CHAPTER VI.
THE FOX AND THE STORK
Lloyd Sherman at seventeen was a combination of all the characters hermany nicknames implied. The same imperious little ways and hastyoutbursts of temper that had won her the title of Little Colonel showedthemselves at times. But she was growing so much like the gentle maidenof the portrait that the name "Amanthis" trembled on the old Colonel'slips very often when he looked at her. The Tusitala ring on her fingershowed that she still kept in mind the Road of the Loving Heart, whichshe was trying to leave behind her in every one's memory, and the stringof tiny Roman pearls she sometimes clasped around her throat bore silentwitness to her effort to live up to the story of Ederyn, and keep trystwith all that was expected of her.
When a long line of blue-blooded ancestors has handed down a heritage ofproud traditions and family standards, it is no easy matter to be allthat is expected of an only child. But Lloyd was meeting allexpectations, responding to the influence of beauty and culture withwhich she had always been surrounded, as unconsciously as a bud unfoldsto the sunshine. Her ambition "to make undying music in the world," tofollow in the footsteps of her beautiful grandmother Amanthis, was initself a reaching-up to one of the family ideals.
When the girls began calling her the Princess Winsome, unconsciously shebegan to reach up to be worthy of that title also, but when she foundthat Mary Ware was taking her as a model Maid of Honor, in all that thattitle implies, she began to feel that a burden was laid upon hershoulders. She had had such admirers before: little Magnolia Budine atLloydsboro Seminary, and Cornie Dean at Warwick Hall. It was pleasant toknow that they considered her perfection, but it was a strain to feelthat she was their model, and that they copied her in everything, herfaults as well as her graces. They had followed her like shadows, andsuch devotion grows tiresome.
Happily for Mary Ware, whatever else she did, she never bored any one.She was too independent and original for that. When she found anoccasion to talk, she made the most of her opportunity, and talked withall her might, but her sensitiveness to surroundings always told herwhen it was time to retire into the background, and she could be so dumbas to utterly efface herself when the time came for her to keep silent.
A long list of delights filled her first letter home, but the one mostheavily underscored, and chief among them all, was the fact that the biggirls did not seem to consider her a "little pitcher" or a "tag." Nomatter where they went or what they talked about, she was free to followand to listen. It was interesting to the verge of distraction when theytalked merely of Warwick Hall and the schoolgirls, or recalled variousthings that had happened at the first house-party. But when theydiscussed the approaching wedding, the guests, the gifts, thedecorations, and the feast, she almost held her breath in her eagerenjoyment of it.
Several times a day, after the passing of the trains, Alec came up fromthe station with express packages. Most of them were wedding presents,which the bridesmaids pounced upon and carried away to the green room toawait Eugenia's arrival. Every package was the occasion of much guessingand pinching and wondering, and the mystery was almost as exciting asthe opening would have been.
The conversation often led into by-paths that were unexplored regions tothe small listener in the background among the window-seat cushions:husbands and lovers and engagements, all the thrilling topics that awedding in the family naturally suggests. Sometimes a whole morningwould go by without her uttering a word, and Mrs. Sherman, who had heardwhat a talkative child she was, noticed her silence. Thinking it wasprobably dull for her, she reproached herself for not having providedsome especial company for the entertainment of her youngest guest, andstraightway set to work to do so.
Next morning a box of pink slippers was sent out from Louisville onapproval, and the bridesmaids and maid of honor, seated on the floor inBetty's room, tried to make up their minds which to choose,--the kid orthe satin ones. With each slim right foot shod in a fairy-like coveringof shimmering satin, and each left one in daintiest pink kid, the threegirls found it impossible to determine which was the prettier, andcalled upon Mary for her opinion.
All in a flutter of importance, she was surveying the pretty exhibit ofoutstretched feet, when Mom Beck appeared at the door with a messagefrom Mrs. Sherman. There was a guest for Miss Mary in the library. Wouldshe please go down at once. Her curiosity was almost as great as herreluctance to leave such an interesting scene. She stood in the middleof the floor, wringing her hands.
"Oh, if I could only be in two places at once!" she exclaimed. "Butmaybe whoever it is won't stay long, and I can get back before youdecide."
Hurrying down the stairs, she went into the library, where Mrs. Shermanwas waiting for her.
"This is one of our little neighbors, Mary," she said, "GirlieDinsmore."
A small-featured child of twelve, with pale blue eyes and long, paleflaxen curls, came forward to meet her. To Mary's horror, she held adoll in her arms almost as large as herself, and on the table beside herstood a huge toy trunk.
