"Why, of course," Edna answered, she thought she would like to go. "I suppose you've been over to the forts?"
"Lots of times—father's ever so interested in them, and it's just a pleasant row across, after supper."
"I have fasted too long, I must eat again," Tom remarked, coming across the lawn. "Miss Dayre, may I have the honor?"
"Are you conductor, or merely club president now?" Shirley asked.
"Oh, I've dropped into private life again. There comes Hilary—doesn't look much like an invalid, does she?"
"But she didn't look very well the first time I saw her," Shirley answered.
The long supper table was laid under the apple trees at the foot of the garden, which in itself served to turn the occasion into a festive affair.
"You've given us a bully send-off, Mr. President," Bob declared. "It's going to be sort of hard for the rest of us to keep up with you."
"By the way," Tom said, "Dr. Brice—some of you may have heard of him—would like to become an honorary member of this club. Any contrary votes?"
"What's an honorary member?" Patience asked. Patience had been remarkably good that afternoon—so good that Pauline began to feel worried, dreading the reaction.
"One who has all the fun and none of the work," Tracy explained, a merry twinkle in his brown eyes.
Patience considered the matter. "I shouldn't mind the work; but mother won't let me join regularly—mother takes notions now and then—but, please mayn't I be an honorary member?"
"Onery, you mean, young lady!" Tracy corrected.
Patience flashed a pair of scornful eyes at him. "Father says punning is the very lowest form of—"
"Never mind, Patience," Pauline said, "we haven't answered Tom yet. I vote we extend our thanks to the doctor for being willing to join."
"He isn't a bit more willing than I am," Patience observed. There was a general laugh among the real members, then Tom said, "If a Shaw votes for a Brice, I don't very well see how a Brice can refuse to vote for a Shaw."
"The motion is carried," Bob seconded him.
"Subject to mother's consent," Pauline added, a quite unnecessary bit of elder sisterly interference, Patience thought.
"And now, even if it is telling on yourself, suppose you own up, old man?" Jack Ward turned to Tom. "You see we don't in the least credit you with having produced all that village history from your own stores of knowledge."
"I never said you need to," Tom answered, "even the idea was not altogether original with me."
Patience suddenly leaned forward, her face all alight with interest.
"I love my love with an A," she said slowly, "because he's an—author."
Tom whistled. "Well, of all the uncanny young ones!"
"It's very simple," Patience said loftily.
"So it is, Imp," Tracy exclaimed; "I love him with an A, because he's an—A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N!"
"I took him to the sign of The Apple Tree," Bell took up the thread.
"And fed him (mentally) on subjects—antedeluvian, or almost so,"
Hilary added.
"What are you talking about?" Edna asked impatiently.
"Mr. Allen," Pauline told her.
"I saw him and Tom walking down the back lane the other night,"
Patience explained. Patience felt that she had won her right to belong
to the club now—they'd see she wasn't just a silly little girl.
"Father says he—I don't mean Tom—"
"We didn't suppose you did," Tracy laughed.
"Knows more history than any other man in the state; especially, the history of the state."
"Mr. Allen!" Shirley exclaimed. "T. C. Allen! Why, father and I read one of his books just the other week. It's mighty interesting. Does he live in Winton?"
"He surely does," Bob grinned, "and every little while he comes up to school and puts us through our paces. It's his boast that he was born, bred and educated right in Vermont. He isn't a bad old buck—if he wouldn't pester a fellow with too many questions."
"He lives out beyond us," Hilary told Shirley. "There's a great apple tree right in front of the gate. He has an old house-keeper to look after him. I wish you could see his books—he's literally surrounded with them."
"Not storybooks," Patience added. "He says, they're books full of stories, if one's a mind to look for them."
"Please," Edna protested, "let's change the subject. Are we to have badges, or not?"
"Pins," Bell suggested.
"Pins would have to be made to order," Pauline objected, "and would be more or less expensive."
"And it's an unwritten by-law of this club, that we shall go to no unnecessary expense," Tom insisted.
"But—" Bell began.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Tom broke in, "but Uncle Jerry didn't charge for the stage—he said he was only too glad to have the poor thing used—'twas a dull life for her, shut up in the carriage-house year in and year out."
"The Folly isn't a she," Patience protested.
"Folly generally is feminine," Tracy said, "and so—"
"And he let us have the horses, too—for our initial outing," Tom went on. "Said the stage wouldn't be of much use without them."
"Three cheers for Uncle Jerry!" Bob Dixon cried. "Let's make him an honorary member."
"But the badges," Edna said. "I never saw such people for going off at tangents."
"Ribbon would be pretty," Shirley suggested, "with the name of the club in gilt letters. I can letter pretty well."
Her suggestion was received with general acclamation, and after much discussion, as to color, dark blue was decided on.
"Blue goes rather well with red," Tom said, "and as two of our members have red hair," his glance went from Patience to Pauline.
"I move we adjourn, the president's getting personal," Pauline pushed back her chair.
"Who's turn is it to be next?" Jack asked.
They drew lots with blades of grass; it fell to Hilary. "I warn you," she said, "that I can't come up to Tom."
Then the first meeting of the new club broke up, the members going their various ways. Shirley went as far as the parsonage, where she was to wait for her father.
"I've had a beautiful time," she said warmly. "And I've thought what to do when my turn comes. Only, I think you'll have to let father in as an honorary, I'll need him to help me out."
"We'll be only too glad," Pauline said heartily. "This club's growing fast, isn't it? Have you decided, Hilary?"
Hilary shook her head, "N-not exactly; I've sort of an idea."
CHAPTER VII
HILARY'S TURN
Pauline and Hilary were up in their own room, the "new room," as it had come to be called, deep in the discussion of certain samples that had come in that morning's mail.
Uncle Paul's second check was due before long now, and then there were to be new summer dresses, or rather the goods for them, one apiece all around.
"Because, of course," Pauline said, turning the pretty scraps over, "Mother Shaw's got to have one, too. We'll have to get it—on the side—or she'll declare she doesn't need it, and she does."
"Just the goods won't come to so very much," Hilary said.
"No, indeed, and mother and I can make them."
"We certainly got a lot out of that other check, or rather, you and mother did," Hilary went on. "And it isn't all gone?"
"Pretty nearly, except the little we decided to lay by each month. But we did stretch it out in a good many directions. I don't suppose any of the other twenty-fives will seem quite so big."
"But there won't be such big things to get with them," Hilary said, "except these muslins."
