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Title: The S. W. F. Club


Author: Caroline E. Jacobs

Release Date: April 6, 2005  [eBook #15562]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE S. W. F. CLUB***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



THE S. W. F. CLUB

by

CAROLINE E. JACOBS

Author of _Joan of Jupiter Inn_, _Joan's Jolly Vacation_,
_Patricia_, etc.

The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
Cleveland, Ohio
George W. Jacobs & Company

1912







CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I  PAULINE'S FLAG
   II  THE MAPLES
  III  UNCLE PAUL'S ANSWER
   IV  BEGINNINGS
    V  BEDELIA
   VI  PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
  VII  HILARY'S TURN
 VIII  SNAP-SHOTS
   IX  AT THE MANOR
    X  THE END OF SUMMER




CHAPTER I

PAULINE'S FLAG

Pauline dropped the napkin she was hemming and, leaning back in her
chair, stared soberly down into the rain-swept garden.

Overhead, Patience was having a "clarin' up scrape" in her particular
corner of the big garret, to the tune of "There's a Good Time Coming."

Pauline drew a quick breath; probably, there was a good time
coming--any number of them--only they were not coming her way; they
would go right by on the main road, they always did.

"'There's a good time coming,'" Patience insisted shrilly, "'Help it
on!  Help it on!'"

Pauline drew another quick breath.  She would help them on!  If they
would none of them stop on their own account, they must be flagged.
And--yes, she would do it--right now.

Getting up, she brought her writing-portfolio from the closet, clearing
a place for it on the little table before the window.  Then her eyes
went back to the dreary, rain-soaked garden.  How did one begin a
letter to an uncle one had never seen; and of whom one meant to ask a
great favor?

But at last, after more than one false start, the letter got itself
written, after a fashion.

Pauline read it over to herself, a little dissatisfied pucker between
her brows:--


_Mr. Paul Almy Shaw,
  New York City, New York_.

MY DEAR UNCLE PAUL:  First, I should like you to understand that
neither father nor mother know that I am writing this letter to you;
and that if they did, I think they would forbid it; and I should like
you to believe, too, that if it were not for Hilary I should not dream
of writing it.  You know so little about us, that perhaps you do not
remember which of us Hilary is.  She comes next to me, and is just
thirteen.  She hasn't been well for a long time, not since she had to
leave school last winter, and the doctor says that what she needs is a
thorough change.  Mother and I have talked it over and over, but we
simply can't manage it.  I would try to earn some money, but I haven't
a single accomplishment; besides I don't see how I could leave home,
and anyway it would take so long, and Hilary needs a change now.  And
so I am writing to ask you to please help us out a little.  I do hope
you won't be angry at my asking; and I hope very, very much, that you
will answer favorably.

    I remain,
        Very respectfully,
            PAULINE ALMY SHAW.
WINTON, VT., May Sixteenth.


Pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an
envelope and addressed it.  It wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it
would serve her purpose.

Tucking the letter into her blouse, Pauline ran down-stairs to the
sitting-room, where her mother and Hilary were.  "I'm going down to the
post-office, mother," she said; "any errands?"

"My dear, in this rain?"

"There won't be any mail for us, Paul," Hilary said, glancing
listlessly up from the book she was trying to read; "you'll only get
all wet and uncomfortable for nothing."

Pauline's gray eyes were dancing; "No," she agreed, "I don't suppose
there will be any mail for us--to-day; but I want a walk.  It won't
hurt me, mother.  I love to be out in the rain."

And all the way down the slippery village street the girl's eyes
continued to dance with excitement.  It was so much to have actually
started her ball rolling; and, at the moment, it seemed that Uncle Paul
must send it bounding back in the promptest and most delightful of
letters.  He had never married, and somewhere down at the bottom of his
apparently crusty, old heart he must have kept a soft spot for the
children of his only brother.

Thus Pauline's imagination ran on, until near the post-office she met
her father.  The whole family had just finished a tour of the West in
Mr. Paul Shaw's private car--of course, he must have a private car,
wasn't he a big railroad man?--and Pauline had come back to Winton long
enough to gather up her skirts a little more firmly when she saw Mr.
Shaw struggling up the hill against the wind.

"Pauline!" he stopped, straightening his tall, scholarly figure.  "What
brought you out in such a storm?"

With a sudden feeling of uneasiness, Pauline wondered what he would say
if she were to explain exactly what it was that had brought her out.
With an impulse towards at least a half-confession, she said hurriedly,
"I wanted to post a letter I'd just written; I'll be home almost as
soon as you are, father."

Then she ran on down the street.  All at once she felt her courage
weakening; unless she got her letter posted immediately she felt she
should end by tearing it up.

When it had slipped from her sight through the narrow slit labeled
"LETTERS," she stood a moment, almost wishing it were possible to get
it back again.

She went home rather slowly.  Should she confess at once, or wait until
Uncle Paul's answer came?  It should be here inside of a week, surely;
and if it were favorable--and, oh, it must be favorable--would not that
in itself seem to justify her in what she had done?

On the front piazza, Patience was waiting for her, a look of mischief
in her blue eyes.  Patience was ten, a red-haired, freckled slip of a
girl.  She danced about Pauline now.  "Why didn't you tell me you were
going out so I could've gone, too?  And what have you been up to, Paul
Shaw?  Something!  You needn't tell me you haven't."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Pauline answered, going on into
the house.  The study door was half open, and when she had taken off
her things, Pauline stood a moment a little uncertainly outside it.
Then suddenly, much to her small sister's disgust, she went in, closing
the door behind her.

Mr. Shaw was leaning back in his big chair at one corner of the
fireplace.  "Well," he asked, looking up, "did you get your letter in
in time, my dear?"

"Oh, it wasn't the time."  Pauline sat down on a low bench at the other
end of the fireplace.  "It was that I wanted to feel that it was really
mailed.  Did you ever feel that way about a letter, father?  And as if,
if you didn't hurry and get it in--you wouldn't--mail it?"

Something in her tone made her father glance at her more closely; it
was very like the tone in which Patience was apt to make her rather
numerous confessions.  Then it occurred to him, that, whether by
accident or design, she was sitting on the very stool on which Patience
usually placed herself at such times, and which had gained thereby the
name of "the stool of penitence."

"Yes," he answered, "I have written such letters once or twice in my
life."

Pauline stooped to straighten out the hearth rug.  "Father," she said
abruptly; "I have been writing to Uncle Paul."  She drew a sharp breath
of relief.

"You have been writing to your Uncle Paul!  About what, Pauline?"

And Pauline told him.  When she had finished, Mr. Shaw sat for some
moments without speaking, his eyes on the fire.

"It didn't seem very--wrong, at the time," Pauline ventured.  "I had to
do something for Hilary."

"Why did you not consult your mother, or myself, before taking such a
step, Pauline?"

"I was afraid--if I did--that you would--forbid it; and I was so
anxious to do something.  It's nearly a month now since Dr. Brice said
Hilary must have a change.  We used to have such good times
together--Hilary and I--but we never have fun anymore--she doesn't care
about anything; and to-day it seemed as if I couldn't bear it any
longer, so I wrote.  I--I am sorry, if you're displeased with me,
father, and yet, if Uncle Paul writes back favorably, I'm afraid I
can't help being glad I wrote."

Mr. Shaw rose, lighting the low reading-lamp, standing on the study
table.  "You are frank enough after the event, at least, Pauline.  To
be equally so, I am displeased; displeased and exceedingly annoyed.
However, we will let the matter rest where it is until you have heard
from your uncle, I should advise your saying nothing to your sisters
until his reply comes.  I am afraid you will find it disappointing."

Pauline flushed.  "I never intended telling Hilary anything about it
unless I had good news for her; as for Patience--"

Out in the hall again, with the study door closed behind her, Pauline
stood a moment choking back a sudden lump in her throat.  Would Uncle
Paul treat her letter as a mere piece of school-girl impertinence, as
father seemed to?

From the sitting-room came an impatient summons.  "Paul, will you never
come!"

"What is it, Hilary?" Pauline asked, coming to sit at one end of the
old sofa.

"That's what I want to know," Hilary answered from the other end.
"Impatience says you've been writing all sorts of mysterious letters
this afternoon, and that you came home just now looking like---"

"Well, like what?"

"Like you'd been up to something--and weren't quite sure how the
grown-ups were going to take it," Patience explained from the rug
before the fire.

"How do you know I have been writing--anything?" Pauline asked.

"There, you see!"  Patience turned to Hilary, "she doesn't deny it!"

"I'm not taking the trouble to deny or confirm little girl nonsense,"
Pauline declared.  "But what makes you think I've been writing letters?"

"Oh, 'by the pricking of my thumbs'!"  Patience rolled over, and
resting her sharp little chin in her hands, stared up at her sisters
from under her mop of short red curls.  "Pen!  Ink!  Paper!  And such a
lot of torn-up scraps!  It's really very simple!"

But Pauline was on her way to the dining-room.  "Terribly convincing,
isn't it?"  Her tone should have squelched Patience, but it didn't.

"You can't fool me!" that young person retorted.  "I know you've been
up to something!  And I'm pretty sure father doesn't approve, from the
way you waited out there in the hall just now."

Pauline did not answer; she was busy laying the cloth for supper.
"Anything up, Paul?" Hilary urged, following her sister out to the
dining-room.

"The barometer--a very little; I shouldn't wonder if we had a clear day
to-morrow."

"You are as provoking as Impatience!  But I needn't have asked; nothing
worth while ever does happen to us."

"You know perfectly well, Pauline Almy Shaw!"  Patience proclaimed,
from the curtained archway between the rooms.  "You know perfectly
well, that the ev'dence against you is most in-crim-i-na-ting!"
Patience delighted in big words.

"Hilary," Pauline broke in, "I forgot to tell you, I met Mrs. Dane this
morning; she wants us to get up a social--'If the young ladies at the
parsonage will,' and so forth."

"I hate socials!  Besides, there aren't any 'young ladies' at the
parsonage; or, at any rate, only one.  I shan't have to be a young lady
for two years yet."

"Most in-crim-i-na-ting!" Patience repeated insistently; "you wrote."

Pauline turned abruptly and going into the pantry began taking down the
cups and saucers for the table.  As soon as Hilary had gone back to the
sitting-room, she called softly, "Patty, O Patty!"

Patience grinned wickedly; she was seldom called Patty, least of all by
Pauline.  "Well?" she answered.

"Come here--please," and when Patience was safely inside the pantry,
Pauline shut the door gently--"Now see here, Impatience--"

"That isn't what you called me just now!"

"Patty then--Listen, suppose--suppose I have been--trying to do
something to--to help Hilary to get well; can't you see that I wouldn't
want her to know, until I was sure, really sure, it was going to come
to something?"

Patience gave a little jump of excitement.  "How jolly!  But who have
you been writing to--about it, Paul!"

"I haven't said that--"

"See here, Paul, I'll play fair, if you do; but if you go trying to act
any 'grown-up sister' business I'll--"

And Pauline capitulated.  "I can't tell you about it yet, Patty; father
said not to.  I want you to promise not to ask questions, or say
anything about it, before Hilary.  We don't want her to get all worked
up, thinking something nice is going to happen, and then maybe have her
disappointed."

"Will it be nice--very nice?"

"I hope so."

"And will I be in it?"

"I don't know.  I don't know what it'll be, or when it'll be."

"Oh, dear!  I wish you did.  I can't think who it is you wrote to,
Paul.  And why didn't father like your doing it?"

"I haven't said that he--"

"Paul, you're very tiresome.  Didn't he know you were going to do it?"

Pauline gathered up her cups and saucers without answering.

"Then he didn't," Patience observed.  "Does mother know about it?"

"I mean to tell her as soon as I get a good chance," Pauline said
impatiently, going back to the dining-room.

When she returned a few moments later, she found Patience still in the
pantry, sitting thoughtfully on the old, blue sugar bucket.  "I know,"
Patience announced triumphantly.  "You've been writing to Uncle Paul!"

Pauline gasped and fled to the kitchen; there were times when flight
was the better part of discretion, in dealing with the youngest member
of the Shaw family.

On the whole, Patience behaved very well that evening, only, on going
to bid her father good-night, did she ask anxiously, how long it took
to send a letter to New York and get an answer.

"That depends considerably upon the promptness with which the party
written to answers the letter," Mr. Shaw told her.

"A week?" Patience questioned.

"Probably--if not longer."

Patience sighed.

"Have _you_ been writing a letter to someone in New York?" her father
asked.

"No, indeed," the child said gravely, "but," she looked up, answering
his glance.  "Paul didn't tell me, father; I--guessed.  Uncle Paul does
live in New York, doesn't he?"

"Yes," Mr. Shaw answered, almost sharply.  "Now run to bed, my dear."

But when the stairs were reached.  Patience most certainly did not run.
"I think people are very queer," she said to herself, "they seem to
think _ten_ years isn't a bit more grown-up than six or seven."

"Mummy," she asked, when later her mother came to take away her light,
"father and Uncle Paul are brethren, aren't they?"

"My dear!  What put that into your head?"

"Aren't they?"

"Certainly, dear."

"Then why don't they 'dwell together in unity'?"

"Patience!"  Mrs. Shaw stared down at the sharp inquisitive little face.

"Why don't they?" Patience persisted.  If persistency be a virtue,
Patience was to be highly commended.

"My dear, who has said that they do not?"

Patience shrugged; as if things had always to be said.  "But, mummy--"

"Go to sleep now, dear."  Mrs. Shaw bent to kiss her good-night.

"All the same," Patience confided to the darkness, "I know they don't."
She gave a little shiver of delight--something very mysterious was
afoot evidently.

Out on the landing, Mrs. Shaw found Pauline waiting for her.  "Come
into your room, mother, please, I've started up the fire; I want to
tell you something."

"I thought as much," her mother answered.  She sat down in the big
armchair and Pauline drew up before the fire.  "I've been expecting it
all the evening."

Pauline dropped down on the floor, her head against her mother's knee.
"This family is dreadfully keen-sighted.  Mother dear, please don't be
angry--" and Pauline made confession.

