Betty.
"P. S.—I miss you more because they are all so much older than we are, papa dear. Perhaps you will tell me about the tariff reform for a lesson letter when you can't think of anything else to write about. I have not seen Mary Beck yet, or any of the girls I used to know. Mary always came right over before. I must tell you next time about such a funny, nice old woman who came most of the way with me in the cars, and what will you think when I tell you the most important thing,—I had to come up river on the packet! I wished and wished for you.
Betty."
Dinner-time was very pleasant, and Aunt Mary, who first appeared then, was most kind and cheerful; but both the ladies took naps, after dinner was over and they had read their letters, so Betty went to her own room, meaning to put away her belongings; but Letty had done this beforehand, and the large room looked very comfortable and orderly. Aunt Barbara had smiled when another protest wastimidly offered about the best bedroom, and told Betty that it was pleasant to have her just across the hall. "I am well used to my housekeeping cares," added Aunt Barbara, with a funny look across the table at her young niece; and Betty thought again, how much she liked this grandaunt.
The house was very quiet and she did not know exactly what to do, so she looked about the guest-chamber.
There were some quaint-looking silhouettes on the walls of the room, and in a deep oval frame a fine sort of ornament which seemed to be made of beautiful grasses and leaves, all covered with glistening crystals. The dust had crept in a little at one side. Betty remembered it well, and always thought it very interesting. Then there were two old engravings of Angelica Kauffmann and Madame Le Brun. Nothing pleased her so much, however, as papa's bright little shawl. It looked brighter than ever, and Letty had folded it and left it on the old chair.
Just then there came a timid rap or two with the old knocker on the hall-door. It was early for visitors, and the aunts were both in theirrooms. Betty went out to see what could be done about so exciting a thing, and met quick-footed Letty, who had been close at hand in the dining-room.
"'Tis Miss Mary Beck come to call upon you, Miss Betty," said Letty, with an air of high festivity, and Betty went quickly downstairs. She was brimful of gladness to see Mary Beck, and went straight toward her in the shaded parlor to kiss her and tell her so.
Mary Beck was sitting on the edge of a chair, and was dressed as if she were going to church, with a pair of tight shiny best gloves on and shiny new boots, which hurt her feet if Betty had only known it. She wore a hat that looked too small for her head, and had a queer, long, waving bird-of-paradise feather in it, and a dress that was much too old for her, and of a cold, smooth, gray color, trimmed with a shade of satin that neither matched it nor made a contrast. She had grown to be even taller than Betty, and she looked uncomfortable, and as if she had been forced to come. That was a silly, limp shake of the hand with which she returned Betty's warm grasp. Oh dear, it was evidently a dreadfulthing to go to make a call! It had been an anxious, discouraged getting-ready, and Betty thought of the short, red-cheeked, friendly little Becky whom she used to play with, and was grieved to the heart. But she bravely pushed a chair close to the guest and sat down. She could not get over the old feeling of affection.
"I thought you would be over here long ago. I ought to have gone to see you. Why, you're more grown up than I am; isn't it too bad?" said Betty, feeling afraid that one or the other of them might cry, they were both blushing so deeply and the occasion was so solemn.
"Oh, do let's play in the shed-chamber all day to-morrow!"
And then they both laughed as hard as they could, and there was the dear old Mary Beck after all, and a tough bit of ice was forever broken.
Betty threw open the parlor blinds, regardless of Serena's feelings about flies, and the two friends spent a delightful hour together. The call ended in Mary's being urged to go home to take off her best gown and put onan every-day one, and away they went afterward for a long walk.
"What are the girls doing?" asked Betty, as if she considered herself a member already of this branch of the great secret society of girls.
"Oh, nothing; we hardly ever do anything," answered Mary Beck, with a surprised and uneasy glance. "It is so slow in Tideshead, everybody says."
"I suppose it is slow anywhere if we don't do anything about it," laughed Betty, so good-naturedly that Mary laughed too. "I like to play out-of-doors just as well as ever I did, don't you?"
Mary Beck gave a somewhat doubtful answer. She had dreaded this ceremonious call. She could not quite understand why Betty Leicester, who had traveled abroad and done so many things and had, as people say, such unusual advantages, should seem the same as ever, and only wear that plain, comfortable-looking little gingham dress.
"When my other big trunk comes there are some presents I brought over for you," confessed Betty shyly. "I have had to keep oneof them a long time because papa has always been saying every year that we were sure to come to Tideshead, and then we haven't after all."
"He has been here two or three times," said Mary. "I saw him go by and I wanted to run out and ask him about you, but I was afraid to"—
"Afraid of papa? What a funny thing! You never would be if you really knew him," exclaimed Betty, with delighted assurance. She laughed heartily and stopped to lean against a stone wall, and gave Mary Beck a little push which was meant to express a great deal of affection and amusement. Then she forgot everything in looking at the beautiful view across the farms and the river and toward the great hills and mountains beyond.
"I knew you would think it was pretty here," said Mary. "I have always thought that when you came back I would bring you here first. I liked to call this our tree," she said shyly, looking up into the great oak branches. "It seems so strange to be here with you, at last, after all the times I have thought about it"—
Betty was touched by this bit of real sentiment. She was thankful from that moment that she was going to spend most of the summer in Tideshead. Here was the best of good things,—a real friend, who had been waiting for her all the time.
Whenthe happy Becky flew in to free herself from her Sunday clothes she did not meet either member of her family, but on her return from the walk she found her mother grimly getting the supper ready.
"Oh, I have had such a lovely time," cried Becky, brimful of the pleasure of Betty's return. "She is just the same as she used to be, exactly; only grown like everything. And I saw Miss Barbara Leicester, and she was lovely and asked me to stay to tea, and Betty did too, but I didn't know whether you would like it."
