The Little Colonel's House Party

The next charade was easier. Every one wrote "music" on his card, after the two acts in which plaintive mews floated up from the rocks and the Gibbs family were taken sick. All but Jim, who, in the high silk hat he had worn before, took the part of doctor.

"If they are all as easy as this," thought Betty, "I can surely take one of the prizes," and she waited eagerly for the next word. In the first act 'Tildy Gibbs came out with an envelope in her hands, and all of a sudden Betty's heart gave a guilty thump as she thought of the letter she and Eugenia had left lying on the hall table. They had forgotten their promise.

"But it is Eugenia's fault every bit as much as it is mine," she thought, looking across the semicircle, where Eugenia sat serenely unconscious of forgotten promises. "She's just as much to blame as I am. Oh, well, I'll mail it first thing in the morning."

But Betty would not listen to her conscience. She resolutely turned her attention to the charades, until all at once she seemed to hear Miss Allison's voice saying, "I like this little hand. It will keep a promise to the utmost." Then Keith's conversation of the night before came back to her about his motto and his badge. But more than all, the thought of being worthy of her godmother's trust in her impelled her to keep her promise.

It was a hard struggle that went on in the little girl's mind just then. From the puzzled glances around her she was sure that she was the only one who had guessed all the charades correctly; therefore she stood the best chance of winning the first prize, and she wanted it—oh, how she wanted it!—for Mrs. Sherman had said that it was a book. And yet—her sacred promise! If she kept it, she would lose her only chance. It was twilight in the woods, and it would be dark before she could get back to the picnic-grounds. It wouldn't be right to ask any one else to go with her, and miss the chance of winning the prize, too. Still, there was that promise, and it must be kept—to the utmost. All these thoughts went on, swaying her first to one decision and then another.

It was lighter out in the open, when they had left the shelter of the woods, and she guided the pony down the hill, across the pasture, and through the gate, glad that she did not have to go all the way in darkness. Lad, knowing that he was going home, dashed down the road, choosing his own direction when the lonely highway branched. He knew the way better than his little rider.

Springing off the pony when it stopped at the steps, she rushed into the hall, snatched the letter from the table, and ran out again, only pausing for a hasty glance at the clock. Mom Beck, who had heard the clatter of hoofs, the quick step on the porch, and the wild dash out again, feared that something was amiss, and came running to the door.

"What undah the sun is the mattah, honey?" she called, but Betty was far down the avenue, and never paused to look back.

Lad, turned away from home, was not so willing to run now, and Betty could hear the train whistling up the road. It was the seven o'clock mail train.

"Oh, Lad, hurry!" she urged. "Dear, good old Lad, please hurry! I'm so afraid we won't get there in time."

Lad looked around at her and stopped still in the road. The train whistled nearer. Guiding the pony to the fence, Betty stood up and broke a switch from an overhanging tree.

"It's a close shave, my dear," said Miss Mattie, reaching out to take the letter eagerly thrust through the bars. "I'm a few minutes late, anyhow, and there's barely time to stamp it and slip it in, so!" She acted while she spoke, so that with the last word she had turned the key. A coloured porter, who stood waiting, caught up the bag and hurried across the road to the railroad station. The train came thundering down the track, and he jumped across in front of the locomotive.

Betty watched until she saw the mail-bag tossed aboard, and then gave a deep sigh of thankfulness. "Well," she exclaimed to Lad, in a relieved tone, "that's done! We're too late for the charades, but maybe we'll get back to the mill in time for the cake-walk."

"It must be to the left," she said, in bewilderment, after a moment's hesitation, and slowly turned in that direction. But she had taken the wrong way. She went on and on, wondering why she did not come to a gate, when the road suddenly turned into a narrow wagon track, with dark corn-fields on each side. There was not a house or a human being in sight.

The moon was not high enough yet to dispel much of the gloom of the twilight, and bullbats were circling overhead, dipping so low at times that once they almost brushed her face.

A cold fear seized the child, and such a weakness numbed her trembling hands that she could scarcely hold the bridle.

