“Rosemary, my dear, I wish you would not dance all the time with young Roland Bayard when you happen to be at a party with him,” said the grave and dignified Miss Susannah Grandiere to the fair little niece who sat at her feet, both literally and figuratively.
The early tea was over at Grove Hill, and the aunt and niece sat before the fire, with their maid Henny in attendance.
Miss Grandiere was knitting a fine white lamb’s wool stocking; Rosemary was sewing together pieces for a patchwork quilt; and Henny, seated on a three-legged stool in the chimney corner, was carding wool.
“Why not, Aunt Sukey?” inquired the child, pushing the fine, silky black curls from her dainty forehead and looking up from her work.
“Because, my dear, though you are but a little girl, and he is almost a young man, yet these intimate friendships, formed in early youth, may become very embarrassing in later years,” gravely answered the lady, drawing out her knitting needle from the last taken off stitch and beginning another round.
“But how, Aunt Sukey?” questioned the little one.
“In this way. No one knows who Roland Bayard is! He was cast up from the wreck of the Carrier Pigeon, the only life saved. He was adopted and reared by Miss Sibby Bayard, and I think, but am not sure, he was educated at the expense of Abel Force, who never lets his left hand know what his right hand does in the way of charity. But Miss Sibby has hinted as much to me.”
“Aunt Sukey, he may be the son of a lord, or a duke, or a prince,” suggested romantic Rosemary.
“Or of a thief, or pirate, or convict,” added Miss Grandiere, severely.
“Oh, Aunt Sukey! Never! Never! Dear Roland! Aunt Sukey, I like Roland so much! And I have good reason to like him, too, whatever he may be!” exclaimed the child, with more than usual earnestness.
“Oh! oh! oh!” moaned Miss Grandiere, sadly, shaking her head.
“Aunt Sukey, no one ever has the kindness to ask a little girl like me to dance except dear Roland. Other gentlemen ask young ladies; but dear Roland always asks me, and he never lets me be neglected. And I shall never forget him for it, but shall always like him.”
“Um, um, um!” softly moaned the stately lady to herself.
“And Roland told me he was named after a knight who was ‘without fear and without reproach,’ and that he meant always to deserve his name, and to be my knight—mine.”
“Dear, dear, dear!” murmured Miss Grandiere.
“What is the matter, Aunt Sukey?” inquired Rosemary, again pushing back her silky, black curls, and lifting her large, light blue eyes to the lady’s troubled face.
“Rosemary, my child,” began Miss Grandiere, with out replying to the little girl’s question, “Rosemary, you know the Forces are going to Washington next week?”
“Oh! yes; everybody knows that now.”
“And Wynnette and Elva are going to be put to school there?”
“Yes, everybody knows that, too, Aunt Sukey.”
“Well, how would you like to be put to the same school that they are going to attend?”
“Oh, so much! So very much, Aunt Sukey! I never dreamed of such happiness as that! I do so much want to get a good education!” exclaimed the little girl, firing with enthusiasm.
“Well, my dear child, I think the opportunity of sending you to school with Wynnette and Elva, and under the protection of Mr. and Mrs. Force, is such an excellent one that it ought not to be lost. I will speak to my sister Hedge about it, and if she will consent to your going I will be at the cost of sending you,” said the lady, as she began to roll up her knitting, for the last gleam of the winter twilight had faded out of the sky and it was getting too dark even to knit.
For once in her life Rosemary had forgotten to call for the curtains to be let down and the candle to be lit and the novel brought forth. For once the interests of real life had banished the memory of romance.
But Henny knew what was expected of her, and so she put up her cards, went and lighted the tallow candle, pulled down the window blinds, replenished the fire, and reseated herself on her three-legged stool in the chimney corner.
Rosemary, recalled to the interests of the evening, went and brought forth the “treasured volume” from the upper bureau drawer and gave it to her aunt to read. Then she settled herself in her low chair to listen.
It was still that long romance of “The Children of the Abbey” that was the subject of their evening readings. And they had now reached a most thrilling crisis, where the heroine was in the haunted castle; when suddenly the sound of wheels was heard to grate on the gravel outside, accompanied by girlish voices.
And soon there came a knock at the door.
“Who in the world can that be at this hour, after dark?” inquired Miss Grandiere, as Henny arose and opened the door.
Odalite, Wynnette and Elva came in, in their poke bonnets and buttoned coats.
“Oh, Miss Grandiere, excuse us, but yours was the only light we saw gleaming around the edges of the blinds, and so we knocked at your door,” said Wynnette, who always took the initiative in speaking, as in other things.
“My dear child! how is it that you children are out, after dark?” inquired the lady.
“We have been making the rounds to bid good-by to the neighbors. Mamma and papa went out yesterday, and we to-day. We are going to Washington next week, and we have come to bid you good-by now,” said Wynnette, still speaking for all the others.
“But who is with you for protection? Who drove the carriage?”
“Jake drove and Joshua came as bodyguard; but we are so late that I am afraid Mr. and Mrs. Elk and the girls are asleep.”