"I am going to have her come and take tea with us as soon as I can, but I don't see how to manage it this week," said Mrs. Beck complainingly. "I have so much to do every day that I dread having company. What made you put on that spotted old dress? I don't knowwhat she could have thought, I'm sure. If you wanted to take off your best one, why didn't you put on your satine?"
"Oh, I don't know, mother!" answered Becky fretfully. "Betty had on a gingham dress, and she said I couldn't get over the fences in my best one, and I didn't think it made any difference."
"Well, no matter," said Mrs. Beck sighing, "they saw you dressed up decently at first. I think you girls are too old to climb fences and be tomboys, for my part. When I was growing up, young ladies were expected to interest themselves in things at home."
The good cheer of the afternoon served Becky in good stead. She was already helping her mother with the table, and was sorry in a more understanding way than ever before for the sad-looking little woman in black, who got so few real pleasures out of life. "Betty Leicester says that we can have this one summer more any way before we are really grown up," she suggested, and Mrs. Beck smiled and hoped they would enjoy it, but they couldn't keep time back do what they might.
"Did she show you anything she brought home, Mary?"
"No, not a single thing; we were out-doors almost all the time after I made the call, but she says she has brought me some presents."
"I wonder what they are?" said Mrs. Beck, much pleased. "There's one thing about the Leicesters, they are all generous where they take a liking. But then, they have got plenty to do with; everybody hasn't. You might have stayed to tea, I suppose, if they wanted you, but I wouldn't run after them."
"Why mother!" exclaimed honest Becky. "Betty Leicester and I always played together; it isn't running after her to expect to be friends just the same now. Betty always comes here oftenest; she said she was coming right over."
"I want you to show proper pride," said the mistaken mother. It would have been so much better to let the two girls go their own unsuspecting ways. But poor little Mrs. Beck had suffered many sorrows and disappointments, and had not learned yet that such lessons ought to make one's life larger instead of smaller.
Mary's eyes were shining with delight in spite of her mother's plaintive discouragements, and now as they both turned awayfrom the plain little supper-table, she took hold of her hand and held it fast as they went out to the kitchen together. They very seldom indulged in any signs of affection, but there was a very happy feeling roused by Betty Leicester's coming. "Oh good! drop-cakes for tea!" and Mary capered a little to show how pleased she was. "I wish I had asked her to come home with me, she always used to eat so many of our drop-cakes when she was a little girl; don't you remember, mother?"
"Yes; but you mustn't expect her to be the same now," answered Mrs. Beck. "She is used to having things very different, and we can't do as we could if father had lived."
"Grandpa says nobody has things as nice as you do," said Mary, trying to make the sun shine again. "I know Betty will eat more drop-cakes than ever, just because she can hold so many more. She'll be glad of that, now you see, mother!" and Mrs. Beck gave a faint smile.
That very evening there were quick steps up the yard toward the side door, and Betty opened the door and came in to the Becks' sitting-room.She stopped a moment on the threshold, it all looked so familiar. Becky had grown, as we know; that was the only change, and the old captain sat reading his newspaper as usual, with a small lamp held close against it in his right hand; Mrs. Beck was sewing, and on the wall hung the picture of Daniel Webster and the portraits in watercolors of two of the captain's former ships. Betty spoke to Captain Beck with an air of intimacy and then went over to Becky's mother, who stood there with a pale apprehensive look as if she thought there was no chance of anybody's being glad to seeher. However, Betty kissed her warmly and said she was so glad to get back to Tideshead, and then displayed a white paper bundle which she had held under her wrap. It looked like presents!
"Aunt Barbara had to write some letters for the early mail and Aunt Mary was resting, so I thought I would run over for a few minutes," said the eager girl. "My big trunk came this afternoon, Becky."
"How is your Aunt Mary to-day?" asked Mrs. Beck ceremoniously, though a light crept into her face which may have been a reflection from her daughter's broad smile.
"Oh, she is just the same as ever," replied Betty sadly. "I believe she isn't sleeping so well lately, but she looks a great deal better than when I was a little girl. Aunt Barbara is always so anxious."
"They were surprised, I observed, when you and I came up the street together last night; quite a voyage we had," said the captain.
"Some day I mean to go down and come back again in the old packet; can't you go too, Becky?" said our friend. "Captain Beck'll be going again, won't you, Captain Beck? I didn't look at the river half enough because I was in such a hurry to get here."
"You're sunburnt, aren't you?" said Mrs. Beck, looking very friendly.
"I'm always brown in summer," acknowledged Betty frankly. "Hasn't Mary grown like everything? I didn't known how tall I must look until I saw her. I'm so glad that school is done; I was afraid it wouldn't be."
"She goes to the academy now, you know," said Mrs. Beck. "The term ended abruptly because the principal's wife met with affliction and they had to go out of town to her old home."
Betty, it must be confessed, had at this point an instinctive remembrance of Mrs. Beck's love for dismal tales, so she hastened to change the subject of conversation. Mrs. Beck was very kind-hearted when any one was ill or in trouble. Betty herself had a grateful memory of such devotion when she had a long childish illness once at Aunt Barbara's, but Mary Beck's mother never seemed to take half the pleasure in cheerful things and in well people who went about their every-day affairs. It seemed a good chance now to open the little package of presents. There were two pretty Roman cravats, and a carved Swiss box with a quantity of French chocolate in it, and a nice cake of violet soap, and a pretty ivory pin carved like an edelweiss, like one that Betty herself wore; for the captain there was a photograph of Bergen harbor in Norway, with all manner of strange vessels at the wharves. Then for Mrs. Beck Betty had brought a pretty handkerchief with some fine embroidery round the edge. It was a charming little heap of things. "I have been getting them at different times and keeping them until I came," said Betty.
