"I can get the Immigration Bureau to give you a percentage on that story, Polly," said Uncle Jack Bird, who had strolled in and taken a seat. "Just make your facts strong enough, and you can make a handsome thing out of that idea."

"Don't interrupt us, Jack," said Mrs. Bird; "and go directly out, if you please. You were not asked to this party."

"Where was I?" continued Polly. "Oh yes,--the contrast between Californian and eastern winters; and January will have a moral story or two, you know,--New Year's resolutions, and all that. February will be full of sentiment and patriotism,--St. Valentine's Day and Washington's Birthday,--I can hardly wait for that, there are so many lovely things to do in that month. March will bring in the first hint of spring.

The winds will serve for my science story; and as it chances to be a presidential year, we will celebrate Inauguration Day, and have some history, if a good many subscribers come in."

"Why do you say 'if,' Polly? Mult.i.tudes of names are coming in. I have told you so from the beginning."

"Very well, then; when a sufficient number of names are entered, I should like to spend ten dollars on a very large sand-table, which I can use with the younger group for ill.u.s.trations. It is perfectly clean work, and I have helped Miss Denison and her children to do the loveliest things with it. She makes geography lessons,--plains, hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, and lakes; or the children make a picture of the story they have just heard. I saw them do 'Over the River and through the Wood to Grandfather's House we go,' 'Washington's Winter Camp at Valley Forge,' and 'The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.' I have ever so many songs chosen, and those for November and December are almost learned without my notes. I shall have to work very hard to be ready twice a week!"

"Too hard, I fear," said Mrs. Bird anxiously.

"Oh, no; not a bit too hard! If the children are only interested, I shall not mind any amount of trouble. By the way, dear Mrs. Bird, you won't let the nurses or mothers stand in the doorways? You will please see that I am left quite alone with the children, won't you?"

"Certainly; no mothers shall be admitted, if they make you nervous; it is the children's hour. But after two or three months, when you have all become acquainted, and the children are accustomed to listening attentively, I almost hope you will allow a few nurses to come in and sit in the corners,--the ones who bring the youngest children, for example; it would be such a means of education to them. There 's another idea for you next year,--a nurses' cla.s.s in story-telling."

"It would be rather nice, would n't it?--and I should be older then, and more experienced. I really think I could do it, if Miss Denison would help me by talks and instructions. She will be here next year.

Oh, how the little plan broadens out!"

"And, Polly, you have chosen to pay for your circulars, and propose to buy your sand-table. This I agree to, if you insist upon it; though why I shouldn't help my G.o.dchild I cannot quite understand. But knowing you were so absorbed in other matters that you would forget the frivolities, and remembering that you have been wearing the same two dresses for months, I have ventured to get you some pretty gowns for the 'story hours,' and I want you to accept them for your Christmas present. They will serve for all your 'afternoons' and for our home dinners, as you will not be going out anywhere this winter."

"Oh, how kind you are, Mrs. Bird! You load me with benefits, and how can I ever repay you?"

"You do not have to repay them to me necessarily, my child; you can pa.s.s them over, as you will be constantly doing, to all these groups of children, day after day. I am a sort of stupid, rich old lady who serves as a source of supply. My chief brilliancy lies in devising original methods of getting rid of my surplus in all sorts of odd and delightful ways, left untried, for the most part, by other people. I 've been buying up splendid old trees in the outskirts of certain New England country towns,--trees that were in danger of being cut down for wood. Twenty-five to forty dollars buys a glorious tree, and it is safe for ever and ever to give shade to the tired traveler and beauty to the landscape. Each of my boys has his pet odd scheme for helping the world to 'go right.' Donald, for instance, puts stamps on the unstamped letters displayed in the Cambridge post-office, and sends them spinning on their way. He never receives the thanks of the careless writers, but he takes pleasure in making things straight.

