“THE BEST OF ALL THE GAME”
Miss Cicely herself led Polly up-stairs and into a splendid room, where
with her own hands, she unfastened the little girl’s coat and slipped
off her hat and gloves. There was a fine young woman present who seemed
to Polly to have manners which were ever so much prouder and haughtier
than Miss Cissy’s and whose jaunty cap sat like a stiff crown upon her
head, while her embroidered apron and white collar and cuffs were the
crispest Polly had ever seen, and this dignified personage loftily
offered to assist Miss Cicely, but was refused.
“No, thank you, Theresa, I prefer to do it myself,” Polly’s friend
replied easily at once, as she smoothed out the wrinkles in Polly’s
frock and plucked at the loops of her ribbon-bows. “By the way, are
they all here, I wonder?”
“Yes, miss,” Theresa answered. “You’re the last, miss.”
“Then we must hurry,” said Miss Cissy, and her own wraps were cast
aside in no time.
She and Polly went down-stairs as they had come up, hand-in-hand. At
the foot Miss Cissy stopped long enough to give her little companion
one last, careful look and then led her toward the room where all the
talking was. As they entered it Polly heard a very tall gentleman say:
“Oho! Here she comes at last! We thought she had deserted. We had been
led to believe that it was customary for a hostess to be present to
receive her guests, but don’t let a little thing like that trouble you,
Cicely. You usually manage to reverse the natural order of things and
as your guests are here to receive you, it’s all right.”
Miss Cicely laughed and blushed and then the very tall gentleman
suddenly stood extremely erect by the doorway and announced in a loud,
solemn voice:
“Miss Duer and--and----”
“Polly Carter,” prompted Miss Cissy.
“And Miss Polly Carter!” echoed the gentleman.
If Polly had been used to children’s parties, this one would have
seemed extremely curious to her, for there appeared to be so few
children and so many grown-up people. By looking very carefully, one
could have discovered five little girls, each of whom was tucked away
somewhere behind or beside one of the couples of ladies and gentlemen
present. None of the children seemed very glad to be there, and Polly,
who herself made the sixth, was beginning to feel dimly disappointed,
when Miss Cicely spoke up in her bright, jolly fashion:
“Now, dear people,” she said, “the first thing to do is to introduce
these little girls to one another. Grandfather and Grandmother Duer,
will you kindly let me present my little guest to yours? This is Polly
Carter.”
A youthful-looking, white-haired old lady and gentleman arose solemnly
from the far end of the long room, and came forward in a very stately
manner, holding a flaxen-braided young person by the hand.
“This is Miss Katie Schorr,” announced Grandmamma Duer, in a voice
that trembled a little (though that could hardly have been from
age, for her eyes and skin were as young and soft as Polly’s own).
“The Superintendent of our Mission Sunday-school was kind enough to
introduce us to Miss Katie Schorr. He said she was a good, obedient
child, and we believe it.”
Miss Cicely stooped and shook Miss Schorr by the hand in her own
cordial way.
“How do you do, Katie dear,” she said. “I’m glad to see you here. I
hope you will have a good time. This is Polly Carter. Won’t you two
please stand beside me while I receive the other little friends?
There, that’s right! Now, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Laura Hamilton, your
guest, please.”
The very tall gentleman, Polly had noticed before, sprang up and
gallantly assisted a handsome lady from her chair, offering her his
arm with a flourish. She refused the arm at once, saying, “Nonsense,
Arthur! don’t be absurd!” which Polly thought rather unkind of her. The
little girl they brought forward was so pretty that it was delightful
to look at her. Her name was pretty, too. Angeline Montague! And she
had elegant manners, for when she was introduced to Miss Cissy she
curtseyed beautifully, with her right hand upon her heart--or, rather,
on the spot where she supposed her heart was.
As she stepped beside Polly and Katie, Polly heard “Aunt Laura” say to
Miss Cicely in an undertone:
“Most excellent connections, I assure you. Her mother does my fine
sewing. Theresa, up-stairs, recommended her to me. She says they used
to have means. But the father--well, he’s in Canada or somewhere. Very
pitiful!”
