Six Girls.

by Fannie Belle Irving.

CHAPTER I.

UNDER THE TREES.

There were ripples of sunshine all tangled in the glowing scarlet of the geranium bed and dancing blithely over the gra.s.s. A world of melody in quivering bursts of happy song came from the spreading canopy of leaves overhead, and as an accompaniment, the wind laughed and whispered and kept the air in one continual smile with a kiss on its lips, born of supreme contentment in the summer loveliness.

In the cool, deep shade, cast by the grandest of old beech trees, a girl sat, her white dress in freshest relief against the green surroundings, a piece of sewing in her nimble fingers, and the wind tossing her loosened hair all about her face and shoulders. She was quite alone, and seemed just the setting for the quiet, lovely surroundings, so much so, that, had an artist chanced to catch the sight, he would have lost no time in transferring it to canvas,--the wide stretch of gra.s.s, alternately steeped in cool shadows and mellow sunshine, the branching, rustling canopy of leaves, the white-robed figure with smiling lips and busy fingers, and just visible in the back-ground an old house wrapped in vines and lying in the shade.

Somebody came from among the trees just at this moment and crossed the gra.s.s with a peculiarly graceful and swaying step, as though she had just drifted down with the sunshine and was being idly blown along by the wind, another girl in the palest of pink dresses, with ripples of snowy lace all over it, and a wide-brimmed hat shading her eyes. And speaking distance being gained, she said, with a breezy little laugh: "Sewing? Why, it's too warm to breathe."

"That's the reason I sew," returned the other, with a nod of energy. "I should suffocate if I just sat still and thought how warm it is. Where have you been?"

"Down to the pond, skipping stones, and wishing that I could go in,"

answered the new-comer, sitting down on the gra.s.s with a careful and gracefully effective arrangement of her flounces and lace. "I don't see why papa won't let us take the boat; it did look too tempting. Suppose we go and do it, anyhow, Bea, and just let him see that we can manage it without being taught. The pond is all in the shade now, and a row would be delicious."

"Why, Ernestine!" Bea said, with a glance of surprise; "You wouldn't, I know. Papa will teach us right away, and then we will have delightful times; but when he has been so good as to get us the boat and promise to have us learn to manage it, I'm sure I wouldn't disobey and try alone."

Ernestine laughed again her pretty saucy laugh and threw her head back so that it caught a dancing sunbeam and held it prisoner in the bright hair.

"I would," she said flippantly. "I'd like to, just for the sake of doing something. Do you know, Bea,"--knitting the arched brows with a petulant air,--"Sometimes I think I'll do something dreadful; perfectly dreadful, you know, so as to have things different for a little bit. It's horrible to live right along, just so, without anything ever happening."

"Well I'm sure," said Bea, laying down her sewing and surveying her sister slowly, "you have just about as good and easy a time as ever I heard of a girl's having. What are you all dressed up so for?"

"Just for something to do. I've tried on all my dresses and hats, and wasted the blessed afternoon parading before the gla.s.s," laughed Ernestine, swinging her pretty hat with its shirrings of delicate pink, around on her white hand. "I do think this dress is lovely, so I made believe I was being dressed by my maid and coming out to walk in my park like an English lady, you know."

"English fiddlesticks!" said Bea, with energy. "You are a goosey.

Suppose you had to work and couldn't have pretty things and waste your time trying them on?"

"What misery," cried Ernestine, jumping up and whirling around on her heel with an airy grace that the other girls might have practiced for in vain. "I wouldn't want to live; it would be dreadful, Bea," falling into an att.i.tude with the sunshine over her, "wouldn't I do well on the stage? I know I was born for it; now look here, and see if I don't do as Miss Neilson did. Just suppose this ring of sunshine is a balcony and I'm in white, with such lovely jewels in my hair and all that:

"Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"--

and away went Ernestine with a tragically pathetic energy that made Bea watch and listen, in spite of the disapproving laugh on her lips.

