please be very neighborly, for I like you,” she
added, “and, Miss Katherine, perhaps you will come up Monday afternoon
and bring some of your music. I long to play with you. I should be glad
to have your sisters come, too. Good night.”

“What must they think of us?” exclaimed Honor, when the front door was
finally shut. “The whole affair was too dreadful.”

“I don’t think so at all,” said Katherine. “It was all very funny from
beginning to end, and they are just the kind of people to take it nicely.
But did you ever see such a sight as Sophy! Fancy her taking all my
precious things!”

“Fancy her coming down and listening in that way,” said Honor. “It was
perfectly dreadful.”

“Don’t scold her about it,” said Victoria, who had joined them. “She has
been crying so hard, and she is waiting for you to come to bid her good
night, Honor. She didn’t know it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I’ve
been explaining to her. She was crazy to see the Madisons, and she forgot
she had those things on. I was rather curious myself to know what you
were talking about when I heard such a jolly time going on down here.”

“Why didn’t you come down?” asked Katherine. “They both asked for you.”

“Too busy,” replied her sister. “I’ve finished moving you. If I hadn’t
stayed upstairs, we should have had to be up all night, or you never
would have been ready for Aunt Sophia.”

The next afternoon Peter announced his intention of going off to the
woods. He was interested in a pair of birds that had made their nest in a
certain tree, and whenever he had a spare moment he went to the woods to
watch them. He had declined to take Sophy with him to-day, giving as his
reason that she talked too much.

“You can’t see a thing in the woods,” he said wisely, “if a girl’s along.
They always chatter, chatter, chatter, like a squirrel. When Carney and I
go together, we don’t say a word, and pretty soon all the creatures come
out and attend to their business just as they would if we weren’t there.
Creatures are awfully afraid of people. You know you never see anything
about when you just go walking through the woods. They all stay in their
holes and nests. But if you just go sit there and watch and don’t make a
sound, they begin to come out, and it’s lots of fun. I’ll take Sirius
because he minds me and keeps quiet when I tell him to, but it’s no good
to say that to Sophy.”

“Why, Peter,” said Sophy, in an injured tone, “I won’t say a word if you
don’t want me to. You tell me things when we are out walking, and then I
have to answer, but I won’t if you’ll only let me go.”

“I really think you ought to stay at home this afternoon, Sophy,”
interposed Honor. “You know Aunt Sophia is coming, and she will be
disappointed if her namesake isn’t here to receive her.”

“I wish I hadn’t been named after her,” remarked Sophy, with an aggrieved
air. “It’s an awful bother. When you’re named for people you always have
to do things you don’t want to. Now there’s Peter can go to the woods
this afternoon. He couldn’t if he was named for Aunt Sophia.”

“What a big goose you are!” said Peter. “As if a boy could have been
named Sophia!”

“I wish you would do a little weeding before you go, Peter,” said Honor.

“And if you could only help me move some of the furniture in my new
room,” added Katherine. “I can’t get it fixed to suit me at all, and it
is so heavy. Can’t you, Peter?”

“Oh, goodness,” said Peter, “what a bother! I suppose I’ve got to move
the furniture, but the weeding will have to wait. I tell you, I must go
to the woods this afternoon. Hurry up, now, if you want me upstairs.” And
he ran off himself two steps at a time.

Katherine was hard to please, and half an hour at least was consumed
before the furniture was arranged to her satisfaction. Peter in
consequence became more and more ill-tempered, and when she paused in the
midst of her directions to tell him that his hands were not particularly
clean and that his collar was frayed at the edge, he lost all patience.

“Who cares whether my hands are clean or not for moving your old
furniture,” said he; “and if the collar is frayed at the edge, what made
you put it in my drawer when it came out of the wash? It’s your own
fault, and speaking of washing hands, I wash mine of this old sofa.”

And he departed, leaving the sofa in the middle of the room for Katherine
to move alone as best she could.

Peter and Sirius took their way across the woody pasture beyond the barn
and the garden. It was indeed good to be out of doors on such a day as
this, and there was no knowing what of interest might be in store for
them. Katherine’s criticisms were soon forgotten, and master and dog were
happy in each other’s company and in the indefinable something which
pervaded the atmosphere this afternoon of the first of May and which
filled the hearts of both with a sense of elation.

It was an ideal May day, warm and balmy. The songs of the lately arrived
birds filled the air; active little chipmunks, awakened from their
winter’s sleep, darted here and there with amazing fleetness, while the
frogs croaked loudly on the river bank, rejoicing that spring had come.

Suddenly Sirius darted forward in swift pursuit of a little creature
which had ventured forth from its home shortly before and had been
unmindful of the approach of two such hereditary enemies as a boy and a
dog. Quickly though Sirius ran, however, the little animal, having the
start, and becoming conscious at once that it was being pursued, darted
away and was lost to sight.

“It was a weasel, I verily believe,” exclaimed Peter aloud, running in
great excitement to the spot where it had disappeared. “Sirius, why
didn’t you catch him? It is the one that has been killing our chickens.”

Sirius was beside himself with rage and disappointment. There was enough
of the terrier in his nature to make him feel that a weasel was his
lawful prey, and he jumped madly about the stump where the weasel had
disappeared, barking, digging in the ground, and nosing in every
direction.

“Yes, I do believe it lives here, Sirius,” said Peter. “We’ll get him
yet. Here’s a little passage-way among the roots of the stump. We’ll dig
out the nest as soon as we get a chance, Sirius. I saw a weasel’s nest
once, dug it out, and it was as cosy as possible, lined with dead leaves
and grass and feathers and a snake’s skin. We don’t want any more dead
chickens lying with holes in their necks, indeed we don’t. Come on now,
sir! We’re going to the woods.”

They continued their walk, Sirius leaving the stump sorely against his
will, and going back to it again and again; and finally they reached the
thicker woods where Sophy had lost her way on the memorable occasion when
the owl had shrieked and had so sorely frightened her.

“I wish I could find that owl to-day, but I don’t believe he lives in
these woods,” thought Peter. “I will look for him before I go watch those
other birds. I believe that was the big tree where the owl was sitting
when it yelled.”

He walked quietly to the spot, and seating himself on a fallen tree he
ordered Sirius to be quiet. Nothing living was to be seen. The new leaves
upon the trees were not very thick as yet, and the afternoon sun shone
warmly through them, resting in patches on the undergrowth. With his hand
on the dog’s collar Peter sat and waited.

Presently a gray squirrel moved cautiously along a branch, sitting quite
still for a moment to watch them with mingled curiosity and anxiety, and
then, finding these strangers so motionless and apparently so harmless,
approaching quite near to them. It was hard for Sirius to remain quiet
with so entrancing an object of pursuit within easy reach, but he had
been well trained and, above all, he loved Peter, and was not Peter’s
hand upon his collar?

Very soon the gray squirrel became tired of looking at them and ran away,
and in the meantime Peter had discovered something in the tall tree which
he had been watching. About forty feet above him was a hole as large as
his own head, and standing on the edge of this hole was an owl. At first
Peter had not been able to distinguish it, for it was of a mottled brown,
and so like the bark of the tree in color that the difference could at
first glance be scarcely detected. He was quite sure, however, that it
had not been there when he arrived upon the spot. Neither did he think
that it was the same owl that had given the strange cry the other day.
This seemed like a little screech owl. He made some slight noise,
breaking some twigs from the log on which he was sitting, and in a flash
the owl disappeared within the hole and was seen no more that afternoon.

Peter sat here until he was tired, watching a snake which twisted its way
through the dead leaves, the gray squirrels which ran about now in
confidence, fancying themselves perfectly secure, and some birds that had
nested in a tree not far away. He hoped that the snake would not reach
the birds’ nest and steal the eggs, but it was early in the season yet,
and snakes were still sluggish in their movements. He knew that the owls
were secure, for their eggs had been hatched some time since, and the
young ones were probably well grown. Indeed, there was a possibility that
the other birds, if they escaped the snake, might fall a prey to the owls
that lived in such close proximity, and that would be only too ready to
pounce upon and devour them at the first opportunity.

At last Peter rose from the log, and releasing Sirius with a commendatory
pat for his good behavior, he walked off through the woods. There was a
sudden rustle in boughs and underbrush, frightened bird notes sounded
from the branches, shrill squirrel warnings came from the trunks of
trees. All the creatures, which had supposed themselves safe, were
terrified by these unexpected movements on the part of the two hitherto
motionless objects that had been there so long, and quickly gave notice
to their companions that danger was abroad in the forest.

But Peter and Sirius left them unmolested, and continued their way to the
outskirts of the wood. It was later than Peter had supposed, but he
determined to take a still longer walk and to go home by a round-about
way which could be shortened at the end by coming up the branch railroad
which led directly through their place.

He was walking quickly over this railroad, and was crossing a bridge
which was above the river, when his foot caught on one of the ties, and
he slipped between them. Something seemed to snap in his leg, and then a
blackness came over him. Strange surging noises sounded in his ears, and
he knew no more.



CHAPTER XIII.
PETER MEETS WITH A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.


ON the same afternoon upon which Mrs. Wentworth Ward was to arrive at
Glen Arden, and which Peter spent in the woods, Roger Madison came home
on an early train from Boston and invited his sister to go out on the
river with him. Although Margaret was fully ten years older than himself,
and therefore had been grown up when he was still a small boy, she had
always been his dearest companion. They rode and drove and fished
together, they played and sang, they read the same books and loved the
same pictures, and the pleasure which came to one was deprived of half
its value if it were not shared by the other.

On this May day therefore they were both more than content with their lot
when, Margaret being comfortably placed in the canoe, Roger stepped in
and pushed away from the shore.

“Up or down shall it be, Margaret?” he asked.

“Either. Anything is charming, even if we were to stay exactly where we
are.”

“As you are so agreeable to anything, I think we will go up river. There
are not apt to be so many people about there as there are in the
neighborhood of Waterview and below. The river is wilder, too. What a
beautiful winding stream the Charles is!”

He paddled quietly up stream, and they talked or not as they felt
inclined, and drank in the sweet-scented air, and watched the turtles
sunning themselves on the rocks, and listened to the hoarse croaking of
the bullfrogs. Finally, as the sun sank in the west, they turned and
floated down with the current.

“Those Starrs are very interesting girls, I think,” remarked Roger after
a silence that had lasted for some moments. “Miss Katherine is very
handsome, but the elder one’s face is very lovely. She is not as strictly
beautiful perhaps, but her expression is such a noble one.”

“Katherine is more interesting to me,” said his sister; “I like Honor
immensely, but she is more conventional than Katherine and more
self-controlled. Katherine is full of fire and enthusiasm, and I like it.
Plenty of faults, no doubt, but whole souled. Honor is charming, though,
too.”

“They seem very jolly and have plenty of fun in them. How amusing it was
last night.”

“Very; I like both the girls very much, and I am curious to meet the
other one, Victoria, or Vic, as they call her. Though she is so young,
she seems to be a moving spirit in the family. I wonder why we haven’t
met her anywhere.”

“Apparently because she runs away from us. I was sure last evening that I
caught a glimpse of some one peeping through the door at the back of the
hall when that amiable maid of theirs was telling us that they had gone
to bed,” said Roger, laughing at the recollection.

“It must be trying for them to give up so much and work so hard when they
have been accustomed to such a different life,” said his sister. “Did you
notice the pictures?”.

“Yes. They were chosen by some one with very good judgment. There were
one or two water-colors on the wall that were excellent, and some fine
etchings. I saw two by the same man who did the one that I gave you at
Christmas, Margaret.”

“The one you bought of the girl in the picture store? I feel a special
interest in that picture, Roger. I am forever imagining what kind of a
girl she must have been and how she came to do that.”

“Because she had to, I suppose. She was a nice-looking little thing, and
she was a lady. Not exactly pretty, but her face was interesting. I saw a
photograph at the Starrs’ last night that reminded me of her. I meant to
have told you.”

“I have a feeling that we shall see her again some day, because I am so
deeply interested in her,” said Miss Madison, musingly. “I don’t think I
could feel so about a person whom I am never to see. But what a
keen-sighted person you are, Roger! Without appearing to look about, you
seem to have absorbed every picture in that room. I daresay you could
tell me the titles of all the books in the cases and the music in the
music racks!”

“As well as the number of roses in that child’s wreath,” said Roger,
laughing; “I wouldn’t have missed that sight for the world. What’s the
matter with that dog?” he asked suddenly.

They were about to pass under a railroad bridge not far from their own
home. Standing on the bridge, very near the edge and almost falling over
in his efforts to make himself heard, was an ungainly-looking yellow dog.
He was barking madly, occasionally varying the sound by piteous whines
and yelps of entreaty. Roger paused and looked up.

“What’s the matter, old fellow?” he said kindly. “You had better get off
the track. You will be run over, for it is almost time for a train.”

Upon hearing his friendly voice, the dog darted from the bridge and came
running and tumbling down the steep bank to the river’s edge, where he
renewed his barks and yelping, turning to run up the bank a little way
and then looking back to see if Roger were coming.

“Something must be the matter, Roger,” said Miss Madison; “do go and see!
A dog wouldn’t behave that way unless there was some trouble.”

Roger pushed up to shore, and then handing the paddle to his sister he
jumped out and scrambled up the bank, the dog pausing for a moment to
leap about with delight and then running before, stopping at intervals,
however, to make sure that his new friend was close behind.

The bank was high and steep, but when the top was at last reached, Roger
Madison saw immediately the cause of the dog’s excitement. Upon the
bridge, and lying between the rails with his face down, was the figure of
a boy. The dog ran to him and licked his hands and ears, which were the
only parts of him that were visible. Then he turned to Roger, whining
piteously again, and at that moment was heard the whistle of a train that
was leaving Waterview for its trip over the branch road. In less than two
minutes it would reach the bridge.

Madison attempted to raise the boy, only to find that his foot was caught
between the rail and one of the sleepers in some curious way. He must
move him cautiously or he would do him injury. Far below was the river,
and the boy was lying half-way across the bridge. There was but a single
track here; it would be necessary to carry him to one end or the other,
and the train was coming. There was no chance that the engineer would see
him in time to stop, for it was growing dark rapidly, and there was a
curve in the road shortly before this part of it was reached. Should he
never be able to extricate the boy’s foot?