"It's unspeakably delightful to have money for the little unnecessary things, isn't it?" Pauline rejoiced.
That first check had really gone a long ways. After buying the matting and paper, there had been quite a fair sum left; enough to pay for two magazine subscriptions, one a review that Mr. Shaw had long wanted to take, another, one of the best of the current monthlies; and to lay in quite a store of new ribbons and pretty turnovers, and several yards of silkaline to make cushion covers for the side porch, for Pauline, taking hint from Hilary's out-door parlor at the farm, had been quick to make the most of their own deep, vine-shaded side porch at the parsonage.
The front piazza belonged in a measure to the general public, there were too many people coming and going to make it private enough for a family gathering place. But the side porch was different, broad and square, only two or three steps from the ground; it was their favorite gathering place all through the long, hot summers.
With a strip of carpet for the floor, a small table resurrected from the garret, a bench and three wicker rockers, freshly painted green, and Hilary's hammock, rich in pillows, Pauline felt that their porch was one to be proud of. To Patience had been entrusted the care of keeping the old blue and white Canton bowl filled with fresh flowers, and there were generally books and papers on the table. And they might have done it all before, Pauline thought now, if they had stopped to think.
"Have you decided?" Hilary asked her, glancing at the sober face bent over the samples.
"I believe I'd forgotten all about them; I think I'll choose this—"
Pauline held up a sample of blue and white striped dimity.
"That is pretty."
"You can have it, if you like."
"Oh, no, I'll have the pink."
"And the lavender dot, for Mother Shaw?"
"Yes," Hilary agreed.
"Patience had better have straight white, it'll be in the wash so often."
"Why not let her choose for herself, Paul?" Hilary suggested.
"Hilary! Oh, Hilary Shaw!" Patience called excitedly, at that moment from downstairs.
"Up here!" Hilary called back, and Patience came hurrying up, stumbling more than once in her eagerness. The next moment, she pushed wide the door of the "new room." "See what's come! It's addressed to you, Hilary—it came by express—Jed brought it up from the depot!" Jed was the village expressman.
She deposited her burden on the table beside Hilary. It was a good-sized, square box, and with all that delightful air of mystery about it that such packages usually have.
"What do you suppose it is, Paul?" Hilary cried. "Why, I've never had anything come unexpectedly, like this, before."
"A whole lot of things are happening to us that never've happened before," Patience said. "See, it's from Uncle Paul!" she pointed to the address at the upper left-hand corner of the package. "Oh, Hilary, let me open it, please, I'll go get the tack hammer."
"Tell mother to come," Hilary said.
"Maybe it's books, Paul!" she added, as Patience scampered off.
Pauline lifted the box. "It doesn't seem quite heavy enough for books."
"But what else could it be?"
Pauline laughed. "It isn't another Bedelia, at all events. It could be almost anything. Hilary, I believe Uncle Paul is really glad I wrote to him."
"Well, I'm not exactly sorry," Hilary declared.
"Mother can't come yet," Patience explained, reappearing. "She says not to wait. It's that tiresome Mrs. Dane; she just seems to know when we don't want her, and then to come—only, I suppose if she waited 'til we did want to see her, she'd never get here."
"Mother didn't say that. Impatience, and you'd better not let her hear you saying it," Pauline warned.
But Patience was busy with the tack hammer. "You can take the inside covers off," she said to Hilary.
"Thanks, awfully," Hilary murmured.
"It'll be my turn next, won't it?" Patience dropped the tack hammer, and wrenched off the cover of the box—"Go ahead, Hilary! Oh, how slow you are!"
For Hilary was going about her share of the unpacking in the most leisurely way. "I want to guess first," she said. "Such a lot of wrappings! It must be something breakable."
"A picture, maybe," Pauline suggested. Patience dropped cross-legged on the floor. "Then I don't think Uncle Paul's such a very sensible sort of person," she said.
"No, not pictures!" Hilary lifted something from within the box, "but something to get pictures with. See, Paul!"
"A camera! Oh, Hilary!"
"And not a little tiny one." Patience leaned over to examine the box. "It's a three and a quarter by four and a quarter. We can have fun now, can't we?" Patience believed firmly in the cooperative principle.
"Tom'll show you how to use it," Pauline said. "He fixed up a dark room last fall, you know, for himself."
"And here are all the doings." Patience came to investigate the further contents of the express package. "Films and those funny little pans for developing in, and all."
Inside the camera was a message to the effect that Mr. Shaw hoped his niece would be pleased with his present and that it would add to the summer's pleasures,
"He's getting real uncley, isn't he?" Patience observed. Then she caught sight of the samples Pauline had let fall. "Oh, how pretty! Are they for dresses for us?"
"They'd make pretty scant ones, I'd say," Pauline, answered.
"Silly!" Patience spread the bright scraps out on her blue checked gingham apron. "I just bet you've been choosing! Why didn't you call me?"
"To help us choose?" Pauline asked, with a laugh.
But at the present moment, her small sister was quite impervious to sarcasm. "I think I'll have this," she pointed to a white ground, closely sprinkled with vivid green dots.
"Carrots and greens!" Pauline declared, glancing at her sister's red curls. "You'd look like an animated boiled dinner! If you please, who said anything about your choosing?"
"You look ever so nice in all white, Patty," Hilary said hastily.
"Have you and Paul chosen all white?"
"N-no."
"Then I shan't!" She looked up quickly, her blue eyes very persuasive.
"I don't very often have a brand new, just-out-of-the-store dress, do
I?"
Pauline laughed. "Only don't let it be the green then. Good, here's mother, at last!"
"Mummy, is blue or green better?" Patience demanded.
Mrs. Shaw examined and duly admired the camera, and decided in favor of a blue dot; then she said, "Mrs. Boyd is down-stairs, Hilary."
"How nice!" Hilary jumped up. "I want to see her most particularly."
"Bless me, child!" Mrs. Boyd exclaimed, as Hilary came into the sitting-room, "how you are getting on! Why, you don't look like the same girl of three weeks back."
Hilary sat down beside her on the sofa. "I've got a most tremendous favor to ask, Mrs. Boyd."
"I'm glad to hear that! I hear you young folks are having fine times lately. Shirley was telling me about the club the other night."
"It's about the club—and it's in two parts; first, won't you and Mr.
Boyd be honorary members?—That means you can come to the good times if
you like, you know.—And the other is—you see, it's my turn next—"
And when Pauline came down, she found the two deep in consultation.