Mary Beck was delighted, as well she might be, and yet it was very hard to express any such feeling. Somehow the awkward feeling with which she went to make the call that afternoon was again making her dreadfully uncomfortable.
The old captain was friendly and smiling, and Mary and her mother said "Thank you," a good many times, but Mrs. Beck took half the pleasure away by a sigh and lament that her girl couldn't make any return.
"It's the best return to be so glad to see each other, Becky!" said Betty Leicester, suddenly turning to her friend and blushing a good deal as they kissed one another, while the old captain gave a satisfiedhumphand turned to his newspaper again.
Mrs. Beck was really much pleased, and yet was overwhelmed with a suspicion that Betty thought her ungrateful. She was sorry that if there were going to be a handkerchief it had not been one with a black border, but after all this was a pretty one and very fine; it would be just right for Mary by and by.
The old cat seemed to know the young visitor, and came presently purring very loud andrubbing against Betty's gown, and was promptly lifted into her lap for a little patting and cuddling before she must run back again to the aunts. This cat had been known to Betty as a young kitten, and she and Becky had sometimes dressed her with a neat white ruffle about her neck to which they added a doll's dress. She was one of the limp obliging kittens which make such capital playmates, and the two girls laughed a great deal now as they reminded each other of certain frolics that had taken place. Once Mrs. Beck had entertained the Maternal Meeting in her staid best parlor, and the Busy B's, as the captain sometimes called them, had dressed the kitten and encouraged her to enter the room at a most serious moment in the proceedings. Even Mrs. Beck laughed about it now, though she was very angry at the time. Her heart seemed to warm more and more, and by the time our friend had gone she was in really good spirits. Becky must keep the cake of soap in her upper drawer, she said; nothing gave such a nice clean smell to things. It seemed to her it was a strange present, but it was nice to have it, and all the things were pretty; itwasn't likely that any of them were very expensive.
"Oh mother!" pleaded Becky affectionately; "and then, just think! you said last night perhaps she hadn't brought me anything, and it had been out of sight out of mind with her!" Mary was truly fond of her friend, but she could not help looking at life sometimes from her mother's carping point of view. It was good for her to be so pleased and happy as she was that evening, and she looked at her new treasures again and prudently counted the seventeen little chocolates in their gay papers twice over before she treated herself to any. She could keep their little cases even after the chocolates were gone.
Mrs. Beck mended and sewed on buttons long after the captain and Mary had gone to bed. She could not help feeling happier for Betty Leicester's coming. She knew that she had been a little grumpy to the child; but Betty had luckily not been discomforted by it, and had even thought, as she ran across the street in the dark evening and up the long front walk, that Becky's mother was not half so disapproving as she used to be.
Therewas a gnarled old pear-tree of great age and size that grew near Betty Leicester's east window. By leaning out a little she could touch the nearest bough. Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary said that it was a most beautiful thing to see it in bloom in the spring; and the family cats were fond of climbing up and leaping across to the window-sill, while there were usually some birds perching in it when the coast was clear of pussies.
One day Betty was looking over from Mary Beck's and saw that the east window and the pear-tree branch were in plain sight; so the two girls invented a system of signals: one white handkerchief meantcome over, and two meantno, but a single one in answer was foryes. A yellow handkerchief on the bough proposed a walk; and so the code went on, and was found capable of imparting much secretinformation. Sometimes the exchange of these signals took a far longer time than it did to run across from house to house, and at any rate in the first fortnight Mary and Betty spent the greater part of their waking hours together. Still the signal service, as they proudly called it, was of great use.
One morning, when Mary had been summoned, Betty came rushing to meet her.
"Aunt Barbara is going to let me have a tea-party. What do you think of that?" she cried.
Mary Beck looked pleased, and then a doubting look crept over her face.
"I don't know any of the boys and girls very well except you," Betty explained, "and Aunt Barbara likes the idea of having them come. Aunt Mary thinks that she can't come down, for the excitement would be too much for her, but I am going to tease her again as soon as I have time. It is to be a summer-house tea at six o'clock; it is lovely in the garden then. Just as soon as I have helped Serena a little longer, you and I will go to invite everybody. Serena is letting me beat eggs."
It was a great astonishment that Betty should take the serious occasion so lightly. Mary Beck would have planned it at least a week beforehand, and have worried and worked and been in despair; but here was Betty as gay as possible, and as for Aunt Barbara and Serena and Letty, they were gay too. It was entirely mysterious.
"I have sent word by Jonathan to the Picknell girls; he had an errand on that road. They looked so old and scared in church last Sunday that I kept thinking that they ought to have a good time. They don't come in to the village much, do they?" inquired Betty with great interest.
"Hardly ever, except Sundays," answered Mary Beck. "They turn red if you only look at them, but they are always talking together when they go by. One of them can draw beautifully. Oh, of course I go to school with them, but I don't know them very well."
"I hope they'll come, don't you?" said Betty, whisking away at the eggs. "I don't know when I've ever been where I could have a little party. I can have two or three girls to luncheon or tea almost any time, especiallyin London, but that's different. Who else now, Becky? Let's see if we choose the same ones."
"Mary and Julia Picknell, and Mary and Ellen Grant, and Lizzie French, and George Max, and Frank Crane, and my cousin Jim Beck,—Dan's too little. They would be eight, and you and I make ten—oh, that's too many!"