Polly wondered, while “Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise” were bringing up
their little guest, why it was pitiful that Angeline’s father was in
Canada. She had supposed, from what the “geografy” said about Canada,
that it was a real nice place.
“‘One, two, three little Indians!’” hummed Uncle Arthur, as Miss
Cicely, with a kind hand on Angeline’s shoulder, placed her next to
Polly and Katie. “Now then, next customer!”
“Miss Rosy Hartigan!” announced Uncle Robert, handing forward a very,
very shy little girl.
“Her father is an industrious plumber,” explained Aunt Louise in Miss
Cissy’s ear. “But his wife died last fall, and the children have no one
to look out for them while he is at work.”
Poor Rosy was frightfully alarmed. She set up a violent crying at once,
shedding the biggest tears Polly had ever seen, and it took all Miss
Cissy’s tact to comfort her.
In the meantime a lady and gentleman called “Aunt Edith” and “Uncle
Elliot,” had brought up another little girl whose hair was as black as
Polly’s boots, and whose eyes almost snapped with mischief.
“This is Miss Elsie Blair, and she lives at our beautiful Home for
Friend--for Children,” explained Aunt Edith. “Mrs. McAdams, the matron,
says Elsie is an excellent child.”
“Now, father and mother,” said Miss Cicely, clasping Rosy Hartigan with
one hand, and patting the excellent Elsie into line with the other.
“Father” and “Mother,” it appeared, had brought Miss Sarah Findlay, who
was twelve, and tall for her age. She was very thin, with not much hair
to speak of, and no eyebrows at all. Miss Sarah came from the country
and her father was a minister. “She had twelve brothers and sisters,”
she confided to Polly.
“Now, I think we have all our party collected together,” said Miss
Cissy cheerfully. “Suppose we play London Bridge. Come, Polly and Katie
and Angeline! Come, Elsie and Sarah and Rosy! Join hands! Now sing!
‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down!’”
No one but Miss Cicely could possibly have managed to make those six
little girls feel so at home and so well-acquainted with one another
in so short a time. By the end of “London Bridge” they felt as if they
had been friends all their lives. Then followed “Oats, peas, beans and
barley grows,” and “Drop the handkerchief,” and in all the excitement
Polly had no time to wonder where Priscilla was and why she did not
come to her own party. After a while Miss Cissy sat down at the piano
and played a gay march and then the company was invited out to supper.
Polly and Sarah walked together; Katie Schorr and Angeline Montague
made a second couple and Rosy Hartigan and Elsie Blair brought up the
rear.
“It’s going off surprisingly well,” remarked Aunt Laura, as the
procession filed out into the hall. “They all seem decent children, but
of the lot I prefer Angeline Montague. She has such superior manners.
After her I should select Cicely’s Polly What’s-her-name.”
“Don’t whistle before you are out of the woods, my dear,” cautioned
Uncle Arthur. “The party isn’t over yet.”
In the dining-room the children were reveling in good things to eat.
Dainty chicken sandwiches; salad that made one’s mouth water; jelly and
cake and candied fruit; bonbons and ice cream, and chocolate served in
tall, slender cups, with whipped cream on top, and wee silver spoons
in the saucers--spoons that looked as if they were intended for the
daintiest of dolls.
“Gorry!” whispered Katie Schorr to Angeline Montague, “isn’t this fine?”
Uncle Arthur, standing in the doorway behind a heavy hanging, took a
note-book out of his pocket and jotted something down in it.
At first there was not much chatter. The children were too busy for
that, but by and by their tongues were loosened and then, how they did
talk!
Rosy Hartigan became so brave that she actually consented to spell
her name as the teacher in her school had taught her to do: “R-o, Ro,
s-y, sy, Rosy; H-a-r, Har; syHar; RosyHar; T-i, ti; Harti; syHarti;
RosyHarti; G-a-n, Gan; tigan; Hartigan; syHartigan; Rosy Hartigan!” At
which Miss Cissy clapped her hands and cried: “Good!” but Elsie Blair
whispered “Smarty!” in Rosy’s left ear.