The next afternoon, Patience carried out her long-intended plan of calling at the manor. Mrs. Shaw was from home for the day, Pauline and Hilary were out in the trap with Tom and Josie and the camera. "So there's really no one to ask permission of, Towser," Patience explained, as they started off down the back lane. "Father's got the study door closed, of course that means he mustn't be disturbed for anything unless it's absolutely necessary."
Towser wagged comprehendingly. He was quite ready for a ramble this bright afternoon, especially a ramble 'cross lots.
Shirley and her father were not at home, neither—which was even more disappointing—were any of the dogs; so, after a short chat with Betsy Todd, considerably curtailed by that body's too frankly expressed wonder that Patience should've been allowed to come unattended by any of her elders, she and Towser wandered home again.
In the lane, they met Sextoness Jane, sitting on the roadside, under a shady tree. She and Patience exchanged views on parish matters, discussed the new club, and had an all-round good gossip.
"My sakes!" Jane said, her faded eyes bright with interest, "it must seem like Christmas all the time up to your house." She looked past Patience to the old church beyond, around which her life had centered itself for so many years. "There weren't ever such doings at the parsonage—nor anywhere else, what I knowed of—when I was a girl. Why, that Bedelia horse! Seems like she give an air to the whole place—so pretty and high-stepping—it's most's good's a circus—not that I've ever been to a circus, but I've hear tell on them—just to see her go prancing by."
"I think," Patience said that evening, as they were all sitting on the porch in the twilight, "I think that Jane would like awfully to belong to our club."
"Have you started a club, too?" Pauline teased.
Patience tossed her red head. "'The S. W. F. Club,' I mean; and you know it, Paul Shaw. When I get to be fifteen, I shan't act half so silly as some folks."
"What ever put that idea in your head?" Hilary asked. It was one of Hilary's chief missions in life to act as intermediary between her younger and older sister.
"Oh, I just gathered it, from what she said. Towser and I met her this afternoon, on our way home from the manor."
"From where, Patience?" her mother asked quickly, with that faculty for taking hold of the wrong end of a remark, that Patience had had occasion to deplore more than once.
And in the diversion this caused, Sextoness Jane was forgotten.
"Here comes Mr. Boyd, Hilary!" Pauline called from the foot of the stairs.
Hilary finished tying the knot of cherry ribbon at her throat, then snatching up her big sun-hat from the bed, she ran down-stairs.
Before the side door, stood the big wagon, in which Mr. Boyd had driven over from the farm, its bottom well filled with fresh straw. For Hilary's outing was to be a cherry picnic at The Maples, with supper under the trees, and a drive home later by moonlight.
Shirley had brought over the badges a day or two before; the blue ribbon, with its gilt lettering, gave an added touch to the girls' white dresses and cherry ribbons.
Mr. Dayre had been duly made an honorary member. He and Shirley were to meet the rest of the party at the farm. As for Patience H. M., as Tom called her, she had been walking very softly the past few days. There had been no long rambles without permission, no making calls on her own account. There had been a private interview between herself and Mr. Boyd, whom she had met, not altogether by chance, down street the day before.
The result was that, at the present moment, Patience—white-frocked, blue-badged, cherry-ribboned—was sitting demurely in one corner of the big wagon.
Mr. Boyd chuckled as he glanced down at her; a body'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to get ahead of that youngster. Though not in white, nor wearing cherry ribbons, Mr. Boyd sported his badge with much complacency. Winton was looking up, decidedly. 'Twasn't such a slow old place, after all.
"All ready?" he asked, as Pauline slipped a couple of big pasteboard boxes under the wagon seat, and threw in some shawls for the coming home.
"All ready. Good-by, Mother Shaw. Remember, you and father have got to come with us one of these days. I guess if Mr. Boyd can take a holiday you can."
"Good-by," Hilary called, and Patience waved joyously. "This'll make two times," she comforted herself, "and two times ought to be enough to establish what father calls 'a precedent.'"
They stopped at the four other houses in turn; then Mr. Boyd touched his horses up lightly, rattling them along at a good rate out on to the road leading to the lake and so to The Maples.
There was plenty of fun and laughter by the way. They had gone picnicking together so many summers, this same crowd, had had so many good times together. "And yet it seems different, this year, doesn't it?" Bell said. "We really aren't doing new things—exactly, still they seem so."
Tracy touched his badge. "These are the 'Blue Ribbon Brand,' best goods in the market."
"Come to think of it, there aren't so very many new things one can do,"
Tom remarked.
"Not in Winton, at any rate," Bob added.
"If anyone dares say anything derogatory to Winton, on this, or any other, outing of the 'S. W. F. Club,' he, or she, will get into trouble," Josie said sternly.
Mrs. Boyd was waiting for them on the steps, Shirley close by, while a glimpse of a white umbrella seen through the trees told that Mr. Dayre was not far off.
"It's the best cherry season in years," Mrs. Boyd declared, as the young folks came laughing and crowding about her. She was a prime favorite with them all. "My, how nice you look! Those badges are mighty pretty."
"Where's yours?" Pauline demanded.
"It's in my top drawer, dear. Looks like I'm too old to go wearing such things, though 'twas ever so good in you to send me one."
"Hilary," Pauline turned to her sister, "I'm sure Mrs. Boyd'll let you go to her top drawer. Not a stroke of business does this club do, until this particular member has her badge on."
"Now," Tom asked, when that little matter had been attended to, "what's the order of the day?"
"I hope you've worn old dresses?" Mrs. Boyd said.
"I haven't, ma'am," Tracy announced.
"Order!" Bob called.
"Eat all you like—so long's you don't get sick—and each pick a nice basket to take home," Mrs. Boyd explained. There were no cherries anywhere else quite so big and fine, as those at The Maples.
"You to command, we to obey!" Tracy declared.
"Boys to pick, girls to pick up," Tom ordered, as they scattered about among the big, bountifully laden trees.
"For cherry time,
Is merry time,"
Shirley improvised, catching the cluster of great red and white cherries Jack tossed down to her.
Even more than the rest of the young folks, Shirley was getting the good of this happy, out-door summer, with its quiet pleasures and restful sense of home life. She had never known anything before like it. It was very different, certainly, from the studio life in New York, different from the sketching rambles she had taken other summers with her father. They were delightful, too, and it was pleasant to think of going back to them again—some day; but just at present, it was good to be a girl among other girls, interested in all the simple, homely things each day brought up.
