A borrowed sister

Lois’s grandmother, for whom she was named, was coming to make the Pages a visit, and both Lois and her mother were looking forward to this event with secret misgivings. Lois tried to think that she was very fond of her grandmother, but for some reason she never felt comfortable in her presence, and the more she admired her stately figure and rapid flow of language, the more awkward and tongue-tied she felt herself to be. To begin with, her grandmother had made it very evident that she would have liked her much better if she had been a boy. As for Lois herself, she was only too thankful that she had escaped this fate, for boys and dogs were to her mind the dark blots in an otherwise fair world.

“Lois, I think you had better come to the train with me to meet your grandmother,” said Mrs. Page, on the afternoon when their guest was to arrive.

“Jessie and I were going to the Morgans’ to play croquet.”

“You can go there afterwards.”

“Jessie has a music lesson afterwards.”

“Well, I am sorry for your disappointment, but I would like to have you come with me.”

The train was nearly an hour late, and Lois’s patience was almost exhausted.

“If we had only known it was going to be late, I could have gone to the Morgans’,” she said, over and over, until her mother felt like saying, “I am sure I wish that you had.”

At last the train steamed into the station, and Mrs. Page went forward as the passengers began to get out. Among the first was an alert-looking lady, a little past fifty, wearing a well-made black suit and a black hat with ostrich plumes.

“I am sorry your train is so late,” said Mrs. Page, as she shook hands with her mother-in-law. “Come, Lois, take your grandmother’s bag.”

Lois, who had hold of her mother’s hand, and was hanging back in the vain hope of escaping observation, now had to come forward.

“Bless me! How Lois has grown! She is large for her age, and how she looks like her father around the eyes! She is an out-and-out Page.”

Lois was not sure whether this was meant as a compliment.

“There is a hack over here,” said Mrs. Page. “Will you give me your check?”

“Here it is. I would rather walk.”

“They don’t charge anything extra for passengers, so you might as well ride.”

“If that is not New Hampshire all over! It is just as cheap for me to do something I don’t want to do, and so you propose that I should ride in that stuffy hack, so as to get the full value of twenty-five cents.”

“Oh, if you would rather walk, we will,” said Mrs. Page, a little disconcerted. “Only it seems so inhospitable.”

“What a quaint little town it is,” said the elder Mrs. Page, as they walked up the village street. “I used to tell my husband I could stay away twenty years, and not one hair would have changed on anybody’s head. I am sure those are the same bony horses of my youth, that are tied around the paling of the common. Look at that eccentric old fellow in arctics! Is he preparing for a snowstorm?”

“That is Captain Taft, Sophie Brown’s father. He can’t find anything else that is comfortable for his feet.”

“Well, I like his independence. I suppose if he had taken the trip up the Nile with us last winter, he would have pursued his way calmly through Egypt in those things. They were planning to have a new block for Chauncey and the drug-store when I was here three years ago, but I see they haven’t got around to it yet. I wonder if they have any dotted veiling at Chauncey’s. When I was here last, they told me they had such a run on it that it was too much trouble to keep it in stock. I should think they might at least paint the building.”

“It is a shabby-looking block,” said Lois’s mother.

“You need not apologize for it, my dear. We all know that if you owned that block it would be scrubbed to a point of painful neatness. I suppose your house is as immaculate as ever, and that every piece of furniture is in the same place. I always think of your house as the house where nothing happens, and, my dear, that is a great compliment. It is the house of rest, the house of standards and simple living. When I am tired with the strain of life, or of rushing around the world, I think of your house as of a haven of peace, and when I get to be an old lady, I am coming to spend a whole summer with you.”

“That will be very nice,” said Mrs. Page. “I don’t know whether it would be polite of me to hope you will be an old lady soon.”

“Elizabeth, it is never required of you to tell anything but the truth. You can’t tell polite fibs with a good grace. I know you are wondering when I shall consider myself old, and what on earth you would do with me for a whole summer. Why, that is Sophie Brown, isn’t it, and her little girl? How do you do, Sophie? I was glad to see your father looking so well. Is this Gertrude? How she has grown, and how much she looks like you!”

“What a plain child!” said the elder Mrs. Page, as they passed out of hearing. “And what a quantity of freckles she has! I know a wash which is good for freckles.”

When they reached the Pages’ gate, Lois’s grandmother gave a comprehensive glance at the white house with the green blinds and green front door, and the spotless brass knocker.

“Elizabeth, it would do me good to see everything belonging to you in wild chaos and confusion,” she said.

“I am doing the best I can for you in that line. Jessie Matthews is having her music lesson, so I shall have to take you straight up to your room.”

When Mrs. Luther Page came down at tea-time, she was much struck with the change in the parlor.

“How cosy the room looks with a piano in it!” she said. “The very fact that it is such a large piano and such a small room gives a sort of rakish charm to the place; but, Elizabeth, how could you make up your mind to the innovation?”

“It is the Matthewses’ piano; Jessie’s mother wanted her to go on with her music lessons.”

“And so this is Jessie! My dear, how very large you are of your age. She is the image of her father, isn’t she? I suppose your mother is as beautiful as ever?”

“Yes, she is,” said Jessie. “It is a pity I don’t look like her, isn’t it?” and she flashed a glance at Lois’s grandmother, so full of a certain quiet amusement in the situation that the elder Mrs. Page suddenly felt as if she must look after her manners, in the presence of this young critic.

Lois’s grandmother had brought down a large box done up in white paper tied with a pink ribbon.

“I have a belated birthday present here for you, Lois,” she said. “I brought it all the way from Paris.”

Lois undid the parcel with eager fingers. Inside the box was a complete millinery establishment for dolls. There were several untrimmed hats, and there were tiny feathers and flowers and gauze scarfs to trim them with, and there were the standards to put them on, such as there are in shops. Lois was so delighted that she could hardly speak.

Jessie, on the other hand, was loud in her exclamations.

“I hope you like it, Lois,” said her grandmother.

Did she like it! Lois raised her eloquent eyes to her grandmother’s face. She felt that she had never liked anything so much in her whole life.

“And who is this person?” and Mrs. Luther Page went forward to stroke the cat, who had settled herself for a nap in the deep Morris chair. “Elizabeth Page! That I should have lived to see the day that you would allow a cat in the precincts of your parlor! I adore cats. They are as sacred to me as they are to the Egyptians. What is her name?” and she turned to Lois.

“Minnie. I wrote to you about her coming to us,” said Lois shyly.

“Yes, I remember now, but I never really get a person into my mind until I have been introduced to her. Minnie, I am Lois’s grandmother, and so we must be good friends.”

Lois’s mother stooped to lift Minnie out of the Morris chair.

“Don’t do that, Elizabeth. She will hate me if you do. There are plenty of chairs here. Goodness! who is this walking in? A second cat? Oh, I see, it is only a kitten.”

“It is very large of its age,” said Jessie, “and it is not beautiful like its mother.”

“You saucy child!” said Lois’s grandmother, and from that moment she and Jessie were firm friends.

“It is a witch kitten,” said Lois, who could not bear to be left out of the conversation. “Do you notice, grandmother, that it has double paws? Witch kittens are very lucky; we have had a lot of luck since it came.”

“I have always wanted one of those six-toed kittens. Do you mean to keep it? Or may I have it when I go home?”

“I have been trying to get some one to take it for the last two months,” said Mrs. Page. “It will be another proof of our extraordinary luck if you will take it.”