He had built the big entrance gates, and the long stone wall that enclosed the ten acres of "bounds." He had laid the foundation of the new west wing—known as Paradise Alley—and had constructed all the chimneys and driveways and tennis courts on the place. The school was a monument to his long and leisurely career.
Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, with an unusual display of foresight, had christened their first baby after the school. Ursula Murphy may not be a euphuistic combination, but the child was amply repaid for carrying such a name, by receiving the cast-off clothes of generations of St. Ursula girls. There was danger, for a time, that the poor little thing would be buried beneath a mountain of wearing apparel; but her parents providentially discovered a second-hand clothes man, who relieved her of a part of the burden.
After Ursula, had come other little Murphys in regular succession; and it had grown to be one of the legendary privileges of the school to furnish the babies with names and baptismal presents. Mrs. Murphy was not entirely mercenary in her yearly request. She appreciated the artistic quality of the names that the girls provided. They had a distinction, that she herself, with her lack of literary training, would never have been able to give. The choosing of the names had come to be a matter involving politics almost as complicated as the election of the senior president. Different factions proposed different names; half-a-dozen tickets would be in the field, and the balloting was conducted with rousing speeches.
There was one hampering restriction. Every baby must have a patron saint. Upon this point, the Murphys stood firm. However, by a careful study of early Christian martyrs, the girls had managed to unearth a list of recondite saints with fairly unusual and picturesque names.
So far, the roll of the Murphy offspring read:
Ursula Marie, Geraldine Sabina, Muriel Veronica and Lionel Ambrose (twins), Aileen Clotilda, John Drew Dominick, Delphine Olivia, Patrick (he had been born in the summer vacation, and the long-suffering priest had insisted that the boy be named for his father), Sidney Orlando Boniface, Richard Harding Gabriel, Yolanda Genevieve. This completed the list, until one morning early in December, Patrick Senior presented himself at the kitchen door, with the news that another name—a boy's—would be seasonable.
The school immediately went into a committee of the whole. Several names had been put up, and the discussion was growing heated, when Patty Wyatt jumped to her feet with the proposal of "Cuthbert St. John." The suggestion was met with cheers; and Mae Van Arsdale indignantly left the room. The name was carried by unanimous vote.
Cuthbert St. John Murphy was christened the following Sunday, and received a gold-lined porridge spoon in a green plush box.
So delighted was the school at Patty's felicitous suggestion, that, by way of reward, they elected her chairman of the Christmas Carnival Committee. The Christmas Carnival was a charitable institution contemporaneous with the founding of the school. St. Ursula's scheme of education was broad; it involved growth in a wide variety of womanly virtues, and the greatest of these was charity. Not the modern, scientific, machine-made charity, but the comfortable, old-fashioned kind that leaves a pleasant glow of generosity in the heart of the giver. Every year at Christmastide a tree was decked, a supper laid, and the poor children of the neighborhood bidden to partake. The poor children were collected by the school girls, who drove about from house to house, in bob-sleighs or hay-wagons, according to the snow. The girls regarded it as the most diverting festival of the school year; and even the poor children, when they had overcome their first embarrassment, found it fairly diverting.
The original scheme had been for each girl to have an individual protégé, that she might call upon the family and come into personal relations with a humbler class. She was to learn the special needs of her child, and give something really useful, such as stockings or trousers or flannel petticoats.
It was an admirable scheme on paper, but in actual practice it fell down. St. Ursula's was situated in an affluent district given over to the estates of the idle rich, and the proletarian who clung to the skirts of these estates was amply provided with an opportunity to work. In the early days, when the school was small, there had been sufficient poor children to go round; but as St. Ursula's had grown, the poor seemed to have diminished, until now the school was confronted by an actual scarcity. But the Murphys, at least, they had always with them. They yearly offered thanks for this.
Patty accepted her chairmanship and appointed sub-committees to do the actual work. For herself and Conny and Priscilla she reserved the privilege of choosing the recipients of St. Ursula's bounty. This entailed several exhilarating afternoons out of bounds. A walk abroad is as inspiring to the inmates of a prison as a trip through Europe to those at large. They spent the better part of a week canvassing the neighborhood, only to reveal the embarrassing fact that there were nine possible children, aside from the Murphy brood, and that none of these nine were from homes that one could conscientiously term poor. The children's sober industrious parents could well supply their temperate Christmas demands.
"And there are only six Murphys the right age," Conny grumbled, as they turned homewards in the cold twilight of a wintry day, after an unprofitable two hours' tramp.
"That makes about one child to every five girls," Priscilla nodded dismally.
"Oh, this charity business makes me tired!" Patty burst out. "It's fun for the girls, and nothing else. The way we dole out stuff to perfectly nice people, is just plain insulting. If anybody poked a pink tarlatan stocking full of candy at me, and said it was because I'd been a good little girl, I'd throw it in their face."
In moments of intensity, Patty's English was not above reproach.
"Come on, Patty," Priscilla slipped a soothing hand through her arm, "we'll stop in at the Murphys' and count 'em over again. Maybe there's one we overlooked."
"The twins are only fifteen," said Conny hopefully. "I think they'll do."
"And Richard Harding's nearly four. He's old enough to enjoy a tree. The more Murphys we can get the better. They always love the things we give."
