IV.

_A COURTSHIP._

"WILL you come to the beach now, Nellie?" said Carrie.

"Yes, if mamma has nothing more for me to do," said Nellie; and mamma

telling her that there was nothing at present, they were soon ready and

on their way; Daisy also being allowed to accompany them on promise of

being very, very good and obedient to Nellie.

Nellie, wise, steady little woman that she was, was always to be

trusted to take care of the other children, and to keep them out of

mischief, so long as she gave her mind to it; and her mother had no

fear that it would be otherwise now, after the lesson of last night.

Poor Nellie! the sight of that black bump on Daisy's forehead was

sufficient reminder in itself, even had she not formed such good

resolutions. _She_ felt it, I believe, more than Daisy did.

An unexpected pleasure awaited Nellie and Carrie when they reached the

beach, for there they met, not only the little Bradfords, whom they now

saw frequently, but also Lily Norris and Belle Powers, who had come to

pass the day with their friends, Maggie and Bessie.

Daisy and Frankie Bradford, who were great cronies and allies, were

soon busily engaged in making sand-pies, and conveying them in their

little wagons to imaginary customers who were supposed to live upon the

rocks.

Nellie had brought her doll with her. This was a doll extraordinary,

a doll well known and far famed. It had been presented to Nellie by

old Mrs. Howard, as a reward for her kind and generous behavior to her

little grand-daughter Gracie, at a time when the latter had fallen

into trouble and disgrace at school. To the young residents of Newport,

the chief claim to distinction of the Ransom family lay in the fact

that in their midst resided this wonderful creation of art. Mr. and

Mrs. Ransom enjoyed the glorious privilege of being "the father and

mother of the girl that has the doll." Nellie herself was considered

the most enviable of mortals, while her brothers and sisters shared

a kind of reflected glory. To meet Nellie when she had her treasure

out for an airing was an event in the day; and frantic rushes were

made to windows or down to gates and palings when the announcement was

made,--"The doll is coming!"

It was impossible that Nellie should not be gratified by all this

flattering homage to her darling, and she received such tributes with a

proud but still generous satisfaction, for she would always take pains

to walk slowly when she saw some eager eye fastened upon the doll,

or carry it so as to afford the best view of all the beauties of its

toilet; and, choice and careful as she was of it, she was always ready

when she met any of her young friends to allow them to take and nurse

it for a while.

Of late, however, even this doll had been neglected and put aside in

the press of work which Nellie had laid upon herself; and this was the

first time in several days that she had appeared in public. So Nellie

was eagerly welcomed, partly on her own account, partly on that of her

daughter; and after the latter had been duly admired, and ah'ed and

oh'ed over to the heart's content of her mamma and the spectators,

she was intrusted to Belle's tender care for a while, Lily having the

promise of being allowed to take her afterwards.

Nellie was never a child who cared much for romping play or frolic;

quiet games and amusements suited her much better; therefore her

playmates were rather surprised when, having seen her doll safe in

Belle's keeping, she proposed a race down the length of the beach, to

see who could first reach a given rock she pointed out. For Nellie,

like many another little child--ay, and grown person too--when they

mean to turn over a new leaf, was now disposed to run into the opposite

extreme, and to strive to make up for lost time by taking an amount of

play and exercise to which she was not accustomed at any time.

Maggie and Lily readily agreed to her proposal, though they were rather

surprised at it, as coming from her; but Bessie declined, not being

fond of a romp, and Carrie, too, chose to stay with Bessie and Belle.

Nellie, however, soon found that strength and breath gave way,

unaccustomed as she had been for weeks past to a proper amount of

exercise; and she was forced to sit down upon a stone and watch Lily

and Maggie as they sped onwards towards the goal.

They flew like the wind, and it was hard to tell which was there the

first, for they fairly ran against one another as they reached it,

and, laughing and breathless, turned to look back for Nellie, who

smilingly nodded to them from the distance.

Meanwhile Bessie, Belle, and Carrie were amusing themselves more

quietly.

"Do you think your mamma would let you come to our house this

afternoon?" said Bessie to Carrie. "Mamma said we might ask you."

"Oh, yes! I'm sure she would. She quite approves of your family,"

answered Carrie.

"I should think she might," said Belle.

"Mamma thought we'd all like to have a good play together," said

Bessie. "And, besides, we have some new things to show you, Carrie. We

have some white mice that Willie Richards gave us; and they are just as

tame, as tame."

"Oh! they're too cunning for any thing," said Belle. "They hide in your

pocket, or up your sleeve, or in your bosom if you'll let them, and eat

out of your fingers, and are not one bit afraid."

"How did you tame them so?" asked Carrie, who was extremely fond of

dumb pets of all kinds.

"We did not do it," said Bessie. "Willie Richards did it before he sent

them to us; but white mice can be tamed very easily. Harry says so."