When she had finished, Mrs. Shaw sat for some moments, as her husband
had done, her eyes on the fire.  "You told him that we could not manage
it, Pauline?" she said at last.  "My dear, how could you!"

"But, mother dear, I was--desperate; something has to be done
for--Hilary, and I had to do it!"

"Do you suppose your father and I do not realize that quite as well as
you do, Pauline?"

"You and I have talked it over and over, and father never
says--anything."

"Not to you, perhaps; but he is giving the matter very careful
consideration, and later he hopes--"

"Mother dear, that is so indefinite!" Pauline broke in.  "And I can't
see--Father is Uncle Paul's only brother!  If I were rich, and Hilary
were not and needed things, I would want her to let me know."

"It is possible, that under certain conditions, Hilary would not wish
you to know."  Mrs. Shaw hesitated, then she said slowly, "You know,
Pauline, that your uncle is much older than your father; so much older,
that he seemed to stand--when your father was a boy--more in the light
of a father to him, than an older brother.  He was much opposed to your
father's going into the ministry, he wanted him to go into business
with him.  He is a strong-willed man, and does not easily relinquish
any plan of his own making.  It went hard with him, when your father
refused to yield; later, when your father received the call to this
parish, your uncle quite as strongly opposed his accepting it--burying
himself alive in a little out-of-the-way hole, he called it.  It came
to the point, finally, on your uncle's insisting on his making it a
choice between himself and Winton.  He refused to ever come near the
place and the two or three letters your father wrote at first remained
unanswered.  The breach between them has been one of the hardest trials
your father has had to bear."

"Oh," Pauline cried miserably, "what a horrid interfering thing father
must think me!  Rushing in where I had no right to!  I wish I'd
known--I just thought--you see, father speaks of Uncle Paul now and
then--that maybe they'd only--grown apart--and that if Uncle Paul knew!
But perhaps my letter will get lost.  It would serve me right; and yet,
if it does, I'm afraid I can't help feeling somewhat disappointed--on
Hilary's account."

Her mother smiled.  "We can only wait and see.  I would rather you said
nothing of what I have been telling you to either Hilary or Patience,
Pauline."

"I won't, Mother Shaw.  It seems I have a lot of secrets from Hilary.
And I won't write any more such letters without consulting you or
father, you can depend on that."

Mr. Paul Shaw's answer did not come within the allotted week.  It was
the longest week Pauline had ever known; and when the second went by
and still no word from her uncle, the waiting and uncertainty became
very hard to bear, all the harder, that her usual confidant, Hilary,
must not be allowed to suspect anything.

The weather had turned suddenly warm, and Hilary's listlessness had
increased proportionately, which probably accounted for the dying out
of what little interest she had felt at first in Patience's "mysterious
letter."

Patience, herself, was doing her best to play fair; fortunately, she
was in school the greater part of the day, else the strain upon her
powers of self-control might have proved too heavy.

"Mother," Pauline said one evening, lingering in her mother's room,
after Hilary had gone to bed, "I don't believe Uncle Paul means
answering at all.  I wish I'd never asked him to do anything."

"So do I, Pauline.  Still it is rather early yet for you to give up
hope.  It's hard waiting, I know, dear, but that is something we all
have to learn to do, sooner or later."

"I don't think 'no news is good news,'" Pauline said; then she
brightened.  "Oh, Mother Shaw!  Suppose the letter is on the way now,
and that Hilary is to have a sea voyage!  You'd have to go, too."

"Pauline, Pauline, not so fast!  Listen, dear, we might send Hilary out
to The Maples for a week or two.  Mrs. Boyd would be delighted to have
her; and it wouldn't be too far away, in case we should be getting her
ready for that--sea voyage."

"I don't believe she'd care to go; it's quieter than here at home."

"But it would be a change.  I believe I'll suggest it to her in the
morning."

But when Mrs. Shaw did suggest it the next morning, Hilary was quite of
Pauline's opinion.  "I shouldn't like it a bit, mother!  It would be
worse than home--duller, I mean; and Mrs. Boyd would fuss over me so,"
she said impatiently.

"You used to like going there, Hilary."

"Mother, you can't want me to go."

"I think it might do you good, Hilary.  I should like you to try it."

"Please, mother, I don't see the use of bothering with little half-way
things."

"I do, Hilary, when they are the only ones within reach."

The girl moved restlessly, settling her hammock cushions; then she lay
looking out over the sunny garden with discontented eyes.

It was a large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a
low hedge from the old ivy-covered church.  On the back steps of the
church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster.  She was old and
gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had
succeeded her father, were her great delight.  The will with which she
sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the
girl stretched out idly in the hammock.  Nothing more than half-way
things, and not too many of those, had ever come Sextoness Jane's way.
Yet she was singing now over her work.

Hilary moved impatiently, turning her back on the garden and the bent
old figure moving about in the church beyond; but, somehow, she
couldn't turn her back on what that bent old figure had suddenly come
to stand for.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat up, pushing herself slowly back and
forth.  "I wish Jane had chosen any other morning to clean the church
in, Mother Shaw!" she protested with spirit.

Her mother looked up from her mending.  "Why, dear?  It is her regular
day."

"Couldn't she do it, I wonder, on an irregular day!  Anyhow, if she
had, I shouldn't have to go to The Maples this afternoon.  Must I take
a trunk, mother?"

"Hilary!  But what has Jane to do with your going?"

"Pretty nearly everything, I reckon.  Must I, mother?"

"No, indeed, dear; and you are not to go at all, unless you can do it
willingly."

"Oh, I'm fairly resigned; don't press me too hard, Mother Shaw.  I
think I'll go tell Paul now."

"Well," Pauline said, "I'm glad you've decided to go, Hilary.  I--that
is, maybe it won't be for very long."




CHAPTER II

THE MAPLES

That afternoon Pauline drove Hilary out to the big, busy, pleasant
farm, called The Maples.

As they jogged slowly down the one principal street of the sleepy, old
town, Pauline tried to imagine that presently they would turn off down
the by-road, leading to the station.  Through the still air came the
sound of the afternoon train, panting and puffing to be off with as
much importance as the big train, which later, it would connect with
down at the junction.

"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you thinking about?"

Pauline slapped the reins lightly across old Fanny's plump sides.  "Oh,
different things--traveling for one."  Suppose Uncle Paul's letter
should come in this afternoon's mail!  That she would find it waiting
for her when she got home!

"So was I," Hilary said.  "I was wishing that you and I were going off
on that train, Paul."

"Where to?" Paul asked.  After all, it couldn't do any harm--Hilary
would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to
have some definite basis to build on later.

"Anywhere," Hilary answered.  "I would like to go to the seashore
somewhere; but most anywhere, where there were people and interesting
things to do and see, would do."

"Yes," Pauline agreed.

"There's Josie," Hilary said, and her sister drew rein, as a girl came
to the edge of the walk to speak to them.

"Going away?" she asked, catching sight of the valise.

"Only out to the Boyds'," Pauline told her, "to leave Hilary."

Josie shifted the strap of school-books under her arm impatiently.
"'Only!'" she repeated.  "Well, I just wish I was going, too; it's a
deal pleasanter out there, than in a stuffy school room these days."

"It's stupid--and you both know it," Hilary protested.  She glanced
enviously at Josie's strap of hooks.  "And when school closes, you'll
be through for good, Josie Brice.  We shan't finish together, after
all, now."

"Oh, I'm not through yet," Josie assured her.  "Father'll be going out
past The Maples Saturday morning, I'll get him to take me along."

Hilary brightened.  "Don't forget," she urged, and as she and Pauline
drove on, she added, "I suppose I can stick it out for a week."

"Well, I should think as much.  _Will_ you go on, Fanny!"  Pauline
slapped the dignified, complacent Fanny with rather more severity than
before.  "She's one great mass of laziness," she declared.  "Father's
spoiled her a great deal more than he ever has any of us."

It was a three-mile drive from the village to The Maples, through
pleasant winding roads, hardly deserving of a more important title than
lane.  Now and then, from the top of a low hill, they caught a glimpse
of the great lake beyond, shining in the afternoon sunlight, a little
ruffled by the light breeze sweeping down to it from the mountains
bordering it on the further side.

Hilary leaned back in the wide shaded gig; she looked tired, and yet
the new touch of color in her cheeks was not altogether due to
weariness.  "The ride's done you good," Pauline said.

"I wonder what there'll be for supper," Hilary remarked.  "You'll stay,
Paul?"

"If you promise to eat a good one."  It was comforting to have Hilary
actually wondering what they would have.

They had reached the broad avenue of maples leading from the road up to
the house.  It was a long, low, weather-stained house, breathing an
unmistakable air of generous and warm-hearted hospitality.  Pauline
never came to it, without a sense of pity for the kindly elderly
couple, who were so fond of young folks, and who had none of their own.

Mrs. Boyd had seen them coming, and she came out to meet them, as they
turned into the dooryard.  And an old dog, sunning himself on the
doorstep, rose with a slow wag of welcome.

"Mother's sent you something she was sure you would like to have,"
Pauline said.  "Please, will you take in a visitor for a few days?" she
added, laying a hand on Hilary's.

"You've brought Hilary out to stop?" Mrs. Boyd cried delightedly.  "Now
I call that mighty good of your mother.  You come right 'long in, both
of you: you're sure you can't stop, too, Pauline?"

"Only to supper, thank you."

Mrs. Boyd had the big valise out from under the seat by now.  "Come
right 'long in," she repeated.  "You're tired, aren't you, Hilary?  But
a good night's rest'll set you up wonderful.  Take her into the spare
room, Pauline.  Dear me, I must have felt you was coming, seeing that I
aired it out beautiful only this morning.  I'll go call Mr. Boyd to
take Fanny to the barn."

"Isn't she the dearest thing!" Pauline declared, as she and Hilary went
indoors.

The spare room was back of the parlor, a large comfortable room, with
broad windows facing south and west, and a small vine-covered porch all
its own on the south side of the room.

Pauline pulled forward a great chintz-cushioned rocker, putting her
sister into it, and opened the porch door.  Beyond lay a wide, sloping
meadow and beyond the meadow, the lake sparkled and rippled in the
sunshine.

"If you're not contented here, Hilary Shaw!" Pauline said, standing in
the low doorway.  "Suppose you pretend you've never been here before!
I reckon you'd travel a long ways to find a nicer place to stay in."

"I shouldn't doubt it if you were going to stay with me, Paul; I know
I'm going to be homesick."

Pauline stretched out a hand to Captain, the old dog, who had come
around to pay his compliments.  Captain liked visitors--when he was
convinced that they really were visitors, not peddlers, nor agents,
quite as well as his master and mistress did.  "You'd be homesick
enough, if you really were off on your travels--you'd better get used
to it.  Hadn't she, Captain?"  Pauline went to unpack the valise,
opening the drawers of the old-fashioned mahogany bureau with a little
breath of pleasure.  "Lavender!  Hilary."

Hilary smiled, catching some of her sister's enthusiasm.  She leaned
back among her cushions, her eyes on the stretch of shining water at
the far end of the pasture.  "I wish you were going to be here, Paul,
so that we could go rowing.  I wonder if I'll ever feel as if I could
row again, myself."

"Of course you will, and a great deal sooner than you think."  Pauline
hung Hilary's dressing-gown across the foot of the high double bed.
"Now I think you're all settled, ma'am, and I hope to your
satisfaction.  Isn't it a veritable 'chamber of peace,' Hilary?"

Through the open door and windows came the distant tinkle of a cow
bell, and other farm sounds.  There came, too, the scent of the early
May pinks growing in the borders of Mrs. Boyd's old-fashioned flower
beds.  Already the peace and quiet of the house, the homely comfort,
had done Hilary good; the thought of the long simple days to come, were
not so depressing as they had seemed when thought of that morning.

"Bless me, I'd forgotten, but I've a bit of news for you," Mrs. Boyd
said, coming in, a moment or so later; "the manor's taken for the
summer."

"Really?" Pauline cried, "why it's been empty for ever and ever so
long."

The manor was an old rambling stone house, standing a little back from
a bit of sandy beach, that jutted out into the lake about a mile from
The Maples.  It was a pleasant place, with a tiny grove of its own, and
good-sized garden, which, year after year, in spite of neglect, was
bright with old-fashioned hardy annuals planted long ago, when the
manor had been something more than an old neglected house, at the mercy
of a chance tenant.

"Just a father and daughter.  They've got old Betsy Todd to look after
them," Mrs. Boyd went on.  "The girl's about your age, Hilary.  You
wasn't looking to find company of that sort so near, was you?"

Hilary looked interested.  "No," she answered.  "But, after all, the
manor's a mile away."

"Oh, she's back and forth every day--for milk, or one thing or another;
she's terribly interested in the farm; father's taken a great notion to
her.  She'll be over after supper, you'll see; and then I'll make you
acquainted with her."

"Are they city people?" Pauline asked.

"From New York!" Mrs. Boyd told her proudly.  From her air one would
have supposed she had planned the whole affair expressly for Hilary's
benefit.  "Their name's Dayre."

"What is the girl's first name?" Pauline questioned.

"Shirley; it's a queer name for a girl, to my thinking."

"Is she pretty?" Pauline went on.

"Not according to my notions; father says she is.  She's thin and dark,
and I never did see such a mane of hair--and it ain't always too tidy,
neither--but she has got nice eyes and a nice friendly way of talking.
Looks to me, like she hasn't been brought up by a woman."

"She sounds--interesting," Pauline said, and when Mrs. Boyd had left
them, to make a few changes in her supper arrangements, Pauline turned
eagerly to Hilary.  "You're in luck, Hilary Shaw!  The newest kind of
new people; even if it isn't a new place!"

"How do you know they'll, or rather, she'll, want to know me?" Hilary
asked, with one of those sudden changes of mood an invalid often shows,
"or I her?  We haven't seen her yet.  Paul, do you suppose Mrs. Boyd
would mind letting me have supper in here?"

"Oh, Hilary, she's laid the table in the living-room!  I heard her
doing it.  She'd be ever so disappointed."

"Well," Hilary said, "come on then."