"I know they do!" Patty growled. "We're teaching the whole lot of them to be blooming beggars—I shall be sorry I ever used any slang, if we can't put the money to better use than this."
The funds for the carnival were yearly furnished by a tax on slang. St. Ursula demanded a fine of one cent for every instance of slang or bad grammar let fall in public. Of course, in the privacy of one's own room, in the bosom of one's chosen family, the rigor was relaxed. Your dearest friends did not report you—except in periods of estrangement. But your acquaintances and enemies and teachers did, and even, in moments of intense honorableness, you reported yourself. In any case, the slang fund grew. When the committee had opened the box this year, they found thirty-seven dollars and eighty-four cents.
Patty allowed herself, after some slight protest, to be drawn to the door of the Murphy domicile. She was not in an affable mood, and a call upon the Murphys required a great deal of conversation. They found the family hilariously assembled in an over-crowded kitchen. The entire dozen children babbled at once, shriller and shriller, in a vain endeavor to drown each other out. A cabbage stew, in progress on the stove, filled the room with an odorous steam. Shoved into a corner of the hearth, was poor old Gramma Flannigan, surrounded by noisy, pushing youngsters, who showed her gray hairs but scant consideration. The girls admired the new baby, while Yolanda and Richard Harding crawled over their laps with sticky hands. Mrs. Murphy, meanwhile, discanted in a rich brogue upon the merits of "Coothbert St. Jawn" as a name. She liked it, she declared, as well as any in the list. It sure ought to bring luck to a child to carry the name of two saints. She thanked the young ladies kindly.
Patty left Conny and Priscilla to carry off the social end of the call, while she squeezed herself onto the woodbox by Gramma Flannigan's chair. Mrs. Murphy's mother was a pathetic old body, with the winning speech and manners of Ireland a generation ago. Patty found her the most remunerative member of the household, so far as interest went. She always liked to get her started with stories of her girlhood, when she had been a lady's maid in Lord Stirling's castle in County Clare, and young Tammas Flannigan came and carried her off to America to help make his fortune. Tammas was now a bent old man with rheumatism, but in his keen blue eyes and Irish smile, Gramma still saw the lad who had courted her.
"How's your husband this winter?" Patty asked, knowing that she was taking the shortest road to the old woman's heart.
She shook her head with a tremulous smile.
"I'm not hearin' for four days. Tammas ain't livin' with us no more."
"It's a pity for you to be separated!" said Patty, with quick sympathy, not realizing on how sore a subject she was touching.
The flood gates of the old woman's garrulity broke down.
"With Ursuly an' Ger-r-aldine growin' oop an' havin' young min to wait on thim, 'twas needin' a parlor they was, an' they couldn't spare the room no longer for me'n Tammas. So they put me in the garret with the four gurrls, an' Tammas, he was sint oop the road to me son Tammas. Tammas's wife said as Tammas could sleep in the kitchen to pay for carryin' the wood an' watter, but she couldn't take us both because she takes boarders."
Patty cocked her head for a moment of silence, as she endeavored to pluck sense from this tangle of Tammases.
"It's too bad!" she comforted, laying a sympathetic hand on the old woman's knee.
Gramma Flannigan's eyes filled with the ready tears of old age.
"I'm not complainin', for it's the way o' the world. The owld must step off, an' make room for the young. But it's lonely I am without him! We've lived together for forty-seven years, an' we know each other's ways."
"But your son doesn't live very far away." Patty offered what solace she might. "You must see Thomas very often."
"That an' I don't! You might as well have a husband dead, as a mile an' a half away an' laid oop with rheumatism."
The clock pointed to a quarter of six, and the visitors rose. They had still to walk half a mile and dress before dinner.
The old woman clung to Patty's hand at parting. She seemed to find more comfort in the little stray sympathy that Patty had offered, than in all her exuberant brood of grandchildren.
"Isn't it dreadful to be old, and just sit around waiting to die?" Patty shuddered, as they faced the cold darkness outside.
"Dreadful!" Conny cordially agreed. "Hurry up! Or we'll be late for dinner, and this is chicken night."
They turned homeward at a jog trot that left little breath for speech; but Patty's mind was working as fast as her legs.
"I've got a perfectly splendid idea," she panted as she turned in at the gate and trotted up the driveway toward the big lighted house that spread wide wings to receive them.
"What?" they asked.
The quick insistent clang of the gong floated out to meet them, and on the instant, hurrying figures flitted past the windows—the summons to meals brought a readier response than the summons to study.
"I'll tell you after dinner. No time now," Patty returned as she peeled off her coat.
They were unlacing their blouses as they clattered up the back stairs, and pulling them over their heads in the upper hall.
"Go slow—please!" they implored of the down-going procession whose track they crossed. Dinner was the only meal which might be approached by the front stairs, which were carpeted instead of tinned.
Their evening frocks were fortunately in one piece, and they dove into them with little ceremony. The three presented themselves flushed of cheek and somewhat rumpled as to hair, but properly gowned and apologetic, just as grace was ended. To be late for grace only meant one demerit; the first course came higher, and the second higher still. Punishment increased by geometrical progression.
During the half hour's intermission before evening study, the three separated themselves from the dancers in the hall, and withdrew to a corner of the deserted schoolroom.
Patty perched herself on a desk, and loudly stated her feelings.
