to me, and I went into the guest-room. "Do unhook the back of this dress." When I had finished she said, "I'll be down at six-thirty" (we were going to get breakfast too), "and don't you dare to be late! I'm going to make the omelet. You can make the johnny-cake. Bobbie, isn't it nice Delia left?" And she kissed me as well as Ruth.
That night the boys all gathered in my room again. I wrapped up in the down comforter, and we were just beginning to talk when Tom appeared.
"Hello," he said, smiling all over. He came in and closed the door. "Well," he asked, "what do you think of her?" And I knew he asked us because he so well knew what we did think. But just the same I wanted to tell him.
I shot out my bare skinny arm at him.
"Tom," I said, "I think she's a corker!"
He first took my hand and then suddenly, very unlike the Vars, he put both arms around me tight.
"Bobbie," he said in a kind of choked voice, "you're a little brick!"
And, my goodness, I just had to kiss Tom then!
CHAPTER IV
IT has been nearly a whole year since I have written in this book of mine. I've been too discouraged and heart-sick even to drag myself up here into my cupola. I've aged dreadfully. I've been disillusioned of all the hopes and dreams I ever had in my life. I've skipped that happy period called girlhood, skipped it entirely, and I had hoped awfully to go to at least one college football game before I was grey. I am sitting in my study. It is a lovely day in spring. There are white clouds in the sky, young robins in the wild cherry, but my youth, my schooldays, my aspirations are all over and gone.
Miss Wood said to me one day last winter—Miss Wood is my Sunday-school teacher and was trying to be kind—"You know, Lucy, it is a law of the universe for us all to have a certain amount of trouble before we die. Some have it early, some late. Now you, dear, are having your misfortunes when you are young. Just think, later they will all be out of your way." Miss Wood hasn't had a bit of her share of trouble yet. Why, she has a mother, a father, a fiancé, and a bunch of violets every Sunday. She has perfectly lovely clothes, a coachman to drive her around, and was president of her class her senior year in college. Such blessings won't be half as nice, and Miss Wood knows it, when I'm old and grey. I just simply hate having all my troubles dealt out to me before my skirts touch the ground.
Our minister said to me that misfortune is the greatest builder of character in the world. Well, it hasn't worked that way with me. I'm hot-tempered and have an unruly tongue; I don't love a soul except my brother Alec; and the only friend I have in the world is Juliet Adams. I'm not even a genius—I've discovered that—and my religious beliefs are dreadfully unsettled. Years ago I used to lie awake at night and imagine myself in deep sorrow. I was always calm and sweet and dignified then, beautiful and stately in my clinging black, and near me always was a young man, a strong, handsome, clean-shaven young man in riding clothes (I adore men in riding clothes) and I used to play that this man was the son of the governor of the state. Strange as it might seem, he was in love with me and when my entire family had suddenly been killed in a railroad accident—I always had them all die—this man came to me in my lonely house and told me of his devotion. It really made sorrow beautiful. But let me state right here that that was one of the many empty dreams of my youth. When misfortune did swoop down upon me, I was not sweet and lovely, there was no man within a hundred miles to understand and sympathise, there was nothing beautiful about it. It was just plain hard and bitter. It's only in books that trouble is romantic.
Elise visited us in the spring a year ago about this time (it seems like a century to me) and my misfortunes began to pour in the following fall, when I was a senior, and seventeen years old. That last year of high school had started in to be a very happy one for me. Father had finally allowed me to go to dancing-school; mathematics was a bugbear of the past; and our basket-ball team was a perfect winner.
I loved dancing-school. It came every Saturday night from eight to ten, and Juliet Adams used to call for me in her closed carriage and drop me afterwards at my door. I remember that on that last Saturday night I was particularly full of good-feeling, for I kissed Juliet good-bye—a thing I seldom do—and called back to her as I ran up the steps, "Good-night. See you at Church." I was never so unsuspecting in my life as I opened the front door. But the instant I got inside the house and looked into the sitting-room, I knew something was wrong. The entire family was all sitting about the room doing absolutely nothing. Father was not at his roll-top desk; the twins were not drawn up to the centre table studying by the student-lamp; Alec was not out making his Saturday night call; and, strangest of all, Ruthie was not in bed.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Take your things off and come in, Lucy," said Father.
I didn't stir. My heart stood dead still for an instant. I grabbed hold of the portière.
"Something has happened to Tom," I gasped, so sure I didn't even have to ask.
I suppose I must have looked horribly frightened, for one of the twins blurted out, in the twins' frank brutal way, "Oh, say, don't get so everlastingly excited. Tom's all right, for all we know. So's every one else. Do cool off."
Ruthie giggled. She always giggles at the twins, and I knew then that my sudden fear had been for nothing. The angry colour rushed into my face.
"Smarties!" I flung back at the twins with all my might.
"Oh, Lucy!" I heard Father murmur, and I saw Alec drop his eyes as if he were ashamed of such an outburst from his seventeen-year-old sister.
"I don't care," I went on. "Why do you want to frighten me to death? What's the matter with you all, anyway? What are you all doing? Why isn't Ruthie in bed? Why are the twins—"
"It's all about you!" Malcolm interrupted in a sort of triumphant manner.
"Me!" I gasped. "What in thunder—"
"Oh, Lucy!" Father again murmured.
"Well, what," I continued, "have you all been saying about me?" And I sat down on the piano-stool.
Father cleared his throat the way he does before he asks the blessing, and every one else was quiet. I knew something important was coming.
"Lucy," Father said, "we think the time has come for you to go to boarding-school."
It hit me like a hard baseball and I couldn't have spoken if I were to have died.
Father went on in his sure, unfaltering way.
"I have been considering it for some little while, and now as I talk it over with the others—we always do that, you know—I am more convinced of the wisdom of such a step than ever. Alec has been doing some investigating, and Elise suggested in her last letter that Miss Brown's-on-the-Hudson is an excellent school. I have, therefore, communicated with Miss Brown and a telegram announces to me to-day that a vacancy allows her to accept you, late as it is. Before worrying you unnecessarily, I have made all arrangements. I have written to Aunt Sarah, and she is willing to come and take your place here. So, my dear child, I am only waiting now for your careful and womanly consideration." I think he must have seen the horror on my face, for he added gently, "You needn't decide to-night, Lucy. Think it over and in the morning your duty will seem clear to you."
I have heard of people whose hair grows grey in a single night. It's a wonder mine didn't turn snow-white during that single speech. Boarding-school had never been intimated to me before. I had been away from home for over night only twice in my life, and then stayed only a week. Both times I had almost died of homesickness. I would as soon be sentenced to prison or to death. Oh, I didn't want to go away! I didn't want to! The silence after Father finished was awful. One of the twins broke it.
"When Father told us about this to-night," Malcolm began importantly, "we thought he was dead right.