one from the under-instructor followed, setting things in the right
light. And although old Mr. King was for going off directly to interview
the master, with several separate and distinct complaints and
criticisms, he was at last persuaded to give up the trip and let matters
work their course under the proper guidance at the school.
"So, Polly, my child," he said on the following day, when the letters
were all in, "I believe I'll trust Dr. Marks, after all, to settle the
affair. He seems a very good sort of a man, on the whole, and I really
suppose he knows what to do with a lot of boys; though goodness me! how
he can, passes my comprehension. So I am not going."
"Oh Grandpapa!" exclaimed Polly, the color flooding her cheek, and she
seized his hand in a glad little way.
"Yes, I really see no necessity for going," went on the old gentleman,
much as if he were being urged out of his way to set forth; "so I shall
stay at home. Joel can take care of himself. I'd trust him anywhere," he
brought up, using the same words that Mother Fisher had employed.
"Wouldn't you, Grandpapa!" cried Polly with sparkling eyes, and clinging
to him.
"Yes, Polly, my child," said Grandpapa emphatically, "because, no matter
into what mischief Joe may get, he always owns up. Goodness me! Polly,
that boy can't go very far wrong, with such a mother as you've got."
Alexia Rhys, running through the wide hall, came upon the two. "Oh, beg
pardon, and may we girls have Polly?" all in the same breath.
"Get away with you," laughed old Mr. King, who had his own reasons for
liking Alexia, "that's the way you always do, trying to get Polly Pepper
away when we are having a good talk."
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Alexia, doing her best to curb her impatience, and
pinching her hands together, "we did so want--"
"I can't go now, Alexia," said Polly, still clinging to Mr. King's hand.
Grandpapa sent a keen glance over into Alexia's face. "I think you
better go, Polly," he said. "You and I will have our talk later."
"Oh goody!" cried Alexia, hopping up and down. And "Oh Grandpapa!"
reproachfully from Polly.
"Yes, Polly, it's best for you to go with the girls now," said old Mr.
King, gently relinquishing her hands, "so run along with you, child."
And he went into the library.
"Come right along," cried Alexia gustily, and pulling Polly down the
hall.
"There now, you see, you've dragged me away from Grandpapa," cried Polly
in a vexed way.
"Well, he said you were to go," cried Alexia, perfectly delighted at the
result. "Oh, we're to have such fun! You can't think, Polly Pepper."
"Of course he did, when you said the girls wanted me," said Polly, half
determined, even then, to run back. "I'd much rather have staid with
him, Alexia."
"Well, you can't, because he said you were to come; and besides, here
are the girls." And there they were on the back porch, six or eight of
them in a group.
"Oh Polly, Polly!" they cried, "are you coming--can you really go?"
swarming around her. "And do get your hat on," said Clem Forsythe "and
hurry up."
"Where are you going?" asked Polly.
"The idea! Alexia Rhys, you are a great one to send after her," cried
Sally Moore. "Not even to tell her where we are going, or what we want
her for!"
"Well, I got her here, and that is half of the battle," said Alexia, in
an injured way; "and my goodness me! Polly won't hardly speak to me now;
and you may go yourself after her next time, Sally Moore."
"There, girls, don't fight," said Clem sweetly. "Polly, we are going out
to Silvia Horne's. Mrs. Horne has just telephoned to see if we'll come
out to supper. Come, hurry up; we want to catch the next car. She says
she'll send somebody home with us."
"Yes, yes, do hurry," begged the girls, hopping up and down on anxious
feet.
"I must ask Mamsie," said Polly. "Oh, how perfectly splendid!" running
off with a glad remembrance of lessons all ready for the next day. "Now
how nice it is that Mamsie always made me get them the first thing," she
reflected as she sped along.
Mamsie said "yes," for she well knew that Mrs. Horne was a careful
person, and when she promised anything it was always well done. "But
brush your hair, Polly," she said, "it looks very untidy flying all over
your head."
