THE RETURN AFTER SHOPPING.
After all, there was very little time left for the important work of
choosing toys. Madge did her best to make up her mind in a hurry,
assisted by a good deal of judicious advice from Miss Thompson. But
that was not the way in which she enjoyed shopping. She liked to dwell
on every purchase, carefully calculating whether its merits justified
its price, and trying to imagine how it would look when the stuffing
came out of it, or the paint was rubbed off. When the money was not
all her own, and the toys not all for herself, as in the present
instance, it naturally much increased the difficulty of selection.
There were the tastes and needs of different people to be considered,
their various wants and wishes to be recalled. Madge was a most
conscientious shopper, and in the main a thoughtful elder sister. She
would have scorned to spend Betty's and John's money and not give them
full satisfaction.
"My dear child," said Miss Thompson at last, "I have really waited as
long as I dare. We must go to the place where we left the carriage,
and start home. Your parents will think we have met with an accident."
"Oh, please wait a minute! Just one minute!" begged Madge. "I haven't
half chosen yet. That's to say, I have put together a lot of things
that might do, but I want to look through them before I quite settle."
"Perhaps I can help you to decide?" said Miss Thompson briskly.
"What's this? A whip and a boat for John? Surely that is exactly what
he had last time we went shopping?"
"Yes; but he has broken the old whip, and he wants another boat,"
explained Madge. "They have just put such a nice great tub of water in
the garden, because the pump has gone dry with the hot weather, and we
sail--"
"Oh, that's all right!" interrupted Miss Thompson. "So long as you
know what you like and are satisfied. And Betty is to have this doll,
I suppose, and that trumpet? Isn't she getting rather old for a
trumpet?"
"But she likes a trumpet better than anything, except a whistle,"
explained Madge hurriedly. "We all like trumpets or anything that
makes a noise."
"You are welcome to your noises so long as I hear nothing of them in
the schoolroom!" laughed Miss Thompson. "And you have chosen a knife
and a china tea-pot for yourself, I see. Well, now be quick and let
Mrs. Winter make up the bill."
"But there was a lot of other little things I want to get!" cried
Madge. "I have not had time to think properly yet."
Miss Thompson looked at her watch, and said that she would wait exactly
five minutes and no more. At the end of that period Madge with many
groans of regret was obliged to turn away from the counter, feeling
that if she only had all the time she wanted she would immediately put
back most of the things she had chosen and select fresh ones. Perhaps
it was just as well that she was rather hurried, for at this rate there
would have been no end to the shopping.
Mrs. Winter parted from her customers with many invitations to them to
return and see how the poor half-starved kitten prospered under her
care. She had already put him to bed in a basket in the back-kitchen,
after giving him two whole saucers of milk, that he drank without
stopping. Altogether it seemed probable that he would find the shop a
much more agreeable residence than the cellar, where, judging by the
prominence of his ribs, he must have kept himself alive on a very
limited supply of mice and black-beetles.
It was long past the usual time for schoolroom tea when Miss Thompson
and Madge returned home. The twins, it may be remembered, had been
climbing in the Eagle's Nest a good part of the afternoon, and were
consequently as hungry as people who have been playing for hours in the
open air have a right to be. They were waiting on the door-step when
the carriage drove up, and began at once to reproach Madge for being so
late, and to inquire what she had brought.
"Come along," said Miss Thompson briskly. "Not a word is to be spoken
until Madge has taken off her hat and we are seated at the tea-table.
If we begin to embark on our adventures now, we shall never get any tea
to-night."
The children grumbled, but they were forced to obey, as Miss Thompson
waited to see Madge walk upstairs before she took off her own jacket.
Long experience had taught her that if an exciting story was once
begun, even tea would be forgotten.
At last, however, the delightful moment had arrived, when the children
were all seated round the table and at liberty to recount their
afternoon's occupations. Of course, Madge's adventures were altogether
so out of the common as to throw everything else into the shade. The
twins said nothing about their meeting with Lewis, and Madge never
thought of inquiring what they had been doing. They did not
intentionally conceal anything, but in the excitement of hearing about
the loss and recovery of the brown bag they completely forgot what, up
to that time, had been a great source of pride--namely, that they had
been associating on equal terms of friendship with a big school-boy.
Even when tea was over and Miss Thompson left them alone, they forgot
to tell Madge how they had spent the afternoon, in the interest of
looking at the new purchases.
"Well, I suppose all's well that ends well," remarked Betty solemnly,
as she helped to unpack the brown paper parcels on the schoolroom
table. "Only it must have been very terrible in that cellar,
especially when you saw those flaming eyes in the dark! What colour
were they, green or yellow?"
"Oh, I hardly remember! The colour of cats' eyes, I suppose!" replied
Madge rather impatiently.