"I'm tired of having the Dowager get up at prayers, and make a speech about the beautiful Christmas spirit, and how sweet it is to make so many little children happy, when she knows perfectly well that it's just a lark for us. I'm chairman this year and I can do as I please. I've had enough of this fake charity; and I'm not going to have any Christmas tree!"
"No Christmas tree?" Conny echoed blankly.
"But what are you going to do with the thirty-seven dollars and eight-four cents?" asked Priscilla, the practical.
"Listen!" Patty settled to her argument. "There aren't any children around here who need a blessed thing, but Gramma and Granpa Flannigan do. That poor old woman, who is just as nice as she can be, is crowded in with all those horrid, yelling, sticky little Murphys; and Granpa Flannigan is poked into Tammas Junior's kitchen, running errands for Tammas Junior's wife, who is a per-fect-ly terrible woman. She throws kettles when she gets mad. Gramma worries all the time for fear he has rheumatism, and nobody to rub on liniment, or make him wear the right underclothes. They're exactly as fond of each other as any other husband and wife, and just because Ursula wants to have callers, I say it's a mean shame for them to be separated!"
"It is too bad," Conny agreed impartially. "But I don't see that we can help it."
"Why, yes! Instead of having a Christmas tree, we'll rent that empty little cottage down by the laurel walk, and mend the chimney—Patrick can do that for nothing—and put in new windows, and furnish it, and set them up in housekeeping."
"Do you think we can do it for thirty-seven dollars and eighty-four cents?" Priscilla asked.
"That's where the charity comes in! Every girl in school will go without her allowance for two weeks. Then we'll have more than a hundred dollars, and you can furnish a house perfectly beautifully for that. And it would be real charity to give up our allowances, because they are particularly useful at Christmas time."
"But will the girls want to give their allowances?"
"We'll fix it so they'll have to," said Patty. "We'll call a mass meeting and make a speech. Then everybody will file past and sign a paper. No one will dare refuse with the school looking on."
Patty's fire kindled an answering flame in the other two.
"It is a good idea!" Conny declared.
"And it would be a lark, fixing the house," said Priscilla. "Almost as much fun as getting married ourselves."
"Exactly," Patty nodded. "Those poor old things haven't had a chance to see each other alone for years. We'll give 'em a honeymoon all over again."
Patty was outwardly occupied with geometry the next hour, but her mind was busy hemming sheets and towels and tablecloths. It being Thursday evening, the hour between eight and nine was occupied with "manners." The girls took turns in coming gracefully downstairs, entering the drawing-room, announced by Claire du Bois in the rôle of footman, and shaking hands with their hostesses—Conny Wilder, as dowager mama, and towering above her, as débutante daughter, Irene McCullough, the biggest girl in the school. The gymnasium teacher who assigned the rôles, had a sense of humor. An appropriate remark was expected from each guest, the weather being barred.
"Mrs. Wilder!" Priscilla gushed, advancing with outstretched hand, "and dear little Irene! It doesn't seem possible that the child is actually grown. It was only yesterday that she was a mite of a thing toddling about—"
Priscilla was shoved on by Patty.
"Me dear Mrs. Wilder," she inquired in a brogue that would have put the Murphys to shame, "have ye heard the news that's goin' round? Mr. and Mrs. Tammas Flannigan have taken the Laurel Cottage for the season. They are thinkin' of startin' a salon. They will be at home ivery afternoon during recreation hour—and will serve limonade and gingerbread in summer, and soup and sandwiches in winter. Ye must take Irene to call on thim."
The moment "manners" was over, the three withdrew to the seclusion of Patty's and Conny's room in Paradise Alley, and closed the door against callers. Between nine and nine-thirty was the fashionable calling hour at St. Ursula's. The time was supposed to be occupied in getting ready for bed, but if one were clever about undressing in the dark, one might devote the thirty minutes to social purposes.
"Gone to sleep! Don't disturb us!" the placard read that they impaled upon the door, but the clatter of tongues inside belied the words.
"Isn't my idea fine about the lemonade and soup?" Patty demanded.
"The great thing about charity is not to make it charity. You must keep people self-supporting," Priscilla quoted from their last lesson in sociology.
"We'll fix little tables under the apple tree in summer and in the parlor in winter," Patty planned, "and all the school girls and automobiles will stop for lemonade. We'll charge the girls five cents a glass and the automobiles ten."
"And I say, let's make Patrick and Tammas each contribute a dollar a week toward their support," Conny proposed. "They must eat up a dollar's worth of potatoes as they are living now."
They continued planning in whispers until long after "lights-out" had rung; and Priscilla, in a laudable desire to be inconspicuous, was obliged to crawl on hands and knees past Mademoiselle's open door, before she gained her own room at the end of the corridor.
The moment recreation sounded the next afternoon, they obtained permission to be out of bounds, and set off at a brisk trot. It was their business-like intention to have all the statistics complete, before submitting the matter to the assembled school.
"We'll first call on Patrick and Tammas and make 'em promise the dollar," said Patty.
Patrick readily promised his dollar—Patrick was always strong in promises—and the girls proceeded gaily to Tammas Junior's. They found Granpa on the back doorstep anxiously wiping his feet; he was a tremulous reed that bowed before every blast of the daughter-in-law's tongue. Tammas Junior, after being taken aside and told the project, thought he could manage two dollars a week. An expression of relief momentarily took the hunted look from his eyes. He was clearly glad to rescue his father from the despotic rule of his wife.