Wheeling the pony so suddenly that she almost lost her balance, she gave him a cut with the switch that sent him flying back over the road he had come, at the top of his speed. Now every bush and every tree and every brier-tangled fence corner seemed to hold some nameless terror for her, and even her lips were cold and blue with fear.

At the cross-roads she had another fright, as something big and black loomed up in the moonlight ahead of her. "Oh, what is it?" she moaned, so frightened that her heart almost stopped beating. The next glance showed her that it was some one coming toward her on horseback, and then a cheery whistling reassured her. Nobody could be very dangerous, she knew, who could go along the road whistling "My Old Kentucky Home" in such a happy fashion.

Keith had offered to ride up to Locust and see what was the matter, and his surprise showed itself in his rapid questioning when he met her riding wildly away from the place where she had seen Limping Tige. It did not take long for him to learn the whole story of her lonely ride, and the fright she had had, for his questions were fired with such directness of aim that truthful Betty could not dodge them. "And you missed it all—the charades and the chance of taking the prize—and came all the way back by yourself just to post a letter, when you didn't know the way!" he exclaimed again as they drew in sight of the old mill.

"Well, I call that pretty plucky for a girl."

"I didn't want to," confessed Betty, "but there wasn't anything else to do. It was a sacred promise, you know, and I had to keep it—to the utmost."

They jogged along in silence side by side, a moment longer. Then as the bonfire at the old mill flared into sight, Keith looked down at the tired little figure on the pony beside him.

"FOUND OUT."

"What makes everybody so snarly this morning?" asked Joyce, looking around on the circle of moody faces. The four girls had been lounging in hammocks and chairs under the trees for several hours, and in all that time scarcely a civil word had been spoken.

"There isn't any reason why we should be cross," Joyce went on. "It's a glorious day, we've had a delicious breakfast and a good ride, and there is the tissue-paper party at Sally Fairfax's to-night to look forward to. But in spite of it all I feel so mean and cross that I want to scratch somebody."

Betty looked up from her book and laughed. "I don't feel snarly, but I've been wondering ever since breakfast what had happened to make you all out of sorts. Lloyd looks as if she had been eating sour pickles, and Eugenia has snapped at everybody who has spoken to her this morning."

"Oh, hush up!" exclaimed Eugenia, crossly.

"Why, Lloyd," said Mrs. Sherman, coming up just then in time to hear Lloyd's song and Eugenia's answer, "you are surely not teasing one of your guests! I am surprised!"

To every one's astonishment, Lloyd flopped over in the hammock, and, covering her face with her arm, began to cry.

"What is the matter, little daughter?" asked Mrs. Sherman, in alarm, sitting down in the hammock beside her and stroking the short soft hair soothingly. She had never known Lloyd to be so sensitive to a slight reproof.

"Mother didn't mean to scold her little girl. I was only surprised to hear you saying anything unpleasant to a guest of yours."

"You-you'd have said it, too!" sobbed the Little Colonel, "if Eu-Eugenia had been so mean to you all mawnin'! She's been t-talkin so hateful and cross—"

Here, to Mrs. Sherman's still greater surprise, Eugenia fumbled for her handkerchief and began mopping up the tears that were streaming down her face.

"Really, girls, I am distressed!" exclaimed Mrs. Sherman. "Is there anything serious the matter that you have been quarrelling about, or are you only ill and nervous?"

"I nevah was so mizzible in all my life," said Lloyd. "My throat is soah and my eyes ache, and I can't help cryin' if anybody looks at me."

"That's just the way I feel," said Eugenia, still dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, "and my head aches, besides."

"I think we are all three taking bad colds," said Joyce, from her hammock. "I haven't reached the crying stage yet, but I'm fast on the way toward it. Betty will be the only one able to go to the party to-night, and our tissue-paper dresses are so pretty."

"Surely you haven't been near any of those people, have you? Passed them on the road, or met them at the station at any time?"

There was a long pause in which nobody answered, and in which Betty could hear her heart beat fast.

