Lilian thought it a delightful afternoon. These were the kind of people you could get close to. She saw that her mother was enjoying it as well.

Wasn't it rather monotonous for her at Mrs. Barrington's? At Laconia there had been neighbors dropping in, some who had known her early life and sympathized with her misfortunes, and here, no one. She was glad to have been taken in this kindly family.

"Oh, won't you come often?" pleaded Claire. "I like you so much, and if you could come some Sat.u.r.day mamma and Edith might go out together. An old lady does come in when they go to church, but she isn't any real company. She hasn't any ideas. Don't you think old people get sort of stupid?" Lilian laughed.

Miss Benson expressed a good deal of pleasure at meeting such an ambitious girl and hoped to keep in touch with her for sometime; she might be able to counsel her or perhaps direct her on her way.

"It has been just delightful," she said when they reached their own rooms.

She did not go in to sing but read to her mother. Yes, she would try in the future to share more of her life with the colorless one. She had resolved to make the great sacrifice when she found she could not go on with school, and lo, this had been the outcome. They were delightfully sheltered, there were no hardships, only pin p.r.i.c.ks and she would be silly to mind those. There was a sudden commotion through the place on Monday morning. Such glad bursts of welcome, such joyous laughter and absolute peans of delight.

For Zaidee Crawford had come. She, Lilian, was not in it and she wondered if at any time or in any place there would be such unalloyed gladness at her coming.

A girl of fifteen, bewilderingly pretty in the changes that pa.s.sed over her mobile face. A complexion that was pink and pearl, golden hair that was a ma.s.s of waves and shining rings that seemed to ray off sunshine with every movement of the head that had a bird-like poise; a low broad Clytie brow and eyes that were the loveliest violet color, sometimes blue, sometimes the tenderest, most appealing gray. Her smile was captivating, disarming. It played about her lips that shut with dimples in the corners, it quivered in her eyes and made the whole face radiant.

Why Zaidee Crawford wasn't spoiled by the indulgence and adulation was quite a mystery. She had been longed for before her birth--one brother was seven the other nine years older. Major Crawford thought the tie between father and daughter was one of the choicest of heaven's blessings. He was proud of his sons whose straightforward, honorable careers in the lines they had chosen, to his great satisfaction, gave him profound happiness. Connected with Zaidee's birth had been the great sorrow of their lives that had cost Mrs. Crawford years of excruciating suffering and at first it seemed hopeless invalidism. In one of the Indian skirmishes the Major had been severely wounded in the leg that had left it lame and rather stiff. He resigned from the army to devote himself to his wife and the old residence that had been in his family for generations. And at this period a relative died and left him a large fortune. Beyond improving his estate and having the best medical attendance for his wife there was no real change in their living. They were both too sensible not to know how easily boys might be led astray by unwise indulgence in money. They were both high minded with a fine sense of right and justice. Both had gone down the dark valley and looked death in the face and thereafter walked humbly before G.o.d.

Zaidee Crawford had been a day scholar except at intervals when her mother had been taken away for medical treatment. Oddly enough, Mrs.

Crawford as a girl, had been educated by Mrs. Barrington, then a young and childless widow, with an ardent desire for some useful aim in life, and they had remained the warmest of friends. Mrs. Barrington's comfort and faith had cheered many an hour of despondency.

But the Major had once said--"Margaret, while you can endure the suffering, always think that I would much rather have you as you are than to have lost you in that terrible time, and G.o.d has spared us our two fine sons and our sweet daughter."

Yes, there was much joy still left to life.

Zay went to her cla.s.ses as a visitor this morning. There were many smiles of welcome. After all, she had not fallen so far behind, but her brother had been coaching her. There were four new scholars in the Latin cla.s.s. The Kirklands, Louie Howe, who had been promoted, and a Miss Boyd, who roused a peculiar interest; but then her rendering in the translation was exceedingly fine.

"Who is that tall girl with the bronzy gold hair? And isn't she a fine reader?" exclaimed Zaidee.

They were in a little group of old friends. Louie Howe laughed. Phillipa made a funny face.

"Well?" and flushing a little she glanced up, inquiringly.

"The caretaker's daughter. We are democratic this year," announced May Gedney.

"The caretaker--"

"A Mrs. Boyd, a pale little nonent.i.ty, but she darns in the most elegant fashion you ever saw. She had to bring her daughter you see, and the daughter is to be a teacher--is a sort of charity scholar, looks after the laggards in the evening, but she keeps her place pretty well. Of course she lives over on that side," nodding her head.

"See here," began Phillipa, "that girl has puzzled me with an elusive resemblance to somebody, Zay, it really is you. Her hair and eyes are darker, she's larger every way, she is not such a peerless maid--"

"I shouldn't feel complimented by that! Oh the idea! A girl from--well somewhere from the wild and woolly west--"

Much as Phillipa Rosewald loved her friends and she confessed to adoring Zaidee, she never stopped at a little fling.