"Gray mice can be tamed too," said Belle.

"Why, no!" said Carrie. "They always scamper away from you as fast as

they can go."

"Not always," said Belle, with the air of one who had good authority

for her statement. "Not always, do they, Bessie? For there's a little

mouse lives in our parlor at the hotel in New York, and he's just as

tame as he can be, and he comes out every evening to be fed."

"And do you feed him?" asked Carrie.

"Yes," said Belle. "Every evening I bring a piece of bread or cracker

or cake from the dinner table for him, and when papa and I come in the

parlor he is always on the hearth waiting for us. Then papa sits down

by the table, and the mousey runs up his leg and jumps on the table,

and then he takes the crumbs I put down for him. Oh, he's so cunning,

and his eyes are so bright! And he even lets me smooth his fur with my

finger."

"How did you make him so tame?" asked Carrie.

Belle colored and hesitated, looking down upon the doll in her arms,

and seeming as if she would much rather not tell the story; but Carrie,

who was not very quick to see where another's feelings were concerned,

repeated her question.

"Well," said Belle, slowly at first, and then, as she became interested

in her own story, with more ease, "he used to run about the room, but

was not one bit tame, and papa told the waiter to set a trap for him.

And the man did; and one morning when we went in the room the little

mouse was caught. And he looked so cunning and so funny, peeping

through the bars of the trap, that I felt very sorry about him; and,

when the man was going to take him away to drown him, I cried very

hard, and begged papa to let me keep him in the trap. And because I

felt so badly papa said I might, but I must feed him, so he would not

starve; and he very 'spressly told me I must not lift the door of the

trap, for fear the mouse would run out. Papa thought I would soon grow

tired of him,--he said so afterwards; but I did not, and I grew very

attached to that mouse, and he to me. But--but"--Belle's voice faltered

again, and she looked ashamed--"but I disobeyed my papa, and one day I

opened the door of the trap a te-en-y little bit, just a very little

bit; but the mouse ran out just as quick, as quick, and scampered away

to the fireplace where his hole was."

"Did your papa scold you?" asked Carrie, as Belle paused to take breath.

"No," answered Belle, remorsefully, "he didn't _scold_ me, but he

looked very sorry when I told him. He always looks sorry at me when I

am not good, but he never scolds me, and that makes me feel worse than

if he was ever so cross to me."

"Well, what about the mouse?" asked Carrie.

"That very evening I was sitting on papa's knee, talking to him,"

continued Belle, "and what do you think? why, the first thing I saw was

the mouse on the hearth looking right at me. I had a maccaroon, and

papa crumbled a little bit of it on the floor, and the mouse came and

eat it. Then he played about a little while; we kept very still, and at

last he ran away. But the next night, and every night after that, he

came; and at last one evening, first thing we knew, he jumped on papa's

foot and ran up his leg; and now every evening he does that, and sits

on the table till I feed him."

"How cunning!" said Carrie. "I wish I had one; but I'd rather have a

white mouse."

"The white mice are prettier, but then they are stupider than Belle's

mouse," said Bessie. "They don't do much but eat and go to sleep. I

don't think they are so very interesting."

"There's Daisy crying again," said Carrie. "Daisy, what's the matter

now?" raising her voice.

Daisy only cried the louder, and the three children ran forward to

where she sat upon the sand, the picture of woe; while Frankie,

busily engaged in piling sand pies into his wagon, remained sublimely

indifferent to her distress. Nellie, Maggie, and Lily came running back

also to see what was the matter.

"What _are_ you crying for, Daisy?" asked Nellie. "Frankie, do you know

what is the matter with her?"

"He told me he'd marry me if I let him mix the pies," sobbed the

distressed Daisy; "and now he won't."

"Now, Daisy, you ought to be ashamed to say that," cried Frankie,

stopping short with a pie in each hand, and looking with a much

aggrieved air at his little playmate. "Yes, I did promise to marry her

if she'd let me make the pies," he continued, turning to Nellie, "and

so I will; but I promised three other girls before her, and so I told

her she'd have to wait till they were all dead, and she wouldn't have

patience, but just went and cried about it. I can't help it if so many

girls want to marry me," added the young sultan, tenderly laying his

sand pies in the wagon.

Daisy had ceased her cries to listen to Frankie's statement of the

case; but her spirits were so depressed at once more hearing this

indefinite postponement of her matrimonial prospects that she broke

forth into a fresh wail of despair.

"Oh, Daisy!" said Nellie, "what shall we do with you: you're growing to

be a real cry-baby."

"Yes," said Master Frankie, seeing his way at once to a peaceful

solution of his difficulties. "And I shall never, never marry a

cry-baby. You'd better hurry up and be good, Daisy."

