And then, with the little dog still in her arms, she jumped down into the room.
“I’ll just hop in beside you for a minute,” said she, approaching the bed, “’cause my feet are cold—though it’s a lovely warm morning. What time do you have breakfast?”
As she spoke she snuggled herself, dog and all, into her aunt’s bed, and softly patted the old lady’s cheek.
Miss Dorinda knew she ought to be stern, but it was impossible, with the little childish face framed in its big cap-ruffle looking up into her own, and she said:
“About eight o’clock, dearie; are you hungry?”
“Yes, ’m; I’m ’most starved. The train was late last night, and I didn’t get any supper.”
“Why, you poor child! There, that’s the rising-bell. Run right back to your room and dress; the breakfast-bell will ring in just thirty minutes. Can you be ready?”
“In thirty minutes? I should hope so!” said Ladybird, laughing.
Gathering up her dog, she stepped through the window and ran along the veranda roof to her own room.
Peeping in, she saw Martha staring in dismay at the empty bed.
“Hello, Martha,” she cried gaily, “did you think I was lost? I’ve been calling on my aunt; it’s such a lovely morning for visiting, you know. But I’m as hungry as a bear, and now I think I’ll get dressed and go to breakfast.”
She jumped into the room, and with Martha’s assistance her toilette was soon made; then she seized her dog and went dancing down-stairs.
After wandering through several of the large rooms she came to the dining-room, where the breakfast-table was laid; seeing nothing to eat, she went on to the kitchen.
Bridget looked at her with no kindly eye, for she resented any intrusion on the quiet of Primrose Hall as much as Miss Priscilla did.
But when Ladybird said wistfully, “I’m very hungry,” the good-hearted old cook fell a victim at once to the irresistible charm of the strange child.
“Are ye that, miss? And what would ye like now?”
“Oh, anything!—I don’t care what; and if I go and sit at the table will you bring me something?”
“I will indeed, miss. Run along, thin, and set at the place forninst the side-board.”
And so that’s how it happened that when, a few minutes later, Miss Priscilla and Miss Dorinda came into the dining-room they found their guest ensconced at their table and apparently enjoying herself very much.
“Good morning, aunties,” she said smilingly. “I ought to have waited for you, I know, but truly, I was so hungry I just couldn’t. And Bridget brought me such lovely things! I never had strawberries and cream before. Do you always use these beautiful blue-and-white dishes? For if you don’t, you needn’t get them out just because I’ve come.”
“We always use them,” said Miss Priscilla; “we have used them for forty years, and not a piece has ever been broken.”
“Is that so?” said Ladybird, with great interest, quite unconscious that the remark was intended for a warning to herself, as her quick motions and unexpected gestures seemed to threaten the safety of anything in her vicinity.
Having finished her strawberries, she sat back, and throwing her little thin arms above her head, grasped the carved knobs of the high, old-fashioned chair.
“Why, you’re just like me, aunty,” she said; “I think that’s the right way to do—to use your best things every day. It’s such a comfort to see them around; and you needn’t break china or glass just because you use it. Why, I’ll show you what can be done with them, and there’s not the slightest danger if you’re careful.”
As the child spoke, she pushed away her plate, and ranged her cup, saucer, and glass in a row in front of her, and seized a spoon in one hand and a fork in the other. Then in a sweet, crooning voice she began to sing:
“Shouldauldacquaintancebeforgot,Andneverbrought tomind?”
“Shouldauldacquaintancebeforgot,
Andneverbrought tomind?”
striking her glass lightly with her spoon at the accented notes, and beating an accompaniment alternately on her cup and saucer.
Miss Priscilla’s eyes grew almost as big as her precious and endangered saucers, but the dear old tune, sung in the pretty, childish voice, with its tinkling accompaniment, held her spellbound, and she said not a word.
As Ladybird finished the refrain she said eagerly:
“Now we’ll do it again, and you both tap your glasses and sing with me.”
And would you believe it? Those two old ladies were so interested that they tapped on their glasses with their thin old silver spoons, and sang with their thin old voices for all they were worth.