Paul writes me from Phillips Academy that this year he is sending the nine Ruggles children (a poor family of our acquaintance) to some sort of entertainment once every month. Hugh has just met a lovely girl who has induced him to help her maintain a boarding establishment for sick and deserted cats and dogs; and there we are!"

"But I 'm a young, strong girl, and I fear I 'm not so worthy an object of charity as a tree, an unstamped letter, an infant Ruggles, or a deserted cat! Still, I know the dresses will be lovely, and I had quite forgotten that I must be clothed in purple and fine linen for five months to come. It would have been one of my first thoughts last year, I am afraid; but lately this black dress has shut everything else from my sight."

"It was my thought that you should give up your black dress just for these occasions, dear, and wear something more cheerful for the children's sake. The dresses are very simple, for I 've heard you say you can never tell a story when you are 'dressed up,' but they will please you, I know. They will be brought home this evening, and you must slip them all on, and show yourself to us in each."

They would have pleased anybody, even a princess, Polly thought, as she stood before her bed that evening patting the four pretty new waists, and smoothing with childlike delight the folds of the four pretty skirts. It was such an odd sensation to have four dresses at a time!

They were of simple and inexpensive materials, as was appropriate; but Mrs. Bird's exquisite taste and feeling for what would suit Polly's personality made them more attractive than if they had been rich or expensive.

There was a white China silk, with belt and shoulder-knots of black velvet; a white j.a.panese crepe, with purple lilacs strewed over its surface, and frills of violet ribbon for ornament; a Christmas dress of soft, white camel's hair, with bands of white-fox fur round the slightly pointed neck and elbow-sleeves; and, last of all, a Quaker gown of silver-gray nun's cloth, with a surplice and full undersleeves of white crepe-lisse.

"I 'm going to be vain, Mrs. Bird!" cried Polly, with compunction in her voice. "I 've never had a real beautiful, undyed, un-made-over dress in my whole life, and I shall never have strength of character to own four at once without being vain!"

This speech was uttered through the crack of the library door, outside of which Polly stood, gathering courage to walk in and be criticised.

"Think of your aspiring nose, Sapphira!" came from a voice within.

"Oh, are you there too, Edgar?"

"Of course I am, and so is Tom Mills. The news that you are going to 'try on' is all over the neighborhood! If you have cruelly fixed the age limit so that we can't possibly get in to the performances, we are going to attend all the dress rehearsals. Oh, ye little fishes! what a seraphic Sapphira! I wish Tony were here!"

She was pretty, there was no doubt about it, as she turned around like a revolving wax figure in a show-window, and a.s.sumed absurd fashion-plate att.i.tudes; and pretty chiefly because of the sparkle, intelligence, sunny temper, and vitality that made her so magnetic.

n.o.body could decide which was the loveliest dress, even when she had appeared in each one twice. In the lilac and white crepe, with a bunch of dark Parma violets thrust in her corsage, Uncle Jack called her a poem. Edgar a.s.serted openly that in the Christmas toilet he should like to have her modeled in wax and put in a gla.s.s case on his table; but Mrs. Bird and Tom Mills voted for the Quaker gray, in which she made herself inexpressibly demure by braiding her hair in two discreet braids down her back.

"The dress rehearsal is over. Good-night all!" she said, as she took her candle. "I will say 'handsome is as handsome does' fifty times before I go to sleep, and perhaps--I only say perhaps--I may be used to my beautiful clothes in a week or two, so that I shall be my usual modest self again."

"Good-night, Polly," said the boys; "we will see you to-morrow."

"'Pauline,' if you please, not 'Polly.' I ceased to be Polly this morning when the circulars were posted. I am now Miss Pauline Oliver, story-teller by profession."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR: REPORTED IN A LETTER BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

It was the last Monday in March, and I had come in from my country home to see if I could find my old school friend, Margaret Crosby, who is now Mrs. Donald Bird, and who is spending a few years in California.