"Dear me, no!" said Betty lightly. "I thought of the Fosters, too"—
"We don't have much to do with the Fosters," said Mary Beck. "I don't see why that Nelly Foster started up and came to see you. I never go inside her house now. Everybody despises her father"—
"I think that Nelly is a dear-looking girl," insisted Betty. "I like her ever so much."
"They acted so stuck-up after Mr. Foster was put in jail," Mary went on. "People pitied them at first and were carrying about a subscription-paper, but Mrs. Foster wouldn't take anything, and said that they were going to support themselves. People don't like Mrs. Foster very well."
"Aunt Barbara respects her very much.She says that few women would show the courage she has shown. Perhaps she hasn't a nice way of speaking, but Aunt Barbara said that I must ask Harry and Nelly, when we were talking about to-night." Betty could not help a tone of triumph; she and Becky had fought a little about the Fosters before this.
"Harry is just like a wild Indian," said Mary Beck; "he goes fishing and trapping almost all the time. He won't know what to do at a party. I believe he makes ever so much money with his fish, and pays bills with it." Becky relented a little now. "Oh, dear, I haven't anything nice enough to wear," she added suddenly. "We never have parties in Tideshead, except at the vestry in the winter; and they're so poky."
"Oh, wear anything; it's going to be hot, that's all," said industrious Betty, in her business-like checked apron; and it now first dawned upon Becky's honest mind that it was not worth while to make one's self utterly miserable about one's clothes.
The two girls went scurrying away like squirrels presently to invite the guests. Nelly Fosterlooked delighted at the thought of such a pleasure.
"But I don't know what Harry will say," she added, doubtfully.
"Please ask him to be sure to come," urged Betty. "I should be so disappointed, and Aunt Barbara asked me to say that she depended upon him, for she knows him better than she does almost any of the young people." Nelly looked radiant at this, but Mary Beck was much offended. "I go to your Aunt Barbara's oftener than anybody," she said jealously, as they came away.
"She asked me to say that, and I did," maintained Betty. "Don't be cross, Becky, it's going to be such a jolly tea-party. Why, here's Jonathan back again already. Oh, good! the Picknells are happy to come."
The rest of the guests were quickly made sure of, and Betty and reluctant Mary went back to the house. It made Betty a little disheartened to find that her friend took every proposition on the wrong side; she seemed to think most things about a tea-party were impossible, and that all were difficult, and she saw lions in the way at every turn. It struckBetty, who was used to taking social events easily, that there was no pleasuring at all in the old village, though people were always saying how gay and delightful itusedto be and how many guestsusedto come to town in the summer.
The old Leicester garden was a lovely place on a summer evening. Aunt Barbara had been surprised when Betty insisted that she wished to have supper there instead of in the dining-room; but Betty had known too many out-of-door feasts in foreign countries not to remember how charming they were and how small any dining-room seems in summer by contrast. And after a few minutes' thought, Aunt Barbara, too, who had been in France long before, asked Serena and Letty to spread the table under the large cherry-tree near the arbor; and there it stood presently, with its white cloth, and pink roses in two china bowls, all ready for the sandwiches and bread and butter and strawberries and sponge-cake, and chocolate to drink out of the prettiest cups in Tideshead. It was all simple and gay and charming, the little feast; and full of grievous self-consciousness as the shyest guest might have been whenfirst met by Betty at the doorstep, the pleasure of the party itself proved most contagious, and all fears were forgotten. Everybody met on common ground for once, without any thought of self. It came with surprise to more than one girl's mind that a party was really so little trouble. It was such a pity that somebody did not have one every week.
Aunt Barbara was very good to Harry Foster, who seemed at first much older and soberer than the rest; but Betty demanded his services when she was going to pass the sandwiches again, and Letty had gone to the house for another pot of chocolate. "I will take the bread and butter; won't you please pass these?" she said. And away they went to the rest of the company, who were scattered along the arbor benches by twos and threes.
"I saw you in your boat when I first came up the river," Betty found time to say. "I didn't know who you were then, though I was sure you were one of the boys whom I used to play with. Some time when Nelly is going down couldn't you take me too? I can row."
"Nelly would go if you would. I never thought to ask her. I always wish there weresomebody else to see how pleasant it is"—and then a voice interrupted to ask what Harry was catching now.
"Bass," said Harry, with brightening face. "I do so well that I am sending them down to Riverport every day that the packet goes, and I wish that I had somebody to help me. You don't know what a rich old river it is!"
"Why, if here isn't Aunt Mary!" cried Betty. Sure enough, the eager voices and the laughter had attracted another guest. And Aunt Barbara sprang up joyfully and called for a shawl and footstool from the house; but Betty didn't wait for them, and brought Aunt Mary to the arbor bench. Nobody knew when the poor lady had been in her own garden before, but here she was at last, and had her supper with the rest. The good doctor would have been delighted enough if he had seen the sight.
Nothing had ever tasted so good as that out-of-door supper. The white June moon came up, and its bright light made the day longer; and when everybody had eaten a last piece of sponge-cake, and the heap of strawberries on a great round India dish had been leveled,what should be heard but sounds of a violin. Betty had discovered that Seth Pond,—the clumsy, good-natured Seth of all people!—had, as he said, "ears for music," and had taught himself to play.
So they had a country-dance on the green, girls and boys and Aunt Barbara, who had been a famous dancer in her youth; and those who didn't know the steps of "Money Musk" and the Virginia reel were put in the middle of the line, and had plenty of time to learn before their turns came. Afterward Seth played "Bonny Doon," and "Nelly was a Lady," and "Johnny Comes Marching Home," and "Annie Laurie," and half a dozen other songs, and everybody sang, but, to Betty's delight, Mary Beck's voice led all the rest.