She did not much care to dwell upon that time in the cellar, when she
had mistaken the poor starved kitten for some sort of hobgoblin, and
screamed at it in a way that was most unworthy of her age and good
sense. To change the subject, she asked John how he liked the things
she had chosen for him.
"The ship is all right," he said slowly, "and so is the whip. At least
it's not quite so big as the one I got last time, and it cost a penny
more, but still it will do. Only--"
"Well, what's the matter?" interrupted Madge. "What have you got to
grumble at now, I should like to know?"
She spoke sharply, for, with all her kindness, she could not bear to
have the younger ones finding fault with anything she did. So long as
they were duly grateful she would work hard to amuse them; but the
moment they began to criticise her conduct in any way there was trouble.
"Do you think you could have chosen anything better yourself?" she said
scornfully. "You had better try next time if you think it's so easy!"
"I didn't say the things were not nice things," observed John in his
quiet obstinate way. "I never meant that. Only I can't understand how
you spent our money. That's all."
"Why it's as simple as A B C!" broke out Madge. "Just listen, you
little silly, and I'll tell you. I took five shillings and sevenpence,
didn't I?"
"Of course you did! In the brown bag," answered Betty, although nobody
had spoken to her.
John merely nodded his head to show that he was following the argument
up to this point.
"And as the money belonged to us all we were all to share alike,"
proceeded Madge rapidly. "So I got a ship and a doll and a knife, each
costing a shilling. And we had one apiece. That's three shillings.
Then the whip and the trumpet and the tea-pot cost sixpence each. That
comes to four shillings and sixpence. And the packets of sugar-plums,
and pipes for blowing soap-bubbles, come to tenpence. That makes five
shillings and four-pence. And--and--"
"And that's all!" interrupted John. "But you took five shillings and
sevenpence in the brown bag, you know. I remember counting it; didn't
we, Betty?"
"Oh, I'm well aware of that!" cried Madge impatiently. "If you will
only just keep quiet I can make it right in a moment. I must have
added up wrongly while you were chattering." And spreading all the
purchases out on the table she tried to count them more carefully over
again, repeating their prices as she did so. But it was no use. Try
as she might her accounts would not come perfectly right. There was
threepence missing, and Madge could not account for it at all.
"It must have slipped out of the bag and be lying in a corner of that
cellar," said Betty with considerable reason. "Threepence is such a
very tiny bit of money you would never see it in the dark, or even by
the light of one candle."
"Perhaps not. I suppose that is what has happened," admitted poor
Madge. She was ready to cry with mortification at having had the worst
of the argument with John, in spite of his being two years younger than
herself and very much her inferior in arithmetic. Besides, she knew
that if she had, as seemed most probable, left a threepenny piece on
the cellar floor, it was all owing to that annoying fit of nervousness
that had suddenly come over her in the dark. At the time that she
picked up the money she was still suffering from the fright caused by
the sudden appearance of the kitten, and no doubt had been too much
upset to notice very carefully what she was doing. But she did not
like to explain all this to the twins, who were in the habit of looking
upon her as the living embodiment of courage. So she merely laid the
blame on the dim light of the cellar.
The consequence of this was, that when John next found himself alone
with Betty he began to grumble.
"It's all very well for Madge to say she didn't see the threepenny
bit," he said, "but I think she ought to have stayed there looking
until she did see it. She can see things very well when she tries. I
don't believe she took any trouble about it, because it belonged to us."
"But part of it belonged to her," objected Betty.
"Only one part," said John persistently, "and two parts belonged to us.
So of course it was more ours than hers, and that's why she didn't
trouble to look for it."
"Do you think so really?" said Betty in an irresolute tone. She had
great faith in Madge always acting for the best, but these new
arguments were rather disturbing.
"I'll tell you what it is," continued John. "Madge thinks herself a
much grander person than we are, because she is a little older. And it
isn't fair. Lewis said he wouldn't be ordered about by her if he were
in my place, and I won't either. After all, she is only a girl!"
After this remark the conversation became rather quarrelsome. Betty
objected to the expression, "only a girl", and retorted by some very
rude remarks about boys in general and her brother in particular. She
reminded him with unpleasant emphasis of how slow he was at climbing
trees compared with Madge, and she dwelt with more truth than
politeness on the fact that he had once grown giddy on the roof of the
cow-house, and had to be ignominiously helped down by his sisters. But
in the long run John's solid persistency got the best of it, and in
spite of Betty's wish to believe that Madge always acted for the best,
she was gradually talked over into thinking that there was some real
grievance in her elder sister always taking the lead.
Whenever Lewis Brand had an opportunity of talking to the twins by
themselves he mischievously encouraged this idea, so that disagreements
among the children became a matter of everyday occurrence.