At last it was free. Standing on the narrow bridge through the openings
of which the river beneath seemed so far away, and with the puff of the
engine drawing nearer and nearer, Roger raised the lad in his arms and
then ran with him to the farther bank. As he stepped from one end of the
bridge the train reached the other, and in a second more it passed him as
he stood by the track, his burden in his arms.

But what was the heart-rending cry which sounded in his ears as the train
rolled by? What had happened? Roger Madison, strong man though he was,
felt almost faint at the thought. Had the dog saved his master’s life
only to lose his own? It could not be.

But it was so. Sirius had not stirred from Peter’s side until he saw him
in a place of security; what happened afterwards no one ever knew.
Probably in his ecstasy at the boy’s safety he had forgotten his own
danger and jumped back upon the track; but whatever the cause, the train
passed over him. He lost his life in saving the beloved master who had
once rescued him from a cruel death. And who, whether dog or man, can ask
for a more glorious end than this?

In the meantime Miss Madison, surmising that something serious was the
matter, had left the canoe drawn up upon the bank, and had herself
climbed up to the top. She reached it soon after the train had passed and
found her brother bending over the still form of the boy, who lay by the
side of the railroad.

“Who do you suppose it is, Margaret?” said he. “We had better take him to
the Starrs’. It is the nearest house.”

“It may be Peter Starr, Roger!” exclaimed Miss Madison. “I shouldn’t
wonder at all if it were, and he looks something like them, as well as I
can see in this light. He has a dog, you know.”

“He has one no longer, then,” said Roger, briefly. “The dog is dead.”

“Roger, how terrible! What will the poor boy say? But I had better run
before and prepare them. Roger, are you sure the boy is alive?”

But even as she spoke, the lad stirred slightly and opened his eyes.

“Sirius,” he murmured faintly; “come here, sir!” Then he lost
consciousness again.

“It is Peter Starr,” said Margaret. “The dog’s name was Sirius. Follow
slowly, Roger. You must give me time to prepare them.”

She ran through the woods which bordered on the river bank, and then
emerging upon the open lawn, she hastened towards the house. Apparently
the family were at supper, for no one was to be seen. Miss Madison opened
the front door without ceremony, and greatly to the astonishment of the
Starrs—including Mrs. Ward—appeared at the door of the dining-room.

“Is your brother at home?” she asked breathlessly. Though she tried to
speak calmly, it was easy to see that something was the matter.

“No,” said Honor, “we were just wondering—Miss Madison, what is it?” She
pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, as did also Katherine and
Victoria. A certainty that something serious had taken place filled the
hearts of all.

“What is it?” said they together.

“Don’t look so frightened,” said Miss Madison. “He isn’t dead; he is only
hurt a little, and Roger is bringing him. We found him. See; they are
coming now.”

They looked across the lawn, and saw Roger Madison moving towards the
house with a burden in his arms. Could it be Peter? Madison, who was tall
and very strong, carried him as easily as he would have carried a child
of five, although Peter was tall for his age and was no light weight.

“Some one get a bed ready for him,” said Margaret, “and send at once for
a doctor. In the meantime I will help you. I know a little about
surgery.”

Honor and Katherine had run to meet their brother, but Victoria was ready
to do what she was told.

“Aunt Sophia, please send Dave Carney for the doctor,” said she. “He is
in the kitchen, I think. I will go upstairs.”

“And I will go with you,” said Miss Madison.

                                * * * * *

It was much later in the evening, and Peter was now quite comfortable.
The doctor had gone after having set the broken leg and having assured
the Starrs that, although the injury was serious, there was nothing about
it which need alarm them. The Madisons went home after the doctor came,
but Roger intended to return to inquire for the patient. As yet, nothing
had been said about the fate of Sirius. Peter had been asking for him
ever since he regained consciousness, and his sisters, supposing the dog
to be at the barn, had promised to give him his supper. The doctor had
left orders that Peter should be kept very quiet, and that Sirius should
not be admitted to his room.

Honor was with her brother now, and Katherine and Victoria were in their
aunt’s room. She had arrived by the designated train that afternoon,
accompanied by her maid, her canaries, and several trunks. The bustle
which her coming had caused had scarcely subsided before supper was
announced, and then had ensued the excitement about Peter. Now, at
half-past eight, she had requested the attendance of Katherine and
Victoria in her room while she unpacked and settled herself for the
summer.

“I want to talk over your affairs,” said she. “Now that I am really here
I wish to be right in your midst. What have you been living on? How much
have you made in that ridiculous school and those senseless violets? Why
people should spend their money on violets I can’t imagine. They only
fade.”

“Don’t you think we had better wait until to-morrow?” suggested Victoria,
mildly, as she watched her aunt’s energetic movements about the room.
Mrs. Ward had made it clear to them in the beginning that she wished no
assistance in her unpacking.

“Then you could talk to Honor about it,” continued Victoria, “and
to-night we are so worried about Peter.”

“No need for worry,” rejoined Mrs. Wentworth Ward, briskly. “The boy is
in no danger, the doctor said. How he ever got into such a predicament I
can’t imagine. If your friends the Madisons hadn’t happened along just
when they did—”

“Oh, Aunt Sophia, don’t!” cried Victoria. “It is too horrible to put into
words. How can we ever thank the Madisons enough!”

“Do you know how they happened to find him?”

“No, we haven’t heard,” said Victoria, while Katherine added:

“Mr. Madison said he would come back later and tell us all about it.”

“Humph!” said her aunt, looking at her shrewdly while she shook out and
refolded her garments. “Who are these Madisons?”

“Very nice people,” replied Katherine, with exaggerated indifference.

“So you seem to find them, and they apparently take an active part in
your household affairs. I was amused at Miss Madison! Running upstairs
without ever saying ‘by your leave’! But if they are related to the Roger
Madisons, they are all that one would wish.”

“The brother’s name is Roger,” said Victoria.

“Oh,” remarked Mrs. Wentworth Ward, “then I have nothing to say.”

“After saving Peter’s life I think they are at liberty to do anything
they like,” said Katherine, with the asperity which intercourse with her
aunt never failed to bring to the surface. “And if they were not the
Roger Madisons, what would you have to say, Aunt Sophia?”

Victoria, dreading an argument, abruptly turned the conversation by
introducing the matter of the typewriter. It was, perhaps, a case of
leaping from the frying-pan into the fire, but she felt that anything
would be preferable to a lengthy discussion of the Madisons between her
aunt and Katherine, who never, under any circumstances, were known to
agree, and who each possessed to the last degree the power of irritating
the other.

Sophy, meanwhile, had been shut out completely both from Peter’s room and
from that of her aunt. She had been told by her sisters to go to bed, but
as they had failed to enforce the command, she had not yet obeyed it.
Instead, she wandered disconsolately over the house, even seeking Blanch
in the kitchen, although she was not a favorite with the child. Sophy was
discriminating, and her prejudices were strong.

She found Blanch engaged in a spirited discussion with the lately arrived
maid from Beacon Street, and her presence was so completely ignored by
them both, that she left the kitchen and returned to the main part of the
house.

Glancing from the window at the side of the front door, she saw Mr.
Madison approaching, and she opened the door and gladly welcomed him.

“Won’t you come and talk to me?” she said in a forlorn little voice. “I’m
all alone. I can’t go to Peter’s room, and I can’t find Sirius, and Aunt
Sophia doesn’t want me. Don’t you think if somebody was named for you,
you’d like to have ’em in your room when you were unpacking?”

“Indeed I should!” said Madison, seating himself in the parlor, while
Sophy took another chair and prepared to entertain him, after the manner,
as she thought, of her elder sisters when they had visitors.

“And Aunt Sophia is unpacking,” she continued, “and unpacking is such a
very interesting thing to watch. I think she is asking questions, too.
Aunt Sophia asks a great many questions. When I do, the girls say I’m
curious, but they can’t say that to Aunt Sophia.”

“No, scarcely!” said Mr. Madison, who was greatly amused with his small
hostess, but preserved a perfectly straight face.

“She thinks we ought to live with her, but we don’t want to. We would
rather work for our living, and so we teach school and give music lessons
and sell mushrooms and violets, and once Vic went to Boston and sold some
gold things and some—oh, but I forgot! The girls told me not to tell
anybody that.”

“No,” said Roger, gravely; “you had better not.”

“Perhaps when we get to know you very well, we’ll tell you all about what
the man said to Vic, the young man—”

“Do you think I can see one of your sisters?” asked he, interrupting her.
“I want to speak about Peter, and—well, to explain to them how I happened
to find him. Will you call one of them? Tell them not to come if it isn’t
convenient, though.”

Sophy, going upon this errand, met Victoria on the stairs.

“I am going to look for Sirius, Sophy,” said she, quite unconscious that
some one was in the parlor. “It is strange that he isn’t about anywhere.
Have you seen him?”

As she spoke, a man’s figure appeared in the doorway of the parlor.

“I want to tell you about the dog,” said Madison. “I didn’t have a
chance—”

To his surprise the girl on the stairs turned and ran up again, leaving
him with his sentence unfinished and without giving him a word of
apology. It was most extraordinary behavior, Roger thought.
Unquestionably, charming as the Starr sisters were, there was one among
them who was peculiar. It was not the first time that Victoria had acted
in the unaccountable fashion. Indeed, that very night, when he had
carried Peter to his room, she had disappeared through one door as he
came in the other. He should think that after having saved her brother’s
life, she might treat him at least politely. However, she was only a
little girl of fifteen, he said to himself, and probably knew no better
how to behave. It was strange, though, for the others were undoubtedly
well bred, and even little Sophy had good manners.

He was about to leave the house, too proud and too indignant to ask again
to see any one, when Katherine came down.

“Sophy told me that you were here,” she said, “and I am so glad, for we
want to thank you for all you have done. Vic is so upset with Peter’s
accident that she couldn’t come down, but Honor will be here in a moment.
Indeed, we cannot thank you enough!”

And then Honor came, and with tears in her eyes expressed her gratitude
for what he had done for them. Madison described to them how and where he
had found Peter, Sophy standing by his chair and drinking in every word.

“Then Sirius really saved Peter’s life,” said she.

“Yes, he was really the one; for if he hadn’t attracted my attention, I
should never have known that he was there. Sirius was a brave, good dog.”

“Dear Sirius!” said Honor. “I didn’t like him when he first came here,
but now I feel as if I couldn’t do enough for him.”

“I shall buy him a gold collar studded with diamonds the next time I go
to Boston,” said Katherine.

“Kathie! Will you really?” asked Sophy. “And what will you buy for Mr.
Madison?”

“He wouldn’t care for a gold collar,” laughed Katherine. “We shall have
to do something else for him.”

“We cannot thank you enough,” said Honor again, very gravely. It scarcely
seemed right to laugh when Peter had been so near death, and she felt
that this debt of gratitude to Mr. Madison could never be repaid. There
was a moment’s silence.

“Where do you suppose Sirius is?” said Sophy. “We haven’t seen him yet. I
want to hug him for saving my only brother Peter.”

“My child, you will never see Sirius again,” said Roger. “He lost his own
life when he saved Peter’s. He is dead.”

Sophy gazed at him for a moment in speechless astonishment. Then she
buried her face in his arm.

“Sirius is dead!” she wailed. “Oh, what will Peter say?”



CHAPTER XIV.
SOPHY WAYLAYS ROGER MADISON.


SEVERAL days elapsed before they dared tell Peter of the fate of Sirius.
The doctor’s orders that he should be kept very quiet must be obeyed, and
that was the excuse which they gave him when the boy begged that Sirius
might come to him.

The spring days, so beautiful in themselves, seemed to have brought much
care and anxiety to the Starrs. Honor was visibly depressed, but
Katherine had her music with Miss Madison to divert her, and Victoria’s
feelings, whatever they may have been, she was careful to hide. The
presence of Mrs. Wentworth Ward made a great change in the household, and
Peter’s accident a still more serious one.

There were many extra steps to be taken, and sometimes he was a difficult
patient. He did not mean to be exacting, but he felt it to be a greater
trial than he deserved, to be kept in bed with a broken leg when the days
out of doors were so beautiful, when trees and grass were daily growing
greener, and the creatures had awakened from their winter’s nap, when
“the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in our land.”

Peter did not express his feelings in just these words perhaps, but the
thought of all that was beautiful out of doors made him restless and his
pain hard to bear.

Honor and Katherine divided the teaching hours, one remaining with Peter
while the other superintended the school. The spring weather seemed to
affect the pupils also, for at times they became quite unmanageable.
Sometimes Honor wondered if her own impatience did not react upon
herself, influencing the children and making them more or less
refractory. Whatever the cause, the school had certainly never been so
irksome. She was anxious, too, about Mr. Abbott. He was still very much
of an invalid, and they had not seen him for several months.

In addition to all this, Peter’s illness would be a great expense to
them, and Honor wondered how they should meet the doctor’s bills. She
felt almost glad that her aunt was at Glen Arden; for, in spite of the
many inconveniences which her presence brought, it also meant an
increased income, and in the present state of their finances this was
most important. To be sure, Blanch, indignant with the newcomer in the
kitchen, had threatened more than once to leave, but that was one of the
smaller vexations which, perhaps, could be avoided.

The thought that was now filling the hearts of Peter’s sisters with
dread, was the fact that the time was rapidly approaching when they must
tell him that Sirius was dead. Each one wondered how and when it was to
be done and who should be the one to do it. They finally decided upon
Victoria.

And so with an anxious heart, one afternoon Victoria went to her
brother’s room. She knew that she should have no difficulty in
introducing the subject, for Peter’s first question was always in regard
to Sirius, and the sisters had found it almost impossible to answer him
without arousing his suspicions. As she supposed would be the case,
Victoria had scarcely crossed the threshold when she heard her brother’s
somewhat querulous voice.

“Vic, where is Sirius? It does seem very hard that I can’t see my own
dog. He wouldn’t excite me, and he wouldn’t jump on the bed if I told him
not to. It excites me a great deal more not to see him, than it would if
he were here.”

“I know, Peter dear!” said Victoria, going to the bed and sitting down
upon the edge of it. “And there is nothing we would rather do, than bring
Sirius to you. But we can’t. Will you try to bear it, Peter, when I tell
you something very sad?”

“What is it, Vic?” exclaimed Peter, in a low voice. “I know what you are
going to say! Is Sirius dead?”

Victoria nodded. Peter turned his face towards the wall.

“Please go away,” he said, still in the same low voice, and Victoria left
him.

