Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
A Colony of
Girls
By
KATE LIVINGSTON
WILLARD
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
Copyright, 1892, by DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. THE LAWRENCES AND OTHERS, 1
II. NAN'S SHIP ARRIVES, 11
III. A LEAF FROM HELEN'S PAST, 24
IV. A SAIL ON THE "CYCLONE," 38
V. SUNSET-HOUR ON THE CLIFFS, 51
VI. A DINNER AT THE MANOR, 59
VII. A WALK IN THE SHRUBBERY, 69
VIII. NAN REBELS, 88
IX. A FLYING MACHINE AND WHAT CAME OF IT, 97
X. MISS STUART'S ARRIVAL, 118
XI. DULL DAYS, 131
XII. EDDYING CURRENTS, 139
XIII. AN INVITATION, 156
XIV. A DANCE AT CRESCENT BEACH, 171
XV. HELEN IS PUZZLED, 184
XVI. "IT WAS ONLY MY IMAGINATION," 193
XVII. THE "VORTEX" DEPARTS, 206
XVIII. A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS, 224
XIX. A CABLEGRAM, 244
XX. "PEACE ON EARTH--GOOD WILL TO MEN," 259
A COLONY OF GIRLS.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAWRENCES AND OTHERS.
"I cannot understand why the children do not return from the beach.
They have been gone so long."
"None too long," sighed Nathalie Lawrence, swinging lazily to and fro
in a hammock which was hung across one end of the veranda. "What a
heaven it is without them. I declare, Helen," she continued,
addressing her sister in aggrieved tone, "we do get a lot of those
children, somehow or other. For my part, I cannot see why you let them
stay about with us all the time, when they are a thousand times better
off with Mary," and she gave a vindictive tug at a rope fastened to
the railing, which sent the hammock back and forth with the utmost
rapidity.
"Take care, Nat; you will be out next, and there will be a hubbub
worse than the children would think of making in their wildest
moments."
The young girl who thus spoke laughed a low, musical laugh, and looked
up from her book with a pair of wide-open blue eyes.
"Nathalie, as usual, thinks only of herself," said Helen with a frown,
as she walked away.
"I never can say one word about those children without raising Helen's
ire. She spoils them, and she might as well admit it."
"In my short and uneventful career," responded Jean smiling, "I have
not found that people are over-fond of admitting anything, least of
all their weaknesses. I don't see how you can expect Helen to be
superior to all the rest of the world--yourself and myself included.
Now, imagine," she continued tantalizingly, "if anyone insisted upon
your admitting your weakness for Mr. Church----"
"Oh, keep quiet, Jean; you are too stupid."
"Dear, dear," cried Jean, jumping up and closing her book, "of course
I am, and that is my weakness; so now we are quits."
Nathalie tossed her head as much as her position would permit.
"Jean Lawrence," she said solemnly, "you bore me."
"What a catastrophe!" Jean flung back her head with a merry laugh.
"Good-by, dear; you are the picture of injured innocence."
"Jean, come back," cried Nathalie, struggling to obtain an upright
position. "I do think you are too bad. Ah, well, some day,"--then
breaking into song:
"Some day, some day, some day I shall meet you,
Love, I know not when nor how;
Love, I know not when nor how. Only this,
Only this, only this, that once you loved me;
Only this, I love you now----"
"Rats!" called out a small voice from the lawn below.
Nathalie raised herself on her elbow, and peered through the railing.
"Larry, I am thunderstruck. What is the meaning of that weird
expression?"
"Nathalie singing a love song," cried Larry, scampering about on the
lawn. "Oh, what fun!"
"Larry," called Helen, coming out once more on to the veranda. "Where
are Willie and Gladys? Why did you stay so long? I have been worrying
about you."
"Oh, they're coming along. Now, don't you worry, Helen, 'cause we was
all right. You don't need never to send Mary with us," he added
eagerly, "'cause we wouldn't get drownded, nor nothing, really."
Jean strolled back from the other end of the veranda, and put her hand
on Helen's shoulder.
"Larry, love," she said, looking down at her little brother, "your
grammar is something to be deplored."
A fleeting smile lit up Helen's pale face and gentle brown eyes.
"Ah, here come the little culprits," she cried, starting forward.
"Gladys, my precious baby, I have been worried to death about you.
What naughty chicks to have staid so long. Willie, I can never trust
you."
Willie was a grave little fellow, the eldest of the three children.