"I brought all of Evangeline's clothes with me," announced Girlie, assoon as Mrs. Sherman had left them to themselves. "'Cause I came to stayall morning, and I knew she'd have plenty of time to wear every dressshe owns."
Mary could not help the gasp of dismay that escaped her, thinking ofthat fascinating row of pink slippers awaiting her up-stairs. Frombridesmaids to doll-babies is a woful fall.
"Where is your doll?" demanded Girlie.
"Oh, I haven't any," said Mary, with a grown-up shrug of the shoulders."I stopped playing with them ages ago."
Then realizing what an impolite speech that was, she hastened to makeamends by adding: "I sometimes dress Hazel Lee's, though. Hazel is oneof my friends back in Arizona. Once I made a whole Indian costume for itlike the squaws make. The moccasins were made out of the top of a kidglove, and beaded just like real ones."
Girlie's pale eyes opened so wide at the mention of Indians that Maryalmost forgot her disappointment at being called away from the biggirls, and proceeded to make them open still wider with her tales oflife on the desert. In a few moments she carried the trunk out on to avine-covered side porch, where they made a wigwam out of two hammocksand a sunshade, and changed the waxen Evangeline into a blanketed squaw,with feathers in her blond Parisian hair.
Mom Beck looked out several times, and finally brought them a set ofLloyd's old doll dishes and the daintiest of luncheons to spread on alow table. There were olive sandwiches, frosted cakes, berries andcream, and bonbons and nuts in a silver dish shaped like a calla-lily.
For the first two hours Mary really enjoyed being hostess, although nowand then she wished she could slip up-stairs long enough to see what thegirls were doing. But when she had told all the interesting tales shecould think of, cleared away the remains of the feast, and played withthe doll until she was sick of the sight of it, she began to be heartilytired of Girlie's companionship.
"She's such a baby," she said to herself, impatiently. "She doesn't knowmuch more than a kitten." It seemed to her that the third long hournever would drag to an end. But Girlie evidently enjoyed it. When thecarriage came to take her home, she said, enthusiastically:
"I've had such a good time this morning that I'm coming over everysingle day while you're here. I can't ask you over to our house 'causemy grandma is so sick it wouldn't be any fun. We just have to tiptoearound and not laugh out loud. But I don't mind doing all the visiting."
"Oh, it will spoil everything!" groaned Mary to herself, as she ranup-stairs when Girlie was at last out of sight. She felt that nothingcould compensate her for the loss of the whole morning, and the thoughtof losing any more precious time in that way was unendurable.
Mrs. Sherman met her in the hall, and pinched her cheek playfully as shepassed her. "You make a charming little hostess, my dear," she said. "Ilooked out several times, and you were so absorbed with your play thatit made me wish that I could be a little girl again, and join you withmy poor old Nancy Blanche doll and my grand Amanthis th
at papa broughtme from New Orleans. I'll have to resurrect them for you out of theattic, for I'm afraid it has been stupid for you here, with nobody yourown age."
"Oh, no'm! Don't! Please don't!" protested Mary, a worried look on herhonest little face. She was about to add, "I can't bear dolls any more.I only played with them to please Girlie," when Lloyd came out of herroom with a letter.
"It's from the bride-to-be, mothah," she called, waving it gaily.
"She'll be heah day aftah to-morrow, so we can begin to put thefinishing touches to her room. The day she comes I'm going to take thegirls ovah to Rollington to get some long sprays of bride's wreath. Mrs.Crisp has two big bushes of it, white as snow. It will look so cool andlovely, everything in the room all green and white."
Mary stole away to her room, ready to cry. If every morning had to bespent with that tiresome Dinsmore child, she might as well have stayedon the desert.
"I simply have to get rid of her in some way," she mused. "It won't doto snub her, and I don't know any other way. I wish I could see Hollandfor about five minutes. He'd think of a plan."
So absorbed was she in her problem that she forgot to ask whether thekid or the satin slippers had been chosen, and she went down to lunchstill revolving her trouble in her mind. On the dining-room wallopposite her place at table were two fine old engravings, illustratingthe fable of the famous dinners given by the Fox and the Stork. In thefirst the stork strove vainly to fill its bill at the flat dish fromwhich the fox lapped eagerly, while in the companion picture the fox satby disconsolate while the stork dipped into the high slim pitcher, whichthe hungry guest could not reach.