"Lloyd, answer me," insisted Mrs. Sherman.

"Eu-Eugenia won't l-let me!" sobbed the Little Colonel. "She made us all p-promise not to tell."

Eugenia's face turned pale, but she lifted her head defiantly as Mrs. Sherman turned to her, calling her name.

"What is the trouble, child? You surely didn't go to the camp that morning when I warned you not to?"

"Yes, we did," answered Eugenia, a little frightened now by the expression of Mrs. Sherman's face, but still defiant.

"About a week ago, I think. I don't remember exactly."

"It's been nine days," said Betty, counting her fingers. "I remember it because it was the day before the picnic at the old mill."

"And there was a sick baby in the tent when we went in to have our fortunes told," added Joyce. "It lay in the old woman's lap all the time she held my hand, and it kept turning its head from side to side, and fretting in a weak little voice as if it didn't have strength to cry hard. That must have been the poor little thing that died."

"And you all went into that tent and all let that old woman hold your hands?" asked Mrs. Sherman, looking around from one to another with a distressed face.

"No, mothah," cried the Little Colonel, "Betty didn't go, and she tried to keep us from goin'. She said you wouldn't like it."

A loving smile of unspoken approval, that made Betty's heart glow with pleasure, lighted Mrs. Sherman's face for an instant. Then she turned to the others.

"Oh, I've already had the measles," said Betty, quickly, "two years ago."

"Then I'm glad that you will not have to suffer for the disobedience of the others," answered her godmother. "It has brought its own punishment this time, so I'll not add a scolding. I'll leave the measles, if that's what it turns out to be, to preach you a sermon on the text, 'Be sure your sin will find you out.'"

Sally Fairfax welcomed no guests from Locust that night at her party, for the doctor made his visit and pronounced his verdict. No parties for many a long day. Lloyd and Eugenia and Joyce had the measles, and nobody would want Betty to come for fear of the contagion.

"It's too bad," mourned Betty, tilting the graceful daffodil blossom of a hat on her brown curls, and admiring it in the mirror. "I haven't got the measles, and this is so sweet, it's a pity not to wear it somewhere."

Late that evening she heard the Little Colonel grumbling: "Well, this is a house pahty suah enough, I must say! Heah we are in the house, and heah we'll stay and miss all the fun. I don't like this kind of a house pahty!"

"Nevah mine, honey," said Mom Beck. "It'll not be as bad as you think. The measles is done broke out on you beautiful—as thick as hops."

"But I hate this dahk room," wailed the Little Colonel, "and it's so poky and tiahsome, and I am so hot and I ache all ovah—"

Then Betty heard Mrs. Sherman go into the room, and the fretting ceased as her cool hand stroked the hot little forehead, and her voice began a slumber song. It was the "White Seal's Lullaby."

Betty, in her room across the hall, leaned her head against the window-sill and looked out into the darkness. There were tears in her eyes. "Oh," she whispered, with a quivering lip, "if I only had a mother to sing to me like that, I wouldn't mind having the measles or anything else!"

"It's fun, isn't it?" said Eugenia, one day when they were waiting for their lunch to be brought up. "I am always wondering what is coming next, for Cousin Elizabeth has never missed a day, sending up some surprise with our meals. It is a continual surprise-party."

"We'll be dreadfully spoiled," said Joyce, "like a little boy at home that I know. He insists on keeping Christmas the year around. As he is the only child, and they'd give him the moon if they could reach it, they let him hang up his stocking every night, and every morning there is a present in it for him."

"Cousin Elizabeth is spoiling us just the same way," said Eugenia. "Those little souvenir spoons she sent up with the chocolate yesterday are perfect darlings. I think the world of mine."

"I wonder what the surprise will be to-day," said Lloyd, as the jingling of silver and tinkling of ice in glasses sounded on the stairs.

Eliot, Mom Beck, and the housemaid entered in solemn file, each bearing a tray containing a simple lunch, in the centre of which was a fancy plate containing a pile of crisp green lettuce.