And her father was content, too, else how could she have been so? It was doing him no end of good. Painting a little, sketching a little, reading and idling a good deal, and through it all, immensely amused at the enthusiasm with which his daughter threw herself into the village life. "I shall begin to think soon, that you were born and raised in Winton," he had said to her that very morning, as she came in fresh from a conference with Betsy Todd. Betsy might be spending her summer in a rather out-of-the-way spot, and her rheumatism might prevent her from getting into town—as she expressed it—but very little went on that Betsy did not hear of, and she was not one to keep her news to herself.
"So shall I," Shirley had laughed back. She wondered now, if Pauline or Hilary would enjoy a studio winter, as much as she was reveling in her Winton summer? She decided that probably they would.
Cherry time was merry time that afternoon. Of course. Bob fell out of one of the trees, but Bob was so used to tumbling, and the others were so used to having him tumble, that no one paid much attention to it; and equally, of course, Patience tore her dress and had to be taken in hand by Mrs. Boyd.
"Every rose must have its thorns, you know, kid," Tracy told her, as she was borne away for this enforced retirement. "We'll leave a few cherries, 'gainst you get back."
Patience elevated her small freckled nose, she was an adept at it. "I reckon they will be mighty few—if you have anything to do with it."
"You're having a fine time, aren't you, Senior?" Shirley asked, as Mr. Dayre came scrambling down from his tree; he had been routed from his sketching and pressed into service by his indefatigable daughter.
"Scrumptious! Shirley, you've got a fine color—only it's laid on in spots."
"You're spattery, too," she retorted. "I must go help lay out the supper now."
"Will anyone want supper, after so many cherries?" Mr. Dayre asked.
"Will they?" Pauline laughed. "Well, you just wait and see."
Some of the boys brought the table from the house, stretching it out to its uttermost length. The girls laid the cloth, Mrs. Boyd provided, and unpacked the boxes stacked on the porch. From the kitchen came an appetizing odor of hot coffee. Hilary and Bell went off after flowers for the center of the table.
"We'll put one at each place, suggestive of the person—like a place card," Hilary proposed.
"Here's a daisy for Mrs. Boyd," Bell laughed.
"Let's give that to Mr. Boyd and cut her one of these old-fashioned spice pinks," Hilary said.
"Better put a bit of pepper-grass for the Imp," Tracy suggested, as the girls went from place to place up and down the long table.
"Paul's to have a pansy," Hilary insisted. She remembered how, if it hadn't been for Pauline's "thought" that wet May afternoon, everything would still be as dull and dreary as it was then.
At her own place she found a spray of belated wild roses, Tom had laid there, the pink of their petals not more delicate than the soft color coming and going in the girl's face.
"We've brought for-get-me-not for you, Shirley," Bell said, "so that you won't forget us when you get back to the city."
"As if I were likely to!" Shirley exclaimed.
"Sound the call to supper, sonny!" Tom told Bob, and Bob, raising the farm dinner-horn, sounded it with a will, making the girls cover their ears with their hands and bringing the boys up with a rush.
"It's a beautiful picnic, isn't it?" Patience said, reappearing in time to slip into place with the rest.
"And after supper, I will read you the club song," Tracy announced.
"Are we to have a club song?" Edna asked.
"We are."
"Read it now, son—while we eat," Tom suggested.
Tracy rose promptly—"Mind you save me a few scraps then. First, it isn't original—"
"All the better," Jack commented.
"Hush up, and listen—
"'A cheerful world?—It surely is.
And if you understand your biz
You'll taboo the worry worm,
And cultivate the happy germ.
"'It's a habit to be happy,
Just as much as to be scrappy.
So put the frown away awhile,
And try a little sunny smile.'"
There was a generous round of applause. Tracy tossed the scrap of paper across the table to Bell. "Put it to music, before the next round-up, if you please."
Bell nodded. "I'll do my best."
"We've got a club song and a club badge, and we ought to have a club motto," Josie said.
"It's right to your hand, in your song," her brother answered. "'It's a habit to be happy.'"
"Good!" Pauline seconded him, and the motto was at once adopted.
CHAPTER VIII
SNAP-SHOTS
Bell Ward set the new song to music, a light, catchy tune, easy to pick up. It took immediately, the boys whistled it, as they came and went, and the girls hummed it. Patience, with cheerful impartiality, did both, in season and out of season.
It certainly looked as though it were getting to be a habit to be happy among a good many persons in Winton that summer. The spirit of the new club seemed in the very atmosphere.
A rivalry, keen but generous, sprang up between the club members in the matter of discovering new ways of "Seeing Winton," or, failing that, of giving a new touch to the old familiar ones.
There were many informal and unexpected outings, besides the club's regular ones, sometimes amongst all the members, often among two or three of them.
Frequently, Shirley drove over in the surrey, and she and Pauline and Hilary, with sometimes one of the other girls, would go for long rambling drives along the quiet country roads, or out beside the lake. Shirley generally brought her sketch-book and there were pleasant stoppings here and there.
And there were few days on which Bedelia and the trap were not out, Bedelia enjoying the brisk trots about the country quite as much as her companions.
Hilary soon earned the title of "the kodak fiend," Josie declaring she took pictures in her sleep, and that "Have me; have my camera," was Hilary's present motto. Certainly, the camera was in evidence at all the outings, and so far, Hilary had fewer failures to her account than most beginners. Her "picture diary" she called the big scrap-book in which was mounted her record of the summer's doings.
Those doings were proving both numerous and delightful. Mr. Shaw, as an honorary member, had invited the club to a fishing party, which had been an immense success. The doctor had followed it by a moonlight drive along the lake and across on the old sail ferry to the New York side, keeping strictly within that ten-mile-from-home limit, though covering considerably more than ten miles in the coming and going.
There had been picnics of every description, to all the points of interest and charm in and about the village; an old-time supper at the Wards', at which the club members had appeared in old-fashioned costumes; a strawberry supper on the church lawn, to which all the church were invited, and which went off rather better than some of the sociables had in times past.
As the Winton Weekly News declared proudly, it was the gayest summer the village had known in years. Mr. Paul Shaw's theory about developing home resources was proving a sound one in this instance at least.
Hilary had long since forgotten that she had ever been an invalid, had indeed, sometimes, to be reminded of that fact. She had quite discarded the little "company" fiction, except now and then, by way of a joke. "Who'd want to be company?" she protested. "I'd rather be one of the family these days."
"That's all very well," Patience retorted, "when you're getting all the good of being both. You've got the company room." Patience had not found her summer quite as cloudless as some of her elders; being an honorary member had not meant all of the fun in her case. She wished very much that it were possible to grow up in a single night, thus wiping out forever that drawback of being "a little girl."