“They are, my dears; and it is so late that I do not think it right for you three children to be driving through the country with no better protection than Jake and the dog. You must send them home and stay all night here. Then you will have an opportunity of bidding good-by to William and Molly and the children to-morrow morning.”
“Oh, Miss Grandiere, how jolly! I have not spent a night from home for ages and ages and ages!” exclaimed Wynnette.
“But what will mamma say?” doubtfully inquired Elva.
“I fear, Miss Grandiere, that we ought to return home to-night,” suggested Odalite.
“Nonsense, my dear child! You must do nothing of the sort. I will write a note to your mother and send it by Jake,” replied Miss Grandiere, who immediately arose and went to get her portfolio.
“If it hadn’t been for Miss Sibby Bayard keeping us so long talking about her ancestor the ‘Duke of England’—she means the Duke of Norfolk all the time, but flouts us when we hint as much—we should have been here two hours ago, and been home by this time,” said Wynnette.
Miss Grandiere finished her note, put a shawl over her head and went out herself to speak to the coachman and send him home to Mondreer with her written message.
“Now take off your hats and coats, and tell me if you have had tea,” she said, when she came back into the room and closed the door.
“Oh, yes! we took tea with Miss Sibby while she told us how a certain ‘Duke of England’ lost his head for wanting to marry a certain Queen of Scotland,” replied Wynnette.
That question settled, the girls drew chairs around the fire, and began to make themselves comfortable.
Rosemary could not bear to give up her reading, just at that particular crisis, too! So she thought she would entice her company into listening to the story.
“We were reading—oh! such a beautiful book!” she said. “Just hear how lovely it begins!”
And she took the book up, turned it to the first page and commenced after this manner:
“‘Hail! sweet asylum of my infancy! Content and innocence abide beneath your humble roof!—hail! ye venerable trees! My happiest hours of childish gayety——’”
“What’s all that about?” demanded Wynnette, the vandal, ruthlessly interrupting the reader.
“It is Amanda Fitzallan, coming back to the Welsh cottage where she was nursed, and catching sight of it, you know, raises fluttering emotions in her sensitive bosom,” Rosemary explained, with an injured air.
“Oh! it does, does it? But she wouldn’t hold forth in that way, you know, even if she were badly stage struck or very crazy,” said Wynnette.
“Oh! I thought it was such elegant language!” pleaded Rosemary.
“But she wouldn’t use it! Look here! Do you suppose, when I come back from school, years hence, and catch sight of Mondreer, I should hold forth in that hifaluting style?”
“But what would you say?”
“Nothing, probably; or if I did, it would be: ‘There’s the blessed old barn now, looking as dull and humdrum as it did when we used to go blackberrying and get our ankles full of chego bites. Lord! how many dull days we have passed in that dreary old jail, especially in rainy weather!’ I think that would be about my talk.”
“Oh, Wynnette! you have no sentiment, no reverence, no——”
“Nonsense!” good-humoredly replied the girl, finishing Rosemary’s halting sentence.
The little girl sighed, closed the book and laid it on the table.
“The style of that work is very elegant and refined; and it is better to err on the side of elegance and refinement than on their opposites,” said Miss Grandiere, with her grandest air.
“As I do every time I open my mouth. But I can’t help it, Miss Susannah. ‘I am as Heaven made me,’ as somebody or other said—or ought to have said, if they didn’t,” retorted Wynnette.
As it was now bedtime it became necessary to attend to the sleeping accommodations of these unexpected guests. But first it was in order to offer them some refreshments. Henny was not required to draw a jug of hard cider, or to make and bake hoe cakes in the bedroom that night. Such “orgies” were only enacted by the aunt and niece in the seclusion of their private life.
But the corner cupboard was unlocked, and a store of rich cake and pound cake, with a cut-glass decanter of cherry bounce, all of which was kept for company, was brought forth and served to the visitors.
Meanwhile, Henny went upstairs to kindle a fire in the large, double-bedded spare room, just over Miss Sukey’s chamber.
“Miss Susannah,” said Odalite, while the group sat around the fire nibbling their cake and sipping their bounce, “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Anything in the world that I can do for you, Odalite, shall be done with the greatest pleasure,” earnestly replied the elder lady.
“I thank you very much, dear friend; and now I will explain: I promised Le, before we went away, that I would go to Greenbushes once a week to see that the rooms were regularly opened, aired and dried. I have kept the promise up to the present; but now, you know, I have to go with the family to Washington. I have no alternative, and for that reason I would like you to be my proxy.”
“I will, with great pleasure, my dear.”
“I could not ask you to go every week, that would be too much; but if you can go occasionally and see that all is right, and drop me a note to that effect, it will—well, it will relieve my conscience,” concluded Odalite, with a wan smile.
“I certainly will go every week, unless prevented by circumstances; and I will write to you as often as I go, to let you know how all is getting on there.”
“Oh, you are very kind, Miss Susannah; but I fear you will find it a tax upon your time and patience.”
