They all knew that mother had a clear judgment; but it was just her far-seeing power that made them tremble. She might see breakers ahead which they knew nothing about.
And perhaps mother did see a few objections to this new plan. However that may be, as the little ones presented their petition, she smiled.
This was, indeed, a good sign, and more than that, the smile was followed by a ready consent as the plan was unfolded.
The Bill was passed. Hurrah!
The B. D. Society was allowed; and mother had actually agreed to be patroness and prize-giver.
"What a dear, jolly mother she is!"
"She's a duck, and no mistake!"
Rather unbusinesslike language, but very expressive!
Well, but what did it mean, this B. D. S.?
It was only a Bedroom Decorating Society. But it seemed a very beautiful idea to the four curly headed little girls who sat squeezed up together in the large nursery armchair.
Pattie, Mollie, Kitty, and Norah. Four little Irish maidens, with this lovely plan to talk over and make perfect, while a snowstorm kept them indoors to-day.
Pattie. "Don't let's tell each other how we'll do our rooms until afterwards."
Norah. "You'll never keep your plans to yourself. You never could keep anything in."
Mollie (up in arms for her sister). "Don't be nasty, Norah, or something bad will happen to you!"
Norah (looking a little ashamed of herself and wisely changing the subject). "Let's begin now. We'll take all the things out of our rooms first, and then put them back in new places—shall us?"
As you may guess, the B. D. S. was intended to promote a general taste for artistic style in the children's bedrooms, or as Kitty expressed it, simply and to the point, "It is to make us put our things illigantly."
Mother determined to let this new idea have a fair trial; though she could not help feeling a little nervous as she heard the scrimmaging of the furniture, and thought of possible breakages.
She sat at her needlework, and listened to the distant sounds which reached her faintly from the rooms above. Then she began to wonder whether the excitement and interest would last out the fortnight, at the end of which she had been asked to present a prize.
Suddenly her motherly heart gave a terrible throb.
There was a thud—thud—thud, and that horrid bumping sound, as something soft tumbled over and over down the stairs.
With a white face she rushed out of the dining-room, to see little Norah and a large bolster roll on to the floor at her feet!
A breathless scream escaped from the terrified child.
The three other curly heads were peeping through the banisters, and three pairs of Irish blue eyes were looking horribly scared and unhappy.
But mother did not see them.
She picked up the screaming Norah, and carried her into the dining-room, while nurse came running from the kitchen and her ironing.
All the time that the sobbing little victim of the B. D. S. was being soothed into calmness, and the big swelling wheal on her forehead bathed and tended, Pattie, Mollie, and Kitty—upstairs—looked at one another in frightened silence. Then Mollie said sadly—
"I knew something would happen to Norah. It always does if she says nasty things."
"Rubbish, Mollie! That's nonsense! She fell down because her bolster was so big, and she couldn't see where the stairs came!" cried Pattie.
"I'm going to see where she's hurted herself," announced little Kitty; and she trudged off, leaving Pattie and Mollie to sort the heap of odds and ends that lay on the landing.
They went about it in doleful silence at first.
Then Mollie said, "This is my counterpane—isn't it, Pattie?"
"No; that's Norah's. Don't you see the corner all crumpled up which she holds in her hand when she goes to sleep?"
"Oh dear! oh dear! I don't think, after all, that it's easy having a B. D. S. It seemed just to spoil it all when Norah went thumping down—down, like a big ball."
Pattie gave a little sigh, too, and was putting down the chair she was carrying that she might rest her arms and have room for another deeper sigh, when mother's voice was heard calling—
"Mollie! Pattie! I want you down here!"
Off they ran, feeling down in their little hearts that mother must know how to put things happy again.
First of all they looked with interested and pitying eyes at Norah, whose head had become an odd shape, and whose face was white and patchy. Then they stood side by side with Kitty, watching mother's face, and waiting.
"The B. D. S. has had a bad beginning, dears," she said. "I don't think it was a good plan to pull everything out of your rooms to start with. But never mind that now."
As mother spoke she kept one hand behind her chair, and she smiled.
She was sorry for her little girls.
"I am going to propose," she went on, "that you should alter your society a little bit. The letters will be the same. It will still be the B. D. S.; but the work will be different and easier."
The little faces all brightened as she continued—
"I like my little girls to be tidy and neat in their rooms; but I think mother knows best how the furniture should stand, and where the things look nicest. So I suggest that we call our society the Bedroom Dusting Society. I will give you each a little cloth, and you shall dust your rooms every morning after nurse has made the beds. And once a week I will award a prize."
Then mother drew her hand forward and held before their eyes a Japanese fan, with a long handle, to which was tied a dainty bow of blue ribbon.
"This," she said, "shall be given next Saturday to the tidiest of the four members of your society. Now, what do you think of my plan?"
