James Barlow nodded a.s.sent but grudgingly. He had never in his heart quite forgiven Herbert Montaigne for their difference in life; as if it were the fault of the one that he had been born the son of the wealthy owner of The Towers and of the other that he was a penniless almshouse child. Second thoughts, however, always brought n.o.bler feeling into the honest heart of Jim and a flush of shame rose to his face as he forced himself to answer.

"Yes, course. The hull fambly's here."

Dorothy checked the teasing words which rose to her lips, for when ambitious Jim relapsed so hopelessly into incorrect speech it was a sign that he was deeply moved; and it was a relief to see Alfaretta once more diligently count upon her fingers and to hear her declare:

"We'll never'll get this here list straight and even, never in this endurin' world. First there's a girl too many and now there's a girl too short!"

"Never mind; we'll make them come out even some way, and I'll find another girl. I don't know who, yet, and we mustn't ask any more or there'll be no places for them to sleep. Now we've settled the guests let's settle the time. We'll have to put it off two or three days, to let them get here. I wish your cousin Tom Hungerford could be asked to join us but I don't suppose he could come," said Dolly to her friend Molly.

"No, he couldn't. It was the greatest favor his getting off just for those few hours. A boy might as well be in prison as at West Point!"

"What? At that 'heavenly' place? Let's see. This is Wednesday night.

Sat.u.r.day would be a nice time to begin the Party, don't you all think?"

"Fine. Week-end ones always do begin on Sat.u.r.day but the trouble is they break up on Monday after;" answered Molly.

"Then ours is to be a double week-ender. Aunt Betty said 'invite them for a week.' That's seven days, and now Master Stark comes your task.

As a committee of entertainment you are to provide some new, some different, fun for us every single one of those seven days; and it must be something out of the common. I long, I just long to have my home-finding House Party so perfectly beautiful that n.o.body in it will ever, ever forget it!"

Looking into her glowing face the few who were gathered about her inwardly echoed her wish, and each, in his or her own way, resolved to aid in making it as "perfect" as their young hostess desired.

Monty heaved a prodigious sigh.

"You've given me the biggest task, Dolly Doodles! When a fellow's brain is no better than mine----"

"Nonsense, Montmorency Vavasour-Stark! You know in your little insides that you're ''nigh tickled to death' as Alfy would say. Aren't you the one who always plans the entertainments--the social ones--at your school, Brentnor Hall? You're as proud as Punch this minute, and you know it, sir. Don't pretend otherwise!" reproved Molly, severely.

"Yes, but--that was different. I had money then. I hadn't announced my decision to be independent of my father and he--he hadn't taken me too literally at my word;" and with a whimsical expression the lad emptied his pockets of the small sums they contained and spread the amount on the table. "There it is, all of it, Lady of the Manor, at your service! Getting up entertainments is a costly thing, but--as far as it goes, I'll try my level best!"

They all laughed and Dorothy merrily heaped the coins again before him.

"You forget, and so I have to remind you, that this is to be _my_ Party! I don't ask you to spend your money but just your brains in this affair."

"Huh! Dorothy! I'm afraid they won't go much further than the cash!"

he returned, but n.o.body paid attention to this remark, they were so closely watching Dorothy. She had opened a little leather bag which lay upon the table and now drew from it a roll of bills. Crisp bank notes, ten of them, and each of value ten dollars.

"Whew! Where did you get all that, Dorothy Calvert?" demanded Jim Barlow, almost sternly. To him the money seemed a fortune, and that his old companion of the truck-farm must still be as poor in purse as he.

She was nearly as grave as he, as she spread the notes out one by one in the place where Monty had displayed his meager sum.

"My Great-Aunt Betty gave them to me. It is her wish that I should use this money for the pleasure of my friends. She says that it is a first portion of my own personal inheritance, and that if I need more----"

"More!" they fairly gasped; for ten times ten is a hundred, and a hundred dollars--Ah! What might not be done with a whole one hundred dollars?

"'Twould be wicked," began James, in an awestruck tone, but was not allowed to finish, for practical Alfaretta, her big eyes fairly glittering, was rapidly counting upon her fingers and trying to do that rather difficult "example" of "how many times will seven go into one hundred and how much over?" "Seven into ten, once and three; seven into thirty--Ouch!"

Her computation came to a sudden end. The storm had broken, all unnoticed till then, and a mighty crash as if the whole house were falling sent them startled to their feet.

CHAPTER III

THE FIRST AND UNINVITED GUEST

For an instant the group was motionless from fear; then Jim made a dash for the front entrance whence, apparently, the crash had come.

There had been no thunder accompanying the storm which now raged wildly over the mountain top, and Alfy found sufficient voice to cry:

"'Tain't no lightnin' stroke. _Somethin's_ fell!"

The words were so inadequate to the description that Molly laughed nervously, and in relieved tension all followed James forward; only to find themselves rudely forced back by old Ephraim, gray with fear and anxiety.

"Stan' back dere, stan' back, you-alls! 'Tis Eph'am's place to gyard Miss Betty's chillens!"

He didn't look as if the task were an agreeable one and the lads placed themselves beside him as he advanced and with trembling hands tried to unbar the door. This time he did not repulse them, and it was well, for as the bolts slid and the heavy door was set free it fell inward with such force that he would have been crushed beneath it had they not been there to draw him out of its reach.

"Oh! oh! oh! The great horse chestnut!" cried Dorothy, springing aside from contact with the branches which fell crowding through the doorway. Hinges were torn from their places and the marvel was that the beautifully carved door had not itself been broken in bits.

Jim was the first to rally and to find some comfort in the situation, exclaiming:

"That's happened exactly as I feared it would, some day; and it's a mercy there wasn't n.o.body sittin' on that piazza. They'd ha' been killed dead, sure as pisen!"

"Killing generally does mean death, Jim Barlow, but if you knew that splendid tree was bound to fall some day why didn't you say so? We--"

with a fine a.s.sumption of proprietorship in Deerhurst--"we would have had it prevented," demanded Dorothy.

Already she felt that this was home; already she loved the fallen tree almost as its mistress had done and her feeling was so sincere, if new, that n.o.body smiled, and the lad answered soberly:

"I have told, Dolly girl. I kept on tellin' Mrs. Calvert how that lily-pond she would have dug out deeper an' deeper, and made bigger all the time, would for certain undermine that tree and make it fall.

But--but she's an old lady 't knows her own mind and don't allow n.o.body else to know it for her! Old Hans, the gardener, he talked a heap, too; begged her to have the pond cemented an' that wouldn't hender the lilies blowin' and'd stop trouble. But, no. She wouldn't listen. Said she 'liked things perfectly natural' and--Well, she's got 'em now!"

"Jim Barlow, you're--just horrid! and--ungrateful to my precious Aunt Betty!" cried Dorothy, indignant tears springing to her eyes. To her the fallen tree seemed like a stricken human being and the catastrophe a terrible one. "It's taken that grand chestnut years and years and years--longer'n you or I will ever live, like enough--to grow that big, and to be thrown down all in a minute, and--you don't care a mite, except to find your own silly opinion prove true!"

"Hold on, Dolly girl. This ain't no time for you an' me to begin quarrelin'. I do care. I care more'n I can say but that don't hender the course o' nature. The pond was below; 'twas fed by a spring from above; she had trenches dug so that spring-water flowed right spang through the roots of that chestnut into the pond; and what could follow except what did? I'm powerful sorry it's happened but I can't help bein' common-sensible over it."

"I hate common-sense!" cried Molly, coming to the support of her friend. "Anyway, I don't see what good we girls do standing here in this draughty hall. Let's go to bed."

"And leave the house wide open this way?"

Dorothy's sense of responsibility was serious enough to her though amusing to the others, and it was Monty who brought her back to facts by remarking:

"The house always has been taken care of, Dolly Doodles, and I guess it will be now. Jim and I will get some axes and lop off these branches that forced the door in and prop it shut the best way we can.

Then I'll go down to the lodge with him to sleep for he says there's a room I can have. See? You girls will be well protected!" and he nodded toward the group of servants gathered at the rear of the great hall.

"So you'd better take Molly's advice and go up-stairs."

Dolly wasn't pleased to be thus set coolly aside in "her own house"

but there seemed nothing better to do than follow this frank advice; therefore, taking a hand of each of her girl friends, she led the way toward her own pretty chamber and two small rooms adjoining.