At this terrible threat, Daisy's shrieks subsided into broken sobs;

and Frankie, touched by the extreme desolation of her whole aspect,

farther consoled her, by telling her if she would dry her eyes and be

good, he would let her "make two mixes, and marry her besides." At

which condescension on the part of her chosen lord and master, Daisy

was in another instant beaming with smiles, and thrusting her dimpled

hands into the wet sand; and the older children left her and Frankie to

their play.

All but Bessie, that is, who lingered behind to give her brother a

little moral lecture.

For Bessie's sense of justice had been shocked by Frankie's

arrangements, and the hard bargain he had driven with the devoted

Daisy, who upon all occasions submitted herself to his whims, and

let him rule her with a rod of iron. Moreover, Bessie considered his

gallantry very much at fault, and thought it quite necessary to speak

her mind on the subject.

"Frankie," she said with gravity, "you are selfish to Daisy, I think.

You ought to let her make half the pies."

"I'm letting her do two mixes," said Frankie; "and, besides, she said I

needn't let her do any if I'd marry her. That's fair."

"No, it's not. It's not fair, nor polite either," said Bessie,

reprovingly. "You oughtn't to make it a compliment for you to marry

Daisy. It is a compliment to you."

This was a new view of the subject to Frankie, and, as he stood gazing

at Daisy and considering it, Bessie added,--

"Anyhow, you ought to let her do half. You're not good to be so

selfish."

Daisy meanwhile had been balancing in her own mind the comparative

advantages of the present and the future good, and came to the

conclusion that she had made a foolish choice, and that the mixing of

sand pies was more to be desired than the promise, whose fulfilment

seemed so far distant; and now, with a deprecating look at Frankie, she

made known this change in her sentiments.

"I b'lieve I'd rafer mix half the mud than be your wife, Frankie," she

said. "I'll just 'scuse myself and do the pies."

"Oh! I'll let you do half," said Frankie, encouragingly, "and marry you

too, Daisy. I really will."

But Daisy, before whom Bessie's words had also placed the matter in a

new light, now felt the advantage of her position, and was disposed

to make the most of it, as she found Frankie inclined to become more

yielding.

"I'll see about marrying you," she said coquettishly, "but I _will_ do

half the pies."

"Yes, yes, you shall," replied Frankie, now extremely desirous to

secure the prize the moment there seemed to be a possibility of its

slipping through his fingers; "and you'll really marry me, won't you,

Daisy?"

"Maybe so," said Daisy, a little victorious, as was only natural, at

finding the tables thus turned.

"Ah! not maybe, Daisy. Say you truly will, dear Daisy, darling Daisy.

You shall mix all the pies, Daisy, and I'll be your horse, too."

"I'll tell you anofer time," said Daisy, much enjoying the new position

of affairs.

"Ah! no, Daisy," pleaded the now humble suitor: "if you'll promise now,

I'll--I'll--Daisy, I'll give you my white mice."

Daisy plumped herself down upon the sand, and gazed at Frankie,

astounded at the magnitude of this offer, in return for the promise

which, in her secret soul, she was longing to give.

"Maybe your mamma won't let you give 'em away," she said at length; and

then, with relenting in her generous little heart, she added, "and I

wouldn't like to take 'em from you, Frankie: it's too much."

"Yes, yes, mamma would let me," said Frankie, eagerly. "Bessie has a

pair, and Maggie a pair, and I a pair; and mamma said that was too

many, and she won't mind one bit if I give you mine. And I don't care

for them at all, Daisy, they're such stupid things. I'd just as lieve

give them to you."

"Well," said Daisy, shaking her curls at him, "then I'll promise; and I

only want to mix half the pies, Frankie, I wouldn't do 'em all, oh! not

for any thing."

This amicable agreement being sealed with a kiss, and peace thoroughly

restored, Bessie left the two little ones to their "mixes," and went

back to the others, whom she entertained with an account of Frankie's

complete defeat and submission. They rather rejoiced at it, for the way

in which Frankie usually lorded it over the submissive Daisy did not at

all agree with their ideas of propriety.

"But do you think Frankie really means to give the white mice to

Daisy?" asked Nellie.

"Why, yes," answered Bessie, "he _promised_, you know."

"But," said Nellie, doubtfully, "I do not think mamma would like Daisy

to have them."

"Oh! she needn't mind," said Maggie. "Our mamma did say she was sorry

Willie Richards had sent three pair; and Frankie has not really cared

for his since the first day. They're too quiet for him. Daisy might

just as well have them."

"But I don't know if mamma would care to have them in the house," said

Nellie. "She is so afraid of mice."

"What, a grown-up lady afraid of white mice!" said Lily.

"Well, she's afraid of _real_ mice," said Nellie, "and I'm not sure she

wouldn't be of white ones."