“That was very pretty,” observed Ladybird, approvingly, when at last they all laid down their spoons. “And now if you’ve finished your breakfast, Aunt Priscilla, will you take me out and show me round the garden?”
But Miss Priscilla Flint had by no means lost her mind entirely, and she said:
“You have no time to go round the garden,—you are to start back to Boston this morning, and from there to London as soon as possible.”
“Oh, am I?” said Ladybird, with a wise smile, and an air as of one humoring a wayward child.
“You are indeed,” said her aunt, severely; “and now, if you will come into the morning-room with us, we will ask you a few questions before you go.”
“All right, come on,” said Ladybird; and she grasped Miss Priscilla’s hand in both her own, and danced along at the old lady’s side.
“‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot?’”“‘Shouldauldacquaintancebeforgot?’”
“‘Shouldauldacquaintancebeforgot?’”
Miss Dorinda followed, and she and her sister took their accustomed seats in the bay-window.
Then Ladybird placed a low ottoman at Miss Priscilla’s side and sat down upon it, and laid her head against her aunt’s knee.
Although Miss Dorinda might seem to a casual observer to be a softer, kinder nature than her elder sister, yet for some unaccountable reason Ladybird felt more attracted toward Miss Priscilla; and, too, the child could already see that Miss Priscilla’s word was law at Primrose Hall, and that Miss Dorinda merely acquiesced in her sister’s decisions.
But it was no spirit of diplomacy that actuated Ladybird, and she caressed Miss Priscilla’s hand for the simple reason that she was beginning to love the stern old lady.
“Now,” said Miss Priscilla, glaring at her niece, “will you tell me what your name is?”
“Ladybird Lovell,” said the little girl, with a bewitching smile.
“I mean your real name, not that absurd nickname.”
“Itismy real name. I never had any other.”
“Nonsense! Your real name is Lavinia Lovell.”
“It is? All right—Lavinia Lovell, then. I don’t mind.”
“And how old are you?”
“Twelve years old.”
“You are not! You are fourteen.”
“Yes, ’m. Fourteen.”
Ladybird began to treat her aunt as one would treat a harmless lunatic who must be humored, whatever she might say.
“And why have you black eyes and straight black hair? Your father wrote, when you were a baby, that you had blue eyes and golden curls.”
“Did he write that? Why, how I have changed, haven’t I? Did you ever know a baby to change as much as that before?”
“No, I never did. And I don’t say that I would have kept you here if you had had blue eyes and golden hair; but it might have influenced me if you had looked more like your mother,—and your father said you did. As it is, I cannot think of allowing you to stay here, and so when your trunks come this morning—and I suppose Mr. Marks will bring them pretty soon—I shall send them back, and you with them, to Boston. There my lawyer will meet you and start you back to London. Mr. Thomas J. Bond had no right to send you here uninvited, and he may burden some one else with you. I positively decline the honor.”
Ladybird had paid polite attention at first, but toward the end of her aunt’s speech her mind began to wander, and as Miss Priscilla finished the child said:
“Aunty, I can make poetry, can you?”
Now the one ambition of Priscilla Flint’s early life had been to become a poetess.
Her favorite day-dream was of a beautiful volume, bound in blue and gold, that should contain poems like those of Mrs. Hemans. But though she had written many, many verses,—and indeed, had a little hair-trunk in the attic packed quite full of them,—yet she had never been able to summon sufficient courage to offer them to any publisher; and lately she had begun to think she never would, for poetry had changed since Mrs. Hemans’s day, and she doubted if her efforts would stand the tests of modern editors or publishers.
But she said: “Yes, child, I have written poetry. It is a talent that runs in our family. Have you written any?”
“Oh, no, I don’t write it. I just say it. Like this, you know:
“I have a dear aunt named Priscilla,Who lives in a beautiful villa;She has lovely old cups,But she can’t abide pups,And she flavors her cake with vanilla.