"Don't I do it well?" Ernestine asked complacently, after she had gone through the entire balcony scene, with great success in the management of two characters.

"Yes, you do; how can you?" asked Bea, won from disapproval by wondering admiration.

"Easiest in the world. I've been through it ever so many times since papa took us to the city to see her. Oh, Bea! how happy she must be! I'd give worlds and worlds to be in her place," cried Ernestine, with longing energy, and pacing restlessly up and down the gra.s.s. "I wonder if I ever can."

"Indeed!" said Bea with decision. "The idea! what would papa and mama say; you, Ernestine Dering, parading out on a stage before crowds of people, and flying around like she did. Mercy on us!"

"I'd do it in a minute, and if I can't now, I will sometime anyhow,"

Ernestine exclaimed with emphasis. "I wasn't born to be smuggled up in this little musty town all my life and I won't, either. Some day I'll do something desperate; you see if I don't."

"Well, I do declare!" said Bea slowly, having never witnessed quite such an energetic ending to Ernestine's spells of restless dissatisfaction.

"What talk! I think you'd better sit down and cool off now. Where are Olive and Jean?"

"Olive is sketching out on the roof, and crosser than thirteen sticks.

Jean is asleep on the porch, and mama is out showing Huldah how to make cream puffings."

"Dear me," said Bea, by way of answer and looking up with a slight pucker to her smooth forehead, "Just look at those girls; I never saw the like."

Ernestine looked up, to catch a glimpse of two flying figures just clearing the fence, and come dashing across the gra.s.s like unruly arrows, to throw themselves under the shade of the beech, with a supreme disregard for flesh and bones.

"Goodness gracious!" gasped Kittie.

"Gracious goodness!" panted Kat.

"I beat."

"No sir, I did."

"You didn't! I was on this side of the fence before you jumped."

"Just listen! why I was pretty near to the tree before you got to the fence."

"Why Kat Dering! You know better."

"I don't."

"You do."

"Well I'd fight about it," said Ernestine, as the two sat up and faced each other with belligerent countenances. "You are a pretty looking couple anyhow. I'd be ashamed."

"Don't care if you would. I beat anyhow," said Kat with decision.

"Indeed you didn't; I did myself," said Kittie with equal certainty, but smiling more amicably as she fanned energetically with her hat. "Oh girls such fun! I must,----"

"Now Kittie," cried Kat with a warning jump and scowl.

"Bless us, I'm going to tell; indeed I am. You're a trump, Kat, and they shall hear all about it; don't you want to girls?"

"To be sure, go on," said Bea with interest and creasing down a hem with much satisfaction in the thought that her hands looked very pretty and white, almost as pretty as Ernestine's.

"Well you see," began Kitty, as Kat retired under her hat in a spasm of unusual modesty, "when we came in from recess this afternoon, Kat wanted to sit in my side of the seat, and told me to act as if I was she, so I thought it was to be a lark of some kind and did, but dear me----"

"Well go on," said Ernestine with languid curiosity, as Kittie paused to laugh at some recollection.

"Just as soon as we got in Miss Howard told us to put books away; then she gave us the breeziest lecture and was as solemn as an owl. I couldn't imagine what was up. Susie Darrow was crying with her handkerchief to her nose, Kat looked as if she was sitting on pins and needles, and I really thought that Sadie Brooks and May Moor would eat us up, the way they actually glared at us. Well, the first thing I knew, Miss Howard was saying something about a needle in Susie Barrow's pen, that she had stuck her nose with, and she wanted whoever had put it there to come to her desk. That's the way she always does, you know; never calls a name unless she finds she has to, and bless you! who should I see walking off but Kat, and what does Miss Howard do but take her ruler and give her fifteen slaps on the hand. Kat, I'm meaner'n dirt, and you're a jewel; you did beat, I'll own up."

"No such thing, you beat yourself," came in a sepulchral growl from under the hat.

"Well I'm sure I don't see the point," said Ernestine with impatience.