IX

As Miss Tripp was putting the finishing touches to a careful toilet the

next morning she caught the sound of a whispered dispute in the hall;

then small knuckles were cautiously applied to the panel of her chamber

door.

"Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn! are you waked up?"

Miss Tripp had been brooding since daylight over the accumulated

problems which appeared to crowd her narrow horizon like so many

menacing thunder-caps; but she summoned a faint smile to her lips as she

opened the door.

"Why, good-morning, dears!" she cried cheerfully at sight of the two

small figures in their gay dressing-gowns and scarlet slippers.

"We want to hear a story, Aunty Evelyn," announced Doris, prancing

boldly in, each individual curl on her small head bobbing like coiled

wire. "We like stories."

"Come here, pet, and let Aunty brush your curls."

"No; I don't want my curls brushed; I want to hear a story about a

be-utiful princess going to seek her fortune."

Miss Tripp suppressed a vague sigh. "I know a poor, forlorn princess who

is obliged to go out all alone into the cold world to seek her fortune,"

she said. "And I'm very much afraid she won't find it."

"Is she young and be-utiful?" asked Doris, with wide-eyed attention.

"An' has she got a spangled dress?"

"Dot a spangled dwess?" cooed Richard, like a cheerful little echo.

"No; she's forced to wear a plain black dress in her wanderings, and she

isn't beautiful at all. She's not very young either, and ugly lines are

beginning to creep about her eyes and across her forehead; and one day,

not long ago she found--what do you suppose?"

"A bag of gold?"

"A bag o' dold?" echoed Richard.

"No, dear; this poor, forlorn little princess found three silver hairs

growing among the brown ones just over her ear."

Miss Tripp's sweet, drawling voice trembled slightly as she went on with

her little fable. "The princess felt so badly that she shed bitter

tears when she saw the glitter of those three silver hairs, because she

knew that she could never, never catch up with youth any more."

"What youth--the fairy prince?" Doris wanted to know.

And Richard smiled seraphically as he trilled, "Oh, dood! It was 'e

pwince!"

"No, darlings; there isn't any prince at all in this story. There was

one--once--away back in the beginning of it; but he--went away--to a far

country, and he--never came back."

"Did the princess cry?"

"Did her cwy?"

"Yes; she cried till all the brightness went out of her pretty eyes.

Then she stopped crying and laughed instead, because--Oh; because crying

didn't help a bit."

"You've been crying, Aunty Evelyn!" said Doris suddenly. "Why-e! your

eyes are all teary now!"

"I've got a cold; I'm afraid," prevaricated Miss Tripp.

"I don't like that story," objected Doris. "Unless----" and her eyes

brightened, "the prince came back. Let him come back, Aunty Evelyn;

please let him; it'll spoil the story if he doesn't."

Miss Tripp drew a deep breath. "I--wish he might come back," she said;

"but I--I'm afraid he never will, dear; and the poor little princess

will have to go on alone till----"

"Till what?" demanded Doris indignantly. "I c'n tell a better story 'an

that," she added.

"Tell it, dear."

"Well; the princess went out in her horrid ol' black clo'es an'

travelled an' travelled, _an' travelled_ till she was mos' tired out,

an' everywhere she went she asked 'where is my prince?' An' at first all

the people said, 'We don't know where any prince is.' But the princess

jus' made up her mind she _would_ find him; an'--an' bimeby she

did--jus' as easy! He was right there all the time; only he was

enchanted by an awful bad fairy so she couldn't see him, an' so----"

Doris paused to draw breath, and Richard gravely took up the tale,

nodding the while like a gay little china mandarin. "He was 'chanted an'

she was 'chanted, an' they bof was 'chanted, an'----"

"Be quiet, Buddy, an' let me tell," interrupted Doris. "She did find

him! Course she found him, an'--an' her horrid ol' clo'es was changed to

a lovely wedding dress, an'--an'--that's the end of it!"

Miss Tripp laughed. She felt unreasonably cheered by this optimistic

finale to her sad little story--which had no ending.

"That would be the beginning of a very cheerful story," she said. "Now

Aunty Evelyn must get some breakfast and start out into the cold world."

"Oh! we want you to stay!"

"I'm coming back, dears; yes, indeed; I'll be back this very evening,

and then I'll tell you the loveliest story in the world, all about a

little goose-girl."

It was a very cold world indeed into which Miss Tripp fared forth that

winter morning. But Elizabeth's friendly protests were vain.