“I have a dear aunt named Priscilla,
Who lives in a beautiful villa;
She has lovely old cups,
But she can’t abide pups,
And she flavors her cake with vanilla.
“That’s the kind I make. Of course you have to use words that rhyme, whether the sense is very good or not. I made this one too:
“There once was a lady named Biddy,Who cried because she was a widdy;When her husband fell dead,She thoughtfully said,‘He didn’t live very long, did he?’
“There once was a lady named Biddy,
Who cried because she was a widdy;
When her husband fell dead,
She thoughtfully said,
‘He didn’t live very long, did he?’
“Now tell me some of your poetry, aunty.”
“You wouldn’t appreciate mine, child,—you couldn’t understand it.”
“No, ’m; I s’pose not. But I’d love to hear it.”
“Tell her ‘The Sunset Star,’ sister,” said Miss Dorinda.
Miss Priscilla simpered a little; then, folding her hands, she recited:
“The sunset star is shiningAcross the meadow green;The woodbine vines are twiningThe trellises between;
“The sunset star is shining
Across the meadow green;
The woodbine vines are twining
The trellises between;
“And every pleasant eveningI watch it from afar,Romantic fancies weavingAbout that evening star.”
“And every pleasant evening
I watch it from afar,
Romantic fancies weaving
About that evening star.”
“Why, aunty, that’s lovely,” exclaimed Ladybird: “and Idounderstand it. I know the sunset star that comes out in the sky just as the sun goes down. Yours is more poetry than mine, but mine are funnier. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, child; but as you grow older you’ll see that poetry is more important than fun.”
“Yes; and then I’ll learn to make verses like yours. Can you make poetry too, Aunt Dorinda?”
“No,” said Miss Dorinda, simply; “my talent is for painting.”
“Oh, is it? And do you paint pictures? And will you teach me how? I’ve always wanted to learn to paint, and I’m very industrious. I can play on the piano like a house afire.”
“Sister Lavinia used to play the piano very prettily,” said Miss Dorinda; “doubtless you have inherited her talent.”
“Yes, I think I have. Shall I play for you now?”
“No!” said Miss Priscilla, decidedly; “the piano has never been touched since your mother left us, and it never shall be opened again with my consent.”
“Aunty, did my mamma look like you? It seems funny, doesn’t it? but I’ve never seen a picture of my mamma, and papa never told me anything about her. I didn’t know papa very well, either,—he was always going off on long journeys, and I stayed with nurse. What was my mamma like, aunty?”
“She was a beautiful blonde, with rosy, plump cheeks. You are not a bit like her.”
“No, I should say not,”—and Ladybird laughed merrily,—“with my straight black hair and thin white face. Papa used to call me a black-and-white ghost. But after I live here awhile, I expect I’ll get plump and rosy; though I don’t suppose anything will ever make my hair curl.”
“But you’renotgoing to live here; you’re going away this morning.”
“Now, Aunt Priscilla,” said Ladybird, with an air of being kind but firm, “this joke has gone far enough. I’m going to stay here because it’s my home, and I have no other. I belong to you and Aunt Dorinda, because I have no other relatives. I hope you’ll learn to like me; but if not, I have to stay here, all the same. People have to live where their homes are, and so we’ll consider the matter settled.”
“Indeed, miss, we’ll consider no such thing! What do you mean by defying me in my own house? I say you are to go, and go you shall. Here comes Mr. Marks up the road now, in his wagon. Get that worthless dog of yours, and prepare to go at once.”
Miss Priscilla looked at the little girl with flashing eyes, and Ladybird, who had risen from her stool, looked back at her aunt, smiling and unalarmed.
Then the child gave a quick glance round the room. The windows were high from the ground, and there was but one door, which led to the hall.
Like a flash, Ladybird flew out through the door, shut it behind her, and turned the key in the lock, making the Misses Flint her prisoners.
She went out on the front veranda just as Mr. Marks drove up with her trunks in his wagon.