"The compliment, of course, is to Miss Boyd. She has a temper of her own, you can catch a flash of it in her eyes, and I dare say her iron rule is what makes her mother so meek. She pets up that Nevins girl who is a--well they are called Beauty and the Beast. How she managed to slip in here puzzles me."

"That girl is my horrid familiar, my _bete noire_. She has the room next to mine and you ought to see it. Miss Davis marked her down for untidyness, and Mrs. Barrington put her on a diet, her complexion was so horrid, but she manages to get a lot of sweets and chocolates. And the way she dresses! A modiste in New York sends her clothes and told her the color of one's frocks must match the hair or the eyes, and no one could match those gray blue green eyes, so it has to be the hair."

"I wouldn't want that dull brown hair. I don't suppose she ever brushes it. At home the maid looked after her. The mother is traveling for her health, and they are very rich."

"Oh, is she making a confidante of you, too?" laughed May Gedney. "I thought it rather funny at first, I didn't believe half she said, but her father is quite an important man in banking circles it seems, and there are diamonds galore, but he wouldn't let her wear only that diamond birthday ring at school. She was wildly in love with Miss Boyd but the girl was too hard hearted to return it. She is a regular icicle and stony hearted and all that! Yes, her heart is irretrievably gone about the girl. They did have a kissing match one night but they don't do it any more in public! I don't know what they do in private, but the Boyd shut down on gifts which almost broke her heart, and she had spent two dollars for two orchids."

"That certainly speaks well for Miss Boyd," Zay exclaimed.

May flushed. Lately _she_ had been the recipient of some gifts.

"Of course she is here to train the younger minds in the paths of knowledge while her mother mends their clothes."

"Well, is that to be despised?" asked Zay with spirit.

"Why, no, but of course you don't a.s.sociate with your dressmaker's daughter, nor the store clerks though they are nice enough for the places they have to fill in life. If it wasn't for the mother she might pa.s.s muster, and you know this is the most select of schools. That is one reason mother sent me here there was no chance of making undesirable acquaintances. For one thing, the terms are too high," and Louie Howe bridled.

"Is this Miss Nevins at the highwater mark?" and there was a touch of sarcasm in Zay's tone.

"Oh let's quit the higher criticism," said another. "I want to hear Zay talk, and you've been to Berlin and that picturesque Dresden. Did you see the shepherdesses with their crooks, and Corydon making love to them, and Holland--that funny place of ca.n.a.ls and windmills and stumpy dutchmen."

"And, oh, did you see the Kaiser?"

Zay laughed. "Yes, mounted on a fine horse, and the Empress and her pretty daughter in a state carriage. And Willard went to some sort of review with the Amba.s.sador and was presented to the Kaiser who asked him about Annapolis, and some of the training. He thought the great Emperor very affable. Father has been at a few of the functions and seen the royal ladies in their state dresses. Then, there are some splendid professors and scientists--"

"But you didn't go to Paris?"

"No. Father and Willard spent ten days there while Aunt Kate and I staid with mother. Then she could cross the room without a cane, even. Now she can walk some distance. Oh, girls, its splendid not to have her go on crutches! And she thinks in two years or so we may go to Paris for quite a stay. You know real young girls don't understand fine pictures and all that! Willard begins his three-years cruise early in January, and in the summer Vincent will graduate and perhaps be sent off somewhere. The doctors wanted her to spend the whole winter about the Mediterranean, but she thought it would be so lovely to have our Christmas together."

"Oh, Zaidee Crawford, you're a girl to be envied! None but the rich, etc.," with sundry upturnings of the chin.

"Well, I hope I'll be able to go abroad on a wedding tour. Otherwise I won't have him!" announced Phillipa with great solemnity at which they all laughed.

"Young ladies do you know it is time to go out for exercise," said Miss Arran.

"Oh, let us go over to Crawford House," cried Zay. "Why, you will hardly know it. The two parlors are to be thrown into one--a regular drawing room, and I'm to have the prettiest study off of my bedroom. I have to decide what color I shall have them done in."

"We'll all help you."

"I just can't have blue and I like it so, but it is the one idea of blondes, therefore I avoid it."

"It seems Miss Boyd's favorite color," said Louie. "And she's not so very blondy, either."

CHAPTER V

ZAIDEE

They were the usual lot of girls in a sort of hubbub together. With the exception of the Kirklands they were not taking life seriously as yet.

They studied and sang, painted, wrote verses, sometimes were caught on trigonometry and occasionally made awful translations in Latin and French. They changed their ideals, they vowed friendship and fell out with each other, they were spiteful and willful and sweet and penitent, and if "a boy's will's the wind's will," a young girl's will in the unformed years is not much better.

Phillipa Rosewald was a sort of leader. A kind of charming girl with many varieties, fascinating, making you like her when she chose and then giving you pin p.r.i.c.ks instead of caresses. Before she put on long dresses boys were quarrelling about her and she seemed to sandwich love affairs in with her lessons; she had fine taste in dressing, she could tie a bow, or trim a hat, or furbish up an evening waist in a manner that filled her comrades with envy, and she was a fairly good scholar as well.