Out in the living-room, they found Mr. Boyd waiting for them, and so
heartily glad to see them, that Hilary's momentary impatience vanished.
To Pauline's delight, she really brought quite an appetite to her
supper.

"You should've come out here long ago, Hilary," Mr. Boyd told her, and
he insisted on her having a second helping of the creamed toast,
prepared especially in her honor.

Before supper was over.  Captain's deep-toned bark proclaimed a
newcomer, or newcomers, seeing that it was answered immediately by a
medley of shrill barks, in the midst of which a girl's voice sounded
authoritively--"Quiet, Phil!  Pat, I'm ashamed of you!  Pudgey, if
you're not good instantly, you shall stay at home to-morrow night!"

A moment later, the owner of the voice appeared at the porch door, "May
I come in, Mrs. Boyd?" she asked.

"Come right in, Miss Shirley.  I've a couple of young friends here, I
want you should get acquainted with," Mrs. Boyd cried.

"You ain't had your supper yet, have you, Miss Shirley?" Mr. Boyd asked.

"Father and I had tea out on the lake," Shirley answered, "but I'm
hungry enough again by now, for a slice of Mrs. Boyd's bread and
butter."

And presently, she was seated at the table, chatting away with Paul and
Hilary, as if they were old acquaintances, asking Mr. Boyd various
questions about farm matters and answering Mrs. Boyd's questions
regarding Betsy Todd and her doings, with the most delightful air of
good comradeship imaginable.

"Oh, me!"  Pauline pushed hack her chair regretfully, "I simply must
go, it'll be dark before I get home, as it is."

"I reckon it will, deary," Mrs. Boyd agreed, "so I won't urge you to
stay longer.  Father, you just whistle to Colin to bring Fanny 'round."

Hilary followed her sister into the bedroom.  "You'll be over soon,
Paul?"

Pauline, putting on her hat before the glass, turned quickly.  "As soon
as I can.  Hilary, don't you like her?"

Hilary balanced herself on the arm of the big, old-fashioned rocker.
"I think so.  Anyway, I love to watch her talk; she talks all over her
face."

They went out to the gig, where Mr. and Mrs. Boyd and Shirley were
standing.  Shirley was feeding Fanny with handfuls of fresh grass.
"Isn't she a fat old dear!" she said.

"She's a fat old poke!" Pauline returned.  "Mayn't I give you a lift?
I can go 'round by the manor road 's well as not."

Shirley accepted readily, settling herself in the gig, and balancing
her pail of milk on her knee carefully.

"Good-by," Pauline called.  "Mind, you're to be ever and ever so much
better, next time I come, Hilary."

"Your sister has been sick?" Shirley asked, her voice full of
sympathetic interest.

"Not sick--exactly; just run down and listless."

Shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear
evening air.  "I don't see how anyone can ever get run down--here, in
this air; I'm hardly indoors at all.  Father and I have our meals out
on the porch.  You ought to have seen Betsy Todd's face, the first time
I proposed it.  'Ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she
asked.

"Betsy Todd's a queer old thing," Pauline commented.  "Father has the
worst time, getting her to come to church."

"We were there last Sunday," Shirley said.  "I'm afraid we were rather
late; it's a pretty old church, isn't it?  I suppose you live in that
square white house next to it?"

"Yes," Pauline answered.  "Father came to Winton just after he was
married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere
else--that counted.  Any really big city, I mean.  We're dreadfully
tired of Winton--Hilary, especially."

"It's a mighty pretty place."

"I suppose so."  Pauline slapped old Fanny impatiently.  "Will you go
on!"

Fanny was making forward most reluctantly; the Boyd barn had been very
much to her liking.  Now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her
leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening
her pace involuntarily.

"Don't call them off, please!" Pauline begged Shirley.  "She isn't in
the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can
move."

"All the same, discipline must be maintained," Shirley insisted; and at
her command the dogs fell behind.

"Have you been here long?" Pauline asked.

"About two weeks.  We were going further up the lake--just on a
sketching trip,--and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it
looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back
from the next landing to see about it.  We took it at once and sent for
a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren't here yet."

Pauline looked her interest.  It seemed a very odd, attractive way of
doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand.
Suppose--when Uncle Paul's letter came--they could set off in such
fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt
like it.

"I can't think," Shirley went on, "how such a charming old place came
to be standing idle."

"Isn't it rather--run down?"

"Not enough to matter--really.  I want father to buy it, and do what is
needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking.  The sunsets
from that front lawn are gorgeous, don't you think so?"

"Yes," Pauline agreed, "I haven't been over there in two years.  We
used to have picnics near there."

"I hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me.  We
adore picnics; we've had several since we came--he and I and the dogs.
The dogs do love picnics so, too."

Pauline had given up wanting to hurry Fanny; what a lot she would have
to tell her mother when she got home.

She was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the
old manor house.  "There's father!" Shirley said, nodding to a figure
coming towards them across a field.  The dogs were off to meet him
directly, with shrill barks of pleasure.

"May I get down here, please?" Shirley asked.  "Thank you very much for
the lift; and I am so glad to have met you and your sister, Miss Shaw.
You'll both come and see me soon, won't you?"

"We'd love to," Pauline answered heartily; "'cross lots, it's not so
very far over here from the parsonage, and," she hesitated,
"you--you'll be seeing Hilary quite often, while she's at The Maples,
perhaps?"

"I hope so.  Father's on the lookout for a horse and rig for me, and
then she and I can have some drives together.  She will know where to
find the prettiest roads."

"Oh, she would enjoy that," Pauline said eagerly, and as she drove on,
she turned more than once to glance back at the tall, slender figure
crossing the field.  Shirley seemed to walk as if the mere act of
walking were in itself a pleasure.  Pauline thought she had never
before known anyone who appeared so alive from head to foot.

"Go 'long, Fanny!" she commanded; she was in a hurry to get home now,
with her burden of news.  It seemed to her as if she had been away a
long while, so much had happened in the meantime.

At the parsonage gate, Pauline found Patience waiting for her.  "You
have taken your time, Paul Shaw!" the child said, climbing in beside
her sister.

"Fanny's time, you mean!"

"It hasn't come yet!" Patience said protestingly.  "I went for the mail
myself this afternoon, so I know!"

"Oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," Pauline answered, with so little
of real concern in her voice, that Patience wondered.  "Suppose you
take Fanny on to the barn.  Mother's home, isn't she?"

Patience glanced at her sharply.  "You've got something--particular--to
tell mother!  O Paul, please wait 'til I come.  Is it about--"

"You're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day,
Impatience!" Pauline told her, getting down from the gig.

Patience sniffed.  "If nobody ever asked questions, nobody'd ever know
anything!" she declared.

"Is mother home?" Pauline asked again.

"Who's asking things now!"  Patience drew the reins up tightly and
bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply--"Hi yi!  Hi
yi!"

It was the one method that never failed to rouse Fanny's indignation,
producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as Pauline said,
it was hardly a proceeding that Hilary or she could adopt, or, least of
all, their father.

As she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of Fanny's
ears expressed injured dignity.  Dignity was Fanny's strong point;
that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any
other horse in Winton.  The small human being at the other end of those
taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards.

"Maybe you don't like it," Patience observed, "but that makes no
difference--'s long's it's for your good.  You're a very unchristiany
horse, Fanny Shaw.  And I'll 'hi yi' you every time I get a chance; so
now go on."

However Patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning
of Pauline's story of her afternoon's experience.  "I told you," she
broke in, "that I saw a nice girl at church last Sunday--in Mrs.
Dobson's pew; and Mrs. Dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of
her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was
saying; and Miranda says, ten to one.  Sally Dobson comes out in--"

"That will do, Patience," her mother said, "if you are going to
interrupt in this fashion, you must run away."

Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive.

"Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother?  Now she'll be contented to stay a
week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said.

"I hope so, dear.  Yes, it is very nice."

"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know."

"Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'"

"Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw.

"Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that
girl?"

"On whom, Patience?"

Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying
at times.  "On Paul's and Hilary's new friend, mummy."

"Not the first time, Patience; possibly later--"

Patience shrugged.  "By and by," she observed, addressing the room at
large, "when Paul and Hilary are married, I'll be Miss Shaw!  And
then--" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort.

"And maybe, Towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the
side porch, "maybe--some day--you and I'll go to call on them on our
own account.  I'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those
dogs--you lived here first, and I can't see why it isn't mine--to call
on that girl.  Father says, we should always hasten to welcome the
stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting."

Towser blinked a sleepy acquiescence.  In spite of his years, he still
followed blindly where Patience led, though the consequences were
frequently disastrous.

It was the next afternoon that Pauline, reading in the garden, heard an
eager little voice calling excitedly, "Paul, where are you!  It's come!
It's come!  I brought it up from the office myself!"

Pauline sprang up.  "Here I am, Patience!  Hurry!"

"Well, I like that!" Patience said, coming across the lawn.  "Hurry!
Haven't I run every inch of the way home!"  She waved the letter above
her head--"'Miss Pauline A.  Shaw!'  It's type-written!  O Paul, aren't
you going to read it out here!"

For Pauline, catching the letter from her, had run into the house,
crying--"Mother!  O Mother Shaw!"




CHAPTER III

UNCLE PAUL'S ANSWER

"Mother!  O mother, where are you!" Pauline cried, and on Mrs. Shaw's
answering from her own room, she ran on up-stairs.  "O Mother Shaw!
It's come at last!" she announced breathlessly.

"So I thought--when I heard Patience calling just now.  Pauline, dear,
try not to be too disappointed if--"

"You open it, mother--please!  Now it's really come, I'm--afraid to."
Pauline held out her letter.

"No, dear, it is addressed to you," Mrs. Shaw answered quietly.

And Pauline, a good deal sobered by the gravity with which her mother
had received the news, sat down on the wide window seat, near her
mother's chair, tearing open the envelope.  As she spread out the heavy
businesslike sheet of paper within, a small folded enclosure fell from
it into her lap.

"Oh, mother!" Pauline caught up the narrow blue slip.  She had never
received a check from anyone before.  "Mother! listen!" and she read
aloud, "'Pay to the order of Miss Pauline A. Shaw, the sum of
twenty-five dollars.'"

Twenty-five dollars!  One ought to be able to do a good deal with
twenty-five dollars!

"Goodness me!" Patience exclaimed.  She had followed her sister
up-stairs, after a discreet interval, curling herself up unobtrusively
in a big chair just inside the doorway.  "Can you do what you like with
it, Paul?"

But Pauline was bending over the letter, a bright spot of color on each
cheek.  Presently, she handed it to her mother.  "I wish--I'd never
written to him!  Read it, mother!"

And Mrs. Shaw read, as follows--


          NEW YORK CITY, May 31, 19--.

_Miss Pauline A. Shaw,
  Winton, Vt._

MY DEAR NIECE: Yours of May 16th to hand.  I am sorry to learn that
your sister Hilary appears to be in such poor health at present.  Such
being the case, however, it would seem to me that home was the best
place for her.  I do not at all approve of this modern fashion of
running about the country, on any and every pretext.  Also, if I
remember correctly, your father has frequently described Winton to me
as a place of great natural charms, and peculiarly adapted to those
suffering from so-called nervous disorders.

Altogether, I do not feel inclined to comply with your request to make
it possible for your sister to leave home, in search of change and
recreation.  Instead, beginning with this letter, I will forward you
each month during the summer, the sum of twenty-five dollars, to be
used in procuring for your sisters and yourself--I understand, there is
a third child--such simple and healthful diversions as your parents may
approve, the only conditions I make, being, that at no time shall any
of your pleasure trips take you further than ten miles from home, and
that you keep me informed, from time to time, how this plan of mine is
succeeding.

Trusting this may prove satisfactory,

    Very respectfully,
        PAUL A. SHAW.


"What do you think, mother?" Pauline asked, as Mrs. Shaw finished
reading.  "Isn't it a very--queer sort of letter?"

"It is an extremely characteristic one, dear."

"I think," Patience could contain herself no longer, "that you are the
inconsideratest persons!  You know I'm perfectly wild to know what's in
that letter!"

"Run away now, Patience," her mother said.  "You shall hear about it
later," and when Patience had obeyed--not very willingly, Mrs. Shaw
turned again to Pauline.  "We must show this to your father, before
making any plans in regard to it, dear."

"He's coming now.  You show it to him, please, mother."

When her mother had gone down-stairs, Pauline still sat there in the
window seat, looking soberly out across the lawn to the village street,
with its double rows of tall, old trees.  So her flag had served little
purpose after all!  That change for Hilary was still as uncertain, as
much a vague part of the future, as it had ever been.

It seemed to the girl, at the moment, as if she fairly hated Winton.
As though Hilary and she did not already know every stick and stone in
it, had not long ago exhausted all its possibilities!

New people might think it "quaint" and "pretty" but they had not lived
here all their lives.  And, besides, she had expressly told Uncle Paul
that the doctor had said that Hilary needed a change.

She was still brooding over the downfall of her hopes, when her mother
called to her from the garden.  Pauline went down, feeling that it
mattered very little what her father's decision had been--it could make
so little difference to them, either way.

Mrs. Shaw was on the bench under the old elm, that stood midway between
parsonage and church.  She had been rereading Uncle Paul's letter, and
to Pauline's wonder, there was something like a smile of amusement in
her eyes.

"Well, mother?" the girl asked.

"Well, dear, your father and I have talked the matter over, and we have
decided to allow you to accept your uncle's offer."

"But that--hateful condition!  How is Hilary to get a chance--here in
Winton?"

"Who was it that I heard saying, only this morning, Pauline, that even
if Uncle Paul didn't agree, she really believed we might manage to have
a very pleasant summer here at home?"

"I know--but still, now that we know definitely--"

"We can go to work definitely to do even better."

"But how, mother!"

"That is what we must think over.  Suppose you put your wits to work
right now.  I must go down to Jane's for a few moments.  After all,
Pauline, those promised twenty-fives can be used very pleasantly--even
in Winton."

"But it will still be Winton."

"Winton may develop some unexplored corners, some new outlooks."

Pauline looked rather doubtful; then, catching sight of a small
dejected-looking little figure in the swing, under the big cherry-tree
at the foot of the lawn, she asked, "I suppose I may tell Patience now,
mother?  She really has been very good all this time of waiting."

"She certainly has.  Only, not too many details, Pauline.  Patience is
of such a confiding disposition."

"Patience," Pauline called, "suppose we go see if there aren't some
strawberries ripe?"

Patience ran off for a basket.  Strawberries!  As if she didn't know
they were only a pretext.  Grown people were assuredly very queer--but
sometimes, it was necessary to humor, their little whims and ways.

"I don't believe they are ripe yet," she said, skipping along beside
her sister.  "O Paul, is it--nice?"

"Mother thinks so!"

"Don't you?"

"Maybe I will--after a while.  Hilary isn't to go away."

"Is that what you wrote and asked Uncle Paul?  And didn't you ask for
us all to go?"

"Certainly not--we're not sick," said Pauline, laughing.

"Miranda says what Hilary needs is a good herb tonic!"

"Miranda doesn't know everything."

"What is Uncle Paul going to do then?"

"Send some money every month--to have good times with at home."

"One of those blue paper things?"

"I suppose so," Pauline laughed.

"And _you_ don't call that _nice_!  Well of all the ungratefullest
girls!  Is it for us _all_ to have good times with?  Or just Hilary?"

"All of us.  Of course, Hilary must come first."

Patience fairly jumped up and down with excitement.  "When will they
begin, and what will they be like?  O Paul, just think of the good
times we've had _without_ any money 't all!  Aren't we the luckiest
girls!"

They had reached the strawberry-bed and Patience dropped down in the
grass beside it, her hands clasped around her knees.  "Good times in
Winton will be a lot better than good times anywhere else.  Winton's
such a nice sociable place."

Pauline settled herself on the top rail of the fence bordering the
garden at the back.  Patience's enthusiasm was infectious.  "What sort
of good times do you mean?" she asked.

"Picnics!"

"We have such a lot of picnics--year after year!"

"A nice picnic is always sort of new.  Miranda does put up such
beautiful lunches.  O Paul, couldn't we afford chocolate layer cake
_every_ time, now?"

"You goosey!" Pauline laughed again heartily.

"And maybe there'll be an excursion somewhere's, and by'n'by there'll
be the town fair.  Paul, there's a ripe berry!  And another and--"

"See here, hold on, Impatience!" Pauline protested, as the berries
disappeared, one after another, down Patience's small throat.
"Perhaps, if you stop eating them all, we can get enough for mother's
and father's supper."

"Maybe they went and hurried to get ripe for to-night, so we could
celebrate," Patience suggested.  "Paul, mayn't I go with you next time
you go over to The Maples?"

"We'll see what mother says."

"I hate 'we'll see's'!" Patience declared, reaching so far over after a
particularly tempting berry, that she lost her balance, and fell face
down among them.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed, as her sister came to her assistance,
"something always seems to happen clean-apron afternoon!  Paul,
wouldn't it be a 'good time,' if Miranda would agree not to scold 'bout
perfectly unavoidable accidents once this whole summer?"

"Who's to do the deciding as to the unavoidableness?" Pauline asked.
"Come on, Patience, we've got about all the ripe ones, and it must be
time for you to lay the supper-table."

"Not laying supper-tables would be another good time," Patience
answered.  "We did get enough, didn't we?  I'll hull them."

"I wonder," Pauline said, more as if speaking to herself, "whether
maybe mother wouldn't think it good to have Jane in now and then--for
extra work?  Not supper-tables, young lady."

"Jane would love it.  She likes to work with Miranda--she says
Miranda's such a nice lady.  Do you think she is, Paul?"

"I'm thinking about other things just now."

"I  don't--There's  mother.  Goodness, Miranda's got the cloth on!"
And away sped the child.

To Patience's astonishment, nothing was said at supper, either of Uncle
Paul's letter, or the wonderful things it was to lead to.  Mr. Shaw
kept his wife engaged with parish subjects and Pauline appeared lost in
thoughts of her own.  Patience fidgeted as openly as she dared.  Of all
queer grown-ups--and it looked as though most grown-ups were more or
less queer--father was certainly the queerest.  Of course, he knew
about the letter; and how could he go on talking about stupid,
uninteresting matters--like the Ladies' Aid and the new hymn books?

Even the first strawberries of the season passed unnoticed, as far as
he was concerned, though Mrs. Shaw gave Patience a little smiling nod,
in recognition of them.

"Mother," Pauline exclaimed, the moment her father had gone back to his
study, "I've been thinking--Suppose we get Hilary to pretend--that
coming home is coming to a _new_ place?  That she is coming to visit
us?  We'll think up all the interesting things to do, that we can, and
the pretty places to show her."

"That would be a good plan, Pauline."

"And if she's company, she'll have to have the spare room," Patience
added.

"Jolly for you, Patience!" Pauline said.  "Only, mother, Hilary doesn't
like the spare room; she says it's the dreariest room in the house."

"If she's company, she'll have to pretend to like it, it wouldn't be
good manners not to," Patience observed.  The prospect opening out
ahead of them seemed full of delightful possibilities.  "I hope Miranda
catches on to the game, and gives us pound-cake and hot biscuits for
supper ever so often, and doesn't call me to do things, when I'm busy
entertaining 'the company.'"

"Mother," Pauline broke in--"do keep quiet.  Impatience--couldn't we do
the spare room over--there's that twenty-five dollars?  We've planned
it so often."

"We might make some alterations, dear--at least."

"We'll take stock the first thing to-morrow morning.  I suppose we
can't really start in before Monday."

"Hardly, seeing that it is Friday night."

They were still talking this new idea over, though Patience had been
sent to bed, when Mr. Shaw came in from a visit to a sick parishioner.
"We've got the most beautiful scheme on hand, father," Pauline told
him, wheeling forward his favorite chair.  She hoped he would sit down
and talk things over with them, instead of going on to the study; it
wouldn't be half as nice, if he stayed outside of everything.

"New schemes appear to be rampant these days," Mr. Shaw said, but he
settled himself comfortably in the big chair, quite as though he meant
to stay with them.  "What is this particular one?"

He listened, while Pauline explained, really listened, instead of
merely seeming to.  "It does appear an excellent idea," he said; "but
why should it be Hilary only, who is to try to see Winton with new eyes
this summer?  Suppose we were all to do so?"

Pauline clapped her hands softly.  "Then you'll help us?  And we'll all
pretend.  Maybe Uncle Paul's thought isn't such a bad one, after all."

"Paul always believed in developing the opportunities nearest hand,"
Mr. Shaw answered.  He stroked the head Towser laid against his knee.
"Your mother and I will be the gainers--if we keep all our girls at
home, and still achieve the desired end."

Pauline glanced up quickly.  How could she have thought him
unheeding--indifferent?

"Somehow, I think it will work out all right," she said.  "Anyhow,
we're going to try it, aren't we.  Mother Shaw?  Patience thinks it the
best idea ever, there'll be no urging needed there."

Pauline went up to bed that night feeling strangely happy.  For one
thing the uncertainty was over, and if they set to work to make this
summer full of interest, to break up the monotony and routine that
Hilary found so irksome, the result must be satisfactory.  And lastly,
there was the comforting conviction, that whatever displeasure her
father had felt at first, at her taking the law into her own hands in
such unforeseen fashion, had disappeared now; and he was not going to
stay "outside of things," that was sure.

The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Pauline ran up-stairs
to the spare room.  She threw open the shutters of the four windows,
letting in the fresh morning air.  The side windows faced west, and
looked out across the pleasant tree-shaded yard to the church; those at
the front faced south, overlooking the broad village street.

In the bright sunlight, the big square room stood forth in all its prim
orderliness.  "It is ugly," Pauline decided, shaking her head
disapprovingly, but it had possibilities.  No room, with four such
generous windows and--for the fire-board must come out--such a wide
deep fireplace, could be without them.

She turned, as her mother came in, duly attended by Patience.  "It is
hideous, isn't it, mother?  The paper, I mean--and the carpet isn't
much better.  It did very well, I suppose, for the visiting
ministers--probably they're too busy thinking over their sermons to
notice--but for Hilary--"

Mrs. Shaw smiled.  "Perhaps you are right, dear.  As to the
unattractiveness of the paper--"

"We must repaper--that's sure; plain green, with a little touch of
color in the border, and, oh, Mother Shaw, wouldn't a green and white
matting be lovely?"

"And expensive, Pauline."

"It wouldn't take all the twenty-five, I'm sure.  Miranda'll do the
papering, I know.  She did the study last year.  Mother, couldn't we
have Jane in for the washing and ironing this week, and let Miranda get
right at this room?  I'll help with the ironing, too."

"I suppose so, dear.  Miranda is rather fussy about letting other
people do her regular work, you know."

"I'll ask her."

"And remember, Pauline, each day is going to bring new demands--don't
put all your eggs into one basket."

"I won't.  We needn't spend anything on this room except for the paper
and matting."

Half an hour later, Pauline was on her way down to the village store
for samples of paper.  She had already settled the matter with Miranda,
over the wiping of the breakfast dishes.

Miranda had lived with the Shaws ever since Pauline was a baby, and was
a very important member of the family, both in her own and their
opinion.  She was tall and gaunt, and somewhat severe looking; however,
in her case, looks were deceptive.  It would never have occurred to
Miranda that the Shaws' interests were not her interests--she
considered herself an important factor in the upbringing of the three
young people.  If she had a favorite, it was probably Hilary.

"Hmn," she said, when Pauline broached the subject of the spare room,
"what put that notion in your head, I'd like to know!  That paper ain't
got a tear in it!"

So Pauline went further, telling her something of Uncle Paul's letter
and how they hoped to carry his suggestion out.

Miranda stood still, her hands in the dish water--"That's your pa's own
brother, ain't it?"

Pauline nodded.  "And Miranda--"

"I reckon he ain't much like the minister.  Well, me an' Sarah Jane
ain't the least bit alike--if we are sisters.  I guess I can manage
'bout the papering.  But it does go 'gainst me, having that sexton
woman in.  Still, I reckon you can't be content, 'till we get started.
Looking for the old gentleman up, later, be you?"

"For whom?" Pauline asked.

"Your pa's brother.  The minister's getting on, and the other one's
considerable older, I understand."

"I don't think he will be up," Pauline answered; she hadn't thought of
that before.  Suppose he should come!  She wondered what he would be
like.

Half way down the street, Pauline was overtaken by her younger sister.
"Are you going to get the new things now, Paul?" she asked eagerly.

"Of course not, just get some samples."

"There's always such a lot of getting ready first," Patience sighed.
"Paul, mother says I may go with you to-morrow afternoon."

"All right," Pauline agreed.  "Only, you've got to promise not to 'hi
yi' at Fanny all the way."

"I won't--all the way."

"And--Impatience?"

"Yes?"

"You needn't say what we want the new paper for, or anything about what
we are planning to do--in the store I mean."

"Mr. Ward would be mighty interested."

"I dare say."

"Miranda says you're beginning to put on considerable airs, since
you've been turning your hair up, Paul Shaw.  When I put my hair up,
I'm going on being just as nice and friendly with folks, as before,
you'll see."

Pauline laughed, which was not at all to Patience's liking.  "All the
same, mind what I say," she warned.

"Can I help choose?" Patience asked, as they reached the store.

"If you like."  Pauline went through to the little annex devoted to
wall papers and carpetings.  It was rather musty and dull in there,
Patience thought; she would have liked to make a slow round of the
whole store, exchanging greetings and various confidences with the
other occupants.  The store was a busy place on Saturday morning, and
Patience knew every man, woman and child in Winton.

They had got their samples and Pauline was lingering before a new line
of summer dressgoods just received, when the young fellow in charge of
the post-office and telegraph station called to her: "I say, Miss Shaw,
here's a message just come for you."

"For me--"  Pauline took it wonderingly.  Her hands were trembling, she
had never received a telegram before--Was Hilary?  Then she laughed at
herself.  To have sent a message, Mr. Boyd would have first been
obliged to come in to Winton.

Out on the sidewalk, she tore open the envelope, not heeding Patience's
curious demands.  It was from her uncle, and read--

"Have some one meet the afternoon train Saturday, am sending you an aid
towards your summer's outings."

"Oh," Pauline said, "do hurry, Patience.  I want to get home as fast as
I can."




CHAPTER IV

BEGINNINGS

Sunday afternoon, Pauline and Patience drove over to The Maples to see
Hilary.  They stopped, as they went by, at the postoffice for Pauline
to mail a letter to her uncle, which was something in the nature of a
very enthusiastic postscript to the one she had written him Friday
night, acknowledging and thanking him for his cheque, and telling him
of the plans already under discussion.

"And now," Patience said, as they turned out of the wide main street,
"we're really off.  I reckon Hilary'll be looking for us, don't you?"

"I presume she will," Pauline answered.

"Maybe she'll want to come back with us."

"Oh, I don't believe so.  She knows mother wants her to stay the week
out.  Listen, Patty--"

Patience sat up and took notice.  When people Pattied her, it generally
meant they had a favor to ask, or something of the sort.

"Remember, you're to be very careful not to let Hilary
suspect--anything."

"About the room and--?"

"I mean--everything."

"Won't she like it--all, when she does know?"

"Well, rather!"

Patience wriggled excitedly.  "It's like having a fairy godmother,
isn't it?  And three wishes?  If you'd had three wishes, Paul, wouldn't
you've chosen--"

"You'd better begin quieting down, Patience, or Hilary can't help
suspecting something."

Patience drew a long breath.  "If she knew--she wouldn't stay a single
day longer, would she?"

"That's one reason why she mustn't know."

"When will you tell her; or is mother going to?"

"I don't know yet.  See here, Patience, you may drive--if you won't hi
yi."

"Please, Paul, let me, when we get to the avenue.  It's stupid coming
to a place, like Fanny'd gone to sleep."

"Not before--and only once then," Pauline stipulated, and Patience
possessed her soul in at least a faint semblance of patience until they
turned into the avenue of maples.  Then she suddenly tightened her hold
on the reins, bounced excitedly up and down, crying sharply--"Hi yi!"

Fanny instantly pricked up her ears, and, what was more to the purpose,
actually started into what might almost have been called a trot.
"There! you see!" Patience said proudly, as they turned into the yard.

Hilary came down the porch steps.  "I heard Impatience urging her
Rosinante on," she laughed.  "Why didn't you let her drive all the way,
Paul?  I've been watching for you since dinner."

"We've been pretty nearly since dinner getting here, it seems to me,"
Patience declared.  "We had to wait for Paul to write a letter first
to--"

"Are you alone?" Pauline broke in hurriedly, asking the first question
that came into her mind.

Hilary smiled ruefully.  "Not exactly.  Mr. Boyd's asleep in the
sitting-room, and Mrs. Boyd's taking a nap up-stairs in her own room."

"You poor child!" Pauline said.  "Jump out, Patience!"

"_Have_ you brought me something to read?  I've finished both the books
I brought with me, and gone through a lot of magazines--queer old
things, that Mrs. Boyd took years and years ago."

"Then you've done very wrong," Pauline told her severely, leading Fanny
over to a shady spot at one side of the yard and tying her to the
fence--a quite unnecessary act, as nothing would have induced Fanny to
take her departure unsolicited.

"Guess!"  Pauline came back, carrying a small paper-covered parcel.
"Father sent it to you.  He was over at Vergennes yesterday."

"Oh!" Hilary cried, taking it eagerly and sitting down on the steps.
"It's a book, of course."  Even more than her sisters, she had
inherited her father's love of books, and a new book was an event at
the parsonage.  "Oh," she cried again, taking off the paper and
disclosing the pretty tartan cover within, "O Paul!  It's 'Penelope's
Progress.'  Don't you remember those bits we read in those odd
magazines Josie lent us?  And how we wanted to read it all?"

Pauline nodded.  "I reckon mother told father about it; I saw her
following him out to the gig yesterday morning."

They went around to the little porch leading from Hilary's room, always
a pleasant spot in the afternoons.

"Why," Patience exclaimed, "it's like an out-door parlor, isn't it?"

There was a big braided mat on the floor of the porch, its colors
rather faded by time and use, but looking none the worse for that, a
couple of rockers, a low stool, and a small table, covered with a bit
of bright cretonne.  On it stood a blue and white pitcher filled with
field flowers, beside it lay one or two magazines.  Just outside,
extending from one of the porch posts to the limb of an old cherry
tree, hung Hilary's hammock, gay with cushions.

"Shirley did it yesterday afternoon," Hilary explained.  "She was over
here a good while.  Mrs. Boyd let us have the things and the chintz for
the cushions, Shirley made them, and we filled them with hay."

Pauline, sitting on the edge of the low porch, looked about her with
appreciative eyes.  "How pleasant and cozy it is, and after all, it
only took a little time and trouble."

Hilary laid her new book on the table.  "How soon do you suppose we can
go over to the manor, Paul?  I imagine the Dayres have fixed it up
mighty pretty.  Mr. Dayre was over here, last night.  He and Shirley
are ever so--chummy.  He's Shirley Putnam Dayre, and she's Shirley
Putnam Dayre, Junior.  So he calls her 'Junior' and she calls him
'Senior.'  They're just like brother and sister.  He's an artist,
they've been everywhere together.  And, Paul, they think Winton is
delightful.  Mr. Dayre says the village street, with its great
overhanging trees, and old-fashioned houses, is a picture in itself,
particularly up at our end, with the church, all ivy-covered.  He means
to paint the church sometime this summer."

"It would make a pretty picture," Pauline said thoughtfully.  "Hilary,
I wonder--"

"So do I," Hilary said.  "Still, after all, one would like to see
different places--"

"And love only one," Pauline added; she turned to her sister.  "You are
better, aren't you--already?"

"I surely am.  Shirley's promised to take me out on the lake soon.
She's going to be friends with us, Paul--really friends.  She says we
must call her 'Shirley,' that she doesn't like 'Miss Dayre,' she hears
it so seldom."

"I think it's nice--being called 'Miss,'" Patience remarked, from where
she had curled herself up in the hammock.  "I suppose she doesn't want
it, because she can have it--I'd love to be called 'Miss Shaw.'"

"Hilary," Pauline said, "would you mind very much, if you couldn't go
away this summer?"

"It wouldn't do much good if I did, would it?"

"The not minding would--to mother and the rest of us--"

"And if you knew what--" Patience began excitedly.

"Don't you want to go find Captain, Impatience?" Pauline asked hastily,
and Patience, feeling that she had made a false move, went with most
unusual meekness.

"Know what?" Hilary asked.

"I--shouldn't wonder, if the child had some sort of scheme on hand,"
Pauline said, she hoped she wasn't--prevaricating; after all, Patience
probably did have some scheme in her head--she usually had.

"I haven't thought much about going away the last day or so," Hilary
said.  "I suppose it's the feeling better, and, then, the getting to
know Shirley."

"I'm glad of that."  Pauline sat silent for some moments; she was
watching a fat bumble bee buzzing in and out among the flowers in the
garden.  It was always still, over here at the farm, but to-day, it
seemed a different sort of stillness, as if bees and birds and flowers
knew that it was Sunday afternoon.

"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you smiling to yourself about?"

"Was I smiling?  I didn't know it.  I guess because it is so nice and
peaceful here and because--Hilary, let's start a club--the 'S. W. F.
Club.'"

"The what?"

"The 'S. W. F. Club.'  No, I shan't tell you what the letters stand
for!  You've got to think it out for yourself."

"A real club, Paul?"

"Indeed, yes."

"Who's to belong?"

"Oh, lots of folks.  Josie and Tom, and you and I--and I think, maybe,
mother and father."

"Father!  To belong to a club!"

"It was he who put the idea into my head."

Hilary came to sit beside her sister on the step.  "Paul, I've a
feeling that there is something--up!  And it isn't the barometer!"

"Where did you get it?"

"From you."

Pauline sprang up.  "Feelings are very unreliable things to go by, but
I've one just now--that if we don't hunt Impatience up pretty
quick--there will be something doing."

They found Patience sitting on the barn floor, utterly regardless of
her white frock.  A whole family of kittens were about her.

"Aren't they dears!" Patience demanded.

"Mrs. Boyd says I may have my choice, to take home with me," Hilary
said.  The parsonage cat had died the fall before, and had had no
successor as yet.

Patience held up a small coal-black one.  "Choose this, Hilary!
Miranda says a black cat brings luck, though it don't look like we
needed any black cats to bring--"

"I like the black and white one," Pauline interposed, just touching
Patience with the tip of her shoe.

"Maybe Mrs. Boyd would give us each one, that would leave one for her,"
Patience suggested cheerfully.

"I imagine mother would have something to say to that," Pauline told
her.  "Was Josie over yesterday, Hilary?"

Hilary nodded.  "In the morning."

As they were going back to the house, they met Mr. Boyd, on his way to
pay his regular weekly visit to the far pasture.

"Going to salt the colts?" Patience asked.  "Please, mayn't I come?"

"There won't be time, Patience," Pauline said.

"Not time!" Mr. Boyd objected, "I'll be back to supper, and you girls
are going to stay to supper."  He carried Patience off with him,
declaring that he wasn't sure he should let her go home at all, he
meant to keep her altogether some day, and why not to-night?

"Oh, I couldn't stay to-night," the child assured him earnestly.  "Of
course, I couldn't ever stay for always, but by'n'by, when--there isn't
so much going on at home--there's such a lot of things keep happening
at home now, only don't tell Hilary, please--maybe, I could come make
you a truly visit."

Indoors, Pauline and Hilary found Mrs. Boyd down-stairs again from her
nap.  "You ain't come after Hilary?" she questioned anxiously.

"Only to see her," Pauline answered, and while she helped Mrs. Boyd get
supper, she confided to her the story of Uncle Paul's letter and the
plans already under way.

Mrs. Boyd was much interested.  "Bless me, it'll do her a heap of good,
you'll see, my dear.  I'm not sure, I don't agree with your uncle, when
all's said and done, home's the best place for young folks."

Just before Pauline and Patience went home that evening, Mrs. Boyd
beckoned Pauline mysteriously into the best parlor.  "I always meant
her to have them some day--she being my god-child--and maybe they'll do
her as much good now, as any time, she'll want to fix up a bit now and
then, most likely.  Shirley had on a string of them last night, but not
to compare with these."  Mrs. Boyd was kneeling before a trunk in the
parlor closet, and presently she put a little square shell box into
Pauline's bands.  "Box and all, just like they came to me--you know,
they were my grandmother's--but Hilary's a real careful sort of girl."

"But, Mrs. Boyd--I'm not sure that mother would--"  Pauline knew quite
well what was in the box.

"That's all right!  You just slip them in Hilary's top drawer, where
she'll come across them without expecting it.  Deary me, I never wear
them, and as I say, I've always meant to give them to her some day."

"She'll be perfectly delighted--and they'll look so pretty.  Hilary's
got a mighty pretty neck, I think."  Pauline went out to the gig, the
little box hidden carefully in her blouse, feeling that Patience was
right and that these were very fairy-story sort of days.

"You'll be over again soon, won't you?" Hilary urged.

"We're going to be tre-men-dous-ly busy," Patience began, but her
sister cut her short.

"As soon as I can, Hilary.  Mind you go on getting better."


By Monday noon, the spare room had lost its look of prim order.  In the
afternoon, Pauline and her mother went down to the store to buy the
matting.  There was not much choice to be had, and the only green and
white there was, was considerably beyond the limit they had allowed
themselves.

"Never mind," Pauline said cheerfully, "plain white will look ever so
cool and pretty--perhaps, the green would fade.  I'm going to believe
so."

Over a low wicker sewing-chair, she did linger longingly; it would look
so nice beside one of the west windows.  She meant to place a low table
for books and work between those side windows.  In the end, prudence
won the day, and surely, the new paper and matting were enough to be
grateful for in themselves.

By the next afternoon the paper was on and the matting down.  Pauline
was up garret rummaging, when she heard someone calling her from the
foot of the stairs.  "I'm here, Josie," she called back, and her friend
came running up.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Pauline held up an armful of old-fashioned chintz.

"Oh, how pretty!" Josie exclaimed.  "It makes one think of high-waisted
dresses, and minuets and things like that."

Pauline laughed.  "They were my great-grandmother's bed curtains."

"Goodness!  What are you going to do with them?"

"I'm not sure mother will let me do anything.  I came across them just
now in looking for some green silk she said I might have to cover
Hilary's pin-cushion with."

"For the new room?  Patience has been doing the honors of the new paper
and matting--it's going to be lovely, I think."

Pauline scrambled to her feet, shaking out the chintz: "If only mother
would--it's pink and green--let's go ask her."

"What do you want to do with it, Pauline?" Mrs. Shaw asked.

"I haven't thought that far--use it for draperies of some kind, I
suppose," the girl answered.

They were standing in the middle of the big, empty room.  Suddenly,
Josie gave a quick exclamation, pointing to the bare corner between the
front and side windows.  "Wouldn't a cozy corner be delightful--with
cover and cushions of the chintz?"

"May we, mother?" Pauline begged in a coaxing tone.

"I suppose so, dear--only where is the bench part to come from?"

"Tom'll make the frame for it, I'll go get him this minute," Josie
answered.

"And you might use that single mattress from up garret," Mrs. Shaw
suggested.

Pauline ran up to inspect it, and to see what other treasures might be
forthcoming.  The garret was a big, shadowy place, extending over the
whole house, and was lumber room, play place and general refuge, all in
one.

Presently, from under the eaves, she drew forward a little
old-fashioned sewing-chair, discarded on the giving out of its cane
seat.  "But I could tack a piece of burlap on and cover it with a
cushion," Pauline decided, and bore it down in triumph to the new room,
where Tom Brice was already making his measurements for the cozy corner.

Josie was on the floor, measuring for the cover.  "Isn't it fun, Paul?
Tom says it won't take long to do his part."

Tom straightened himself, slipping his rule into his pocket.  "I don't
see what you want it for, though," he said.

"'Yours not to reason why--'" Pauline told him.  "We see, and so will
Hilary.  Don't you and Josie want to join the new club--the 'S. W. F.
Club'?"

"Society of Willing Females, I suppose?" Tom remarked.

"It sounds like some sort of sewing circle," Josie said.

Pauline sat down in one of the wide window places.  "I'm not sure it
might not take in both.  It is--'The Seeing Winton First Club.'"

Josie looked as though she didn't quite understand, but Tom whistled
softly.  "What else have you been doing for the past fifteen years, if
you please, ma'am?" he asked quizzically.

Pauline laughed.  "One ought to know a place rather thoroughly in
fifteen years, I suppose; but--I'm hoping we can make it seem at least
a little bit new and different this summer--for Hilary.  You see, we
shan't be able to send her away, and so, I thought, perhaps, if we
tried looking at Winton--with new eyes--"

"I see," Josie cried.  "I think it's a splendiferous ideal"

"And, I thought, if we formed a sort of club among ourselves and worked
together--"

"Listen," Josie interrupted again, "we'll make it a condition of
membership, that each one must, in turn, think up something pleasant to
do."

"Is the membership to be limited?" Tom asked.

Pauline smiled.  "It will be so--necessarily--won't it?"  For Winton
was not rich in young people.

"There will be enough of us," Josie declared hopefully.

"Like the model dinner party?" her brother asked.  "Not less than the
Graces, nor more than the Muses."

And so the new club was formed then and there.  There were to be no
regular and formal meetings, no dues, nor fines, and each member was to
consider himself, or herself, an active member of the programme
committee.

Tom, as the oldest member of their immediate circle of friends, was
chosen president before that first meeting adjourned; no other officers
were considered necessary at the time.  And being president, to him was
promptly delegated the honor--despite his vigorous protests--of
arranging for their first outing and notifying the other members--yet
to be.

"But," he expostulated, "what's a fellow to think up--in a hole like
this?"

"Winton isn't a hole!" his sister protested.  It was one of the chief
occupations of Josie's life at present, to contradict all such
heretical utterances on Tom's part.  He was to go away that fall to
commence his studies for the medical profession, for it was Dr. Brice's
great desire that, later, his son should assist him in his practice.
But, so far, Tom though wanting to follow his father's profession, was
firm in his determination, not to follow it in Winton.

"And remember," Pauline said, as the three went down-stairs together,
"that it's the first step that counts--and to think up something very
delightful, Tom."

"It mustn't be a picnic, I suppose?  Hilary won't be up to picnics yet
awhile."

"N-no, and we want to begin soon.  She'll be back Friday, I think,"
Pauline answered.

By Wednesday night the spare room was ready for the expected guest.
"It's as if someone had waved a fairy wand over it, isn't it?" Patience
said delightedly.  "Hilary'll be so surprised."

"I think she will and--pleased."  Pauline gave one of the cushions in
the cozy corner a straightening touch, and drew the window
shades--Miranda had taken them down and turned them--a little lower.

"It's a regular company room, isn't it?" Patience said joyously.

The minister drove over to The Maples himself on Friday afternoon to
bring Hilary home.

"Remember," Patience pointed a warning forefinger at him, just as he
was starting, "not a single solitary hint!"

"Not a single solitary one," he promised.

As he turned out of the gate.  Patience drew a long breath.  "Well,
he's off at last!  But, oh, dear, however can we wait 'til he gets
back?"




CHAPTER V

BEDELIA

It was five o'clock that afternoon when Patience, perched, a little
white-clad sentry, on the gate-post, announced joyously--"They're
coming!  They're coming!"

Patience was as excited as if the expected "guest" were one in fact, as
well as name.  It was fun to be playing a game of make-believe, in
which the elders took part.

As the gig drew up before the steps, Hilary looked eagerly out.  "Will
you tell me," she demanded, "why father insisted on coming 'round the
lower road, by the depot--he didn't stop, and he didn't get any parcel?
And when I asked him, he just laughed and looked mysterious."

"He went," Pauline answered, "because we asked him to--company usually
comes by train--real out-of-town company, you know."

"Like visiting ministers and returned missionaries," Patience explained.

Hilary looked thoroughly bewildered.  "But are you expecting company?
You must be," she glanced from one to another, "you're all dressed up,"

"We were expecting some, dear," her mother told her, "but she has
arrived."

"Don't you see?  You're it!" Patience danced excitedly about her sister.

"I'm the company!" Hilary said wonderingly.  Then her eyes lighted up.
"I understand!  How perfectly dear of you all."

Mrs. Shaw patted the hand Hilary slipped into hers.  "You have come
back a good deal better than you went, my dear.  The change has done
you good."

"And it didn't turn out a stupid--half-way affair, after all," Hilary
declared.  "I've had a lovely time.  Only, I simply had to come home, I
felt somehow--that--that--"

"We were expecting company?" Pauline laughed.  "And you wanted to be
here?"

"I reckon that was it," Hilary agreed.  As she sat there, resting a
moment, before going up-stairs, she hardly seemed the same girl who had
gone away so reluctantly only eight days before.  The change of scene,
the outdoor life, the new friendship, bringing with it new interests,
had worked wonders,

"And now," Pauline suggested, taking up her sister's valise, "perhaps
you would like to go up to your room--visitors generally do."

"To rest after your journey, you know," Patience prompted.  Patience
believed in playing one's part down to the minutest detail.

"Thank you," Hilary answered, with quite the proper note of formality
in her voice, "if you don't mind; though I did not find the trip as
fatiguing as I had expected."

But from the door, she turned back to give her mother a second and most
uncompany-like hug.  "It is good to be home, Mother Shaw!  And please,
you don't want to pack me off again anywhere right away--at least, all
by myself?"

"Not right away," her mother answered, kissing her.

"I guess you will think it is good to be home, when you
know--everything," Patience announced, accompanying her sisters
up-stairs, but on the outside of the banisters.

"Patty!" Pauline protested laughingly--"Was there ever such a child for
letting things out!"

"I haven't!" the child exclaimed, "only now--it can't make any
difference."

"There is mystery in the very air!" Hilary insisted.  "Oh, what have
you all been up to?"

"You're not to go in there!" Patience cried, as Hilary stopped before
the door of her own and Pauline's room.

"Of course you're not," Pauline told her.  "It strikes me, for
company--you're making yourself very much at home!  Walking into
peoples' rooms."  She led the way along the hall to the spare room,
throwing the door wide open.

"Oh!" Hilary cried, then stood quite still on the threshold, looking
about her with wide, wondering eyes.

The spare room was grim and gray no longer.  Hilary felt as if she must
be in some strange, delightful dream.  The cool green of the wall
paper, with the soft touch of pink in ceiling and border, the fresh
white matting, the cozy corner opposite--with its delicate
old-fashioned chintz drapery and big cushions, the new toilet
covers--white over green, the fresh curtains at the windows, the
cushioned window seats, the low table and sewing-chair, even her own
narrow white bed, with its new ruffled spread, all went to make a room
as strange to her, as it was charming and unexpected.

"Oh," she said again, turning to her mother, who had followed them
up-stairs, and stood waiting just outside the door.  "How perfectly
lovely it all is--but it isn't for me?"

"Of course it is," Patience said.  "Aren't you company--you aren't just
Hilary now, you're 'Miss Shaw' and you're here on a visit; and there's
company asked to supper to-morrow night, and it's going to be such fun!"

Hilary's color came and went.  It was something deeper and better than
fun.  She understood now why they had done this--why Pauline had said
that--about her not going away; there was a sudden lump in the girl's
throat--she was glad, so glad, she had said that downstairs----about
not wanting to go away.

And when her mother and Patience had gone down-stairs again and Pauline
had begun to unpack the valise, as she had unpacked it a week ago at
The Maples, Hilary sat in the low chair by one of the west windows, her
hands folded in her lap, looking about this new room of hers.

"There," Pauline said presently, "I believe that's all now--you'd
better lie down, Hilary--I'm afraid you're tired."

"No, I'm not; at any rate, not very.  I'll lie down if you like, only I
know I shan't be able to sleep."

Pauline lowered the pillow and threw a light cover over her.  "There's
something in the top drawer of the dresser," she said, "but you're not
to look at it until you've lain down at least half an hour."

"I feel as if I were in an enchanted palace,", Hilary said, "with so
many delightful surprises being sprung on me all the while." After
Pauline had gone, she lay watching the slight swaying of the wild roses
in the tall jar on the hearth.  The wild roses ran rampant in the
little lane leading from the back of the church down past the old
cottage where Sextoness Jane lived.  Jane had brought these with her
that morning, as her contribution to the new room.

To Hilary, as to Patience, it seemed as if a magic wand had been waved,
transforming the old dull room into a place for a girl to live and
dream in.  But for her, the name of the wand was Love.

There must be no more impatient longings, no fretful repinings, she
told herself now.  She must not be slow to play her part in this new
game that had been originated all for her.

The half-hour up, she slipped from the bed and began unbuttoning her
blue-print frock.  Being company, it stood to reason she must dress for
supper.  But first, she must find out what was in the upper drawer.

The first glimpse of the little shell box, told her that.  There were
tears in Hilary's gray eyes, as she stood slipping the gold beads
slowly through her fingers.  How good everyone was to her; for the
first time some understanding of the bright side even of sickness--and
she had not been really sick, only run-down--and, yes, she had been
cross and horrid, lots of times--came to her.

"I'll go over just as soon as I can and thank her," the girl thought,
clasping the beads about her neck, "and I'll keep them always and
always."

A little later, she came down-stairs all in white, a spray of the pink
and white wild roses in her belt, her soft, fair hair freshly brushed
and braided.  She had been rather neglectful of her hair lately.

There was no one on the front piazza but her father, and he looked up
from his book with a smile of pleasure.  "My dear, how well you are
looking!  It is certainly good to see you at home again, and quite your
old self."

Hilary came to sit on the arm of his chair.  "It is good to be at home
again.  I suppose you know all the wonderful surprises I found waiting
me?"

"Supper's ready," Patience proclaimed from the doorway.  "Please come,
because--" she caught herself up, putting a hand into Hilary's, "I'll
show you where to sit, Miss Shaw."

Hilary laughed.  "How old are you, my dear?" she asked, in the tone
frequently used by visiting ministers.

"I'm a good deal older than I'm treated generally," Patience answered.
"Do you like Winton?"

"I am sure I shall like it very much."  Hilary slipped into the chair
Patience drew forward politely.  "The company side of the table--sure
enough," she laughed.

"It isn't proper to say things to yourself sort of low down in your
voice," Patience reproved her, then at a warning glance from her mother
subsided into silence as the minister took his place.

For to-night, at least, Miranda had amply fulfilled Patience's hopes,
as to company suppers.  And she, too, played her part in the new game,
calling Hilary "Miss," and never by any chance intimating that she had
seen her before.

"Did you go over to the manor to see Shirley?" Patience asked.

Hilary shook her head.  "I promised her Pauline and I would be over
soon.  We may have Fanny some afternoon, mayn't we, father?"

Patience's blue eyes danced.  "They can't have Fanny, can they,
father?" she nodded at him knowingly.

Hilary eyed her questioningly.  "What is the matter, Patience?"

"Nothing is the matter with her," Pauline said hurriedly.  "Don't pay
any attention to her."

"Only, if you would hurry," Patience implored.  "I--I can't wait much
longer!"

"Wait!" Hilary asked.  "For what?"

Patience pushed back her chair.  "For--Well, if you just knew what for,
Hilary Shaw, you'd do some pretty tall hustling!"

"Patience!" her father said reprovingly.

"May I be excused, mother?" Patience asked.  "I'll wait out on the
porch."

And Mrs. Shaw replied most willingly that she might.

"Is there anything more--to see, I mean, not to eat?" Hilary asked.  "I
don't see how there can be."

"Are you through?" Pauline answered.  "Because, if you are, I'll show
you."

"It was sent to Paul," Patience called, from the hall door.  "But she
says, of course, it was meant for us all; and I think, myself, she's
right about that."

"Is it--alive?" Hilary asked.

"'It' was--before supper," Pauline told her.  "I certainly hope nothing
has happened to--'it' since then."

"A dog?" Hilary suggested.

"Wait and see; by the way, where's that kitten?"

"She's to follow in a few days; she was a bit too young to leave home
just yet."

"I've got the sugar!" Patience called.

Hilary stopped short at the foot of the porch steps.  Patience's
remark, if it had not absolutely let the cat out of the bag, had at
least opened the bag.  "Paul, it can't be--"

"In the Shaw's dictionary, at present, there doesn't appear to be any
such word as can't," Pauline declared.  "Come on---after all, you know,
the only way to find out--is to find out."

Patience had danced on ahead down the path to the barn.  She stood
waiting for them now in the broad open doorway, her whole small person
one animated exclamation point, while Towser, just home from a
leisurely round of afternoon visits, came forward to meet Hilary,
wagging a dignified welcome.

"If you don't hurry, I'll 'hi yi' you, like I do Fanny!" Patience
warned them.  She moved to one side, to let Hilary go on into the barn.
"Now!" she demanded, "isn't that something more?"

From the stall beside Fanny's, a horse's head reached inquiringly out
for the sugar with which already she had come to associate the frequent
visits of these new friends.  She was a pretty, well-made, little mare,
light sorrel, with white markings, and with a slender, intelligent face.

Hilary stood motionless, too surprised to speak.

"Her name's Bedelia," Patience said, doing the honors.  "She's very
clever, she knows us all already.  Fanny hasn't been very polite to
her, and she knows it--Bedelia does, I mean--sometimes, when Fanny
isn't looking, I've caught Bedelia sort of laughing at her--and I don't
blame her one bit.  And, oh, Hilary, she can go--there's no need to 'hi
yi' her."

"But--" Hilary turned to Pauline.

"Uncle Paul sent her," Pauline explained.  "She came last Saturday
afternoon.  One of the men from Uncle Paul's place in the country
brought her.  She was born and bred at River Lawn--that's Uncle Paul's
place--he says."

Hilary stroked the glossy neck gently, if Pauline had said the Sultan
of Turkey, instead of Uncle Paul, she could hardly have been more
surprised.  "Uncle Paul--sent her to you!" she said slowly.

"To _us_."

"Bless me, that isn't all he sent," Patience exclaimed.  It seemed to
Patience that they never would get to the end of their story.  "You
just come look at this, Hilary Shaw!" she ran on through the opening
connecting carriage-house with stable.

"Oh!" Hilary cried, following with Pauline.

Beside the minister's shabby old gig, stood the smartest of smart
traps, and hanging on the wall behind it, a pretty russet harness, with
silver mountings.

Hilary sat down on an old saw horse; she felt again as though she must
be dreaming.

"There isn't another such cute rig in town, Jim says so," Patience
said.  Jim was the stable boy.  "It beats Bell Ward's all to pieces."

"But why--I mean, how did Uncle Paul ever come to send it to us?"
Hilary said.  Of course one had always known that there
was--somewhere--a person named Uncle Paul; but he had appeared about as
remote and indefinite a being as--that same Sultan of Turkey, for
instance.

"After all, why shouldn't he?" Pauline answered.

"But I don't believe he would've if Paul had not written to him that
time," Patience added.  "Maybe next time I tell you anything, you'll
believe me, Hilary Shaw."

But Hilary was staring at Pauline.  "You didn't write to Uncle Paul?"

"I'm afraid I did."

"Was--was that the letter--you remember, that afternoon?"

"I rather think I do remember."

"Paul, how did you ever dare?"

"I was in the mood to dare anything that day."

"And did he answer; but of course he did."

"Yes--he answered.  Though not right away."

"Was it a nice letter?  Did he mind your having written?  Paul, you
didn't ask him to send you--these," Hilary waved her hand rather
vaguely.

"Hardly--he did that all on his own.  It wasn't a bad sort of letter,
I'll tell you about it by and by.  We can go to the manor in style now,
can't we--even if father can't spare Fanny.  Bedelia's perfectly
gentle, I've driven her a little ways once or twice, to make sure.
Father insisted on going with me.  We created quite a sensation down
street, I assure you."

"And Mrs. Dane said," Patience cut in, "that in her young days,
clergymen didn't go kiting 'bout the country in such high-fangled rigs."

"Never mind what Mrs. Dane said, or didn't say," Pauline told her.

"Miranda says, what Mrs. Dane hasn't got to say on any subject,
wouldn't make you tired listening to it."

"Patience, if you don't stop repeating what everyone says, I shall--"

"If you speak to mother--then you'll be repeating," Patience declared.
"Maybe, I oughtn't to have said those things before--company."

"I think we'd better go back to the house now," Pauline suggested.

"Sextoness Jane says," Patience remarked, "that she'd have sure admired
to have a horse and rig like that, when she was a girl.  She says, she
doesn't suppose you'll be passing by her house very often."

"And, now, please," Hilary pleaded, when she had been established in
her hammock on the side porch, with her mother in her chair close by,
and Pauline sitting on the steps, "I want to hear--everything.  I'm
what Miranda calls 'fair mazed.'"

So Pauline told nearly everything, blurring some of the details a
little and getting to that twenty-five dollars a month, with which they
were to do so much, as quickly as possible.

"O Paul, really," Hilary sat up among her cushions--"Why, it'll
be--riches, won't it?"

"It seems so."

"But--Oh, I'm afraid you've spent all the first twenty-five on me; and
that's not a fair division--is it, Mother Shaw?"

"We used it quite according to Hoyle," Pauline insisted.  "We got our
fun that way, didn't we, Mother Shaw?"

Their mother smiled.  "I know I did."

"All the same, after this, you've simply got to 'drink fair, Betsy,' so
remember," Hilary warned them.

"Bedtime, Patience," Mrs. Shaw said, and Patience got slowly out of her
big, wicker armchair.

"I did think--seeing there was company,--that probably you'd like me to
stay up a little later to-night."

"If the 'company' takes my advice, she'll go, too," her mother answered.

"The 'company' thinks she will."  Hilary slipped out of the hammock.
"Mother, do you suppose Miranda's gone to bed yet?"

"I'll go see," Patience offered, willing to postpone the inevitable for
even those few moments longer.

"What do you want with Miranda?" Pauline asked.

"To do something for me."

"Can't I do it?"

"No--and it must be done to-night.  Mother, what are you smiling over?"

"I thought it would be that way, dear."

"Miranda's  coming,"  Patience  called.  "She'd just taken her back
hair down, and she's waiting to twist it up again.  She's got awful
funny back hair."

"Patience!  Patience!" her mother said reprovingly.

"I mean, there's such a little--"

"Go up-stairs and get yourself ready for bed at once."

Miranda was waiting in the spare room.  "You ain't took sick, Hilary?"

Hilary shook her head.  "Please, Miranda, if it wouldn't be too much
trouble, will you bring Pauline's bed in here?"

"I guessed as much," Miranda said, moving Hilary's bed to one side.

"Hilary--wouldn't you truly rather have a room to yourself--for a
change?" Pauline asked.

"I have had one to myself--for eight days--and, now I'm going back to
the old way."  Sitting among the cushions of the cozy corner, Hilary
superintended operations, and when the two single white beds were
standing side by side, in their accustomed fashion, the covers turned
back for the night, she nodded in satisfied manner.  "Thank you so
much, Miranda; that's as it should be.  Go get your things, Paul.
To-morrow, you must move in regularly.  Upper drawer between us, and
the rest share and share alike, you know."

Patience, who had hit upon the happy expedient of braiding her
hair--braids, when there were a lot of them, took a long time--got
slowly up from the hearth rug, her head a sight to behold, with its
tiny, hornlike red braids sticking out in every direction.  "I suppose
I'd better be going.  I wish I had someone to talk to, after I'd gone
to bed."  And a deep sigh escaped her.

Pauline kissed the wistful little face.  "Never mind, old girl, you
know you'd never stay awake long enough to talk to anyone."

She and Hilary stayed awake talking, however, until Pauline's prudence
got the better of her joy in having her sister back in more senses than
one.  It was so long since they had had such a delightful bedtime talk.

"Seeing Winton First Club," Hilary said musingly.  "Paul, you're ever
so clever.  Shirley insisted those letters stood for 'Suppression of
Woman's Foibles Club'; and Mr. Dayre suggested they meant, 'Sweet Wild
Flowers.'"

"You've simply got to go to sleep now, Hilary, else mother'll  come and
take me away."

Hilary sighed blissfully.  "I'll never say again--that nothing ever
happens to us."


Tom and Josie came to supper the next night.  Shirley was there, too,
she had stopped in on her way to the post-office with her father that
afternoon, to ask how Hilary was, and been captured and kept to supper
and the first club meeting that followed.

Hilary had been sure she would like to join, and Shirley's prompt and
delighted acceptance of their invitation proved her right.

"I've only got five names on my list," Tom said, as the young folks
settled themselves on the porch after supper.  "I suppose we'll think
of others later."

"That'll make ten, counting us five, to begin with," Pauline said.

"Bell and Jack Ward," Tom took out his list, "the Dixon boys and Edna
Ray.  That's all."

"I'd just like to know where I come in, Tom Brice!" Patience demanded,
her voice vibrant with indignation.

"Upon my word!  I didn't suppose--"

"I am to belong!  Ain't I, Paul?"

"But Patty--"

"If you're going to say no, you needn't Patty me!"

"We'll see what mother thinks," Hilary suggested.  "You wouldn't want
to be the only little girl to belong?"

"I shouldn't mind," Patience assured her, then feeling pretty sure that
Pauline was getting ready to tell her to run away, she decided to
retire on her own account.  That blissful time, when she should be
"Miss Shaw," had one drawback, which never failed to assert itself at
times like these--there would be no younger sister subject to her
authority.

"Have you decided what we are to do?" Pauline asked Tom, when Patience
had gone.

"I should say I had.  You'll be up to a ride by next Thursday, Hilary?
Not a very long ride."

"I'm sure I shall," Hilary answered eagerly.  "Where are we going?"

"That's telling."

"He won't even tell me," Josie said.

Tom's eyes twinkled.  "You're none of you to know until next Thursday.
Say, at four o'clock."

"Oh," Shirley said, "I think it's going to be the nicest club that ever
was."




CHAPTER VI

PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

"Am I late?" Shirley asked, as Pauline came down the steps to meet her
Thursday afternoon.

"No, indeed, it still wants five minutes to four.  Will you come in, or
shall we wait out here?  Hilary is under bond not to make her
appearance until the last minute."

"Out here, please," Shirley answered, sitting down on the upper step.
"What a delightful old garden this is.  Father has at last succeeded in
finding me my nag, horses appear to be at a premium in Winton, and even
if he isn't first cousin to your Bedelia, I'm coming to take you and
Hilary to drive some afternoon.  Father got me a surrey, because,
later, we're expecting some of the boys up, and we'll need a two-seated
rig."

"We're coming to take you driving, too," Pauline said.  "Just at
present, it doesn't seem as if the summer would be long enough for all
the things we mean to do in it."

"And you don't know yet, what we are to do this afternoon?"

"Only, that it's to be a drive and, afterwards, supper at the Brices'.
That's all Josie, herself, knows about it.  Tom had to take her and
Mrs. Brice into so much of his confidence."

Through the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon, came the notes of
a horn, sounding nearer and nearer.  A moment later, a stage drawn by
two of the hotel horses turned in at the parsonage drive at a fine
speed, drawing up before the steps where Pauline and Shirley were
sitting, with considerable nourish.  Beside the driver sat Tom, in long
linen duster, the megaphone belonging to the school team in one hand.
Along each side of the stage was a length of white cloth, on which was
lettered--

      SEEING WINTON STAGE

As the stage stopped, Tom sprang down, a most businesslike air on his
boyish face.

"This is the Shaw residence, I believe?" he asked, consulting a piece
of paper.

"I--I reckon so," Pauline answered, too taken aback to know quite what
she was saying.

"All right!" Tom said.  "I understand--"

"Then it's a good deal more than I do," Pauline cut in.

"That there are several young people here desirous of joining our
little sight-seeing trip this afternoon."

From around the corner of the house at that moment peeped a small
freckled face, the owner of which was decidedly very desirous of
joining that trip.  Only a deep sense of personal injury kept Patience
from coming forward,--she wasn't going where she wasn't wanted--but
some day--they'd see!

Shirley clapped her hands delightedly.  "How perfectly jolly!  Oh, I am
glad you asked me to join the club."

"I'll go tell Hilary!" Pauline said.  "Tom, however--"

"I beg your pardon, Miss?"

Pauline laughed and turned away.

"Oh, I say, Paul," Tom dropped his mask of pretended dignity, "let the
Imp come with us--this time."

Pauline looked doubtful.  She, as well as Tom, had caught sight of that
small flushed face, on which longing and indignation had been so
plainly written.  "I'm not sure that mother will--" she began, "But
I'll see."

"Tell her--just this first time," Tom urged, and Shirley added, "She
would love it so."

"Mother says," Pauline reported presently, "that Patience may go _this_
time--only we'll have to wait while she gets ready."

From an upper window came an eager voice.  "I'm most ready now!"

"She'll never forget it--as long as she lives," Shirley said, "and if
she hadn't gone she would never've forgotten _that_."

"Nor let us--for one while," Pauline remarked--"I'd a good deal rather
work with than against that young lady."

Hilary came down then, looking ready and eager for the outing.  She had
been out in the trap with Pauline several times; once, even as far as
the manor to call upon Shirley.

"Why," she exclaimed, "you've brought the Folly!  Tom, how ever did you
manage it?"

"Beg pardon, Miss?"

Hilary shrugged her shoulders, coming nearer for a closer inspection of
the big lumbering stage.  It had been new, when the present proprietor
of the hotel, then a young man, now a middle-aged one, had come into
his inheritance.  Fresh back from a winter in town, he had indulged
high hopes of booming his sleepy little village as a summer resort, and
had ordered the stage--since christened the Folly--for the convenience
and enjoyment of the guests--who had never come.  A long idle lifetime
the Folly had passed in the hotel carriage-house; used so seldom, as to
make that using a village event, but never allowed to fall into
disrepair, through some fancy of its owner.

As Tom opened the door at the back now, handing his guests in with much
ceremony, Hilary laughed softly.  "It doesn't seem quite--respectful to
actually sit down in the poor old thing.  I wonder, if it's more
indignant, or pleased, at being dragged out into the light of day for a
parcel of young folks?"

"'Butchered to make a Roman Holiday'?" Shirley laughed.

At that moment Patience appeared, rather breathless--but not half as
much so as Miranda, who had been drawn into service, and now appeared
also--"You ain't half buttoned up behind, Patience!" she protested,
"and your hair ribbon's not tied fit to be seen.--My sakes, to think of
anyone ever having named that young one _Patience_!"

"I'll overhaul her, Miranda," Pauline comforted her.  "Come here,
Patience."

"Please, I am to sit up in front with you, ain't I, Tom?" Patience
urged.  "You and I always get on so beautifully together, you know."

Tom relaxed a second time.  "I don't see how I can refuse after that,"
and the over-hauling process being completed, Patience climbed up to
the high front seat, where she beamed down on the rest with such a look
of joyful content that they could only smile back in response.

From the doorway, came a warning voice.  "Not too far, Tom, for Hilary;
and remember, Patience, what you have promised me."

"All right, Mrs. Shaw," Tom assured her, and Patience nodded her head
assentingly.

From the parsonage, they went first to the doctor's.  Josie was waiting
for them at the gate, and as they drew up before it, with horn blowing,
and horses almost prancing--the proprietor of the hotel had given them
his best horses, in honor of the Folly--she stared from her brother to
the stage, with its white placard, with much the same look of wonder in
her eyes as Pauline and Hilary had shown.

"Miss Brice?"  Tom was consulting his list again.

"So that's what you've been concocting, Tom Brice!" Josie answered.

Tom's face was as sober as his manner.  "I am afraid we are a little
behind scheduled time, being unavoidably delayed."

"He means they had to wait for me to get ready," Patience explained.
"You didn't expect to see me along, did you, Josie?"  And she smiled
blandly.

"I don't know what I did expect--certainly, not this."  Josie took her
place in the stage, not altogether sure whether the etiquette of the
occasion allowed of her recognizing its other inmates, or not.

But Pauline nodded politely.  "Good afternoon.  Lovely day, isn't it?"
she remarked, while Shirley asked, if she had ever made this trip
before.

"Not in this way," Josie answered.  "I've never ridden in the Folly
before.  Have you, Paul?"

"Once, from the depot to the hotel, when I was a youngster, about
Impatience's age.  You remember, Hilary?"

"Of course I do.  Uncle Jerry took me up in front."  Uncle Jerry was
the name the owner of the stage went by in Winton.  "He'd had a lot of
Boston people up, and had been showing them around."

"This reminds me of the time father and I did our own New York in one
of those big 'Seeing New York' motors," Shirley said.  "I came home
feeling almost as if we'd been making a trip 'round some foreign city."

"Tom can't make Winton seem foreign," Josie declared.

There were three more houses to stop at, lower down the street.  From
windows and porches all along the route, laughing, curious faces stared
wonderingly after them, while a small body-guard of children sprang up
as if by magic to attend them on their way.  This added greatly to the
delight of Patience, who smiled condescendingly down upon various
intimates, blissfully conscious of the envy she was exciting in their
breasts.  It was delightful to be one of the club for a time, at least.

"And now, if you please, Ladies and Gentlemen," Tom had closed the door
to upon the last of his party, "we will drive first to The Vermont
House, a hostelry well known throughout the surrounding country, and
conducted by one of Vermont's best known and honored sons."

"Hear!  Hear!" Jack Ward cried.  "I say, Tom, get that off again where
Uncle Jerry can hear it, and you'll always be sure of his vote."

They had reached the rambling old hotel, from the front porch of which
Uncle Jerry himself, surveyed them genially.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," standing up, Tom turned to face the occupants
of the stage, his megaphone, carried merely as a badge of office,
raised like a conductor's baton, "I wish to impress upon your minds
that the building now before you--liberal rates for the season--is
chiefly remarkable for never having sheltered the Father of His
Country."

"Now how do you know that?" Uncle Jerry protested.   "Ain't that North
Chamber called the 'Washington room'?"

"Oh, but that's because the first proprietor's first wife occupied that
room--and she was famous for her Washington pie," Tom answered readily.
"I assure you, sir, that any and all information which I shall have the
honor to impart to these strangers within our gates may be relied upon
for its accuracy."  He gave the driver the word, and the Folly
continued on its way, stopping presently before a little
story-and-a-half cottage not far below the hotel and on a level with
the street.

"This cottage, my young friends," Tom said impressively, "should
be--and I trust is--enshrined deep within the hearts of all true
Wintonites.  Latterly, it has come to be called the Barker cottage, but
its real title is 'The Flag House'; so called, because from that humble
porch, the first Stars and Stripes ever seen in Winton flung its colors
to the breeze.  The original flag is still in possession of a lineal
descendant of its first owner, who is, unfortunately, not an inhabitant
of this town."  The boyish gravity of tone and manner was not all
assumed now.

No one spoke for a moment; eleven pairs of young eyes were looking out
at the little weather-stained building with new interest.  "I thought,"
Bell Ward said at last, "that they called it the _flag_ place, because
someone of that name had used to live there."

"So did I," Hilary said.

As the stage moved on, Shirley leaned back for another look.  "I shall
get father to come and sketch it," she said.  "Isn't it the quaintest
old place?"

"We will now proceed," Tom announced, "to the village green, where I
shall have the pleasure of relating to you certain anecdotes regarding
the part it played in the early life of this interesting old village."

"Not too many, old man," Tracy Dixon suggested hurriedly, "or it may
prove a one-sided pleasure."

The green lay in the center of the town,--a wide, open space, with
flagstaff in the middle; fine old elms bordered it on all four sides.
The Vermont House faced it, on the north, and on the opposite side
stood the general store, belonging to Mr. Ward, with one or two smaller
places of business.

"The business section" of the town, Tom called it, and quite failed to
notice Tracy's lament that he had not brought his opera glasses with
him.  "Really, you know," Tracy explained to his companions, "I should
have liked awfully to see it.  I'm mighty interested in business
sections."

"Cut that out," his brother Bob commanded, "the chap up in front is
getting ready to hold forth again."

They were simple enough, those anecdotes, that "the chap up in front"
told them; but in the telling, the boy's voice lost again all touch of
mock gravity.  His listeners, sitting there in the June sunshine,
looking out across the old green, flecked with the waving tree shadows,
and bright with the buttercups nodding here and there, seemed to see
those men and boys drilling there in the far-off summer twilights; to
hear the sharp words of command; the sound of fife and drum.  And the
familiar names mentioned more than once, well-known village names,
names belonging to their own families in some instances, served to
deepen the impression.

"Why," Edna Ray said slowly, "they're like the things one learns at
school; somehow, they make one realize that there truly was a
Revolutionary War.  Wherever did you pick up such a lot of town
history, Tom?"

"That's telling," Tom answered.

Back up the broad, main street they went, past the pleasant village
houses, with their bright, well-kept dooryards, under the
wide-spreading trees beneath which so many generations of young folks
had come and gone; past the square, white parsonage, with its setting
of green lawn; past the old stone church, and on out into the by-roads
of the village, catching now and then a glimpse of the great lake
beyond; and now and then, down some lane, a bit of the street they had
left.  They saw it all with eyes that for once had lost the
indifference of long familiarity, and were swift to catch instead its
quiet, restful beauty, helped in this, perhaps, by Shirley's very real
admiration.

The ride ended at Dr. Brice's gate, and here Tom dropped his mantle of
authority, handing all further responsibility as to the entertainment
of the party over to his sister.

Hilary was carried off to rest until supper time, and the rest
scattered about the garden, a veritable rose garden on that June
afternoon, roses being Dr. Brice's pet hobby.

"It must be lovely to _live_ in the country," Shirley said, dropping
down on the grass before the doctor's favorite _La France_, and laying
her face against the soft, pink petals of a half-blown bud.

Edna eyed her curiously.  She had rather resented the admittance of
this city girl into their set.  Shirley's skirt and blouse were of
white linen, there was a knot of red under the broad sailor collar, she
was hatless and the dark hair,--never kept too closely within
bounds--was tossed and blown; there was certainly nothing especially
cityfied in either appearance or manner.

"That's the way I feel about the city," Edna said slowly, "it must be
lovely to live _there_."

Shirley laughed.  "It is.  I reckon just being alive anywhere such days
as these ought to content one.  You haven't been over to the manor
lately, have you?  I mean since we came there.  We're really getting
the garden to look like a garden.  Reclaiming the wilderness, father
calls it.  You'll come over now, won't you--the club, I mean?"

"Why, of course," Edna answered, she thought she would like to go.  "I
suppose you've been over to the forts?"

"Lots of times--father's ever so interested in them, and it's just a
pleasant row across, after supper."

"I have fasted too long, I must eat again," Tom remarked, coming across
the lawn.  "Miss Dayre, may I have the honor?"

"Are you conductor, or merely club president now?" Shirley asked.

"Oh, I've dropped into private life again.  There comes Hilary--doesn't
look much like an invalid, does she?"

"But she didn't look very well the first time I saw her," Shirley
answered.

The long supper table was laid under the apple trees at the foot of the
garden, which in itself served to turn the occasion into a festive
affair.

"You've given us a bully send-off, Mr. President," Bob declared.  "It's
going to be sort of hard for the rest of us to keep up with you."

"By the way," Tom said, "Dr. Brice--some of you may have heard of
him--would like to become an honorary member of this club.  Any
contrary votes?"

"What's an honorary member?" Patience asked.  Patience had been
remarkably good that afternoon--so good that Pauline began to feel
worried, dreading the reaction.

"One who has all the fun and none of the work," Tracy explained, a
merry twinkle in his brown eyes.

Patience considered the matter.  "I shouldn't mind the work; but mother
won't let me join regularly--mother takes notions now and then--but,
please mayn't I be an honorary member?"

"Onery, you mean, young lady!" Tracy corrected.

Patience flashed a pair of scornful eyes at him.  "Father says punning
is the very lowest form of--"

"Never mind, Patience," Pauline said, "we haven't answered Tom yet.  I
vote we extend our thanks to the doctor for being willing to join."

"He isn't a bit more willing than I am," Patience observed.  There was
a general laugh among the real members, then Tom said, "If a Shaw votes
for a Brice, I don't very well see how a Brice can refuse to vote for a
Shaw."

"The motion is carried," Bob seconded him.

"Subject to mother's consent," Pauline added, a quite unnecessary bit
of elder sisterly interference, Patience thought.

"And now, even if it is telling on yourself, suppose you own up, old
man?"  Jack Ward turned to Tom.  "You see we don't in the least credit
you with having produced all that village history from your own stores
of knowledge."

"I never said you need to," Tom answered, "even the idea was not
altogether original with me."

Patience suddenly leaned forward, her face all alight with interest.
"I love my love with an A," she said slowly, "because he's an--author."

Tom whistled.  "Well, of all the uncanny young ones!"

"It's very simple," Patience said loftily.

"So it is, Imp," Tracy exclaimed; "I love him with an A, because he's
an--A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N!"

"I took him to the sign of The Apple Tree," Bell took up the thread.

"And fed him (mentally) on subjects--antedeluvian, or almost so,"
Hilary added.

"What _are_ you talking about?" Edna asked impatiently.

"Mr. Allen," Pauline told her.

"I saw him and Tom walking down the back lane the other night,"
Patience explained.  Patience felt that she had won her right to belong
to the club now--they'd see she wasn't just a silly little girl.
"Father says he--I don't mean Tom--"

"We didn't suppose you did," Tracy laughed.

"Knows more history than any other man in the state; especially, the
history of the state."

"Mr. Allen!" Shirley exclaimed.  "T. C. Allen!  Why, father and I read
one of his books just the other week.  It's mighty interesting.  Does
he live in Winton?"

"He surely does," Bob grinned, "and every little while he comes up to
school and puts us through our paces.  It's his boast that he was born,
bred and educated right in Vermont.  He isn't a bad old buck--if he
wouldn't pester a fellow with too many questions."

"He lives out beyond us," Hilary told Shirley.  "There's a great apple
tree right in front of the gate.  He has an old house-keeper to look
after him.  I wish you could see his books--he's literally surrounded
with them."

"Not storybooks," Patience added.  "He says, they're books full of
stories, if one's a mind to look for them."

"Please," Edna protested, "let's change the subject.  Are we to have
badges, or not?"

"Pins," Bell suggested.

"Pins would have to be made to order," Pauline objected, "and would be
more or less expensive."

"And it's an unwritten by-law of this club, that we shall go to no
unnecessary expense," Tom insisted.

"But--" Bell began.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Tom broke in, "but Uncle Jerry
didn't charge for the stage--he said he was only too glad to have the
poor thing used--'twas a dull life for her, shut up in the
carriage-house year in and year out."

"The Folly isn't a she," Patience protested.

"Folly generally is feminine," Tracy said, "and so--"

"And he let us have the horses, too--for our initial outing," Tom went
on.  "Said the stage wouldn't be of much use without them."

"Three cheers for Uncle Jerry!" Bob Dixon cried.  "Let's make him an
honorary member."

"But the badges," Edna said.  "I never saw such people for going off at
tangents."

"Ribbon would be pretty," Shirley suggested, "with the name of the club
in gilt letters.  I can letter pretty well."

Her suggestion was received with general acclamation, and after much
discussion, as to color, dark blue was decided on.

"Blue goes rather well with red," Tom said, "and as two of our members
have red hair," his glance went from Patience to Pauline.

"I move we adjourn, the president's getting personal," Pauline pushed
back her chair.

"Who's turn is it to be next?" Jack asked.

They drew lots with blades of grass; it fell to Hilary.  "I warn you,"
she said, "that I can't come up to Tom."

Then the first meeting of the new club broke up, the members going
their various ways.  Shirley went as far as the parsonage, where she
was to wait for her father.

"I've had a beautiful time," she said warmly.  "And I've thought what
to do when my turn comes.  Only, I think you'll have to let father in
as an honorary, I'll need him to help me out."

"We'll be only too glad," Pauline said heartily.  "This club's growing
fast, isn't it?  Have you decided, Hilary?"

Hilary shook her head, "N-not exactly; I've sort of an idea."




CHAPTER VII

HILARY'S TURN

Pauline and Hilary were up in their own room, the "new room," as it had
come to be called, deep in the discussion of certain samples that had
come in that morning's mail.

Uncle Paul's second check was due before long now, and then there were
to be new summer dresses, or rather the goods for them, one apiece all
around.

"Because, of course," Pauline said, turning the pretty scraps over,
"Mother Shaw's got to have one, too.  We'll have to get it--on the
side--or she'll declare she doesn't need it, and she does."

"Just the goods won't come to so very much," Hilary said.

"No, indeed, and mother and I can make them."

"We certainly got a lot out of that other check, or rather, you and
mother did," Hilary went on.  "And it isn't all gone?"

"Pretty nearly, except the little we decided to lay by each month.  But
we did stretch it out in a good many directions.  I don't suppose any
of the other twenty-fives will seem quite so big."

"But there won't be such big things to get with them," Hilary said,
"except these muslins."

"It's unspeakably delightful to have money for the little unnecessary
things, isn't it?" Pauline rejoiced.

That first check had really gone a long ways.  After buying the matting
and paper, there had been quite a fair sum left; enough to pay for two
magazine subscriptions, one a review that Mr. Shaw had long wanted to
take, another, one of the best of the current monthlies; and to lay in
quite a store of new ribbons and pretty turnovers, and several yards of
silkaline to make cushion covers for the side porch, for Pauline,
taking hint from Hilary's out-door parlor at the farm, had been quick
to make the most of their own deep, vine-shaded side porch at the
parsonage.

The front piazza belonged in a measure to the general public, there
were too many people coming and going to make it private enough for a
family gathering place.  But the side porch was different, broad and
square, only two or three steps from the ground; it was their favorite
gathering place all through the long, hot summers.

With a strip of carpet for the floor, a small table resurrected from
the garret, a bench and three wicker rockers, freshly painted green,
and Hilary's hammock, rich in pillows, Pauline felt that their porch
was one to be proud of.  To Patience had been entrusted the care of
keeping the old blue and white Canton bowl filled with fresh flowers,
and there were generally books and papers on the table.  And they might
have done it all before, Pauline thought now, if they had stopped to
think.

"Have you decided?" Hilary asked her, glancing at the sober face bent
over the samples.

"I believe I'd forgotten all about them; I think I'll choose this--"
Pauline held up a sample of blue and white striped dimity.

"That _is_ pretty."

"You can have it, if you like."

"Oh, no, I'll have the pink."

"And the lavender dot, for Mother Shaw?"

"Yes," Hilary agreed.

"Patience had better have straight white, it'll be in the wash so
often."

"Why not let her choose for herself, Paul?" Hilary suggested.

"Hilary!  Oh, Hilary Shaw!" Patience called excitedly, at that moment
from downstairs.

"Up here!" Hilary called back, and Patience came hurrying up, stumbling
more than once in her eagerness.  The next moment, she pushed wide the
door of the "new room."  "See what's come!  It's addressed to you,
Hilary--it came by express--Jed brought it up from the depot!"  Jed was
the village expressman.

She deposited her burden on the table beside Hilary.  It was a
good-sized, square box, and with all that delightful air of mystery
about it that such packages usually have.

"What do you suppose it is, Paul?" Hilary cried.  "Why, I've never had
anything come unexpectedly, like this, before."

"A whole lot of things are happening to us that never've happened
before," Patience said.  "See, it's from Uncle Paul!" she pointed to
the address at the upper left-hand corner of the package.  "Oh, Hilary,
let me open it, please, I'll go get the tack hammer."

"Tell mother to come," Hilary said.

"Maybe it's books, Paul!" she added, as Patience scampered off.

Pauline lifted the box.  "It doesn't seem quite heavy enough for books."

"But what else could it be?"

Pauline laughed.  "It isn't another Bedelia, at all events.  It could
be almost anything.  Hilary, I beli