Among the Lindens

_By the Same Author._

The Little Lady Of The Horse.

_Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill._

The Mushroom Cave.

_Illustrated by Victor A. Searles._

A Cape May Diamond.

_Illustrated by Lilian Crawford True._

Square 12mo. Cloth, extra. $1.50.

The Little Red Schoolhouse.

_Illustrated by Victor A. Searles._

Square 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.

[Illustration: BEARING IN HER ARMS THE BASKET OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS.]

Among The Lindens

By

Evelyn Raymond

Author Of

“THE LITTLE LADY OF THE HORSE,” “THE MUSHROOM CAVE” “A CAPE MAY DIAMOND,” “THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE,” ETC.

Illustrated

By Victor A. Searles

Boston Little, Brown, And Company 1898

_Copyright, 1898_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved._

University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

Contents.

Chapter Page

I. A Kindly Deed 1

II. Pink Petals And Bright Visions 13

III. A Chrysanthemum Dinner 28

IV. A Generous Conspiracy 41

V. In Old Trinity 54

VI. “Humpty-Dumpty’S” Novel Experience 67

VII. Dining In State 81

VIII. Propounding A Riddle 94

IX. The First Evening In The New Home 108

X. Another Little Episode 121

XI. Miss Joanna 136

XII. Bits Of Natural History 150

XIII. Getting Down To Realities 161

XIV. Apis Mellifica 175

XV. Streaks Of Human Nature 187

XVI. A Modern King Arthur 201

XVII. Roland’S Project 217

XVIII. Robert’S Occupation Gone 229

XIX. Robert’S Happy Guess 244

XX. Wistaria 261

XXI. Three Years Later.--The Result 277

Illustrations.

From Drawings By Victor A. Searles.

Page

“BEARING IN HER ARMS THE BASKET OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS” _Frontispiece_

“He Cast A Supercilious Glance About Upon The Spectators” 94

“‘Wull, Be You The Egg Woman?’” 145

“‘Let Me Ask You One Or Two Things. May I?’” 184

“‘Why, Folks! What’S All This?’” 233

“There Was No Answer, And Miss Joanna Turned About Swiftly” 267

Among The Lindens.

Chapter I.

A Kindly Deed.

“Look out! Oh, look out, sir!”

“Is the man senseless?” cried a second voice.

“This way, sir--this way--quick! Dear me! Are you hurt?”

The school-girl who had uttered the first exclamation darted suddenly forward into the midst of the crowd, and pulled from under the very hoofs of the horses, attached to a heavy dray, the queer little old gentleman who had occasioned her outcry.

Every New Yorker knows how thronged is that particular point, at the southwestern corner of pretty Madison Square, where Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Twenty-third Street--all favorite thoroughfares of the shoppers--meet to shake hands, as it were; while each adds its complement of humanity on foot and humanity in vehicles to swell the current eddying about the corner.

A gay and lively place it was, on that early afternoon. All the curbstone merchants had come out with their mechanical toys, forever getting under the pedestrians’ feet, tripping them up, and threatening more than one with mischance.

Among such was an old gentleman whose dress was quaint and out of style, while his manner was that of one unused to scenes of confusion. For some moments he had stood upon the sidewalk, watching with curious interest what went on about him; but when a papier-maché monkey gave a realistic spring from the end of an elastic cord, and clasped his ankle, he stepped boldly forth into the whirlpool of wheels. For half the short distance between curbs all went well; then he slipped upon the slimy pavement, and just where hoofs and wheels were in most hopeless tangle, he fell.

There was an outcry of horror from many throats.

The policeman piloting a party of women over the crossing turned hurriedly, just in time to see what had happened, as well as a slim girlish figure spring to the rescue.

“Stop! That’s dangerous! Why should two be killed?”

There were groans and execrations from the drivers of carts and carriages, the swiftly forming blockade which follows any break in the routine of city transit, and the patrolman was back, seizing the old man’s shoulder and demanding why he should make so much more disturbance than was necessary by tumbling down in that ridiculous manner. Or if the policeman did not put his inquiry in just those words he made it distinctly evident to Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook that visitors who could not conduct themselves any better than he had done might likely find themselves at the station-house, to be cared for at the public expense.

“Come this way with me, will you? Come this way just for a moment!” cried the old gentleman, and seized upon Bonny’s hand so forcibly that, whether she would or no, she had to follow where he led. This was into the flower-shop close by, and she obeyed readily enough, after all; for she loved an adventure dearly and therefore--so her sister declared--was always meeting with one.

Isabelle, who had been with her all along, now interposed: “Bonny! What are you doing? You must not go anywhere with a stranger. Come away at once!” and she laid her hand in firm remonstrance upon thoughtless Beatrice’s shoulder.

“Yes, Belle; directly. But I must see if he is hurt. Come along, too.”

“Yes, certainly; come along, too,” repeated Mr. Brook, turning toward the elder miss.

“Thank you. It is impossible. Come, Bonny.”

But fun-loving Bonny had already followed the man into the shop; where, with a smile of gratitude upon his very muddy face, he asked: “Who are you, my dear?”

“Oh! no matter about that, sir. Are you hurt?”

“Not at all, I think. Time will tell. I might have some cracked bones about my anatomy somewhere, and yet not know it, amid all this whirl and racket. Five-and-twenty years since I set foot in the streets of New York before, and I find them greatly changed. But I must know your name, please. I must know to whom I am indebted for my life. I should have been killed but for your courage, my dear; or have been arrested and sent to the lock-up, than which I would almost think death preferable.”

“Bonny! Bonny Beckwith! Come at once! Mother would be very much displeased! The idea of your following a stranger about in this way!” cried Belle, now opening the door of the shop, and looking threateningly at her sister.

“Directly, dear. Now, sir, can you tell me where you are stopping? If you are such a stranger here, I should think you would better take a carriage to your home--or hotel. After twenty-five years the town must seem like a new world to you, or, I mean--”

“Bonny!”

“Can I serve you, miss?” asked a clerk, coming forward, and Miss Beatrice interpreted his tone to mean: “If I can I wish to do so at once. If I cannot I would like to have the store vacated. This is no rendezvous for adventurers.”

“No, I need nothing,” said Bonny, and moved to the door, nodding her head brightly toward her old gentleman, but casting rather wistful glances at the counters full of beautiful blossoms as she passed them on her way.

“Wait a moment! Wait a moment, my dear! I have heard your name, you see. Your sister spoke it. Here is my card; and if you will not tell me where you live that I may call and thank you, at least let me give you a posy before we part. Pick out what you like. Pick out what you like, my dear, and I will pay for it. Here is my card,--Philipse Chidly Brook, New Windsor, New York. Everybody thereabouts knows me, as everybody hereabouts used to know me half a century ago,

‘When I was young as you are young, And love-lights in the casement hung.’”

Bonny dropped her hand from the door-knob. “Why, that is Thackeray, sir! So you know him, too?”

“Beatrice Beckwith! Will you--or will you not--come? I--am--going!” cried the indignant Isabelle, moving slowly away from her ill-conducted little sister. She was greatly shocked and mortified by Bonny’s readiness to take up with anything and anybody, and was quite justified in her feeling; for in most cases there is danger in any girl following a stranger, for even so slight a distance as Bonny had done, in a great city like New York.

But this time she happened to be safe enough. Old Chidly Brook was a gentleman if ever one lived; and queer and quaint as he now appeared, time had been when he was a great favorite even in the most exclusive circles of New York’s best society.

“My dear, my age is sufficient guaranty of my honor. Do allow me to give you a little bouquet of some sort. No? Then--have you a mother?”

“Certainly. I have a dear, dear mother, who will be troubled if I stay from home longer. Good-by.”

“Her name? Her number? I must be allowed to call and pay her my respects!” In his eagerness, which was almost childish, the old man laid his thin hand upon Bonny’s wrist.

She glanced down upon it; its delicacy and refinement appealed to her; she longed to know more of its owner, and replied: “My mother is Mrs. Rachel Beckwith, Number Blank, Second Avenue.” Then she darted out of the shop and tried to look defiantly into the vexed face of her pretty sister Belle.

But it was of no use. The defiance faded soon, and a whimsical humility took its place. “I’m sorry, I’m awfully sorry, dear, that I didn’t mind you. I’m sorry I didn’t let the dear old fellow lie there to be hurt. I-- No, I don’t mean that. But I’ll try to behave next time. I truly will.”

“H’m-m!” replied Isabelle; and vouchsafed nothing further till they had reached their home, a cosey if small and plainly furnished “flat” at the location which Bonny had given Mr. Brook.

That old gentleman, left in the flower-store after his young rescuer had departed, turned at once to the clerk. “I saw the child cast her eyes rather longingly, I thought, upon that vase of salmon-colored artemisias. Are they for sale?”

“Certainly,” replied the attendant, and moved the vase forward upon the counter. “They are the same thing as artemisias, sir, but the popular name is chrysanthemum. These are prize flowers, from the late show. A rare color. One of our own originating.”

“H’m-m, h’m-m. Very pretty, but roses suit me better. However, she looked at these more than she did at the roses and pinks, and I’ll take them. How much are they?”

“Seventy-five cents each.”

“W-h-a-t? How--much?”

“Seventy-five cents each. Chrysanthemums are the fashionable flower now. All the people at the horse-show--”

“That’s what I came into town to see. Thinks I to myself, Old fellow, brace up yourself a bit and take one more look at life before you step behind the curtain. A great town, young man, and full of pitfalls.”

“Yes, sir,” respectfully. “Will you take more than one of the blooms, sir?”

“More than one! What do you think of me, lad? If you were going to send a posy to a pretty little girl, would you send her a pitiful, solitary blossom? If you would you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

The salesman laughed pleasantly, and awaited directions, which came promptly.

“Pick me out the prettiest and biggest basket you have in the shop. Then fill it with these artemisias--if there are enough. If not, finish out with white ones. She looked just like a pretty pink and white blossom herself, with her rosy cheeks and white teeth. And what eyes she had--did she not? Yes, yes; a big basket of posies is a small price to pay for old bones saved from breaking! It must be of the best.”

“How will this please you?” asked the attendant, showing a pretty willow affair, shaped like the baskets seen in old-fashioned “Annuals” as held by the hands of high-coiffured dames with sloping shoulders and simpering mouths.

Mr. Chidly Brook was charmed directly. “That’s it! That is just the very thing! Some of the good old notions have survived these silly later fashions, then? Glad to hear it! I am exceedingly glad to hear it. Now, young man, will you lend me a pen and paper, if you have such a thing handy?”

“Certainly. Will you, please, step to the desk?”

“Just to write a little note, you know. A sort of _billet-doux_, as we called them in the old days. I was a hand--I was a master hand at writing _billet-doux_ then. Let me see. Number Blank, Second Avenue. A most aristocratic neighborhood, is it not?”

“Well--sir--I don’t know. It might be. It was once, they say. I--”

“Enough. I hate these eternal ‘was onces’! No matter. What will do for a home for that little girl must be a pretty sort of place any way. On our farm, my uncle’s, it was just above that grand street of millionaire residents-- Fourteenth-- What are you staring at, sir?”

“Nothing. Nothing whatever, beg pardon. But you must have known New York for many years. Fourteenth Street is now a synonym for a street of cheap lodging-houses and such; that is, the resident portion. The business part is fine enough. It will take about forty-three or five chrysanthemums to fill this basket. But we have smaller ones, sir, of the same shape. Will you look at them?”

“I said the biggest. I didn’t mean the smallest. Thank Heaven, Philipse Chidly Brook is still able to pay for a decent basket of posies for his little lady, I should hope! Thank you. I will have the note written by the time the basket is filled. And I wish to have especial care used in the delivery of the same. The _billet-doux_ is important. I would not have it lost.”

“It shall not be. But the filling of the basket will take some time, a half-hour at least.”

“No matter. I am not pressed for time. Yet. I will wait.”

He did wait, with what those better acquainted with him would have considered an unusual amount of patience; but the truth was that the old fellow had had a pretty severe shaking-up, and now that his excitement over the accident began to ebb, he was more and more conscious of pains and bruises.

Finally, when the basket, perfect in its beauty, was tendered for his inspection, he rose very stiffly and barely looked at it.

“Here is the bill, sir. Forty-three chrysanthemums at seventy-five cents, thirty-two dollars, twenty-five cents; one basket, five--”

“The amount, lad! The amount! I hate detail.”

“Thirty-nine dollars, twenty-five cents.”

“All right. Two twenty-dollar pieces. Keep the change and buy one posy for your girl!” And with this fine sarcasm, as he considered it, the old gentleman left the flower-shop, entered the cab which a cash-boy had called for him, and gave the direction: “Astor House. At once.”

Chapter II.

Pink Petals And Bright Visions.

“Yes, Mother; if you cannot persuade Beatrice to behave herself upon the street, I really think she should not be allowed to go out. Her goings on are very mortifying to me, and she is sure to get us into some dreadful sort of scrape yet, worse than that small-pox scare last week--”

“Sweet maiden, all severe! Don’t! That is a sensitive point with your unfortunate sister! The less said upon it the more agreeable!” interrupted Bonny, skipping across the narrow parlor of the Beckwith home, whither they had just returned, and catching the tall Isabelle around the waist with a persuasive little hug.

“What have you been doing now, Beatrice?” asked the gentle little widow, looking up from a piece of wonderful embroidery, and fixing a half-amused, half-apprehensive gaze upon the younger girl’s face.

“Nothing, dear Motherkin, but a simple act of charity. I happened to see a funny old gentleman tumble down in the middle of the street, and I pulled him out of harm’s way. Isn’t that a right sort of thing to do?”

“But that is only the beginning,” added Belle. “She was not contented with a really kind and brave rescue, but she must go off with her protégé into a store and tell him all about ourselves, and--”

“Isabelle! Not ‘all.’ I merely told him where we lived. And it was really an act of charity to ourselves. He will make a delightful and very salable model for Motherkin’s embroidery. Lend me your pencil, dear. Let me show you!”

“Beatrice, have you done this foolish thing? Did you go with any stranger into a shop?”

“Please don’t interrupt the flow of art, Motherkin!”

“If you did, you must never do so again. Leave the person you have assisted to go his way and you go yours. And of all people to get into such affairs you are certainly the most unfortunate child I ever knew.”

“I’ll try to be good, Mother dear. Only it will be very difficult. He was a nice old man. This looks very like him. You must do his legs in burnt sienna. See? And his coat--his coat was like a ‘picter.’ All tight down the back and very high-shouldered as to sleeves, which also were very long and narrow. Do his coat in Prussian blue. His ‘weskit’ was yellow ochre, touched up with umber; and his hat--alas! his hat had disappeared! His face--Motherkin, he had a nice face. A good face, a--”

“Like the tramp you let into the house, while we were out, to steal our last half-dozen silver spoons! He, I remember, ‘had a good face, a really intellectual face’!” remarked Belle, gibingly. Her good nature was now quite restored by the pleasure of finding some excuse for teasing Beatrice, who liked to tease them all.

“There, Motherkin! Isn’t that ‘sweetly pretty’? Can you not work him into a landscape of trees and cows and clouds and other country things?” demanded Bonny, ignoring her sister, and laying the really clever little sketch in her mother’s lap.

“How do you get on with your singing, dear?” asked that lady, smiling, and taking time from her work to pat the soft cheek of her merry daughter.

“Badly. There is a terrible discrepancy between my chest notes and my head notes. When T try to stretch one up and the other down, something appears to give way--cr-r-rick-crac-c-k-screech! Shall I illustrate, Mother dear?”

“No, no, I beg! My nerves are in bad condition to-day. But if you’ll sing something without nonsense, I shall be glad to hear you. It would rest me, I think.”

Beatrice’s gay face sobered instantly, and Isabelle laid down her book. “Are you so tired, Motherkin?”

“Oh! no, indeed! Only it is a bit monotonous stitching, stitching all day with nobody to talk to. Never mind. Here comes Roland. I wonder why so early.”

The inquiry was in her eyes as she raised them to meet her son’s when he entered, full three hours before his usual time of home-coming. But she saw instantly that he was not ill, and, that anxiety allayed, she smiled brightly upon him. “Well, my boy! what good fortune has given you a holiday?”

“Ill, not good fortune, Mother. I--I have been discharged. I have lost my place.”