She returned in a short time to find him still in the same position. When
she spoke to him he did not reply, and though she went again and again,
it was always with the same result.

“What are we to do with him?” she said later to her sisters. “He won’t
speak, and he just lies there with his face turned away. If he would only
cry about it!”

“Peter won’t cry,” said Sophy. “He thinks it’s babyish. He was awful fond
of Sirius, though. I’ve seen him kiss him often, on the top of his head,
and he never likes to kiss anybody else. Oh dear, I wish I could do
something to make him feel better!” The loving little sister’s eyes
filled with tears, and she hid her face in Honor’s shoulder.

“The trouble is,” said Victoria, “he thinks we’re only girls and so he
won’t talk to us. If father were here, or Mr. Abbott, it would be better.
I really believe Peter would speak to them. If we only had somebody!”

It was unusual for Victoria’s courage to desert her, but it had all been
very sad and depressing. Peter’s accident had unnerved her, and the
subsequent dread of breaking the news to him, and then the disclosure
itself, had been more of a strain than she realized.

“I wish we had an older brother!” she said, and then greatly to the
surprise of the others she too began to cry. “What a goose I am!” she
sobbed. “But I do feel so sorry for Peter and for all of us, and I wish
he would speak to us.”

“I wonder if Mr. Madison would come and talk to him,” suggested
Katherine.

“We can’t ask him to,” said Honor, quickly. “We must never ask him to do
a thing. He would be the very one, I’ve no doubt, for Peter likes him,
and he was the one who saved his life and was there when Sirius was
killed, but it would never do to ask him. If he were to come of his own
accord, it would be different.”

“It seems a great pity, then, that he can’t know how much he is needed,”
said Katherine. “He seems to be the kind of man who always knows exactly
what to say, and he is so good-natured he wouldn’t mind coming a bit. Do
you really think, Honor, that it wouldn’t do to ask him?”

Honor shook her head very decidedly.

“It wouldn’t do at all,” said she.

Sophy, who had been listening attentively, dried her eyes. She was
extremely disturbed by Victoria’s emotion, as were they all. It was so
unusual to see her cry that Sophy felt that something very serious must
be the matter. The little girl was ready to do anything to make her
happier or to help Peter. The girls all said that to talk to a grown-up
man would be the best thing for Peter, and that Mr. Madison would be the
one of all others. Why not get Mr. Madison, then? To be sure, Honor had
said that he must not be asked, but perhaps he would come without being
asked if he knew that Peter needed him. Sophy felt very confident that
Mr. Madison was a kind-hearted man, and if he were once told that he was
needed, he would not wait to be asked.

She tried to say something of this to her sisters, but they were talking
to each other and endeavoring to comfort Victoria, and she could not make
them hear, so she determined to act for herself. She heard the whistle of
one of the afternoon trains as it left the junction at Waterview. Perhaps
Mr. Madison was on it!

Without further delay, she ran downstairs and out the front door. Like a
young squirrel she scampered across the lawn and along the grassy path
that led to the little station, arriving there just as the train did. One
passenger only left it, and, greatly to her disappointment, it was not
Mr. Madison.

There would not be another train for a long time, she knew, but
nevertheless Sophy determined to wait for it. She was afraid that if she
went back to the house, something or, more probably, somebody, would
prevent her coming again, and she had made up her mind that the only way
to secure Mr. Madison was to meet him at the train. She sat down on the
edge of the platform,—there was no house here, only a little shed at
which the trains stopped,—and waited.

The sun, which was warm to-day, shone down upon her, the soft May breezes
played with the daisies that had sprung up about the railroad track,
little birds gathered courage from her stillness, and hopped nearer to
the small figure, looking at her with inquisitive glances, but Sophy
heeded nothing. Many serious thoughts were passing through her childish
mind in rapid succession. She wondered why Sirius had to die when they
all loved him so, and it made it so hard for Peter. She wondered if there
was anything in the world that she could do to make Peter happier.

And Victoria! She was so surprised to see real tears on Vic’s face. Was
Vic a baby to cry, as Peter always said that Sophy was? She had never
seen her do it before except when their father died. Then everybody had
cried. Where was her father now, she wondered? Did he know they were all
so sad and there was so little money? Where had he gone, and where had
they come from? How strange everything was, and how puzzling! Sophy
supposed that she should understand it all when she grew up.

In the meantime she wished that the train would come. She was tired of
waiting, and perhaps Vic was still crying, and Peter still lying so
strangely silent, with his face turned away from them, as they went one
by one to express their sympathy. Would the train never come?

And at last it did come, and, to her intense relief, Mr. Madison was on
it. He was the only passenger who left it, and he was greatly surprised
when a small and hatless figure danced up to him and seized his hand.

“I’m so glad to see you!” cried a lisping voice. “I’ve been waiting ever
and ever and ever so long!” Sophy’s face looked almost pretty in her
excitement. “I’m not going to ask you to come,” she continued, “for Honor
says you must never be asked to do anything; but we want a grown-up man
so dreadfully to talk to Peter. Peter won’t say anything, and he knows
Sirius is dead. He thinks we’re only girls, and if you were only our
brother, you would talk to him. I wish you were our brother!”

“But even if I am not, I can talk to Peter,” said Roger Madison, quickly,
“and that is what you would like, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Sophy; “and I haven’t asked you, have I? Honor said,
you know, that you must never be asked to do anything. I don’t exactly
see why not. I wouldn’t mind asking you a bit, but I haven’t, have I?”

“Oh, no indeed! I’m coming entirely of my own free will. I want to talk
to Peter.”

“How lovely!” said Sophy, as, with her hand tightly clasped in his, she
skipped along at his side. “You are such a nice man. You would make a
lovely brother. You see, everything was dreadful this afternoon, and Vic
really cried!”

Sophy said this with the air of imparting a most unheard-of piece of
news. That Vic should cry was to her almost as important as Peter’s
broken leg.

“Come right upstairs,” said she, when they reached the house. “Come right
up to Peter’s room.”

“I think you had better say that I am here,” said Madison, hesitating.

“Oh, why?” exclaimed Sophy, impatiently; but seeing that he was firm in
regard to this, she ran upstairs and peeped into Peter’s room. He was
still lying with his face turned away, and she did not look far enough to
see that Victoria was sitting behind the door. She ran down again as
quickly as she had gone up and once more grasped Mr. Madison by the hand.

“It is all right,” she said. “Come right up.”

They mounted the stairs, and still hand in hand they entered Peter’s
room.

“Peter,” said the small sister, “here’s a grown-up man come to see you.
Here is Mr. Madison.”

Peter turned his head, and Sophy gave a sigh of relief. He had actually
moved and was looking at them. At the same moment an exclamation of
surprise came from some one else. Victoria rose to her feet and stood for
a moment in silence. She gave one glance at Mr. Madison, and then her
eyes fell, while the color came and went in her cheeks. She looked
precisely as she had looked in the picture shop and stood in almost the
same attitude. Madison recognized her at once, and he held out his hand.

“I’m glad to meet you again,” he said simply.

“Please don’t tell any one,” said Victoria. “No one knows it, and I’ve
tried not to meet you. Honor wouldn’t like it.”

“Very well,” said he, gravely, and Victoria could see that he was
surprised at her remark. “Just as you say, of course.”

Then she left the room, wondering if she had said the wrong thing. Was it
what Honor would call “unconventional”? She wished that she had never
tried to hide the fact that she had met Roger Madison before. It was such
a little thing in itself, and yet it was constantly leading her to do
rude and peculiar things. This was certainly a most trying afternoon, and
again Victoria shut herself into her room and cried, and though Sophy
came more than once and rattled the handle of the door, she would not let
her in.

Sophy, when Mr. Madison was safely shut into Peter’s room, lost no time
in making known the fact to her sisters.

“Why, Sophy!” exclaimed Honor. “How did he happen to come?”

“I met him at the station,” said she, “and I told him we wished we had a
grown-up man, and so he said he would come. I didn’t ask him to, Honor.
Really and truly I didn’t ask him to come. I only said we needed him.”

“But, Sophy dear, that amounted to the same thing, and don’t you remember
that I said we mustn’t ask him. I wouldn’t have had you do it for the
world.”

“I don’t see why, Honor. You asked Miss Madison to come the other day.
Why can’t we ask Mr. Madison?”

“The cases are very different,” said Honor, somewhat severely, “and you
ought not to have done what I told you not to.”

“Oh dear me,” cried Sophy, tears again trembling on her lashes, “I only
wanted to make Peter better, and I didn’t really ask him to come! I only
said I wished he was our brother, for then he’d be here.”

“You didn’t say that, surely, Sophy!” exclaimed Katherine.

“Why, yes!” said Sophy, surprise at Katherine’s vehemence drying her
tears. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Never mind,” interposed Honor. “It is too late now, but another time,
Sophy, please be more careful to do exactly as I say. Isn’t it time for
you to go to your music lesson, Katherine? I am going to Aunt Sophia’s
room to see if she wants anything. Come, Sophy.”

But Sophy declined to accompany her. She sat on the top step of the
stairs, waiting for Vic to emerge from her locked room or for Mr. Madison
to leave Peter. She thought her sisters were all very peculiar to-day.
She had heard Victoria’s remark to Mr. Madison and she wondered what she
could have meant. She stored it away in the recesses of her memory,
intending to ask about it when a convenient opportunity should present
itself.

When Roger Madison was left alone with Peter, he quietly closed the door,
and drawing up the chair which Victoria had vacated he sat down near the
bed.

“I am sure you want to hear all about your brave, good dog,” said he;
“and so I have come to tell you. He saved his master’s life if ever a dog
did. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t be lying here now. Would you
like me to tell you about it?”

“Yes,” said Peter.

And then Mr. Madison described to him the scene on the bridge.

“It was a glorious end for Sirius,” said he, when he had finished. “I
know you feel badly enough about losing your dog. So should I. Indeed, I
went through very much the same experience myself once, when I was a
little younger than you—no, perhaps about your age. You are fourteen,
aren’t you? I lost a dog that I was very fond of, and if it hadn’t been
for my sister I should have been very selfish about it. She showed me how
I ought to take it.”

“Oh, it’s easy for girls to talk,” said Peter. “They’ve all been in here
this afternoon, telling me I ought to bear it, and make the best of it,
and all that. As if I could ever get over losing Sirius, the best dog
that ever lived! It is ridiculous for those girls to talk the way they
do.”

“My dear fellow,” said Roger Madison, “do you know that you are a very
lucky fellow to have those sisters? I’ve often wondered whether you
appreciated them. I have one sister, and I wouldn’t give her up for all
the money in the world. You have four, so you ought to be four times as
grateful.”

“For four sisters?” said Peter, incredulously. “They’re nice enough, of
course, but they order a fellow round too much, and they don’t
understand. They seem to think I oughtn’t to mind about Sirius a bit.”

“I don’t think they feel that way. They have been very much worried about
you, and they have felt pretty badly, I can tell you, about Sirius’s
death and the way you would feel it. I happen to know that, and I also
know that your sister Victoria has been crying about it this afternoon.”

“Vic crying?” Peter seemed to be as much impressed by this fact as Sophy
had been.

“They are about the pluckiest girls that I ever knew,” continued Madison.
“If they were my sisters, I should be mighty proud of them, I can tell
you. I’ve no doubt that you are too, and are doing all you can to help.”

“There is nothing I can do,” said Peter, gloomily. “Just lying here and
looking out at the trees and wishing I was out there. And I’ve been
wanting Sirius so much and wishing he could come to me, and now I’ll
never see him again.” He turned his face away as he had done before.

“Peter,” said his friend, “I like you and I think there’s good stuff in
you. Here’s a chance for you to show it. You can be a hero just as much
as Sirius was, though in a very different way. You have a good deal to
bear. A broken leg is no small matter, and the loss of your dog is a
great sorrow to you, but if you try to be brave about it all, and try to
make things easier for your sisters while you are laid up instead of
worrying them in any way, I think you will be doing a good deal. I know
it’s hard. We men are not very patient, and we don’t bear pain and
discomfort as well as women do. Do you know that?”

“No,” said Peter, scornfully; “that can’t be!”

“Indeed it is so. If one of your sisters had broken her leg and were
lying here, she would probably be three times as patient as either you or
I should be.”

“Honor or Vic, perhaps,” remarked Peter, “but not Katherine.”

“Well, I’m not able to judge of that, of course, but I wish you would
show that our sex occasionally does know how to behave under trying
circumstances. I wish you’d do your best to be a hero. I was ill once,
and when I got well, they told me I had nearly driven them all crazy,—I
was so impatient and exacting,—so you see I don’t exactly practise what I
preach. But that was a good while ago.”

“I wish you’d come to see me again,” said Peter, when his new friend rose
to take leave. “You may say that girls are so fine, and all that, but I’d
like to talk to you once in a while. I want to ask you something. I think
I’ll ask you now. Don’t you think it’s pretty mean that I’m so much
younger than the others, and that the girls have to work, when if I’d
been the eldest I could have taken care of them?”

“My dear boy,” said Roger Madison, “depend upon it, you are placed in the
family just where you are most needed. God knows better than we do about
such things, as He does about everything else, and He intended you to be
of use just where you are. And I think He means you to begin at once to
be of use; and you can be so by being as brave as Sirius was. There are
several kinds of courage and they are equally good. The courage to be
patient and cheerful and kind when you don’t feel like it counts for as
much in the eyes of God as the courage which saves a life. I don’t often
talk like this, but I’m interested in you, Peter, and I want you to be
the man I think you have it in you to be. Good-bye. I’ll come in again
to-morrow, if you like.”



CHAPTER XV.
VICTORIA MEETS WITH DIFFICULTIES.


“IT seems to me that you are not as proficient as one would expect. There
are a number of mistakes in this letter. How long have you been using the
typewriter, Victoria?”

“Not very long, Aunt Sophia.”

“But how long?”

“A few—at least, some weeks.”

“Weeks? I supposed that you had owned one for months. In fact, it has
never been explained to me where you got it nor how you happened to get
it. Who bought the typewriter?”

“Er—we did.”

“But which one of you? I am under the impression that it belongs to
Katherine. Am I right? Did she buy it?”

