Half an hour later, Pauline was on her way down to the village store for samples of paper. She had already settled the matter with Miranda, over the wiping of the breakfast dishes.
Miranda had lived with the Shaws ever since Pauline was a baby, and was a very important member of the family, both in her own and their opinion. She was tall and gaunt, and somewhat severe looking; however, in her case, looks were deceptive. It would never have occurred to Miranda that the Shaws' interests were not her interests—she considered herself an important factor in the upbringing of the three young people. If she had a favorite, it was probably Hilary.
"Hmn," she said, when Pauline broached the subject of the spare room, "what put that notion in your head, I'd like to know! That paper ain't got a tear in it!"
So Pauline went further, telling her something of Uncle Paul's letter and how they hoped to carry his suggestion out.
Miranda stood still, her hands in the dish water—"That's your pa's own brother, ain't it?"
Pauline nodded. "And Miranda—"
"I reckon he ain't much like the minister. Well, me an' Sarah Jane ain't the least bit alike—if we are sisters. I guess I can manage 'bout the papering. But it does go 'gainst me, having that sexton woman in. Still, I reckon you can't be content, 'till we get started. Looking for the old gentleman up, later, be you?"
"For whom?" Pauline asked.
"Your pa's brother. The minister's getting on, and the other one's considerable older, I understand."
"I don't think he will be up," Pauline answered; she hadn't thought of that before. Suppose he should come! She wondered what he would be like.
Half way down the street, Pauline was overtaken by her younger sister.
"Are you going to get the new things now, Paul?" she asked eagerly.
"Of course not, just get some samples."
"There's always such a lot of getting ready first," Patience sighed.
"Paul, mother says I may go with you to-morrow afternoon."
"All right," Pauline agreed. "Only, you've got to promise not to 'hi yi' at Fanny all the way."
"I won't—all the way."
"And—Impatience?"
"Yes?"
"You needn't say what we want the new paper for, or anything about what we are planning to do—in the store I mean."
"Mr. Ward would be mighty interested."
"I dare say."
"Miranda says you're beginning to put on considerable airs, since you've been turning your hair up, Paul Shaw. When I put my hair up, I'm going on being just as nice and friendly with folks, as before, you'll see."
Pauline laughed, which was not at all to Patience's liking. "All the same, mind what I say," she warned.
"Can I help choose?" Patience asked, as they reached the store.
"If you like." Pauline went through to the little annex devoted to wall papers and carpetings. It was rather musty and dull in there, Patience thought; she would have liked to make a slow round of the whole store, exchanging greetings and various confidences with the other occupants. The store was a busy place on Saturday morning, and Patience knew every man, woman and child in Winton.
They had got their samples and Pauline was lingering before a new line of summer dressgoods just received, when the young fellow in charge of the post-office and telegraph station called to her: "I say, Miss Shaw, here's a message just come for you."
"For me—" Pauline took it wonderingly. Her hands were trembling, she had never received a telegram before—Was Hilary? Then she laughed at herself. To have sent a message, Mr. Boyd would have first been obliged to come in to Winton.
Out on the sidewalk, she tore open the envelope, not heeding Patience's curious demands. It was from her uncle, and read—
"Have some one meet the afternoon train Saturday, am sending you an aid towards your summer's outings."
"Oh," Pauline said, "do hurry, Patience. I want to get home as fast as
I can."
CHAPTER IV
BEGINNINGS
Sunday afternoon, Pauline and Patience drove over to The Maples to see Hilary. They stopped, as they went by, at the postoffice for Pauline to mail a letter to her uncle, which was something in the nature of a very enthusiastic postscript to the one she had written him Friday night, acknowledging and thanking him for his cheque, and telling him of the plans already under discussion.
"And now," Patience said, as they turned out of the wide main street, "we're really off. I reckon Hilary'll be looking for us, don't you?"
"I presume she will," Pauline answered.
"Maybe she'll want to come back with us."
"Oh, I don't believe so. She knows mother wants her to stay the week out. Listen, Patty—"
Patience sat up and took notice. When people Pattied her, it generally meant they had a favor to ask, or something of the sort.
"Remember, you're to be very careful not to let Hilary suspect—anything."
"About the room and—?"
"I mean—everything."
"Won't she like it—all, when she does know?"
"Well, rather!"
Patience wriggled excitedly. "It's like having a fairy godmother, isn't it? And three wishes? If you'd had three wishes, Paul, wouldn't you've chosen—"
"You'd better begin quieting down, Patience, or Hilary can't help suspecting something."
Patience drew a long breath. "If she knew—she wouldn't stay a single day longer, would she?"
"That's one reason why she mustn't know."
"When will you tell her; or is mother going to?"
"I don't know yet. See here, Patience, you may drive—if you won't hi yi."
"Please, Paul, let me, when we get to the avenue. It's stupid coming to a place, like Fanny'd gone to sleep."
"Not before—and only once then," Pauline stipulated, and Patience possessed her soul in at least a faint semblance of patience until they turned into the avenue of maples. Then she suddenly tightened her hold on the reins, bounced excitedly up and down, crying sharply—"Hi yi!"
Fanny instantly pricked up her ears, and, what was more to the purpose, actually started into what might almost have been called a trot. "There! you see!" Patience said proudly, as they turned into the yard.
Hilary came down the porch steps. "I heard Impatience urging her
Rosinante on," she laughed. "Why didn't you let her drive all the way,
Paul? I've been watching for you since dinner."
"We've been pretty nearly since dinner getting here, it seems to me," Patience declared. "We had to wait for Paul to write a letter first to—"
"Are you alone?" Pauline broke in hurriedly, asking the first question that came into her mind.
Hilary smiled ruefully. "Not exactly. Mr. Boyd's asleep in the sitting-room, and Mrs. Boyd's taking a nap up-stairs in her own room."
"You poor child!" Pauline said. "Jump out, Patience!"
"Have you brought me something to read? I've finished both the books I brought with me, and gone through a lot of magazines—queer old things, that Mrs. Boyd took years and years ago."
"Then you've done very wrong," Pauline told her severely, leading Fanny over to a shady spot at one side of the yard and tying her to the fence—a quite unnecessary act, as nothing would have induced Fanny to take her departure unsolicited.
"Guess!" Pauline came back, carrying a small paper-covered parcel.
"Father sent it to you. He was over at Vergennes yesterday."
