The Staying Guest - Carolyn Wells 4 стр.

Meantime volumes of smoke rolled into the hall through the dining-room door.

Suddenly Matthews face appeared in the midst of the smoke.

Dont be frightened, maam, he said; its all right now. The soot got afire in the chimbley; but weve put it out. But if the little lady hadnt been afther runnin down an tellin me that the wall felt hot, Im thinkin the house wud have been burned to the ground.

Oh, Matthew, are you sure the fire is all out? asked Miss Dorinda.

And are you sure my house would have burned up but for that child? asked Miss Priscilla.

Yis, maam, sure as sure! An Ill jist open the windies till the shmoke disappears.

Then Miss Priscilla called, Come down, Ladybird; its all right now. And in a moment the child came flying down-stairs.

I put the geranium back in its place, she said, and I left your lace handkerchief on your bureau, Aunt Dorinda; but I brought both your smell-salts bottles, cause I thought you might be faint from the scare. Now sit down and rest, wont you?

She hovered about her aunts, ministering to each in turn, and her caressing touch was so gentle, and her sympathy so sincere, that Miss Priscilla, who was unaccustomed to such attentions, quite forgot she had called her niece a vixen, and that, too, with good and sufficient reasons.

But after a while, as her nerves became quieted and she felt more composed, Miss Priscilla Flint determined to attempt again the dismissal of her unwelcome guest.

Lavinia, she said in a tone of firm decision.

Oh, aunty, dont call me that; it makes me feel so old and grown up!

It is your name, and I have no desire to call you by any other. Lavinia, you are my niece, and the child of my dead sister; but I am in no way inclined to take you into my home for that reason. You have some kind and winning ways, but you appear to have an ungovernable temper, which would make you impossible to live with. How dared you lock the door on me in my own house?

Why, aunty, said Ladybird, laughing at the memory of it, that wasnt temper, and I didnt mean to be rude; but truly, there was nothing else to do. Why, if you had been out on the veranda when my trunks came, you would have sent them back to Boston, and I didnt want them to go back; so I just left you by yourselves until the man took them up-stairs.

You think you have outwitted me, miss, but you will find that Priscilla Flint is not so easily set aside.

Oh, Im not going to set you aside, aunty; that isnt it. Im just going to stay here and be your little girl yours and Aunt Dorindas.

I think, sister, we might keep her a week on trial, said Miss Dorinda, timidly.

Miss Dorinda always said everything timidly. In this respect she was not like her niece.

I shall not keep her a week, nor a day; and no more hours than I can help. I am going now to write a note to Mr. Marks, and tell him to come back at once for her and her trunks. So, Miss Lavinia Lovell, you may as well get yourself ready, for this time you will have to go.

Do you know, it doesnt seem to me as if I would go this time, said Ladybird, thoughtfully; it seems to me as if I would stay here years and years, until I get to be a dear old lady like you, and she patted the top of Miss Priscillas head. Then she danced out of the room, and out to the garden, singing as she went:

When the luncheon-bell rang, she danced back again, and seeing a letter on the hall-table addressed to Mr. Marks, she tore it into bits and threw it into the waste basket.

The gay good humor of their visitor was infectious, and the Flint ladies laughed and chatted over their luncheon, so that the meal was nearly over before Miss Priscilla said:

Mr. Marks will call for you at three oclock, Lavinia.

I dont think he will, replied the child, because I tore up that letter you wrote to him and threw it away.

What! gasped Miss Priscilla. This is too much!

Well, you see, aunty, there was nothing else to do. If hed got that letter he would have come, and I dont want him to come, so I tore it up. Dont write another.

I wont, said Miss Priscilla, in an ominous voice, and snapping her teeth together with a click.

But half an hour later the Primrose Hall carriage went down toward the village, and inside of it sat a very determined-looking old lady.

She went to Mr. Markss office and asked him to get his wagon and follow her home at once, and bring back the young miss and her luggage.

That firebrand as I saw at your house this morning? exclaimed the old countryman. Wal, I guess she wont be so easy brung.

He chuckled to himself as he drove along the road behind Miss Priscilla Flint; and when they reached the farm-house, he waited decorously for further orders.

Then the hunt began. For Ladybird was nowhere to be found. Miss Priscilla called in vain. Then Miss Dorinda called. Then they went up and looked in the room which Ladybird had appropriated as her own.