The girls turned away with their minds made up. It only remained to secure the cottage, coerce the school, and hem the sheets.
"You go and price furniture and wall paper," Patty issued her orders, "while I see about the rent. We'll meet at the soda-water fountain."
She found the real-estate man who owned the cottage established in an office over the bank; and by what she considered rare business ability, beat him down from nine dollars a month to seven. This stroke accomplished, she intimated her readiness for the lease.
"A lease will not be necessary," he said. "A month to month verbal agreement will do for me."
"I can't consider it without a lease," said Patty, firmly. "You might sell or something, and then we'd have to move out."
The gentleman amusedly filled in the form, and signed as party of the first part. He passed the pen to Patty and indicated the space reserved for the signature of the party of the second part.
"I must first consult my partners," she explained.
"Oh, I see! Have them sign here, and then bring the lease back."
"All of them?" she asked, dubiously scanning the somewhat cramped quarters. "I'm afraid there won't be room."
"How many partners have you?"
"Sixty-three."
He stared momentarily, then as his eye fell on the embroidered "St. U." on Patty's coat sleeve, he threw back his head and laughed.
"I beg your pardon!" he apologized, "but I was a bit staggered for a moment. I am not used to doing business on such a large scale. In order to be legal," he gravely explained, "the paper will have to be signed by all the parties to the contract. If there is not enough room, you might paste on an er—"
"Annex?" suggested Patty.
"Exactly," he agreed and with grave politeness bowed her out.
As the bell rang that indicated the end of study that evening, Patty and Conny and Priscilla jumped to their feet, and called a mass meeting of the school. The door was closed after the retreating Miss Jellings, and for half an hour the three made speeches separately and in unison. They were persuasive talkers and they carried the day. The allowance was voted with scarcely a dissenting voice, and the school filed past and signed the lease.
For two weeks St. Ursula's was a busy place—and also Laurel Cottage. Bounds were practically enlarged to include it. The girls worked in gangs during every recreation hour. The cellar was whitewashed by a committee of four, who went in blue, and came out speckled like a plover's egg. Tammas Junior had volunteered for this job, but it was one the girls could not relinquish. They did allow him to kalsomine the ceilings and hang the wall paper; but they painted the floors and lower reaches of woodwork themselves. The evening's hour of recreation no longer found them dancing, but sitting in a solid phalanx on the stairs hemming sheets and tablecloths. The house was to be furnished with a completeness that poor Mrs. Flannigan, in all her married life, had never known before.
When everything was finished, the day before the holidays, the school in a body wiped its feet on the door-mat and tiptoed through on a last visit of inspection. The cottage contained three rooms, with a cellar and woodshed besides. The wall paper and chintz hangings of the parlor were flaming pink peonies with a wealth of foliage—a touch of flamboyant for some tastes, but Granpa's and Gramma's eyes were failing, and they liked strong colors. Also, crafty questioning had elicited the fact that "pinies" were Gramma's favorite flower. The kitchen had turkey-red curtains with a cheerful strip of rag carpet and two comfortable easy chairs before the hearth. The cellar was generously stocked from the school farm—Miss Sallie's contribution—with potatoes and cabbages and carrots and onions, enough to make Irish stew for three months to come. The woodbin was filled, and even a five-gallon can of kerosene. Sixty-four pairs of eyes had scanned the rooms minutely to make sure that no essential was omitted.
Both the Murphy and Flannigan households had been agog for days over the proposed flitting of the pair. Even Mrs. Tammas had volunteered to wash the windows of the new cottage, and for a week she had scarcely been cross. The old man was already wondering at life. When the time arrived, Mrs. Murphy secretly packed Gramma's belongings and dressed her in her best, under the pretext that she was to be taken in a carriage to a Christmas party to have supper with her husband. The old woman was in a happy flutter at the prospect. Granpa was prepared for the journey by the same simple strategy.
Patty and Conny and Priscilla, as originators of the enterprise, had been appointed to install the old couple; but with tactful forbearance, they delegated the right to the son and daughter. They saw that the fires were burning, the lamps lighted, and the cat—there was even a cat—asleep on the hearth rug; then when the sound of carriage wheels in front told them that Martin had arrived with his passengers, they quietly slipped out the back way and jogged home to dinner through the snowy dusk.
They were met by a babel of questions.
"Was Gramma pleased with the parlor clock?"
"Did she know what to do with the chaffing-dish?"
"Were they disappointed at not having a feather bed?"
"Did they like the cat, or would they rather have had a parrot?" (The school had been torn asunder on this important point.)
At the dinner table that night—such of the school as was left—chattered only of Laurel Cottage. They were as excited over Gramma and Granpa's happiness, as over their own approaching holiday. All sixty-four were planning to drink tea, on the first day of their return, from Gramma's six cups.
Toward nine o'clock, Patty and Priscilla, by a special dispensation that allowed late hours in vacation, received permission to accompany Conny and ten other dear friends to the station for the western express. Driving back alone in the "hearse," still bubbling with the hilarity of Christmas farewells, they passed the Laurel Cottage.
"I believe they're still up!" said Priscilla. "Let's stop and wish 'em a Merry Christmas, just to make sure they like it."