Still, on the whole, she managed to get a fair share of the fun going on and quite agreed with the editor of the Weekly News, going so far as to tell him so when she met him down street. She had a very kindly feeling in her heart for the pleasant spoken little editor; had he not given her her full honors every time she had had the joy of being "among those present"?
There had been three of those checks from Uncle Paul; it was wonderful how far each had been made to go. It was possible nowadays to send for a new book, when the reviews were more than especially tempting. There had also been a tea-table added to the other attractions of the side porch, not an expensive affair, but the little Japanese cups and saucers were both pretty and delicate, as was the rest of the service; while Miranda's cream cookies and sponge cakes were, as Shirley declared, good enough to be framed. Even the minister appeared now and then of an afternoon, during tea hour, and the young people, gathered on the porch, began to find him a very pleasant addition to their little company, he and they getting acquainted, as they had never gotten acquainted before.
Sextoness Jane came every week now to help with the ironing, which meant greater freedom in the matter of wash dresses; and also, to Sextoness Jane herself, the certainty of a day's outing every week. To Sextoness Jane, those Tuesdays at the parsonage were little short of a dissipation. Miranda, unbending in the face of such sincere and humble admiration, was truly gracious. The glimpses the little bent, old sextoness got of the young folks, the sense of life going on about her, were as good as a play, to quote her own simile, confided of an evening to Tobias, her great black cat, the only other inmate of the old cottage.
"I reckon Uncle Paul would be rather surprised," Pauline said one evening, "if he could know all the queer sorts of ways in which we use his money. But the little easings-up do count for so much."
"Indeed they do," Hilary agreed warmly, "though it hasn't all gone for easings-ups, as you call them, either." She had sat down right in the middle of getting ready for bed, to revel in her ribbon box; she so loved pretty ribbons!
The committee on finances, as Pauline called her mother, Hilary, and herself, held frequent meetings. "And there's always one thing," the girl would declare proudly, "the treasury is never entirely empty."
She kept faithful account of all money received and spent; each month a certain amount was laid away for the "rainy day"—which meant, really, the time when the checks should cease to come—-"for, you know, Uncle Paul only promised them for the summer," Pauline reminded the others, and herself, rather frequently. Nor was all of the remainder ever quite used up before the coming of the next check.
"You're quite a business woman, my dear," Mr. Shaw said once, smiling over the carefully recorded entries in the little account-book she showed him. "We must have named you rightly."
She wrote regularly to her uncle; her letters unconsciously growing more friendly and informal from week to week. They were bright, vivid letters, more so than Pauline had any idea of. Through them, Mr. Paul Shaw felt himself becoming very well acquainted with these young relatives whom he had never seen, and in whom, as the weeks went by, he felt himself growing more and more interested.
Without realizing it, he got into the habit of looking forward to that weekly letter; the girl wrote a nice clear hand, there didn't seem to be any nonsense about her, and she had a way of going right to her point that was most satisfactory. It seemed sometimes as if he could see the old white parsonage and ivy-covered church; the broad tree-shaded lawns; the outdoor parlor, with the young people gathered about the tea-table; Bedelia, picking her way along the quiet country roads; the great lake in all its moods; the manor house.
Sometimes Pauline would enclose one or two of Hilary's snap-shots of places, or persons. At one of these, taken the day of the fishing picnic, and under which Hilary had written "The best catch of the season," Mr. Paul Shaw looked long and intently. Somehow he had never pictured Phil to himself as middle-aged. If anyone had told him, when the lad was a boy, that the time would come when they would be like strangers to each other—Mr. Paul Shaw slipped the snap-shot and letter back into their envelope.
It was that afternoon that he spent considerable time over a catalogue devoted entirely to sporting goods; and it was a fortnight later that Patience came flying down the garden path to where Pauline and Hilary were leaning over the fence, paying a morning call to Bedelia, sunning herself in the back pasture.
"You'll never guess what's come this time! And Jed says he reckons he can haul it out this afternoon if you're set on it! And it's addressed to the 'Misses Shaw,' so that means it's mine, too!" Patience dropped on the grass, quite out of breath.
The "it" proved to be a row-boat with a double set of oar-locks, a perfect boat for the lake, strong and safe, but trig and neat of outline.
Hilary named it the "Surprise" at first sight, and Tom was sent for at once to paint the name in red letters to look well against the white background and to match the boat's red trimmings.
Its launching was an event. Some of the young people had boats over at the lake, rather weather-beaten, tubby affairs, Bell declared them, after the coming of the "Surprise." A general overhauling took place immediately, the girls adopted simple boating dresses—red and white, which were their boating colors. A new zest was given to the water picnics, Bedelia learning to know the lake road very well.
August had come before they fairly realized that their summer was more than well under way. In little more than a month the long vacation would be over. Tom and Josie were to go to Boston to school; Bell to Vergennes.
"There'll never be another summer quite like it!" Hilary said one morning. "I can't bear to think of its being over."
"It isn't—yet," Pauline answered.
"Tom's coming," Patience heralded from the gate, and Hilary ran indoors for hat and camera.
"Where are you off to this morning?" Pauline asked, as her sister came out again.
"Out by the Cross-roads' Meeting-House," Tom answered. "Hilary has designs on it, I believe."
"You'd better come, too, Paul," Hilary urged. "It's a glorious morning for a walk."
"I'm going to help mother cut out; perhaps I'll come to meet you with
Bedelia 'long towards noon. You wait at Meeting-House Hill."
"I'm not going to be busy this morning," Patience insinuated.
"Oh, yes you are, young lady," Pauline told her. "Mother said you were to weed the aster bed."
Patience looked longingly after the two starting gayly off down the path, their cameras swung over their shoulders, then she looked disgustedly at the aster bed. It was quite the biggest of the smaller beds.—She didn't see what people wanted to plant so many asters for; she had never cared much for asters, she felt she should care even less about them in the future. Tiresome, stiff affairs!
By the time Tom and Hilary reached the old Cross-Roads' Meeting-House that morning, after a long roundabout ramble, Hilary, for one, was quite willing to sit down and wait for Pauline and the trap, and eat the great, juicy blackberries Tom gathered for her from the bushes along the road.
It had rained during the night and the air was crisp and fresh, with a hint of the coming fall. "Summer's surely on the down grade," Tom said, throwing himself on the bank beside Hilary.
"So Paul and I were lamenting this morning. I don't suppose it matters as much to you folks who are going off to school."