Then, indeed, did a significant silence fall upon the family group. Lost his place! Could anything have been more unfortunate!

“Why, ‘Laureate,’ have you been writing more soap-poetry?”

“No, Bonny; but I had a row with the boss, and he talked to me so rudely that I made up my mind no gentleman would stand it. So I bolted. That’s all. I was going to leave, anyway, after the holidays.”

“Oh, you were, eh? Going into soap-poetry for a business? If it pays as well as your first venture--”

“Be still.”

“Yes, my dear. But I’ll just make a note of your new words. You will have quite a vocabulary if you keep on. ‘Row,’ ‘boss,’ ‘bolted,’ will rhyme admirably with ‘cow,’ ‘toss,’ ‘moulted.’ I shall take to writing for soap-prizes myself soon. I’ve always had a notion that my genius would develop in a direction not at present suspected by my family. Mother thinks I am an embryo prima-donna; Belle knows I am a fine dressmaker; Bob is sure I was born for no other purpose than to make boys’ kites, and Roland must acknowledge he never would have won the soap-poem prize if I hadn’t furnished at least one missing rhyme. But--”

“Bonny, do keep still! If I were as fond of talking as you, I’d--”

“Talk! Hark! There goes the door-bell. I hope nobody has come to call, for--” The chatterbox did not wait to express her inhospitable reasons, but darted down the narrow passage to answer the summons, and was back almost directly, bearing in her arms the basket of chrysanthemums which Mr. Brook’s messenger had just brought.

“Beatrice!”

“For mercy’s sake!”

“What in the world!”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the delighted girl, dancing about so that nobody could get more than a glance at her burden of lovely blossoms, until she finally dropped in a little heap at her mother’s feet and placed the basket on the drawing she had laid upon her mother’s knee. “Such a handy table your lap makes, Motherkin!” she often remarked; but the truth was that everything must be shared with this sympathizing woman or it lost in value.

“Isn’t it lovely, lovely?”

“Lovely, indeed! But it cannot possibly be meant for you, dear. Where did it come from? How did you get it?”

“Of course it is meant for me. It came from the store I visited in company with my old gentleman. And I took it out of a messenger boy’s hand. Oh! the beauties! the darlings! Now, Miss Isabelle Beckwith, don’t you wish you had not been so impatient? Maybe his royal highness--he must be that, at least, or he couldn’t afford such a gift--would have sent you one wee blossom all for yourself.”

“But I do not understand. I do not know that it is right for you to keep it, dear,” remarked Mrs. Beckwith, between the rapid exclamations which fell from the lips of all three young people.

“Now, Motherkin! Of course it’s right! It’s the very prettiest compliment I ever had in all my life. Don’t go for to spoil it with your proper notions, that’s a good Mother! But--see here! Here’s a _billet-doux_! or I’m a sinner!”

If Mr. Philipse Chidly Brook could have witnessed the delight with which his offering was received, and could have heard the running comments bestowed upon it, he would have been repaid a thousand times. For when his courtly little note, with its old-fashioned writing, was read aloud, even the careful mother had no further reproof for her adventure-loving Beatrice, not all whose chivalrous escapades ended as comfortably as this.

FAIR, KIND, AND MOST RESPECTED MISS,--Allow me to present you with this slight token of my gratitude; which I hope to express more fully when I call, this evening, to make my regards to your Mother and her family.

I have the honor to subscribe myself

Your Obedient Servant, PHILIPSE CHIDLY BROOK.

Of NEW WINDSOR, N. Y., _November Twenty-third, Eighteen hundred and eighty-one_.

To MISS BEATRICE BECKWITH.

“My obedient servant! My blessed old Prince of Givers! That’s what he should have signed. Seventy-five cents each, Motherkin mine! All lavished on your troublesome girl!”

Mrs. Beckwith did not immediately reply. She took the note from Bonny’s hand and gazed at it musingly, as if trying to clear some confusion of memory. “I have heard that name before--somewhere--besides in history. Let me think!”

“I hope you will hear it again--‘somewhere’! Here comes my ‘Humpty-Dumpty’! I was wishing he could enjoy this.”

“Hello! Bon! What the dickens is that?”

“Hello! Bob! It’s chrysanthemums, not dickens!”

“Whose is it?”

“Mine!”

“Stuff! That can’t be yours! Where did you get it?”

“It can be mine, it shall be mine, it is mine. It is a reward of merit, the first instalment of many I hope to receive.”

“Tell a feller!” pleaded the eight-year-old boy, who was very like Beatrice, only that his hair was a little rougher, his dark eyes even brighter, his general appearance a trifle more dilapidated.

“I have told a ‘feller,’ and if a ‘feller’ can’t believe I am not to blame.”

“Don’t bother! Tell the hull concern!”

Beatrice slipped her arm around the little chap as affectionately as if his costume were not plentifully bedaubed with street mud, and kissed his retroussé nose squarely on its tip; after which she gave him a history of the afternoon’s incident, told as only Bonny would have told it.

“Jimminy-cracky! He must be richer’n thunder!”

“Robert! Where do you learn such talk? Why will you use such words?”

“Dunno, Mother. They seem to grow somehow. Say, Bon! That basket is worth a heap of money!”

“My brother, you should not look a gift horse in the mouth!”

“You’re doing it yourself, aren’t you? I saw you counting all the time you were talking. So was I. But some of ’em seemed to get away. I bet they is more’n forty. S’pose they cost much as five cents apiece?”

“Five cents! Seventy-five is the price of that particular shade everywhere. Think of it! Do it,--a nice little sum for a nice little boy for a nice little girl who pulled a nice little man out of a nice little crowd on a nice little corner of a nice--”

“Bonny, Bonny! Don’t be silly! But, indeed, I don’t wonder! The sight of so much beauty has raised my own spirits till I feel able to fight the world afresh--for you, my children! But Bonny is right; don’t, don’t ‘count the teeth’ of this lovely ‘gift horse,’ dears. Put the basket on that white cloth I just finished embroidering, right in the centre of the table. Then let us gather about it and study it. We will all work the better for the lesson.”

“Motherkin! you are the dearest, wisest body in the world. Here’s your chair--right up front. And say! let’s every one tell what she or he sees in the flowers. I suppose that present represents something different to each; don’t you?”

“I suppose with all your practical sense you are still a fanciful child!” responded Mrs. Beckwith, smiling fondly upon the active Beatrice, who was, indeed, her mother’s “right hand” of dependence in their every-day life.

“Well, if I am, I think it is a case of heredity--like I was reading about in last night’s paper. When you were left to make faces at fortune, with four troublesome youngsters pulling at your skirts, you might have dropped your mouth-corners and put on a doleful expression--but you did not. You just rolled up your sleeves and put on your thimble and shut your eyes to the old dame’s frowns and went to work. I remember, Motherkin, once when ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ was in the cradle, and I was rocking him to sleep, you sang so loud and so long that I told you I wouldn’t rock him any more if you didn’t keep still; and you turned on me with such a look! Your eyes were full of tears and your lips were trembling; but yet you were smiling as brave as could be. ‘I dare not stop, darling!’ you said; ‘if I did I should cry!’ I tell you, Motherkin, I never forgot that, and I never will! But what do you see in the ‘posy,’ dear Mother?”

“I see an old-fashioned garden, with an old-fashioned dame walking in it. An old-fashioned gentleman is bending before her, and presenting her with chrysanthemums--of just this shade. It is early winter--or late, late fall. There is hoar-frost on the dead leaves in the path, hoar-frost upon the hair of these two people, and a touch of winter’s cold has nipped their thin cheeks. Yet they smile and are lovingly courteous still. They know that the chrysanthemums will fade; that the hoar-frost will change to ice on which they must slip downwards over the dead-leaf path--out of sight. But they will be brave and beautiful to the end; and their memory will be like the strange and spicy fragrance of their chosen flowers.”

“Oh, how pretty, Mother! Call the picture ‘Artemisias.’ That is the old-time name for ‘Mums.’ And I hope when it is done some rich, rich person who has leisure to study the meaning of beautiful things will buy your drapery and hang it on a wall alone, close to a cheery wood fire; and that he will sit down before it many times and learn all that you have put into it.”

“Belle, next! What says the basket to you, Miss Beauty?”

“I see a big, big ball-room. It is filled with handsome women and gentlemanly men. They are all, like Bonny’s ‘rich one,’ at leisure and at rest. They say courteous things to one another, and they feel them. The women have never known what it means to wear patched shoes and soiled gloves. They have travelled everywhere. They know everything that happy mortals need to know. They have never heard that there was poverty in the world which they could not relieve, nor suffering they could not soothe. They have never had their tempers spoiled and their faces lined by want of any sort. I am there in the midst of them, as care-free, as beautiful, as soft-spoken as any of them. As happy, too. I wear a lovely gown of just that chrysanthemum shade, but no jewels. I have the blossoms in my hair, on my corsage, in my hands. I love them. I am wholly, wholly content. I have nothing left to wish for.”

“Happy mortal! Come, ‘Laureate’! But cut it short. Because, you know, my poet, you are inclined to be a little long-drawn-out sometimes.”

“Hush! impious spirit! Fright not the muse away!” retorted Roland, in a very unpoetic tone. “I am in Japan. There are lovely fountains, perfect gardens, beautiful maidens--and lots of time! I don’t get up in the morning till I choose. I write soap or even stove-polish poems, unrebuked by my irreverent sister. I have plenty of money to buy my mother gowns covered with embroidery which she doesn’t have to do herself, and to fill the cupboard with food which she doesn’t have to cook. There are wonderful kites which Bonny does not make, but which ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ does fly, from the top of a funny little house as tall as a table, into a blue sky which rests on the top of his head--”

“Enough! Now, Bob?”

“Oh! I dunno. No school, fer one thing. No grammar talk when I get home. Plenty of fire-crackers an’ pistols an’ guns an’ turkey an’ everything I want! Say, Bonny Beckwith! Ain’t we never a going to have any supper?”

“At once, small sir. It is a matter of economy to feed you immediately you feel the need of being fed. The longer the delay the greater the cavity. Now, dreamers, all move back, please. Your humble servant has the floor, and must have the table, seeing that it is the only one the house of Beckwith possesses.”

With a smile they all pushed back; but the gentle widow laid her hand caressingly upon Beatrice’s shoulder with the question: “Had the chrysanthemums no visions for your eyes, sweetheart?”

“Heaps of ’em, Motherkin! But some other time.”

“No fair, no fair, Bon! What do you want?”

“A home in the country!”

“Whew! I reckon I’ll get my Japanese tour first!” said Roland, as he placed the basket of flowers upon the top of the sewing-machine amid a pile of unmended stockings. “Gracious! How much depends upon surroundings! That isn’t half as suggestive up there!”

“Hark! What’s that row in the street? Hear that awful thumping!” cried Bob, seizing his hat and bounding down the stairs, two steps at a time.

Bonny also hurried to the window, but turned from it in instant dismay.

“For the goodness’ sake! It’s my old gentleman, and a policeman has him by the collar!” And before anybody could interpose she had followed her small brother.

Chapter III.

A Chrysanthemum Dinner.

A second time in one day was Bonny Beckwith destined to come to the rescue of the unfortunate Mr. Brook; for she laid her hand appealingly upon the policeman’s sleeve and cried: “Oh, sir! What are you doing? This gentleman is all right!”

The bright-faced girl was no stranger to the officer, who probably knew all the residents of his “beat,” and he asked, in surprise: “Why, do you know him, Miss?”

“Certainly. He is a friend of ours.”

“Then you’d better give him some lessons in conducting himself on the street; that’s all.” With this the roundsman loosened his hold of his victim, and flourished his hand to disperse the crowd of urchins and sight-seers who had gathered on the spot.

“What did he do?”

“Thumped on the door of ---- as if he were trying to break it in. Why didn’t he ring if he wanted to, instead of creating a disturbance?”

“Were you looking for us, Mr. Brook?”

“Of course I was. And I should like to know how in the world you get into these houses. There is no bell, and the door-knob won’t turn, and I’d stood here as long as I dared with the wind blowing forty miles an hour. I sent cabby off to walk his horses up and down, and he’s disappeared entirely. I left my man at the hotel, in bed with the rheumatism; and--if there’s any way of getting into this prison and if you really live here, I should like to be admitted.”

“Certainly. Beg pardon for keeping you so long. See--this is the way. Touch one of those little knobs, the one opposite the card with ‘Beckwith’ on it and the door will open almost immediately. Electric bells, you know.”

“Unluckily, I didn’t know! I hate these new-fangled ‘conveniences’ that are ten times as much trouble as old-fashioned things. I’m not quite a fool, my dear, though I may have been presented to you in that light on both occasions of our meeting. I simply did not know how to get in; but I concluded that if I made noise enough somebody would hear and answer,” said Mr. Brook, smiling merrily, now that the door had opened noiselessly, as if by spirit hands, and a hallway with orthodox stairs was revealed.

“And somebody did!” returned Bonny, quite as gayly; while Robert, who had slipped up and thrown his arm about his sister’s waist, laughed outright.

“Humph! Who are you, sir? You were one of the boys who jeered the loudest, if I’m not mistaken,” said the visitor, turning with a savage frown toward the lad.

“I’m her brother.”

“Yes. My brother Robert. He isn’t as bad as he looks, Mr. Brook. Perhaps you would better wait a moment and get your breath. It is pretty high up--on the fifth floor.”

“Good gracious! Is this one of those ‘flat’ houses I hear about?”

“Yes.”

“Some of the finest old houses in the city stood here a quarter of a century ago. It is a shame, a perfect shame.”

“Yes, I suppose so. There are some beautiful residences still left in the neighborhood, and we often look at them and try to imagine the lives that used to be lived in them. But a fifth-story flat is all we can afford, so you must prepare yourself for a plain little place.”

They had ascended as far as the fourth floor, and Mr. Brook had paused on each landing to regain his wind; but Bob, at a nod from Beatrice, had sped upwards to announce the coming of the guest.

“Ah! plainness does not disturb me, my dear; and you are a little gentlewoman, no matter where you live. I hope I have not chosen an inopportune hour for my call.”

“You have given us all a great, great pleasure by your beautiful gift which came this afternoon; and we are glad to have you come and receive our thanks, whenever it suits you best.” Bonny did not add, as she might, that if he had deferred the call for one hour longer their simple dinner might have been gotten out of the way, and the home made ready for his reception.

The first thing that greeted the old gentleman’s eyes as he entered the room, which was dining-room and parlor in one for the Beckwiths, was his own basket of chrysanthemums replaced upon the snowy cloth in the centre of the table, with the soft glow of a shaded lamp falling upon it. If Mrs. Beckwith had arranged this with a view to blinding stranger eyes to the bareness of the room otherwise, her ruse succeeded, for Mr. Brook gazed upon the flowers and for a space saw nothing more.

“My mother, Mr. Brook,” said Bonny, bringing forward the one really strong chair which the room afforded.

“Your humble servant, madam. I consider myself honored in making your acquaintance. You are the mother of a most charming daughter. Daughters, I should say;” for at that instant Isabelle moved gracefully forward, with a friendliness meant to drive any awkward memories from the guest’s mind, and extended her slim hand in greeting.

At which “Humpty-Dumpty,” from a point behind Mr. Brook’s back, contorted his freckled face and rolled his black eyes so horribly that Bonny was forced to smile.

“We have much to thank you for, and must consider that a fortunate accident which resulted in our receiving so delightful a gift,” answered the hostess, placing herself near her visitor, “unless your fall of this afternoon resulted in some injury to yourself. I hope it did not.”

“No, oh! no. That is, nothing to mention. A few bruises and scratches, and a bit of stiffness. But I thank you. I should not have been alone, only Dolloway, my man, has the rheumatism and I couldn’t think of taking him out in the cold. He stayed at the hotel. If he had been with me he would have prevented my making an exhibition of myself. However, ‘all’s well that ends well;’ and I have been congratulating myself ever since that I may have been thus led to trace an old friend. Did you ever hear of one Conrad Honeychurch Beckwith?”

A responsive smile illumined the widow’s pale face, and the last misgiving she had about thus receiving a stranger into her home vanished. “There could be but one Conrad Honeychurch Beckwith, I think. Such was the name of my husband’s father.”

“I thought so! I thought so! Your husband is--was--”

“Charles Honeychurch Beckwith. The only son of Conrad who grew to manhood.”