So Polly rushed off to her own room; Alexia, who didn't dare to trust
her out of her sight, at her heels, to get in the way, and hinder
dreadfully by teasing Polly every minute to "hurry--we'll lose the
train."
"Where are you going, Polly?" asked Phronsie, hearing Alexia's voice;
and laying down her doll, she went into the blue and white room that was
Polly's very own. "Oh, may I go too?" as Polly ran to the closet to get
out her second-best hat.
"Oh dear me!" began Alexia.
"No, Pet," said Polly, her head in the closet. "Oh my goodness! where
_is_ that hat?"
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Alexia, wringing her hands, "we'll be late and
miss the train. Do hurry, Polly Pepper."
"I'll find it, Polly," said Phronsie, going to the closet and getting
down on her knees, to peer around.
"Oh, it wouldn't be on the floor, Phronsie," began Polly. "Oh dear me!
where _can_ it be?"
"Here it is," cried Alexia, "behind the bed." And running off, she
picked it up, and swung it over to Polly.
"Goodness me!" said Polly with a little laugh, "I remember now, I tossed
it on the bed, I thought. Well, I'm ready now, thank fortune," pinning
on her hat. "Good-bye, Pet."
"I am so very glad it is found, Polly," said Phronsie, getting up on
tiptoe to pull Polly's hat straight and get another kiss.
"Come on, Polly," called Alexia, flying over the stairs. "Yes, yes,
girls, she's coming! Oh dear me, Polly, we'll be late!"
V AT SILVIA HORNE'S
But they weren't--not a bit of it--and had ten minutes to spare as they
came rushing up to the station platform.
"Oh, look--look, girls." Polly Pepper pointed up to the clock, pushing
back the damp rings of hair from her forehead. "Oh dear me--I'm so hot!"
"And so am I," panted the other girls, dashing up. One of them sank down
on the upper step, and fanned herself in angry little puffs with her
hat, which she twitched off for that purpose.
"Just like you, Alexia," cried one when she could get her breath,
"you're always scaring us to death."
"Well, I'm sure I was scared myself, Clem," retorted Alexia, propping
herself against the wall. "Oh dear! I can't breathe; I guess I'm going
to die--whew, whew!"
As Alexia made this statement quite often on similar occasions, the
girls heard it with the air of an old acquaintance, and straightened
their coats and hats, and pulled themselves into shape generally.
"Oh my goodness, how you look, Sally! Your hat is all over your left
eye." Alexia deserted her wall, and ran over to pull it straight.
"You let me be," cried Sally crossly, and twitching away. "If it hadn't
been for you, my hat would have staid where I put it. I'll fix it
myself." She pulled out the long pin.
"Oh dear me! now the head has come off," she mourned.
"Oh my goodness! Your face looks the worst--isn't it sweet!" cried
Alexia coolly, who hadn't heard this last.
"Don't, Alexia," cried Polly, "she's lost her pin."
"Misery!" exclaimed Alexia, starting forward, "oh, where, where--"
"It isn't the pin," said Sally, holding that out, "but the head has
flown off." She jumped off from the step and began to peer anxiously
around in the dirt, all the girls crowding around and getting dreadfully
in the way.
"What pin was it, Sally?" asked Polly, poking into a tuft of grass
beneath the steps, "your blue one?"
"No; it was my best one--oh dear me!" Sally looked ready to cry, and
turned away so that the girls couldn't see her face.
"Not the one your aunt gave you, Sally!" exclaimed Clem.
"Yes--yes." Sally sniffed outright now. "Oh dear! I put it in
because--because--we were going to Silvia's--oh dear me!"
She gave up now, and sobbed outright.
"Don't cry, Sally," begged Polly, deserting her grass-tuft, to run over
to her. "We'll find it." Alexia was alternately picking frantically in
all the dust-heaps, and wringing her hands, one eye on the clock all the
while.
"Oh, no, you won't," whimpered Sally. "It flew right out of my hand, and
it's gone way off--I know it has--oh dear!" and she sobbed worse than
ever.