“Good morning!” she said brightly. “Will you please set the boxes out on the porch? Oh, here is Matthew; he will help you. Now, if you please, will you carry them up-stairs? I’ll show you where to put them.”
She ran up the broad staircase; the men followed; and finally her three trunks were safely lodged in the room she had occupied the night before, and which she looked upon as her own.
“How much is it, Mr. Marks?” she said; and when he told she paid him from her little purse, and bade him good morning.
She watched until he was well out of sight, and then she went to unlock the door of the morning-room.
When the Misses Flint saw the door shut behind Ladybird, and heard the key click in the lock, they could believe neither their eyes nor their ears.
Miss Priscilla rose and walked majestically to the door and turned the knob, fully expecting the door would open. But it would not open, of course, being locked, and the good lady, almost stupefied with anger and amazement, uttered an explosive and exasperated “Well!” and dropped into the nearest chair.
Miss Dorinda responded with a terrified and apprehensive “Well!” and then the two sisters sat and stared blankly at each other.
Miss Dorinda spoke first, timidly.
“Priscilla, don’t you think perhaps it is our duty to give a home to Lavinia’s child?”
“Duty!” exclaimed the elder sister, in a tense, restrained voice. “Duty! To keep such a vixen as that in our house? No! I confess I had some such thought during the night; but now I have only one desire, and that is, to get rid of her.”
“Yes,” said Miss Dorinda, sighing; “of course she can’t stay after this; but she seems very affectionate and loving.”
“Affectionate! Loving! Dorinda Flint, what are you talking about? Do you call it affectionate to lock us helplessly in this room?”
“No; but that was impulsive, and because she wants to stay here. I don’t think she is really a vicious child.”
“Well, I don’t want to think anything about her!”
Miss Priscilla took up a newspaper and pretended to read, so desirous was she of not appearing defeated; and, indeed, she would have stayed quietly in that room all day rather than call for assistance, or in any way show that she was at the mercy of her erratic niece.
Miss Dorinda was as much perturbed as her sister, but she made no effort to hide it. She fluttered about the room, looked out of the window, tried the door-knob, and at last sat down in a big rocking-chair and began to rock violently.
Suddenly the door burst open and Ladybird came flying in.
“Aunties,” she cried, “the house is on fire! What do you want to save most?”
“Mercy on us!” cried Miss Priscilla, rushing from the room, “let me get my Lady Washington geranium. The buds are just ready to open.”
“Where is it? I’ll get it,” said Ladybird, dancing around in great excitement.
“Up-stairs, on a stand by the south-room window; but you can’t go up—you’ll be burned to death.”
“No, I won’t,” screamed Ladybird, already half-way up-stairs; “I’ll get it. What doyouwant, Aunt Dorinda?”
“I don’t know,—everything! Oh, my lace handkerchief,” called the distracted lady. “And get some of your own things; and bring our fire-gowns.”
Meantime volumes of smoke rolled into the hall through the dining-room door.
“Suddenly Matthew’s face appeared”“Suddenly Matthew’s face appeared”
“Suddenly Matthew’s face appeared”
Suddenly Matthew’s face appeared in the midst of the smoke.
“Don’t be frightened, ma’am,” he said; “it’s all right now. The soot got afire in the chimbley; but we’ve put it out. But if the little lady hadn’t been afther runnin’ down an’ tellin’ me that the wall felt hot, I’m thinkin’ the house wud have been burned to the ground.”
“Oh, Matthew, are you sure the fire is all out?” asked Miss Dorinda.
“And are you sure my house would have burned up but for that child?” asked Miss Priscilla.
“Yis, ma’am, sure as sure! An’ I’ll jist open the windies till the shmoke disappears.”
Then Miss Priscilla called, “Come down, Ladybird; it’s all right now.” And in a moment the child came flying down-stairs.
“I put the geranium back in its place,” she said, “and I left your lace handkerchief on your bureau, Aunt Dorinda; but I brought both your smell-salts bottles, ’cause I thought you might be faint from the scare. Now sit down and rest, won’t you?”