"Oh!" Hilary cried, taking it eagerly and sitting down on the steps. "It's a book, of course." Even more than her sisters, she had inherited her father's love of books, and a new book was an event at the parsonage. "Oh," she cried again, taking off the paper and disclosing the pretty tartan cover within, "O Paul! It's 'Penelope's Progress.' Don't you remember those bits we read in those odd magazines Josie lent us? And how we wanted to read it all?"
Pauline nodded. "I reckon mother told father about it; I saw her following him out to the gig yesterday morning."
They went around to the little porch leading from Hilary's room, always a pleasant spot in the afternoons.
"Why," Patience exclaimed, "it's like an out-door parlor, isn't it?"
There was a big braided mat on the floor of the porch, its colors rather faded by time and use, but looking none the worse for that, a couple of rockers, a low stool, and a small table, covered with a bit of bright cretonne. On it stood a blue and white pitcher filled with field flowers, beside it lay one or two magazines. Just outside, extending from one of the porch posts to the limb of an old cherry tree, hung Hilary's hammock, gay with cushions.
"Shirley did it yesterday afternoon," Hilary explained. "She was over here a good while. Mrs. Boyd let us have the things and the chintz for the cushions, Shirley made them, and we filled them with hay."
Pauline, sitting on the edge of the low porch, looked about her with appreciative eyes. "How pleasant and cozy it is, and after all, it only took a little time and trouble."
Hilary laid her new book on the table. "How soon do you suppose we can go over to the manor, Paul? I imagine the Dayres have fixed it up mighty pretty. Mr. Dayre was over here, last night. He and Shirley are ever so—chummy. He's Shirley Putnam Dayre, and she's Shirley Putnam Dayre, Junior. So he calls her 'Junior' and she calls him 'Senior.' They're just like brother and sister. He's an artist, they've been everywhere together. And, Paul, they think Winton is delightful. Mr. Dayre says the village street, with its great overhanging trees, and old-fashioned houses, is a picture in itself, particularly up at our end, with the church, all ivy-covered. He means to paint the church sometime this summer."
"It would make a pretty picture," Pauline said thoughtfully. "Hilary,
I wonder—"
"So do I," Hilary said. "Still, after all, one would like to see different places—"
"And love only one," Pauline added; she turned to her sister. "You are better, aren't you—already?"
"I surely am. Shirley's promised to take me out on the lake soon. She's going to be friends with us, Paul—really friends. She says we must call her 'Shirley,' that she doesn't like 'Miss Dayre,' she hears it so seldom."
"I think it's nice—being called 'Miss,'" Patience remarked, from where she had curled herself up in the hammock. "I suppose she doesn't want it, because she can have it—I'd love to be called 'Miss Shaw.'"
"Hilary," Pauline said, "would you mind very much, if you couldn't go away this summer?"
"It wouldn't do much good if I did, would it?"
"The not minding would—to mother and the rest of us—"
"And if you knew what—" Patience began excitedly.
"Don't you want to go find Captain, Impatience?" Pauline asked hastily, and Patience, feeling that she had made a false move, went with most unusual meekness.
"Know what?" Hilary asked.
"I—shouldn't wonder, if the child had some sort of scheme on hand," Pauline said, she hoped she wasn't—prevaricating; after all, Patience probably did have some scheme in her head—she usually had.
"I haven't thought much about going away the last day or so," Hilary said. "I suppose it's the feeling better, and, then, the getting to know Shirley."
"I'm glad of that." Pauline sat silent for some moments; she was watching a fat bumble bee buzzing in and out among the flowers in the garden. It was always still, over here at the farm, but to-day, it seemed a different sort of stillness, as if bees and birds and flowers knew that it was Sunday afternoon.
"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you smiling to yourself about?"
"Was I smiling? I didn't know it. I guess because it is so nice and peaceful here and because—Hilary, let's start a club—the 'S. W. F. Club.'"
"The what?"
"The 'S. W. F. Club.' No, I shan't tell you what the letters stand for! You've got to think it out for yourself."
"A real club, Paul?"
"Indeed, yes."
"Who's to belong?"
"Oh, lots of folks. Josie and Tom, and you and I—and I think, maybe, mother and father."
"Father! To belong to a club!"
"It was he who put the idea into my head."
Hilary came to sit beside her sister on the step. "Paul, I've a feeling that there is something—up! And it isn't the barometer!"
"Where did you get it?"
"From you."
Pauline sprang up. "Feelings are very unreliable things to go by, but I've one just now—that if we don't hunt Impatience up pretty quick—there will be something doing."
They found Patience sitting on the barn floor, utterly regardless of her white frock. A whole family of kittens were about her.
"Aren't they dears!" Patience demanded.
"Mrs. Boyd says I may have my choice, to take home with me," Hilary said. The parsonage cat had died the fall before, and had had no successor as yet.
Patience held up a small coal-black one. "Choose this, Hilary! Miranda says a black cat brings luck, though it don't look like we needed any black cats to bring—"
"I like the black and white one," Pauline interposed, just touching
Patience with the tip of her shoe.
"Maybe Mrs. Boyd would give us each one, that would leave one for her,"
Patience suggested cheerfully.
"I imagine mother would have something to say to that," Pauline told her. "Was Josie over yesterday, Hilary?"
Hilary nodded. "In the morning."
As they were going back to the house, they met Mr. Boyd, on his way to pay his regular weekly visit to the far pasture.
"Going to salt the colts?" Patience asked. "Please, mayn't I come?"
"There won't be time, Patience," Pauline said.
"Not time!" Mr. Boyd objected, "I'll be back to supper, and you girls are going to stay to supper." He carried Patience off with him, declaring that he wasn't sure he should let her go home at all, he meant to keep her altogether some day, and why not to-night?
"Oh, I couldn't stay to-night," the child assured him earnestly. "Of course, I couldn't ever stay for always, but by'n'by, when—there isn't so much going on at home—there's such a lot of things keep happening at home now, only don't tell Hilary, please—maybe, I could come make you a truly visit."
Indoors, Pauline and Hilary found Mrs. Boyd down-stairs again from her nap. "You ain't come after Hilary?" she questioned anxiously.
"Only to see her," Pauline answered, and while she helped Mrs. Boyd get supper, she confided to her the story of Uncle Paul's letter and the plans already under way.