Martin was readily induced to halt; his discipline also was relaxed in vacation. They approached the door, but hesitated at sight of the picture revealed by the lighted window. To interrupt with the boisterous greetings of the season, seemed like rudely breaking in upon the seclusion of lovers. Only a glance was needed to tell them that the house-warming was successful. Gramma and Granpa were sitting before the fire in their comfortable red-cushioned rocking-chairs; the lamp shed a glow on their radiant faces, as they held each other's hands and smiled into the future.
Patty and Priscilla tiptoed away and climbed back into the hearse, a touch sobered and thoughtful.
"You know," Patty pondered, "they are just as contented as if they lived
in a palace with a million dollars and an automobile! It's funny, isn't
it, what a little thing makes some people happy?"
VI
The Silver Buckles
"Kid McCoy isn't so bad," said Conny consolingly.
"She's a horrid little tomboy."
"But you know she's entertaining, Patty."
"She never says a word that isn't slang, and I think she's the limit!"
"Well, anyway, Harriet Gladden—"
"Is perfectly dreadful and you know it. I would just as soon spend Christmas with a weeping angel on a tombstone."
"She is pretty mournful," Priscilla agreed. "I've spent three Christmases with her. But anyway, you'll have fun. You can be late for meals whenever you want, and Nora lets you make candy on the kitchen stove."
Patty sniffed disdainfully as she commenced the work of resettling her room, after the joyous upheaval of a Christmas packing. The other two assisted in silent sympathy. There was after all not much comfort to be offered. School in holiday time was a lonely substitute for home. Priscilla, whose father was a naval officer, and whose home was a peripatetic affair, had become inured to the experience; but this particular year, she was gaily setting out to visit cousins in New York—with three new dresses and two new hats! And Patty, whose home was a mere matter of two hours in a Pullman car, was to be left behind; for six-year old Thomas Wyatt had chosen this inopportune time to come down with scarlet fever. The case was of the lightest; Master Tommy was sitting up in bed and occupying himself with a box of lead soldiers. But the rest of the family were not so comfortable. Some were quarantined in, and the others out. Judge Wyatt had installed himself in a hotel and telegraphed the Dowager to keep Patty at St. Ursula's during the holidays. Poor Patty had been happily packing her trunk when the news arrived; and as she unpacked it, she distributed a few excusable tears through the bureau drawers.
Ordinarily, a number remained for the holidays,—girls whose homes were in the West or South, or whose parents were traveling abroad or getting divorces—but this year the assortment was unusually meager. Patty was left alone in "Paradise Alley." Margarite McCoy, of Texas, was stranded at the end of the South Corridor, and Harriet Gladden of Nowhere, had a suite of eighteen rooms at her disposal in "Lark Lane." These and four teachers made up the household.
Harriet Gladden had been five years straight at St. Ursula's—term time and vacations without a break. She came a lanky little girl of twelve, all legs and arms, and she was now a lanky big girl of seventeen, still all legs and arms. An invisible father, at intervals mentioned in the catalogue, mailed checks to Mrs. Trent; and beyond this made no sign. Poor Harriet was a mournful, silent, neglected child; entirely out of place in the effervescing life that went on around her.
She never had any birthday boxes from home, never any Christmas presents, except those that came from the school. While the other girls were clamoring for mail, Harriet stood in the background silent and unexpectant. Miss Sallie picked out her clothes, and Miss Sallie's standards were utilitarian rather than æsthetic. Harriet, with no exception, was the worst dressed girl in the school. Even her school uniform, which was an exact twin of sixty-three other uniforms, hung upon her with the grace of a meal-bag. Miss Sallie, with provident foresight, always ordered them a size too large in order to allow her to grow and Harriet invariably wore them out, before she had established a fit.
"What on earth becomes of Harriet Gladden during vacation?" Priscilla once wondered on the opening day.
"They keep her on ice through the summer," was Patty's opinion, "and she never gets entirely thawed out."
As a matter of fact this was, as nearly as possible, what they did do with her. Miss Sallie picked out a quiet, comfortable, healthy farmhouse, and installed Harriet in charge of the farmer's wife. By the end of three months she was so desperately lonely, that she looked forward with pleasurable excitement to the larger isolation of term time.
Patty, one day, had overheard two of the teachers discussing Harriet, and her reported version had been picturesque.
"Her father hasn't seen her for years and years. He just chucks her in here and pays the bills."
"I don't wonder he doesn't want her at home!" said Priscilla.
"There isn't any home. Her mother is divorced, and married again, and living in Paris. That was the reason Harriet couldn't go abroad with the school party last year. Her father was afraid that when she got to Paris, her mother would grab her—not that either of them really wants her, but they like to spite each other."
Priscilla and Conny sat up interestedly. Here was a tragic intrigue, such as you expect to meet only in novels, going on under their very noses.
"You girls who have had a happy home life, cannot imagine the loneliness of a childhood such as Harriet's," said Patty impressively.
"It's dreadful!" Conny cried. "Her father must be a perfect Beast not to take any notice of her."
"Harriet has her mother's eyes," Patty explained. "Her father can't bear to look at her, because she reminds him of the happy past that is dead forever."
"Did Miss Wadsworth say that?" they demanded in an interested chorus.
"Not in exactly those words," Patty confessed. "I just gathered the outline."