She hovered about her aunts, ministering to each in turn, and her caressing touch was so gentle, and her sympathy so sincere, that Miss Priscilla, who was unaccustomed to such attentions, quite forgot she had called her niece a vixen, and that, too, with good and sufficient reasons.
But after a while, as her nerves became quieted and she felt more composed, Miss Priscilla Flint determined to attempt again the dismissal of her unwelcome guest.
“Lavinia,” she said in a tone of firm decision.
“Oh, aunty, don’t call me that; it makes me feel so old and grown up!”
“It is your name, and I have no desire to call you by any other. Lavinia, you are my niece, and the child of my dead sister; but I am in no way inclined to take you into my home for that reason. You have some kind and winning ways, but you appear to have an ungovernable temper, which would make you impossible to live with. How dared you lock the door on me in my own house?”
“Why, aunty,” said Ladybird, laughing at the memory of it, “that wasn’t temper, and I didn’t mean to be rude; but truly, there was nothing else to do. Why, if you had been out on the veranda when my trunks came, you would have sent them back to Boston, and I didn’t want them to go back; so I just left you by yourselves until the man took them up-stairs.”
“You think you have outwitted me, miss, but you will find that Priscilla Flint is not so easily set aside.”
“Oh, I’m not going to set you aside, aunty; that isn’t it. I’m just going to stay here and be your little girl—yours and Aunt Dorinda’s.”
“I think, sister, we might keep her a week on trial,” said Miss Dorinda, timidly.
Miss Dorinda always said everything timidly. In this respect she was not like her niece.
“I shallnotkeep her a week, nor a day; and no more hours than I can help. I am going now to write a note to Mr. Marks, and tell him to come back at once for her and her trunks. So, Miss Lavinia Lovell, you may as well get yourself ready, for this time you will have to go.”
“Do you know, it doesn’t seem to me as if I would go this time,” said Ladybird, thoughtfully; “it seems to me as if I would stay here years and years, until I get to be a dear old lady like you,” and she patted the top of Miss Priscilla’s head. Then she danced out of the room, and out to the garden, singing as she went:
“I am not going away to-day;I’m going to stay and stay and stay.”
“I am not going away to-day;
I’m going to stay and stay and stay.”
When the luncheon-bell rang, she danced back again, and seeing a letter on the hall-table addressed to Mr. Marks, she tore it into bits and threw it into the waste basket.
The gay good humor of their visitor was infectious, and the Flint ladies laughed and chatted over their luncheon, so that the meal was nearly over before Miss Priscilla said:
“Mr. Marks will call for you at three o’clock, Lavinia.”
“I don’t think he will,” replied the child, “because I tore up that letter you wrote to him and threw it away.”
“What!” gasped Miss Priscilla. “This is too much!”
“Well, you see, aunty, there was nothing else to do. If he’d got that letter he would have come, and I don’t want him to come, so I tore it up. Don’t write another.”
“I won’t,” said Miss Priscilla, in an ominous voice, and snapping her teeth together with a click.
But half an hour later the Primrose Hall carriage went down toward the village, and inside of it sat a very determined-looking old lady.
She went to Mr. Marks’s office and asked him to get his wagon and follow her home at once, and bring back the young miss and her luggage.
“That firebrand as I saw at your house this morning?” exclaimed the old countryman. “Wal, I guess she won’t be so easy brung.”
He chuckled to himself as he drove along the road behind Miss Priscilla Flint; and when they reached the farm-house, he waited decorously for further orders.
Then the hunt began. For Ladybird was nowhere to be found. Miss Priscilla called in vain. Then Miss Dorinda called. Then they went up and looked in the room which Ladybird had appropriated as her own.
Her three trunks stood there wide open and empty. Their contents were all around: on the bed, on the bureaus, on the chairs, and many of them on the floor. But no trace of the missing child.
Then Miss Priscilla called the servants.
“The little girl is hiding somewhere,” she explained, “and she must be found.”
“Yes, ’m,” Bridget said; and she began systematically to search the house from attic to cellar.