The moon was high in the sky when the guests went away. It seemed like a new world to some young folks who were there, and everybody was surprised because everybody else looked so pretty and was so surprisingly gay. Yet, here it was, the same old Tideshead after all!
"Aunt Barbara," said Betty, as that aunt sat on the side of Betty's four-post bed,—"AuntBarbara, don't say good-night just yet. I must talk about one or two things before I forget them in the morning. Mary Picknell asked me ever so many questions about some of the pictures, but she knows more about them than I do, and I thought I would ask her to come some day so that you could tell her everything. She ought to be an artist. Didn't you see how she kept looking at the pictures? And then Harry Foster knows a lovely place down the river for a picnic, and can borrow boats enough beside his own to take us all there, only it's a secret yet. Harry said that it was a beautiful point of land, with large trees, and that there was a lane that came across the fields from the road, so that you could be driven down to meet us, if you disliked the boats."
"I am very fond of going on the water," said Aunt Barbara, with great spirit. "I knew that point, and those oak-trees, long before either of you were born. It was very polite of Harry to think of my coming with the young folks. Yes, we'll think about the picnic, certainly, but you must go to sleep now, Betty."
"Aunt Barbara must have been such a nice girl," thinks Betty, as the door shuts. "And if we go, Harry must take her in his boat. It is strange that Mary Beck should not like the Fosters, just because their father was a scamp."
But the room was still and dark, and sleepiness got the better of Betty's thoughts that night.
Onemorning Betty was hurrying down Tideshead street to the post-office, and happened to meet the minister's girls and Lizzie French, who were great friends with each other. They seemed to be unusually confidential and interested about something.
"We've got a secret club and we're going to let you belong," said Lizzie French. "Where can we go to tell you about it, and make you take the oath?"
"Come home with me just as soon as I post this letter," responded Betty with great pleasure. "Do you think my front steps would be a good place?"
"It would be too hot; beside, we don't want Mary Beck to see us," objected Ellen Grant, who was the most pale and quiet of the two sisters. They were both pleasant, persistent, mild-faced girls, who never seemed tired or confused,and never liked to change their minds or to go out of their own way. Usually all the other girls liked to do as they said, and they were accordingly very much pleased with Betty, apparently because she hardly ever agreed with them.
"Let's go to walk, then," said Betty.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," Lizzie Grant said in a business-like tone. "Let's go down the old road a little way, toward the river, and sit under the black cherry-tree on the stone wall; you know how cool it is there in the morning? I can't stay but a little while any way. I am going to help mother."
Nobody objected and away they went two by two. Evidently there was serious business on hand, which could by no means be told lightly or without some regard to the surroundings.
"Now what is it?" demanded Betty, when they had seated themselves under the old black cherry-tree; but neither of the girls took it upon her to speak first. "I promise never, never to tell."
Mary Grant took a thin, square little bookout of her pocket, half of a tiny account book of the plainest sort, and held it up to Betty so that she could see the letters S. B. C. on the pale brown pasteboard cover. It certainly looked very interesting and mysterious. "We thought that we would admit another member," said Mary; "but it is a very difficult thing to belong, and you must hold up your right hand and promise on your word of honor that you will never speak of it to any girl in Tideshead."
"I may have to speak of it to papa. I always tell papa if I am not quite certain about things. He said a great while ago that it was the safest way. I mean I am on my honor about it, that's all. He never asks me." Betty's cheeks grew red as she spoke, but she did speak bravely, and the girls were more impressed than ever by the seriousness of the club.
"I don't believe that she will have to tell him, do you, girls?" Lizzie French insisted. "Any way we want you to belong, Betty. You be the one to tell her, Mary."
"It is a society to help us not to say things about people," said Mary Grant solemnly, andBetty Leicester gave a little sigh of relief. She thought that would be a most worthy object, though somewhat poky.
"We have made a league that we will try to break ourselves of speaking harshly and making fun of people, and of not standing up for them when others talk scandal. There, you see this book is ruled into little squares for the days of the week, a month on a page, and when we get through a day without saying anything against anybody we can put a nice little cross in, but when we have broken the pledge we must mark it with a cipher, and then when we are just horrid and keep on being cross, we must black the day all over. Then once a week we have to show the books to each other and make our confessions."
"Wouldn't it be splendid, if we could have a whole week of good marks, to wear a little badge or something?" proposed Lizzie French.
"Oh Lizzie! we never can, it will be so hard to get through one single day," Betty answered quickly. "I should just love to belong, though; I am always saying ugly things and being sorry. What does S. B. C. mean? How did you ever think of it?"
"The Sin Book Club," Ellen Grant explained. "Mary and I heard of one that our cousin belonged to at boarding-school. She said that it took weeks and weeks for some of the members to make one good mark, but after you get into the habit of it, you find it quite easy. I will let you take my book to make yours by, if you will let me have it back to-night. I bought a little book for Mary and me that was only three cents, and cut it in two; and Lizzie hasn't got hers yet, so you can buy one together and go halves."
"I'd like to know who will pay the two cents," laughed Betty. "I will, and then you can give me half a one-cent lead pencil to make change. Papa always has such a joke about a man in one of Mr. Lowell's poems who used to change a board nail for a shingle nail so as to make the weight come right."
"No, you give me the pencil," said Lizzie, "I lost mine yesterday," and the new members became unduly frivolous.
"Now we mustn't laugh, girls, because it is a solemn moment," said Ellen Grant, though she did not succeed in looking very sober herself.