Mrs. Boyd was much interested. "Bless me, it'll do her a heap of good, you'll see, my dear. I'm not sure, I don't agree with your uncle, when all's said and done, home's the best place for young folks."
Just before Pauline and Patience went home that evening, Mrs. Boyd beckoned Pauline mysteriously into the best parlor. "I always meant her to have them some day—she being my god-child—and maybe they'll do her as much good now, as any time, she'll want to fix up a bit now and then, most likely. Shirley had on a string of them last night, but not to compare with these." Mrs. Boyd was kneeling before a trunk in the parlor closet, and presently she put a little square shell box into Pauline's bands. "Box and all, just like they came to me—you know, they were my grandmother's—but Hilary's a real careful sort of girl."
"But, Mrs. Boyd—I'm not sure that mother would—" Pauline knew quite well what was in the box.
"That's all right! You just slip them in Hilary's top drawer, where she'll come across them without expecting it. Deary me, I never wear them, and as I say, I've always meant to give them to her some day."
"She'll be perfectly delighted—and they'll look so pretty. Hilary's got a mighty pretty neck, I think." Pauline went out to the gig, the little box hidden carefully in her blouse, feeling that Patience was right and that these were very fairy-story sort of days.
"You'll be over again soon, won't you?" Hilary urged.
"We're going to be tre-men-dous-ly busy," Patience began, but her sister cut her short.
"As soon as I can, Hilary. Mind you go on getting better."
By Monday noon, the spare room had lost its look of prim order. In the afternoon, Pauline and her mother went down to the store to buy the matting. There was not much choice to be had, and the only green and white there was, was considerably beyond the limit they had allowed themselves.
"Never mind," Pauline said cheerfully, "plain white will look ever so cool and pretty—perhaps, the green would fade. I'm going to believe so."
Over a low wicker sewing-chair, she did linger longingly; it would look so nice beside one of the west windows. She meant to place a low table for books and work between those side windows. In the end, prudence won the day, and surely, the new paper and matting were enough to be grateful for in themselves.
By the next afternoon the paper was on and the matting down. Pauline was up garret rummaging, when she heard someone calling her from the foot of the stairs. "I'm here, Josie," she called back, and her friend came running up.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Pauline held up an armful of old-fashioned chintz.
"Oh, how pretty!" Josie exclaimed. "It makes one think of high-waisted dresses, and minuets and things like that."
Pauline laughed. "They were my great-grandmother's bed curtains."
"Goodness! What are you going to do with them?"
"I'm not sure mother will let me do anything. I came across them just now in looking for some green silk she said I might have to cover Hilary's pin-cushion with."
"For the new room? Patience has been doing the honors of the new paper and matting—it's going to be lovely, I think."
Pauline scrambled to her feet, shaking out the chintz: "If only mother would—it's pink and green—let's go ask her."
"What do you want to do with it, Pauline?" Mrs. Shaw asked.
"I haven't thought that far—use it for draperies of some kind, I suppose," the girl answered.
They were standing in the middle of the big, empty room. Suddenly, Josie gave a quick exclamation, pointing to the bare corner between the front and side windows. "Wouldn't a cozy corner be delightful—with cover and cushions of the chintz?"
"May we, mother?" Pauline begged in a coaxing tone.
"I suppose so, dear—only where is the bench part to come from?"
"Tom'll make the frame for it, I'll go get him this minute," Josie answered.
"And you might use that single mattress from up garret," Mrs. Shaw suggested.
Pauline ran up to inspect it, and to see what other treasures might be forthcoming. The garret was a big, shadowy place, extending over the whole house, and was lumber room, play place and general refuge, all in one.
Presently, from under the eaves, she drew forward a little old-fashioned sewing-chair, discarded on the giving out of its cane seat. "But I could tack a piece of burlap on and cover it with a cushion," Pauline decided, and bore it down in triumph to the new room, where Tom Brice was already making his measurements for the cozy corner.
Josie was on the floor, measuring for the cover. "Isn't it fun, Paul?
Tom says it won't take long to do his part."
Tom straightened himself, slipping his rule into his pocket. "I don't see what you want it for, though," he said.
"'Yours not to reason why—'" Pauline told him. "We see, and so will
Hilary. Don't you and Josie want to join the new club—the 'S. W. F.
Club'?"
"Society of Willing Females, I suppose?" Tom remarked.
"It sounds like some sort of sewing circle," Josie said.
Pauline sat down in one of the wide window places. "I'm not sure it might not take in both. It is—'The Seeing Winton First Club.'"
Josie looked as though she didn't quite understand, but Tom whistled softly. "What else have you been doing for the past fifteen years, if you please, ma'am?" he asked quizzically.
Pauline laughed. "One ought to know a place rather thoroughly in fifteen years, I suppose; but—I'm hoping we can make it seem at least a little bit new and different this summer—for Hilary. You see, we shan't be able to send her away, and so, I thought, perhaps, if we tried looking at Winton—with new eyes—"
"I see," Josie cried. "I think it's a splendiferous ideal"
"And, I thought, if we formed a sort of club among ourselves and worked together—"
"Listen," Josie interrupted again, "we'll make it a condition of membership, that each one must, in turn, think up something pleasant to do."
"Is the membership to be limited?" Tom asked.
Pauline smiled. "It will be so—necessarily—won't it?" For Winton was not rich in young people.
"There will be enough of us," Josie declared hopefully.
"Like the model dinner party?" her brother asked. "Not less than the
Graces, nor more than the Muses."
And so the new club was formed then and there. There were to be no regular and formal meetings, no dues, nor fines, and each member was to consider himself, or herself, an active member of the programme committee.
Tom, as the oldest member of their immediate circle of friends, was chosen president before that first meeting adjourned; no other officers were considered necessary at the time. And being president, to him was promptly delegated the honor—despite his vigorous protests—of arranging for their first outing and notifying the other members—yet to be.
"But," he expostulated, "what's a fellow to think up—in a hole like this?"
"Winton isn't a hole!" his sister protested. It was one of the chief occupations of Josie's life at present, to contradict all such heretical utterances on Tom's part. He was to go away that fall to commence his studies for the medical profession, for it was Dr. Brice's great desire that, later, his son should assist him in his practice. But, so far, Tom though wanting to follow his father's profession, was firm in his determination, not to follow it in Winton.