"Pooh! I don't believe she would be," said Carrie. "I wish we could

have them."

"I shouldn't think your mother would mind _white_ mice," said Belle:

"you can ask her."

"You're all to come to our house this afternoon, you know," said

Maggie, "and then you can see them; and bring Daisy too, Nellie: we

want her."

After a little more talk and play, the children separated, Nellie going

home with her sisters, and promising to come over to Mrs. Bradford's

house as early in the afternoon as possible.

"What makes you go home so soon?" asked Carrie, supposing that it was

those "horrid lessons" which took Nellie away.

"I thought mamma might have something else she wanted me to do," said

Nellie, "and we have been down on the beach a good while."

"What makes you do the housekeeping," asked Carrie,--"just to help

mamma, or because you like to?"

"Mamma asked me to do it to help her," said Nellie, without a thought

of her mother's real object in proposing the plan, "but I do like to do

it, it is real fun."

"I'd like to do something to help mamma," said Carrie.

"Me too," put in Daisy.

"I think you both could do something to help her, if you chose," said

Nellie, with a little hesitation; for she was a modest, rather shy

child, who never thought it her place to correct or give advice even to

her own brothers and sisters.

"How can I?" asked Carrie, and,--

"How could I?" mimicked Daisy, looking up at her sister as she trotted

along by her side.

"Well," said Nellie, "I think you, Carrie, could be more obedient to

mamma."

"I'm sure I do mind mamma," said Carrie, indignantly. "I never do any

thing she tells me not to."

"No," said Nellie, "you never do the things she tells you you

must _not_ do, and you generally do what she says you _must_ do;

but--but--perhaps you won't like me to say it, Carrie, but sometimes

you do things which mamma has not forbidden, but which we both feel

pretty sure she would not like; and then, when she knows it, it makes

trouble for her."

Carrie pouted a little, she could not deny Nellie's accusation, but

still she was not pleased.

"Pooh!" she said, "I don't mean that. I mean I want to do some very

great help for her, something it would be nice to say I had done."

"You're not large enough for that yet," said Nellie, "and I don't

believe you could help her more than by being good all the time."

"Then why don't you be good all the time?" said Carrie, not at all

pleased. "I shouldn't think it was a great help to mamma to let Daisy

fall out of bed."

Nellie colored, but made no reply.

Not so Daisy, who at once took up arms in Nellie's defence. Seizing

upon her hand, and holding it caressingly to her cheek, she said to

Carrie,--

"Now don't you make my Nellie feel bad about it. That falling out of

bed wasn't any thing much; and my bump feels, oh! 'most well this

morning. I b'lieve it feels better'n it did before I bumped it. Nellie,

what could I do to help mamma?"

"If you tried not to cry so often, Daisy, darling, it would help mamma.

It worries her when you cry, and sometimes you cry for such very little

things."

"Does she think a bear is eating me up when she hears me cry and can't

see me?" asked Daisy, whose mind was greatly interested in these

quadrupeds.

"No," said Nellie, "'cause she knows there are no bears here to eat

little girls; but it troubles her to hear you cry. Besides, you are

growing too big to cry so much, and you don't want people to call you a

cry-baby, do you?"

"No, I don't," answered Daisy, emphatically, "'cause then Frankie won't

marry me. And I don't want to t'ouble mamma, Nellie. But how can I help

crying when I hurt myse'f?"

"Oh! you can cry when you hurt yourself," said Nellie, "but try not to

cry for very little things; and we'll all see what we can do to help

her. I believe I have been selfish in reading and studying all the time

lately, and not thinking much about other people, especially mamma,

so I will give up my books for a while, and try to help her about the

house; and Daisy will try not to cry so much; and--and Carrie will be

careful not to do the things mamma would not like her to do; will you

not, Carrie?"

Carrie made no answer; she was not mollified by Nellie's taking blame

to herself for her own short-comings, but only resented the gentle

reproof she had herself received. Perhaps one reason was that she felt

she deserved it.

But pet Daisy took hers in good part.

"I will," she said, clapping her hands, and looking as if tears were

always the farthest thing possible from her bright face, "I will try.

I won't cry a bit if I can help it, but just laugh, and be good all

the time, unless I hurt myse'f, oh! very, very much, indeed. Nellie,"

pausing in her capers with an air of deep consideration,--"but, Nellie,

if somebody cut off my nose, I ought to cry, oughtn't I?"

"Oh, yes! certainly," laughed Nellie.

"And if a bear _did_ come, I could sc'eam very loud, couldn't I?"

"Yes, whenever that bear of yours comes, you can cry as loud as you

please," answered Nellie.

"Oh! he's not mine," said Daisy. "He's a black man's, I b'lieve. I

'spect he's an old black Injin man's. There's mamma on the piazza, an'

there's two ladies come to see her."

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