"Isn't that a dainty dish to set before the king!" exclaimed Joyce, examining her conundrum salad. "Oh, girls, how that did fool me. I could have sworn that those were real lettuce leaves, and they are only paper. But what a clever imitation, and what a lot of conundrums written inside!"

"See if you can guess this one?" cried Eugenia. "Isn't it funny?" and she read a clever one that set them all to thinking. There was much laughter when they finally had to give it up, and she told them the answer.

"Now listen to this," said Lloyd next, and then it was Joyce's turn, and the lunch was eaten in the midst of much laughing and many bright remarks that the salad called forth.

"Ugh! I can smell that fish yet! I smelled it all afternoon, for he took it down-stairs to have it cleaned and cooked. About one o'clock he came back up-stairs after I had had my lunch, and there he had it on a plate, fried up into a crisp. I couldn't have swallowed any of it, to save me, but I couldn't disappoint the little fellow when he had tried so hard to please me, so I had to ask him to leave it, and told him maybe I would feel more like eating after I had slept awhile. So he went out perfectly satisfied, and I lay there, growing sicker every minute from the smell of that fried fish. At last I gathered up strength enough to throw it out of the window to the cat, but the plate still smelled of it, and nobody came in to take it away until after dark.

"You poor little Bettykins!" sighed Joyce, sympathetically. "It's too bad you can't have the measles all over again with us, here at the house party. It really isn't a bit bad now. I am enjoying it immensely."

As she spoke there was the sound of a horse's hoofs in the avenue, and a moment later a shrill whistle sounded under the window.

"Hello, Measles," shouted a merry voice.

"It's Rob!" exclaimed Lloyd. "Hello yourself!" she called back, laughingly. "Come in and have some, won't you?"

"No, thank you," he answered. "You are too generous. But I say, Lloyd, let down a basket or something, won't you? I've got a surprise here for you all."

A moment later Betty's smiling face appeared at the window, and the basket was lowered to the boy on the horse below.

"I can't reach it without standing up on the saddle," called Rob. "Whoa, there, Ben! Easy, old boy!" With feet wide apart to balance himself, Rob carefully dropped something from the basket he carried on his arm to the one that Betty dangled on a level with his eyes.

"One for you, too, Betty," the girls heard him say, but he had cantered off down the avenue before they discovered what it was he had left for them.

Betty carefully drew the basket in, fearful lest the rope might slip, for "the surprise" was heavy. As she landed it safely and turned the basket over on the floor, out rolled four fat little fox-terrier puppies.

"What darlings!" cried Lloyd, springing off her cot to catch up one of the plump little things as it sprawled toward her on its awkward paws. "They are so much alike we'll never be able to tell them apart unless we tie different coloured ribbons on them. I'm going to name mine Bob after Robby, 'cause he gave them to us."

"We'll all do that, too," said Joyce, and in a few minutes the four Bobs were frisking clumsily over the floor, in their respective bows of pink, yellow, blue, and green. They afforded the girls entertainment all that afternoon, and in the evening there was another surprise.

In the starlight, when it was dark enough for the blinds and shutters to be all thrown open in their rooms, they heard a carriage coming down the avenue. It, too, stopped under the window, and in a moment they recognised the twang of Malcolm's banjo and Miss Allison's guitar. "It's a serenade," called Eugenia. "What a good alto voice Keith has!"

It was an old college tune that rose on the air. Miss Allison had parodied the words of the peanut song:

"If we only hadn't gone to that horrid old gypsy camp," lamented the Little Colonel, "we might be down there now, having a share of the good time. What are you all laughing at?" she called. "It is simply maddening to be up here and listen to you and not know."

Malcolm leaned out of the carriage to sing, teasingly, "Thou art so near and yet so far," adding, "Never mind, Lloyd, we'll come again to-morrow, and bring a travelling show with us. Look out for us early in the morning, before it begins to get hot."

"What do you suppose those boys are going to do?" asked Eugenia, as Lloyd drew in her head, and the carriage rolled off, the serenaders still singing.