"And remember," Pauline said, as the three went down-stairs together, "that it's the first step that counts—and to think up something very delightful, Tom."
"It mustn't be a picnic, I suppose? Hilary won't be up to picnics yet awhile."
"N-no, and we want to begin soon. She'll be back Friday, I think,"
Pauline answered.
By Wednesday night the spare room was ready for the expected guest. "It's as if someone had waved a fairy wand over it, isn't it?" Patience said delightedly. "Hilary'll be so surprised."
"I think she will and—pleased." Pauline gave one of the cushions in the cozy corner a straightening touch, and drew the window shades—Miranda had taken them down and turned them—a little lower.
"It's a regular company room, isn't it?" Patience said joyously.
The minister drove over to The Maples himself on Friday afternoon to bring Hilary home.
"Remember," Patience pointed a warning forefinger at him, just as he was starting, "not a single solitary hint!"
"Not a single solitary one," he promised.
As he turned out of the gate. Patience drew a long breath. "Well, he's off at last! But, oh, dear, however can we wait 'til he gets back?"
CHAPTER V
BEDELIA
It was five o'clock that afternoon when Patience, perched, a little white-clad sentry, on the gate-post, announced joyously—"They're coming! They're coming!"
Patience was as excited as if the expected "guest" were one in fact, as well as name. It was fun to be playing a game of make-believe, in which the elders took part.
As the gig drew up before the steps, Hilary looked eagerly out. "Will you tell me," she demanded, "why father insisted on coming 'round the lower road, by the depot—he didn't stop, and he didn't get any parcel? And when I asked him, he just laughed and looked mysterious."
"He went," Pauline answered, "because we asked him to—company usually comes by train—real out-of-town company, you know."
"Like visiting ministers and returned missionaries," Patience explained.
Hilary looked thoroughly bewildered. "But are you expecting company?
You must be," she glanced from one to another, "you're all dressed up,"
"We were expecting some, dear," her mother told her, "but she has arrived."
"Don't you see? You're it!" Patience danced excitedly about her sister.
"I'm the company!" Hilary said wonderingly. Then her eyes lighted up.
"I understand! How perfectly dear of you all."
Mrs. Shaw patted the hand Hilary slipped into hers. "You have come back a good deal better than you went, my dear. The change has done you good."
"And it didn't turn out a stupid—half-way affair, after all," Hilary declared. "I've had a lovely time. Only, I simply had to come home, I felt somehow—that—that—"
"We were expecting company?" Pauline laughed. "And you wanted to be here?"
"I reckon that was it," Hilary agreed. As she sat there, resting a moment, before going up-stairs, she hardly seemed the same girl who had gone away so reluctantly only eight days before. The change of scene, the outdoor life, the new friendship, bringing with it new interests, had worked wonders,
"And now," Pauline suggested, taking up her sister's valise, "perhaps you would like to go up to your room—visitors generally do."
"To rest after your journey, you know," Patience prompted. Patience believed in playing one's part down to the minutest detail.
"Thank you," Hilary answered, with quite the proper note of formality in her voice, "if you don't mind; though I did not find the trip as fatiguing as I had expected."
But from the door, she turned back to give her mother a second and most uncompany-like hug. "It is good to be home, Mother Shaw! And please, you don't want to pack me off again anywhere right away—at least, all by myself?"
"Not right away," her mother answered, kissing her.
"I guess you will think it is good to be home, when you know—everything," Patience announced, accompanying her sisters up-stairs, but on the outside of the banisters.
"Patty!" Pauline protested laughingly—"Was there ever such a child for letting things out!"
"I haven't!" the child exclaimed, "only now—it can't make any difference."
"There is mystery in the very air!" Hilary insisted. "Oh, what have you all been up to?"
"You're not to go in there!" Patience cried, as Hilary stopped before the door of her own and Pauline's room.
"Of course you're not," Pauline told her. "It strikes me, for company—you're making yourself very much at home! Walking into peoples' rooms." She led the way along the hall to the spare room, throwing the door wide open.
"Oh!" Hilary cried, then stood quite still on the threshold, looking about her with wide, wondering eyes.
The spare room was grim and gray no longer. Hilary felt as if she must be in some strange, delightful dream. The cool green of the wall paper, with the soft touch of pink in ceiling and border, the fresh white matting, the cozy corner opposite—with its delicate old-fashioned chintz drapery and big cushions, the new toilet covers—white over green, the fresh curtains at the windows, the cushioned window seats, the low table and sewing-chair, even her own narrow white bed, with its new ruffled spread, all went to make a room as strange to her, as it was charming and unexpected.
"Oh," she said again, turning to her mother, who had followed them up-stairs, and stood waiting just outside the door. "How perfectly lovely it all is—but it isn't for me?"
"Of course it is," Patience said. "Aren't you company—you aren't just Hilary now, you're 'Miss Shaw' and you're here on a visit; and there's company asked to supper to-morrow night, and it's going to be such fun!"
Hilary's color came and went. It was something deeper and better than fun. She understood now why they had done this—why Pauline had said that—about her not going away; there was a sudden lump in the girl's throat—she was glad, so glad, she had said that downstairs——about not wanting to go away.
And when her mother and Patience had gone down-stairs again and Pauline had begun to unpack the valise, as she had unpacked it a week ago at The Maples, Hilary sat in the low chair by one of the west windows, her hands folded in her lap, looking about this new room of hers.
"There," Pauline said presently, "I believe that's all now—you'd better lie down, Hilary—I'm afraid you're tired."
"No, I'm not; at any rate, not very. I'll lie down if you like, only I know I shan't be able to sleep."
Pauline lowered the pillow and threw a light cover over her. "There's something in the top drawer of the dresser," she said, "but you're not to look at it until you've lain down at least half an hour."
"I feel as if I were in an enchanted palace,", Hilary said, "with so many delightful surprises being sprung on me all the while." After Pauline had gone, she lay watching the slight swaying of the wild roses in the tall jar on the hearth. The wild roses ran rampant in the little lane leading from the back of the church down past the old cottage where Sextoness Jane lived. Jane had brought these with her that morning, as her contribution to the new room.
To Hilary, as to Patience, it seemed as if a magic wand had been waved, transforming the old dull room into a place for a girl to live and dream in. But for her, the name of the wand was Love.
There must be no more impatient longings, no fretful repinings, she told herself now. She must not be slow to play her part in this new game that had been originated all for her.