Matthew shook his old head doubtfully.
“I’m thinkin’ yez’ll niver find her,” he said. “She was a spookish piece, an’ the likes of her flies up chimbleys an’ out of windies an’ niver appears ag’in.”
Martha, much mystified, stared helplessly around the room, and in doing so noticed a bit of paper pinned to the pin-cushion.
She handed it to Miss Priscilla, who read:
Aunty, Aunty, Do not look for me;Until you send that man away, I’ll stay just where I be.
Aunty, Aunty, Do not look for me;
Until you send that man away, I’ll stay just where I be.
“Oh,” groaned Miss Priscilla, “whatcanI do? Wemustfind her!”
Miss Dorinda felt pretty sure, in her secret heart, that theywouldn’tfind Ladybird until that strange being was ready to be found; but she continued looking about in her placid way, which did no good nor harm.
After an hour’s search, the case did seem hopeless, and Mr. Marks declared he couldn’t wait any longer; so Miss Priscilla reluctantly let him go away.
Two more hours passed; and then it was five o’clock, and still no sign from the missing child.
Although they hadn’t confessed it to each other, the Flint ladies were both a little scared.
Finally Miss Dorinda said:
“You don’t think she’d do anything rash, do you, sister?”
“From the little I’ve seen of her,” replied Miss Priscilla, “I should say that what she does is never anything but rash. However, I don’t think she has drowned herself in the brook, or jumped down the well, if that’s what you mean.”
That was what Miss Dorinda had meant, and somehow she was not very much reassured by her sister’s word.
They sat silent for a while; then Miss Dorinda, with a sudden impulse of determination such as she had never known in all her life, and, indeed, never experienced again, said:
“Priscilla, I think you are doing wrong; and you needn’t look at me like that. For once, I’m going to say what I think! This child has been sent to us, and in your secret heart you know it is our duty to keep her and do for her. The Bible says that those who neglect their own families are worse than infidels, and we have no right to turn away our kin. Your dislike of visitors has nothing to do with the matter. The child is not a visitor, as she says herself. And it makes no difference what kind of a child she is: she is our sister’s daughter, and we are bound by every law of humanity and decency to give her a home. If father were alive, do you suppose he would turn his orphan grandchild from his door? No; he would do his duty by his own: he would be just, if he could not be generous; and he would accept a responsibility that was rightly thrust upon him.”
Miss Priscilla looked at her sister in utter amazement. Dorinda had never spoken like this before, and it seemed as if the spirit of old Josiah Flint was manifesting itself in his daughter.
But if Miss Dorinda had acted in an unusual manner, Miss Priscilla proceeded to behave no less strangely.
At the close of her sister’s speech, she suddenly burst into tears; and the times in her life when Miss Priscilla Flint had cried were very few indeed.
Then the younger sister was frightened at what she had done, and tried to pacify the weeping lady.
“I know you’re right, Dorinda,” said Miss Priscilla, between her sobs; “I—I knew it all along,—and I suppose we shall have to keep her. Father would have wished it so,—and—and I wouldn’t mind it so much if she wouldn’t—wouldn’t leave the doors open.”
While the aunts were deciding upon Ladybird’s future, old Matthew was wandering down the garden path toward the orchard.
“She bates the Dutch, that child,” he said to himself. “Now I’ll wager me dinner that she’s hidin’ under a cabbage-leaf, or in some burrd’s nest.”
But if so, Ladybird made no sign, and old Matthew tramped up and down the orchard, peering anxiously about while the shadows deepened.
At last, as he stood beneath an old gnarled apple-tree, he heard what seemed to be a far-away crooning sort of song.
“Bird, bird,Ladybird;They called and called,But she never stirred.”
“Bird, bird,
Ladybird;
They called and called,
But she never stirred.”
“Arrah, miss! an’ are ye up there? Come down, ye rascally baby. Yer aunts is afther huntin’ high an’ low for ye. Do ye hear?”
“I hear and I hear, and I don’t heed,” came back the answering voice.