Although the question was asked several times that evening before bedtime, and the girls amused themselves for a quarter of an hour guessing what kind of a travelling show was to be brought by for their entertainment, not one of them thought of it again next morning. The doctor had decided that their eyes were well enough to bear the light, and, at his visit, threw open several of the blinds. Mrs. Sherman drove down to the station, and Mom Beck went to the servants' cottage. Only Eliot was left to keep an eye on the invalids, and she had been invited to bring her sewing and listen to a story that Betty was reading aloud. They had grown very fond of patient old Eliot, for she had been the kindest and best of nurses in their illness. The girls were all lounging around the room in wrappers, each with her own particular Bob in her lap.

There, standing on its hind legs in the door, was an enormous bear, taller than any man they had ever seen. Its mouth was open, and a long red tongue hung out between its gleaming teeth. Trailing behind him was a heavy rope, that showed that he had broken away from some place of confinement.

"Get out of heah, mistah!" she shrieked, stamping her foot and scowling darkly. "This is the second time you have neahly frightened me to death! Get out of heah, I say, or I'll break every bone in yo' body!" She had been so startled by Eliot's appearance and then the general outcry, that her nervousness passed into a rage. Picking up the book that Betty had been reading, she hurled it at the astonished bear with all her force. Eliot's work-basket followed next, and the pillows from the bed and sofa. Next she tore off her slippers, and sent them flying against the brown furry back now turned toward her. Not knowing what to make of such a shower of spools and needles, scissors, buttons, and wearing apparel, old Bruin dropped on all fours and ambled out of the doorway just as Lloyd caught up the water pitcher.

"Oh, I am not afraid of the beah," answered Lloyd, "but I hate to be surprised. It came walkin' in on us so easy that I didn't have time to see that it was only an old tame beah. It stood up on its hind legs lookin' twice as big as usual, and when everybody screamed and carried on so, I didn't know what I was doin'. As soon as I realised that it was the boys' pet I wasn't afraid, but it made me mad to be startled that way. And that's the second time it has happened."

"Is he gone?" asked Eugenia, poking her head slowly out from under the bed like a cautious turtle.

"Yes, Wash has him," answered the Little Colonel, laughing hysterically now that her temper had spent itself. "You girls look too funny for any use. Come down off your perch on that wardrobe, Joyce. It was only an old pet that the boys bought from a tramp one time. They keep it up at 'Fairchance,' the home that Mr. MacIntyre founded for little waifs and strays. I s'pose that is what Malcolm meant by a travellin' show. I might have thought of that, for they are always makin' it show off its tricks."

"But, Eliot," said the Little Colonel, still laughing, "you know we don't have wild beasts in these woods nowadays. There hasn't been any for yeahs and yeahs."

But Eliot shook her head doubtfully, and when the boys came up with a banjo and French harp to put the bear through his performances, she watched the dancing at a respectful distance. She was not at all sure about her safety after that, as long as she was in sight of the Kentucky woods. She could not be convinced that all sorts of ravenous beasts were not lurking in their shadows, and would not have been surprised at any time to have met a live Indian in war-paint and feathers.

SOME STORIES AND A POEM.

"What is the worst thing you evah did in yo' life, Joyce?" asked the Little Colonel. It was the first day after their recovery from the measles that the girls had been allowed to go down-stairs, and they were trying to amuse themselves in the library. Time had dragged for the last half-hour, and Lloyd's question was welcomed with interest.

"It happened that I had an old cat named Muff, and as soon as mamma had gone down-stairs, I took it into my head to pack her away in camphor balls. So I put her into an old pillow-case with a handful of suffocating moth-balls, and tied her up tight. She mewed and scratched at a terrible rate, but I tugged away at the heavy lid of the chest until I got it open, and then pop went poor old Muff in with the other furs.

