"Leave her here," said Mr. Elihu Bell. "We 'll take care of her to-night, and I 'll drive in with her in the morning, bright and early.

That's the best way out, and you people can go back and go to bed.

Grandma 'll be mightily pleased to wake up in the morning and find the little girl here."

Feeling it the simplest solution of a situation which was involving somebody's sacrifice, whatever she did, Shirley accepted the offer.

Brant did not feel altogether pleased over driving away and leaving her standing on the porch beside Peter, but he was decidedly weary with his exercise, and sleepy after two br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses of milk, and he resigned his charge with one murmured speech: "Shows what a fool thing it is for a girl like you to play at holding down a business position. You can't be either one thing or the other with any comfort, and it even gets your friends into trouble."

This surly farewell was punished by the girl's gay rejoinder:

"I suppose it was the weight of your cares that was too much for the car! I 'm sorry, and I 'll promise not to run away from my work again--with you."

When the car was off, Peter promptly brought round his bicycle. "This is n't quite so imposing a conveyance as Hille's automobile," he said, standing at the foot of the steps and looking up at Shirley, "and I can't invite anybody to share it with me and ride home. But it's very convenient for these little runs out to the farm, and I 'm glad I happened to be here to-night. Somehow, just the sight of you, without any chance to talk, does me good."

"If that is true, I should think you might take advantage of living so near just a bit oftener than you do. Do you know how long it is since you 've been over?"

"It seems six months to me," said Peter, smiling.

"It is six weeks. Are you so busy all your evenings?"

"Pretty busy. And I spend what little spare time I can make with father."

"Of course," she agreed, gently. "But I think you need a little more change of scene than you get."

"I 'd like it. But I can't be bothering a girl like you with entertaining an old chap like me."

"An old chap!" mused Shirley. "Is that the way you feel?"

"I was feeling forty, at least--till the tire blew up. Then I came down to thirty. When I found the girl under the veil, I dropped off several years more. But when I looked at that boy Hille I became a patriarch again."

"I wish he could hear you call him a boy! Suppose I give you a special invitation, and run the risk of your bothering me, will you accept it?"

"In a hurry!"

"Your first spare evening then?"

"You tempt me to cut everything and come to-morrow night. No--I 'll wait a decent interval, to let you get caught up after this midnight dissipation. May I come early?"

"The earlier the better."

"And you won't invite anybody else to help make it jolly for me? The last time I ventured over you had a roomful."

"I 'll invite n.o.body. Come, Peter Bell--do you know I 'm being much nicer to you than I ordinarily am to anybody? I let mother and Olive do the inviting, and I just look demure, as if I did n't care."

"You do care, then, this time?"

"It's time you were off, is n't it?" and she retreated, laughing, to the open door.

Peter looked back at her, an alluring figure, with the lamplight falling over the dull red silk of her frock, and wished he need not go at all.

But Grandfather Bell's tall form appeared just behind Shirley's. This was an unheard-of hour for Grandfather Bell. So, with a friendly good night and a warm feeling at his heart, Peter bestrode his wheel and was off down the moonlit road toward home.

CHAPTER VII

CHRISTMAS GREENS

"Jane, I've the most charming plan in my head for Christmas week you ever heard of."

"Have you, Shirley dear? And are you going to tell it to me?"

"I am, indeed. Listen. Let's take cook and Norah, and go--all of us, your houseful and ours--and spend part of holiday week at Gra.s.slands."

"Shirley! You take my breath away! Could we do it? Would n't it be fun if we could?"

"I don't see a thing in the way. When I stayed overnight, in November, your Grandmother Bell said she wished she could get her family together once more at Christmas there, instead of going in to have dinner in Gay Street, as they 've been doing since your family went to live in town.

She said she 'd like to have us all if she were younger again, but she has no 'help,' and thought it would be a pity to ask us, and then have your mother and Nan do the work. I 've thought about it ever so many times since, but this idea has only just popped into my head."

"I should think it could be done," mused Jane. "There are rooms and rooms at the farm, and little open wood-stoves in every one. You and I could go out the day before, and get everything aired and ready."

"What if you and Mrs. Bell and Nan and I went, without telling any of the men? I 'm to have Christmas week for my first vacation, you know.

Then when they came home in the evening, have a bouncing big sleigh ready to carry them off to the farm, and a jolly supper waiting? Then a tree that night, and Christmas next day, with coasting and skating and s...o...b..lling, if the weather is right?"

"You artful child!" exclaimed Jane. "It would do us all heaps of good--especially father and mother. Father looks to me so worn and tired. Have you noticed it?"

Shirley nodded. She had indeed noticed it, and a deep-laid plot, having for its beneficiary Mr. Joseph Bell, was at the back of the planning.

But she did not intend that anybody should find that out. So she agreed lightly that Jane's father needed a holiday, as did all the others.

"If we can't get any of them to take more than Christmas day, we can at least bring them out there every night and back every morning," she said. "We 'll give them such good things to eat they won't mind the drive. With Grandfather Bell's big horses, all jingly with sleigh-bells, they certainly won't. Oh, will you go and speak to Cook now? I simply can't wait to get things under way."

"Do you mean to surprise Grandmother Bell, too?"

"Yes, if your grandfather agrees, as I 'm sure he will. If we told her she 'd tire herself all out, doing wholly unnecessary things.

Everything in the house is always in apple-pie order, but she would n't think so."

"You 're quite right, I think. I 'll go and talk with Cook"--and Jane hurried away, looking as girlishly eager as Shirley herself.

She had small doubt of Cook. If Mrs. Murray Townsend had a friend in the house, it was Bridget. Mrs. Harrison Townsend had never considered Bridget a particularly amiable person, but Jane had won her completely by treating her always with consideration, and by showing the interest in her affairs, which is appreciated most by those who expect it least.

"Sure, then, we 'll go, Mrs. Murray, and take it as a holiday," agreed Cook, when her young mistress had explained her plans. "And we 'll take some of the fixings with us they 'll not be havin' at the farm."

During the week that intervened before Christmas, Shirley's head was so full of her schemes that for the first time since her initiation into office work she had considerable difficulty in keeping her mind upon her tasks. Christmas fell upon a Tuesday that year, fortunately for her plans, so after Sat.u.r.day noon she was free to give her mind to the pleasures in prospect. Mrs. Bell and Nancy had agreed enthusiastically to every detail of the arrangements, and Grandfather Bell, when cautiously consulted over the telephone and urged to keep it all a secret from his wife, had responded as joyously as a boy that the party might occupy every nook and corner of the house and have things all their own way, if they would only come.

It proved necessary to let somebody into the plan at the last, in order that the men, returning to their homes on Monday evening, should be directed what to do. Rufus was selected for this office, an appointment which tickled him so that it was with difficulty he kept from bursting out with his secret. At night he was first at home, and as the others one by one arrived, he haled them to their rooms, bade them make themselves ready in short order, and surrept.i.tiously packed away several travelling bags in the recesses of Grandfather Bell's capacious market-wagon, now on runners and fitted with seats.

"What on earth does it all mean?" asked Murray, taking his seat in the sleigh in which the energetic Rufus had stowed the male members of his own family, amidst a storm of questions and surmises, accompanied by much good humoured raillery at his own quite evident excitement.

"It means that you 're kidnapped, and may never see home again,"

responded Rufus, tucking a hot soapstone under his father's feet, for the night was sharp, and Shirley's orders imperative. "Warm, daddy?