“Ye must heed,” said old Matthew, earnestly. “Yer aunts is clean daft. Come down, little lady, come down now.”
“Nixy,” said Ladybird, saucily. “You know very well, Matthew, that if I come down my aunts will send me away, and I won’t be sent away.”
“But ye can’t stay up in the tree forever, miss.”
“Well, I can stay for the present. I don’t think it’s going to rain to-night, do you, Matthew?”
“The saints presarve us, miss, how ye do talk! And are ye going to stay up there all night, now?”
“Of course I am; I’ve got to sleep somewhere. And say, Matthew, I’m awful hungry.”
“Are ye that, miss? Well, thin, come down to yer supper.”
“Nay, nay,” said Ladybird, laughing merrily; “but do you, O good Matthew, go to Bridget and beg for me a bit of supper.”
“Oh, miss, what dratted foolishness!”
“Foolish nothing! I am a captive princess; you are my henchman. Do you hear, Matthew?—henchman.”
“What’s that, miss?”
“Oh, well, it only means that you must do just as I tell you, because you love me.”
“Yes, miss.”
“So go to Bridget and ask her to put up some supper in a basket, and bring it out here to me.”
“And thin will ye come down and get it, miss?”
“Go at once, Matthew! Henchmen do as they’re told without question.”
“Yes, miss”; and half dazed, the old man shuffled away, followed by a ringing peal of Ladybird’s laughter.
He soon shuffled back again, bringing a fair-sized basket well filled with good things.
“‘Come down, little lady’”“‘Come down, little lady’”
“‘Come down, little lady’”
“Hello, henchman!” called Ladybird, “you’re mighty spry. What did you tell my aunt?”
“Nothing, miss,” said Matthew; “sure, ye gave me no message.”
“Good Matthew,” said Ladybird, approvingly. “It seems to me we shall be great friends, you and I. And now for my supper.”
“But I can’t climb up with it to ye,” said Matthew.
“Small need,” said Ladybird, who was already uncoiling a long bit of string.
Tying a bunch of twigs to the end of it, she carefully let the string down through the branches of the old apple-tree.
“Tie the basket on, Matthew,” she called, and the old man, mumbling, “It’s as much as me place is worth,” tied the basket firmly to the string and started it on its ascending course.
After safely passing several dangerous obstacles in the way of knots and twigs, the savory basket-load reached Ladybird, and she gleefully examined the contents.
“It seems to me,” she said reflectively, “that Bridget is a duck—a big fat duck.”
“She is that, miss,” said Matthew, agreeably.
The conversation flagged then, for Ladybird was busily engaged; and Matthew was bewildered, and quite uncertain what course to pursue. He could not see the child, though between the thickly leaved branches he could catch glimpses of her red frock at the very top of the tree.
Presently he heard her voice again.
“Matthew, there’s no use of your staying there; you’ll get rheumatism. You may go now. I shall stay here. There is no message for my aunts. Good night.”
“Oh, miss, don’t be foolish now; come down; let me take ye to the house.”
“Good night, Matthew.”
“Miss, yer aunts is that worrited!”
“Good night, Matthew.”
“Well, miss,” with a sigh of resignation, “it does be awful cold here after dark. Sha’n’t I bring ye a blanket jist?”
“Good night, Matthew.”
Baffled, the old man went back to the house. His emotions were rioting within him; his sense of duty was dulled. He well knew he ought to tell the Flint ladies where the child was; and yet she had said there was no message, and somehow the little witch’s word seemed like an iron law.
But when he reached the farm-house and found the Misses Flint pale with real anxiety concerning their niece, he felt intuitively that their feelings had changed, and so he said:
“Well, yes, ma’am; I do know where she is.”
“Oh, Matthew, where?” cried Miss Priscilla, mistaking the cause of his hesitation; and Miss Dorinda said faintly:
“Is she down the well?”
“Down the well!” exclaimed Matthew. “No, indeed, ma’am; she’s up a tree. She’s up in the tiptopmost branch of the old Bell-flower apple-tree, and she won’t come down. She says she’s going to stay there all night, ma’am.”