There was no reply. The aunt and niece were in Mrs. Wentworth Ward’s room
this afternoon in June, engaged with the correspondence of the latter. It
was a beautiful day, and Victoria longed to be out of doors. She had
watched Katherine go across the lawn with her music-roll under her arm,
and she knew that she was going to the house on the hill to read music
with Miss Madison. Honor was sitting under the trees with Sophy and
Peter, who was able now to be out of doors, lying stretched out in a
steamer chair. Victoria alone was in the house this golden afternoon;
and, anxious though she was to finish her task and be off,—no doubt for
that very reason,—she had never worked so slowly. Her mistakes were
innumerable, and several times she had been obliged to rewrite a note
because of her aunt’s dissatisfaction with its appearance.

“Which one of you bought the typewriter?” repeated Mrs. Ward.

“Why do you want to know, Aunt Sophia?”

“I have my reasons. Who bought it?”

“Katherine did.”

“Ah, I thought so! I was sure that Honor told me so. And why does not
Katherine use it?”

“She has so much else to do.”

“And yet she seems to have time to go to the Madisons’ almost, if not
quite every day. Katherine is selfish.”

“Oh, Aunt Sophia, I don’t think so!”

“You may not think so, but that does not alter the facts. She is both
selfish and extravagant—two serious faults. It is well for all of you
that she is in a fair way to make a good match, but I am sorry for the
young man.”

“Why, Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?” asked Victoria, gazing at her aunt
in surprise.

“My dear, you must see for yourself what I mean. I shall say no more, but
it is a self-evident fact. I will talk to Honor about it. There is
nothing to be said against his family, and he seems to be a very nice
young man,—good manners, good-looking, and all that, but Katherine is
very young.”

“Young! I should think so,” said Victoria, indignantly. “Katherine hasn’t
an idea of anything of the kind, and I don’t see why it should ever have
occurred to you, Aunt Sophia. Can’t people, men and women, I mean, be
good friends without _that_ being thought of?”

“Very seldom, my dear. But why you should be so disturbed by my remarks I
cannot imagine. Your cheeks are flushed, and your eyes are like saucers.
One would think that I had suggested something quite unusual and very
much to be dreaded, instead of an event which would be most desirable in
every way.”

“I don’t think it would be desirable at all!” exclaimed Victoria. “Excuse
me, Aunt Sophia, for contradicting you, but I can’t help it. It would be
perfectly hateful to have either Honor or Katherine married, and to Mr.
Madison of all people. Oh, it couldn’t possibly be!”

“But why not, Victoria? Why have you such an aversion for Mr. Madison?”

“Oh, because,” said Victoria, breaking down somewhat lamely. “I don’t
want them to marry any one. I wish you hadn’t told me. Not that I think
there is anything in it at all, but—but it just makes me think about it.”

“I most sincerely wish I had not,” rejoined Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “It has
quite prevented your being of any further assistance to me this
afternoon, and we may as well lay aside these other papers. You are
usually so sensible that I supposed you would be so in this case. It is
quite absurd for you to become so excited. There is another question that
I wish to speak about to one of you, but I will wait until I see Honor.
She is the proper one.”

“Won’t I do, Aunt Sophia?”

Victoria was sorry that she had allowed her excitement to run away with
her. If it had been any one but Roger Madison whom her aunt had suggested
as a possible husband for Katherine, she could have borne it better, but
try as she would, and much as she really liked the young man, she could
not overcome the feeling that she had about him in regard to the sale of
the etchings.

That affair had assumed astounding proportions in her mind. From constant
brooding over it without imparting the facts of the case to any one else,
she had greatly exaggerated their importance. It seemed to her out of the
question that Katherine should be allowed to become engaged while in
ignorance of it, and in that event, Honor too should be told, and yet
after her long silence she dreaded speaking of it. She wished that she
could ask the advice of some one else, some older person, but there was
no one. If it were upon any other subject, she would go at once to Miss
Madison, she thought, who was so kind and friendly, but under the
circumstances of course that was out of the question.

Even though Victoria and Roger Madison had met that afternoon in Peter’s
room, she had tried since to avoid him. This was not easy, for he came to
the house very frequently, ostensibly to see Peter. Was it really to see
Katherine? She wondered what other alarming news her Aunt Sophia might
have to disclose. Something disagreeable, she had no doubt, and she would
try to save Honor from hearing it.

“I hope you will tell me,” she said, as she watched her aunt fold up the
unanswered letters, replace them in their envelopes, and lay them away in
the proper pigeon-hole in her desk. “I will try not to be so excited over
this, but the other was such a surprise.”

“I have no doubt this will be also,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward, “and
probably you will take up the cudgels in defence of the young man just as
violently as you have scouted the idea of Katherine’s plans.”

“Her plans? And what young man? Are you again speaking of Mr. Madison?”

“Not by any means. I am speaking of the young man who attends to so much
of your gardening, and who, as far as I can make out, has more confidence
reposed in him, than any one else who comes to Glen Arden. I mean David.”

“David? Dave Carney? Why, Aunt Sophia, what is the trouble about him? We
have always found him so satisfactory.”

“Exactly so, and therefore you have never taken the trouble to find out
anything else about him. Where did you get him in the first place?”

“Peter met him in Fordham, and brought him home.”

“And do you mean to tell me that is all you know about him? Did you look
up his references?”

“No-o, I don’t think so—at least, I’m not sure. Honor attends to all such
things. But why, Aunt Sophia? What makes you ask?”

“I have reason to suspect him,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “When I was in
Boston yesterday I saw him, or some one who closely resembled him, going
into a pawnbroker’s shop, and since then I have questioned Ellen
Higgins.”

Ellen Higgins was Mrs. Ward’s maid whom she had brought with her to Glen
Arden.

“And what does she say?” asked Victoria. She did not fancy Ellen herself,
and since her advent there had been endless trouble in the kitchen.

“She does not like him, and she thinks you trust him entirely too much.”

Victoria felt like replying, “I wish Ellen Higgins would mind her own
business,” but she restrained herself. Instead she remarked:

“We all like Dave Carney, and we have found him very satisfactory, but I
think, after all, that Honor is the one for you to speak to about him.
And now if you will excuse me, I will go—that is, if you have quite
finished with the work.”

“I have finished because you were doing it so badly,” said her aunt. “I
am ashamed to send such miserable typewriting as you did this afternoon.”

“Why not let me write the letters over with a pen, Aunt Sophia? I write a
very clear hand, you know.”

“I prefer the typewriter for many reasons, and as you own one, you should
be able to make use of it, even if Katherine was the one to buy it. I am
astonished at you all. You are very headstrong. Now you may go.”

And Victoria quickly took her departure.

  [Picture: “She found her eldest sister sitting on a rustic bench under
                 the trees, with her work in her hands”]

Her mind was filled with the new ideas presented to her, but she found
time to wonder why her aunt was not willing to have her notes and various
documents written in a good clear hand with a pen, instead of insisting
upon having them typewritten. But such a question was of minor
importance, she thought, as she ran downstairs and across the lawn. Even
if she could not tell Honor what was troubling her about Katherine, it
would be a comfort to be near her.

She had two secrets now to keep from her sisters, and strangely enough,
they were both connected with Roger Madison. Victoria felt that life had
become very complicated within the last few months.

She found her eldest sister sitting on a rustic bench under the trees,
with her work in her hands. She was making a dress for Sophy, who was
playing with her doll, but who was so deeply interested in Peter’s
occupation that the doll was frequently neglected.

Peter was lying back in his chair while he held an opera-glass to his
eyes and gazed up into the branches of the tree above him. No one had
spoken for some time, and when Victoria drew near, her brother held up
his hand with a gesture of warning.

“Hush!” he whispered.

Victoria sank quietly upon the grass and waited. It gave her time to
think over her aunt’s disturbing speeches, and for this she was not
sorry.

The silence lasted for some minutes, and then Peter put down his glass.

“It’s a robin’s nest,” said he. “I thought it was, from the shape. I bet
if we could see into it, we’d find it was lined with mud. Robins’ nests
always are. The young ones are getting quite big, and one is terribly
greedy when the old ones come. I daresay it is a cowbird.”

“But you said they were robins, Peter,” said Sophy.

“I know I did, but that doesn’t prevent a cowbird being there too, does
it? That is just what those hateful cowbirds do. They are too lazy to
build nests of their own, but they go and lay their eggs in other birds’
nests whenever they get a chance, and never go near them again. Then the
cowbird’s egg gets hatched with the robin’s or the catbird’s eggs, or
whatever nest it happens to have been laid in, and the little cowbird is
awfully greedy and snatches all the food, and grows up to be just like
its parents. Oh, they are hateful birds! I was reading about them to-day
in a book Mr. Madison lent me on birds. It said there that no
self-respecting American bird will have anything to do with cowbirds.
English sparrows are the only birds that will go with them. I thought
that was pretty good, for every one knows that an English sparrow hasn’t
much self-respect. I’m sure that is a cowbird up there, poking its head
so far out and snatching, every time the old robins come with the worms.”

“Oh, Peter, I wish you would let me look!” said Sophy, in pleading tones.

Peter hesitated. He was very much interested in the proceedings in the
tree; the opera-glass was adjusted to exactly the right point for his
eyes, and in all probability Sophy would move it—she always did. Then,
again, Sophy would never be able to locate the nest, and much valuable
time would be wasted for nothing.

He was about to refuse her request when a new idea occurred to him. After
all, it was not much to do for Sophy, who had been so devoted to him ever
since his accident. She had run up and down stairs for him forty times a
day. In fact, she had gone to the house a short time ago when he had
expressed a wish for the opera-glass, and had brought it to him, and
again for a book on birds. She never refused to do what he asked; on the
contrary, she was eager to please him.

Peter handed her the glass.

“Look right up the trunk of the tree, Soph,” he said kindly, “till you
get to the second branch from the top to the right, and a little way
along that, leaning up against a small branch that isn’t much more than a
twig, is the robin’s nest. Do you see? With all those heads sticking out.
They’re getting hungry, I guess, for the old birds haven’t been back for
ten minutes at least. They hear us talking, I suppose, and are afraid to
come. Keep very quiet, now, if you’ve found the nest, and watch.”

Sophy, greatly pleased, peered up into the tree and waited. She had
scarcely dared hope that Peter would allow her to look, and her heart was
filled with an overpowering love for the brother who was so good to her.

It was a little thing for him to do, perhaps, but Peter felt happier than
if he had declined to point out the nest to Sophy, and even though it did
take her a long time to find it, and though she turned the screw to and
fro in her efforts to see better, and retained possession of the glass
for at least ten minutes, he was glad on the whole that he had lent it to
her.

Victoria sat upon the grass, absent-mindedly poking a hole in the ground
with a bit of stick that she had found, and thinking about the very
disturbing topic that had been suggested to her by her aunt. She did not
pay much attention to the remarks about Dave Carney, for she considered
her aunt a very prejudiced person who had objected to the boy’s presence
at Glen Arden from the first.

The news about Katherine was far more alarming, and while she thought
about it the sound of voices was heard in the distance, and the very
persons of whom she was thinking were seen coming down the avenue towards
the group under the trees.

“Dear me,” exclaimed Peter, impatiently, “here they all come! Now I shall
have no chance at the birds at all. Mr. Madison is an awfully good
fellow, but I wish he had stayed away this afternoon.”

Victoria’s glance chanced to rest upon Honor at this moment, and she was
surprised to see a peculiar expression cross her face and the color
deepen in her cheeks. She wondered if Aunt Sophia’s absurd ideas about
Katherine and Roger Madison could possibly have occurred to her as well.
In that case, perhaps they were not so absurd. She really thought she
must talk to Honor about it that very night. There could be no harm in
doing so, and she felt that she was incapable of bearing the burden of
two secrets.

In the meantime there was no necessity for staying where she was if Roger
Madison were coming, so Victoria rose at their approach, and waving her
hand to them walked back to the house.

“Why does your sister, Victoria, always run away from us?” said Miss
Madison, as she seated herself beside Honor. “I like her so much, and I
wish I could see more of her.”

“She doesn’t run away from _you_,” said Sophy before Honor could reply.
Miss Madison as well as her brother was a great favorite with the child,
and she would have liked to gaze for hours at the beautiful face had her
sisters not admonished her so frequently for staring.

“It’s your brother,” she added.

“But why my brother?” said Miss Madison in surprise.

“I don’t know,” said the truthful Sophy, “but ever since you came I’ve
noticed that Vic ran away from your brother, and the other day when she
was in Peter’s room and didn’t know he was coming and I brought him in,
Vic said: ‘Don’t tell any one. I’ve tried not to meet you. Nobody knows
it.’ I asked her afterwards what she meant, and she wouldn’t tell me.”

“Why, Sophy, what are you talking about?” asked Honor.

“Mr. Madison knows, don’t you?” said the child, turning to him. “Will you
tell me what Vic meant?”

“Certainly not, if Miss Victoria won’t tell you herself,” said he; “I
think you must ask her. Did you see the bird’s nest?”

“Yes, I did,” said Sophy, nodding her head wisely, “but you are only
trying to get out of telling me by changing the subject. We weren’t
talking about birds.”

“But we will talk about them now, Sophy,” said Honor, quietly, while she
wondered what the child could mean. “We have been studying birds all the
afternoon, Mr. Madison, and there are several questions that I know Peter
wants to ask you.”

But Honor determined to speak to Victoria that very night, for she too
had noticed her peculiar conduct, so unlike Vic’s usual open and cordial
manner. There must be some reason for it, and Honor would have questioned
her about it before this had there not been so many other things to
occupy their minds.

It was a beautiful evening, and after supper the family sat on the piazza
while the twilight deepened after the long June day, and in time the
light of the moon made itself felt, and shone down upon the lawn where
the trees cast such strange shadows.

Peter lay in the hammock until his bedtime, and after he and Sophy had
gone upstairs and Mrs. Ward into the house to establish herself with her
book by the parlor lamp, with the remark that she had no time to waste in
moon gazing, the three sisters were left alone.

Victoria, who was anxious to speak with Honor, wished that there was
something which would take Katherine into the house or elsewhere, that
she might have the desired opportunity, for her words were meant for
Honor’s ears alone.

Honor, while equally desirous of speaking to Victoria, was perfectly
willing to do so in Katherine’s presence. The three had always been in
the habit of talking freely together, and so Honor opened the subject at
once.

“Why do you always try to avoid the Madisons, Vic?” said she, suddenly.

Victoria started guiltily. How strange, she thought, that Honor should
have pounced upon the very topic that was occupying her mind.

“Do I?” said she. It was a difficult matter for Victoria to attempt
evasion.