"I really must go, dear," Evelyn told her with a firmness quite foreign

to her fashionable self. "You don't know--you can't guess how necessary

it is for me to find some way of earning money. Mother----" her voice

shook a little--"isn't at all well; she never was very strong, and our

losses have quite--Why, Elizabeth, you would hardly know mother; she's

so changed. She just sits by the window, and--looks out; I can't seem to

rouse her to--to do anything."

Remembering the frail, artificial old lady, with her elaborate toilets

and her perpetual aura of rice-powder and sachet, Elizabeth thought this

exceedingly probable. "Was it so very bad, Evelyn?" she asked

hesitatingly. "You know you only told me----"

"We lost nearly everything when the Back-Bay Security Company failed

last fall," said Evelyn quietly. "I--couldn't seem to believe it at

first. Of course we were never rich; but we had always lived very

comfortably--you know how pleasant it was in our little apartment,

Elizabeth, with our good Marie to do everything for us, and all our

friends."

Miss Tripp touched her eyelids delicately with her little lace-edged

handkerchief. "I--mustn't cry," she said. "It makes one look so like a

fright, and I----. Elizabeth, do you suppose I could get a place

to--teach? I do love children so, and they always seem to like me."

"What would you teach?" Elizabeth asked, anxiously sympathetic, yet

knowing a little more of the ways of the educational world than did Miss

Tripp. "You know, Evelyn,--at least I am told--that nearly every teacher

has to be a specialist now. You might study kindergartening," she added

more hopefully.

Miss Tripp shook her head. "No; I couldn't do that. It would take too

long, and we should have plenty of time to--starve, I fancy, before----.

But what nonsense I'm talking! I must start out this minute; I have an

appointment at Whitcher's Teacher's Agency this morning. They told me

yesterday that a man--a school principal--was coming there to hire a

primary teacher. I'm sure I could do that; don't you think I could,

Elizabeth?--Just to teach the children how to read and write and do

little sums on their slates. I shall say I can anyway."

She waved her hand to her friend as she went bravely away down the snowy

street, and Elizabeth turned back to her children, feeling a new and

unfamiliar sense of gratitude for the warm home nest, with its three

turbulent birdlings.

It was Saturday, and the children could not be dispatched to

kindergarten as on other mornings of the week. It was also baking-day,

and bread and rolls were in slow process of rising to their appointed

size in the chilly kitchen. Elizabeth was frugally looking over the

contents of her larder with a view to a "picked-up" luncheon, when she

heard a small yet distinct knock on the back door.

She opened it upon Robbie Stanford, dancing with impatience on the snowy

step.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Brewster," he began with an ingratiating smile,

"I've come over to play with Carroll an' Doris. I c'n stay two hours 'n'

maybe three, 'nless my mother comes from down-town before that."

"Oh; isn't your mother at home?" asked Elizabeth, with a dubious glance

at the red-cheeked, black-eyed young person, who was already edging

smilingly toward the closed door of the dining-room. She had entertained

Master Stanford before in the absence of his parents and had learned to

dread the occasions of his visits.

"No, ma'am," said Robbie politely. "My mother's gone to have her teeth

fixed. The' was a teeny hole in one of 'em, an' the hole ached. Did you

ever have holes in your teeth, Mrs. Brewster?"

"Why, yes; I suppose I have," assented Elizabeth doubtfully. "Now,

Robbie; I want you to promise me that you will be a good boy this

morning, and not get into any mischief; I'm going to be very, very busy,

and----"

"I'll be good," responded the young person cheerfully. "I'll be gooder

'an anything. Where's Carroll?"

"He's in the other room; but--wait a minute, dear. You remember the last

time you played with Carroll you----"

"Yes, 'm; I 'member. We made an ocean in the bath-room, an' you

said----"

"Doris took a bad cold from getting so wet, and Richard almost had the

croup."

"I won't do it again," promised the visitor, digging his toes rather

shamefacedly under a loosened edge of the linoleum. "I'll jus' look at

pictures, 'n'--'n' things like that."

"Very well; I'll take you in where the children are playing. Carroll

will be glad to see you; I'm sure," she added, feeling that she had

been rather ungracious to her friend's child.

The three young Brewsters greeted their neighbour with a whoop of joy.

Master Stanford was blessed with a pleasantly inventive turn of mind,

and one could generally depend upon a break in the monotony of the home

circle when he appeared.

"What'll we do?" inquired Doris, prancing gaily around the visitor, who

gazed about him at the assembled Brewster toys with a somewhat ennuied

expression on his small, serious countenance.