"Perhaps one of those old hens will pick it up," suggested Lucy Bennett,
pointing across the way to the station master's garden, where four or
five fowl were busily scratching.
"Oh--oh!" Sally gave a little scream at that, and threw herself into
Polly Pepper's arms. "My aunt's pin--and she told me--to be careful,
and she won't--won't ever give me anything else, and now those old hens
will eat it. Oh _dear_ me! what shall I do?"
"How can you, Lucy, say such perfectly dreadful things?" cried Polly.
"Don't cry, Sally. Girls, do keep on looking for it as hard as you can.
Sally, do stop."
But Sally was beyond stopping. "She told--told me only to wear it
Sundays, and with my best--best dress. Oh, do give me your handkerchief,
Polly. I've left mine home."
So Polly pulled out her clean handkerchief from her coat pocket, and
Sally wiped up her face, and cried all over it, till it was a damp
little wad; and the girls poked around, and searched frantically, and
Alexia, one eye on the clock, exclaimed, "Oh, girls, it's time for the
train. Oh misery me! what _shall_ we do?"
"And here it comes!" Lucy Bennett screamed.
"Stick on your hat, Sally, you've the pin part. Come, hurry up!" cried
the others. And they all huddled around her.
"Oh, I can't go," began Sally.
"You must," said Clem; "we've telephoned back to Mrs. Horne we're
coming. Do stick on your hat, Sally Moore."
Alexia was spinning around, saying over and over to herself, "I won't
stay back--I won't." Then, as the train slowly rounded the long curve
and the passengers emerged from the waiting-room, she rushed up to the
knot of girls. "Go along, Sally Moore, and I'll stay and hunt for your
old pin," just as some one twitched Sally's hat from her fingers and
clapped it on her head.
"Oh my goodness me!" Alexia gave a little scream, and nearly fell
backward. "Look--it's on your own head! Oh, girls, I shall die." She
pointed tragically up to the hat, then gave a sudden nip with her long
fingers, and brought out of a knot of ribbon, a gilt, twisted affair
with pink stones. "You had it all the time, Sally Moore," and she went
into peals of laughter.
"Well, do stop; everybody's looking," cried the rest of the girls, as
they raced off to the train, now at a dead stop. Sally, with her hat
crammed on her head at a worse angle than ever, only realized that she
had the ornament safely clutched in her hand.
"Oh, I can't help it," exclaimed Alexia gustily, and hurrying off to get
next to Polly. "Oh dear me!--whee--_whee_!" as they all plunged into the
train.
When they arrived at Edgewood, there was a carriage and a wagonette
drawn up by the little station, and out of the first jumped Silvia, and
following her, a tall, thin girl who seemed to have a good many
bracelets and jingling things.
"My cousin, Kathleen Briggs. She just came to-day," said Silvia, "while
I was at school, and so mother thought it would be nice to have you
girls out to supper, 'cause they're only going to stay till to-morrow.
Oh, it's so fine that you've come! Well, come and get in. Polly, you're
going in the carriage with Kathleen and me. Come on."
Alexia crowded up close behind.
"I'm going with Polly Pepper, this time," announced Sally, pushing in
between; "Alexia always gets her."
"Well, she's my very dearest friend," said Alexia coolly, and working
her long figure up close to Polly, as Silvia led her off, "so of course
I always must go with her."
"Well, so she is our very dearest friend, too, Alexia Rhys," declared
Clem, "and we're going to have her sometimes, ourselves." And there they
were in a dreadful state, and Silvia's cousin, the new girl, to see it
all!
She jingled her bracelets, and picked at the long chain dangling from
her neck, and stared at them all.
"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Polly Pepper with very red cheeks. "Alexia,
don't--don't," she begged.
"Well, I don't care," said Alexia recklessly, "the girls are always
picking at me because I will keep next to you, Polly, and you're my very
dearest friend, and----"
"But Sally had such a fright about her pin," said Polly in a low tone.
Alexia was crowded up close and hugging her arm, so no one else heard.