“Madam, your hand again! We are old, old friends! Or we should be. Conrad was the chum of my youth, the Damon to my Pythias. We even went ‘Forty-Nining’ together; but he soon left California and returned to his dying wife in New York. I stayed--awhile. He wrote me a few times, then ceased to even answer my letters, which after a while I ceased to write. From that day to this I have never heard of him. I have hunted Beckwiths without number, till people have thought me Beckwith mad; but my Conrad was never among them, and I had given him up. How strange, how strange, and also how fortunate, that I stood gaping at the sights till I was knocked down and Conrad’s grandchild was sent to pick me up! Come here, my dear! Come here and let me look at you!”

Mr. Brook’s excitement communicated itself to all the household, always alert to anything which varied the monotony of their pinched lives. Roland came forward and gazed wonderingly upon the man who, fast slipping out of life, yet remembered so faithfully the friend of his youth. Belle felt the elation of a real romance; Bonny was dancing with delight; and Robert, the “terrible,” was eagerly speculating whether this was the sort of an old gentleman one read of in story-books, duly appreciative of small attentions and liberal as to tips.

But the mother understood best the desire of the old man’s heart to learn all there was to tell, and set herself to gratify it. “My dears, suppose you go on with the dinner-getting. I am sure Mr. Brook will pardon our necessity, and I hope will share our meal. You see, we are rather cramped for room; so, while table is being made ready, those of us not engaged in the task generally retreat to this corner and call it the ‘withdrawing room.’ But maybe you know the inconveniences of a small city flat?”

“No, indeed. Thank the Lord, I live in the country. Even in my best days I would get out of town nearly every night to sleep at home; though I was a beau here, when I first came back from the coast with my pockets full of nuggets. I used purposely to have my name in the papers as often as might be, hoping that thus, if I could not find Conrad, he would find me. But it was of no use. Five-and-twenty years ago I left the town for good. I never meant to come back. But of late a terrible uneasiness has possessed me, and I finally yielded to it. I understand what it meant now.”

They had moved to the corner which Mrs. Beckwith had designated, and though the guest appeared to notice nothing of what the young folks were doing, he was, nevertheless, very watchful; and while his hostess related all the simple history of two discouraged men, her husband and his father, yielding to a fate which seemed too hard for them and dying, each in his prime,--ay, even before what most would call the prime,--the wise old visitor read between her periods the tale of her own bravery, and wondered how best he could second her efforts.

“And that is all. I am sorry we have not better entertainment to offer, but such as we have I see is ready.”

The widow rose as she spoke, and it was not many paces Mr. Brook need follow her before he reached the table.

With a commendable view to eking out a short supply, Bonny had placed the basket of flowers again upon the board, though she had had to substitute a coarse tablecloth for the daintily embroidered fabric which was intended for a richer household; and, at the first glance, the guest almost believed that the posies were to be their only repast.

However, this was not the case. There were roasted potatoes, bread, butter, and a fragrant cup of tea; the last a luxury, and the one addition which had been made to the regular fare. Now tea was an abomination to the palate of Philipse Chidly Brook, and potatoes he never ate, when he could help himself; but this being an occasion when he evidently could not, he put a brave face on the matter, and accepted them as if they were the rarest of delicacies. Suddenly he looked up from his plate, and beheld the dark eyes of Robert fixed upon him with critical attention.

“Well, my lad! Out with it! A penny for your thoughts.”

For once the graceless boy was scared. The prospect of possible tips depended upon his present behavior, and he choked back the remark that had almost escaped his lips. “I--I haven’t any. I--I mean--I dassent tell ’em.”

“Not for the penny?”

“No, sir, not fer a nickel.”

“You needn’t. I can guess them. In any case I never go above the traditional price of thoughts.”

“I bet--you can’t guess ’em!”

“How much will you bet?”

“Robert!” remonstrated Mrs. Beckwith, while Belle began “talking eyes” at her most rapid rate, certain that the boy was about to disgrace them all.

“I’ll bet all I’ve got. Two cents ag’in two of yourn, if you say so.”

“Mr. Brook, our little brother attends the primary department of a highly esteemed parish school. Hence the elegant language which you must have observed,” remarked Bonny, hoping to divert attention from the subject of “thoughts” to education.

“He is well enough. For a boy. He looks like you.”

“Motherkin says I behave like her, too,” asserted Bob, triumphantly; and Beatrice felt her effort worse than wasted.

“H’m-m. You were wondering how old I am. Wasn’t it so?”

“Ginger! How did you know?”

“I was a boy once.”

“What did you use to do? Did you play marbles? Er fight?”

“I played marbles and I flew kites. When I could get any money to buy them with, or coax my mother to make them. And I used to drive the cows when I visited my uncle, on his farm, not far from here. It may be that I have trotted barefooted over the very spot on which this house now stands. Seventy years ago, that was; seventy years ago! Then I was a child like you.”

“My gracious! An’ you’re alive yet!”

“Not only that--I am happy yet! Doubly happy now that I have found somebody who may become like a little grandson to me; for I have none of my own.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Probably because I never had a wife. I would like to ‘adopt’ my Conrad’s grandson, in a way, if he will let me.”

“Who’s him?”

“Yourself.”

“Pooh! You wouldn’t want me, I guess. An’ I know ’bout ’doptingness. They was a woman in this house, she ’dopted a baby, an’ it squalled. Nen she got tired of it. Nen she wanted to give it back an’ the folks wouldn’t take it. Nen she put it in the Norphan ’Sylum. An’ it’s there yet. I’m too big, anyway. I’m going on nine. Ain’t I, Mother? When will I be as old as nine?”

“Next Fourth of July, dear. You certainly are too old for adoption, as you mean it. But if Mr. Brook hasn’t any odd, small people to make him both glad and sorry, all in a minute, you might supply the deficiency.”

“H’m-m. I guess I’d better not. I ain’t very good. I don’t have time to be.”

“Indeed? What keeps you busy?” asked the amused old gentleman.

“Folks. An’ fun. Bonny ’most wears me out, some days. She sends me to do things. I sell papers; an’ I hold horses, when I can get ’em to hold. Some men say I ain’t big ’nough, an’ I think that’s mean. I’m as big as I can be, ain’t I?”

“Quite!” answered the unwise Beatrice, who did her daily best to spoil the child by alternate teasings and pettings.

“Nen I get mad. Nen Motherkin’s heart acts up. An’ they is a gen’ral miscomfort in the house, so I go outdoors. I learn bad words outdoors, an’ I come home an’ say ’em, an’ get ’proved. But we get along. Hello, Motherkin! What’s the matter? Ginger! There she goes ag’in! It’s one of her sick times, I s’pose! Oh! Mother! You’re dead--you’re dead!”

Unobserved by all but her small son, Mrs. Beckwith had fallen gently forward till her colorless face rested upon the basket of chrysanthemums, and the guest thought the boy had spoken the sorrowful truth.

Chapter IV.

A Generous Conspiracy.

“Don’t, Robert! Remember, it is best to be quiet!” said Isabelle, with an admirable self-control which not only gave Mr. Brook a new idea of her character, but the knowledge that this could not be the first time such a trouble had befallen the household.

And, a moment later, Beatrice had taken time to whisper in the little fellow’s ear: “It is no worse than usual, darling. Mother is reviving.”

Then the child heard a trembling question, eager and low: “Has she ever been like this before? Is it my visit that has caused it?” and looking up through his fingers he saw the disturbed face of their guest bent close above him.

“Yes. No. ’Tain’t your visit. She’s this way often. But she always looks like dead, an’ the doctor-man says she will die if she don’t stop sewin’ an’ live outdoors. But she can’t let the sewin’ go, ’cause we have to eat an’ wear clothes. We don’t eat any more’n we can help, but we’re always hungry. We try not to be, but we are. So she has to ’broider the things an’ sell ’em, you see.”

The two were quite alone then in the little parlor, for Roland had, at the first instant, lifted his mother in his arms and carried her into the small bedroom which was her own, and had stationed himself beside her to chafe her face and hands and administer the medicine which Isabelle had promptly prepared. They were evidently accustomed to such emergencies; but Bonny had disappeared in pursuit of a doctor, though she knew this action to be against her mother’s wish, expressed in view of such an event as this.

“But how can I help it!” argued the girl, dashing down the long flights of stairs two steps at a time. “How can I see her suffer so and not try to get somebody who knows more than we do to relieve her! Even though it will take her many hours of hard labor to pay for the physician’s visit.”

Meanwhile Robert led Mr. Brook into the corner, dignified by the name of “withdrawing room,” and the old gentleman laid his hand affectionately upon the boy’s shoulder. “My dear, I would like to help you all, if I can. I do not wish to ask you anything which your mother would not be willing you should answer; but anything that you can tell me about your affairs, anything which your conscience does not warn you had best be kept to yourself, I wish you would tell me. Remember I was the friend of your grandfather, and try to feel as if you were talking to him.”

This speech was better suited to the ears of the elder son than to those of “Humpty-Dumpty,” and in the first case would have been answered judiciously; but judgment and reticence were qualities unknown to this small boy, and he now made as clean a breast of family matters as he was capable of doing. If there was anything he did not tell, it was something he had forgotten.

Mr. Brook listened with sympathy and some compunction; and as soon as the physician whom Beatrice had summoned pronounced Mrs. Beckwith “out of danger for the present,” took his leave, hunted up the long-suffering cab-driver who had brought him thither, and returned to his hotel.

There he burst rather excitedly into his own apartments, with the exclamation “I’ve found them, Dolloway! The Beckwiths, at last!”

“You don’t say so!” returned the other old fellow, who had left his bed for a cushioned chair close to a grate fire, and who had the name of being Mr. Brook’s servant, but was, at times, his master--through rheumatism, which mastered both.

“But I have. That must be what my anxiety to see the horse-show meant. Else why, after all these years, should I have been suddenly rendered too uneasy to abide at home, and must needs not only put myself out but you as well? How goes it, Dolloway?”

“Bad, sir; about as bad as it can be. But a body must expect that who goes a trapesing off after will-o’-wisps, at our time of life, leaving good, respectable feather beds to sleep on boards in a barn of a place like this.”

“Not boards, Dolloway. The best mattresses the city affords, the manager assures me; and comfortable enough to those who like them. Yes, yes, yes. In some ways it is a pity. Yet--it is the most fortunate thing. Had any supper, Dolloway?”

“Don’t want any, sir. Thank you.”

“Pooh! I do. They had what they called supper, I suppose, poor things! And I’m ashamed to mention it; only I feel hungrier than if I hadn’t eaten anything; so, since you have not, take a cup of coffee with me, man, and lay aside formality for once. What will we have besides the coffee, Dolloway?”

“I couldn’t eat a bite, sir.”

“But you’d not refuse to please your old master, would you, lad? When we have taken all this trouble we want to make our holiday seem a bit like old times. Eh? In the old days, Dolloway, you could out-eat and out-drink me. Yes, yes, you could, indeed! What shall it be?”

“Well, if I must I must, and I’m obliged to you, sir, though I only do it to please you. I heard one of the waiters saying there was a lot of nice venison come in from the West, sir. If it were not spoiled in the cooking a venison steak--done to a turn, sir, done to a turn, as you like it yourself, Mr. Brook--might relish a little. Eh?”

“The very thing, lad, the very thing! I will ring and order it immediately.” Without waiting to be served by his servant, who remained composedly in his arm-chair, Mr. Brook pulled the rope, which he preferred to any modern “button” for bell-ringing purposes, and gave an order for a meal that would have made the Beckwith family’s eyes open in astonishment.

“A fine thing to have such an appetite as ours, Dolloway, at our age! A very fine thing, indeed. Eighty I shall be on my next birthday, and you but two years younger. And I warrant me there are no two other old chaps in this town who will sit down to this kind of a dinner with the relish we will. Eh? That’s the best of using gifts and not abusing them. And my waist measures no more than it did in my youth, lad; which shows I have not been a gourmand, though the truth is I like good living. I like good living immensely. I would like to tell you what a pretty family of five had prepared. Potatoes! nothing but potatoes, except, of course, the inevitable bread and butter and the detestable tea. I don’t wonder the woman had heart-failure, poor thing! And the air of that ‘flat’--it was enough to stifle a body. After our air at home, man.”

“Humph! Then I suppose I am not to know anything about Mr. Conrad’s folks, save what you choose to tell me in driblets, sir,” remarked Dolloway, in the injured tone of one suffering ungratified curiosity.

“You shall know all that I do myself, old fellow; but let us take it over our dinner. I want your advice, too. I am sorry to say that Conrad left his people poorly off.”

“Mr. Beckwith is dead, then, sir?”

“Dead this forty years, lad. Dead for forty years--that boy!” And Mr. Brook sank into a chair opposite his companion, and at the same time into a reverie so deep that even the highly privileged Dolloway dared not interrupt the current of his master’s thought.

Small Robert was in bed and should have been asleep; but Beatrice, listening, heard a forlorn little yawn and knew that the excitement of the evening or the tea-and-chrysanthemum dinner had been too much for his nerves. This suited her exactly; and watching her chance she stole into the room, or bed closet, known as “the boys’,” and perched herself on the pillow where Roland’s head would repose somewhat later.

“Hello, Bob! Asleep?”

“You know I ain’t. What’s up?”

“I am. I’ve something to say to you.”

“I hain’t done nothin’. What have I done?”

“Nothing but goodness, small sir. Bonny doesn’t scold, does she?”

“Sometimes,” answered the truthful child.

“Well, she isn’t going to now. She wants your assistance.”

“I’m goin’ ter sleep.”

“Pooh! I don’t want you to do anything to-night. I want to consult with you. Bob, are you awake?”

“If it ain’t nothin’ ter bother a feller at night, I be.”

“Sit up in bed. Here, put my jacket around you. I’ve a scheme--a splendid scheme!”

“Don’t like your schemes. Last one didn’t turn out worth a snap.”

“This one will. I see how you and I can make some money. Sit up.”

“I am sitting up. How can we make it?” asked the cash-greedy child, interested at last.

“You know those chrysanthemums?”

“Yep.”

“Well; here, let me whisper. We--can--sell--them! And make a lot of dollars--maybe. Make something, anyway. Enough to pay for the doctor’s visit.”

“Beatrice Beckwith! They was give to you!”

“Don’t speak so loud. Mother is asleep, Roland is writing, Belle studying. Only you and I are to know about this. Yes, I know they were given to me. To _me_, understand. That is why I dare do this thing. And don’t reproach me for parting with them. It breaks my heart to do it; only it don’t break it into such little bits as it gets broken into every time I think of Motherkin and how hard she works. To come to the point. I want you to get up with me early to-morrow and go on the street and try to sell the flowers. Will you?”

“Gracious! Would you--_you_ yourself?”

“I would--I myself. I would do anything rather than be so idle. The flowers are mine. We have all enjoyed them. They did us good that way; now I want to make them do us good some other way.”

“Humph! How much will you give me fer my share?”

“Mercenary little wretch! not a cent! I want every single cent for Motherkin. You wouldn’t take anything away from Motherkin, would you, Bob?”

“Not that way. I wouldn’t no quicker’n you would. But if I had a little ‘capital’ I could sell papers like the other kids do on Fourteenth Street an’ round.”

“Robert, you are not a ‘kid.’ You are a well-born boy. I thought you did sell papers, anyway, almost every day.”

“Fer the other fellers, that’s all. I don’t make my livin’. If I had enough I could make a pile.”

“Well, we’ll see. But those chrysanthemums. Think of the value. Forty times seventy-five cents! Forty times porterhouse steaks all round the family. About one hundred and twenty tip-top oyster stews. Potatoes, galore. Bread--bread enough to pave the street from here to Union Square. And six weeks’ rent. Think of it, ‘Humpty-Dumpty,’ and cease to wonder that I can hardly wait till daylight to set about the business. Will you help me?”

“Yep, if Mother’ll let me.”

“You blessed little stupid! Mother is not to know a word about it, till it is past forbidding. Else she has such peculiar ideas about politeness that she might stop us. If you do as I want, as well as you can, I’ll give you all you can make out of the best flower in the lot.”

“It’s a bargain. What time ’ill I start?”