The half-hour up, she slipped from the bed and began unbuttoning her blue-print frock. Being company, it stood to reason she must dress for supper. But first, she must find out what was in the upper drawer.
The first glimpse of the little shell box, told her that. There were tears in Hilary's gray eyes, as she stood slipping the gold beads slowly through her fingers. How good everyone was to her; for the first time some understanding of the bright side even of sickness—and she had not been really sick, only run-down—and, yes, she had been cross and horrid, lots of times—came to her.
"I'll go over just as soon as I can and thank her," the girl thought, clasping the beads about her neck, "and I'll keep them always and always."
A little later, she came down-stairs all in white, a spray of the pink and white wild roses in her belt, her soft, fair hair freshly brushed and braided. She had been rather neglectful of her hair lately.
There was no one on the front piazza but her father, and he looked up from his book with a smile of pleasure. "My dear, how well you are looking! It is certainly good to see you at home again, and quite your old self."
Hilary came to sit on the arm of his chair. "It is good to be at home again. I suppose you know all the wonderful surprises I found waiting me?"
"Supper's ready," Patience proclaimed from the doorway. "Please come, because—" she caught herself up, putting a hand into Hilary's, "I'll show you where to sit, Miss Shaw."
Hilary laughed. "How old are you, my dear?" she asked, in the tone frequently used by visiting ministers.
"I'm a good deal older than I'm treated generally," Patience answered.
"Do you like Winton?"
"I am sure I shall like it very much." Hilary slipped into the chair Patience drew forward politely. "The company side of the table—sure enough," she laughed.
"It isn't proper to say things to yourself sort of low down in your voice," Patience reproved her, then at a warning glance from her mother subsided into silence as the minister took his place.
For to-night, at least, Miranda had amply fulfilled Patience's hopes, as to company suppers. And she, too, played her part in the new game, calling Hilary "Miss," and never by any chance intimating that she had seen her before.
"Did you go over to the manor to see Shirley?" Patience asked.
Hilary shook her head. "I promised her Pauline and I would be over soon. We may have Fanny some afternoon, mayn't we, father?"
Patience's blue eyes danced. "They can't have Fanny, can they, father?" she nodded at him knowingly.
Hilary eyed her questioningly. "What is the matter, Patience?"
"Nothing is the matter with her," Pauline said hurriedly. "Don't pay any attention to her."
"Only, if you would hurry," Patience implored. "I—I can't wait much longer!"
"Wait!" Hilary asked. "For what?"
Patience pushed back her chair. "For—Well, if you just knew what for,
Hilary Shaw, you'd do some pretty tall hustling!"
"Patience!" her father said reprovingly.
"May I be excused, mother?" Patience asked. "I'll wait out on the porch."
And Mrs. Shaw replied most willingly that she might.
"Is there anything more—to see, I mean, not to eat?" Hilary asked. "I don't see how there can be."
"Are you through?" Pauline answered. "Because, if you are, I'll show you."
"It was sent to Paul," Patience called, from the hall door. "But she says, of course, it was meant for us all; and I think, myself, she's right about that."
"Is it—alive?" Hilary asked.
"'It' was—before supper," Pauline told her. "I certainly hope nothing has happened to—'it' since then."
"A dog?" Hilary suggested.
"Wait and see; by the way, where's that kitten?"
"She's to follow in a few days; she was a bit too young to leave home just yet."
"I've got the sugar!" Patience called.
Hilary stopped short at the foot of the porch steps. Patience's remark, if it had not absolutely let the cat out of the bag, had at least opened the bag. "Paul, it can't be—"
"In the Shaw's dictionary, at present, there doesn't appear to be any such word as can't," Pauline declared. "Come on—-after all, you know, the only way to find out—is to find out."
Patience had danced on ahead down the path to the barn. She stood waiting for them now in the broad open doorway, her whole small person one animated exclamation point, while Towser, just home from a leisurely round of afternoon visits, came forward to meet Hilary, wagging a dignified welcome.
"If you don't hurry, I'll 'hi yi' you, like I do Fanny!" Patience warned them. She moved to one side, to let Hilary go on into the barn. "Now!" she demanded, "isn't that something more?"
From the stall beside Fanny's, a horse's head reached inquiringly out for the sugar with which already she had come to associate the frequent visits of these new friends. She was a pretty, well-made, little mare, light sorrel, with white markings, and with a slender, intelligent face.
Hilary stood motionless, too surprised to speak.
"Her name's Bedelia," Patience said, doing the honors. "She's very clever, she knows us all already. Fanny hasn't been very polite to her, and she knows it—Bedelia does, I mean—sometimes, when Fanny isn't looking, I've caught Bedelia sort of laughing at her—and I don't blame her one bit. And, oh, Hilary, she can go—there's no need to 'hi yi' her."
"But—" Hilary turned to Pauline.
"Uncle Paul sent her," Pauline explained. "She came last Saturday afternoon. One of the men from Uncle Paul's place in the country brought her. She was born and bred at River Lawn—that's Uncle Paul's place—he says."
Hilary stroked the glossy neck gently, if Pauline had said the Sultan of Turkey, instead of Uncle Paul, she could hardly have been more surprised. "Uncle Paul—sent her to you!" she said slowly.
"To us."
"Bless me, that isn't all he sent," Patience exclaimed. It seemed to Patience that they never would get to the end of their story. "You just come look at this, Hilary Shaw!" she ran on through the opening connecting carriage-house with stable.
"Oh!" Hilary cried, following with Pauline.
Beside the minister's shabby old gig, stood the smartest of smart traps, and hanging on the wall behind it, a pretty russet harness, with silver mountings.
Hilary sat down on an old saw horse; she felt again as though she must be dreaming.
"There isn't another such cute rig in town, Jim says so," Patience said. Jim was the stable boy. "It beats Bell Ward's all to pieces."
"But why—I mean, how did Uncle Paul ever come to send it to us?" Hilary said. Of course one had always known that there was—somewhere—a person named Uncle Paul; but he had appeared about as remote and indefinite a being as—that same Sultan of Turkey, for instance.
"After all, why shouldn't he?" Pauline answered.
"But I don't believe he would've if Paul had not written to him that time," Patience added. "Maybe next time I tell you anything, you'll believe me, Hilary Shaw."