Mary had noticed the pictures in a casual way every time she took a seatat the table, for the beast and the bird were old acquaintances. She hadlearned La Fontaine's version of the fable one time to recite atschool. To-day, with the problem in her mind of how to rid herself of anunwelcome guest, they suddenly took on a new meaning.
"I'll do just the way the stork did," she thought, gleefully. "Thismorning Girlie had everything her way, and we played little silly babygames till I felt as flat as the dish that fox is eating out of. But shehad a beautiful time. To-morrow morning I'm going to be stork, and makemy conversation so deep she can't get her little baby mind into it atall. I'll be awfully polite, but I'll hunt up the longest words I canfind in the dictionary, and talk about the books I've read, and she'llhave such a stupid time she won't want to come again."
The course of action once settled upon, Mary fell to work with her usualenergy. While the girls were taking their daily siesta, she dressedearly and went down into the library. If it had not been for the fear ofmissing something, she would have spent much of her time in thatattractive room. Books looked down so invitingly from the many shelves.All the June magazines lay on the library table, their pages stilluncut. Everybody had been too busy to look at them. She hesitated amoment over the tempting array, but remembering her purpose, grimlypassed them by and opened the big dictionary.
Rob found her still poring over it, pencil and paper in hand, when helooked into the room an hour later.
"What's up now?" he asked.
She evaded his question at first, but, afraid that he would tease herbefore the girls about her thirst for knowledge and her study of thedictionary, and that that might lead to the thwarting of her plans, shesuddenly decided to take him into her confidence.
"Well," she began, solemnly, "you know mostly I loathe dolls. SometimesI do dress Hazel Lee's for her, but I don't like to play with themregularly any more as I used to,--talk for them and all that. But GirlieDinsmore was here this morning, and I had to do it because she iscompany. She had such a good time that she said she was coming over hereevery single morning while I'm here. I just can't have my lovely visitspoiled that way. The bride is coming day after to-morrow, and she'll beopening her presents and showing her trousseau to the girls, and Iwouldn't miss it for anything. So I've made up my mind I'll be just aspolite as possible, but I'll do as the stork did in the fable; make myentertainment so deep she won't enjoy it. I'm hunting up the longestwords I can find and learning their definitions, so that I can use themproperly."
Rob, looking over her shoulder, laughed to see the list she had chosen:
"Indefatigability, Juxtaposition, Loquaciousness, Pabulum, Peregrinate, Longevous."
"You see," explained Mary, "sometimes there is a quotation after theword from some author, so I've copied a lot of them to use, instead ofmaking up sentences myself. Here's one from Shakespeare about alacrity.And here's one from Arbuthnot, whoever he was, that will make herstare."
She traced the sentence with her forefinger, for Rob's glance to follow:"_Instances of longevity are chiefly among the abstemious_."
"Girlie won't have any more idea of what I'm talking about than ajay-bird."
To Mary's astonishment, the laugh with which Rob received her confidencewas so long and loud it ended in a whoop of amusement, and when he hadcaught his breath he began again in such an infectious way that thegirls up-stairs heard it and joined in. Then Lloyd leaned over thebanister to call:
"What's the mattah, Rob? You all seem to be having a mighty funny timedown there. Save your circus for us. We'll be down in a few minutes."
"This is just a little private side-show of Mary's and mine," answeredRob, going off into another peal of laughter at sight of Mary's solemnface. There was nothing funny in the situation to her whatsoever.
"Oh, don't tell, Mister Rob," she begged. "Please don't tell. Joycemight think it was impolite, and would put a stop to it. It seems funnyto you, but when you think of my whole lovely visit spoiled that way--"
She stopped abruptly, so much in earnest that her voice broke and hereyes filled with tears.
Instantly Rob's laughter ceased, and he begged her pardon in such agrave, kind way, assuring her that her confidence should be respected,that her admiration of him went up several more degrees. When the girlscame down, he could not be prevailed upon to tell them what had sent himoff into such fits of laughter. "Just Mary's entertaining remarks," wasall he would say, looking across at her with a meaning twinkle in hiseyes. She immediately retired into the background as soon as the oldergirls appeared, but she sat admiring every word Rob said, and watchingevery movement.
"He's the very nicest man I ever saw," she said to herself. "He treatsme as if I were grown up, and I really believe he likes to hear metalk."
Once when they were arranging for a tennis game for the next morning, hecrossed the room with an amused smile, to say to her in a low aside:"I've thought of something to help along the stork's cause. Bring thelittle fox over to the tennis-court to watch the game. If she doesn'tfind that sufficiently stupid, and you run short of big words, readaloud to her, and tell her that is what you intend to do every day."