“Not till after breakfast. Not till you go to school. Then, instead of going to school, go with me up on Twenty-third Street, and there we’ll seek our fortune. Stay! I’ve a splendid thought now! We’ll go to the very store where they were bought and sell them back. They, the store folks at least, would know the value. Then we wouldn’t either of us have to stay away from school, and we could meet somewhere on the way home and come in together, with flying colors. So, if Mother wasn’t especially pleased at first, we could brace each other up in coaxing her round to look at the matter as we do and eating one of her chrysanthemums turned into oysters for her dinner that very day.”

“H’m-m. But-- Wull.”

“Wull me no wulls, my son!”

“Motherkin don’t coax worth a snap. An’ what if she should be ‘grieved’? I wouldn’t mind her talking, so much; but when she sits round an’ don’t say anything, only look solemn, it--it--breaks me all up.”

“That isn’t a nice expression for a nice little boy. Say ‘it disturbs me’; that is more elegant.”

“Who cares for el’gunce! I hate them times when lumps come in throats. I’ve had ’em. I’d ruther be whipped, like other kids is; I would, so!”

“Look here, Robert Beckwith. I _can_ do this thing all by myself. I don’t need to ask you or anybody to help me, but I thought you’d like to do something nice for Motherkin. If you don’t like to it’s all right;” and Bonny rose to go, with that independent air which experience had taught her would invariably bring her small brother to terms.

“Hello! Who’s a not wantin’ ter? But--if--”

“If trouble comes I’ll take all the blame, as I should, for it belongs to me. And I’m glad Mother is in bed now, so I can take the basket out of the room without anybody asking questions. Good-night. Not a word, now, to Roland when he comes in!”

“H’m-m. You might know I ain’t a blabber, anyway!”

“Of course you’re not. I depend on you. Good-night.”

Beatrice passed into the parlor and lifted her treasure from the table, then turned to leave as quietly as she had entered.

“Where are you going with those, Bonny?” asked Isabelle, drowsily; and her sister started as if she had been guilty of wrong-doing.

“I think they will keep better if I take them out of the basket and put them in a pail of water,” replied Bonny, hastily.

“I suppose they would. But it seems a pity to disturb such a perfect arrangement, and I do not think they would wither even that way very soon. They last well.”

“I am glad of that. I would not have them wither for anything!” replied the innocent conspirator, feeling as if she wanted to bury her face in the flowers and cry; only she reflected that salt water was supposed to be injurious to delicate petals and refrained. But when she went to bed that night she had taken each chrysanthemum carefully from its mossy nest and, after clipping its stem slightly, plunged it into a pail of fresh water and placed it in the coolest place the house afforded.

Chapter V.

In Old Trinity.

“Flowers? Flowers? Chrysanthemums? Any, madam?”

“How much?”

“Seventy-five cents apiece.”

“Girl, you must be crazy! I’ll give you ten.”

Beatrice turned on her heel with all her native dignity and some that she had prepared for this especial occasion; having confided her intention to the newspaper-woman on the corner, who also occasionally sold flowers, and received the advice to “not be beat down by nobody. Some is ladies an’ some is trash, what goes a shopping on th’ Aveny, an’ you jest hold on patient,--the right one’ll come along an’ take the hull lot, mebbe. Some woman ’at’s goin’ ter give a party er sunthin’ is the most like ter buy; er young gells. Young gells is good customers, if they happen ter have any money. Good luck go with you, honey; an’ I don’t want ter see you bringin’ home a single posy!”

With this good-speed sounding pleasantly in her unaccustomed ears, the novice at flower selling set her face westward with her basket on her arm and her small brother presumably following her; though, as he was sometimes in sight but oftener not, she had doubts on the subject.

“Anyway I only wanted him for company. It seems so--so sort of dreadful to do this. I tremble every time I open my mouth, and I am afraid I shall not sell a single blossom, except at the flower-shop. I hate to go there, though! It seems so mean to sell things that have been given you, and when you can have no chance to explain, though, of course, I wouldn’t explain anyway. Robert!”

“Hi! Here am I!”

“Why can’t you walk along beside me respectably? Eh?”

“Wull, wull--why, Bon! what makes you look that way?”

“What way?”

“Just as if you was a-goin’ ter cry.”

“I don’t. I’m not. I--I hate it!”

“What makes you, then?”

“I hate other things worse, like Mother’s pale face over her work. I don’t mean I hate, but-- Oh! I thought it would be easy, last night when we talked it over, and it isn’t. I expect every minute to meet some of the ‘Conservatory girls,’ then I should about die of mortification.”

“Well, I’m beat! If girls ain’t the queerest things! A wantin’ ter do things an’ not a wantin’ ter at the same time. Here, give me a bunch. I’ll show you. This is the way! Flowers! _Flowers!_ Here they go! Nicest an’ puttiest chrysms in the city! Cheap at seventy-five cents! Only one place in town where a feller can get ’em! Here, young feller! Don’t you want a button-holer?”

“Too dear!” replied the good-natured clerk whom Robert had intercepted on his way down town.

“H’m-m. You don’t seem to succeed any better than I do, Bob. Chrysanthemums! The rarest shade in the city!”

The two amateur flower-sellers had soon traversed all the distance between their home and the very corner where their stock had been purchased, and yet not one blossom had been exchanged for the desired cash that was to buy the oyster dinner. When they came to the place where Bonny had met Mr. Brook she paused, undecided whether to cross into the next block or to take her stand there; but was finally decided to do the latter by the fact that a well-dressed woman had paused to examine the cluster of flowers and to admire them. She would even have bought one apparently, but as she opened her purse, Bonny gently mentioned the price, and the purse was closed with a snap.

“Sev-en-ty-five-cents! I think you must be new to the business, or you would never ask such an absurd amount as that! H’m-m. Seventy-five cents for one chrysanthemum!” And the woman with the plethoric pocket-book had passed on.

“I’m going into the store. I can’t bear this!” cried poor Beatrice, feeling utterly discouraged as her bright castle in the air fell tumbling in ruins. “They will take them, anyway, I’m sure. The clerk said yesterday to a customer that he could not supply the demand for blossoms of this shade. Come on, Bob! The worst he can do is stare a little, and it’s none of his business, certainly.” Thus swallowing her pride, which she felt was silly enough, Beatrice led the way into the shop which she had visited in Mr. Brook’s company the day before.

Robert followed, whistling gayly. Anything which kept him from school was matter of rejoicing to him, and though he realized that they were having very hard luck he felt no more shame in selling posies than newspapers; but his hilarity was suddenly checked by the dandified salesman calling out sharply: “Out of here, boy! We can’t have any boys in here!”

“I should like ter know why not? What yer givin’ us?” demanded Bonny’s “darling,” with all the roughness and assurance of a regular street gamin.

“Hush, dear! Here, let me take yours, too. You just step outside and wait for me till I come. I won’t be a minute now,” whispered the sister, persuasively.

But “Humpty-Dumpty’s” blood was up. What were stores for if not for people to enter? How did that unmannerly clerk know but that he, Robert, wanted to buy out all the stock piled upon those loaded counters? He’d show him! One man was as good as another, in this world.

“No, I won’t wait, neither. I’m a-goin’ where you go, an’ I’m goin’ ter stay as long as I like. Say, boss! How much fer them roses, yonder?”

“Clear out of here, you impudent little scalliwag! You wish to buy no roses.”

“No. But I wish to sell some chrysanthemums, sir,” interposed Beatrice, gently. “These flowers were purchased here yesterday. I should like to resell them to you.”

The dapper young man who had glanced admiringly at the pretty girl on the occasion of her previous visit, under Mr. Brook’s escort, now stared at her superciliously. “Bought here? Ah! Well, we never take second-hand goods, you know. And flowers are an article that could not be handled a second time, even if we did. Is that all?”

“But, sir, you told a lady, yesterday, that you could not supply the demand for this color. I have kept these very carefully. See? They are not withered in the least.”

“Impossible, Miss. If that boy belongs to you, you had better take him outside before he gets into any further mischief. He has knocked down a pile of baskets already, and if he damages--”

Poor Bonny did not wait to hear the conclusion of the matter. With a desperate fear at her heart that her small and independent brother would be the cause of some dreadful trouble, she seized him firmly by the collar and forced him before her out of the shop.

The door closed behind them with the dull thud which baize-muffled doors give, and it seemed to her sounded the knell of her “flowery hopes,” as she herself grimly expressed it.

“Well, I say, Bon! I did think you had some snap! What’d a feller do if he hadn’t no more grit’n a girl, I’d like to know? Here, come on, I’ll show you. Let’s go over to the hotel there. That’s the Fifth Avenue, where rich folks stays. I’ve sold papers for Jeemsy there, sometimes. They’s a decent crowd goes in an’ out. Mebbe they ain’t all so horrid stingy as they ’pear ter be on this side. But, Bon! We’ll have ter come down on the price. They ain’t nobody, ’less he’s jest another such old man as Mr. Brook, goin’ ter pay such a pile as that fer posies--second-hand ones, too.”

“Robert, where did you get all this wisdom, and you but eight?”

“Oh! I’ve been around,” said Robert, with an inimitable little swagger, which brought a fleeting smile to Beatrice’s face.

“All right. Let’s try the hotel, that is, if the people will let us. I think I have heard that the curbstone merchants--as we are now, dear--have each a self-appropriated place with which he allows nobody else to interfere. We may get upon somebody’s ‘stand,’ but if we do, from our morning’s experience, I don’t fear but we shall be so informed.”

They did take their places opposite the entrance to the hotel, and so respectable and quiet-looking were they that nobody molested them; and as they were the only flower-sellers upon that corner they did after a while exchange some of their wares for cash; but it was, as Robert had advised, at a great reduction, and Beatrice was heartily discouraged. Worse than that, a feeling of regret that she had undertaken this thing without her mother’s knowledge and consent began to trouble her as it had not done while the first enthusiasm of unselfishness lasted.

“I wish--I wish I had not slipped out of the house, as if I were doing something wrong!” murmured the girl, half aloud.

“Hey?” asked Robert. “Ain’t it getting cold? Ginger! My toes is ’most froze. This ain’t half the fun newspapers is. A feller can keep warm that way. He can jump on street-cars, and off when the conductor catches him. Let’s go home!”

“You go, dear, if you are cold. I am not. That is I--I-- No, I will not give up beaten this way. I will sell these flowers if--”

“You can!” interjected Robert, just in time to prevent Bonny’s making a very rash vow.

She substituted a rather forced laugh for the vow, and again urged her brother to go and leave her. “There is no need for us both to be miserable. Besides, if you should take cold I should never forgive myself. Do go; there’s a dear, and I am ever and ever so grateful to you for what you have already done.”

“No, sir-ee. I guess I’ve got grit if you haven’t. But if you don’t mind I’ll just run around the block ter start my toes up, an’ I’ll be back so’s you can run, too.”

Off bounded the child, and, small as he was, Beatrice felt no fear that he would be lost even in a neighborhood of which he knew so little; but as she watched him out of sight, a voice spoke in her ear.

“What lovely, lovely chrysanthemums! Are they for sale, miss?”

“H’m-m. She doesn’t think I look like a regular flower-girl,” thought Bonny, complacently, and answered promptly: “Yes, madam. They are, as you have noticed, a very peculiar shade.” Then she raised her eyes, and met--those of the richest girl in her class at the Conservatory, the very one who was to sing with her at the next reception.

“Goodness! Miss Beckwith! Beg pardon! I did not notice. I thought it was a flower-girl standing here.”

Beatrice gasped, tried to smile, felt her face flame, and her courage--or temper, she didn’t know which--rise at the same time. “There is no mistake, Miss Agnew. I _am_, temporarily, a flower-girl. These chrysanthemums _are_ for sale. But I have had rather bad luck. They prove to be a more expensive sort than most passers-by care for.”

Miss Agnew’s own color rose a little. She was a gentle, high-bred girl, and she saw at once that there was something out of the common in her classmate’s action. If the flowers had cost all there was in her purse, she would have taken some of them then. “Indeed? I have never seen any like them, except at the show last week. How much are they?”

“They cost seventy-five cents each, yesterday, and I was told they were prize flowers. They are--anything I can get for them--now!”

“Oh! I don’t call that high! I often have to pay a dollar or more for roses at holiday time. Of the sort I like. I think these would just suit Mamma. I will take a dozen, please. I was sorry you were not at class to-day. The Professor went over our duet with me, and I gathered some new ideas from him. He is very anxious it should be a success; and naturally I am. Will you be there next lesson?”

“Yes, I think so. At least, I shall not be absent for the same reason as to-day,” said Beatrice, with a return of something like her natural manner.

“That’s good! I can sing so much better with you than with anybody else,” remarked Miss Agnew, smiling pleasantly, nodding cordially, and passing onward immediately.

“Well! I’m in for it now! If Helen Agnew is inclined to tell, the whole class can ‘point the finger of scorn’ at me to-morrow. But how cold it is! How warm _she_ looked! She had evidently been having luncheon at this great hotel, for she came out, or rather she walked along with a ‘rocky’-looking old gentleman, using a toothpick. I suppose he was her father. How nice it must be to have a father! And think of being able, a school-girl, out of one’s own pocket money, to buy a dozen chrysanthemums for one’s mother--at such a price! Yet, after all, selling them for one’s mother may be just as noble. I’ll ‘play pretend’ it is, any way. And I am quite refreshed. I’ll ‘buckle tae’ with a good will now! There are only twenty-five left; and--”

Beatrice fell to ruminating. She forgot that she was on a street corner, presumably to sell flowers. She paid no attention to the rude pushes and jostles that she received, but swayed this way and that, accommodating her slight person to the needs of the crowd, till one more urgent pedestrian than the others suddenly caught the handle of his walking-stick in that of her basket and ruthlessly tore it from her grasp.

Beatrice aroused herself with a scream. “My flowers! Oh, my flowers! Please, please, don’t tread upon them, people! Please give me time to--”

“Eh! Bon, what’s the matter? Who took ’em? This chap?” demanded Robert, who had returned, and eagerly catching hold of the wrong person. “Look a here, man! You’d better look out how you steal my sister’s chrysms! I’ll let you know I-- Ginger! There’s the old fellow himself!”

Alas! the inevitable crowd! Nobody can utter a sound above the natural, but dozens of itching ears must pause to learn why.

“Beg pardon, Miss. It was an accident. I am extremely sorry. Are they injured? Ah! I see. Hopelessly. The price, please, I will make good the loss; but I am in a hurry-- Yes, Dolloway, directly. Keep close to me, Dolloway. I’ll look out for you. Eh? Hey? What?”

Bonny was stooping to gather up her ruined treasure, but something in the voice startled her, a peculiar softness of the _r_’s, and a broad inflection of the _a_’s.

“It is the corner of Fate!” cried the girl, recklessly, and lifted herself face to face with Mr. Chidly Brook.

“Why, Miss Beckwith! It is, indeed!”

Chapter VI.

“Humpty-Dumpty’S” Novel Experience.

“Oh, sir! Will you ever forgive me?”

“Forgive you, my dear! I am the one to be forgiven, I should think. And I appreciate your wearing my gift, and am exceedingly sorry I ruined the flowers. However, they can easily be replaced. Odd that we should meet just here again! Were you returning from your school? And how is your mother to-day?”

“Mother is better, thank you, though I have not seen her since early morning. But I am not returning from school, and I was not wearing your flowers. I cannot let you think anything so kind of me as that. I was selling them!”

The four people of the group had retreated to the wall of the hotel, aside from the passing throng, and Mr. Dolloway had been eyeing Robert, who returned the stare, very much as a big dog eyes a little one before making acquaintance. If there was one object in the world of the old fellow’s special detestation, it was the average small boy. He was always ready to ascribe to them all the sins of the decalogue with many original additions; and he now suspected the little brother of Beatrice of having caused Mr. Brook’s detention for some evil purpose of his own. He was not even convinced otherwise when presently his master recovered sufficiently from the astonishment Bonny’s words had caused to explain: “These are Conrad Beckwith’s grandchildren, Dolloway.”

“Humph! How do you do?” asked the old servant, feeling he must say something.

“First-rate!” responded Bob, heartily. “Howdy yourself?”

“H’m-m, I’m well enough, but they’s a cold wind blows round this corner, sir.”

“Yes, lad, I know it. But did you wish to say anything further to me, Miss Beckwith?” asked the considerate Mr. Brook, trying to make his manner as cordial as it had been, but failing signally.