Her three trunks stood there wide open and empty. Their contents were all around: on the bed, on the bureaus, on the chairs, and many of them on the floor. But no trace of the missing child.

Then Miss Priscilla called the servants.

The little girl is hiding somewhere, she explained, and she must be found.

Yes, m, Bridget said; and she began systematically to search the house from attic to cellar.

Matthew shook his old head doubtfully.

Im thinkin yezll niver find her, he said. She was a spookish piece, an the likes of her flies up chimbleys an out of windies an niver appears agin.

Martha, much mystified, stared helplessly around the room, and in doing so noticed a bit of paper pinned to the pin-cushion.

She handed it to Miss Priscilla, who read:

Oh, groaned Miss Priscilla, what can I do? We must find her!

Miss Dorinda felt pretty sure, in her secret heart, that they wouldnt find Ladybird until that strange being was ready to be found; but she continued looking about in her placid way, which did no good nor harm.

After an hours search, the case did seem hopeless, and Mr. Marks declared he couldnt wait any longer; so Miss Priscilla reluctantly let him go away.

Two more hours passed; and then it was five oclock, and still no sign from the missing child.

Although they hadnt confessed it to each other, the Flint ladies were both a little scared.

Finally Miss Dorinda said:

You dont think shed do anything rash, do you, sister?

From the little Ive seen of her, replied Miss Priscilla, I should say that what she does is never anything but rash. However, I dont think she has drowned herself in the brook, or jumped down the well, if thats what you mean.

That was what Miss Dorinda had meant, and somehow she was not very much reassured by her sisters word.

They sat silent for a while; then Miss Dorinda, with a sudden impulse of determination such as she had never known in all her life, and, indeed, never experienced again, said:

Priscilla, I think you are doing wrong; and you neednt look at me like that. For once, Im going to say what I think! This child has been sent to us, and in your secret heart you know it is our duty to keep her and do for her. The Bible says that those who neglect their own families are worse than infidels, and we have no right to turn away our kin. Your dislike of visitors has nothing to do with the matter. The child is not a visitor, as she says herself. And it makes no difference what kind of a child she is: she is our sisters daughter, and we are bound by every law of humanity and decency to give her a home. If father were alive, do you suppose he would turn his orphan grandchild from his door? No; he would do his duty by his own: he would be just, if he could not be generous; and he would accept a responsibility that was rightly thrust upon him.

Priscilla, I think you are doing wrong; and you neednt look at me like that. For once, Im going to say what I think! This child has been sent to us, and in your secret heart you know it is our duty to keep her and do for her. The Bible says that those who neglect their own families are worse than infidels, and we have no right to turn away our kin. Your dislike of visitors has nothing to do with the matter. The child is not a visitor, as she says herself. And it makes no difference what kind of a child she is: she is our sisters daughter, and we are bound by every law of humanity and decency to give her a home. If father were alive, do you suppose he would turn his orphan grandchild from his door? No; he would do his duty by his own: he would be just, if he could not be generous; and he would accept a responsibility that was rightly thrust upon him.

Miss Priscilla looked at her sister in utter amazement. Dorinda had never spoken like this before, and it seemed as if the spirit of old Josiah Flint was manifesting itself in his daughter.

But if Miss Dorinda had acted in an unusual manner, Miss Priscilla proceeded to behave no less strangely.

At the close of her sisters speech, she suddenly burst into tears; and the times in her life when Miss Priscilla Flint had cried were very few indeed.

Then the younger sister was frightened at what she had done, and tried to pacify the weeping lady.

I know youre right, Dorinda, said Miss Priscilla, between her sobs; I I knew it all along,  and I suppose we shall have to keep her. Father would have wished it so,  and and I wouldnt mind it so much if she wouldnt wouldnt leave the doors open.

CHAPTER VI

UP A TREE

While the aunts were deciding upon Ladybirds future, old Matthew was wandering down the garden path toward the orchard.

She bates the Dutch, that child, he said to himself. Now Ill wager me dinner that shes hidin under a cabbage-leaf, or in some burrds nest.

But if so, Ladybird made no sign, and old Matthew tramped up and down the orchard, peering anxiously about while the shadows deepened.

At last, as he stood beneath an old gnarled apple-tree, he heard what seemed to be a far-away crooning sort of song.