Such a pleased, gratified smile flashed over Mary's face that Bettyexclaimed, curiously: "I certainly would like to know what mischief youtwo are planning. You laugh every time you look at each other."
Girlie Dinsmore arrived promptly next morning, trunk, doll, and all,expecting to plunge at once into an absorbing game of lady-come-to-see.But Mary so impressed her with the honor that had been conferred uponthem by Mr. Moore's special invitation to watch the tennis game that shewas somewhat bewildered. She dutifully followed her resolute hostess tothe tennis-court, and took a seat beside her with Evangeline clasped inher arms. Neither of the children had watched a game before, and Girlie,not being able to understand a single move, soon found it insufferablystupid. But Mary became more and more interested in watching a tall,athletic figure in outing flannels and white shoes, who swung his racketwith the deftness of an expert, and who flashed an amused smile at herover the net occasionally, as if he understood the situation and wasenjoying it with her.
Several times when Rob's playing brought him near the seat where the twochildren sat, he went into unaccountable roars of laughter, for whichthe amazed girls scolded him soundly, w
hen he refused to explain. Onetime was when he overheard a scrap of conversation. Girlie had suggesteda return to the porch and the play-house, and Mary responded,graciously:
"A TALL, ATHLETIC FIGURE IN OUTING FLANNELS"]
"Oh, we did all that yesterday morning, and I think that even in thematter of playing dolls one ought to be abstemious. Don't you? Youknow Arbuthnot says that 'instances of longevity are chiefly amongthe abstemious,' and I certainly want to be longevous."
A startled expression crept into Girlie's pale blue eyes, but she onlysat back farther on the seat and tightened her clasp on Evangeline. Thenext time Rob sauntered within hearing distance, a discussion ofliterature was in progress, Mary was asking:
"Have you ever read 'Old Curiosity Shop?'"
The flaxen curls shook slowly in the motion that betokened she had not.
"Nothing of Dickens or Scott or Irving or Cooper?"
Still the flaxen curls shook nothing but no.
"Then what have you read, may I ask?" The superior tone of Mary'squestion made it seem that she was twenty years older than the child ather side, instead of only two.
"I like the Dotty Dimple books," finally admitted Girlie. "Mamma read meall of them and several of the Prudy books, and I have read half of'Flaxie Frizzle' my own self."
"_Oh!_" exclaimed Mary, in a tone expressing enlightenment. "I _see_!Nothing but juvenile books! No wonder that, with such mental pabulum,you don't care for anything but dolls! Now when I was your age, I hadread 'The Vicar of Wakefield' and 'Pride and Prejudice' andLeather-stocking Tales, and all sorts of things. Probably that is why Ilost my taste for dolls so early. Wouldn't you like me to read to youawhile every morning?"
The offer was graciousness itself, but it implied such a lack onGirlie's part that she felt vaguely uncomfortable. She sat digging thetoe of her slipper against the leg of the bench.
"I don't know," she stammered finally. "Maybe I can't come often. Itmakes me wigglesome to sit still too long and listen."
"We might try it this morning to see how you like it," persisted Mary."I brought a copy of Longfellow out from the house, and thought youmight like to hear the poem of 'Evangeline,' as long as your doll isnamed that."
Rob heard no more, for the game called him to another part of the court,but Mary's plan was a success. When the Dinsmore carriage came, Girlieannounced that she wouldn't be over the next day, and maybe not the oneafter that. She didn't know for sure when she could come.
Rob stayed to lunch. As he passed Mary on the steps, he stooped to thelevel of her ear to say in a laughing undertone: "Congratulations, MissStork. I see your plan worked grandly."
Elated by her success and the feeling of good-comradeship which thislittle secret with Rob gave her, Mary skipped up on to the porch, wellpleased with herself. But the next instant there was a curious change inher feeling. Lloyd, tall and graceful in her becoming tennis suit, wasstanding on the steps taking leave of some of the players. Withhospitable insistence she was urging them to stay to lunch, and therewas something in the sweet graciousness of the young hostess that madeMary uncomfortable. She felt that she had been weighed in the balanceand found wanting. The Princess never would have stooped to treat aguest as she had treated Girlie. Her standard of hospitality was toohigh to allow such a breach of hospitality.
Mary had carried her point, but she felt that if Lloyd knew how she hadplayed stork, she would consider her ill-bred. The thought worried herfor days.