“Not at all. I shall have plenty of time, and little that is interesting to fill it up with. For let me tell you a secret. I intend to avail myself of the opportunity of your parents being in Washington to send my little Rosemary to the same school that Wynnette and Elva will attend.”
“Oh, that will be jolly!” “Oh, that will be lovely!” exclaimed Wynnette and Elva, in the same instant.
“That is, if Mr. and Mrs. Force will not consider the addition of Rosemary to their party an intrusion.”
“Why, Miss Susannah! How dare you slander my father and mother right before my two looking eyes?” exclaimed Wynnette. “They will be just set up to have Rosemary! Besides, where’s the intrusion, I’d like to know? The railroad and the hotel and the boarding school are just as free for you as for me, I should think.”
“Rosemary would board at the school, of course,” continued Miss Grandiere.
“So shall Elva and I. If papa could have got a furnished house we should have lived at home, and entered the academy as day pupils; but, you see, as papa could not get a house he and mamma and Odalite will live at one of the West End hotels, and Elva and I at the academy.”
“And, oh! won’t it be lovely to have dear Rosemary with us? We should not feel half so strange,” said little Elva.
“You will speak to your father and mother on the subject when you go home, Odalite, my child; and I will call on them later. If they will take charge of Rosemary on the journey, and enter her at the same school with yourselves, I will be at all the charges, of course, and I shall feel very much obliged,” said Miss Susannah.
“You may rest assured that papa and mamma will be very glad to take charge of dear little Rosemary; not only for her sake and for your sake, but for our sakes, so that we may have an old playmate from our own neighborhood to be our schoolmate in the new home,” said Wynnette.
“There is something in that,” remarked Miss Grandiere.
As for Elva and Rosemary, they were sitting close together on one chair, with their arms locked around each other’s waist, in fond anticipation of their coming intimacy.
Henny now came in and said that the spare room was all ready for the young ladies.
Miss Grandiere lighted a fresh candle, and conducted her visitors to the upper chamber, saw that all their wants were supplied, and bade them good-night.
Soon after, aunt and niece also retired to bed; but Rosemary could not sleep for the happiness of thinking about going to boarding school in the city along with Wynnette and Elva.
Early in the morning William and Molly Elk, their little girls, and in fact the whole household, with the exception of Miss Sukey, her niece and her maid, were astonished to hear that there were visitors in the house who had arrived late on the night before.
They prepared a better breakfast than usual in their honor, and gave them a warm welcome.
Soon after breakfast, Jake arrived with the family carriage to fetch the young people home, and also with a message from Mr. and Mrs. Force, thanking Miss Grandiere for having detained their imprudent children all night.
“You and Rosemary go home with us, Miss Susannah. There’s plenty of room inside the carriage for six people, and we would only be five. Do, now! And let us have this matter of going to school settled at once,” urged Wynnette.
Miss Grandiere hesitated, even though Elva joined in the invitation. But when Odalite, the eldest and grown-up sister, added her entreaties to those of the others, Miss Sukey yielded, because she wanted to yield.
The girls then took leave of all their friends at Grove Hill and entered the capacious carriage, accompanied by Miss Grandiere and Rosemary—that is, two of them did. One was missing.
“Where is Wynnette?” inquired Miss Grandiere, as she sank into the cushions.
“She is on the box, driving, while Jacob is sitting with folded arms beside her,” answered Odalite.
“It is highly improper.”
“You cannot do anything with Wynnette, Miss Susannah. She will drive as often as she can. And Jacob’s presence beside her makes it safe, at least. He is ready to seize the reins at any emergency.”
“Yes, but really—really—my dear Odalite——”
The sudden starting of the horses at a spanking pace jerked Miss Grandiere’s words from her lips, and herself forward into little Elva’s arms.
However, they arrived safely at Mondreer, where they were very cordially welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Force.
When Miss Grandiere proposed her plan of sending Rosemary with them, to go to school with their own children, the lady and gentleman responded promptly and cordially.
“We have not selected our school yet,” Mr. Force explained. “We wish to get the circulars and personally inspect the schools before we make our choice, but if you leave your niece in our hands, we shall do by her exactly as by our own.”
“I am sure you will. And I thank you from my soul for the trouble you take. I shall sign some blank checks, for you to fill out, for any funds that may be required for Rosemary,” gratefully responded Miss Grandiere.
The aunt and niece, at the cordial invitation of the Forces, stayed to dinner, and were afterward sent home in a wide buggy driven by Jacob.
One day later Miss Grandiere broached to Mrs. Hedge the subject of sending Rosemary to school with Wynnette and Elva Force, at her own—Miss Grandiere’s—expense.
This consultation with the mother was a mere form, Miss Susannah knowing full well that it was the great ambition of Mistress Dolly’s heart to send her daughter to a good boarding school, and that she would consider the present opportunity most providential.
All the arrangements were most satisfactorily concluded, and by the end of the following week, the Forces, with little Rosemary in their charge, had left Mondreer.