This story, with picturesque additions, lost no time in making the rounds of the school. Had Harriet chosen to play up to the romantic and melancholy rôle she was cast for, she might have attained popularity of a sort; but Harriet did not have the slightest trace of the histrionic in her make-up. She merely moped about, and continued to be heavy and uninteresting. Other more exciting matters demanded public attention; and Harriet and her blasted childhood were forgotten.
Patty stood on the veranda waving good-by to the last hearseful of Christmas travelers, then turned indoors to face an empty three weeks. As she was listlessly preparing to mount the stairs, Maggie waylaid her with the message:
"Mrs. Trent would like to speak to you in her private study, Miss Patty."
Patty turned back, wondering for just which of her latest activities she was to be called to account. A visit to the Dowager's private study usually meant that a storm was brewing. She found the four left-behind teachers cosily gathered about the tea table, and to her surprise, was received with four affable smiles.
"Sit down, Patty, and have some tea."
The Dowager motioned her to a chair, while she mingled an inch of tea with three inches of hot water. Miss Sallie furnished a fringed napkin, Miss Jellings presented buttered toast, and Miss Wadsworth, salted almonds. Patty blinked dazedly and accepted the offerings. To be waited on by four teachers was an entirely new experience. Her spirits rose considerably as she mentally framed the story for Priscilla's and Conny's delectation. When she had ceased to wonder why she was being thus honored, the reason appeared.
"I am sorry, Patty," said the Dowager, "that none of your special friends are to be here this year; but I am sure that you and Margarite and Harriet will get on very happily. Breakfast will be half an hour later than usual, and the rules about bounds will be somewhat relaxed—only of course we must always know where to find you. I shall try to plan a matinée party in the city, and Miss Sallie will take you to spend a day at the farm. The ice is strong enough now for you to skate, and Martin will get out the sleds for you to coast. You must be in the open air as much as possible; and I shall be very pleased if you and Margarite can interest Harriet in out-of-door sports. Speaking of Harriet—"
The Dowager hesitated momentarily, and Patty's acute understanding realized that at last they were getting at the kernel of the interview. The tea and toast had been merely wrapping. She listened with a touch of suspicion, while the Dowager lowered her voice with an air of confidence.
"Speaking of Harriet, I should like to enlist your sympathy, Patty. She is very sweet and genuine. A girl that anyone might be proud to have for a friend. But through an accident, such as sometimes happens in a crowded, busy, selfish community, she has been overlooked and left behind. Harriet has never seemed to adjust herself so readily as most girls; and I fear that the poor child is often very lonely. It would be highly gratifying to me if you would make an effort to be friendly with her. I am sure that she will meet your advances half way."
Patty murmured a few polite phrases and retired to dress for dinner, stubbornly resolved to be as distant with Harriet as possible. Her friendship was not a commodity to be bought with tea and buttered toast.
The three girls had dinner alone at a little candle-lit table set in a corner of the dining-room, while the four teachers occupied a conveniently distant table in the opposite corner.
Patty commenced the meal by being as monosyllabic as possible; but it was not her natural attitude toward the world, and by the time the veal had arrived (it was Wednesday night) she was laughing whole-heartedly at Kid's ingenuous conversation. Miss McCoy's vocabulary was rich in the vernacular of the plains, and in vacation she let herself go. During term time she was forced to curb her discourse, owing to the penny tax on slang. Otherwise, her entire allowance would have gone to swell the public coffers.
It was a relief to let dinner-table conversation flow where it listed; usually, with a teacher in attendance and the route marked out, there was a cramped formality about the meal. French conversation was supposed to occupy the first three courses five nights in the week, and every girl must contribute at least two remarks. It cannot be said that on French nights the dining-room was garrulous. Saturday night was devoted to a discussion (in English) of current events, gleaned from a study of the editorials in the morning paper. Nobody at St. Ursula's had much time for editorials, and even on an English Saturday conversation languished. But the school made up for it on Sunday. This day, being festa, they could talk about anything they chose; and sixty-four magpies chattering their utmost, would have been silence in comparison to St. Ursula's at dinner time on Sunday.
The four days preceding Christmas passed with unexpected swiftness. A snow-storm marked the first, followed by three days of glistening sunshine. Martin got out the bobs, and the girls piled in and rode to the wood-lot for evergreens. There were many errands in the village, and the novelty of not always having a teacher at one's heels, proved in itself diverting.
Patty found the two companions which circumstances had forced upon her unexpectedly companionable. They skated and coasted and had snow fights; and Harriet, to Patty's wide-eyed astonishment, assumed a very appreciable animation. On Christmas Eve they had been out with Martin delivering Christmas baskets to old time protégés of the school; and on the way home, through pure overflowing animal spirits, for a mile or more they had "caught on" the back of the bob, and then tumbled out and run and caught on again, until they finally dove head foremost into the big piled-up drift by the porte-cochère. They shook the snow from their clothes, like puppies from a pond, and laughing and excited trooped indoors. Harriet's cheeks were red from contact with the snow, her usually prim hair was a tangled mass about her face, her big dark eyes had lost their mournful look. They were merry, mischievous, girlish eyes. She was not merely pretty, but beautiful, in a wild, unusual gypsyish way that compelled attention.
"I say," Patty whispered to Kid McCoy as they divested themselves of rubbers and leggins in the lower hall. "Look at Harriet! Isn't she pretty?"