"Aw--I don't know; play with dolls, I guess. I promised I'd be good."

"We might play Indian," suggested Carroll hopefully. "Mother lets us

take the couch-cover for a tent."

The visitor considered this proposition in Napoleonic silence. "Have

your dolls got real hair?" he inquired darkly of Doris.

"Uh-huh; every one of 'em 's got real hair. My new doll 'at I got

Christmas 's got lovely long curls. I don't play with her ev'ry day,

'cause mother's 'fraid I'll break her."

"Go an' get her; get all yer dolls."

"Oh--we don't want t' play with dolls," objected Carroll. "Let's build

a depot an' have trains a-smashin' int' each other."

"Nope; we'll play Indian," the visitor said firmly. "I'll show you how."

Under his able generalship the sitting-room was presently transformed

into the semblance of a rolling prairie, with a settler's wagon in the

midst of the landscape in which travelled Richard as husband and father,

driving a span of wicker chairs, while Doris, smothering a fine family

of long-haired dolls, sat behind.

Elizabeth who paused to glance in at this stage of the proceedings was

gratified by a sight of the four happy, earnest little faces, and the

apparent innocuousness of the proceedings.

"We're havin' lots of fun, mother; we're playin' wagon!" Doris

explained. "These are all my children; an' we're goin' west to live."

"Det-ap!" vociferated Richard, pulling manfully at the red lines

decorated with bells, with which he restrained his restive steeds.

"Whoa!" and he applied the gad with spirit. "Dey's doin' fast, mudzer,"

he shouted.

"That's a nice play!" chanted Elizabeth; "only be careful of the whip,

dear." Then she hurried up-stairs intent upon restoring immaculate order

to the upper part of her house before luncheon.

X

The better part of an hour had passed before she remembered the children

again; then a sound of terrific tumult from below gave wings to her

feet.

The scene which met her astonished eyes was one of blood and carnage.

The two boys, their faces horribly streaked with scarlet and yellow,

their hair stuck full of feathers, had evidently fallen upon the

peaceful settlers in their progress across the western plains, and were

engaged in plunder and rapine; Richard, bound hand and foot with his

scarlet lines, howled with abject terror, while Doris, wild-eyed and

furious, fought for the protection of her family of dolls.

"You shan't touch my best doll; you horrid boy!" she shrieked. "I'll

tell my--mother! I'll tell--my----"

"Give 'er here! I'm a big Injun an' I'm goin' to scalp every one of your

children!" yelled Robbie Stanford. "Here you, Carroll! what you doin'?

There's another kid a-hidin' under the chair--I mean the wagon! She'll

scalp easy!"

"Why, children! What are you doing? Carroll, Robert! Stop this instant!"

"We're playing Indian!" panted Carroll, pausing to eye his mother

disgustedly through his war-paint. "Doris oughtn't to have yelled so,

an' Buddy's nothin' but a bawl-baby. We didn't hurt him a single bit."

"Jus' see what they did to my dolls!" wailed Doris. "Tore the hair off

of ev'ry one of 'em!"

"Why, boys! I don't see what you were thinking of to spoil Doris' pretty

dolls!"

"We was only scalpin' her children," volunteered the instigator of the

crime, with a cheerful grin. "I c'n stick on the hair again, jus' as

easy as anythin', if you'll give me the glue. I scalped our baby's doll

an' my mother she stuck the hair on again with glue. 'Tain't hard to

stick it on; an' we only broke one. We wouldn't 'ave done that, if

Doris----"

"What is that stuff on your faces?" demanded Elizabeth sternly, as she

collected the parti-coloured scalps from among the débris on the floor.

"It's only war-paint, mother," explained Carroll. "Indians always put it

on their faces; don't you remember the Indians in my Indian book? We

made it out of jam an' egg. Celia gave it to us; we got the feathers out

the duster."

Elizabeth heaved a great sigh. "Come, and I'll wash your faces," she

said; "then I think perhaps Robbie had better----"

"No, ma'am;" said Master Stanford firmly; "it isn't two hours yet. I c'n

stay till the whistles blow, an' if you invite me I guess I c'n stay to

lunch."

"I'm not going to invite you," slipped off Elizabeth's exasperated

tongue. "I want you to go straight home, as soon as I've washed you and

made you look respectable."