Beatrice felt desperate. She must make this kind, gentle old man understand that she had not been selling his gift for a mean, selfish reason; yet how was she to do so? It was unkind to keep him standing in that bleak place any longer, nor did she wish to visit any more stores in his company.

“Yes; I do want to tell you about it. I would be glad to talk with you about everything; but where can I? Will you go back to my mother’s house with me? Or where can I go with you?”

“My child, do not distress yourself about these trumpery posies. They were yours. You had a perfect right to do with them as you chose.”

“But I want to explain. I am not so mean as you think me, and yet I am a great deal worse. I played truant to-day, like a bad little boy, and persuaded Robert to do the same. My poor mother knows nothing about this affair, and she will be mortified when she hears. Besides, I would like to ask your advice, somebody’s advice anyway, and you say you were grandfather’s friend. I--”

“Wait a moment, my dear. Have you had your dinner yet?” Mr. Brook glanced from the sister to the brother, as he spoke, and the brightening of Robert’s black eyes was sufficient answer.

“No, sir. But we will get that as soon as we get home.”

“Then I have it! Let us take a carriage down to my hotel, where I am sure of being served as I like, and you two take dinner with me there. Then we can have ample time to talk, as well as a comfortable place to do it in. Will you? What do you say, Robert?”

“I say yes an’ thank you,” answered the child promptly, and with more civility than might have been expected.

“I do not like to give you that trouble and--and expense,” said Bonny naïvely, alert as poverty had made her to the value of money. “Besides, we should be going home soon.”

“If you have played truant for a little while, you may as well continue a bit longer. I am as anxious to talk with you as you can possibly be with me, and I will be responsible to your mother for this added delay; that is, if you are not positively needed at home.”

“Thank you. No, I am not needed now. I am not of much account there anyway; and we shall be very happy to accept your invitation,” added Bonny, with a sudden change of determination induced by a hasty study of her little brother’s face. How hungry he did look! How good a real dinner would taste to the child! Well, if people didn’t mean what they said they should be punished by being believed!

Yet Mr. Brook’s smile at her acceptance told certainly enough how sincere had been his invitation; and in a few seconds more the whole party were driving down Broadway, and Robert felt himself of considerable more importance than when he had interviewed pedestrians on the flower question.

“Do you like riding, lad?” asked Mr. Brook, amused at the earnest expression of the boy’s face.

“Like it! You bet! It’s bully!”

Dolloway frowned and sniffed. “Talk English, can’t you?”

“He knows what I mean; so do you,” replied “Humpty-Dumpty” instantly.

“Rob! don’t be impertinent!” cried Beatrice, warningly.

“Ain’t impertinent. I do like it. Bully means tip-top. I don’t mean anything out the way, only it does bother me to talk c’rect. I will when I get older, mebbe.”

“Train up a child in the way--” said Dolloway; but got no further, for Robert’s exclamations effectually stopped all other conversation, even if his elders had been inclined to converse; and pleasant though the ride was, all save the boy were glad when the carriage drew up before the substantial old hostelry where Mr. Brook felt was the only positive comfort to be found in the city.

“This is our parlor, my dear. Isn’t it a good, old-fashioned room? Our bedrooms open off from it. I have put up at this ‘inn’ for many years; that is, I used to do so when I was in the habit of spending much of my time in town. Did I mention to you that we return home in the morning?”

“So soon!” exclaimed Beatrice, and wondered why she felt so sorry.

“We have been here for several days. My sister will expect us. Now, my dear, I want you to tell me anything you wish. Rest assured I will advise you to the utmost of my wisdom.”

Bonny looked up and saw Mr. Dolloway’s eyes fixed curiously upon her. There was not a particle of sympathy in his face and it was evident that girls were not much more to his taste than boys. She felt that she could not say a word before him, and she did not know how to place him, whether as friend or servant of her host.

Perhaps Mr. Brook saw this hesitation and rightly interpreted it; for he rose almost at once and said: “I would like to go down to old Trinity before I return home. I’ll leave you, Dolloway, and our young friend Robert to order the dinner, and Miss Beckwith and I will walk down to the church,--that is, if she will favor me with her company. By the time we come back, dinner will be ready to serve, and I shall be able to satisfy Joanna’s questions about her old place of worship. Does that plan suit everybody?”

Bonny sprang up instantly. “I think you have a gift for plans which please everybody, dear sir! I was never in Trinity Church but once, though I was born and have always lived in New York. I should like to go very much.”

“Then let us be off. Will the arrangement suit Robert? If not--”

“I’d rather stay here, thank you, sir,” said the boy; “and did you mean ’at I could have _anything_ I wanted to eat?”

“Bob!”

“Certainly. Order anything you wish, that is in market. I remember how hungry I used to get when I was a school-boy. I’m hungry still; so don’t forget to look out for me, too. Good-by for a little while;” and nodding gayly to the lad, Mr. Brook led the way into the street and down it to the church.

“I like this old place. I can remember it for so long. To step into it out of the rush of Broadway is almost like being recreated,” said Mr. Brook, reverently, as they entered and passed slowly up the broad aisle.

Bonny could say nothing. Her mind was in a ferment of eagerness to tell this new-old friend everything concerning herself and her dear ones. She felt that he would understand and be able to explain the “muddle” in which she found herself without her saying a word, and yet she wanted to leave nothing for him to guess at.

“Will you sit down here with me, Mr. Brook?”

“Certainly.”

They took the places Beatrice had designated, and as she looked up into the kindly, interested face all her trouble passed away. “You must have seen, sir, that we are very poor. When I looked at that basket of flowers I thought it was dreadful to have anything of such value wasted in that way, while my precious mother is toiling her life out to keep her family in simple necessaries. Then it came into my head that I might sell them. I never did such a thing before, though I would not have been ashamed to if-- No, that isn’t quite honest. I don’t like to earn money that way, but I would be glad to earn it regularly, by any straight-forward, hard work, if I might be allowed.”

“How ‘allowed,’ my dear? Can you not work if you will?”

“No; that is just it. Mother thinks her geese are all swans, and must not swim in common mill-ponds. So she is just killing herself to keep Isabelle at the fashionable school where she studies art, in pay for her--Belle’s--looking after ‘primaries.’ That way it doesn’t cost anything for the instruction; but clothes do cost, such clothes as my sister must wear if she goes fitly among such rich pupils, cost a great deal for us. Roland is the happiest of all, maybe; because he does generally earn his own way. That is, what he earns has mostly paid the rent, only now he’s lost his place. I think it was the knowledge of that which upset Mother, last night. Her courage has been stretched so much that it is wearing out.”

“How did he lose his position? What was it?”

“He was some sort of a clerk in a wholesale dry-goods house. I suppose he quarrelled with his employer. He hated it. He said it would have seemed a great deal manlier to him to sell stoves or steam-engines, or something not so womanish as silks and velvets; but I fancy it would have made no difference. He was born to live out of doors. He’s a different boy when he happens to get an outside ‘job,’ once in a while.”

“How old is he?”

“Sixteen. Belle is one year older than he.”

“What do you study, my dear?”

“Nothing much but music, now. Mother has a friend who is interested in the best Conservatory here, and I have the benefit of instruction there. I have an idea that this lady, this friend, pays my expenses, or advances the money to Mother for that purpose, though I do not know. I asked once, but was not told. Mother is certain I have a fortune in my voice, and she is killing herself to keep me in training. I cannot say I have not. I have no wish to run down my only legitimate stock in trade, but I don’t believe I’m a Patti or a Jenny Lind. I may be, of course. Brother Robert is too little to be anything but the dearest, sweetest small chap in the world. So there you have us. We are not beggars, exactly; for Mother has a little bit of an income which ekes out the embroidery money, and so we manage. But it isn’t as it should be, and what I want to know is: Could such a family as ours make a living in the country somewhere? Do you think our ‘talents’ could be put to any sensible use? And--do you forgive my selling your flowers?”

“My dear, I am glad if they brought you one bit of additional money. I wish you had had double the number--”

“Oh dear! I don’t! That sounds saucy. But I never in the world could make my salt that way. I haven’t the patience, and I have too much pride. But I did get quite a nice little sum for them, and I am sure it will do Motherkin a lot of good. Only her pride will suffer, and her heart ache a little that I could do anything without telling her first. We never have any secrets in our small household; and I have been so low-spirited all day over mine. Only, of course, I shall make a clean breast of the business as soon as I get home.”

“Miss Beckwith, or Beatrice, if you will let me call you so, I thank you for your confidence in me. I want to prove myself to you all that my Conrad would have been to any one dear to me, if I can. But I see very clearly that your mother is proud and self-reliant. She is not of the sort to whom one can offer pecuniary aid without offering a sting as well. I am of the same kind myself. I should not like to receive benefits at all, unless I had a chance of repaying them. I agree with the doctor that Mrs. Beckwith would be better in the country; but I dare not propose my poor knowledge of what is best for you youngsters against a mother’s wish and wisdom. Still, continue to trust me for a little while. Some way will open to help you; and Joanna will advise me. I never take any important step without consulting her.”

Bonny looked her surprise. Mr. Brook was a hale, strong-hearted man of eighty years. How odd that he should need to take counsel of anybody, least of all of a woman! “Is Joanna the sister of whom you spoke?”

“Yes. A wise and dear friend she has been to me all my life. She and I live together at the old homestead in New Windsor with the servants who have been long in our employ. I hope you will know her soon. You are certain to love her if you do.”

Bonny’s quick sympathy sent a momentary moisture to her bright eyes, which Mr. Brook saw clearly enough, even without his glasses, which had fallen from his nose. “Why, what, my dear?”

“Nothing--nothing, sir! Only that is so beautiful! I wonder if my Roland will love me like that when he is old, and I am! We are the ‘closest chums’ now; but--do you suppose it will last?”

“Let us hope it will last, my dear. And it certainly will if you do your sisterly share to make it. Never for one moment allow yourself to forget that you are children of one mother,--the brave little mother who has toiled to keep you in one fold. Then I am as positive it ‘will last’ as that our dinner must be waiting us now!”

Bonny sprang up at once. “Thank you, Mr. Brook. And if your sister does not see how to help us into a sensible way of living, still I shall always remember you gratefully; and I will try to be to my Roland what Miss Brook has been to you. I will, indeed. But I am glad to go back to Robert. He is rather uncertain in his behavior, though the dearest little fellow in the world!”

“Indeed?” laughed Mr. Brook, dryly; and with so much of mischief in his fine old face that again Beatrice was reminded of the picture her mother had seen in the chrysanthemums, and she beguiled the way back to the hotel by a description of the little scene when the basket had arrived.

“That was pretty, very pretty. Joanna must certainly know your mother; and I have a scheme in my mind that, meeting her approval, will bring many happy days to all of us, I trust.” The old man looked up cheerily, and caught Bonny’s wondering gaze fixed upon his face. “Ah, ha, my dear! You see that youth has no monopoly of ‘looking forward.’ A man may be a deal happier at eighty than he ever was at eighteen. I am.”

They reached the hotel none too soon. Dinner had been ready for some moments, and both Mr. Dolloway and Robert were in the condition of temper which hungry men, of any size, not possessing more than the usual amount of “grace” commonly exhibit.

“Bonny! I want to go home! Right away! That horrid old man has--sp-sp-spanked--me!”

Chapter VII.

Dining In State.

“Impossible!” cried Beatrice, catching the angry boy in her arms, and casting a defiant glance toward the irate Mr. Dolloway.

“Well, when a young one don’t know any better than to sass his elders he’d ought to be spanked. So I done it. An’ I’ll do it again, if I ever have occasion to.”

“Dolloway!”

Beatrice was surprised to hear how stern Mr. Brook’s voice could become, and she was delighted to see the other old fellow wince visibly. The sternness had gone home to the servant’s guilty heart, as it should.

“Truth, sir. Begging your pardon for sayin’ so. Here was I, laying myself out to entertain the boy; a telling stories till my jaws ached, and answering questions by the thousand till I couldn’t talk no more. Then I remembered the checker-board we’d brought along, and I tried to learn him how to play. The sass he give me--beat all! He knows more’n I do; more’n you do, sir; more’n the President of these United States and Queen Victory into the bargain.”

“I--I--I don’t! I--never!” sobbed Robert.

“You did. You do--er you think you do! Didn’t you conteradict me plain to my face about them moves? Didn’t you just as good as say I cheated?”

“Wull--wull--wull--you did!”

“Hush, Bob! Let the old man tell his story first.”

“If--if he gets his in fust--who’s a-goin’ ter b’lieve mine?” demanded “Humpty-Dumpty,” with renewed energy. “Fust off he knocked me down with the checker-board. Think I was goin’ ter stan’ that? I guess not! So I hit him with my fist. That’s all they was to it. An’ I’d a been satisfied nen to quit an’ begin over again, if he’d a played fair. But he wouldn’t. Nen--he--he caught me up--an’--”

“Never mind, now. Try not to think about it. And if you have been naughty you must apologize to Mr. Dolloway.”

“This--this is distressing!” exclaimed poor Mr. Brook, who hated a quarrel. “Try, both of you, to forget all about it. You were probably both almost starved. So I’ll order in the dinner at once, and that will set us all straight. Come here, my little man. Here is a quarter for you.”

But the “little man” was beyond the allurements of tips. He had sustained an indignity which it seemed to him he could never forget. It had been part of Mrs. Beckwith’s gentle rule that no physical violence should ever be visited upon her children. In the street the boys had taken their share of rough-and-tumble fighting with other boys, but in their own home or at their schools neither had ever received a blow. The fact and the method of Mr. Dolloway’s punishment was, therefore, the more infuriating and humiliating to the really proud little boy, who was at heart as “good” as his doting sister constantly declared him.

“Go, darling!” whispered Bonny. “Don’t make poor Mr. Brook feel any worse. He is unhappy about his man’s rudeness to you. Go! Be generous, and take it!”

This was putting the matter in a new light; and Robert despised anything like want of generosity. He hesitated but a second longer, till Bonny added, “Go, dear!” and then he marched straight to Mr. Brook and laid his soiled hand confidingly upon that gentleman’s knee.

“Wull--I’ll take it to ’blige you, not him. I ain’t a takin’ no pay fer what he done, an’ I’ll lick him yet, if I get big enough. Thank you, sir. There comes the waiter man. He’s been in here a lot o’ times a’ready. I guess it’s dinner, don’t you?”

“I guess it is. In fact, I know it is. Now, my son, what did you order? And I hope you did not forget me. I’m as hungry as a bear.”

“Are bears hungry?”

“They have that reputation. I am not acquainted with any bears myself, so I cannot speak from experience. Come, Dolloway, here is your especial bit of venison steak again, I see. Come, draw up to the table, all.”

Mr. Dolloway sniffed, “After you is manners for me, sir.”

“Stuff and nonsense, lad! Waive formality for once, and take a bit of dinner with an old friend--not after him. Come.”

“No, no, sir; thank you, I never could relish my victuals with young ones to the table.”

“Dolloway! sit up. That is enough of nonsense. And show the ill-taught child how he should behave--if you know how yourself.”

To Beatrice’s surprise, Mr. Dolloway did not apparently resent this speech of Mr. Brook’s, and he immediately obeyed it. She saw then that, familiar and almost equal as the two had seemed to her, one was still the master, the other the man.

The dinner began in silence, broken only by the host’s attempts at conversation, which fell without much response; for Dolloway was stubbornly speechless, and the young Beckwiths were too much impressed by the strangeness of their surroundings to have leisure for words. Even restaurant service, to which most young city folk become early accustomed, was unknown to them, for their simple meals had always been taken at home; and the deft movements of the waiter, perplexity as to the use of the various utensils with which he provided them, and a close observation of Mr. Brook and his manner of using the big or little forks and spoons, occupied them to the exclusion of almost everything else, even food.

“Try a few of those oysters. They are delicious, my dear, they are indeed,” urged the entertainer, pushing the plate of half-shells gently toward Bonny’s place.

Then she rallied herself. “I must not seem ungrateful, and the food does smell so good! Only there is so much of it! One of these ‘courses,’ I suppose they are, would make enough for once at home. I wish Motherkin had some oysters like these! And she shall. I will buy some on my way back.” Then she turned to her host, and exerted herself to be as entertaining as Bonny Beckwith certainly could be if she willed, and before he knew it even Mr. Dolloway was laughing.