"Golly!" murmured the Kid. "If she knew enough to play up to her looks, she'd be the ravingest beauty in all the school."
"Let's make her!" said Patty.
At the top of the stairs they met Osaki with a hammer and chisel.
"I open two box," he observed. "One Mees Margarite McCoy. One Mees Patty Wyatt."
"Hooray!" cried the Kid, starting at a gallop for her room in the South Wing.
A Christmas box to Kid McCoy meant a lavish wealth of new possessions out of all proportion to her desserts. She owned a bachelor guardian who was subject to fits of such erratic generosity that the Dowager had regularly to remind him that Margarite was but a school girl with simple tastes. Fortunately he always forgot this warning before the next Christmas—or else he knew Kid too well to believe it—and the boxes continued to come.
Patty had also started without ceremony for Paradise Alley, when she became aware of deserted Harriet, slowly trailing down the dim length of Lark Lane. She ran back and grasped her by an elbow.
"Come on, Harry! And help me open my box."
Harriet's face flushed with sudden pleasure; it was the first time, in the five and a half years of her school career, that she had ever achieved the dignity of a nickname. She accompanied Patty with some degree of eagerness. The next best thing to receiving a Christmas box of your own, is to be present at the reception of a friend's.
It was a big square wooden box, packed to the brim with smaller boxes and parcels tied with ribbon and holly, and tucked into every crevice funny surprises. You could picture, just from looking at it, the kind of home that it came from, filled with jokes and nonsense and love.
"It's the first Christmas I've ever spent away from home," said Patty, with the suggestion of a quiver in her voice.
But her momentary soberness did not last; the business of exploration was too absorbing to allow any divided emotion. Harriet sat on the edge of the bed and watched in silence, while Patty gaily strewed the floor with tissue paper and scarlet ribbon. She unpacked a wide assortment of gloves and books and trinkets, each with a message of love. Even the cook had baked a Christmas cake with a fancy top. And little Tommy, in wobbly uphill printing, had labeled an elephant filled with candy, "for dere cister from tom."
Patty laughed happily as she plumped a chocolate into her mouth, and dropped the elephant into Harriet's lap.
"Aren't they dears to go to such a lot of trouble? I tell you, it pays to stay away sometimes, they think such a lot more of you! This is from Mother," she added, as she pried off the cover of a big dressmaker's box, and lifted out a filmy dancing frock of pink crêpe.
"Isn't it perfectly sweet?" she demanded, "and I didn't need it a bit! Don't you love to get things you don't need?"
"I never do," said Harriet.
Patty was already deep in another parcel.
"From Daddy, with all the love in the world," she read. "Dear old Dad! What on earth do you s'pose it is? I hope Mother suggested something. He's a perfect idiot about choosing presents, unless—Oh!" she squealed. "Pink silk stockings and slippers to match; and look at those perfectly lovely buckles!"
She offered for Harriet's inspection a pink satin slipper adorned with the daintiest of silver buckles, and with heels dizzily suggestive of France.
"Isn't my father a lamb?" Patty gaily kissed her hand toward a dignified, judicial-looking portrait on the bureau. "Mother suggested the slippers, of course, but the buckles and French heels were his own idea. She likes me sensible, and he likes me frivolous."
She was deep in the absorbing business of holding the pink frock before the glass to make sure that the color was becoming, when she was suddenly arrested by the sound of a sob, and she turned to see Harriet throw herself across the bed and clutch the pillow in a storm of weeping. Patty stared with wide-open eyes; she herself did not indulge in such emotional demonstrations, and she could not imagine any possible cause. She moved the pink satin slippers out of reach of Harriet's thrashing feet, gathered up the fallen elephant and scattered chocolates, and sat down to wait until the cataclysm should pass.
"What's the matter?" she mildly inquired, when Harriet's sobs gave place to choking gasps.
"My father never sent me any s-silver b-buckles."
"He's way off in Mexico," said Patty, awkwardly groping for consolation.
"He never sends me anything! He doesn't even know me. He wouldn't recognize me if he met me on the street."
"Oh, yes, he would," Patty assured her with doubtful comfort. "You haven't changed a bit in four years."
"And he wouldn't like me if he did know me. I'm not pretty, and my clothes are never nice, and—" Harriet was off again.
Patty regarded her for a moment of thoughtful silence, then she decided on a new tack. She stretched out a hand and shook her vigorously.
"For goodness' sake, stop crying! That's what's the matter with your father. No man can stand having tears dripped down his neck all the time."
Harriet arrested her sobs to stare.
"If you could see the way you look when you cry! Sort of streaked. Come here!" She took her by the shoulder and faced her before the mirror. "Did you ever see such a fright? And I was just thinking, before you began, about how pretty you looked. I was, honestly. You could be as pretty as any of the rest of us, if you'd only make up your mind—"
"No, I couldn't! I'm just as ugly as I can be. Nobody likes me and—"
"It's your own fault!" said Patty sharply. "If you were fat, like Irene McCullough, or if you didn't have any chin like Evalina Smith, there might be some reason, but there isn't anything on earth the matter with you, except that you're so damp! You cry all the time, and it gets tiresome to be forever sympathizing. I'm telling you the truth because I'm beginning to like you. There's never any use bothering to tell people the truth when you don't like them. The reason Conny and Pris and I get on so well together, is because we always tell each other the exact truth about our faults. Then we have a chance to correct them—that's what makes us so nice," she added modestly.