"Still it means another summer over," Tom said soberly. He was rather sorry that it was so—there could never be another summer quite so jolly and carefree. "And the breaking up of the club, I suppose?"
"I don't see why we need call it a break—just a discontinuance, for a time."
"And why that, even? There'll be a lot of you left, to keep it going."
"Y-yes, but with three, or perhaps more, out, I reckon we'll have to postpone the next installment until another summer."
Tom went off then for more berries, and Hilary sat leaning back against the trunk of the big tree crowning the top of Meeting-House Hill, her eyes rather thoughtful. From where she sat, she had a full view of both roads for some distance and, just beyond, the little hamlet scattered about the old meeting-house.
Before the gate of one of the houses stood a familiar gig, and presently, as she sat watching, Dr. Brice came down the narrow flower-bordered path, followed by a woman. At the gate both stopped; the woman was saying something, her anxious, drawn face seeming out of keeping with the cheery freshness of the morning and the flowers nodding their bright heads about her.
As the doctor stood listening, his old shabby medicine case in his hand, with face bent to the troubled one raised to his, and bearing indicating grave sympathy and understanding, Hilary reached for her camera.
"Upon my word! Isn't the poor pater exempt?" Tom laughed, coming back.
"I want it for the book Josie and I are making for you to take away with you, 'Winton Snap-shots.' We'll call it 'The Country Doctor.'"
Tom looked at the gig, moving slowly off down the road now. He hated to say so, but he wished Hilary would not put that particular snap-shot in. He had a foreboding that it was going to make him a bit uncomfortable—later—when the time for decision came; though, as for that, he had already decided—beyond thought of change. He wished that the pater hadn't set his heart on his coming back here to practice—and he wished, too, that Hilary hadn't taken that photo.
"Paul's late," he said presently.
"I'm afraid she isn't coming."
"It's past twelve," Tom glanced at the sun. "Maybe we'd better walk on a bit."
But they had walked a considerable bit, all the way to the parsonage, in fact, before they saw anything of Pauline. There, she met them at the gate. "Have you seen any trace of Patience—and Bedelia?" she asked eagerly.
"Patience and Bedelia?" Hilary repeated wonderingly.
"They're both missing, and it's pretty safe guessing they're together."
"But Patience would never dare—"
"Wouldn't she!" Pauline exclaimed. "Jim brought Bedelia 'round about
eleven and when I came out a few moments later, she was gone and so was
Patience. Jim's out looking for them. We traced them as far as the
Lake road."
"I'll go hunt, too," Tom offered. "Don't you worry, Paul; she'll turn up all right—couldn't down the Imp, if you tried."
"But she's never driven Bedelia alone; and Bedelia's not Fanny."
However, half an hour later, Patience drove calmly into the yard, Towser on the seat beside her, and if there was something very like anxiety in her glance, there was distinct triumph in the way she carried her small, bare head.
"We've had a beautiful drive!" she announced, smiling pleasantly from her high seat, at the worried, indignant group on the porch. "I tell you, there isn't any need to 'hi-yi' this horse!"
"My sakes!" Miranda declared. "Did you ever hear the beat of that!"
"Get down, Patience!" Mrs. Shaw said, and Patience climbed obediently down. She bore the prompt banishment to her own room which followed, with seeming indifference. Certainly, it was not unexpected; but when Hilary brought her dinner up to her presently, she found her sitting on the floor, her head on the bed. It was only a few days now to Shirley's turn and it was going to be such a nice turn. Patience felt that for once Patience Shaw had certainly acted most unwisely.
"Patty, how could you!" Hilary put the tray on the table and sitting down on the bed, took the tumbled head on her knee. "We've been so worried! You see, Bedelia isn't like Fanny!"
"That's why I wanted to get a chance to drive her by myself for once!
She went beautifully! out on the Lake road I just let her loose!" For
the moment, pride in her recent performance routed all contrition from
Patience's voice—"I tell you, folks I passed just stared!"
"Patience, how—"
"I wasn't scared the least bit; and, of course, Bedelia knew it. Uncle Jerry says they always know when you're scared, and if Mr. Allen is the most up in history of any man in Vermont, Uncle Jerry is the most in horses."
Hilary felt that the conversation was hardly proceeding upon the lines her mother would have approved of, especially under present circumstances. "That has nothing to do with it, you know, Patience," she said, striving to be properly severe.
"I think it has—everything. I think it's nice not being scared of things. You're sort of timid 'bout things, aren't you, Hilary?"
Hilary made a movement to rise.
"Oh, please," Patience begged. "It's going to be such a dreadful long afternoon—all alone."
"But I can't stay, mother would not want—"
"Just for a minute. I—I want to tell you something. I—coming back, I met Jane, and I gave her a lift home—and she did love it so—she says she's never ridden before behind a horse that really went as if it enjoyed it as much as she did. That was some good out of being bad, wasn't it? And—I told you—ever'n' ever so long ago, that I was mighty sure Jane'd just be tickled to death to belong to our club. I think you might ask her—I don't see why she shouldn't like Seeing Winton, same's we do—she doesn't ever have fun—and she'll be dead pretty soon. She's getting along, Jane is—it'd make me mad's anything to have to die 'fore I'd had any fun to speak of. Jane's really very good company—when you draw her out—she just needs drawing out—Jane does. Seems to me, she remembers every funeral and wedding and everything—that's ever taken place in Winton." Patience stopped, sheer out of breath, but there was an oddly serious look on her little eager face.
Hilary stroked back the tangled red curls. "Maybe you're right, Patty; maybe we have been selfish with our good times. I'll have to go now, dear. You—I may tell mother—that you are sorry—truly, Patty?"
Patience nodded. "But I reckon, it's a good deal on account of
Shirley's turn," she explained.
Hilary bit her lip.
"You don't suppose you could fix that up with mother? You're pretty good at fixing things up with mother, Hilary."
"Since how long?" Hilary laughed, but when she had closed the door, she opened it again to stick her head in. "I'll try, Patty, at any rate," she promised.
She went down-stairs rather thoughtful. Mrs. Shaw was busy in the study and Pauline had gone out on an errand. Hilary went up-stairs again, going to sit by one of the side windows in the "new room."