Sarah Findlay, fired by Rosy’s success, said her brothers “Knew
lots and lots of tricks. They had taught her to make the awfullest
cross-eyed face in the world and she’d do it for them if they wanted
her to. You just had to pull your mouth down at the corners with your
two fingers, like this and then look cross eyed, like this and then----”
Uncle Arthur took out his note-book again and wrote down something in
it, though no one saw him do it.
Suddenly Rosy Hartigan gave a piercing shriek and Miss Cissy hurried
to her in distress, asking what the trouble was. It seemed that
Rosy’s left arm had been most terribly pinched, so that it “hurt like
everything,” but when Elsie Blair, who sat on that side of Rosy, was
asked if she had pinched her arm, she protested “No, she hadn’t, and if
Rosy went and said she had, Rosy was nothing but an old story----”
But Miss Cicely’s gentle hand over her lips smothered the rest of the
word and, Rosy being comforted, supper went merrily on. At last, when
nobody could possibly eat another mouthful, Miss Cissy said they would
all go back into the drawing-room and have more games. So back they
went and played “Hunt the slipper” and “A tisket, a tasket” and then a
big bag was brought in and they all “grabbed” for presents. After that
it was time to go home, but Uncle Arthur insisted on one more game and
chose “Forfeits,” which was “the loveliest fun” in the world, for when
Miss Cicely held the forfeits over his head he invented the funniest
things you ever heard of that the owner must do to redeem them.
Katie Schorr was to take what Miss Cissy gave her without moving a
muscle of her face or saying a word, and how could any little girl be
expected to succeed in doing such an impossible thing as that when what
Miss Cissy gave her was a perfectly darling doll all dressed in blue,
which she was to keep for her very own? Why, Katie’s mouth danced right
up at the corners and she said “O goody!” before she knew it.
Rosy Hartigan had to spell her name before all the grand ladies and
gentlemen (which almost frightened her out of her wits) but she did it
and then she got a doll just like Katie’s, only hers was dressed in
pink.
Next, Elsie Blair had to “guess” who had pinched Rosy during supper and
if she guessed wrong she was to have no doll. So Elsie, very red and
shamefaced, guessed right immediately; she “guessed she did it herself”
and then she received a doll dressed in red.
Sarah Findlay won her prize by “crossing her heart and promising sure
and true, black and blue,” she’d never make her cross-eyed face any
more, for Uncle Arthur had known a little girl once who had crossed her
eyes just so, in fun, and when she tried she couldn’t get them straight
again.
Polly had to tell them all what she wanted most in the whole world, but
if Uncle Arthur thought it would be difficult for her to decide, he was
mistaken. It did not take her an instant to say: “To have sister get
well.” Then she got her doll--and a pat on the head from Uncle Arthur,
as well.
But the most curious penalty of all came last. Angeline Montague was to
give Miss Cicely what she had in her pocket and no one need ask what it
was, for they should never know. So Angeline, very pale and trembling,
and after fumbling in her pocket for an instant brought out something
which she handed Miss Cissy behind the folds of her dress. Miss Cissy
took it with a look so sad and grieved that Polly could have cried to
see her. She bent down and whispered a secret in Angeline’s ear and
then gave her her doll. That ended the game. They all joined in singing
“America” and then the party was over.
While they were up-stairs getting ready to go home the grown-up people
were very busy in the drawing-room below. Grandpapa and Grandmamma
Duer were sorry Miss Katie Schorr had said, “Gorry!” as, of course,
Priscilla’s playmate must be a little lady and ladies do not say
“Gorry,” or words like that. Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise thought
Rosy Hartigan was a good little girl, but something of a cry-baby and
a telltale. Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith said they could not dream of
having Priscilla associate with a child like Elsie Blair who did not
tell the truth until she was compelled. Miss Cicely’s father and mother
felt that Sarah Findlay’s brothers had taught her more tricks than were
necessary to complete Priscilla’s education, so the choice finally lay
between Polly Carter and Angeline Montague.
Aunt Laura liked Polly well enough and agreed with the rest that she
seemed an unaffected, honest little creature, but it was easy to see
that Angeline’s pretty face and beautiful manners had bewitched her
as well as the other ladies and that if Miss Cissy had no objection
Angeline would be chosen for the place of honor. Miss Cissy was in
the dressing-room overseeing the putting on of the children’s hats
and wraps and saying good-bye to them before they were taken home.