“Yes. You know you do. There must be some reason for it. We have all
noticed it, and Miss Madison spoke of it this afternoon.”

“I don’t try to avoid _her_,” said Victoria.

“No, we know that,” said Katherine, “but you do avoid Roger, and it is
very strange.”

“Roger! Do you call him Roger?” asked Victoria, somewhat icily.

“Oh, no, of course not to his face,” rejoined Katherine, impatiently,
“but I hear his sister speak of him so often that I did it then without
thinking.”

“I don’t think you ought to,” said Honor. “You might do it without
thinking before him.”

“You must think I am very stupid,” laughed Katherine, “and I am not quite
so ignorant of the ways of the world as all that! Honor, you are too
funny about Roger Mad—I mean, Mr. Madison, begging all your pardons! He
is so nice and jolly, and sings so well, but you never will go there
much, and Vic is still queerer. Come now, Vicky, and tell us why you run
away from him.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” replied Victoria, in a somewhat stifled
voice. “I wish you wouldn’t ask me such unnecessary questions.”

“They are not unnecessary, dear,” said Honor, gently. “If you have any
reason for doing it, you really ought to tell us. When it reaches such a
pass that even little Sophy speaks of it, and repeated before us all this
afternoon what you said to Mr. Madison the day you met him in Peter’s
room, I really think you ought to explain.”

“Did Sophy do that?” exclaimed Victoria. “What did she say?”

“That you begged Mr. Madison not to tell any one, and that you had tried
not to meet him, and that no one knew it. It is certainly very
mysterious, Vic, and I think you ought to tell us.”

Victoria, sitting on the steps with her white dress gleaming in the
moonlight, was silent. She would like to tell them the whole story.
Should she do so? But then, if Katherine—she stopped short, even in her
thoughts. She wished that her Aunt Sophia had never presented so
disagreeable an idea to her imagination.

Should she tell them, or should she not? It would be a distinct relief to
talk it over with them, and to feel free at last from the burden of a
secret. She was about to speak when Katherine motioned to her to be
silent.

“Wait a minute,” Katherine said in a whisper. She had been watching
intently the clump of trees and shrubbery, near the side of the house,
which separated them from the flower garden. “I’m sure I heard something
or somebody moving, and I thought I saw the shadow of a man. Who can it
be?”

“Let’s go find out,” said Victoria, promptly, glad to have the matter
decided for her and the subject changed. “It was probably a night-hawk or
an owl. It couldn’t be a man, Katherine!”

The three went around the corner of the house and walked about among the
shrubbery. No thought of fear entered their minds.

“It is nothing, after all,” said Katherine at last. “I must have been
mistaken, but it was exactly like the shadow of a man.”

“Well, I am going to bed as long as your shadow isn’t going to
materialize,” said Victoria; “so good night, girls!” And abruptly leaving
them, she went into the house.

“It is funny about Vic, isn’t it, Honor?” said Katherine. “I mean that
she won’t explain why she doesn’t like Mr. Madison.”

“Very, and I am going to speak to her again about it. Perhaps she would
tell me more if we were alone.”

“You mean without me? Why, I should like to know? However, if you do find
out, you mustn’t fail to tell me, for I really am most curious about it.”



CHAPTER XVI.
MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS.


VICTORIA went upstairs to her room, but it was long before she went to
bed. Sophy was fast asleep in her little bed in the corner, and Victoria
knew that there was no danger of her waking. The shades at the two
windows had been drawn as high as they would go, and the moonlight
streamed in, lying in white patches upon the floor and making the room as
light as day.

Victoria sat down in the shadow near one of the windows and looked out
into the night. Her room was next to that of her aunt, and over the
dining-room. Beneath her window was the shrubbery in which Katherine had
heard the suspicious sounds a short time since. Beyond lay the flower
garden, the beds bathed in the moonlight, and the roses lifting their
heads to catch the dew. On the other side of the flower garden was the
vegetable patch, and beyond that again the pasture and the woods.

The window near which she sat was directly above the bay-window of the
dining-room, the roof of which projected from the side of the house.
Vines grew up over the dining-room window and had been trained on either
side of Victoria’s, so that in summer time she looked through a veritable
bower of green, and this year a pair of bluebirds had built their nest
there and sometimes wakened her in the early dawn with their sweet
singing.

Victoria sat for a long time quite motionless. She heard her aunt come up
to her room and, after a half-hour of activity, subside into the
tranquillity of night. She felt it to be a merciful arrangement of human
affairs and habits that people were forced to rest for a few hours out of
the twenty-four, otherwise the stirring nature of Mrs. Wentworth Ward
would know no calm.

She heard Katherine mount to her rooms in the third story, and Honor go
to hers on the other side of the house.

At last all was still. Victoria’s brain, wide awake and unusually alert
for this hour of the night, was still occupied with the tiresome topics
of the afternoon. She felt that she could not sleep until she had
imparted some of the new ideas with which it was teeming to some one, and
that some one must be Honor. Her sister could not yet be asleep, Victoria
thought; so leaving her window wide open, she went across the hall and
around the gallery to Honor’s room and knocked softly on the door. Her
sister opened it at once.

“What is the matter, Vic?” she asked. “Are you ill? Why, you are still in
your dress, and you came up two hours ago!”

“I know it. Hush, Honor, don’t speak so loud! I don’t want any one to
hear me. Do you mind if I come in and talk? Are you very sleepy?”

“No, not a bit sleepy. Come in, of course. I want especially to see you.
What is the matter, Vic? You have looked so anxious all the afternoon,
and not a bit like yourself. What is it?”

“It is all Aunt Sophia,” said Victoria, curling herself up on the foot of
the bed.

“Aunt Sophia! Why, what has she been saying? I thought you were too busy,
when you were with her, to talk.”

“Is Aunt Sophia ever too busy to say what she wants to?”

“But what was it about?”

“Dave Carney, for one thing.”

Honor laughed. “Surely, my dear child, you are not staying up half the
night just because Aunt Sophia sees fit to criticise Dave Carney? If I
minded her as much as that, I should never sleep a wink after she had
been talking about poor B. Lafferty, who, by the way, declares that she
is going to-morrow ‘for certain sure!’ What does she say about Dave?”

“Oh, she doesn’t think he is honest, because she was sure she saw him
going into a pawnbroker’s shop. As if that proved anything! She might
just as well say that I wasn’t, because I sold the gold and the—”
Victoria paused.

“Not quite the same thing,” said Honor, “for you really had the things to
sell; but I can’t imagine where Dave Carney gets anything to pawn. But I
can’t think why you are so worried, Vic. Aunt Sophia has been saying that
sort of thing all our lives.”

“Oh, I know that. It isn’t _that_ I am worried about, of course, Honor.
She was speaking about something else, that I hadn’t thought of before.
Something about Katherine.”

“What about her?” asked Honor, quickly.

“Well, she said first that she was selfish and extravagant, and then—I
really hate to repeat it, Honor, for it doesn’t seem a bit nice, but I
must tell you—then she said it didn’t make so much difference as she was
going to marry a rich man, or ‘make a good match,’ as she expressed it.
Don’t you think it was rather disagreeable for Aunt Sophia to say that?
And whom _do_ you suppose she meant, Honor?”

“Mr. Madison, of course.”

Honor’s voice was so peculiar that Victoria glanced at her sharply, but
it was too dark in the room for her to see her face very clearly.

“Yes, Mr. Madison; but I don’t see how you happened to guess it so
quickly.”

“Chiefly because there is no one else whom Aunt Sophia could possibly
mean. There isn’t another man in the neighborhood.”

“But, Honor, have you noticed anything? Do you think that Katherine—well,
that she cares for him? Of course he likes her, he couldn’t help liking
her, but—oh, I don’t know! It doesn’t seem a bit nice to talk about
Katherine this way, and I wish Aunt Sophia hadn’t said anything. I told
her that probably they were just good friends, and she said that was
almost impossible. Don’t you think that is a most ridiculous idea,
Honor?”

“Very ridiculous, and I agree with you that it isn’t very nice to talk
about it. I know lots of girls do, and we should be considered very
old-fashioned and peculiar not to want to. We are different from most
girls, and I think we feel differently about those things. So don’t let
us say any more, Vic, unless Katherine wants to speak about it herself.”

“And there is nothing for us to do?”

“No,” said Honor, very quietly, “there is nothing for us to do.” And
then, very much to the surprise of Victoria, she hid her face in the
pillow.

“Why, are you so sleepy, Honor?” asked the younger sister. “You don’t
look so. What is the matter?”

“No, I’m not really sleepy, but—but I think we have talked long enough,
Vicky dear! If you don’t mind, I would rather not say any more.”

“But I haven’t been here more than fifteen minutes, Honor, and there is
something else that I thought of telling you.”

“Not to-night, please, dear. I would rather not talk any more to-night,
if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Well, just as you say, of course!” said Victoria, as she got up. “I
think you are very queer, though. You said you were glad to see me and
that you wanted to talk about something yourself, and now, almost right
away, you tell me to go! What did you want to say to me?”

“Don’t be huffy, dear! I know I did want to, but really, I can’t talk
about anything more to-night. I—I have a headache.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” cried Victoria, her resentment fading at once. “Why
didn’t you tell me so before? I thought you looked different from usual.
Can’t I do anything for you? It was a shame for me to come and bother
you, but you seemed glad to have me when I came. Shall I bathe your head
with cologne?”

“No, I thank you. If I once get asleep, I shall be all right, and it is
really pretty late, Vic. It is nearly twelve o’clock. You had better go
to bed right away. Good night, dear.”

Honor was almost pushing her sister out of the room as she spoke, and
Victoria heard her close and lock the door behind her.

“If Honor isn’t too funny!” she said to herself. “Locking me out,
actually! Well, if she isn’t going to worry, there is no need of my doing
so. People never do what you expect them to. Honor is certainly queer.

    ‘Jog on, jog on the footpath way’—

Why, how very peculiar! I am sure I didn’t leave my door open.”

She had reached her own room and paused before the open door. She had
certainly not left it open, because of the draught which Sophy would have
been in between it and the window. Perhaps the breeze had blown it open,
and yet that did not seem possible, for the night was a still one, and it
seemed to be growing warmer. She went into the room and found Sophy
sitting up in bed.

“Oh, is that you, Vic?” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad! Have you just come
up? And did you meet Dave?”

“My dear child, you must be dreaming! Of course I didn’t meet Dave. It is
the middle of the night.”

“But Dave just went through here,” said Sophy. “I heard a sound that woke
me up, and when I opened my eyes there was Dave just going out the door.
Didn’t you see him?”

“Dearest, I know you have been dreaming,” said Victoria, sitting down
beside her little sister and taking her hand. “I tell you, it is after
twelve o’clock, and Dave is probably sound asleep in his room at the
barn. You know he is never upstairs here, and of course he wouldn’t be
going through our room at any hour. You have such vivid dreams sometimes,
Sophy. Don’t you remember the one about the pony that you thought was
here in the room?”

Sophy laughed. “That was a funny one,” she said, “and the other about the
animals that could talk, after Peter had been reading those stories to
me. Well, perhaps you’re right, Vic, and this was a dream about Dave, but
it was a very clear one, and I was frightened when I woke up and you
weren’t here. Are you going to bed now?”

“Yes, very quickly, and you must try to go to sleep right away, it is so
late.”

Sophy obediently lay down and was soon fast asleep again.

“Funny how the child dreams,” thought Victoria, “and it was funny, too,
that I should have left the door open. Something must have blown down in
the breeze and waked her up, and that was the noise she heard. Yes, here
is a photograph on the floor, and this little book that was near the edge
of my table. It must have been a pretty strong wind to blow that off, and
yet it seems so warm now.”

And before long Victoria was herself asleep, having dismissed her cares
and anxieties with the determination to think no more about them. If
Honor was not troubled by them, why should she be?

It seemed to Victoria that she had been asleep but a few moments when she
was awakened by a sharp and excited rapping upon her door. It must be
morning, however, for instead of the moon which had lighted her room when
she went to sleep, the sun was now shining in the heavens, already quite
high and well advanced upon his day’s journey.

“Vic,” said Honor’s voice in the hall, “open your door quickly! The most
dreadful thing has happened.”

Victoria sprang to let her in.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The house has been robbed,” said Honor. “Burglars have been here, and
everything downstairs has been ransacked! Oh, Vic, isn’t it too
dreadful?”

Victoria was speechless with surprise and consternation.

“I thought I heard a noise in the night,” continued Honor; “I didn’t
sleep very well, and I thought of going down to the dining-room to get a
glass of water. Oh, Vic, suppose I had! I should have met them! Instead,
I took some water from the pitcher in my room, and I remember setting the
pitcher down on the floor with quite a hard thump. It was after that, I
think, that I heard a sound like a door shutting. It grew very warm in
the night, and I opened my window with quite a noise. I shouldn’t wonder
if it had frightened them off.”

“Have they taken much?” asked Victoria.

“I don’t know yet, for everything is in confusion. Blanch came up to tell
me. The silver was most of it in my room, fortunately. It is a good thing
we are in the habit of bringing it up every night. How do you suppose
they got in?”

“I can imagine. Do you remember, Honor, that Katherine thought she heard
some one in the shrubbery? I do wonder if the burglar was hiding there!
How perfectly horrible it seems!”

“And we walked about there looking for him! I must go up and tell
Katherine, and when you are dressed, we will go down and make a careful
search.”

In the meantime, Sophy had waked up, and, hearing the news, could
scarcely control her excitement. She flew about the room, constantly
getting into Victoria’s way, begging to be helped with her innumerable
buttons, and asking a thousand questions.

“What is a buggler, Vic?” she demanded. “I always thought a buggler was
some kind of a bug, like a buffalo bug, or something of that sort. Is it
really a real live man? And what did he want in our house? And how did he
get in, Vic, with the doors all locked and bolted? I say, Vic, how did he
get in?”

“I don’t know,” said Vic. “Sophy, do please get out of my way! I’m in
such a hurry. Go stand by the window, there’s a good girl!”

“But won’t you tell me what a buggler is?” pleaded Sophy. “I won’t stir
if you’ll only tell me.”

“It’s a robber. Do you know what that is?”

“Of course I do. That is a sensible name. Any one would know that a
robber robs, but a buggler!”

“A buggler doesn’t bug,” said Victoria, laughing in spite of her hurry
and dismay. “Let me tell you that it is _burglar_, and not buggler.”

