A Flock of Girls and Boys Part 8

"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking rather red as he recalled his own words.

"Yes, and everything,--all about the dogs and the difference between the Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.

"Oh, I say now," began Will.

"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,--I liked it.

It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,--when I think of all this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."

But what was that sound,--that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly rang over and above the dance music?

"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,--a coaching-party.

"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party atop of the coach.

"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins,"

said a bystander.

Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was pa.s.sing them; and Dora whispered,--

"Are they the Pelhams,--Agnes's Pelhams?"

"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."

"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking dreadfully a few minutes ago."

"I should think she might; she had had a blow."

"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that Smith girl."

"No, they're not."

"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"

"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss Pelham speaking to--Miss Peggy Pelham."

Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought; but--but--what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down from her top seat on the coach was saying?

"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance, Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."

"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.

"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid fact,--so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll see what a blow Agnes has had."

Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and mortification, cried,--

"Yes, fun to you,--to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the right side of the fun; but I--we--are disgraced of course with Agnes.

Oh, we've been just horrid--horrid, and such fools!"

"Well, I--I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,--for it's her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up against Agnes."

"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.

"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right side of things naturally."

If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.

Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson, was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted over her daughter and niece.

"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly.

"Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"

Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,--Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her alarm and irritation a.s.sailed her daughter one day in the presence of the Robsons with these words,--

"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating, worldly ways of judging people and things?"

And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to these bitter, brutal truths,--

"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,--the people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,--nothing, nothing, nothing!"

THE EGG-BOY.

"Marge, Marge, here is the egg-boy!"

Marge dropped her book and ran to join her sister Elsie, who by this time was on the back piazza talking to a boy who had just driven up in a farm-wagon.

"We want two dozen more,--all nice big ones, and by to-morrow, for it is only three days before Easter, and they must be boiled and colored to be ready in season."

The boy stared. "Colored?" he repeated in a puzzled, questioning tone.

"Yes," answered Elsie, "colored. Don't you color eggs for Easter?"

"No."

"How queer! But you know about them, of course?"

"No, I don't."

"Not know about Easter eggs? Where in the world have you lived not to know about Easter? I thought everybody--"

"I do know about Easter," interrupted the boy, sharply. "All I said was that I didn't know about your colored eggs."

"Oh, well, I guess it is Episcopalians mostly who keep that old custom going in this part of the country, and I suppose your people are not Episcopalians, are they?"