Uncle Arthur said it would be unfair not to wait for her to come down
before finally deciding on Angeline. She had been the one to suggest a
playmate for Priscilla and he thought she had the best right, next to
Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith, Priscilla’s father and mother, to decide
who the playmate should be. Aunt Laura was willing, of course to wait
for Cicely, but the more she thought of it the better she was pleased
with the idea of Angeline for Priscilla’s companion.
Presently Miss Cissy came down. She listened patiently to everything
every one had to say about the children, and she gave particular
attention to Aunt Laura’s claim for Angeline, looking so sober
meanwhile that her relations were quite sorry for her, for though she
did not say a word in Polly’s favor, they gathered that she liked
the little girl and was disappointed because Angeline had proved
first-choice.
“Well, then,” concluded Aunt Laura briskly, “I suppose we can call
it settled that Angeline is to be the one. I’m a pretty good judge
of children and from the first I took to her. Your little Polly
What’s-her-name is all right, Cicely. I haven’t a word to say against
her and if Angeline were not there I should certainly choose her, but,
under the circumstances, I think there can be no doubt that Angeline is
the child for the place.”
Miss Cissy said nothing. For a moment there was silence. Then Uncle
Arthur inquired politely:
“Have any of you ever heard it suggested that appearances are sometimes
supposed to be deceitful?”
They all had heard it.
Uncle Arthur nodded. “Very well. Now, have any of you ever heard it
mentioned that all is not gold that glitters?”
Aunt Laura broke in with a “Don’t be absurd, Arthur,” but her husband
continued without noticing the interruption, “Or that handsome is as
handsome does? Good! I see you have. Now, it appears there is still
another proverb for you to learn which evidently Laura’s young friend,
Miss Angeline, believes to be true and which is that a broken chocolate
cup in the pocket is worth two in the saucer.”
Uncle Arthur paused. In a flash there broke out a quick chorus of
questions.
“Arthur, what do you mean?” from Aunt Laura.
“Won’t you please explain?” from Uncle Elliot.
And “Is it a joke?” “What is the point?” and “How do you know?” from
the rest.
Uncle Arthur waited a moment until the flurry was past. Then he said
in a very serious voice and one that was not at all trifling: “I mean,
simply, that Miss Angeline Montague is very pretty to look at and that
her manners are charming and that it is the greatest of pities that she
is not so nice a little girl as she appears to be, but the truth is--I
hate to say it--but the truth is----”
“Well, what? Do hurry, please!” urged Aunt Laura.
Miss Cissy drew something out of her handkerchief, and held it in her
outstretched palm for them all to see. It was one of Aunt Edith’s
pretty chocolate cups broken into fragments.
“Poor little Angeline did it,” she explained sadly. “No one but Uncle
Arthur saw the accident and there would have been no great harm done if
Angeline had not turned coward and tried to place the blame on some one
else. Uncle Arthur watched her closely and saw her slip Polly’s cup off
its saucer and put it upon her own. You see, her idea was to have the
blame laid on Polly if the accident were discovered and her plan would
have succeeded if it had not been for Uncle Arthur, for James missed
the cup at once and came and told me that it was gone from the saucer
of the little girl I had brought. I was glad to be able to say she was
not responsible for it and that Mr. Hamilton knew who was.”
Tears were in Miss Cissy’s eyes as she finished, and Uncle Arthur
looked so grieved that Aunt Laura rose and went to him to give his arm
a comforting pat. She knew that honorable people never “tell on” other
people unless they must and when they have to, it hurts them sadly, so
she felt very sorry for Uncle Arthur and for Miss Cicely too, and last
and most of all, for Angeline.
So that was how it came about that when the choice of Priscilla’s
playmate was put to vote Polly was “unanimously elected.”
“The first’s the worst,
The second’s the same;
The last the best
Of all the game.”
Miss Cissy hummed happily to herself as she ran up-stairs to hug and
kiss Cash one-hundred-and-five and explain to her that sister had given
her permission to make Priscilla a long, long visit and that she was to
begin it right off.