Sophy had by this time taken up her station by the window.

“Why, Vic,” she cried, looking out, “did you know that all the vines are
torn round this window? They’re just streaming! What do you s’pose has
made ’em so?”

Victoria ran to look.

“They weren’t so last night,” said she. “Sophy, it looks exactly as if
some one had climbed up here. Do you think the man could possibly have
come in this way?”

She stood by the window, reviewing hastily in her mind the events of the
night. She had sat there for a long time and then had left the room. She
had been absent not more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and when she
came back the door was open. It gave her a most uncomfortable sensation
to feel that the robber had actually been in her very room.

“I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” said Sophy. “You know I dreamed Dave Carney
went through the room.”

So she had! Perhaps—perhaps, after all, it had not been a dream! Victoria
felt a sudden and unaccountable weakness, and she was forced to sit down
for a moment. Surely it could not have been Dave Carney who had thus
entered the house of his benefactors!

“Sophy,” said Victoria, “don’t say anything about that dream, will you?
Promise me that you won’t tell any one that you dreamed that about Dave.”

“Why, no, Vic; I won’t, if you don’t want me to; but why not? Why can’t I
tell?”

“I have good reasons, Sophy dear, but I haven’t time to explain them now;
but you know it is fun to have a secret with me, isn’t it?”

“Oh, very well,” said Sophy, greatly pleased with the idea. “Yes, I do
love secrets with you, Vic. I’ll never tell.”

Downstairs all was in confusion. The dining-room had apparently been
entered first, for the most thorough work had been done here. Drawers
stood open, closets and sideboard were in confusion. The china had been
left untouched, but the silver candlesticks and the old snuffers with
their tray were gone, and some small articles in silver and plated ware
which had not been carried upstairs at night with the table silver and
the service.

A clock, which had stood upon the dining-room mantel-shelf, had been
carried into the parlor and left there. No doubt the man or men had been
frightened off by the noise which Honor made when she set down her
pitcher and afterwards opened her window, for her room was over the
parlor. They had gone out by way of the front door, for it was found
unbolted. No other door or window had been disturbed, and it was
reasonable to suppose that one man had entered by way of Victoria’s room
and had then opened the front door to the others, if others there were.

It was astonishing that the man—who no doubt was the one in the shrubbery
whom Katherine had heard—should have chosen the exact time during which
Victoria was absent from the room to climb up over the dining-room
window, and that he had not seen Victoria, when she was sitting in her
room, as she said she had been doing for more than an hour. It could only
be explained by the fact that she had sat in a low chair a little back
from the window, and completely in the shadow. He had probably been
watching from the shrubbery, and, not seeing any one and finding the
window conveniently open, had determined to enter in that way, whatever
his previous plans may have been; and he had chosen exactly the right
moment for doing it.

Naturally enough, the Starrs were greatly excited by this occurrence, and
none more so than Mrs. Wentworth Ward. She quite resented the fact that
she had slept peacefully and unconsciously through the whole episode, and
seemed to take it as a personal grievance that she had not awakened and
descended in person to confront the burglar. The opportunity for that
having passed by, she consoled herself by making active investigations
into the amount of loss that had been sustained by her nieces, and by
trying to fit the cap of guilt upon some member of the household.

“It is absurd to think the man got in through Victoria’s room,” said she.
“It could not be! Her room is directly next to mine, and I should have
heard him. I am a very light sleeper, I assure you. Besides, how could he
have had the luck to choose the very time of all others when Victoria was
out of the room? What if the vines are torn? That proves nothing. No, no!
Depend upon it, some one _in this house_ opened the front door and let
them in. You know very little about that extremely ignorant maid of
yours. I have no doubt she was an accomplice.”

They had finished breakfast when Mrs. Ward made this statement and were
again in the parlor, and while they were talking, Mr. Madison was seen
approaching the house. He had come to ask Honor and Katherine to go out
on the river with his sister and himself that afternoon.

When he came in, Victoria glanced quickly from one sister to the other.
She was surprised to see that Honor was the one who looked embarrassed.
Her color certainly changed, and her manner was somewhat stiff.
Katherine, on the contrary, greeted the newcomer with her customary
frankness.

“You are just the very one we need,” said she. “Here we lone, lorn
women—the only man in the family laid up with a broken leg—have been
robbed! The only wonder is that we were not murdered as well.”

They told him the history of the night, and Madison’s advice was that the
matter should be placed in the hands of detectives at once. He offered to
do it for them, and thought it probable that their property would be
recovered, as such articles as the clock, and various other things that
had been taken from the parlor, would be of no use to the burglars unless
they were pawned. The silver candlesticks, on the contrary, could be
melted down.

“I think it couldn’t have been a very experienced thief,” said Roger. “An
old hand would have known better than to take plated things, as you say
some of them were. However, we will tell the whole story to the
detective. Suppose you leave things here just as they are. I will bring a
man out from Boston in the first train I can get. I could telegraph, I
suppose, for one to come, but it is just as well to move quietly in these
matters, and perhaps it will not take any longer to go to town. I am
inclined myself to the theory that the man came in the second-story
window. The open door which Miss Victoria found, and the torn vines seem
to point to that.”

“I do _not_ agree with you,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “My nieces, Mr.
Madison, quite against my better judgment, have insisted upon employing
two very inferior servants. One is the kitchen maid, who knows absolutely
nothing—in fact, to use a slang expression to which I seriously object—is
as green as the island she came from. The other is a farm boy, whom they
picked up no one knows where. I have no doubt that he could give some
information in regard to this robbery. Ellen Higgins, my own maid, who is
here, tells me that this boy is behaving most unaccountably this morning.
When he heard of the robbery, he first became very pale indeed, and then
turned very red, and since then he has shown every evidence of guilt. In
addition to this, with my own eyes I saw him going into a Boston
pawnbroker’s shop a day or two ago, as I told my niece Victoria only
yesterday.”

“Well, we will tell all that to the detectives,” said Madison. “They will
soon find out who the guilty one is.”

As he spoke, his glance fell upon Victoria. At the mention of Dave Carney
she too had become very white. She was thinking of Sophy’s dream. She
almost wished that she could get speech with Roger Madison alone. She
should like to tell him the whole story and ask him if there were not
some way of saving Dave from the iron hand of the law. She felt that if
he were arrested, it would stain his reputation forever.

She did not for a moment believe that he was guilty, and yet—there was
Sophy’s dream! Was it her duty to tell Mr. Madison this, or not? She
would certainly not give her Aunt Sophia the benefit of the information.
In the meantime Peter spoke.

“I know more about Dave Carney than any of you,” said he, “and you
needn’t try to make me think that he had anything to do with it. I’ve
been with him a lot, and I know him, and nobody has any right to say
anything about him in connection with it.”

But confidently as Peter spoke he too felt uneasy, for he distinctly
remembered the occasion of his first meeting with Carney.

He had been stealing apples!



CHAPTER XVII.
ON THE RIVER.


VICTORIA concluded that if she wished to save Dave Carney, her best
course was to say nothing to Mr. Madison. He would not be influenced by
any feeling of pity for Dave, she feared, and if he knew that Sophy had
imagined that the boy passed through the room, he would consider it his
duty to tell the detective of the fact.

Victoria remembered that Sophy had been very confident when the incident
occurred that she had not been dreaming, and the torn vines and the open
door proved conclusively that some one had climbed in at the window.
Victoria in her own mind was almost if not entirely convinced that it was
Carney, but there was nothing to cause any one else to suspect him,—with
the exception of her aunt, who suspected him on principle,—and if
Victoria remained silent, she hoped that the boy would escape.

But then, again, was this course right? If Carney were so depraved as to
steal from the family who had treated him with such kindness, surely it
was their duty to deliver him into the hands of justice. Victoria knew
that this would be Roger Madison’s opinion. She had just determined to
say nothing and to allow matters to take their course without
interference from her, when something which Peter said to her again
unsettled her.

The boy was in the hammock, which was hung across one end of the piazza
directly in front of the dining-room window. Seeing Victoria within,
where she was busily washing the breakfast dishes, he called to her to
come to him.

“What do you want?” asked Victoria, appearing on the other side of the
wire screen at the window, with a saucer in her hand which she was
vigorously wiping with a crash towel. “I’m awfully busy, Peter. It is
ironing day, you know, and Honor and Katherine are making the beds, so I
have to do the breakfast things alone. Sophy is helping me, but—you know
what that means!”

“I want to speak to you,” said Peter, raising himself on one arm, and
lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper. “It’s really very important,
Vic. About last night, you know. Can’t you come out here a minute? Is any
one else in there?”

“Only Sophy.”

“Not Aunt Sophia?”

“No; she is upstairs.”

“Oh, then do come out, quick! It’s a good chance. And shut that window. I
don’t want any one inside to hear me.”

Victoria saw that he had really something of importance to communicate,
so, leaving several articles upon the tray for Sophy to wipe during her
absence, and giving her strict injunctions to be careful, she closed the
dining-room window, and went around through the door to Peter on the
piazza.

“Have you seen Carney this morning?” he asked eagerly.

Victoria started. The mention of Carney’s name fitted so exactly with her
own thoughts.

“No,” she replied.

“Vic, do you think it could have been he? I wasn’t going to let on to
Aunt Sophia that I thought it for a minute, but I do feel kind of shaky
about it.”

“Why, Peter, do you really?” said Victoria. “Wouldn’t it—at least, why
should he have chosen that way of letting the burglars in? If it was
really Dave who opened the door, I should think he could have found some
other way of doing it. He is around the kitchen so much, he might have
left a window unbolted, or something of that sort. It would have been
easier than climbing up to my room. And now I come to think of it, Dave
knew that was my room. He came up there once, to hang my book shelves. He
never would have been so stupid as to climb in that way!”

Victoria’s tone expressed a sense of relief. She had not thought of this
before. She almost forgot her surprise at Peter’s suspicions.

“But, Vic,” said her brother, “I must tell you something I have never
told anybody, and it kind of bothers me. I never told you what Carney was
doing when I first saw him.”

“No. Was it anything wrong, Peter?”

“He was—now don’t you tell any one, Vic, unless we decide that we had
better. Now mind you don’t!”

“No, I won’t. Hurry, for I hear Sophy calling.”

“He was stealing apples from a barrel outside of a provision store in
Fordham.”

“Peter!”

“Yes, he was! I caught him at it. He said he hadn’t any money to buy
anything to eat, and he was awfully hungry, so I gave him some. And then
he helped me,—in that fight, you know,—and he came home with me.” Peter
could not yet endure to mention the name of Sirius.

“He seemed like such a nice fellow,” he continued, “and I thought it
would be a shame to give him a bad name by saying he’d been stealing. I
knew Honor would never have him here if I did, so I just kept quiet about
that, and didn’t even tell you, but I thought I had better to-day. I
don’t believe for a minute, though, that he had anything to do with the
robbery. I can’t think it, can you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Victoria, again remembering Sophy’s
so-called dream.

At that moment a loud crash sounded from within.

“Dear me,” cried Victoria, running into the house; “I do believe Sophy
has broken something!”

She found her small sister gazing in dismay at the floor, which was
strewn with broken glass.

“I never meant to!” she wailed, when she saw Victoria. “Indeed, Vic, I
never meant to! I was only going to help you carry the tumblers to the
china closet, and they all began to slip, and slide, and tumble off the
tray. Is that the reason they’re called tumblers, Vic? Because they
always tumble off? I never touched a tumbler when it didn’t tumble. Tell
me, Vic, is it? Oh, I’m awful sorry, but I was only helping!”

“I suppose you were, but, oh dear!” said Victoria, hurrying away for the
dust-pan and brush with which to sweep up the broken glass. “This is a
day of misfortunes! What the burglars have left you have broken.”

“Oh, not everything, Vic! How can you say so? There’s all the china,
dishes, and plates, and cups and saucers, and everything. I haven’t
broken those.”

“No, and please don’t try to,” said her sister, struggling to remain calm
and not to scold Sophy. A dozen good tumblers in atoms, and how could
they spare the money to buy more?

“I never tried to!” cried Sophy, bursting into tears and burying her face
in a dish-towel. “Oh, how can you say so? I never tried to break ’em!”

But for the first time in her life, Victoria turned a deaf ear to Sophy’s
lamentations, and the child fled upstairs to Honor for consolation. She
found her eldest sister in her own room. She was standing in the middle
of the floor and she was directly confronted by B. Lafferty, who, with
her hands on her hips, was haranguing her young mistress with all the
eloquence at her command.

Sophy forgot her own grievance in wonder as to what Blanch could be
talking about, and sidling up to Honor, she dried her tears and listened,
her big brown eyes fastened upon the crimson countenance of the
housemaid.

“I tell yer, I’m agoin’ ter go this very minute!” said Blanch. “I ain’t
agoin’ ter stay where insults is heaped upon me. I’ve put up with the
imperence of that proud an’ hotty girl long enough. Sayin’ she’s allus
lived on Beacon Street an’ ain’t never lived in the country afore! An’
has allus been in the house with three others, a cook, a laundress, an’
an upstairs girl! An’ now she an’ yer aunt be afther sayin’ as it was me
as let in the burglars, an’ me as sound asleep as anything an’ adreamin’
o’ the ould counthry, an niver a word did I hear of any burglars till I
come down this mornin’ an’ was agoin’ ter set the table for breakfast,
an’ lo an’ behold, all the drawers an’ the closets was astandin’ open an’
I not knowin’ at all what it all mint. An’ yer know yerself as Miss Vic’s
windy and doore was astandin’ wide open an’ the burglar walked in that
way as sure as anything, an’ they be afther sayin’ as it was me or young
Dave Carney as let ’em in, as honest a young feller as iver I seen. Oh, I
tell yer—”

“Just wait a minute, Blanch,” interposed Honor. “_I_ do not think that
you had anything to do with the robbery. Neither do my sisters, and we
are the ones to whom you are accountable. If you go away in the next
train, as you threaten to do, you will make others suspect you as well as
my aunt. It will look exactly as if you were afraid of being caught and
were running off. The detective who is coming out this morning will
certainly say that you had something to do with it if he finds that you
have gone, whereas if you stay quietly here and go about your work as
usual, no one will dream of accusing you.”

There was an amount of common sense in this statement which B. Lafferty,
excited though she was, could not fail to recognize.