Harriet sat with her mouth open, too surprised to cry.
"And your clothes are awful," pursued Patty interestedly. "You ought not to let Miss Sallie pick 'em out. Miss Sallie's nice; I like her a lot, but she doesn't know any more than a rabbit about clothes; you can tell that by the way she dresses herself. And then, too, you'd be a lot nicer if you wouldn't be so stiff. If you'd just laugh the way the rest of us do—"
"How can I laugh when I don't think things are funny? The jokes the girls make are awfully silly—"
Speech was no longer possible, for Kid McCoy came stampeding down the corridor with as much racket as a cavalcade of horses. She was decked in a fur scarf and a necklace set with pearls, she wore a muff on her head, drum-major fashion; a lace handkerchief and a carved ivory fan protruded from the pocket of her blouse and a pink chiffon scarf floated from her shoulders; her wrist was adorned with an Oriental bracelet and she was lugging in her arms a silver-mounted Mexican saddle, of a type that might be suited to the plains of Texas, but never to the respectable country lanes adjacent to St. Ursula's.
"Bully for Guardie!" she shouted as she descended upon them. "He's a daisy; he's a ducky; he's a lamb. Did you ever see such a perfectly corking saddle?"
She plumped it over a chair, transformed the pink chiffon scarf into a bridle, and proceeded to mount and canter off.
"Get up! Whoa! Hi, there! Clear the road."
Harriet jumped aside to avoid being bumped, while Patty snatched her pink frock from the path of the runaway. They were shrieking with laughter, even Harriet, the tearful.
"Now you see!" said Patty, suddenly interrupting her mirth. "It's perfectly easy to laugh if you just let yourself go. Kid isn't really funny. She's just as silly as she can be."
Kid brought her horse to a stand.
"Well I like that!"
"Excuse me for telling the truth," said Patty politely, "I'm just using you for an illustration—Heavens! There's the bell!"
She commenced unlacing her blouse with one hand, while she pushed her guests to the door with the other.
"Hurry and dress, and come back to button me up. It would be a very delicate attention for us to be on time to-night. We've been late for every meal since vacation began."
The girls spent Christmas morning coasting. They were on time for luncheon—and with appetites!
The meal was half over when Osaki appeared with a telegram, which he handed to the Dowager. She read it with agitated surprise and passed it to Miss Sallie, who raised her eyebrows and handed it to Miss Wadsworth, who was thrown into a very visible flutter.
"What on earth can it be?" Kid wondered.
"Lordy's eloped, and they've got to hunt for a new Latin teacher," was Patty's interpretation.
As the three girls left the table, the Dowager waylaid Harriet.
"Step into my study a moment. A telegram has just come—"
Patty and Kid climbed the stairs in wide-eyed wonder.
"It can't be bad news, for Miss Sallie was smiling—" meditated Patty. "And I can't think of any good news that can be happening to Harriet."
Ten minutes later there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Harriet burst into Patty's room wild with excitement.
"Who?"
"My father."
"When?"
"Right now—this afternoon—He's been in New York on business, and is coming to see me for Christmas."
"I'm so glad!" said Patty heartily. "Now, you see the reason he hasn't come before is because he has been away off in Mexico."
Harriet shook her head, with a sudden drop in her animation.
"I suppose he thinks he ought."
"Nonsense!"
"It's so. He doesn't care for me—really. He likes girls to be jolly and pretty and clever like you."
"Well, then—be jolly and pretty and clever like me."
Harriet's eyes sought the mirror, and filled with tears.
"You're a perfect idiot!" said Patty, despairingly.
"I'm an awful fright in my green dress," said Harriet.
"Yes," Patty grudgingly conceded. "You are."
"The skirt is too short, and the waist is too long."
"And the sleeves are sort of queer," said Patty.
Faced by these dispiriting facts, she felt her enthusiasm ebbing.
"What time is he coming?" she asked.
"Four o'clock."
"That gives us two hours," Patty rallied her forces. "One can do an awful lot in two hours. If you were only nearer my size, you could wear my new pink dress—but I'm afraid—" She regarded Harriet's long legs dubiously. "I'll tell you!" she added, in a rush of generosity. "We'll take out the tucks and let down the hem."
"Oh, Patty!" Harriet was tearfully afraid of spoiling the gown. But when Patty's zeal in any cause was roused, all other considerations were swept aside. The new frock was fetched from the closet, and the ripping began.
"And you can wear Kid's new pearl necklace and pink scarf, and my silk stockings and slippers—if you can get 'em on—and I think Conny left a lace petticoat that came back from the laundry too late to pack—and—Here's Kid now!"
Miss McCoy's sympathies were enlisted and in fifteen minutes the task of transforming a remonstrating, excited, and occasionally tearful Harriet into the school beauty, was going gaily forward. Kid McCoy was supposed to be an irreclaimable tomboy, but in this crucial moment the eternal feminine came triumphantly to the fore. She sat herself down, with Patty's manicure scissors, and for three-quarters of an hour painstakingly ripped out tucks.
Patty meanwhile addressed her attention to Harriet's hair.
"Don't strain it back so tight," she ordered. "It looks as though you'd done it with a monkey-wrench. Here! Give me the comb."