Over at the church, Sextoness Jane was making ready for the regular weekly prayer meeting; never a service was held in the church that she did not set all in order. Through one of the open windows, Hilary caught sight of the bunch of flowers on the reading-desk. Jane had brought them with her from home. Presently, the old woman herself came to the window to shake her dust-cloth, standing there a moment, leaning a little out, her eyes turned to the parsonage. Pauline was coming up the path, Shirley and Bell were with her. They were laughing and talking, the bright young voices making a pleasant break in the quiet of the garden. It seemed to Hilary, as if she could catch the wistful look in Jane's faded eyes, a look only half consciously so, as if the old woman reached out vaguely for something that her own youth had been without and that only lately she had come to feel the lack of.
A quick lump came into the girl's throat. Life had seemed so bright and full of untried possibilities only that very morning, up there on Meeting-House Hill, with the wind in one's face; and then had come that woman, following the doctor down from the path. Life was surely anything but bright for her this crisp August day—and now here was Jane. And presently—at the moment it seemed very near indeed to Hilary—she and Paul and all of them would be old and, perhaps, unhappy. And then it would be good to remember—that they had tried to share the fun and laughter of this summer of theirs with others.
Hilary thought of the piece of old tapestry hanging on the studio wall over at the manor—of the interwoven threads—the dark as necessary to the pattern as the bright. Perhaps they had need of Sextoness Jane, of the interweaving of her life into theirs—of the interweaving of all the village lives going on about them—quite as much as those more sober lives needed the brightening touch of theirs.
"Hilary! O Hilary!" Pauline called.
"I'm coming," Hilary answered, and went slowly down to where the others were waiting on the porch.
"Has anything happened?" Pauline asked.
"I've been having a think—and I've come to the conclusion that we're a selfish, self-absorbed set."
"Mother Shaw!" Pauline went to the study window, "please come out here.
Hilary's calling us names, and that isn't polite."
Mrs. Shaw came. "I hope not very bad names," she said.
Hilary swung slowly back and forth in the hammock. "I didn't mean it that way—it's only—" She told what Patience had said about Jane's joining the club, and then, rather reluctantly, a little of what she had been thinking.
"I think Hilary's right," Shirley declared. "Let's form a deputation and go right over and ask the poor old soul to join here and now."
"I would never've thought of it," Bell said. "But I don't suppose I've ever given Jane a thought, anyway."
"Patty's mighty cute—for all she's such a terror at times," Pauline admitted. "She knows a lot about the people here—and it's just because she's interested in them."
"Come on," Shirley said, jumping up. "We're going to have another honorary member."
"I think it would be kind, girls," Mrs. Shaw said gravely. "Jane will feel herself immensely flattered, and I know of no one who upholds the honor of Winton more honestly or persistently."
"And please, Mrs. Shaw," Shirley coaxed, "when we come back, mayn't
Patience Shaw, H. M., come down and have tea with us?"
"I hardly think—"
"Please, Mother Shaw," Hilary broke in; "after all—she started this, you know. That sort of counterbalances the other, doesn't it?"
"Well, we'll see," her mother laughed.
Pauline ran to get one of the extra badges with which Shirley had provided her, and then the four girls went across to the church.
Sextoness Jane was just locking the back door—not the least important part of the afternoon's duties with her—as they came through the opening in the hedge. "Good afternoon," she said cheerily, "was you wanting to go inside?"
"No," Pauline answered, "we came over to invite you to join our club.
We thought, maybe, you'd like to?"
"My Land!" Jane stared from one to another of them. "And wear one of them blue-ribbon affairs?"
"Yes, indeed," Shirley laughed. "See, here it is," and she pointed to the one in Pauline's hand.
Sextoness Jane came down the steps. "Me, I ain't never wore a badge! Not once in all my life! Oncet, when I was a little youngster, 'most like Patience, teacher, she got up some sort of May doings. We was all to wear white dresses and red, white and blue ribbons—very night before, I come down with the mumps. Looks like I always come down when I ought to've stayed up!"
"But you won't come down with anything this time," Pauline pinned the blue badge on the waist of Jane's black and white calico. "Now you're an honorary member of 'The S. W. F. Club.'"
Jane passed a hand over it softly. "My Land!" was all she could say.
She was still stroking it softly as she walked slowly away towards home. My, wouldn't Tobias be interested!
CHAPTER IX
AT THE MANOR
"'All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock,'"
Patience chanted, moving slowly about the parsonage garden, hands full of flowers, and the big basket, lying on the grass beyond, almost full.
Behind her, now running at full speed, now stopping suddenly, back lifted, tail erect, came Lucky, the black kitten from The Maples. Lucky had been an inmate of the parsonage for some weeks now and was thriving famously in her adopted home. Towser tolerated her with the indifference due such a small, insignificant creature, and she alternately bullied and patronized Towser.
"We haven't shepherd's purse, nor lady's smock, that I know of, Lucky," Patience said, glancing back at the kitten, at that moment threatening battle at a polite nodding Sweet William, "but you can see for yourself that we have hollyhocks, while as for bachelor's buttons! Just look at that big, blue bunch in one corner of the basket."
It was the morning of the day of Shirley's turn and Pauline was hurrying to get ready to go over and help decorate the manor. She was singing, too; from the open windows of the "new room" came the words—
"'A cheerful world?—It surely is
And if you understand your biz
You'll taboo the worry worm,
And cultivate the happy germ.'"
To which piece of good advice, Patience promptly whistled back the gay refrain.
On the back porch, Sextoness Jane—called in for an extra half-day—was ironing the white dresses to be worn that afternoon. And presently, Patience, her basket quite full and stowed away in the trap waiting before the side door, strolled around to interview her.
"I suppose you're going this afternoon?" she asked.
Jane looked up from waxing her iron. "Well, I was sort of calculating on going over for a bit; Miss Shirley having laid particular stress on my coming and this being the first reg'lar doings since I joined the club. I told her and Pauline they mustn't look for me to go junketing 'round with them all the while, seeing I'm in office—so to speak—and my time pretty well taken up with my work. I reckon you're going?"
"I—" Patience edged nearer the porch. Behind Jane stood the tall clothes-horse, with its burden of freshly ironed white things. At sight of a short, white frock, very crisp and immaculate, the blood rushed to the child's face, then as quickly receded.—After all, it would have had to be ironed for Sunday and—well, mother certainly had been very non-committal the past few days—ever since that escapade with Bedelia, in fact—regarding her youngest daughter's hopes and fears for this all-important afternoon. And Patience had been wise enough not to press the matter.
"But, oh, I do wonder if Hilary has—" Patience went back to the side porch. Hilary was there talking to Bedelia. "You—you have fixed it up?" the child inquired anxiously.
Hilary looked gravely unconscious. "Fixed it up?" she repeated.