"Well, that old pin dropped in the ribbon; she had it herself all the
time, oh dear!" Alexia nearly went off again at the remembrance.
"She felt badly, all the same," said Polly slowly. She didn't even
smile, and Alexia could feel that the arm was slipping away from her.
"Oh dear me!" she began, then she dropped Polly Pepper's arm. "Sally,
you may go next," she cried suddenly, and she skipped back into the
bunch of the other girls.
Polly sent her an approving little nod, and she didn't fail to smile
now. Alexia ran over to the wagonette, and hopped in, not daring to
trust herself to see Sally Moore's satisfaction ahead in the coveted
seat.
The other girls jumping in, the wagonette was soon filled, and away they
spun for the two miles over to the Hornes' beautiful place. And before
long, their respects having been paid to Mrs. Horne, the whole bevy was
up in Silvia's pretty pink and white room overlooking the lake.
"I think it's just too lovely for anything here, Silvia Horne,"
exclaimed Sally, whose spirits were quite recovered now. She had her
aunt's pin all safe, and she had ridden up next to Polly. "Oh girls, she
has a new pincushion and cover."
"Yes, a whole new set," said Silvia carelessly, as the girls rushed over
from the bed where they were laying their things, to see this new
acquisition to the beautiful room.
"Well, if I could have such perfectly exquisite things," breathed Alexia
as they all oh-ed and ah-ed over the pink ribbons and dainty lace, "I'd
be the very happiest girl."
Kathleen Briggs thrust her long figure in among the bevy. "That toilet
set is very pretty," she said indifferently and with quite a young-lady
air.
"Very pretty!" repeated Alexia, turning her pale eyes upon her in
astonishment, "well, I should think it was! It's too perfectly elegant
for anything!"
"Oh dear me!" Kathleen gave a little laugh. "It's just nothing to the
one I have on my toilet table at home. Besides, I shall bring home some
Oriental lace, and have a new one: I'm going around the world to-morrow,
you know."
"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Alexia faintly. And the other girls fell
back, and stared respectfully.
"Yes," said Kathleen, delighted at the effect she had produced. "We
start to-morrow, and we don't know how long we shall be gone. Perhaps
two years. Papa says he'll stay if we want to; but mamma and I may get
tired and come home." She jingled her bracelets worse than ever.
"They've come to bid us good-bye, you see," said Silvia, to break the
uncomfortable silence.
"Oh yes," said Polly Pepper.
"Well, if you've got your things off, let's go out of doors," proposed
Silvia suddenly.
"Yes, do let's." The girls drew a long breath as they raced off.
"I think that Kathleen Briggs is too perfectly horrid for
anything"--Alexia got up close to Polly as they flew down the
stairs--"with her going round the world, and her sniffing at Silvia's
toilet set."
"Hush--hush!" whispered Polly, "she'll hear you."
"Well, I don't care; and she's going round the world to-morrow, so what
does it signify?" said Alexia. "Oh, don't go so fast, Polly. You most
made me tumble on my nose."
"Well, you mustn't come with me, then, if you don't keep up," said
Polly, with a merry little laugh, and hurrying on.
"I'm going to keep up," cried Alexia, dashing after, "but you go so
fast," she grumbled.
"We're going to have tea out on the lawn," announced Silvia in
satisfaction, as the bevy rushed out on the broad west piazza.
The maids were already busily setting three little tables, that were
growing quite pretty under their hands.
"There will be four at each table," said Silvia. "Polly's going to sit
with Kathleen and me, and one other girl--I don't know which one yet,"
she said slowly.
"Oh, choose me." Alexia worked her way along eagerly to the front. "I'm
her dearest friend--Polly's, I mean. So you ought to choose me."
"Well, I sha'n't," declared Silvia. "You crowded me awfully at Lucy
Bennett's party, and kept close to Polly Pepper all the time."
"Well, that's because you would keep Polly yourself. You crowded and
pushed horribly yourself, you know you did." Her long face was quite red
now.
