CHAPTER V.

ONE DAY.

"Well, surely there never was such a pokey family," exclaimed Ernestine, lounging into the room where the girls were gathered, one bleak dreary morning, early in November. "Nothing ever happens, any more than as if we were in back-woods. Kittie, I'll change seats with you."

"I suppose you will," returned Kittie, keeping her chair and frowning over her slate and book. "You'll always change if you get the best by it; get out of my light will you."

"I wish you'd shut the door, Ernestine," growled Kat over the top of a bandage bound round her head and face; "I wish your tooth was ready to jump out of your mouth, and some one would leave the door open on you."

"I'd try and set you a good example, by being polite at least," laughed Ernestine, who really never could be cross or blue, very long at a time.

"How grum we are; what's the matter Bea?"

"I've an awful headache," answered Bea, who shared in the general depression, and was considerably ruffled over not being able to set a puff straight on her skirt. "Be quiet, please, and sit down; it was still enough before you came in."

"So I should think, from the way you all look like tomb-stones. n.o.body looks peaceful, but Jean, and she's asleep; and Olive is the only one that looks natural, because she always looks solemn and cross, no matter what's up."

Olive turned from the window with a jerk. She had such a cold, that she could not go down to the store, and her face was swollen most unbecomingly.

"Perhaps if you had a little more sense, you might be able to look at least reasonably solemn sometimes," she said sharply.

"Oh, mercy," cried Ernestine, with her gay laugh, far more tantalizing than the sharpest words. "If having sense would make me look like you, I'd never want it,--never."

Olive jumped from her seat with a force that knocked the chair over, and startled the whole company.

"Ernestine Dering," she cried fiercely, and as though the words almost choked her. "You are the most heartless, selfish, senseless creature, that ever lived; I never will forgive you! You haven't got a thought above looking like a wax doll, and acting like a ninny, and I hate you;--there!"

"Well--if--I--ever," cried Kittie, as Olive vanished with a bang of the door that woke Jean and made Bea clap her hands to her aching head.

"You ought to be ashamed," exclaimed Kat, glaring over her bandage.

"Olive's the best one of the lot, and I've three minds to go and tell her so."

"And have your head taken off for your pains," said Ernestine, walking over to the gla.s.s, and smiling at her own unruffled image. "Olive's a touchy goose, but I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, and I'm sorry for it; so that's the best I can do now, isn't it?"

"I suppose so, unless it is to think once in a while, that there is some one in the world with feelings, besides yourself," answered Bea, jerking her unruly sewing, and getting crosser than ever as she ran her needle into her finger.

"Dear me," cried Ernestine, throwing her hands up, and admiring them in the gla.s.s. "It's a sure sign that something is going wrong with this family, when you get cross, Bea."

"I'm not an angel," grumbled Bea, then threw her sewing down, and gave herself a shake, both mentally and physically. "But there's no need of my acting like a bear, and I'm really ashamed. Come sit on my lap, Jean, you look terribly grieved."

"Well, 'tisn't very pleasant with mama gone, and you all fussing so,"

answered Jean, limping over with her crutch, and laying her head on Bea's shoulder with a sigh. "If you all were lame awhile, you'd be so glad to get straight again, that you never would fuss or scold, never."

Bea sucked her bruised thumb, and thought more heartily than ever, that they ought to be ashamed; but a little witch of impatience and petulance lurks in the gentlest of feminine hearts, and though Bea had resolved to hush talking, and be patient, the little meddling temper was wide awake, much aggravated at the gloomy weather, and bound to make mischief if possible. Ernestine turned away from the gla.s.s in a moment, and strolled over to the lounge.

"I don't see," she exclaimed, "why everything should be denied us. I'd like to live for awhile just as I want to."

No one answered, for just then Kittie threw down her slate, and burst into impatient tears.

"What's the use! I can't understand such fractions, and I never will; I'd like to smash that slate, and burn this old book!"

"Doesn't Miss Howard show you?"

"O yes, she shows and shows, and talks and explains, 'till my head spins like a top; but I can't understand, and after a while she says, in such a surprised way, as if she thought I was the biggest dummy in the world--'Why, Kittie, don't you see it yet?' and I don't see it any more than ink in the dark, but I'm ashamed, so I pretend that I do, and that's the way it always is," and Kittie cried despairingly.

"How the cheerfulness increases," laughed Ernestine, jumping up. "I'm going down stairs, and I sha'n't come up again until I can say something that will please you all. By-by," and away she went, nodding brightly.

The morning wore slowly away. Jean, with a pain in her back, lay in Bea's arms until she fell asleep again; then after laying her down, Beatrice went back to her sewing, made patient and penitent by contact with that frail, peaceful little sister, and, after viewing her unmanageable puff determinedly for a few minutes, saw her mistake, and immediately went to work and finished it with no trouble. Kat, after much grumbling, finally brought her tooth to comparative submission, and went to sleep, while Kittie fled from the field of fractions, and spent her morning in the swing, which hung in the shed.

Just before dinner, the door-bell rang, and in a minute Ernestine came flying up stairs.

"There," she cried, waving a tinted paper. "I've something to please you with. Just listen:--'Mrs. Richards would be pleased to see Miss Dering, Miss Ernestine and Miss Olive for tea next Wednesday Eve!' I expect they'll dance. Won't it be fun?"

"I don't see any use of your waking me up, I'm not invited;" exclaimed Kat, sinking back on to her pillow, when she found that she was not included in the coming bliss.

"I hope you didn't expect it, only a child," said Ernestine, as Bea took the magic paper in great delight.

"Child, indeed!" cried Kat. "I'm tall as you."

"More's the pity, for you're only twelve, and as wild as a boy."

"I don't care; I'm going if mama says so; can't I Bea?"

"Why no; Mrs. Richards didn't ask you."

"What's the difference? She likes me just as well as she does you and would be just as glad to see me."

"Of course; but girls of twelve are never invited out in the evening,"

expostulated Bea, re-reading the delightful invitation, for events were rare in Canfield, and then it was so nice to be called "Miss Dering."

"I don't care, I think it's real mean!" and Kat vented her resentment by punching her pillow into a helpless knot.

"Go, call Olive, Ernestine," continued Bea, all smiles and complacency; "and just say, by the way, that you're sorry you hurt her feelings; it's quite the proper thing to do, you know."

"All right," and Ernestine ran down the hall.

"Oh, Olive! come with us; here's an invitation from Mrs. Richards. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings; come on."

"I don't care for anything that you said, and I've something to think about besides invitations. Go away, will you?"

"Oh, certainly," and having glibly uttered her penitent speech, Ernestine cared nothing about its reception, but hurried back to discuss their dress with Beatrice.

"But mama has not said that we can go," said Bea, caressing the tinted paper, as she interrupted an enthusiastic speech that was making Ernestine's eyes glow like diamonds.

"But she will; why shouldn't she? Any how I'm going to believe that she will, I will wear my silk and my new scarf, and borrow mama's laces for the sleeves, and her white comb, and jewelry with the bracelets, if she will loan them;--do you suppose she will?"