But Hilary was staring at Pauline. "You didn't write to Uncle Paul?"
"I'm afraid I did."
"Was—was that the letter—you remember, that afternoon?"
"I rather think I do remember."
"Paul, how did you ever dare?"
"I was in the mood to dare anything that day."
"And did he answer; but of course he did."
"Yes—he answered. Though not right away."
"Was it a nice letter? Did he mind your having written? Paul, you didn't ask him to send you—these," Hilary waved her hand rather vaguely.
"Hardly—he did that all on his own. It wasn't a bad sort of letter, I'll tell you about it by and by. We can go to the manor in style now, can't we—even if father can't spare Fanny. Bedelia's perfectly gentle, I've driven her a little ways once or twice, to make sure. Father insisted on going with me. We created quite a sensation down street, I assure you."
"And Mrs. Dane said," Patience cut in, "that in her young days, clergymen didn't go kiting 'bout the country in such high-fangled rigs."
"Never mind what Mrs. Dane said, or didn't say," Pauline told her.
"Miranda says, what Mrs. Dane hasn't got to say on any subject, wouldn't make you tired listening to it."
"Patience, if you don't stop repeating what everyone says, I shall—"
"If you speak to mother—then you'll be repeating," Patience declared.
"Maybe, I oughtn't to have said those things before—company."
"I think we'd better go back to the house now," Pauline suggested.
"Sextoness Jane says," Patience remarked, "that she'd have sure admired to have a horse and rig like that, when she was a girl. She says, she doesn't suppose you'll be passing by her house very often."
"And, now, please," Hilary pleaded, when she had been established in her hammock on the side porch, with her mother in her chair close by, and Pauline sitting on the steps, "I want to hear—everything. I'm what Miranda calls 'fair mazed.'"
So Pauline told nearly everything, blurring some of the details a little and getting to that twenty-five dollars a month, with which they were to do so much, as quickly as possible.
"O Paul, really," Hilary sat up among her cushions—"Why, it'll be—riches, won't it?"
"It seems so."
"But—Oh, I'm afraid you've spent all the first twenty-five on me; and that's not a fair division—is it, Mother Shaw?"
"We used it quite according to Hoyle," Pauline insisted. "We got our fun that way, didn't we, Mother Shaw?"
Their mother smiled. "I know I did."
"All the same, after this, you've simply got to 'drink fair, Betsy,' so remember," Hilary warned them.
"Bedtime, Patience," Mrs. Shaw said, and Patience got slowly out of her big, wicker armchair.
"I did think—seeing there was company,—that probably you'd like me to stay up a little later to-night."
"If the 'company' takes my advice, she'll go, too," her mother answered.
"The 'company' thinks she will." Hilary slipped out of the hammock.
"Mother, do you suppose Miranda's gone to bed yet?"
"I'll go see," Patience offered, willing to postpone the inevitable for even those few moments longer.
"What do you want with Miranda?" Pauline asked.
"To do something for me."
"Can't I do it?"
"No—and it must be done to-night. Mother, what are you smiling over?"
"I thought it would be that way, dear."
"Miranda's coming," Patience called. "She'd just taken her back hair down, and she's waiting to twist it up again. She's got awful funny back hair."
"Patience! Patience!" her mother said reprovingly.
"I mean, there's such a little—"
"Go up-stairs and get yourself ready for bed at once."
Miranda was waiting in the spare room. "You ain't took sick, Hilary?"
Hilary shook her head. "Please, Miranda, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, will you bring Pauline's bed in here?"
"I guessed as much," Miranda said, moving Hilary's bed to one side.
"Hilary—wouldn't you truly rather have a room to yourself—for a change?" Pauline asked.
"I have had one to myself—for eight days—and, now I'm going back to the old way." Sitting among the cushions of the cozy corner, Hilary superintended operations, and when the two single white beds were standing side by side, in their accustomed fashion, the covers turned back for the night, she nodded in satisfied manner. "Thank you so much, Miranda; that's as it should be. Go get your things, Paul. To-morrow, you must move in regularly. Upper drawer between us, and the rest share and share alike, you know."
Patience, who had hit upon the happy expedient of braiding her hair—braids, when there were a lot of them, took a long time—got slowly up from the hearth rug, her head a sight to behold, with its tiny, hornlike red braids sticking out in every direction. "I suppose I'd better be going. I wish I had someone to talk to, after I'd gone to bed." And a deep sigh escaped her.
Pauline kissed the wistful little face. "Never mind, old girl, you know you'd never stay awake long enough to talk to anyone."
She and Hilary stayed awake talking, however, until Pauline's prudence got the better of her joy in having her sister back in more senses than one. It was so long since they had had such a delightful bedtime talk.
"Seeing Winton First Club," Hilary said musingly. "Paul, you're ever
so clever. Shirley insisted those letters stood for 'Suppression of
Woman's Foibles Club'; and Mr. Dayre suggested they meant, 'Sweet Wild
Flowers.'"
"You've simply got to go to sleep now, Hilary, else mother'll come and take me away."
Hilary sighed blissfully. "I'll never say again—that nothing ever happens to us."
Tom and Josie came to supper the next night. Shirley was there, too, she had stopped in on her way to the post-office with her father that afternoon, to ask how Hilary was, and been captured and kept to supper and the first club meeting that followed.
Hilary had been sure she would like to join, and Shirley's prompt and delighted acceptance of their invitation proved her right.
"I've only got five names on my list," Tom said, as the young folks settled themselves on the porch after supper. "I suppose we'll think of others later."
"That'll make ten, counting us five, to begin with," Pauline said.
"Bell and Jack Ward," Tom took out his list, "the Dixon boys and Edna
Ray. That's all."
"I'd just like to know where I come in, Tom Brice!" Patience demanded, her voice vibrant with indignation.
"Upon my word! I didn't suppose—"
"I am to belong! Ain't I, Paul?"
"But Patty—"
"If you're going to say no, you needn't Patty me!"
"We'll see what mother thinks," Hilary suggested. "You wouldn't want to be the only little girl to belong?"
"I shouldn't mind," Patience assured her, then feeling pretty sure that Pauline was getting ready to tell her to run away, she decided to retire on her own account. That blissful time, when she should be "Miss Shaw," had one drawback, which never failed to assert itself at times like these—there would be no younger sister subject to her authority.
"Have you decided what we are to do?" Pauline asked Tom, when Patience had gone.