"Well, I had to," declared Silvia coolly. "At any rate, you sha'n't have
Polly to-day, for I've quite decided. Clem, you shall have the other
seat at my table."
Clem hopped up and down and beat her hands together in glee. "There,
Alexia Rhys!" she cried in triumph. "Who's got Polly Pepper now, I'd
like to know!"
Alexia, much discomfited, fell back. "Well, I think that's a great way
to give a party," she said, "to get up a fight the first thing."
But Silvia and Kathleen had got Polly Pepper one on each side, and were
now racing down to the lake. "We're going to have a sail," called Silvia
over her shoulder, so they all followed, Alexia among the rest, with no
time for anything else. There was the steam launch waiting for them.
"Girls--girls!" Mrs. Horne called to them from the library, "wait a
moment. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs are going too."
"Oh bother!" began Silvia. Then the color flew into her face, for
Kathleen heard.
"I shall tell my mother what you said," she declared.
"Dear me! no, you mustn't," begged Silvia in alarm.
"Yes, I shall too." Kathleen's bracelets jingled worse than ever as she
shook them out.
"Well, I call that real hateful," broke out Silvia, a red spot on either
cheek, "you know I didn't mean it."
"Well, you said it. And if you think it's a bother to take my mother and
father out on your old launch, I sha'n't stop here and bring you
anything when I come home from around the world."
Silvia trembled. She very much wanted something from around the world.
So she put her arm about Kathleen. "Oh, make up now," she said. "They're
coming," as Mr. and Mrs. Briggs advanced down the path. "Promise you
won't tell," she begged.
"Yes, do," said Polly Pepper imploringly.
So Kathleen promised, and everything became quite serene, just in time
for Mr. and Mrs. Briggs to have the girls presented to them. And then
they all jumped into the steam launch, and the men sent her into the
lake, and everything was as merry as could be under the circumstances.
"I haven't got to go to school to-morrow," announced Silvia when they
were well off. "Isn't that too fine for anything, girls?"
"Dear me! I should say so," cried Alexia enviously. "How I wish I could
ever stay home! But aunt is so very dreadful, she makes me go every
single day."
"Well, I'm going to stay home to bid Kathleen good-bye, you know," said
Silvia.
"You see we are going around the world," announced Mrs. Briggs. She was
just like Kathleen as far as mother and daughter could be, and she had
more jingling things on, besides a long lace scarf that was catching in
everything; and she carried a white, fluffy parasol in her hand. "And
we've come to bid good-bye to our relatives before we start. Kathleen,
you shouldn't have come out on the water without your hat," for the
first time noticing her daughter's bare head.
"None of the girls have hats on," said Kathleen, shaking her long light
braids.
"Well, I don't see how their mothers can allow it," exclaimed Mrs.
Briggs, glancing around on the group, "but I sha'n't let you, Kathleen.
Dear me! you will ruin your skin. Now you must come under my parasol."
She moved up on the seat. "Here, come over here."
"Oh, I'm not going to," cried Kathleen with a grimace. "I can't see
anything under that old thing. Besides, I'm going to stay with the
girls."
"Yes, you must come under my parasol." A frown of real anxiety settled
on her mother's face. "You'll thank me by and by for saving your
complexion for you, Kathleen; so come over."
"No," said Kathleen, hanging back, and holding to Silvia's arm.
"There's your veil, you know." Mr. Briggs hadn't spoken before, but now
he edged up to his wife. "It's in my pocket."
"So it is," cried his wife joyfully, as Mr. Briggs pulled out a long
green tissue veil. "I am so glad I had you bring it. Now, Kathleen, tie
this all over your head; your father will bring it over to you. And next
time, do obey me, and wear your hat as I've always told you."
So Kathleen, not daring to hold back from this command, but grumbling at
every bit of the process, tied on the veil, and then sat up very cross
and stiff through the rest of the sail.