"When Bridget came and saw the pillow-case squirming and bumping around, she said, 'Shure, ma'am, an' it's bewitched them furs is, and I'd not be afther touching 'em wid a tin-fut pole. I'll run call the gard'ner next dure.' So she put her head out at the attic window and screamed for Dennis, and Dennis thought the house was on fire, and came running up the stairs two steps at a time. He untied the pillow-case and turned it upside down with a hard shake, and, of course, out bounced poor old Muff in a shower of moth-balls, nearly smothered from being shut up so long with that stifling odour. She was sick all day, and Bridget said that it was a lucky thing that cats have nine lives, or she couldn't have gotten over it.

"I cried because they had let her out, and said I didn't want the nasty moths to spoil my kitty's fur, and mamma laughed so hard that she sat right down on the attic floor. Then she took me in her lap and explained how Muff took care of her own fur, and did not need to be packed away in the summer-time."

"Down in the library was a beautiful fur rug. I don't remember what kind of a wild beast it was made from; I was so little, then, you know. But papa was very proud of it, for he had killed the animal himself out in the Rocky Mountains, and had had the skin made into a rug as a souvenir of that hunting trip. It had the head left on it, and we were a little afraid of that head. The glass eyes glared so savagely, and the teeth were so sharp in its open jaws! But the fur was long and soft and thick, and we decided to shear off a little to stuff our mattress with. We thought it wouldn't take much. So I took the nurse's scissors, and we slipped down into the library with the empty mattress-tick.

"What did your father say?" asked Joyce.

"Oh, he was furious! He said a seven-year-old child ought to know better than to do a thing like that, and if she didn't she should be taught. But mamma wouldn't let him touch me, and only scolded the nurse for not watching me more closely."

"Now it is Betty's turn," said Joyce, when the giggling that followed Eugenia's tale had subsided. "What mischief did you get into, Betty?"

Before she could reply there was a step in the hall, a tap at the open door, and a pleasant voice said: "Good morning, young ladies."

"Oh, it is the minister's wife, Mrs. Brewster," whispered Lloyd, jumping up from the sofa and going forward to greet her.

There was no need of introductions, for the girls had met the sweet-faced old lady several times.

Involuntarily on her arrival the girls stopped lolling in their chairs, and sat up straight, with their hands folded primly in their laps. Mrs. Brewster had an air of quiet dignity that always made people want to be on their best behaviour before her. Every one in the Valley was fond of the minister's wife, but most people stood in awe of her, and considered the turn of their sentences and the pitch of their voices when talking to her. She never had a pin awry. Her gray hair was always as smooth as a brush could make it, and every breadth of her skirts always fell in straight, precise folds. From bonnet-strings to shoe-laces there was never a wrinkle or a spot. But the Little Colonel felt no awe. She had discovered that under that prim exterior was a heart thoroughly in sympathy with all her childish joys and griefs, and in consequence the two had become warm friends. Lloyd stood beside the rocking-chair, where she had seated Mrs. Brewster, and waved a big fan so vigorously that the bonnet-strings fluttered, and a lock of gray hair was blown out of place and straggled across the placid brow.

Mrs. Brewster laughed. Few people would have remembered that she had ever been a little girl, and only the Little Colonel would have dared to intimate that she had been a naughty one, for she was one of those dignified persons who look as if they had always been proper and grown up.

"That is a long time ago to look back to, dear," she began. "I was very strictly brought up, and the training of my conscience began so early that I was always a good child in the main, I think. I was more timid than my brothers and sisters, which may account for some of my goodness, and for the most daring deed I ever did, I was punished so severely that it had a restraining effect on me ever after."

"What was that?" asked Lloyd, with such an air of interest, that Mrs. Brewster, looking around on the listening faces, was beguiled into telling it.

"Children were seen and not heard in those days and as soon as they had been ushered into the guest chamber, where they laid aside their wraps, and had seated themselves in the parlour, I used to carry my little stool in and sit down in one corner to listen.