"I should say I had. You'll be up to a ride by next Thursday, Hilary?
Not a very long ride."
"I'm sure I shall," Hilary answered eagerly. "Where are we going?"
"That's telling."
"He won't even tell me," Josie said.
Tom's eyes twinkled. "You're none of you to know until next Thursday.
Say, at four o'clock."
"Oh," Shirley said, "I think it's going to be the nicest club that ever was."
CHAPTER VI
PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
"Am I late?" Shirley asked, as Pauline came down the steps to meet her
Thursday afternoon.
"No, indeed, it still wants five minutes to four. Will you come in, or shall we wait out here? Hilary is under bond not to make her appearance until the last minute."
"Out here, please," Shirley answered, sitting down on the upper step. "What a delightful old garden this is. Father has at last succeeded in finding me my nag, horses appear to be at a premium in Winton, and even if he isn't first cousin to your Bedelia, I'm coming to take you and Hilary to drive some afternoon. Father got me a surrey, because, later, we're expecting some of the boys up, and we'll need a two-seated rig."
"We're coming to take you driving, too," Pauline said. "Just at present, it doesn't seem as if the summer would be long enough for all the things we mean to do in it."
"And you don't know yet, what we are to do this afternoon?"
"Only, that it's to be a drive and, afterwards, supper at the Brices'.
That's all Josie, herself, knows about it. Tom had to take her and
Mrs. Brice into so much of his confidence."
Through the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon, came the notes of a horn, sounding nearer and nearer. A moment later, a stage drawn by two of the hotel horses turned in at the parsonage drive at a fine speed, drawing up before the steps where Pauline and Shirley were sitting, with considerable nourish. Beside the driver sat Tom, in long linen duster, the megaphone belonging to the school team in one hand. Along each side of the stage was a length of white cloth, on which was lettered—
SEEING WINTON STAGE
As the stage stopped, Tom sprang down, a most businesslike air on his boyish face.
"This is the Shaw residence, I believe?" he asked, consulting a piece of paper.
"I—I reckon so," Pauline answered, too taken aback to know quite what she was saying.
"All right!" Tom said. "I understand—"
"Then it's a good deal more than I do," Pauline cut in.
"That there are several young people here desirous of joining our little sight-seeing trip this afternoon."
From around the corner of the house at that moment peeped a small freckled face, the owner of which was decidedly very desirous of joining that trip. Only a deep sense of personal injury kept Patience from coming forward,—she wasn't going where she wasn't wanted—but some day—they'd see!
Shirley clapped her hands delightedly. "How perfectly jolly! Oh, I am glad you asked me to join the club."
"I'll go tell Hilary!" Pauline said. "Tom, however—"
"I beg your pardon, Miss?"
Pauline laughed and turned away.
"Oh, I say, Paul," Tom dropped his mask of pretended dignity, "let the
Imp come with us—this time."
Pauline looked doubtful. She, as well as Tom, had caught sight of that small flushed face, on which longing and indignation had been so plainly written. "I'm not sure that mother will—" she began, "But I'll see."
"Tell her—just this first time," Tom urged, and Shirley added, "She would love it so."
"Mother says," Pauline reported presently, "that Patience may go this time—only we'll have to wait while she gets ready."
From an upper window came an eager voice. "I'm most ready now!"
"She'll never forget it—as long as she lives," Shirley said, "and if she hadn't gone she would never've forgotten that."
"Nor let us—for one while," Pauline remarked—"I'd a good deal rather work with than against that young lady."
Hilary came down then, looking ready and eager for the outing. She had been out in the trap with Pauline several times; once, even as far as the manor to call upon Shirley.
"Why," she exclaimed, "you've brought the Folly! Tom, how ever did you manage it?"
"Beg pardon, Miss?"
Hilary shrugged her shoulders, coming nearer for a closer inspection of the big lumbering stage. It had been new, when the present proprietor of the hotel, then a young man, now a middle-aged one, had come into his inheritance. Fresh back from a winter in town, he had indulged high hopes of booming his sleepy little village as a summer resort, and had ordered the stage—since christened the Folly—for the convenience and enjoyment of the guests—who had never come. A long idle lifetime the Folly had passed in the hotel carriage-house; used so seldom, as to make that using a village event, but never allowed to fall into disrepair, through some fancy of its owner.
As Tom opened the door at the back now, handing his guests in with much ceremony, Hilary laughed softly. "It doesn't seem quite—respectful to actually sit down in the poor old thing. I wonder, if it's more indignant, or pleased, at being dragged out into the light of day for a parcel of young folks?"
"'Butchered to make a Roman Holiday'?" Shirley laughed.
At that moment Patience appeared, rather breathless—but not half as much so as Miranda, who had been drawn into service, and now appeared also—"You ain't half buttoned up behind, Patience!" she protested, "and your hair ribbon's not tied fit to be seen.—My sakes, to think of anyone ever having named that young one Patience!"
"I'll overhaul her, Miranda," Pauline comforted her. "Come here,
Patience."
"Please, I am to sit up in front with you, ain't I, Tom?" Patience urged. "You and I always get on so beautifully together, you know."
Tom relaxed a second time. "I don't see how I can refuse after that," and the over-hauling process being completed, Patience climbed up to the high front seat, where she beamed down on the rest with such a look of joyful content that they could only smile back in response.
From the doorway, came a warning voice. "Not too far, Tom, for Hilary; and remember, Patience, what you have promised me."
"All right, Mrs. Shaw," Tom assured her, and Patience nodded her head assentingly.
From the parsonage, they went first to the doctor's. Josie was waiting for them at the gate, and as they drew up before it, with horn blowing, and horses almost prancing—the proprietor of the hotel had given them his best horses, in honor of the Folly—she stared from her brother to the stage, with its white placard, with much the same look of wonder in her eyes as Pauline and Hilary had shown.
"Miss Brice?" Tom was consulting his list again.
"So that's what you've been concocting, Tom Brice!" Josie answered.
Tom's face was as sober as his manner. "I am afraid we are a little behind scheduled time, being unavoidably delayed."
"He means they had to wait for me to get ready," Patience explained. "You didn't expect to see me along, did you, Josie?" And she smiled blandly.
"I don't know what I did expect—certainly, not this." Josie took her place in the stage, not altogether sure whether the etiquette of the occasion allowed of her recognizing its other inmates, or not.