"About this afternoon—with mother?"
"Oh, yes! Mother's going; so is father."
Patience repressed a sudden desire to stamp her foot, and Hilary, seeing the real doubt and longing in her face, relented. "Mother wants to see you, Patty. I rather think there are to be conditions."
Patience darted off. From the doorway, she looked back—"I just knew you wouldn't go back on me, Hilary! I'll love you forever'n' ever."
Pauline came out a moment later, drawing on her driving gloves. "I feel like a story-book girl, going driving this time in the morning, in a trap like this. I wish you were coming, too, Hilary."
"Oh, I'm like the delicate story-book girl, who has to rest, so as to be ready for the dissipations that are to come later. I look the part, don't I?"
Pauline looked down into the laughing, sun-browned face. "If Uncle Paul were to see you now, he might find it hard to believe I hadn't—exaggerated that time."
"Well, it's your fault—and his, or was, in the beginning. You've a fine basket of flowers to take; Patience has done herself proud this morning."
"It's wonderful how well that young lady can behave—at times."
"Oh, she's young yet! When I hear mother tell how like her you used to be, I don't feel too discouraged about Patty."
"That strikes me as rather a double-edged sort of speech," Pauline gathered up the reins. "Good-by, and don't get too tired."
Shirley's turn was to be a combination studio tea and lawn-party, to which all club members, both regular and honorary, not to mention their relatives and friends, had been bidden. Following this, was to be a high tea for the regular members.
"That's Senior's share," Shirley had explained to Pauline. "He insists that it's up to him to do something."
Mr. Dayre was on very good terms with the "S. W. F. Club." As for
Shirley, after the first, no one had ever thought of her as an outsider.
It was hard now, Pauline thought, as she drove briskly along, the lake breeze in her face, and the sound of Bedelia's quick trotting forming a pleasant accompaniment to her, thoughts, very hard, to realize how soon the summer would be over. But perhaps—as Hilary said—next summer would mean the taking up again of this year's good times and interests,—Shirley talked of coming back. As for the winter—Pauline had in mind several plans for the winter. Those of the club members to stay behind must get together some day and talk them over. One thing was certain, the club motto must be lived up to bravely. If not in one way, why in another. There must be no slipping back into the old dreary rut and routine. It lay with themselves as to what their winter should be.
"And there's fine sleighing here, Bedelia," she said. "We'll get the old cutter out and give it a coat of paint."
Bedelia tossed her head, as if she heard in imagination the gay jingling of the sleighbells.
"But, in the meantime, here is the manor," Pauline laughed, "and it's the prettiest August day that ever was, and lawn-parties and such festivities are afoot, not sleighing parties."
The manor stood facing the lake with its back to the road, a broad sloping lawn surrounded it on three sides, with the garden at the back.
For so many seasons, it had stood lonely and neglected, that Pauline never came near it now, without rejoicing afresh in its altered aspect. Even the sight of Betsy Todd's dish towels, drying on the currant bushes at one side of the back door, added their touch to the sense of pleasant, homely life that seemed to envelop the old house nowadays.
Shirley came to the gate, as Pauline drew up, Phil, Pat and Pudgey in close attention. "I have to keep an eye on them," she told Pauline. "They've just had their baths, and they're simply wild to get out in the middle of the road and roll. I've told them no self-respecting dog would wish to come to a lawn-party in anything but the freshest of white coats, but I'm afraid they're not very self-respecting."
"Patience is sure Towser's heart is heavy because he is not to come; she has promised him a lawn-party on his own account, and that no grown-ups shall be invited. She's sent you the promised flowers, and hinted—more or less plainly—that she would have been quite willing to deliver them in person."
"Why didn't you bring her? Oh, but I'm afraid you've robbed yourself!"
"Oh, no, we haven't. Mother says, flowers grow with picking."
"Come on around front," Shirley suggested. "The boys have been putting the awning up."
"The boys" were three of Mr. Dayre's fellow artists, who had come up a day or two before, on a visit to the manor. One of them, at any rate, deserved Shirley's title. He came forward now. "Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?" he said, with a wave of the hand towards the red and white striped awning, placed at the further edge of the lawn.
Shirley smiled her approval, and introduced him to Pauline, adding that
Miss Shaw was the real founder of their club.
"It's a might jolly sort of club, too," young Oram said.
"That is exactly what it has turned out to be," Pauline laughed. "Are the vases ready, Shirley?"
Shirley brought the tray of empty flower vases out on the veranda, and sent Harry Oram for a bucket of fresh water. "Harry is to make the salad," she explained to Pauline, as he came back. "Before he leaves the manor he will have developed into a fairly useful member of society."
"You've never eaten one of my salads, Miss Shaw," Harry said. "When you have, you'll think all your previous life an empty dream."
"It's much more likely her later life will prove a nightmare,—for a while, at least," Shirley declared. "Still, Paul, Harry does make them rather well. Betsy Todd, I am sorry to say, doesn't approve of him. But there are so many persons and things she doesn't approve of; lawn-parties among the latter."
Pauline nodded sympathetically; she knew Betsy Todd of old. Her wonder was, that the Dayres had been able to put up with her so long, and she said so.
"'Hobson's choice,'" Shirley answered, with a little shrug. "She isn't much like our old Thèrese at home, is she, Harry? But nothing would tempt Thèrese away from her beloved New York. 'Vairmon! Nevaire have I heard of zat place!' she told Harry, when he interviewed her for us. Senior's gone to Vergennes—on business thoughts intent, or I hope they are. He's under strict orders not to 'discover a single bit' along the way, and to get back as quickly as possible."
"You see how beautifully she has us all in training?" Harry said to
Pauline.
Pauline laughed. Suddenly she looked up from her flowers with sobered face. "I wonder," she said slowly, "if you know what it's meant to us—you're being here this summer, Shirley? Sometimes things do fit in just right after all. It's helped out wonderfully this summer, having you here and the manor open."
"Pauline has a fairy-story uncle down in New York," Shirley turned to
Harry. "You've heard of him—Mr. Paul Shaw."
"Well,—rather! I've met him, once or twice—he didn't strike me as much of a believer in fairy tales."
"He's made us believe in them," Pauline answered.
"I think Senior might have provided me with such a delightful sort of uncle," Shirley observed. "I told him so, but he says, while he's awfully sorry I didn't mention it before, he's afraid it's too late now."
"Uncle Paul sent us Bedelia," Pauline told the rather perplexed-looking
Harry, "and the row-boat and the camera and—oh, other things."