"Why, Helen, we weren't gone long. Gladys was good, and so was
Larry--that is pretty----" he added deprecatingly. "The moment I said
'Come on, children,' we all started; only Gladys, she couldn't walk
very fast, so Larry wouldn't wait for us. Oh," sighed Willie, his
grave little face in a pucker at the recollection, "I would rather
Mary went along with Gladys another time."
"Anyhow I was awful good, sister," lisped little Gladys, trying to
frown on Willie, "only----"
"Only your short little legs would not carry you any quicker. Is that
not so, darling? Well, since you were all good, there is nothing to
scold you about."
"Helen's faith is sublime," laughed Jean, in an aside to Nathalie.
Helen took little Gladys in her arms, and sat down in a large rocker,
which stood close to the front door.
She was a slender, frail-looking girl. Her soft, brown hair was
arranged close to her head with the utmost simplicity, and her rather
pale face would perhaps have been plain, had it not been redeemed by a
pair of beautiful sad brown eyes. She was the eldest of the Lawrences,
and it seemed to her only a brief time since the Angel of Death had,
twice in one short year, visited their home, leaving them bereft of
father and mother.
Her father had been a physician of undoubted skill, a man of wide
learning and great culture. Had the lash of poverty given an incentive
to his somewhat lagging spirit, he might have commanded the attention
and the admiration of his fellow-men; but his was a nature of great
shyness and reserve, and when his father died, leaving him a
comfortable fortune, he had, with an almost unconscious sigh of
relief, turned his back on ambition and withdrawn to the old homestead
in the sleepy little town of Hetherford, content with a small country
practice which left him undisturbed hours among his books and in his
laboratory.
Mrs. Lawrence's inclinations were thoroughly social; but so unbounded
was her faith in her husband's judgment that it never occurred to her
to complain of the narrowness and isolation of their life in
Hetherford. As her girls grew older, however, she reproached herself
with the thought that she was hardly doing them justice in thus
secluding them from the advantages of contact with the great world
which lay beyond their own pretty village. She appeased her conscience
by giving them occasional visits to town and one long, happy summer in
Europe, which they had enjoyed to their hearts' content.
The winter following this last delightful holiday, Dr. Lawrence had
been stricken with a fatal illness and, after weeks of suffering, had
passed away.
Mrs. Lawrence survived this blow but two months, and at little Gladys'
birth had turned to Helen with a weary, heartbroken sigh:
"My darling, I am so lonely--your father. Take care of the little
ones--this wee lamb. God bless you, my----"
Helen had sunk speechless at her mother's bedside, until the sound of
a wailing cry brought her once more to herself.
"My dear," said gentle Aunt Helen, leaning over her, "won't you take
the poor little baby? Perhaps she will help to comfort you."
And Helen took her little sister in her arms, and made her way into
the nursery, where, in two small cribs, side by side, lay her little
brothers, fast asleep.
Jean and Nathalie stood by the nursery window, looking out into the
night. At Helen's entrance they turned sharply.
"O Helen, how is mamma?" Jean stopped short, appalled at the change in
her sister's face.
"Helen," she cried, a sharp ring of pain in her voice, "mamma is not--"
"Yes, Jean--Nathalie--mamma is gone. Oh, what shall we do," Helen
moaned.
"My poor children," said Aunt Helen tenderly, crossing the room and
putting an arm around little Nathalie, and clasping Jean's hand
tightly in hers; "your dear mamma is gone. She was so sad and lonely
without papa. Oh, darlings! do not grieve, but think of her as happy
and at rest. You, Helen, must learn to be a mother to these little
sisters and brothers, and teach them all your dear mamma would have
them know. And Jean and even little Nathalie, too, can help."
"Auntie"--Helen's tears were falling fast--"I will do all I can. Poor
baby," she whispered, and she kissed the soft little face, which was
nestled in her arms, and then she turned toward the cribs, and looked
with loving eyes at the sleeping children. "God bless them, and help
me."
Since that sad night six years had rolled by. Nathalie was now
eighteen, Jean her elder by two years, and Helen's twenty-third
birthday was close at hand. Larry and Willie were respectively eight
and ten, and little Gladys was fast outgrowing her babyhood.
Aunt Helen, Mrs. Dennis, had since Mrs. Lawrence's death made her
permanent home with her nieces and nephews. She was a sweet, gentle
woman, a widow and childless, and her lonely life had been thus
gladdened by the love of this household of happy-go-lucky children.
She had always been delicate, and during the past few years had become
so great an invalid that she rarely left her room.