"It's just splendid, mother darling!" was the unanimous cry of the listeners; and a tangle of soft loving arms nearly throttled her in a sudden embrace.
"And you know," came in a plaintive voice from Norah, "if you always give us a pretty thing like that for a prize, it will be the Bedroom Decorating Society, too!"
Most of these Works may be had in Ornamental Bindings,
with Gilt Edges, at a small Extra charge.
s. d.
Adventurous Voyage of the "Polly," and other Yarns.
By the late S. W. Sadler, R.N. With four page illustrations.
Crown 8vo
cloth boards 3 0
All is Lost save Honour.
A Story of to-day. By Catherine M. Phillimore,
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo
cloth boards 1 6
Alone Among the Zulus.
By a Plain Woman. The Narrative of a Journey
through the Zulu Country. With four page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
An Innocent.
By S. M. Sitwell. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Baron's Head (The).
By Francis Vyvian. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 0
Behind the Clouds.
A Story of Village Life. By Grace Hamilton.
Printed on toned paper, with three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 0
Belfrey of St. Jude (The).
A Story by Esmè Stuart, author of "Mimi." With
three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Bernard Hamilton, Curate of Stowe.
By Mary E. Shipley. With four page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 0
Brag and Holdfast.
By Eadgyth, author of "The Snow Fort," &c. With
three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Captain Eva.
The Story of a Naughty Girl. By Kathleen Knox.
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Chryssie's Hero.
By Annette Lyster, author of "Fan's Silken String."
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Christabel the Flower Girl of Covent Garden.
By the author of "Our Valley," &c. With three page
illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Cruise of the "Dainty," (The); or, Rovings in the Pacific.
By the late W. H. G. Kingston. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Engel the Fearless.
By Elizabeth H. Mitchell. With four page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 3 6
Fan's Silken String.
By Annette Lyster, author of "Northwind and Sunshine,"
&c. With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Fortunes of Hassan (The).
Being the strange story of a Turkish Refugee, as told by
himself. By the author of "Our Valley," "Rosebuds."
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Frontier Fort (The); or Stirring Times in the North-West
Territory of British America.
By the late W. H. G. Kingston. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Geoffrey Bennett.
By Mrs. Isla Sitwell, author of the "Church Farm."
With three page wood cuts. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 3 0
Great Captain (The). An Eventful Chapter in Spanish History.
By Ulick R. Burke, M.A. With two page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 0
Hasselaers (The).
A Tale of Courage and endurance. By E. E. Cooper.
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Invasion of Ivylands (The).
By Annette Lyster, author of "Fan's Silken String."
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
John Holbrook's Lessons.
By M. E. Palgrave. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
King's Warrant (The).
A Tale of Old and New France. By A. H. Engelbach.
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Lettice.
By Mrs. Molesworth, author of "Carrots." With
three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 0
Little Brown Girl (The).
A Story for Children. By Esmè Stuart, author of
"Mimi," &c. With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Mate of the "Lily" (The); or, Notes from Harry Musgrave's
Log Book.
By the late W. H. G. Kingston, author of "Owen
Hartley," &c., With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Mike.
A Tale of the Great Irish Famine. By the Rev. E. N.
Hoare, M.A., author of "Between the Locks." With
three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Mimi: a Story of Peasant Life in Normandy.
By Esmè Stuart, author of "The Little Brown Girl."
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Mrs. Dobbs' Dull Boy.
By Annette Lyster, author of "Northwind and Sunshine,"
&c. With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
My Lonely Lassie.
By Annette Lyster, author of "Mrs. Dobbs' Dull Boy."
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Our Valley.
By the author of "The Children of Seeligsberg," &c.
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Percy Trevor's Training.
By the Rev. E. N. Hoare, M.A., author of "Two
Voyages," &c. With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Philip Vandeleur's Victory.
By C. H. Eden, author of "Australia's Heroes," "The
Fifth Continent," &c. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Pillars of Success (The).
By Crona Temple, author of "Griffenhoof," &c. With
three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Reclaimed.
A Tale. By A. Eubule Evans. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Round my Table.
By H. L. Childe-Pemberton, author of "The Topmost
Bough," &c. With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Steffan's Angel, and other Stories.
By M. E. Townsend. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Stories from Italian History.
By B. Montgomerie Ranking. With two page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Sweet William.
By Mrs. Thomas Erskine. With three page illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 1 6
Two Shipmates (The).
By the late W. H. G. Kingston, author of "Ned Garth."
With three page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 2 6
Una Crichton.
By the author of "Our Valley," &c. With four page
illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 3 6
Will's Voyages.
By F. Frankfort Moore, author of "The Fate of the
Black Swan." With four page illustrations. Crown 8vo.
cloth boards 3 6