Betty was looking at Mary Grant's sinbook, which had kept the record of two days, both with bad marks. If Mary had failed, what could impulsive Betty hope for? it was one of her worst temptations to make fun or to find petty faults in people. She did not know what her friends would think of her as time went on, but she meant to try very hard.
"Just think how lovely it will be if we learn never to say anything against any one! Perhaps we ought to make it a big club instead of a little one," but one of the girls said that people would laugh and would be watching them.
"Oughtn't we to ask Becky to belong?" It was difficult for Betty to ask this question, but she feared that her dear friend and neighbor's sharp eyes would detect the secret alliance, and Mary Beck was very hard to console when she was once roused into displeasure. Somehow Betty liked the idea of belonging to a club that Mary Beck did not know about. She was a little ashamed of this feeling, but there it was! The Grants and Lizzie refused to have Becky join, at any rate just now; and so Betty said no more. Perhaps it would be just as well at first, and she would be as careful as possible to gain good marks for her friend'ssake as well as her own. Then the four members of the S. B. C. came back together into the village, and if the black cherry-tree heard their secret it never told. Whom should they meet as they turned the corner into the main street but Mary Beck herself, and Betty for one moment felt guilty of great disloyalty.
"We have been to walk a little way; I met the girls as I was going to the post-office, and we just went down the old road and sat under the cherry-tree," she hastened to explain, but Becky was in a most friendly mood and joined them with no suspicion of having been left out of any pleasure. Betty felt a secret joy in belonging to the club while Becky did not, and yet she was sorry all the time for Becky, who had a great pride in being at the front when anything important was going on. Becky liked to keep Betty Leicester to herself, and indeed the two girls were growing more and more fond of each other, though a touch of jealousy in one and a spirit of independence and freedom in the other sometimes blew clouds over their sunny spring sky. Mary Beck had a way of seeing how people treated her and rating them accordingly—a silly self-compassionateway of saying that one was good to her, and a surly suspicion of another who did not pay her an expected attention, and these traits offended Betty Leicester, who was not given to putting either herself or other people under a microscope. There was nothing morbid about Betty and no sentimentality in her way of looking at herself. Becky's sensitiveness and prejudice were sometimes very tiresome, but they made nobody half so miserable as they did Becky herself; the talk she had always heard at home was very narrowing; a good deal of fruitless talk about small neighborhood affairs went on continually and had nothing to do with the real interests of life. It was a house where there was very little to show for the time that was spent. Mary Beck and her mother let many chances for their own usefulness and pleasure slip by, while they said mournfully that everything would have been so different if Mary's father had lived. Betty Leicester was taught to do the things that ought to be done.
The Sin Book Club continued to be a profound secret, and was considered of great value. Some days passed without a secondmeeting of the members for reports, but they gave each other significant looks and tried very hard to gain the little crosses that were to mark a good day. Betty was in despair when evening after evening she had to put down a cipher, and it was a great humiliation to find how often she yielded to a temptation to say funny things about people. To be sure old Mrs. Max was an ugly old gossip, but Betty need not have confided this opinion to Serena and Letty as they happened to look out of the kitchen windows, to see Mrs. Max go by. Betty had succeeded in being blameless until past six o'clock that day, and it was the fifth day of trial; lost now, and black-marked like those that had gone before. She went back to the garden and sat down in the summer-house much dejected. The light that came through the grape and clematis leaves was dim and tinted with green; it was a little damp there too, and quite like a sorrowful little hermitage. It is very hard work trying to cure a fault. Betty did so like to make people laugh, and she was always seeing what funny things people looked like; and altogether life was much soberer if one could no longer say whatever came intoone's head. She was sure that all funny personalities did not make people think the less of their fellows, but it seemed as if most, and the very funniest, did. Our friend dreaded the inspection of her sin book, but when the Grants and Lizzie French showed theirs too in solemn conclave there was only one good mark for the whole four. This was Ellen Grant's, who talked much less than either of the others and so may have found that silence cost less effort.
"Even if we never succeed it will make us more careful," Lizzie French said, trying to keep up good courage.
"I keep wishing that Mary Beck belonged;" urged Betty loyally, but the others were resolute and insisted, nobody could tell exactly why, that Becky would spoil it all.
Betty was valiant enough in case of open war, but she hated heartily—as who does not hate?—a chilling atmosphere of disapproval, in which no good-fellowship can flourish. Of course the club soon betrayed its common interest, and because Mary Beck was unobservant for the first week or two, Betty took little pains to conceal the fact that she and the Grants had a new interest in common.Then one day Becky did not come over, though the white handkerchief was displayed betimes; and when, as soon as possible, Betty hurried over to see what the matter was, Becky showed unmistakable signs of briefness and grumpiness of speech, and declared that she was busy at home, and evidently did not care for the news that an old Æolian harp had been discovered on a high upper shelf and carried to one of the dormer windows, where it was then wailing. The plaintive strains of it would have suited Becky's spirit and temper of mind excellently. It did not occur to Betty until she was going home, disappointed, that the club was beginning to make trouble; then her own good temper was spoiled for that day, and she was angry with Becky for thinking that she had no right to be intimate with anybody else. So serious a disagreement had never parted them before. Betty Leicester assured herself that Mary knew she was fond of her and liked to be with her best, and that ought to be enough. The Æolian harp was quite forgotten.
Later in the day Betty happened to look across the street as she was shutting theblinds in the upper hall, and saw Mary Beck come proudly down her short front walk with her best hat on and go stiffly away without a look across. The sight made her feel misunderstood and lonely; and one minute later she was just going to shout to Becky when she remembered that it was a far cry and would wake the aunts from their afternoon naps. Then she ran lightly down the wide staircase and all the way to the gate and called as loud as she could, "Mary! Mary!" but either Becky was too far away or would not turn her proud head. There were some other persons in the street, who looked with surprise and interest to see where such an eager shout came from, but Betty Leicester had turned toward the house again with a heartful of rage and sorrow. It seemed to be the sudden and unlooked-for end of the summer's pleasure. When Aunt Barbara waked she asked Betty, being somewhat surprised to find her in the house alone, to go to the other end of the village to do an errand.
