Quicksilver Sue.

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards.

CHAPTER I

SOMETHING EXCITING

"Mother! Mother! he has a daughter! Isn't that perfectly fine?"

Mrs. Penrose looked up wearily; her head ached, and Sue was so noisy!

"Who has a daughter?" she asked. "Can't you speak a little lower, Sue?

Your voice goes through my head like a needle. Who is it that has a daughter?"

Sue's bright face fell for an instant, and she swung her sunbonnet impatiently; but the next moment she started again at full speed.

"The new agent for the Pashmet Mills, Mother. Everybody is talking about it. They are going to live at the hotel. They have taken the best rooms, and Mr. Binns has had them all painted and papered,--the rooms, I mean, of course,--and new curtains, and everything. Her name is Clarice, and she is fifteen, and very pretty; and he is real rich--"

"_Very_ rich," corrected her mother, with a little frown of pain.

"Very rich," Sue went on; "and her clothes are simply fine; and--and--oh, Mother, isn't it elegant?"

"Sue, where have you been?" asked her mother, rousing herself. (Bad English was one of the few things that did rouse Mrs. Penrose.) "Whom have you been talking with, child? I am sure you never hear Mary Hart say 'isn't it elegant'!"

"Oh! Mary is a schoolma'am, Mother. But I never did say it before, and I won't again--truly I won't. Annie Rooney told me, and she said it, and so I didn't think. Annie is going to be waitress at the hotel, you know, and she's just as excited as I am about it."

"Annie Rooney is not a suitable companion for you, my daughter, and I am not interested in hotel gossip. Besides, my head aches too much to talk any more."

"I'll go and tell Mary!" said Sue.

"Will you hand me my medicine before you go, Sue?"

But Sue was already gone. The door banged, and the mother sank back with a weary, fretful sigh. Why was Sue so impetuous, so unguided? Why was she not thoughtful and considerate, like Mary Hart?

Sue whirled upstairs like a breeze, and rushed into her own room. The room, a pleasant, sunny one, looked as if a breeze were blowing in it all day long. A jacket was tossed on one chair, a dress on another.

The dressing-table was a cheerful litter of ribbons, photographs, books, papers, and hats. (This made it hard to find one's brush and comb sometimes; but then, it was convenient to have the other things where one could get at them.) There was a writing-table, but the squirrel lived on that; it was the best place to put the cage, because he liked the sun. (Sue never would have thought of moving the table somewhere else and leaving the s.p.a.ce for the cage.) And the closet was entirely full and running over. The walls were covered with pictures of every variety, from the Sistine Madonna down to a splendid four-in-hand cut out of the "Graphic." Most of them had something hanging on the frame--a bird's nest, or a branch of barberries, or a tangle of gray moss. Sometimes the picture could still be seen; again, it could not, except when the wind blew the adornment aside.

Altogether, the room looked as if some one had a good time in it, and as if that some one were always in a hurry; and this was the case.

"Shall I telephone," said Sue, "or shall I send a pigeon? Oh, I can't stop to go out to the dove-cote; I'll telephone."

She ran to the window, where there was a curious arrangement of wires running across the street to the opposite house. She rang a bell and pulled a wire, and another bell jingled in the distance. Then she took up an object which looked like (and indeed was) the half of a pair of opera-gla.s.ses with the gla.s.s taken out. Holding this to her mouth, she roared softly: "Hallo, Central! Hallo!"

There was a pause; then a voice across the street replied in m.u.f.fled tones: "Hallo! What number?"

"Number five hundred and seven. Miss Mary Hart."

Immediately a girl appeared at the opposite window, holding the other barrel of the opera-gla.s.s to her lips.

"Hallo!" she shouted. "What do you want?"

"Oh, Mary, have you heard?"

"No. What?"

"Why, there's a girl coming to live at the hotel--coming to stay all summer! Her father is agent of the Pashmet Mills. She is two years older than we are. Isn't that perfectly fine, Mary? I'm just as excited as I can be about it. I can't stand still a minute."

"So I see," said Mary Hart, who had a round, rosy, sensible face, and quiet blue eyes. "But do try to stand still, Sue! People don't jump up and down when they are telephoning, you know."