In that laugh the hatchet was buried; or rather the last ill-temper which Robert had retained vanished, and he turned merrily toward his enemy with the words: “My eye! This turkey is an awful good one, ain’t it? I wish I could have you tell me what to order, every day!”

“When I was a boy I liked turkey,” answered Dolloway, graciously.

“Tell me ‘when you was a boy,’ please. If you will I won’t be sassy no more, an’ I won’t beat you no more.”

“Some time. Not now. I did tell you all I knew, ’most.”

“He says you have horses of your own, Mr. Brook!” said “Humpty-Dumpty,” suddenly remembering this communication and wishing to have it verified.

“Yes, I have a number; seven in the stables now, I think. But all are not mine; one pair is my sister’s. Some day I hope you will come and see them.”

“Ginger! Do you? Honest Injun?”

“Certainly. Why should you doubt it?”

“Oh--because I hit _him_, an’ I’m a ‘young one,’ an’--I’m gen’ally doin’ somethin’ I hadn’t oughter. But if you mean it I’ll come, if my mother will let me.”

“I shall ask her,” said Mr. Brook, cheerfully. “I have hopes she will say ‘yes.’ Then Dolloway, here, shall teach you how to ride.”

“No, I sha’n’t teach nobody to break his neck.”

“Perhaps you may have a horse of your own, some day,” calmly pursued Mr. Brook, undisturbed by Dolloway’s present rebellion against authority.

Robert gasped. Such a “perhaps” literally took his breath away. Then he asked:

“Could I ride him bareback?”

“I presume you would attempt it.”

“If I ’tempted it I’d do it. They ain’t no back down ter me; I’ve got grit, I have. Bonny, here, she would ’a’ give up--kerflummux! a sellin’ those chrysms, but I made her hold on. If it hadn’t ’a’ been fer me she wouldn’t ’a’ made nothin’, hardly.”

Bonny winced. The least said about chrysanthemums the better she liked it now. But she answered: “How about the dozen which Miss Agnew bought? Where were you at that time?”

Robert ignored the inquiry. He had now eaten all that his capacity permitted, and he began to think of home. Not that homesickness troubled him, but a longing to boast of that day’s experience over the humdrum, matter-of-fact life which had probably gone on in the Second Avenue flat.

“Say, Bon! It’s time fer a feller ter go! Motherkin’ll be gettin’ worried ’bout us.”

“If Mr. Brook will excuse us we will go at once, before the up-town cars get crowded.”

“Golly! Will you ride? Eh?”

“Yes, dear. We are a long way from our own neighborhood now.”

“I know that. But I’ve walked it before, when I didn’t have no such good dinner inside of me. I’d laugh if I couldn’t now!”

“Very well. We’ll try it, then.”

But they were not to be permitted. When they turned to bid their host good-by, they found him with his hat on, ready to accompany them to the street. “You must allow me to put you in a cab, my dears. Yes, yes. Indeed, I shall permit nothing else. You are to say all kind things to the family for me, and I will write your mother or you, after I reach home and have seen Joanna. One thing, remember. I am not a new acquaintance. I am an old and tried friend. You can trust me. You can expect to see a great deal of me, if you will. Good-by.”

“Good-by.” “Good-by! Don’t forget about my visit to you!” “Thank you. Good-by.”

Around whirled the cab, and off up the street sped--no, crawled--the vehicle, among the lines of trucks and wagons, street-cars, hacks, and carriages, till Beatrice felt she could have outstripped that pace on her own light feet.

“But it’s riding, all the same, Bon! Let’s play pretend it’s our own carriage and we have been down town to buy a horse.”

“No; a house in the country.”

“Horses too. An’ we’re goin’ ter live ‘swell’ forever after. We’re goin’ ter have turkey every day.”

“Every other day, dear; it would be better for our digestion.”

“What’s digestion?”

“It is the one thing which the impecunious young Beckwiths have in perfection.”

“Pooh! What’s the use of saying words a mile long? An’ why don’t you give a real answer?”

“I like to use long words. It’s the only luxury I can afford. And the real answer is, the prime condition of our ‘insides,’ which allow us to eat anything from ‘A to Izzard.’ There, let’s get out at this corner. I want to invest a little of my money in a few oysters for Motherkin, as well as to pay you the seventy-five cents I promised.”

They dismissed the cab at the corner of Third Avenue and hurried into the nearest market, where Bonny selected with utmost care a dozen of the very finest “bivalves” she could find; but when she offered the promised reward to her little brother he surprised her by refusing to take it.

“Why, Bob! Why not? Are you ill? What is the matter?”

“No, I ain’t ill. Can’t a feller do a gen’rous thing ’ithout his folks ’cusin’ him o’ bein’ sick? But, say! Wait a minute! I will take it, too. I’ll take it an’ give it to my mother myself. I earned it fair an’ square, didn’t I?”

“Of course you did. And you are a perfect darling that you do not wish to waste it on yourself. Mother will be delighted with your unselfishness! If it weren’t in the street I’d kiss you, sweetheart!”

“Well, you needn’t. An’ I’ve got a quarter, anyway. That is more’n I’ve had in a dog’s age before. Do you s’pose my mother will scold me for running away from school?”

“As you draw near home your conscience begins to prick you, doesn’t it? Mine does. I didn’t feel half as guilty before.”

There was such a sympathy in this matter that despite its being on the “street” and a place where exhibitions of affection were out of place, the brother and sister clasped hands with an eagerness that told how much they really feared the quiet glance of disapproval which Mrs. Beckwith would make her only punishment.

But it was not Beatrice’s habit to acknowledge herself worsted till compelled; and she dashed into the little parlor of their flat crying, as gayly as she could: “Fairy gifts, Motherkin! I’ve discovered the secret of transmuting posies into pounds, petals into pennies, and chrysanthemums into oysters! Behold--and believe!”

“Ahem! Miss Beatrice, this is truly fortunate. I had begun to despair of seeing you.”

The girl wheeled suddenly about, and there, spectacles on nose and music-roll in hand, sat the Professor of Voice Culture who was training her for “her career,” and whom she had faithfully promised to meet that day for “a particular reason of obligingness to me myself; that may mean a much of benefit to the poor old Herr Doctor.”

Until that instant she had utterly forgotten the teacher’s request and her promise, and the regret with which she now recalled it effectually banished all affected hilarity. Dropping her package of “saddle rocks,” she held out both hands to the shabby-looking German, with an accent of such keen distress in her voice that he forgave her on the instant: “Oh, sir! I am so sorry. But--I never thought of it, not once. Has it made a great difference?”

“No, no,--not so great--but the mother--”

Bonny turned once more, this time to be confronted by another visitor, and oddly enough another teacher, the head master of the parochial institution where Robert was supposed to learn more refinement than he could at the public schools of the city.

“My dear, Mr. Benton. He has called about Robert’s absence, fearing he was ill. He also has a broken engagement to explain. Where have you both been all day?”

“Mother! must I tell--now--before these?”

“I know of no reason why you should not. I hope my children have not absented themselves from their duties for any cause which they would be ashamed to mention.” There was both pride and pain in the widow’s tone, and Bonny opened her lips to “make a clean breast of the matter,” but a second thought restrained her. What she had done might have been unwise, but she saw no reason to explain their actual poverty to “all the world.” For the first time in her life she refused to answer her mother’s question, and a spot of heightened color burned on each cheek as she bowed and murmured: “I cannot give the reason now, dear. Please do not press me;” and immediately quitted the apartment.

But alas for the Beckwith pride! In her haste Beatrice forgot that she had left the garrulous “Humpty-Dumpty” behind her.

Chapter VIII.

Propounding A Riddle.

“Ginger! If Bon hasn’t dropped them oysters down kerflump!” cried Robert, picking up the brown paper parcel and laying it on his mother’s lap. Then he plunged one pudgy hand deep in the corner of his pocket, where the hole had been pinned together, and produced four silver quarters. “Hi! there, Motherkin! See _them_?” and he cast a supercilious glance about upon the spectators, as if pitying the envy which must thrill their breasts.

“I see, dear. But go and make your excuses to Mr. Benton. I have had none to make for you.”

Robert immediately crossed to the master’s side and explained: “I couldn’t come ter school to-day, sir, ’cause my sister had ter go an’ sell some chrysms on the Avenue, an’ I didn’t like ter let her go alone. It ain’t nice fer girls to go ter places alone, my mother says.”

When the child had reached this point in his disclosures Isabelle rose rather hurriedly and left the room by the same door which had covered Bonny’s exit.

[Illustration: HE CAST A SUPERCILIOUS GLANCE ABOUT HIM.]

“Well, my boy. If you have a valid reason for your absence we will have to see about getting you excused. But there has been too much of this truanting, and we have resolved to put a stop to it. We have not quite the authority which the public school teachers have, else we should not be so troubled. An examination for promotion is to be held next week, and I felt that Robert had no time to lose if he wished to go forward with his class. Besides, he had promised to assist me a little in preparing for an evening entertainment in aid of the school, and I depended on him. He was to have been a little ‘Red Cross Knight,’ but owing to his absence I was obliged to give his place to another boy.”

Five minutes later both the Professor and Mr. Benton had departed, and Bonny immediately reappeared. “Mother! don’t look at me so grieved. I am bad, I know; as bad as I can be. But I don’t mean it, and I really felt as if I were doing something very praiseworthy when I set out on my adventures this morning. I was in quite a glow of self-righteousness. I was, indeed!”

“How about the glow now, my child?” asked the mother, gently stroking the flushed face resting on her knee.

“It’s gone. But--but this remains;” and she counted out the contents of her little purse, which amounted to about ten dollars. “That isn’t so very bad, though it’s about one fourth of what I anticipated bringing home. As it is, nine dollars of this came from one person.”

“Beatrice! Not from Mr. Brook, I hope!”

“No, Motherkin. But _will_ you forgive me? I’ll never do so again. I promise you. And I’ve so much to tell. I can’t wait till I tell it, yet it doesn’t come easy with that sort of a wall of displeasure and sorrow between us. Please take your bad girl back, down deep into the happy place in your heart again, Mother darling! I hate to feel unhappy! I do, awfully!”

Her whimsical entreaty covered a regret so sincere that Mrs. Beckwith understood, and stooping kissed very tenderly the tumbled curls of her energetic daughter. There was a trace of tears in her own eyes as she lifted her head, but there was no further word of blame or repentance between them; yet Beatrice never forgot that hour, nor did she ever again test any scheme, no matter how brilliant its promise, without taking her mother into confidence first.

“Well, then, that’s settled and done with. I feel better, very much better. And Robert is not to be blamed at all. Nor am I, even, for part of my badness. I forgot that. Mr. Brook has part of the blame. He claims it, and I’m sure I’m willing he should enjoy it.”

“My daughter, have you been to see Mr. Brook?”

“Yes,’m, I have. I’ve dined with him. At the Astor House. In a private parlor. But that wasn’t the beginning of the story. You should let people begin at the beginning, Mother dear.”

“Begin at the beginning, Beatrice.”

The recital was given, amid the comments and illustrations of the youngest Beckwith; no details were omitted, and it ended with the question: “If this good friend of our grandfather’s finds some place that we could live in the country, would you go, Mother?”

“For my own part, I should be glad to go. But your education, the different careers which may be open to you here, my children, these must be considered first. All the young people are leaving the country places and flocking to the towns, if we are to believe the articles we read. If those who have been born and reared in the country cannot make a decent livelihood there, how can we expect to do so?”

“Well, you see, Motherkin! we’re all geniuses! That’s the theory we are living on now; and a genius can do what no less gifted mortal can! But all jesting aside, Mr. Brook agrees with the doctor that your health would be a great deal better in a country place than here; and I’ll risk the rest of the question for that great gain. So should you, if you love us.”

“Well, well, dearie. The question is not to be met to-night. But those oysters you brought in and dropped so disdainfully upon the floor will taste very nicely to us who have _not_ dined at the Astor House upon roast turkey and other good things galore. Would you object to broiling me a few?”

After all, the day ended merrily. The Beckwiths had a faculty of making mirth out of trifles, and it kept them all from growing sour or cross-grained over the inevitable hardnesses of their lot in life. Roland brought out his banjo and forgot the day’s hopeless search for a new situation in the picking up of a melody that had caught his ear. Belle worked hard to make a realistic “study” of chrysanthemums from the two or three which Beatrice had left behind her that morning on her mother’s kitchen table. Mrs. Beckwith “outlined” a pattern against the next day’s finer embroidering; Robert played at jack-straws till he had “beaten himself” a satisfying number of times; while Beatrice moved everywhere about the little home, putting away scattered papers and books, dusting carefully each nook and corner, and finally sitting down to peruse a cook-book in the hope of finding some desirable dish for the next day’s dinner which would cost next to nothing in the concocting.

A busy week followed, busy for all save Roland, and yet even for him, though his labors were without apparent result; and then the postman brought the letter which all except Bonny had nearly forgotten, the letter that Mr. Brook was to write after consultation with his sister, Miss Joanna.

It was “Humpty-Dumpty” who received the communication from the messenger and flew upstairs with it, crying out: “I bet this is the country letter! I bet it’s Mr. Brook has found a home for us an’ a horse! Read it, won’t you, Motherkin, quick?”

“It is very brief, my dears; but it contains an invitation for Roland to go up and see Mr. Brook at his own home. He writes that there are some things much better discussed in person than by mail, and unless he hears to the contrary he will send a carriage to meet my son at the railway station nearest his house on Thursday--why, that is to-morrow! He adds that he trusts the meeting will not be fruitless of good to all concerned, else he would not suggest it. Well, well.”

“‘Well’ means ‘yes,’ doesn’t it?” demanded Bonny, eagerly.

“I wonder how much it will cost!” remarked Roland, reflectively.

“No matter, sir. We’ll write another poem on somebody’s medicine and earn the price of the trip, maybe! Anyway, there is the chrysanthemum money which my mother has punished me by refusing to touch; you shall take that. Then Mr. Brook can feel that he has paid your way and will have no scruples about that matter. In his heart of hearts, the dear old gentleman has been worried over it, I know, just as well as if I had heard him say: ‘But, Joanna, they are so poor! What if he goes to the expense for nothing!’ and she has comforted him by saying: ‘Never mind, Chidly dear, we will make it up to them in some way. The young man must come, of course.’ You see how it is, don’t you, Motherkin?”

“I see that, among you, you would wheedle the foolish old Motherkin into letting all of you sacrifice your own best interests because you happen to think a country life is best for her!” answered Mrs. Beckwith, smiling fondly upon them all. “But Roland must go. No matter if we could afford it even less than by Bonny’s exploit we are fortunately able, it would be a rudeness not to accept the invitation. Yet, Roland, remember; it is no light task you are undertaking, and you must not bring back rose-colored reports unless the facts will bear them out; that is, I want you to look at everything with practical eyes.”

“I’ll try, Mother. But my opinion cannot decide the question.”

“Your opinion may soon have to decide all family matters, my son,” answered Mrs. Beckwith, with a gravity that woke a sudden terror in their loving hearts.

But Bonny would have none of this! Trouble--sorrow--should not come to them, not such sorrow as her mother’s tone suggested; and with the swift rebellion of her hopeful nature she turned upon her brother playfully. “Yes, my Laureate. Just take the poetical part of you off and give it to me. I’ll lock it safely up in my own bureau till you return. And, see; here’s the money! Oh, Bob! don’t you wish you were the big brother instead of the little one? Think of seeing your friend Mr. Dolloway again!”

Three days later Roland had made his journey and returned; and the first glance Bonny gave to his face set her heart to beating gayly. “Oh! I see it’s good news you bring, Laureate! You needn’t try to look so solemn, you’re so happy you could dance!” which was the one thing Roland never attempted to do.

“Here he is, Motherkin! And he _is_ rose-colored, though he tries not to be.”

“Ah, my son! We have missed you greatly. But did you have a pleasant time?”

“Mother, it’s delightful! It is. Just the plain, common-sense side of it is too good to be true. It is all so much better than we any of us dreamed that I hardly know how to begin.”

“I know, Roland!” interposed Robert. “Begin as we like stories to do: ‘Once upon a time.’”