"I should rather never go around the world, if I'd got to be tied up
like an old green mummy every step," Alexia managed to whisper in
Polly's ear as they hopped out of the launch. And she was very sweet to
Kathleen after that, pitying her dreadfully.
VI THE ACCIDENT
"Oh dear me!" exclaimed Clem. They were all on the cars--the early
train--going home; the governess, a middle-aged person who looked after
the younger Horne children and who was going in to her sister's to pass
the night, taking care of the party. "Now I've got to sit up till all
hours when I get home, to get my lessons."
Polly Pepper gave a comfortable little wriggle under her coat. "Isn't it
nice Mamsie makes me get my lessons the first thing, before I play!" she
said to herself for about the fiftieth time.
"So have I," cried Lucy Bennett, echoing Clem's words.
"Well, I can't," cried Alexia with a flounce, "because my aunt won't let
me sit up after nine o'clock; that is, to study. So I have to get up
early in the morning. Oh dear!" with a grimace at the thought.
"So do I," said Amy Garrett. "Dear me! and I'm just as sleepy in the
morning as I can be."
Alexia yawned at the very memory of it. "Well, don't let's talk of it,"
she begged. "Seems as if Miss Salisbury's eyes were all over me now."
"I have Miss Anstice to-morrow," said Amy, "and it's the day for her
black silk gown."
"Horrors!" exclaimed Alexia; and, "How do you know she'll wear the black
silk gown to-morrow, Amy?" from the other girls.
"Because she said Professor Mills from the Institute is to be there
to-morrow," said Amy. "He gives the art lecture to our class. And you
know the black silk gown will surely go on."
"There's no help for you, you poor child," cried Alexia, exulting that
she never would be gathered into Miss Anstice's class, and that she just
hated art and all that sort of thing, despite the efforts of Miss
Salisbury's younger sister to get her interested. "Yes, that black silk
gown will surely be there. Look out now, Amy; all you girls will catch
it."
"Oh, I know it," said Amy with a sigh. "How I do wish I never'd got into
that class!"
"Well, you know I told you," said Alexia provokingly; "you'd much
better have taken my advice and kept out of her clutches."
"I wish I had," mourned Amy again.
"How Miss Anstice can be so horrid--she isn't a bit like Miss
Salisbury," said Alexia. "I don't see--"
"She isn't horrid," began Polly.
"Oh Polly!"
"Well, not always," said Polly.
"Well, she is anyway when she has company, and gets on that black silk
gown; just as stiff and cross and perky and horrid as can be."
"She wants you all to show off good," said Alexia. "Well, I'm glad
enough I'm not in any of her old classes. I just dote on Miss
Salisbury."
"Oh Alexia, you worry the life out of her almost," said Sally.
"Can't help it if I do," said Alexia sweetly. "I'm very fond of her. And
as for Mademoiselle, she's a dear. Oh, I love Mademoiselle, too."
"Well, she doesn't love you," cried Clem viciously. "Dear me! fancy one
of the teachers being fond of Alexia!"
"Oh, you needn't laugh," said Alexia composedly as the girls giggled;
"every single one of those teachers would feel dreadfully if I left that
school. They would really, and cry their eyes out."
"And tear their hair, I suppose," said Clem scornfully.
"Yes, and tear their--why, what in this world are we stopping for?"
cried Alexia in one breath.
So everybody else wondered, as the train gradually slackened speed and
came to a standstill. Everybody who was going in to town to the theatre
or opera, began to look impatient at once.
"Oh dear!" cried the girls who were going to sit up to study, "now isn't
this just as hateful as it can be?"
"I don't care," said Alexia, settling comfortably back, "because I can't
study much anyway, so I'd just as soon sit on this old train an hour."
"Oh Alexia!" exclaimed Polly in dismay, with her heart full at the
thought of Mamsie's distress, and that of dear Grandpapa and Jasper.
Phronsie would be abed anyway by the time the early train was in, so she
couldn't worry. But all the others--"Oh dear me!" she gasped.
"Don't look so, Polly," said Alexia, "we'll start pretty soon, I
guess."