"Oh! I can't help it, Mary. My feet just seem to go of themselves.

Isn't it perfectly splendid, Mary? You don't seem to care one bit. I'm sorry I told you, Mary Hart."

"Oh, no, you're not!" said Mary, good-naturedly. "But how can I tell whether it is splendid or not, Sue, before I have seen the girl? What is her name?"

"Oh! didn't I tell you? Clarice Packard. Isn't that a perfectly lovely name? Oh, Mary, I just can't wait to see her; can you? It's so exciting! I thought there was never going to be anything exciting again, and now just see! Don't you hope she will know how to act, and dress up, and things? I do."

"Suppose you come over and tell me more about it," Mary suggested. "I must sh.e.l.l the peas now, and I'll bring them out on the door-step; then we can sit and sh.e.l.l them together while you tell me."

"All right; I'll come right over."

Sue turned quickly, prepared to dash out of the room as she had dashed into it, but caught her foot in a loop of the wire that she had forgotten to hang up, and fell headlong over a chair. The chair and Sue came heavily against the squirrel's cage, sending the door, which was insecurely fastened, flying open. Before Sue could pick herself up, Mister Cracker was out, frisking about on the dressing-table, and dangerously near the open window.

"Oh! what shall I do?" cried Sue. "That horrid old wire! Cracker, now be good, that's a dear fellow! Here, I know! I had some nuts somewhere--I know I had! Wait, Cracker, do wait!"

But Cracker was not inclined to wait, and while Sue was rummaging various pockets which she thought might contain the nuts, he slipped quietly out of the window and scuttled up the nearest tree, chattering triumphantly. Sue emerged from the closet, very red in the face, and inclined to be angry at the ingrat.i.tude of her pet. "After all the trouble I have had teaching him to eat all kinds of things he didn't like!" she exclaimed. "Well, at any rate, I sha'n't have any more eggs to boil hard, and Katy said I couldn't have any more, anyhow, because I cracked the saucepans when I forgot them. And, anyhow, he wasn't very happy, and I know I should just hate to live in a cage, even with a whirligig--though it must be fun at first."

Consoling herself in this wise, Sue flashed down the stairs, and almost ran over her little sister Lily, who was coming up.

"Oh, Susie," said Lily, "will you help me with my dolly's dress? I have done all I can without some one to show me, and Mamma's head aches so she can't, and Katy is ironing."

"Not now, Lily; don't you see I am in a terrible hurry? Go and play, like a good little girl!"

"But I've no one to play with, Susie," said the child, piteously.

"Find some one, then, and don't bother! Perhaps I'll show you about the dress after dinner, if I have time."

Never stopping to look at the little face clouded with disappointment, Sue ran on. There was no cloud on her own face. She was a vision of sunshine as she ran across the street, her fair hair flying, her hazel eyes shining, her brown holland dress fluttering in the wind.

The opposite house looked pleasant and cheerful. The door stood open, and one could look through the long, narrow hall and into the garden beyond, where the tall purple phlox seemed to be nodding to the tiger-lilies that peeped round the edge of the front door. The door was painted green, and had a bright bra.s.s knocker; and the broad stone step made a delightful seat when warmed through and through by the sun, as it was now. The great horse-chestnut trees in front of the house made just enough shade to keep one's eyes from being dazzled, but not enough to shut out the sunbeams which twinkled down in green and gold, and made the front dooryard almost a fairy place.

Mary came out, bringing a basket of peas and a shining tin dish; she sat down, and made room for Sue beside her with a smile.

"This is more satisfactory than telephoning," she said. "Now, Sue, take a long breath and tell me all about it."

Sue breathed deep, and began again the wonderful tale:

"Why, I met Annie Rooney this morning, when I went down for the mail.

You remember Annie, who used to live with us? Mamma doesn't like her much, but she was always nice to me, and she always likes to stop and talk when I meet her. Well! and so she told me. They may be here any day now, Mr. Packard and his daughter. Her name is Clarice--oh! I told you that, didn't I? Don't you think it's a perfectly lovely name, Mary? It sounds like a book, you know, with long, golden hair, and deep, unfathomable eyes, and--"