“All right, little chap. ‘Once upon a time’ there was an old gentleman that had a great deal of money, much more than he needed himself, and he liked to do good with it. He was a peculiar old gentleman, too. He didn’t believe in the actual giving away of this money, as we sometimes give to the street beggars; but he would help those who wanted to help themselves. He said that was the Lord’s own way, and he certainly could not improve upon it. So all his life long he has been putting tumble-down people on their feet, and educating ignorant ones, and building little homes for homeless folks, who generally plucked up courage enough to earn the cost of the homes themselves at last. All which the splendid old fellow didn’t tell me himself; but I found out by asking more questions of everybody I met than even Bob could ask in the same length of time.”

“You couldn’t!” said Robert, indignantly.

“I did, small sir. I’ll prove it by anybody who saw me while I was in New Windsor town! Well, sure enough, when I got to the station there was a cosey carriage waiting for me, and in it, not just the servant I had expected to see, but Mr. Brook and the sweetest-faced old lady I ever saw.”

“Roland! _Did_--you go and take that poetry-side out of my drawer before you started?” asked Bonny, pathetically.

“No, miss. This is plain, unvarnished fact. Miss Brook is like her brother, only--more so! She looks like him, with a little smaller features and a bonnet on. She wears white curls each side her face, and her bonnet is big enough to cover her head, and she had on a soft-colored old shawl; India, I think she called it. She is very decided and quick, but not harsh. It is only that her mind seems to go as fast as Bonny’s does, though more wisely.”

“Thanks. Next chapter, please,” remarked the object of comparison, slipping her arm within her brother’s.

“Well, I will skip the rest, for a minute, and hurry to the ‘plan.’ Mr. Brook has a house he would like to rent us. It stands on the land adjoining his own place, and was owned by some city people who got dissatisfied and left. He bought it partly as an investment, and partly to prevent undesirable persons coming to live there. It is old and picturesque, but it is in good order. It has a revolutionary history,--that is, the west side has; the eastern half is more modern. It stands almost upon the river bank, though on a bluff above it, and the orchard slopes quite down to the water. The rent is two hundred dollars a year, which is one hundred less than we pay now. It seemed to me that there was more room in it than we needed, but Mr. Brook said he thought not. And Bob’s friend, Dolloway, who went through the house with us, remarked: ‘I should think you’d be glad to have room enough to swing a cat in for once!’ and I concluded that it might be pleasant. The house is partly furnished; that is, there are curtains of some sort at the windows, and matting on the floors. There are closets everywhere, and one room is just as General Somebody used it. I declare, I was ashamed to find my history so rusty, for the whole locality is historic. And-- Oh, Mother, I do hope you will think favorably of it!”

“The main question is earning our living there; that is, if I can bring myself to take you away from your schools.”

“We talked that all over. There are ten acres with the house. There is also a little greenhouse, where Mr. Brook thinks we could raise early vegetables and flowers for market. Miss Brook says that you could do your embroidery there as well as here, and that if it seemed best the girls could come into the city for their lessons once or twice a week. They said we ought to keep one cow and a horse, and they had a plan by which we could make the horse pay for its keep; that is, if we were willing to work.”

“Are you, my dears? Remember it is not congenial work, nothing to do with books and music and art. But I was brought up in the country myself, and I know that the only way to get a living out of land is, as my guardian used to say, ‘dig it out.’ It seems strange for us, with our ignorance, to go back and attempt to do what the real country people have given up as a failure. I am more than doubtful about our success.”

“Mother, I never knew you to be so undecided about anything! I have always felt you knew long beforehand just what was best; don’t let us think of this thing at all if it troubles you,” said Isabelle, gently.

“There was never so much at stake before, my dear. But I will waver no longer. Let us each make the most of our last winter in the city, and in the spring we will go to New Windsor. Now, my Beatrice, if that soup of yours is ready we will have our dinner.”

They rose promptly, but soberly. Even Bonny could not shake off the influence of her mother’s thoughtful words, though she tried to jest as usual, and began to sing a gay little melody that Belle liked, till Roland interrupted her by saying: “Oh, I forgot; here is a little letter for you, from Mr. Brook,” and gave her an unsealed envelope.

“For me? How nice! But--how queer! Listen to this, all of you!”

MY DEAR MISS BEATRICE,--The name of the place where I hope you will live, is The Lindens, from the trees which surround it. You will find your fortune in those trees if you search for it. I leave your quick wit to solve the riddle.

Faithfully Yours, PHILIPSE CHIDLY BROOK.

Chapter IX.

The First Evening In The New Home.

A few months later, when the spring was just opening, Beatrice and Roland stood on the wide porch of the old house in New Windsor, eagerly watching the approach of a carriage which was bringing to the Lindens the rest of their family. The girl’s feet could not keep from dancing, and the lad’s spirits found vent in a whistle so merry and so spontaneous that old Mr. Dolloway, hearing it, muttered grimly: “I hope he can keep on a feeling that way after he’s tried farming a spell. I don’t see any great fun in hard work myself, an’ that’s what he’ll get, an’ plenty of it.”

“Oh! I hope Motherkin will not be disappointed! Think of her trusting everything to her children, and saying that what we like will certainly suit her! Was there ever such a love of a mother in this world?”

“No, Bonny, I don’t believe there ever was. I can imagine no human being more perfect than our mother.”

“I mean she shall have a splendid rest now. This air is perfectly delicious! It fairly tingles through my veins, it is so pure and brilliant!”

The brother fell to whistling again.

“See! The buds are really swelling on my lindens! I wonder what their secret is.”

“I thought you professed to having found out?”

“Not quite. I did think, from the stories I have read about Revolutionary times here, that perhaps Mr. Brook believed there was a buried treasure underneath those trees somewhere. But last night I asked him, and he laughed so gayly that I knew I was on the wrong track. Miss Joanna laughed, too, and asked me if I thought all the poor old soldiers had money to bury, because she had certainly heard of enough being searched for to supply the whole army with wealth, and yet history told us that they suffered great privations. There _have_ been some ‘pots of gold’ resurrected right here in this New Windsor town, but they did not hold enough to enrich anybody, and their contents are preserved more as curiosities than used to supply common wants.”

“So you give up that idea entirely?”

“Entirely. There they come. Oh, Mother! Here at last!”

Considerate in all things, Mr. Brook had sent his own carriage to the station to bring Mrs. Beckwith and Belle with little Robert, but he had not accompanied it himself. He wanted the first glimpse of her new home should be an impartial one on the lady’s part, and he was too prejudiced a person to refrain from pointing out this or that favorable feature of the spot he loved so well. So the family were quite by themselves, and free to express their thoughts as they were inclined without fear of wounding anybody’s preferences, had there been any danger of their doing so. But there was not. As Roland had said, when he returned from that first visit of the autumn before, “It is all so much better than one could have dreamed!” was the one and only feeling of the brave little woman who stepped down from the carriage with happy face and shining eyes.

“Here at last, my darling! All together once more. Are you not tired out with all your hard work? And, Roland, my son, it actually seems to me you have grown, even in these few days!”

“Grown in importance, Motherkin. He’s really very ‘masterful’ up here. He feels that he is the head of the family now, in good earnest. You should hear him say: ‘Bonny! that room _must_ be my mother’s. It is the very sunniest, pleasantest in the whole house!’ in such a tone. As if a body wished to dispute his royal highness! But--how _do_ you like it? And how did you manage in the boarding-house, after we came away with the ‘things’?”

“Oh, we managed nicely. Did everything come? Don’t you think you are very smart, you two, to take the whole responsibility of settling a house, and such a big house as this? How nice it looks! How pretty, nay, how beautiful, it all is! See the delicate green of those tree-buds! And that clump of willows by the river-side. What an exquisite color! And the plashing of the water at the foot of the bluff! I had no idea it was so lovely!”

“Now, Motherkin! That’s charming of you; but you don’t wish to waste all your enthusiasm out of doors, I hope. As for those willow boughs, I can tell you exactly what to do them in. Cadmium, Motherkin, cadmium yellow, number two, with shadows of _terre verte_ and umber. Oh! I know! I was taken with just such an artistic spasm the other day when I was scrubbing the kitchen pantry, and I sat right down and made a study of those willows on the back of the moulding-board. I didn’t quite finish it, though, for Roland called to me to help him with the stove-pipe, and that sort of dampened my spirits for a while. Stove-pipes have a depressing influence on mankind generally, I believe; for we couldn’t get it right, though we tried never so, and after a little while Roland had to call on Mr. Dolloway for advice. He-- I fancy I had best not tell what he said. It wouldn’t have been allowed in polite society. He--”

“Bonny, do keep still! Mother, she talks all the time up here. That is one drawback I have discovered to this paradise. It is either talk or sing with Beatrice; she cannot keep still a minute.”

“Never mind! A _happy_ racket never is disturbing to _me_. So this is my room? Well, I thank you for selecting one so big and cheerful. How well our old furniture does look, after all! And what pretty matting! It--seems like a dream. And there is almost as much space in this one apartment as in the whole of our little flat. I feel like a Mrs. Crœsus! And what a light for my embroidery!”

“Motherkin, you are not to embroider one stitch for one whole week. True. Roland has said so, and you will not dare to disobey the Laureate--and the head of the family--combined!”

It was indeed a cheerful, picturesque old farm-house, and could not have been situated more pleasantly. To the east, across the river, the highlands were violet in the light of the setting sun, and the broad stream itself was flecked here and there by the white-sailed boats which had awaked from the winter’s sleep with the opening of navigation, and now darted busily up and down intent upon making lost time good. Barges and steam-tugs, a steamer or two, and the rattle of trains on both banks of the Hudson gave what Roland called “an American flavor to an idyllic picture,” and convinced them all that in turning their backs upon the city they had not left behind them all connection with its stirring life.

“Now the greenhouse, Mother! Then you may have your supper. Miss Brook invited us there to-night, but I asked her to excuse us. I thought you would be tired and would like to eat your first meal in your new home. Though we are all to go there to dine to-morrow, and she is coming over to see you ‘early in the morning,’ which means early, too! Those two people have not a thing to do except please themselves; and how do you think they do it? One of the ‘hows’?”

“Don’t tire us with conundrums, Bonny!” pleaded Isabelle, who had made a swift tour of the whole premises and now returned to the empty little glass house where the rest had gathered.

“By having their breakfast at seven o’clock the year round!”

“Then during the week you have passed with them you have either suffered or been impolite!” said Mrs. Beckwith, with conviction.

“I wasn’t impolite, Motherkin. I didn’t keep them waiting,--they wouldn’t have waited, though,--but I was on hand every morning, sharp. So was Roland. Oh! that youth is a changed young man! If it only lasts!”

“Now, here,” said Roland, paying no attention to Bonny’s banter, “is where I have sowed my celery seed. Here is lettuce; there radishes; there onions, tomatoes, and by this side a few early potatoes. Isn’t that like living?”

“Roland, how did you know what to do? And how have you had time to accomplish so much since you came? Shall you like it?”

“Mother, you are almost as curious as Bob! It does me good to hear it. I was taught what to do by Mr. Brook’s gardener. And we have not wasted any of the hours during this past week, anyway. And I shall like it--immensely. I never felt so much a man in all my life.”

“Why, you ain’t a man, Roland! You’re only a boy,” remarked Robert, feeling a bit jealous of this big brother who had had a whole week at the Lindens, while he had been forced to remain in a city boarding-house till Beatrice and the “Laureate” prepared the home for their mother’s coming. “And don’t it look funny to see our old things in this new house! I found my own bed the first thing. It’s in a room all by my own self, ’cause Bon said so. That bed is new if nothin’ else ain’t, an’ I’m as much ’count as you if I can have a bedroom too.”

“I think that is one of the luxuries of the situation, that each member of the household can have his or her own little apartment to do in just as he pleases.”

“To do in not at all as he pleases, you mean! That girl has fidgeted herself sick lest there should be a speck of dirt left anywhere for your eyes to find, Mother. And if I laid a single thing down in my room--so-called--she’d pounce upon it and hang it up or hide it away, lest the place should ‘look like fury.’”

“Well, she has her reward. I really think she has done wonders, as well as you. And now I think I smell a cup of tea. If your supper is ready, Miss Housekeeper, I should be pleased to eat it.”

They had not been allowed to enter the dining-room before. Bonny had prepared her table and then locked the door. She wanted that room, next to the mother’s the most cheerful room in the house, to be a surprise to them; and she now opened the door with a flourish of arms, then stood back to enjoy the look of pleasure she was sure her mother’s face would show.

“Oh, how pretty! My dear, you _have_ kept the best to the last. And this will be our living-room, our ‘home’ room; and as we break bread together in it for the first time, let us each resolve that into this room, whatever of sorrow may come, there shall never come an angry word or an unloving thought. Three times each day, God willing, we will gather here _in peace_.”

“Then let’s call it the ‘peace-room’ Motherkin!” cried “Humpty-Dumpty,” touched for almost the first time in his life to a bit of sentiment by the sweet solemnity of his mother’s face.

“Good for you, small sir! It’s a compact! Your hand upon it, little brother! And whenever you get into a scrape, if ever such an unheard-of thing should happen, remember this room shall be a retreat where you will be safe. I, too; and between us--”

“It will not be often unoccupied!” said Belle, saucily, and moved her mother’s chair to its place.

“What a great, big fireplace! And ain’t it wicked to burn so much wood, Roland? Must ’a’ cost a heap!” remarked Bob, leaning his head on his hands, and gazing reflectively into the bright wood fire which flamed on the hearth.

He had voiced his mother’s own thought, and she looked toward the elder son for explanation.

“No, Bob; it cost nothing but a little labor. That fire is made of driftwood which washed up on our own land. I dragged it to the wood-house and cut it up myself. Of course, Mr. Brook had a hand in the business, as he has in all this good fortune. He lent me his saw and axe; and I am to keep them till I can buy some of my own. Think of having anybody lend you anything! It is a new experience for us.”

“We do not want to become borrowers, on the strength of it, more than is necessary, my dear,” said Mrs. Beckwith.

“Don’t you fear. I am quite as independent as you, by nature. But I’ve found out something, Mother. There is as much kindness in accepting favors, sometimes, as in conferring them. Mr. Brook feels that he is responsible for our being here. He wishes to help us get started and everything running smoothly, and then I think he means to leave us to stand on our own feet. He has sent his man over every day to help me about the grounds, and Mr. Dolloway--oh! Mr. Dolloway!”

Bonny echoed her brother’s groan in so comical a manner that Robert demanded instantly: “What’s he done, Bon? Has he been a lickin’ you? ’Cause--”

“’Cause why, my lad?”

“’Cause he’d better not! I’ll lick him back if he ’tempts it! I studied that out coming along.”

“No; he doesn’t ‘lick’ me. It would be a relief if he did. He simply stands and prophesies evil till I am about distracted. Then I get mad and long to ‘sass’ him--but don’t. For a man who has lived with such a master as long as he has he is the grumpiest old chap you can imagine. He seems to be glad to have us here, thinks ‘it’s a fine thing to have the prop’ty let, after lyin’ idle so long, yet is sure it will go to wrack and ruin bein’ took care of by a passel o’ young ones an’ one lorn female.’ My goodness! Here he comes now. Speaking o’ angels, you know. And what has he brought this time--but--a cat!”

“Yes, I always feel a place never can look homelike without a cat around,” explained the visitor, when questioned by Beatrice, “so I fetched this one over. She’s a good mouser, an’ if you don’t feed her too much’ll do well. H’m-m. Hope you like the looks o’ things, ma’am,” said Mr. Dolloway, after he had been brought in and duly presented to Mrs. Beckwith and Belle. As for Robert, the child’s presence was utterly ignored; and finding this the case, he sauntered out of the room on a tour of private inspection, or for some reason of his own which he did not care to mention.

“I do like the looks of things very, very much. I am sure we shall be very happy here if only our plans for earning our livelihood do not miscarry. To-night I feel as rich as a queen in a new palace.”

“H’m-m. Just keep a feelin’ so, ma’am. Our folks are powerful glad you’ve come, an’ things’ll go. But I dunno how they would ’a’ gone if it hadn’t been for me looking after these childern you sent up here. They mean well, but-- My soul! What in the world!”

The horrible sounds which had interrupted Mr. Dolloway’s discourse appeared to come from the rear of the house, and thither everybody rushed to learn their cause.

“Burglars!” thought Mrs. Beckwith, trembling.