Thus Helen Lawrence had been obliged to assume unusual cares and
responsibilities for so young a girl, and these were not without their
effect on her mind and character.
For years the manor house of Hetherford had been in the possession of
the Lawrences, and no family in the town was better known, or more
universally loved. The manor itself was a charming old park,
stretching out far enough to make it no small walk to compass its
grounds. Grand old trees shaded the well-kept lawns, and pretty
graveled paths, lined with box-wood, led hither and thither.
The house was old-fashioned in the extreme, large, square, and
commodious. A broad veranda ran around three sides of it, and across
the front there was an upper balcony, which, in the season, was
covered with trailing vines of roses, honeysuckles, and passion
flowers. During the warm summer days this was a favorite retreat of
the girls. A few rugs were thrown down, comfortable wicker chairs were
scattered here and there, and on the low round table in the center
there was always a motley collection of books, writing materials, and
work-baskets. Through occasional openings in the vines were revealed
pretty vistas of lawn and flowering rosebeds, beyond which stretched
the blue waters of the sound, sparkling in the sunshine as if strewn
with a thousand jewels. It was, indeed, an Arcadian spot.
Within doors everything was equally old-fashioned and comfortable.
Opening on to the broad hall, which ran through the middle of the
house, were four large airy rooms, simply but substantially furnished,
and with an unmistakable air of being lived in. Upstairs, in addition
to the rooms occupied by the family, each one of which was bright and
cheery, and clearly revealed the individuality of its occupant, were
several guest chambers, with heavy four-post bedsteads and quaint
mahogany dressing-tables, and during the summer season these were
rarely untenanted, for the Lawrences' hospitality was as old-fashioned
as their home.
Quiet Hetherford was almost unknown as a summer resort, but the few
people who had once found their way there came again and again, and
with them all the Lawrences were on intimate and friendly terms. It
was not strange that young men came but rarely to this out-of-the-way
little village, but a colony of girls thrived and were happy there;
happier, perhaps, for this very lack of the masculine element. The
girls often laughed merrily over it, and no one of them seemed to take
it very much to heart, save pretty little dark-eyed Emily Varian, who
spent her summers with her uncle, Dr. Evelyn Birdsall, the
Presbyterian minister.
"It is deplorable," she sighed, "and if the girls were not selfishly
lazy they could quite easily get some men to come out here. Certainly
town is not so far off as to make us quite out of the world. It is
nothing but stupid nonsense and vanity on the girls' part. They think
it is something fine and independent never to see anything of men. For
my part, I should think they would be ashamed of it."
There was one girl who always laughed good-humoredly at Emily's
grumbling, and she was none other than charming Eleanor Hill. However,
she had less cause to complain, for while Emily went from her winter
home in one little country town to sleepier Hetherford for the summer
months, Miss Hill for more than half of every year led the gayest of
lives in New York. When June came with its warm sunshine and long
days, she and her mother gladly turned their face toward pretty,
dreamy Hetherford; to them the dearest spot in the world.
Mollie Andrews said that, for her part, she didn't care. Taking it all
in all, she did not see but that they had a pretty good time. The
Andrews had been coming to Hetherford for years, and were all deeply
attached to the place; Mollie's handsome, scatterbrained brother Dick
had set the seal of his approval on their choice of a summer resort,
and thenceforth Mollie would have deemed it nothing short of heresy to
call the place stupid. To be sure, Dick rarely turned up oftener than
once a week, but then her cousin Clifford Archer, nicknamed "the fatal
beauty," was wont to put in an appearance for a few days, frequently
with his great chum Wendell Churchill, whose yacht was quite a
familiar object in Hetherford Harbor.
"It is perfectly absurd of Emily," Mollie would end, with a toss of
her head.
Emily always looked scornful, and Nan Birdsall, happy-go-lucky Nan,
who rarely went away from Hetherford, would laugh gleefully.
"Poor Em," she exclaimed one evening, after one of her cousin's
tirades, "you are man-crazy. Never mind, dear; you wait. I know a
thing or two, and by and by when my ship comes in," looking around at
the girls, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "you will be
surprised. Perhaps we will have more men here than we have bargained
for."
"What do you mean, Nan?" they cried in chorus; but not a bit of
satisfaction would Nan give them.
The parsonage adjoined the manor, and an opening in the hedge made
intercourse between the two families an easy matter. Just across the
road was the inn, where all the summer visitors stayed, and a quainter
retreat could not be imagined. They formed only a small circle of
people, but many were the happy times they had together.