The youngster's under lip trembled. Two big tears welled up in his black

eyes. "I--didn't--mean to--be--naughty!" he quavered. "I don't care if

you--whip--me; but I don't want--t' go home. Annie's--cross. She

slapped--me--twice this morning! She says I'm the plague o' her life."

Annie was the Stanford's cook and possessed of unlimited authority

which she frequently abused, Elizabeth knew. "Where is Livingstone?" she

asked in a milder voice, as she removed the traces of her best raspberry

jam from the visitor's round face.

"Mother took baby with her; she's going to leave him at gran'ma's house

till she comes home. She said I couldn't go, 'cause gran'ma--she's--kind

of nervous when I'm there."

"Well, dear; you can stay and have lunch with the children; only----"

"Are you goin' to whip me? I shan't cry if you do."

"My mother doesn't whip anybody," said Carroll superbly; "she's too kind

an' good!"

"So's my mother kind an' good! I double dare you to say she isn't!"

"Come, children; you mustn't get to quarrelling. Of course your dear

mother is kind and good, Robbie. And you ought to try to be so kind and

good and obedient that she won't ever feel that you ought to be

whipped."

Master Stanford's black eyes opened very wide at this difficult

proposition. "Aw--I don't know 'bout that," he said diffidently. "I

guess my mother'd jus' 's soon I'd be bad some o' the time. She says

she's glad I ain't a milk an' water child like Carroll. An' my papa, he

says----"

"You may both sit right down on this sofa," interrupted Elizabeth

hastily, "and look at these two books till I call you to luncheon. If

you get up once, Robbie, I shall be obliged to send you home to Annie."

"The idea of Marian saying such a thing about my Carroll," she thought

unforgivingly, as she set forth bananas and small sweet crackers for the

children's dessert. "A milk and water child, indeed; but of course, with

a boy like Robbie to deal with, she has to say something. I'm sorry for

those two children of hers."

Robbie Stanford stayed till his mother came after him at four o'clock,

and Elizabeth laying aside all other occupations supervised her small

kindergarten with all the tried patience and kindness of which she was

mistress.

Mrs. Stanford was voluble with apologies as she invested her son with

his coat and mittens. "I told Annie to have Robbie ask Carroll over for

luncheon," she said, "and I left the play-room all ready for them. I

assure you, Elizabeth, I had no notion of inflicting my child upon

you--when you have company, too; I'm really ashamed of Robbie."

"Yes, mother," interrupted that young person, "but Annie got mad jus'

'cause I made little round holes in one o' her ol' pies with my finger.

I only wanted to see the juice come out. 'N'--'n she slapped me, 'n'

tol' me to get out o' her way, or she'd pack her clo'es an' leave. So

I----"

Mrs. Stanford's pretty young face flushed with mortification. "I can see

that you are thinking me very careless to leave Robbie with a

bad-tempered servant," she said, "but Annie is usually so good with the

children, and I had to go. I had really neglected my teeth till one of

them ached."

"It was no trouble," dissembled Elizabeth mildly, "and really I should

much prefer to have Robbie here than to have Carroll at your house when

you are away. I should tremble for the results to your property. Of

course my Carroll alone is almost as innocuous as milk and water, but

with Robert to bring out his stronger qualities one can never safely

predict what will happen."

Mrs. Stanford looked up in sudden consternation, and meeting Elizabeth's

smiling glance she laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Well," she said,

"I'm glad, Betty, if you aren't actually worn out mothering my

black-eyed lamb. Another time I'll cope with all three of yours, if

you'll let me." Then she stooped and kissed Elizabeth in her usual

half-mocking way. "Thank you, little neighbour," she murmured; "you make

me ashamed of myself, whenever I see you. You are so much better than

I."

When Evelyn Tripp returned that afternoon in the gloom of the gathering

twilight she stood for a few minutes in the glow of Elizabeth's cheerful

fireside, slowly drawing off her gloves. She appeared pallid and worn in

the half light, and Elizabeth caught herself wondering if she had

lunched.

"Yes, dear," Miss Tripp informed her absent-mindedly; "I had a cup of

tea--I think it was tea--and a roll. I wasn't hungry after my interview

with the South Popham school principal."

"Oh, then you saw him? Did you--Was he----"

Evelyn laughed a little drearily. "No, dear," she sighed, shaking her

head; "nothing came of it. I suppose I ought not to have expected it.

Professor Meeker wanted someone with experience, and--and--a younger

person, he said. I didn't realise that I looked really old, Betty. I

thought----"

"You don't look old, Evelyn," denied Elizabeth warm-heartedly. "What was

the man thinking of?"