“Tramps!” echoed Isabelle, recalling all the outrages of that fraternity which she had ever seen recorded in the newspapers.

“Sounds like some wild animal!” cried Roland, and tried to open the door backwards, in his haste.

“My soul! It’s a cat! My--cat--I--believe!” exclaimed the visitor, wildly.

“Oh! where is Robert? My little boy--my baby!” wailed the anxious mother, as the sounds continued, and grew even fiercer.

Where was he, indeed! Till that moment they had not missed him, but now each face paled with apprehension as his absence was discovered.

“Oo-row-mur-rrow-screech! -s-spst! Ee-e-yo-ouw!”

“Humph! It’s my opinion that that sound and my small brother are connected!” said Bonny, composedly.

“Oh! if they should be!” cried Mrs. Beckwith, now actually sobbing with terror.

Chapter X.

Another Little Episode.

“Even if they should be, we have lived long enough to know that ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ is all right. He has as many lives as a cat.”

“Beatrice!”

By the time they reached the outer kitchen, whence the terrible sounds proceeded, Robert had been collared by Mr. Dolloway and was being shaken violently to and fro, while Roland was pitifully caressing the cat which their guest had brought, and which cowered in its rescuer’s embrace, hiding its head beneath the friendly arm and shivering as if in an ague.

“Mr. Dolloway! What are you doing? Can you and my darling never meet but you must come to an open battle? It is perfectly scandalous!” cried Bonny, indignantly, and taking upon herself the reproof of the troublesome neighbor.

“Yes, miss! That is what I say! It is a burning shame and a scandalous outrage! I’ll teach him, the little whelp! They’s a society of Prevention folks up here, and I’ll hand _his_ name in afore I’m many days older, or _my_ name ain’t spelt John Dolloway!”

“Will--you--lemme--’lone? I’ll--I’ll--”

Hereupon Mrs. Beckwith laid her hand upon the old man’s arm, and he instantly released his hold of the unhappy “Humpty-Dumpty.”

“Robert, what did you do?”

“I--I jest--I--He said--Oh! oh!”

“Silence, my son. Wait till you can collect yourself, then answer me.”

For the space of a few seconds the little boy’s sobs and moans continued, then he looked up as brightly as if trouble were a thing unknown. “He said they was room to swing a cat, an’ I was a measurin’ to see how much that was; that’s all.”

“How did you attempt the measurement?”

“Why--why--I held her by the tail an’ swung her roun’; that’s all.”

“All! Why didn’t you stop when she yelled and you saw it hurt her?” demanded Roland, severely.

“Why--’cause.”

“Because what?”

“I--I liked ter hear it. It did sound so funny. I thought I should laugh myself sick--she was so mad!”

“Robert, go to your room. You know which it is.” Mrs. Beckwith’s voice was stern, and her small reprobate immediately prepared to obey it, but unfortunately cast one glance Beatrice-ward, and changed his mind.

“She said it was a ‘retreat’ when folks was in a scrape. I--I bet I’m in one now; so I--I’d rather go to the peace-room, Motherkin,” said the child, sweetly. “If you are willing, Mother dear.”

Mrs. Beckwith could not restrain a fleeting smile, and Roland laughed outright; but the mother’s “no” had always been “no,” with no sign of wavering about it, and she did not begin their new life with any lax discipline, much as she would have so preferred. “No, Robert. You have been cruel, and I cannot excuse you. Remain upstairs until I come to you. Now, Mr. Dolloway, please accept my sincerest apologies for this unkindness. I do not seek to lessen my little boy’s fault, but if you will trust us and leave the poor cat here, I am sure I can promise you that no such maltreatment will ever be given it again.”

“Well, ma’am, I must say you have spoke like a lady. An’ I hain’t no wish to be behind-hand in my neighborliness. But--though I hain’t no right to mention it, so bein’ ’s you’re his mother--if that there shaver ain’t born ter be hung I’m mistook.”

“I trust you are mistaken. But come into the dining-room, again, please. I should like to have you tell me anything you happen to think of about our new home. I am so great a stranger to the locality that I am as eager as a child to hear its history. Will you not?”

“Thank you, ma’am. I guess not. I just stepped across to say if they was anything any of us could do for you we was to be notified. Them was Mr. Brook’s own words. An’ him an’ her both hopes you will rest well an’ find things comfortable. I left a basket of late-keepin’ apples in the pantry, an’ I make my good evenin’s to you, ma’am.”

The door had scarcely closed behind him before Bonny began to laugh. “You really must let me have it out, Motherkin, or I shall be sure to do it before Bob. That will make him think lightly of his sin. But now you can foresee how delightfully the monotony of our existence will be varied by the ‘little episodes’ between that ancient worthy and our small sinner.”

“Beatrice, it is really too miserable an occurrence to jest over.”

“But just _sub rosa_ this way. And I warn you, you are deluded into the impression that you know your own mind and that you can manage your own house. But it will be left for Mr. Dolloway to convince you that you do not. He takes a lively interest in all his master’s schemes, and in us--his latest--particularly. He will be the thorn to this rose, the rod of correction to our careless lives. Fortunately in this case not like master is the man. Well, I’ll clear away the tea-things now;” and Beatrice departed kitchenward to put on a big apron.

Isabelle proffered her assistance, but it was laughingly declined as “not available.” “No, dear, not to-night. You’re company, and I am in an angelic mood. You’d better enjoy it while it lasts; so run out and take another walk with the ‘head of the family,’ whom I see strutting about over his garden patch as if he were king of the whole earth. My big brother _is_ a poet; but he is also a born farmer. He loves the smell of the soil, and I know it was the making of him to come up here. He’d have grown into a disappointed, narrow-minded tape-seller if he’d stayed in town always. Now--well, I hardly dare tell you all I foresee in my Roland’s future!”

“Oh, Bonny! hasn’t all this hard work you have been doing taken the enthusiasm out of you yet? It seems lovely up here, and oh, so peaceful! But isn’t it just a bit too quiet and humdrum?”

“Trot along, miss! To-morrow when I hand over the housekeeping to you the humdrumness will disappear!”

“Why--what do you mean, Beatrice?”

“Coming events cast no shadows before in this case. When I have finished my dishes, Mother will be down again with her youngest in a beatific state of mind, looking as sweet and innocent as if he had been the sinned against instead of the sinner; then I’ll call you and Roland in, and we’ll talk over everything and arrange a fair division of labor.”

“Why, Bonny! One would think you had all the responsibility of this undertaking, to hear you talk! Isn’t my mother to have a word of influence, miss?”

“She is to have all the words she wants, but none of the work that I can help. Well, I don’t mean that exactly; but wait, and I’ll tell you what I do mean. Now, trot!”

Thus dismissed, Isabelle joined her brother in the garden. To her, at present, it seemed but a patch of muddy ground, though to the natural gardener who was to labor in it, it already presented a picture of thrift and greenness. “Think of it, Isabelle Beckwith! A week ago we had not a fraction of an acre over which to rule, now we have ten whole ones! I’m like Motherkin, as rich as Crœsus!”

“I’m afraid we shall get so sick of it. And we have cut loose now from so much that it would be hard to get back into even the old, modest places we held in the city. One never steps down for a moment but somebody else steps up into one’s place. As soon as I told the principal of our school that I would have to resign mine, she appointed somebody else at once. I could not get back the position if I would.”

“You must not look backward, Belle. We have done what seems the best for all, what certainly will be the best for our mother’s health, and that should cover all regrets. Besides, I am sure we shall succeed,--in making a living, at least. That is all we could have hoped to do if we had stayed in town.”

“I don’t know. Nobody can guess how I hated to give up my art class! The Professor said I would certainly make a name for myself if I kept on.”

“Why, Belle! I did not dream you felt so blue about this change! And I should like to know what is to hinder your ‘making a name’ for yourself here as well as there? Don’t all the artists, the landscape ones anyway, go into the country to study? And as for portraits, where can you find more original models than along these country lanes? If you have enough rudimentary knowledge, and talent, to make your teacher express himself like that, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you can’t conquer the rest!”

“H’m-m. Since when did you become philosopher?”

“No matter. You have always laughed at my ‘poetical talent;’ Bonny has not. But I tell you that if there is any real poetry in me, so real that it must find expression, it will find it here just as certainly as if I were to spend my days in study and all my evenings scribbling verses.”

“Then you disparage education?”

“I begin to think there are different sorts of education. One kind I am going to attempt is learning the land. I will have to begin at the A B C of it, just as I did in reading printed stuff. But the earth is printed, too, and by a Hand that does nothing in vain. Most boys run away from the country because there is no money in it. I am going to hunt for something which will beat money.”

“Youth! my brother! Just youth. After a while I suppose you will find, as old Dolloway says, that ‘money beats sentiment.’”

“Yes--and malaria beats both! I’ve been warned against too much night-dew, if I want to keep my health.”

“Why, isn’t this a healthful place?” cried Isabelle, in quick alarm. “If it isn’t we should never have brought Mother here!”

“It is. Mr. Brook is eighty years old, and he has lived here almost all his life. But he spoke to me about our being careful, particularly at first. He said, and truly, that our health is our capital; and that if we use reasonable precaution we shall never suffer.”

“Well, I know now that you have grown wise! I cannot remember when I ever heard you mention health as a thing to be guarded,--our health, I mean. You have been solicitous enough about Mother’s, except--”

“Except in what? Don’t throw cold water on me now, after warming my vanity like that!”

“Except when you gave up your situations so readily, because your ‘boss’ ‘sassed’ you!”

“I think it’s time to go in, Isabelle.”

“So do I. I couldn’t have supported any more wise remarks! They sound so--so un-Roland like.”

“Hark! There’s Bonny calling. Mother and the ‘Hopeful’ have probably come down to the ‘peace-room.’ And, do you know I think that’s a mighty pretty fancy of hers? Let’s try to please her and remember it.”

“All right. I’ll try; but I’m not a bit perfect!”

Roland forbore the retort that rose to his lip. Just at present he was still in the first glow of his incipient manhood, when the idea of being the “head of the family” had a charm of pride and importance about it that made trifles of heavy burdens. Isabelle wondered how long his ease-loving temperament would endure the strain of actual labor and hardship which would inevitably be laid upon it; but still, like Beatrice, she saw a change in Roland, and she could but believe that he had “come unto his own” in coming to dwell in the wide, beautiful country.

“Well, you dreamers! Here have Motherkin and the bad ones been sitting for full five minutes, waiting for you to come in. We are to hold a conclave of forces and decide upon the tactics of this camp! Hi! there! brother Bob! Does that sound warlike enough for you? I motion Mother takes the Chair! All in favor-- Aye!”

“My daughter, I decline all posts purely honorary! You may be Chairman of the occasion; for whether we will or no, you will be bound to have the most to say!”

“Now, Motherkin! But Roland knows, as well as I, what we have thought. Let him tell our plans, and if they agree with yours, all right; if not, we’ll hear whatever amendments the house has to offer.”

“What you talkin’ ’bout?” asked Robert, sleepily.

“Exactly. Roland, begin, please.”

“Where?”

“On the money question, of course.”

“Well, the first expense we shall have to meet is for garden tools and some sort of a wagon. Mr. Brook has an old horse for which he has little use, and he will be glad to have us use it for a while, and pay him nothing but its keep.”

“My son, we must try to stand upon our own feet. We are not to depend upon Mr. Brook as if _we_ had no independence at all. There is a small sum of money, you know,--a few hundred dollars. We are to use all of it that is necessary in making this experiment a success. Go on, dear.”

“As much as is necessary, Motherkin, but no more. This is no especial benevolence on our patron’s part. He is as good and generous as he can be, but he is also wise. He wants us to keep our self-respect and his, at the same time. Well, this way of getting the use of a horse is quite common among country people. I have inquired and satisfied myself that it is so. He hasn’t a cow to work for its keep, so that we shall have to buy. But--”

“Oh, Roland, you are so slow! Listen to me, Motherkin! I, Beatrice Beckwith, who never earned a penny in her life--but once, a flower-girling!--am going to be one of the bread-winners! True, true, true!”

“Why, Bonny! what do you mean? And how happy you seem!”

“Well, I should think I am happy! Wasn’t I the very bottom and beginning of this whole country business? Didn’t I go a talking to my dear old gentleman, and didn’t he fall in with the country notion, hot foot? Then it rests on me to make the thing a ‘go;’ and I mean to do it.”

“It rests upon us all equally, Beatrice.”

“Well, I have a situation. I am a private secretary, if you please!--I mean, if you will please! That was why I was so anxious to shorten up the music practice and take the other lessons at the Y. W. C. A. rooms during the last three months. Mr. Brook divulged the scheme to me in one of his letters, which you didn’t ask to see and I didn’t offer to show you. And we have kept it a secret from you on purpose to be a delightful surprise to you now. I am to have a dollar a day for my services. Think of that! I, the harum-scarum, am going to settle down into a regular money-grubber.”

“Why does he need a private secretary?” demanded Isabelle, rather anxiously.

“To help him put his collection of bugs and things into shape. You must know that our Mr. Chidly Brook is a known naturalist,--the one whose papers we have liked so much, over the signature of ‘Windsor.’”

“Is it possible?”

“True. He is the most modest of men, though, and he never speaks of his work as anything but insignificant. However, he has been appealed to, on behalf of some museum in Boston, to allow them to buy his collection when he has done with it. Of course, he isn’t going to do that; he will give it to them, instead; but he is going to put it into first-class order first, as if it weren’t now! and I am to make catalogues, take down notes, do anything and everything which will aid him. Now--don’t all speak at once!”

The mother opened her lips to express her praise, but her first words were drowned in a series of knockings as sudden as imperative.

“Rat-a-tat-tat! Tum-tum-tum!”

“For goodness’ sake! Who can be coming to visit us! At this hour, too!”

But when Roland reached the door and opened it, there was not a person to be seen. The moonlight fell in a broad sheet across the threshold and illuminated the sloping lawn before it.

“Rat-a-tat-tat!”

The sounds came from that side of the house. There was no doubting that, and Bonny joined her brother in the search.

But though they tried both front and rear doors, even the little side porch which led to the eastern rooms, there was no intruder visible, and they returned to the place they had left, only to hear the strange summons repeated almost continually for a full half-hour; after which, too disturbed to discuss their plans any further that night, the elder brother lifted the sleeping Robert from his corner of the hearth-rug, and followed the rest upstairs.

All night, at varying intervals, the uncanny rappings were repeated, till even the sensible mother began to feel that there was something supernatural about them, and to speculate if this were the reason that the former residents had found the house unsuitable and vacated it in such disgust.

But Roland sighed for a gun; and at midnight, arming himself with a fishing-rod and a broom, he determined to descend to the “peace-room” and stand guard till morning.

There, presently, the weary lad went sound asleep; to awake startled by the apparition of a white-clad figure before him, and to hear the sibilant whisper, “How--do--you--like--to--live--in--a--haunted--house?”

Chapter XI.

Miss Joanna.

“Oh! did I frighten you? Don’t--for mercy’s sake! don’t hit me! Why--it’s I--Bonny!”

“Well! I should think you might be better employed! Why didn’t you stay in your own room?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Why didn’t you?”

“Same reason. Besides, if the household is in danger I am the one to defend it. Go to bed.”

“I am the one to help you. Aren’t you glad we didn’t try to sleep over here alone, as we wanted to? I wonder if Mr. Brook knows anything about this! He would not allow us, do you remember? He said we would be more comfortable at their home, even after we had gotten the beds set up.”

“I do not think he knew. I am sure if he did he would have warned us. Hark! There it goes again! It is--it certainly is just by that west door. It sounds as if it came from the earth.”

“It sounds as if it came from everywhere.

‘Black spirits and white Red spirits and gray’--

Oh! How my flesh creeps! Isn’t it a perfectly delightfully thrilling sensation?

I have had dreams, but not of this, That I should share the wondrous bliss Of meeting ghostses in the air, And have them set on end my hair--

That last line is rather faulty. It’s lost a foot or a leg-- Oh, my! Hark!”

“Bonny!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Who is down there with you?”

“Nobody. I’m down here with Roland. The honor of this exploit is his.”

“Come up to bed, both of you. You’ll take cold.”

“Oh! we’re all gooseflesh now, both of us. But Roland is dressed, and so am I; that is--partly.”

“We can do nothing about this matter to-night. I will see