The directory gave me her address, and I soon found myself on the corner of two beautiful streets and before a very large and elegant house. This did not surprise me, as I knew her husband to be a very wealthy man. There seemed to be various entrances, for the house stood with its side to the main street; but when I had at last selected a bell to ring, I became convinced that I had not, after all, gone to the front door. It was too late to retreat, however, and very soon the door was opened by a pretty maid-servant in a white cap and ap.r.o.n.

"You need n't have rung, 'm; they goes right in without ringing to-day," she said pleasantly.

"Can I see Mrs. Bird?" I asked.

"Well, 'm," she said hesitatingly, "she 's in Paradise."

"Lovely Margaret Crosby dead! How sudden it must have been," I thought, growing pale with the shock of the surprise; but the pretty maid, noticing that something had ruffled my equanimity, went on hastily:--

"Excuse me, 'm. I forgot you might be a stranger, but the nurses and mothers always comes to this door, and we 're all a bit fl.u.s.tered on account of its bein' Miss Pauline's last 'afternoon,' and the mothers call the music-room 'Paradise,' 'm, and Mr. John and the rest of us have took it up without thinkin' very much how it might sound to strangers."

"Oh, I see," I said mechanically, though I did n't see in the least; but although the complicated explanation threw very little light on general topics, it did have the saving grace of a.s.suring me that Margaret Bird was living.

"Could you call her out for a few minutes?" I asked. "I am an old friend, and shall be disappointed not to see her."

"I 'm sorry, 'm, but I could n't possibly call her out; it would be as much as my place is worth. Her strict orders is that n.o.body once inside of Paradise door shall be called out."

"That does seem reasonable," I thought to myself.

"But," she continued, "Mrs. Bird told me to let young Mr. n.o.ble up the stairs so 't he could peek in the door, and as you 're an old friend I hev n't no objections to your goin' up softly and peekin' in with him till Miss Pauline 's through,--it won't be long, 'm."

My curiosity was aroused by this time, and I came to the conclusion that "peekin' in the door" of Paradise with "young Mr. n.o.ble" would be better than nothing; so up I went, like a thief in the night.

The room was at the head of the stairs, and one of the doors was open, and had a heavy portiere hanging across it. Behind this was young Mr.

n.o.ble, "peekin'" most greedily, together with a middle-aged gentleman not described by the voluble parlor maid. They did n't seem to notice me; they were otherwise occupied, or perhaps they thought me one of the nurses or mothers. I had heard the sound of a piano as I crossed the hall, but it was still now. I crept behind young Mr. n.o.ble, and took a good "peek" into Paradise.

It was a very large apartment, one that looked as if it might have been built for a ball-room; at least, there was a wide, cushioned bench running around three sides of it, close to the wall. On one side, behind some black and gold j.a.panese screens, where they could hear and not be seen, sat a row of silent, capped and ap.r.o.ned nurse-maids and bonneted mammas. Mrs. Bird was among them, lovely and serene as an angel still, though she has had her troubles. There was a great fireplace in the room, but it was banked up with purple and white lilacs. There was a bowl of the same flowers on the grand piano, and a clump of bushes sketched in chalk on a blackboard. Just then a lovely young girl walked from the piano and took a low chair in front of the fireplace.

Before her there were grouped ever so many children, twenty-five or thirty, perhaps. The tots in the front rows were cosy and comfortable on piles of cushions, and the seven or eight year olds in the back row were in seats a little higher. Each child had a sprig of lilac in its hand. The young girl wore a soft white dress with lavender flowers scattered all over it, and a great bunch of the flowers in her belt.

She was a lovely creature! At least, I believe she was. I have an indistinct remembrance that her enemies (if she has any) might call her hair red; but I could n't stop looking at her long enough at the time to decide precisely what color it was. And I believe, now that several days have pa.s.sed, that her nose turned up; but at the moment, whenever I tried to see just how much it wandered from the Grecian outline, her eyes dazzled me and I never found out.

As she seated herself in their midst, the children turned their faces expectantly toward her, like flowers toward the sun.