“Stay there all night!” cried Miss Priscilla. “How ridiculous! She must come down at once.”
“Perhaps we can coax her down with something to eat,” said Miss Dorinda.
“Perhaps, ma’am,” said Matthew, his eyes twinkling.
“Bring us our things, Martha,” said Miss Priscilla, with a dogged, do-or-die air, “and then Matthew can show us where our niece is, and we will bring her back.”
“If yez do, she’ll come home holding the ribbons,” thought Matthew to himself, as he respectfully waited his mistresses’ pleasure.
Martha brought to each of the Flint ladies a long black cloak, a wool crocheted cloud, and black worsted gloves; for without such sufficient protection the sisters never went out after dusk.
“And I think rubbers, Martha,” said Miss Priscilla, anxiously scanning the sky.
“Oh, sister, the grass is as dry as a bone,” said Miss Dorinda.
“No signs of rain, ma’am,” said Matthew.
“Rubbers, Martha,” said Miss Priscilla.
Martha obediently brought four large rubber overshoes, and in a few moments the two aunts were following old Matthew in search of their wayward and erratic niece.
The party paused under the apple-tree which Matthew had designated. But though the old ladies peered anxiously up into the tree, they could see nothing but leaves.
“Lavinia,” called Miss Priscilla, in a calm, dignified voice.
No answer.
“Lavinia,” she called again, and still no sound came from the apple-tree.
Then Miss Priscilla Flint, moved by the exigencies of the occasion, made what was perhaps the greatest effort of her long and uneventful life.
“Ladybird,” she called, more graciously; and a little voice piped down from the tree-top:
“What is it, aunty?”
Like the larger proportion of human nature, Miss Priscilla, having gained her point, returned to her former mental attitude.
“Child,” she said sternly, “come down at once from that tree!”
“Why?” said Ladybird.
“Because I tell you to,” said Miss Priscilla.
“Why?” said Ladybird.
“Because I wish you to,” said Miss Priscilla, with a shade more of gentleness in her tone.
“Why?” said Ladybird, with two shades more of gentleness in hers.
“Tell her she’s going to stay with us,” whispered Miss Dorinda; “tell her we want her to.”
But such was the perversity of Miss Priscilla’s nature that a suggestion from her sister to do the thing she wanted to do most, made her do just the reverse.
“You are to come down,” she said, again addressing the top of the tree, “because I command you to do so. You are a naughty girl!”
“Am I a naughty girl?” called back Ladybird; “then I’ll stay up here and be naughty. It will make you less trouble than if I’m naughty down there.”
“Tell her, sister,” urged Miss Dorinda.
“Tell her yourself,” said Miss Priscilla, shortly.
Dorinda needed no second bidding.
“Ladybird,” she cried gladly, “come down, dearie. You are going to stay with us. So come down and be a good girl.”
“Of course I’m going to stay with you;I told you, and I told you true,”
“Of course I’m going to stay with you;
I told you, and I told you true,”
chanted Ladybird, in her crooning, musical voice.
“Then come down at once,” said Miss Priscilla, whose patience was nearly exhausted.
“Why?” said Ladybird, gently, but aggravatingly.
“Because I want you,” said Miss Priscilla Flint, with a sudden burst of whole-hearted welcome. “Because I want you to live with us and be our little girl,—my little girl.”
“All right, aunty dear, I’ll come right straight smack down!” and Ladybird, gathering up her basket of fragments, began to scramble rapidly down through the gnarled branches of the old apple-tree.
Miss Priscilla Flint was a lady who never did anything by halves or any other fractions.
Once having accepted the fact that Ladybird was to remain at Primrose Hall, Miss Priscilla began to lay plans as to how her small niece should live and move and have her being.
Details were the delight of Miss Priscilla Flint’s heart, and she prepared to attend to the details of Ladybird’s life with a great and large gusto; but in her planning she reckoned without her niece, who proved a not unimportant factor in the case.