"Mother sent me on an errand to the village store next day, and on the way I stopped at the doctor's house. I could scarcely reach the great brass knocker on the front door, but when I did, standing on tiptoe, it sent such a loud clamour through the house that my heart jumped up in my throat, and I was minded to run away. But before I could do that the doctor's wife opened the door. I made my best courtesy that mother had carefully taught me, and then was so embarrassed I could not lift my eyes from the ground. When I spoke, my voice sounded so meek and shy and high up in the air that I scarcely recognised it as mine.

"'Mrs. Mayfair, please come to tea to-morrow,' I said. Then I courtesied again, and hurried off, while Mrs. Mayfair was calling after me to tell my mother that it gave her great pleasure to accept her invitation. But you see it wasn't mother's invitation. I didn't say 'mother says please come to tea,' I just asked them to come of my own accord, in a fit of reckless daring, and then waited to see what would happen. I invited nearly all the Dorcas Society."

Mrs. Brewster laughed at the remembrance, such a contagious, hearty laugh, that her bonnet-ribbons shook.

"I never said a word about it at home, but next day, a little while before sundown, I went to the window to watch for them. Mother, who had been busy all day, boiling cider and making apple-butter, sat down with her knitting to rest a few minutes before supper. She said she was tired, and that she would not cook much; that mush and milk would be enough.

"She couldn't imagine what had happened when all the ladies appeared, and she sent me to open the door while she hurried to change her dress. I followed the usual programme; invited them into the guest-chamber to lay aside their wraps and mantles, and then gave them seats in the parlour. Mother was puzzled when she came in and saw them with their bonnets off, for she supposed, when she saw them coming down the path, that they were a committee from the Dorcas Society, on some business. But presently one of the ladies patted me on the head, and complimented my pretty manners in delivering the invitation to tea.

"I began to feel very comfortable, and to congratulate myself on the success of my little plan. Presently she excused herself, and beckoned me to follow her out of the room. Without a word, or even a glance of reproach, she bade me run across the street and ask my Aunt Rachel and her daughter Milly to come over at once and help her prepare for the unexpected guests. They were both of them quick, capable women and fine housekeepers, and 'flew around,' as they expressed it, in such a marvellous way that at the proper time the customary feast was spread.

"It did look so good! I walked around the table, my mouth watering as I looked at the tarts and marmalade and spiced buns, and all the other tempting dishes. Mother watched me do it, and then, just before she invited the ladies out to the table, she sent me off to bed without a morsel to eat,—not even a spoonful of mush and milk.

Mrs. Brewster paused amid the girls' laughing exclamations, and just then Mrs. Sherman came in from the train, hot and dusty, and her arms full of little packages. "Come on up to my room with me," she said to Mrs. Brewster, who was a frequent and familiar visitor at Locust.

"Don't take her away," begged the Little Colonel, "she is entertaining us."

"My turn now," laughed Mrs. Sherman. And the two ladies went up-stairs, once more leaving the girls to the task of providing their own amusement.

"Wasn't that a picture?" said Joyce, when Mrs. Brewster had left the room. "Can't you just see it? that quaint little girl in her old-fashioned dress, going from door to door with her courtesies and her invitations, and, afterward, all the ladies coming down the stiff-bordered path between the rows of hollyhocks. I'd love to draw that picture if I could."

"Oh, I didn't know that you could write poetry," exclaimed Lloyd. "Try it now, and see what you can do. You write the poem, and Joyce will illustrate it."

"I have to be by myself when I write, and I never know how long it will take. It is like making butter. Sometimes it will come in a few minutes, and sometimes I have to churn away for hours."

"Begin, anyhow!" insisted the girls, and in a few minutes Betty slipped away to her room. At lunch-time they teased her to show them what she had written, but she had only a few lines completed, and would not let them see even the paper on which she had been scribbling. After lunch the others went to their rooms to write letters and sleep awhile, but she went back to her task. Joyce's picture did not turn out to her satisfaction, and she tore it up, but Betty did her work over and over, rewriting each line many times. When they were all dressed for dinner, she did not appear. Finally Joyce went to see what kept her so long. She found her bending over the paper, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining.