"I should have got you girls a governess only papa said he couldn't possibly afford it, as times are dull; when the children are grown it's embarra.s.sing to know how to meet their former schoolmates!"

"Nothing easier! Just turn your shoulder or look straight ahead!"

Vera stood up, and, using a chair to represent the offending party, ill.u.s.trated her remarks with appropriate gestures.

"Yes, but the girls aren't like that chair. They wouldn't be sat upon so easily!" exclaimed Hermione.

"They would understand the next time unless they were unusually dense,"

retorted Vera.

Hermione laughed.

"I can imagine I see you trying to cut Ivy Bonner that way! She would toss up her head and give you the 'icy stare'. As for Laura, she wouldn't understand; she'd only think it a pity you were so near-sighted!"

"Well, girls, don't get to quarreling," interrupted their mother.

"I'll make it a point to warn Alene's uncle. I'm sure her mother would have collapsed had she been in my place to-day! I'm afraid the Dawsons will be vexed because I've not had her over here to get better acquainted with you girls!"

"You have asked her often enough, dear knows, and she never came, yet she seems very intimate with those other girls!" commented Hermione.

"I admire her taste," said Vera. "It's all because her mother's not here to look after her. Some men are queer. Very likely her uncle never sees the difference between those town girls and others!"

"Well, what difference is there, except that Ivy and Laura are more clever than the average?"

"Hermione, you talk like a--a socialist! The barriers between the cla.s.ses must be preserved, especially in these times when education is trying to sweep them away! Else where would we land?"

"We, the royal family," muttered Hermione in an aside to Vera. "Don't you remember Grandpa Green's prize pigs?"

Vera pretended not to hear, and their mother, taking breath, continued, "There's no use talking, girls, those children are not in the Dawson set! The idea of wearing tissue-paper hats on the street in broad daylight!" So saying, she sailed from the room and the hidden books were promptly brought forth and the interrupted reading resumed.

CHAPTER X

ALENE'S VISITORS

"Alene, Mrs. Ramsey stopped in the office yesterday to lecture me on the criminality of tissue-paper hats," said Uncle Fred at supper the next evening. Although his voice was solemn, the twinkle in his eyes told much to the observant Alene.

"Tissue-paper hats! Why, Uncle!"

"She was surprised, or I should say scandalized, when I remarked that I had superintended the putting on of yours, and that I was sorry I was too young, or not old enough, to go along with you."

"Oh, Uncle Fred, you are just the right age for--anything; but we couldn't coax you to go that day!" Alene protested.

"And then I told her of my surprise when I reached the office that morning to find my hat adorned with a red-white-and-blue rosette, which horrified her so much that I was glad--I mean sorry, that she hadn't met me wearing it."

"I wish she had, meddling thing!"

"She thinks I'm very lax in my duty to allow you on the street without a _chaperone_. Alene, I'm a failure as a stern old guardian! I think, to put myself right with the townspeople, I'll have to get arrested for beating my incorrigible niece!"

"If they find fault with you, just send them to me and I'll--I'll settle them," cried Alene, with angry vehemence, holding her fork in such a threatening position that Kizzie, coming in with the tray, half paused.

"Don't be alarmed, Kizzie. She's not going to attack you or me; she's only indignant because everyone doesn't agree with her in holding me up as a model guardian!"

"Oh, Mr. Fred, how you do go on!" returned Kizzie with a laugh and a blush, giving Alene a glance that showed upon whose side she stood.

"But I haven't come to the end of my tale. It seems that Mrs. Ramsey's real object in paying me a visit was not to lecture me, as I supposed, but to say that her two daughters are coming to visit you to-morrow afternoon."

"Oh, bother! Laura and Ivy promised to come and stay for tea!"

grumbled Alene.

"Well, the more the merrier. The Ramsey girls seem to be amiable enough," returned Mr. Dawson who failed to see any reason for the little girl's vexation. Indeed, Alene herself could not define what was, in reality, the dismay any hostess might feel if called upon to entertain a group of people which she knows to be utterly uncongenial.

"Don't worry, child! Just do the best you can," was the advice of the housekeeper, when Alene, kneeling on a chair at the window next morning, viewed the forbidding, rain-soaked grounds.

"But I depended on the garden to help me out," said she, giving a reproachful glance at the soggy gra.s.s and dripping trees. "The girls could swing and run about in the gra.s.s, and now we'll all have to stay cooped together in the house! I wouldn't mind it a bit with Laura and Ivy. We could do lots of things inside--but the Ramsey girls!"

"There's the tower room and the wide halls. Surely you can play some games there! It does seem unfortunate how things turn out sometimes, but we must just bear it!" said Mrs. Major.

"That's what makes it so much harder, we _must_ bear it! Ivy says if we could take our burdens just because we wanted to for a n.o.ble cause, like some of the martyrs did, it wouldn't be half so hard as when they are put on one!" grumbled Alene. "But there, I'm not going to cry about it!"

"I wouldn't, either," cried Kizzie, broom in hand, her face glowing from an attack on the upstairs carpets. "It would only make things damper!"

The smiling visage of the plump little maid seemed to have captured some of the sunshine hidden away by the clouds; it radiated from her blue eyes, her yellow hair, her round rosy cheeks; Alene, turning from the depressing outside where the rain was steadily falling, felt an answering glow when she met that sunny gaze, and retorted gaily:

"Does she mean to be profane or funny, or only puny!"

"I mean to tell you what I was thinkin' about! Wouldn't it be fun for you and the girls to make taffy this afternoon?"

Alene clapped her hands.

"Oh, Kizzie, the very thing! And please, _please_ let me be chief cook--I think it would be lovely to potter round the pans and things!"

"I could come in and show you how, only Mrs. Major let me off this afternoon and my sister's expecting me--but I might send her word,"

said Kizzie.

"No, you mustn't do that. Just tell me how much to use and where to find the stuff--but I don't want anyone to help me!"

So Alene listened solemnly, with a delightful sense of responsibility, to the directions given by Kizzie and the housekeeper. It seemed so easy, just so many cups of sugar, so much vinegar and water, a lump of b.u.t.ter not too large and enough vanilla to make it taste; then the greased pans and the flour to use in pulling it.

"Oh, I know it by heart! Don't say another word till I bring you some upstairs to the sewing-room this afternoon! And I'll save some for Kizzie when she comes."

As the girls intended coming at one o'clock to stay not later than five, Alene felt secure in having provided something that would pa.s.s the greater part of the time, so she paid no more attention to the weather. It could not interfere with the taffy pulling.

She flew happily round making her preparations and it did not seem any time until Prince gave a joyous bark to notify her of the near approach of friends.

She ran to the door. Sure enough, it was Laura and Ivy making their way through the rain; they were coming around the curve of the walk which led from the front gate.

"And Laura's holding the umbrella over Ivy so that she herself gets nothing but the drippings," Alene observed. She seized an umbrella from the rack and hastened to meet them, while Prince ran on ahead to a.s.sure them of a welcome.