It was good to have something to do beside growing crosser and crosser, and Betty gladly hurried away. She hoped that she shouldmeet Becky, and yet she did not mean to make up too easily, and when she saw Mrs. Beck watching her out of a front window she felt certain that Mrs. Beck was cross too. "Let them get pleased again!" grumbled Miss Betty Leicester, and Mary Beck herself had not borne a more forbidding expression. She lingered a moment at Nelly Foster's gate, hoping to find Nelly free, but the noise of the sewing-machine was plainly to be heard, and Nelly said wistfully that she could not go out until after tea; then she would come down to the house for a little while if Betty would like it, and Betty gladly said yes. Her heart was shaken as she walked on alone and came to the oak-tree on the high ridge where Becky had taken her to see the view and told her that she always called it their tree, in that first afternoon's walk. What could make poor old Becky so untrustful and unkind? Perhaps after all everything would be right when they met again; it might be one of Becky's freaks, only a little worse than usual. Alas, Mary with Julia Picknell, who happened to be in the village that afternoon, came out of one of the stores as the returning Betty was passing,and Becky looked another way and pushed by, though Betty had spoken pleasantly and tried to stop her.
"I don't care one bit; you're rude and hateful, Mary Beck!" said Betty hotly, at which Julia, mild little friend that she was, looked frightened and amazed. She had thought many times how lovely it must be to live in town and have friendships of a close and intimate kind with the girls. She pitied Betty Leicester, who looked as if she could hardly keep from crying; but the grievous Becky was more grumpy than before.
Serena was walking in the side yard in her nice plain afternoon dress, and somehow Betty felt more like seeking comfort from her than from Aunt Barbara, and was glad to go in at the little gate and join her kind old friend.
"What's fell uponyou?" asked Serena, with sincere compassion.
"Mary Beck's just as disagreeable as she can be to-day," responded Betty, regardless of her sin book. "Serena! I just hate her, and I hate that horrid best hat of hers with the feather in it."
"Oh, no you don't, sweetin's;" Serena protested peacefully. "You'll be keepin' company same's ever to-morrow. Now I think of 't, you've been off a good deal with the Grants and that French girl" (not a favorite of Serena's); "I wonder if that's all?"
"Yes—no"—wavered Betty. "Don't you tell anybody, but I do belong to a little club, but Becky doesn't really understand, for we've kept it very secret indeed."
"I want to know," exclaimed Serena.
"Yes, and it's for such a good object. I'll tell you some time, perhaps, but we want to cure ourselves of a fault." It seemed no harm to tell good old Serena; the compact had only been that none of the other girls should know. "We keep a little book, and we can have a good mark at night if we haven't said anything against anybody, but to-day I shall have such a black one! It makes us careful how we speak; truly, Serena; but Becky doesn't know, and she's making me feel so badly just because she suspects something."
"The tongue is an evil member," said Serena. "I don't know but doing things is full as bad as sayin' 'em, though. I s'poseyou ain't kind of flaunted it a little speck that you had some secret amon'st you, to spite Mary?"
"She was stuffy about it and she had no right to be," Betty said this at first hastily, and then added: "I did wish yesterday that she would ask to belong and find that for once she couldn't."
Serena took Betty's light hand in her own work-worn one and held it fast. "Le's come and set on the doorstep a spell," she said; "I want to tell you something about me an' a girl I thought everything of when we was young.
"She was real pretty, and we went together and had our young men—not serious, only kind o' going together; an' Cynthy an' me we had a misunderstandin' o' one another and we didn't speak for much's a fortnight an' said spiteful things. I was here same's I be now, an' your Aunt Barbara, she was young too, an' the old lady, Madam Leicester, she was alive and they all was inquirin' what had come over me. I used to have a pretty voice then, and I wouldn't go to singin'-school or evenin' meetin' nor nothin'. I set out to leave here an'my good kind home an' go off to Lowell working in the mill, 't was when so many did, and girls liked it. Cynthy lived to the minister's folks. I've never got over it how ugly spoken I was about that poor girl, and she used to look kind of beseechin' at me the two or three times we met, as if she'd make up if I would, but I wouldn't. An' don't you think, one night her brother come after her to take her home, up Great Hill way, and the horse got scared and threw 'em out on the ice; an' when they picked Cynthy up she was just breathin' an' that was all, an' never spoke nor knew nothin' again. 'T was at the foot o' that hill just this side o' the Picknells. It give me a fit o' sickness; it did so," said Serena mournfully. "I can't bear to think about her never. Oh, she was one of the prettiest girls you ever saw. I try to go every summer an' lay a bunch o' pink roses on to her grave; she used to like 'em. I know 't was a fault o' youth an' hastiness, but I ain't never forgot it all my long life. I tell you with a reason. Folks says it takes two to make a quarrel but only one to end it. Now you bear that in your mind."
Betty glanced at old Serena, and saw two great tears slowly running down her faded cheek. She was much moved by the sad little story, and Serena's pretty friend and the pink roses. She wondered what the quarrel had been about, but she did not like to ask, and as Serena still held one hand she put the other over it, while Serena took the corner of her afternoon apron to wipe away the tears.
"It's very hard to be good, isn't it, Serena dear?" asked Betty.