"Apparently of a red-cheeked, nursery-maid sort of a person who had

taught in the public schools. I saw him afterwards holding forth on the

needs of the Popham Institute to a young woman with a high pompadour and

wearing a red shirt-waist, a string of blue beads and a large glittering

watch-chain--the kind with a slide. I think she must have been what he

was looking for. Anyway the Whitcher people told me he had engaged her."

Elizabeth gazed at her friend, a sort of aching sympathy withholding her

from speech.

"After that," pursued Miss Tripp, "I went to another agency, and they

asked me if I would like to travel abroad with a lady and her two

daughters. I thought I should like it very much indeed--I could engage

Cousin Sophia to stay with mother, you know--so I took the car out to

Chelsea to see a Mrs. Potwin-Pilcher, and found what she was looking for

was really an experienced lady's-maid and courier rolled into one, and

that she expected 'willing services in exchange for expenses.' I told

her I couldn't think of such a thing. Then Mrs. Potwin-Pilcher rose

up--she was a big, raw-boned person glittering with diamonds--and

informed me that she had fifty-nine applications for the position--I was

the sixtieth, it seems--and that she was sure I would be unable to

perform the duties of the position. After that I came directly home.

Monday I shall----"

Miss Tripp paused apparently to remove her veil; when she finished her

sentence it was in a steady, matter-of-fact voice. "I shall go to see an

old friend of mother's--a Mrs. Baxter Crownenshield--I think you've

heard me speak of her, Elizabeth. She and mother were very intimate once

upon a time, and Mr. Crownenshield owed his success in business to my

father. I'm going to--ask her advice. Now I think I'll go up-stairs and

take off these damp skirts, and after that I'll come down and help you

mend stockings, or anything----. Only let me do something, Elizabeth!"

There was almost a wail in the tired voice, and Elizabeth, wiser than

she knew, pulled out her mending-basket with a smile. "I'm almost

ashamed to confess that I need some help badly," she said. "I hope you

won't be horrified at the condition of Carroll's stockings."

Miss Tripp was quite her charming self again when she reappeared clad in

a trailing gown of rosy lavender. She told the children the lively tale

of the goose-girl, which she had promised them in the morning, choosing

the while the stockings with the most discouraging holes out of

Elizabeth's basket and protesting that she loved--yes, positively

adored--darning stockings. But she finished her self-imposed task at an

early hour, and after playing two or three tuneful little chansonettes

on Elizabeth's hard-worked and rather shabby piano, excused herself.

"I must write to mother," she said smilingly. "She quite depends on me

for a bright chatty letter every day, and I've so much to tell her of

to-day's amusing adventures. Really, do you know that Potwin-Pilcher

person ought to go into a novel. She was positively unique!"

Elizabeth was silent for some moments after the sound of Evelyn's light

foot had passed from the stair. Then she turned a brooding face upon her

husband. "I am so sorry for poor Evelyn," she said.

Sam Brewster stirred uneasily in his chair. "So you said before she

arrived," he observed. "I don't see anything about the fair Evelyn to

call forth expressions of pity. She looks remarkably prosperous to me."

"Yes; but you don't see everything, Sam. That gown is one she has had

for years, and it has been cleaned and made over and over again."

"Well; so have most of yours, my dear, and you don't ask for sympathy on

that account."

"Sam, dear, they haven't any money. Can't you understand? They lost

everything when the Back-Bay Security Company failed. Evelyn doesn't

know what to do. There is her mother to take care of and you know how

helpless she is. I don't suppose she ever really did anything in her

whole life."

"It's a problem; I'll admit," agreed her husband, scowling over his

unread paper; "but I don't see what we are going to do about it."

"That's the worst of it, Sam; we really can't do anything, and I'm

afraid other people won't. I had thought--if nothing else turned

up--that perhaps Mrs. Tripp could be induced to go into a home. One of

those nice, refined places where one has to pay to be admitted, and then

Evelyn--might----"

She paused and looked anxiously at her husband. "We might let her stay

here, Sam; and----"

He shook his head. "You're the most self-sacrificing of darlings when it

comes to helping your friends," he said; "but I couldn't stand for that,

Betty. Two weeks is about my limit, I'm afraid, when it comes to

entertaining angels unawares. I'm willing to admit the unique character

of Miss Tripp, and to vote her a most agreeable guest, and all that.

But----"

Elizabeth gazed at her husband understandingly. "I know, Sam," she said,

"and I think so too. But----"