But Pauline nodded politely. "Good afternoon. Lovely day, isn't it?" she remarked, while Shirley asked, if she had ever made this trip before.
"Not in this way," Josie answered. "I've never ridden in the Folly before. Have you, Paul?"
"Once, from the depot to the hotel, when I was a youngster, about
Impatience's age. You remember, Hilary?"
"Of course I do. Uncle Jerry took me up in front." Uncle Jerry was the name the owner of the stage went by in Winton. "He'd had a lot of Boston people up, and had been showing them around."
"This reminds me of the time father and I did our own New York in one of those big 'Seeing New York' motors," Shirley said. "I came home feeling almost as if we'd been making a trip 'round some foreign city."
"Tom can't make Winton seem foreign," Josie declared.
There were three more houses to stop at, lower down the street. From windows and porches all along the route, laughing, curious faces stared wonderingly after them, while a small body-guard of children sprang up as if by magic to attend them on their way. This added greatly to the delight of Patience, who smiled condescendingly down upon various intimates, blissfully conscious of the envy she was exciting in their breasts. It was delightful to be one of the club for a time, at least.
"And now, if you please, Ladies and Gentlemen," Tom had closed the door to upon the last of his party, "we will drive first to The Vermont House, a hostelry well known throughout the surrounding country, and conducted by one of Vermont's best known and honored sons."
"Hear! Hear!" Jack Ward cried. "I say, Tom, get that off again where
Uncle Jerry can hear it, and you'll always be sure of his vote."
They had reached the rambling old hotel, from the front porch of which
Uncle Jerry himself, surveyed them genially.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," standing up, Tom turned to face the occupants of the stage, his megaphone, carried merely as a badge of office, raised like a conductor's baton, "I wish to impress upon your minds that the building now before you—liberal rates for the season—is chiefly remarkable for never having sheltered the Father of His Country."
"Now how do you know that?" Uncle Jerry protested. "Ain't that North
Chamber called the 'Washington room'?"
"Oh, but that's because the first proprietor's first wife occupied that room—and she was famous for her Washington pie," Tom answered readily. "I assure you, sir, that any and all information which I shall have the honor to impart to these strangers within our gates may be relied upon for its accuracy." He gave the driver the word, and the Folly continued on its way, stopping presently before a little story-and-a-half cottage not far below the hotel and on a level with the street.
"This cottage, my young friends," Tom said impressively, "should be—and I trust is—enshrined deep within the hearts of all true Wintonites. Latterly, it has come to be called the Barker cottage, but its real title is 'The Flag House'; so called, because from that humble porch, the first Stars and Stripes ever seen in Winton flung its colors to the breeze. The original flag is still in possession of a lineal descendant of its first owner, who is, unfortunately, not an inhabitant of this town." The boyish gravity of tone and manner was not all assumed now.
No one spoke for a moment; eleven pairs of young eyes were looking out at the little weather-stained building with new interest. "I thought," Bell Ward said at last, "that they called it the flag place, because someone of that name had used to live there."
"So did I," Hilary said.
As the stage moved on, Shirley leaned back for another look. "I shall get father to come and sketch it," she said. "Isn't it the quaintest old place?"
"We will now proceed," Tom announced, "to the village green, where I shall have the pleasure of relating to you certain anecdotes regarding the part it played in the early life of this interesting old village."
"Not too many, old man," Tracy Dixon suggested hurriedly, "or it may prove a one-sided pleasure."
The green lay in the center of the town,—a wide, open space, with flagstaff in the middle; fine old elms bordered it on all four sides. The Vermont House faced it, on the north, and on the opposite side stood the general store, belonging to Mr. Ward, with one or two smaller places of business.
"The business section" of the town, Tom called it, and quite failed to notice Tracy's lament that he had not brought his opera glasses with him. "Really, you know," Tracy explained to his companions, "I should have liked awfully to see it. I'm mighty interested in business sections."
"Cut that out," his brother Bob commanded, "the chap up in front is getting ready to hold forth again."
They were simple enough, those anecdotes, that "the chap up in front" told them; but in the telling, the boy's voice lost again all touch of mock gravity. His listeners, sitting there in the June sunshine, looking out across the old green, flecked with the waving tree shadows, and bright with the buttercups nodding here and there, seemed to see those men and boys drilling there in the far-off summer twilights; to hear the sharp words of command; the sound of fife and drum. And the familiar names mentioned more than once, well-known village names, names belonging to their own families in some instances, served to deepen the impression.
"Why," Edna Ray said slowly, "they're like the things one learns at school; somehow, they make one realize that there truly was a Revolutionary War. Wherever did you pick up such a lot of town history, Tom?"
"That's telling," Tom answered.
Back up the broad, main street they went, past the pleasant village houses, with their bright, well-kept dooryards, under the wide-spreading trees beneath which so many generations of young folks had come and gone; past the square, white parsonage, with its setting of green lawn; past the old stone church, and on out into the by-roads of the village, catching now and then a glimpse of the great lake beyond; and now and then, down some lane, a bit of the street they had left. They saw it all with eyes that for once had lost the indifference of long familiarity, and were swift to catch instead its quiet, restful beauty, helped in this, perhaps, by Shirley's very real admiration.
The ride ended at Dr. Brice's gate, and here Tom dropped his mantle of authority, handing all further responsibility as to the entertainment of the party over to his sister.
Hilary was carried off to rest until supper time, and the rest scattered about the garden, a veritable rose garden on that June afternoon, roses being Dr. Brice's pet hobby.
"It must be lovely to live in the country," Shirley said, dropping down on the grass before the doctor's favorite La France, and laying her face against the soft, pink petals of a half-blown bud.
Edna eyed her curiously. She had rather resented the admittance of this city girl into their set. Shirley's skirt and blouse were of white linen, there was a knot of red under the broad sailor collar, she was hatless and the dark hair,—never kept too closely within bounds—was tossed and blown; there was certainly nothing especially cityfied in either appearance or manner.
"That's the way I feel about the city," Edna said slowly, "it must be lovely to live there."
Shirley laughed. "It is. I reckon just being alive anywhere such days as these ought to content one. You haven't been over to the manor lately, have you? I mean since we came there. We're really getting the garden to look like a garden. Reclaiming the wilderness, father calls it. You'll come over now, won't you—the club, I mean?"