"It's master hard, sweetin's," answered Serena gravely,—"master hard; but it can be done with help." They sat there on the shady doorstep for some minutes without speaking. A robin was chirping loud, as if for rain, high in one of the elms overhead, and the sun was getting low. Presently Serena was mindful of her evening duties and rose to go in, but not before Betty had put both arms round her and kissed her.
"There, there! somebody 'll see you," protested the kind soul, but her face shone with joy. "Which d' you want for your supper, shortcakes or some o' them crispy rye ones?" she asked, trying to be very matter-of-fact. Asfor Betty, she turned and went down the yard and out of the carriage gate and straight across the wide street. She opened the Becks' front door and saw Becky at the end of the entry trying to escape to the garden.
"Don't let's be grumpy," she said in a friendly tone, "I've come over to make up."
Becky tried to preserve a stern expression, but somehow there was a warmth at her heart which suddenly came to the surface in a smile and the two girls were friends again. That night Betty put down a black mark, but not without feeling that the day had ended well in spite of its dark shadows.
"I don't believe that we ought to keep the sin books secret," she told the members of the club one afternoon when the second week's trial was over and there had been four or five good days for encouragement. "I don't wish everybody to know, but now that we find how much good they do us, we ought to let somebody else try; only Becky and the Picknells and Nelly Foster."
But there was no expression of approval.
"Then I'm going to do this: not tell them about this club, but behave as if it was somethingnew and start another club. I could belong to two as well as one, you know."
"I wouldn't be such a copy-cat," said Lizzie French quickly. "It'soursecret; we shall be provoked that we ever asked you," and with this verdict Betty was forced to be contented. She felt as if she had taken most inflexible vows, but there was a pleasing excitement in such dark mystery. The girls had to employ much stratagem in order to have their weekly meetings unsuspected, for Betty was determined not to make any more trouble among her friends. When she was first in Tideshead she often felt more enlightened than her neighbors, as if she had been beyond those bounds and experiences of every-day life known to the other girls, but she soon discovered herself to be single-handed and weak before their force of habit and prejudice. With all their friendliness and affection for Betty Leicester they held their own with great decision, and sometimes she found herself nothing but a despised minority. This was very good for her, especially when, as it sometimes happened, she was quite in the wrong, while if she were right she became more sure of it and was able to make her reasons clear.
There were several solemn evening meetings of the Sin Book Club after this; the favorite place of assemblage was a shady corner of Lizzie French's damp garden, where the records were sorrowfully inspected by the fleeting light of burnt matches, and gratified crowds of mosquitoes forced the sessions to be extremely brief. Whether it was that new interests took the place of the club, or whether the members thought best to keep their trials to themselves, no one can say, but by the middle of August the regular meetings had ceased. Yet sometimes the little books came accidentally out of pocket with a member's handkerchief, and were not without a good and lasting effect upon four quick young tongues; perhaps this will be seen as the story goes on.
Thesummer days flew by. Some letters came from Mr. Leicester on his rapid journey northward, and Betty said once that it seemed months since she left England instead of a few weeks, everybody was so friendly and pleasant. Tideshead was most delightful to a girl who had been used to seeing strange places and to knowing nobody but papa at first, and only getting acquainted by degrees with the lodgings people and the shops, and perhaps with some new or old friends of papa's who lived out of the town. Once or twice she had stayed for many weeks in rough places in the north of Scotland, going from village to village and finding many queer people, and sometimes being a little lonely when her father was away on his scientific quests. Mr. Leicester insisted that Betty learned more than she would from books in seeing the countryand the people, and Betty herself liked it much better than if she had been kept steadily at her lessons. The most doleful time that she could remember was once when papa had gone to the south of Italy late in spring and had left her at a French convent school until his return. However, there were delightful things to remember, especially about some of the good sisters whom Betty learned to love dearly, and it may be imagined how brimful of stories she was, after all these queer and pleasant experiences, and how short she made the evenings to Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary by recounting them. It was no use for the ladies to worry any more about Betty's being spoiled by such an erratic course of education, as they often used to worry while she was away. They had blamed Betty's father for letting her go about with him so much, but there did not seem to be any great harm wrought after all. She knew a great many things that she never would have known if she had stayed at school. Still, she had a great many things to learn, and the summer in Tideshead would help to teach her those. She was really a home-loving girl, our Betty Leicester, and the best part of any newtown was always the familiar homelike place that she and papa at once made in it with their "kits," as Betty called their traveling array of books and a few little pictures, and papa's special kits and collections of the time being. Aunt Barbara could never know upon how many different rooms her little framed photograph had looked. She had grown older since it was taken, but when she said so Betty insisted that it was a picture of herself and would always look exactly like her. Betty had grown so attached to it that it was still displayed on the dressing-table of the east bedroom, even though the original was hourly to be seen.
In this summer quiet of the old town it seemed impossible that papa should not come hurrying home, as he used in their long London winters, to demand an instant start for some distant place. When the traveling kit was first bestowed in the lower drawer of one of the deep bureaus, Betty felt as if it might have to come out again next day, but there it stayed, and was abandoned to neglect unless its owner needed the tumbler in its stiff leather box for a picnic, or thought of aparticular spool that might be found in the traveling work-bag. But with all the quiet and security of her surroundings, sometimes her thoughts followed papa most wistfully, or she wondered what her friends were doing on the other side of the sea. It was very queer to be obliged to talk about entirely new and different things, and Tideshead affairs alone, and not to have anybody near who knew the same every-day life that had stopped when she came to Tideshead, and so letters were most welcome. Indeed, they made a great part of the summer's pleasure. Suppose we read a handful as if we had picked them from Betty's pocket:—