“Very well,” said she, “I’ll stay till termorrow, but longer than that I
couldn’t put up with that girl from Beacon Street. It’s long enough I’ve
been afther standin’ it, and me keepin’ stiddy company with a widder man
an’ havin’ the chance to git married any day I’ll set!”

And so saying she departed to the kitchen, leaving her mistress, who had
recently been having a discussion with her aunt, strongly of the opinion
that residents of Beacon Street were indeed difficult to live with.

It was not long before Roger Madison returned, bringing with him a
detective. The man carefully examined the premises, took a list of the
missing articles with an exact description of them all, and interviewed
each member of the household.

There seemed to be no doubt that the person whom Katherine had heard in
the shrubbery had entered through the window in Victoria’s room. Although
Mrs. Wentworth Ward named her suspicions of both Blanch and Dave Carney
to the detective, he did not seem inclined to agree with her in regard to
the former. Honor had been given a very good account of the Irishwoman’s
honesty when she engaged her, and there had been nothing since she lived
with them to cause her to doubt it.

As to Carney, that was a different matter. When the detective questioned
him, he became very much confused and gave most unsatisfactory replies;
and yet it seemed impossible that a boy who was familiar with the house,
and knew that two members of the family occupied the room over the
dining-room, should have chosen that means of entering. The detective
could determine nothing as yet.

After he had gone back to Boston, and the affairs of the family had
resumed their accustomed regularity, Victoria’s thoughts reverted to the
matter which had been troubling her the evening before. There seemed to
be no one to whom she could speak upon the subject. She attempted to draw
Honor into conversation about it, but with no result. Honor replied
rather shortly that her mind was too much occupied with the robbery to
think of anything else. Naturally, to speak to Katherine was out of the
question, and after all, said Victoria to herself, why was it necessary
to speak to any one? It was only the foolish habit that they all had of
talking over their troubles together, that made her anxious to do so on
this occasion.

“I may just as well learn to do without it,” thought she. “It is a good
chance to begin. I have several things on my mind now. Katherine, the
etchings, and Dave. Secrets and responsibilities seem to be multiplying.
I think I’ll slip off to the grove and have a good think all to myself.”

This was not so easy of accomplishment as might appear at first sight,
but after having promised Aunt Sophia that the afternoon should be
devoted to her correspondence, and having established Peter and Sophy at
a game of halma, and leaving Katherine at the piano and Honor at the
sewing-machine, Victoria departed to the pine grove.

It was a warm day, and now at noon the sun shone down with oppressive
heat. The weather, which had been unusually cool during the past few days
for the season of the year, had suddenly changed, and a hot wave had
reached that part of the country and was about to envelop them with its
relentless intensity. There was not a breath of air in the grove, and the
aromatic smell of the pine needles which covered the ground like a thick
carpet seemed to add to the heat.

Victoria wondered if it would be cooler on the river, drawn up in the
shadow of the bank. She went to the little boathouse and loosing the old
boat, she stepped into it and pushed out into midstream. Then with one
oar she paddled close up to shore and made herself fast to a convenient
stump.

The boat was not a very comfortable craft, and it was inclined to leak,
but by sitting with her feet carefully tucked to one side, she managed to
avoid the pools of water in the bottom. The Starrs had long wished for a
canoe, and their father had intended to buy one for them. After his death
there was no money with which to get it, although Katherine had made
known her intention more than once of buying one as soon as she had saved
enough.

“I don’t believe she will, though,” said Victoria to herself, as she
leaned her head upon her hands and prepared for a “good think.” “I really
believe Katherine is growing a tiny mite more economical. She hasn’t
bought anything at all, lately. I wonder if it is because of her interest
in her music and—and the Madisons.”

The name had scarcely crossed her mind when she was startled by a voice
that seemed to be very close to her. She had been so absorbed in her
thoughts that she had not heard the gentle dip of a paddle nor the slight
sound in the water of an approaching canoe. Turning quickly, she found
that Roger Madison had drawn up directly alongside.

“Did I startle you?” he said. “I beg your pardon. I thought you would
hear me coming. No, to be quite truthful, I didn’t really think so. I
wanted to catch you, and not give you a chance to run away from me, as
usual. No, you needn’t look up there,” he added, seeing that Victoria’s
glance involuntarily sought the river bank, which was high and
particularly steep at this point. “You couldn’t possibly climb up there,
if you were to try, without falling back into the river, and I should
have to rescue you from a watery grave.”

“A muddy one, I think,” said Victoria, laughing in spite of her desire
for flight. She could not help liking Roger Madison, much as she wished
to avoid him. She had liked him that memorable day in the picture store;
and since then what a good friend he had proved himself to be! He had
saved Peter’s life, he had come again and again to see the boy, and had
done much, Victoria felt confident, to help him to bear his accident
patiently; and now to-day he had taken all this trouble in regard to the
robbery.

“I have long been waiting for this chance,” said Madison; “and, now that
it has come, I intend to make the most of it, and you shall not be
allowed to escape until you have explained matters. I felt that I was
staying out of town for some good reason to-day, and now it is explained.
It was to see you. I want to know why you always try to avoid me. Have I
ever done anything to make you dislike me?”

“Never!” replied Victoria, with such emphasis that there was no doubting
her sincerity.

“Then why do you run away whenever I come within speaking distance?”

“I should think you would know,” said she. “It is because you were the
man who bought that etching.”

“But I don’t see the connection,” said Roger. “Why should that make you
wish to avoid me? You didn’t cheat me. The etching was worth all I gave
you for it. It was simply a matter of business. If you feel that you must
avoid all the people you have ever transacted any business with—”

“But it _wasn’t_ worth all that you gave me for it,” cried Victoria,
turning towards him her flushed and troubled face, and, in her
excitement, allowing her feet to slip down into the bottom of the boat.
“It wasn’t! That is just it! You gave me more than you should have done;
and I accepted it, which was dreadful! When I came home and told the
girls about it, Honor hoped that I should never see you again. She felt
very badly about it, and so did I. I didn’t dare tell them that it was
you. That is the reason I ran away the day we went to call on your sister
and I saw you in the parlor. The girls couldn’t understand it, and have
never been able to since.”

“Then they don’t know it yet?”

“No. I have never dared tell them.”

“Then don’t tell them now, will you? It might prejudice them against me.”

“I won’t if I can help it,” said Victoria. “They asked me last night
about it, and said that Sophy repeated something I said yesterday
afternoon. I think I should have told them then if Katherine hadn’t heard
that noise in the shrubbery just at that minute, and we were
interrupted.”

“But I wish you would explain why you feel so,” said Roger, with a
puzzled expression upon his face. “Why did you wish to avoid me? Why did
you never wish to see me again? I can’t understand.”

“Dear me, you are very dense!” exclaimed Victoria. “It is as simple as
possible, I’m sure! In the first place, I took ten dollars more from you,
or five dollars at least, than I should have done, because there was no
reason why you should give me more than you would have paid in the store.
Then, it—well, Honor felt dreadfully about having let me go to Boston to
sell those etchings, and said I ought not to have gone alone, and you,
‘the young man,’ would think it very strange that I was allowed to go
when I was so young, and she should have gone with me. That is the reason
she hoped we should never see you again. Then when you came here to live
I couldn’t tell her that you were the one, because she had felt
uncomfortable about calling on your sister anyhow.”

“But why?” asked Madison. “Didn’t she like our looks?”

“Oh, not that at all! Because we are so poor and are working for our
living. She felt that you were strangers and perhaps wouldn’t understand,
and perhaps wouldn’t want us to call upon you or know you. You see, we
haven’t always been so, and it makes it harder. We had great difficulty,
Katherine and I, in getting her to go, and when she finally did and liked
you all so much I couldn’t bear to spoil it by telling her.”

“I see,” said Roger. “And you won’t spoil it now by telling her, either,
because—well, we are such capital friends now and it might make a
difference. Wait until—until I know her better. Then we will tell her,
you and I together, and have a good laugh over it. But I want to say
something to you, Miss Victoria. You needn’t feel in that way about the
etching. I happen to know that the picture dealer sold the others for
thirty-five dollars each, and mine gave so much pleasure to my sister, to
whom I gave it, that it is worth far more to me. I have never regretted
buying it, I assure you. And I also want to tell you how much we admire
and respect you for the way in which you have all done. So far from our
not understanding, we had heard about you before we came, and were most
anxious to meet you. We feel proud to know you. Would you mind shaking
hands with me?”

Victoria promptly extended her hand, which was warmly grasped by the
occupant of the other boat.

“You won’t run away any more,” said he, “will you?”

“No indeed! I’m thankful I don’t have to. You have done me a lot of good.
It is one of the things I came down here to think over. You see I had no
one to speak to about it, and I really seem to need some one always to
talk things over with.”

“It is a great comfort. My sister and I have that habit, too. Can’t you
talk the other ‘things’ over with me? You say this was one of them, so
there must be more.”

Victoria blushed and turned away.

“Oh, no!” she said. “The others I shall have to keep to myself—except
Dave Carney. I could consult you about him, but I think I had better
not.”

“Do you mean in connection with the robbery?”

“Yes; and yet I don’t want to put it into words. I wish I could have a
little talk with Dave myself.”

“Why don’t you?” said Madison. “It would be more efficacious than
anything I could do. You might induce him to tell you something.”

Victoria was silent for a moment. Then she suddenly looked at her feet.

“I am positively sitting with my feet in the river!” said she. “This
leaky old boat is no good at all, and my shoes are soaking wet. I shall
have to go right in and change them.”

“I suppose I shall have to allow you to go under those circumstances,”
said Roger, as he pushed out of the way and watched her unfasten her
boat, in the doing of which she scorned his proffered assistance. “But I
am glad we have had this explanation. You won’t run away from me any
more, will you?”

“No,” said Victoria, smiling brightly at him and disappearing within the
shelter of the old boathouse. “I won’t run away from you any more.”



CHAPTER XVIII.
MRS. WENTWORTH WARD CHANGES HER OPINION.


“BEFORE I’d be afraid of a toad!”

“But, Peter, you’re not afraid of anything.”

“And you’re afraid of everything, so there’s the difference. I never saw
such a girl. Snakes, and lizards, and toads, and spiders, and wasps—there
isn’t a thing you’re not afraid of.”

“Yes, there is, too!” said Sophy, indignantly. “I’m not afraid of flies
or butterflies or caterpillars—yes, I am afraid of caterpillars. They’re
so fuzzy.”

“There, you see there is hardly anything! As for flies and butterflies,
why, of course a baby wouldn’t mind them.”

“But what’s the use of those other things, Peter? What’s the use of
wasps?”

“Wasps! Why, they’re _very_ useful. They don’t hurt you unless you bother
them, and they eat up slugs, and some kinds of caterpillars.”

“Well, wasps are very frightening, I think, even if they are useful, and
so are hop toads, and hop toads are so ugly! Oh, here comes one now! Go
away, you horrid, naughty toad!”

Peter and Sophy were on the piazza in the early twilight. Honor and
Katherine were with the Madisons on the river, enjoying a picnic tea.
Supper at Glen Arden was over, and Mrs. Wentworth Ward had walked to the
village for her “constitutional,” which the hot weather had prevented
during the day. Victoria had gone in search of Dave Carney, whom she
thought she should be apt to find at liberty at this hour. It was the
evening of the day upon which the robbery had been discovered.

“There is no use in an ugly toad, Peter,” continued Sophy.

“Indeed there is!” said her brother, in a tone of marked masculine
superiority. “That just shows how little you know about things. Toads are
regular policemen.”

“Peter! What do you mean? Do they arrest people?”

“No, of course not, you goosie! But they arrest insects. If you put toads
into hotbeds or cold-frames, they’ll eat up all the bugs and worms that
come after the plants. They keep regular guard, just as policemen do.
There, do you hear that tree toad now?”

Sophy listened to the shrill song of the little creature that appeared to
be sitting upon the branch of a tree close by.

“They’re as good as hop toads, for they eat caterpillars, and worms, and
hateful flies that lay their eggs under the bark of the trees, and would
eat up the trees if it were not for the toads.”

“I’m glad they eat caterpillars as well as the wasps,” said Sophy.
“They’re so disagreeable. Why do you suppose caterpillars were made,
Peter?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure. To eat up something else, I suppose, and to
be food for toads. I’ll tell you another funny thing about hop toads.
They never will touch a dead insect or bug or anything. They’ll only
catch them alive. Isn’t that queer?”

“How much you do know, Peter!” said his sister, admiringly. “I wish I
knew as much as you do. I’m going to keep asking questions all my life,
and then perhaps some day I shall know as much.”

“You never will, for you are only a girl, and I’m a boy. You’ll never
know as much as I do, for I shall always keep ahead of you. First place,
I’m nearly five years older than you, and then, I’m a boy.”

“Oh, I know you think it’s very grand to be a boy,” said Sophy, still
keeping a watchful eye upon the extremely active hop toad which with
other members of its family had come forth from beneath the piazza for a
hop in the evening air; “but some girls know a good deal. I was asking
Mr. Madison about it the other day, and he said some girls knew as much
as boys did, and when they grew up some women knew as much as some men. I
think Mr. Madison likes girls better than you do, Peter. I think he likes
Honor and Katherine very much indeed. He is always coming here to get
them to go somewhere.”

“I know he is,” rejoined Peter. “I like Mr. Madison ever so much, and I
think he’s a jolly good fellow, and I like the way he talks, usually, but
he’s awfully silly about girls. We were having such an interesting talk
the other day about animals and birds when Honor happened to come along,
and he stopped right off short and walked off with her up to the house,
and never came back to the trees where we were sitting at all! Oh, he’s
downright silly about girls, and I don’t think you had better go by what
he says about them.”

The dialogue was interrupted at this point by Victoria. She came up
across the grass from the barn to the steps at the end of the piazza.
There she paused.

“Peter,” said she, “have you seen Dave lately?”

“No, I haven’t seen him since—oh, I can’t think when it was.”

“Try and remember. I want to know particularly.”

“I guess it was before dinner. I saw him go across the garden towards the
Ashmont road. I wondered where he was going.”

“I’m going around to the kitchen for a minute,” said Victoria, “and then
I’ll come back.”

She was absent for five or ten minutes. When she returned, it was with a
very grave face.

“Peter,” she said, “I’m very much afraid Dave has run away.”

“Vic! What do you mean?”

“Blanch says he hasn’t been in the kitchen since breakfast time. After
the detective was here she saw him come out of the barn in very old
clothes, and she thought he was going out to the farthest field to work.
He went over in that direction.”

“Yes,” said Peter, eagerly, “that’s the way I saw him go.”

“He didn’t come in to dinner, and when she asked Wilson, the man who is
working here to-day, you know, where he was, Wilson said that Dave said
he had to go down to Fordham to get something, and he wouldn’t be home to
dinner. Wilson supposed he was just going to take his noon hour to go
down there, but he has never come back.”

“Why didn’t they tell us before?” asked Peter, impatiently.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Victoria. “You know what B. Lafferty is. She is
dreadfully stupid about such things, and when I said something about
it,—that she ought to have told us,—she said she wasn’t going to let on
to that proud and haughty person from Beacon Street that her suspicions
were correct.”

“Did she mean Aunt Sophia?” asked Sophy, who had forgotten her fear of
the toads and was listening with eager attention.

“No; she meant Ellen Higgins, I suppose. Both Ellen and Aunt Sophia think
that Dave had something to do with the robbery; and, do you know, Peter,
it looks very much like it, now that Dave has gone.”

“Yes,” said Peter, very solemnly, “it really does. Oh, Vic, I never
should have believed it of him, should you? I liked him so much. I can’t
think so even now. I believe we’ll find out yet that he didn’t have
anything to do with it. Maybe he was taken ill somewhere, or something
has happened, and he can’t get back. I _can’t_ believe it was he.”

But the other members of the family did not agree with Peter. When they
heard the news of Carney’s disappearance, they looked at one another with
troubled faces. They had all liked the lad; and the discovery that he had
deceived them and had treated them with such base ingratitude, after all
that had been done for him, filled them with disappointment and real
sorrow.

Mrs. Wentworth Ward was, of course, triumphant. She plumed herself upon
her superior cleverness in having suspected the boy from the first; and
she soundly berated the detective for having neglected to arrest him at
once. Now the thief had escaped, and there was no knowing when he would
be found. With this exception, therefore, the Starrs awaited further
developments with ill-concealed anxiety.

Honor and Katherine were very busy during these summer days; and even the
intense heat which was raging at present did not keep them from their
work. As soon as school had come to an end,—early in June,—they began
upon their preserving. Glen Arden was famous for its currants and
cherries, as well as for its apple and pear trees. As each fruit ripened,
the huge kettle was brought out, a quantity of sugar ordered, and every
available hand was brought into service.

Miss Madison, coming one morning to ask for Katherine’s assistance with
some new music, found all so busy that she forgot her violin and, begging
a large apron, sat down at the dining-room table with the others and
began to stone cherries with vigor and enthusiasm.

Strawberries, when they came in season, were ordered in large quantities
from the market, as not enough were grown upon the place to answer the
purpose. In due time, currant jelly was to be put up, and the pears—for
this was a pear year—were to be turned to account.

Mrs. Ward had ordered a liberal quantity of all varieties of preserves,
and a message came from Mrs. Madison begging that she also might have the
privilege of ordering some. All that were left were to be sent to the
Woman’s Exchange in Boston, to be sold.

It was hot work, no doubt, and there were pleasanter things to be done in
summer time than stirring with a long spoon in a kettle full of steaming
fruit; but it was a source of great satisfaction to the girls to feel
that they were making money as well now as when school and music pupils
occupied their time, and it was certainly a far more entertaining way
than that. The preserving days at Glen Arden proved to be the gayest of
the summer; and Roger Madison, hearing about them from his sister,
deliberately remained away from his law office one morning and,
presenting himself at Glen Arden, begged for something to do, upon which
they set him to stemming currants, with strict injunctions not to taste.

The week which followed the robbery passed away in this wise, and then
one morning came the information that the stolen silver had been traced.
Some of the articles had been found in a pawn-shop in Boston, having been
left there by a young man—almost a boy, in fact—of slight figure, and
with very light tow-colored hair. His eyes were peculiar, and would
probably lead to his detection. They had a way of shifting uneasily, and
of not meeting those of the person to whom he spoke.

This description fitted Dave exactly, with the exception of the part
referring to the eyes. Dave had very good eyes, the Starrs thought, and a
perfectly straightforward manner.

“Probably, since he did this dreadful thing,” said Victoria, sadly, “his
eyes have changed.”

“I don’t believe he did it,” said Peter, stubbornly. “I shall never
believe it unless he tells me so himself.”

Within a very short time, the suspected burglar was arrested, and it was
found that his name was Carney! Roger Madison went to the jail to see
him, and there, to his astonishment, found that it was James, and not
David Carney. This young man closely resembled him, to be sure, but he
was older, and his face had a totally different expression. He was
David’s brother. His accomplice was also arrested, a much older man than
himself, and most of the stolen property was recovered.

The question now was, where was Dave? Was he also implicated, and had he
for that reason run away? At all events, he had completely disappeared,
and as the summer days passed by, and still there was no word of him, the
Starrs gave up all hope of ever seeing him again. They did not wish,
however, that any search should be made for him.

The elder Carney confessed that he had entered the house by way of the
second-story window, which proved that Sophy had not dreamed that he went
through the room, while his close resemblance to his brother easily
accounted for the mistake of thinking that it was Dave. The only wonder
was, that no one had remembered the brother before, but as he had been
seen only by Peter and Sophy, perhaps that was not surprising.

                                * * * * *

One day, in early September, when the sky was blue, and goldenrod and
asters were in bloom, when the birds were preparing for their flight
southward, and squirrels were busy with their preparations for the
winter, Victoria, Peter, and Sophy were walking home from Ashmont, two
miles away. They left the road at a certain point, and striking into the
woods, followed a scarcely perceptible path, which would in time bring
them to their own pasture land.

It was a glorious day to be out of doors, and in the free woods. The air
was cool and crisp, and yet the sun had a certain warmth which was good
to feel when they emerged from the woods and found themselves beneath the
open sky.

Peter’s leg was entirely well now, and he walked without even the
suggestion of a limp. The accident had been a severe trial in many ways,
but his sisters had said to one another more than once during the summer,
that Peter had borne it manfully, and had proved that he was possessed of
plenty of pluck. He was much less impatient of control, than he once had
been, and indeed the girls were less exacting. Honor and Katherine
discovered, slowly but surely, that there were other ways of influencing
Peter, and probably all boys, than by argument or command, and they
acknowledged, at last, that Victoria’s method was more efficacious than
theirs.

“Suppose we sit on the rock for a while,” said Vic, as they walked along
the cart road in the pasture. “It is too lovely to go indoors, or even to
go home. Vacation will soon be over, and we had better make the most of
our few days. Heigh-ho! I don’t want to go back to school a bit. I did
hope that I could stay at home after this, and help the others, but they
all seem to think it is more my duty to go for another year.”

They had climbed the huge mass of rock which long ages ago had been piled
there in gigantic confusion. Lichen grew over it now, bushes had found
root in the crevices, and mosses and grass made soft resting-places upon
the top. It was Victoria’s favorite spot upon the place, and she
particularly loved it on a golden September day like the present one.

“I shouldn’t think you’d mind your school a bit,” said Peter. “What would
you do if you had to go to that hateful one that I go to? Do you know,
Vic, I’ve half a mind to accept Aunt Sophia’s offer and go to
boarding-school?”

“Peter, you don’t really mean it?”

“Yes, I do. I was talking to Mr. Madison the other day, and he advised me
to. He thinks I’ll get a better education. And after all, Vic, it’s
pretty good of Aunt Sophia to offer it again after our refusing
everything last winter.”

“I know,” said Victoria; “I feel as if we had misjudged Aunt Sophia. She
means to be kind to us, and if she has that unfortunate way of acting as
if she wanted to run the entire universe, I suppose we ought to make the
best of it. It is only her disposition, and as she has had plenty of
money all her life, and no one to interfere with her, I suppose there is
some excuse for it. She really has been very nice this summer, and it
didn’t turn out as badly as I was afraid it would. After all, Peter, I
think you are right. We oughtn’t to refuse everything she offers, and it
would be of great advantage to you to go to St. Asaph’s. If only she
allows the rest of us to continue to earn our living in peace!”

“Look, Vic!” exclaimed Sophy, in an excited whisper. “Who is that peeping
up over the river bank? Look, Peter!”

They gazed in the direction that Sophy indicated, but could see nothing.

“I’m sure it was somebody,” continued Sophy, still in the same eager
whisper, “and it looked like Dave Carney!”

At this Peter jumped to his feet, and nimbly leaping from rock to rock,
ran to the river bank some little distance away. The girls watched him.
They saw that he was speaking to some one below the bank. He did not
return, and unable to restrain their curiosity further, they too left the
rock and followed him. They found him in earnest conversation with a boy
in a boat, and that boy was David Carney.

“Why, Dave!” cried Victoria; “have you come back? I am so glad to see
you!”

Dave shyly pulled off his cap.

“He says he hasn’t come back to us,” said Peter. “He didn’t mean us to
see him. He only came to take a look at the place.”

“Why did you run away, Dave?” asked Victoria.

“I ran away because I knowed it was Jim,” said Carney, looking up at her
as she stood above him on the bank. “He always said he was agoing to
break into your house sometime. He wanted me to help, but I wouldn’t have
nothing to do with it. That made him mad, and we had a quarrel. Jim got
into bad company down at Fordham, and I guess they got him into this
scrape.”

“I always thought your brother couldn’t be a very nice person,” said
Sophy, who had been watching Dave with round and solemn eyes. “He used
regular swear words that day I met him with you.”

“I’d have been as bad myself if it hadn’t been for you folks,” said Dave.
“I’d have gone straight after him if you hadn’t caught me that time when
I was stealing those apples,” he added, looking at Peter. “I only did
that because I was hungry. It was the first time, but I guess it wouldn’t
have been the last. That morning when they told me there’d been a
robbery, I knowed it was Jim, and I couldn’t stay. I knowed you’d think
it was me that done it if I ran away, but I couldn’t stay in the place
where you folks had been so good to me, and my own brother had broke into
the house.”

“And what have you been doing ever since?” asked Peter.

“I hid for a few days. Then I heard Jim was caught, so after that I went
to Boston and got some work off and on down on the wharves. I’m out of it
now, and I came out to Fordham, and a fellow I know loaned me this here
boat, and I couldn’t help coming up to see how it looked here. I didn’t
mean you to see me.”

“And will you come back to us now?” asked Peter.

“Come back!” repeated Dave. “You don’t want me to come back, and me
running away, and having a brother in jail for robbing you?”

“Why, of course! I never supposed you had anything to do with it. I said
so all along.”

Dave’s eyes rested upon the other boy’s face with an expression of
dog-like devotion. Then he turned to Victoria.

“No, he never did think so,” said she; “but I must confess, Dave, that
when you ran away, the rest of us doubted you. But we must talk to my
sisters about it. Will you come up to-night and hear what they think?”

And Carney promised that he would.

The Starrs returned to the house in great excitement, eager to impart
their news to the sisters at once, but they found a still greater
surprise awaiting them. On the piazza were Aunt Sophia and Mr. Abbott in
earnest conversation. Mr. Abbott, whom they had not seen at Glen Arden
for so many months! He had been abroad for his health, and although his
wards knew that his steamer was in, they had scarcely expected to see him
so soon.

“To tell you the truth, Dickinson,” Mrs. Wentworth Ward was saying as
Peter and his sisters came around the corner of the house, “even though I
so strongly disapproved of their plans at first, I am really quite proud
of the girls. They have done well, and they deserve to succeed. If Peter
will only do as I wish and go to St. Asaph’s—”

Here she stopped, for Peter himself came into sight, but her remarks
proved that in spite of all that had been said to the contrary, Mrs.
Wentworth Ward was broad-minded enough to know when she was mistaken, and
generous enough to acknowledge the fact.

Honor and Katherine came home from an errand which they had been doing at
almost the same moment that Peter and the younger sisters returned, and
the welcome which Mr. Abbott received proved that they were indeed glad
to see him again.

There was much to be told to him, the history of the summer and of the
robbery, and now the account that Peter and Vic had to give of the
meeting with Carney. They were so sure of Dave’s innocence of any
complicity in the affair that it was impossible for the others not to be
impressed by their story, and even Mrs. Wentworth Ward gave an unwilling
assent to his being taken back for another trial. Therefore it was
decided that when Dave should come for his answer that night he was to be
told to stay.

“But what about these Madisons whom I hear quoted so much?” said Mr.
Abbott, looking quizzically from one to the other of his wards.

“The nicest people in the world,” said Katherine, eagerly. “We have had
such a lovely time with them this summer, Mr. Abbott! Miss Madison is the
most charming woman I ever knew. We play together a great deal, she on
the violin and I on the piano. There is a brother, Roger, too, who is
very nice. We all like them immensely.”

Victoria, Peter, and Sophy joined in the chorus of praise, as did even
Mrs. Wentworth Ward, but Honor was noticeably silent.

Mr. Abbott remained to dinner and even to supper also, staying long
enough to see Dave Carney and convince himself, as he did the moment he
looked at him, that he was an honest fellow. He also desired to meet Miss
Madison and her brother, about whom he had heard so much. When he finally
returned to Boston, there was a twinkle in his kind eyes and a satisfied
expression upon his face.

He had heard now a complete history of the past year, and he felt
confident that the coming one would be even more of a success. The Starrs
had tried their wings and had proved that they could fly.

That same evening Mrs. Wentworth Ward called Victoria into her room.

“My dear,” she said, “do you remember what I said to you one day in the
early summer in regard to Katherine and young Madison?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophia, I do indeed!” replied Vic.

“I want to tell you something else, then,” said her aunt. “I think I was
mistaken. In fact, I find that I have made a number of mistakes about you
all. I think now that it is friendship, mere friendship, between him and
Katherine. It is very rare, but this time I believe it to be the case.
Katherine finds the sister more absorbing and interesting than the
brother, and the real object of his interest is not Katherine, but Honor.
I think you will find that I am right.”

And after events proved, greatly to Mrs. Wentworth Ward’s own
satisfaction, and indeed to that of all concerned, that she had indeed
guessed correctly.

And when Honor was told by Roger and Victoria together that he was “the
man who bought the etching,” she took the news so quietly that Victoria
came to the conclusion that much-dreaded events never turn out to be as
unpleasant as one fears that they will be,—a conclusion that was
frequently proved to be a true one during the remainder of her life.

                                * * * * *

                                 THE END.

                                * * * * *



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