The Staying Guest. Wells Carolyn
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funnier. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, child; but as you grow older you’ll see that poetry is more important than fun.”
“Yes; and then I’ll learn to make verses like yours. Can you make poetry too, Aunt Dorinda?”
“No,” said Miss Dorinda, simply; “my talent is for painting.”
“Oh, is it? And do you paint pictures? And will you teach me how? I’ve always wanted to learn to paint, and I’m very industrious. I can play on the piano like a house afire.”
“Sister Lavinia used to play the piano very prettily,” said Miss Dorinda; “doubtless you have inherited her talent.”
“Yes, I think I have. Shall I play for you now?”
“No!” said Miss Priscilla, decidedly; “the piano has never been touched since your mother left us, and it never shall be opened again with my consent.”
“Aunty, did my mamma look like you? It seems funny, doesn’t it? but I’ve never seen a picture of my mamma, and papa never told me anything about her. I didn’t know papa very well, either, – he was always going off on long journeys, and I stayed with nurse. What was my mamma like, aunty?”
“She was a beautiful blonde, with rosy, plump cheeks. You are not a bit like her.”
“No, I should say not,” – and Ladybird laughed merrily, – “with my straight black hair and thin white face. Papa used to call me a black-and-white ghost. But after I live here awhile, I expect I’ll get plump and rosy; though I don’t suppose anything will ever make my hair curl.”
“But you’re not going to live here; you’re going away this morning.”
“Now, Aunt Priscilla,” said Ladybird, with an air of being kind but firm, “this joke has gone far enough. I’m going to stay here because it’s my home, and I have no other. I belong to you and Aunt Dorinda, because I have no other relatives. I hope you’ll learn to like me; but if not, I have to stay here, all the same. People have to live where their homes are, and so we’ll consider the matter settled.”
“Indeed, miss, we’ll consider no such thing! What do you mean by defying me in my own house? I say you are to go, and go you shall. Here comes Mr. Marks up the road now, in his wagon. Get that worthless dog of yours, and prepare to go at once.”
Miss Priscilla looked at the little girl with flashing eyes, and Ladybird, who had risen from her stool, looked back at her aunt, smiling and unalarmed.
Then the child gave a quick glance round the room. The windows were high from the ground, and there was but one door, which led to the hall.
Like a flash, Ladybird flew out through the door, shut it behind her, and turned the key in the lock, making the Misses Flint her prisoners.
She went out on the front veranda just as Mr. Marks drove up with her trunks in his wagon.
“Good morning!” she said brightly. “Will you please set the boxes out on the porch? Oh, here is Matthew; he will help you. Now, if you please, will you carry them up-stairs? I’ll show you where to put them.”
She ran up the broad staircase; the men followed; and finally her three trunks were safely lodged in the room she had occupied the night before, and which she looked upon as her own.
“How much is it, Mr. Marks?” she said; and when he told she paid him from her little purse, and bade him good morning.
She watched until he was well out of sight, and then she went to unlock the door of the morning-room.
CHAPTER V
ANOTHER ATTEMPT
When the Misses Flint saw the door shut behind Ladybird, and heard the key click in the lock, they could believe neither their eyes nor their ears.
Miss Priscilla rose and walked majestically to the door and turned the knob, fully expecting the door would open. But it would not open, of course, being locked, and the good lady, almost stupefied with anger and amazement, uttered an explosive and exasperated “Well!” and dropped into the nearest chair.
Miss Dorinda responded with a terrified and apprehensive “Well!” and then the two sisters sat and stared blankly at each other.
Miss Dorinda spoke first, timidly.
“Priscilla, don’t you think perhaps it is our duty to give a home to Lavinia’s child?”
“Duty!” exclaimed the elder sister, in a tense, restrained voice. “Duty! To keep such a vixen as that in our house? No! I confess I had some such thought during the night; but now I have only one desire, and that is, to get rid of her.”
“Yes,” said Miss Dorinda, sighing; “of course she can’t stay after this; but she seems very affectionate and loving.”
“Affectionate! Loving! Dorinda Flint, what are you talking about? Do you call it affectionate to lock us helplessly in this room?”
“No; but that was impulsive, and because she wants to stay here. I don’t think she is really a vicious child.”
“Well, I don’t want to think anything about her!”
Miss Priscilla took up a newspaper and pretended to read, so desirous was she of not appearing defeated; and, indeed, she would have stayed quietly in that room all day rather than call for assistance, or in any way show that she was at the mercy of her erratic niece.
Miss Dorinda was as much perturbed as her sister, but she made no effort to hide it. She fluttered about the room, looked out of the window, tried the door-knob, and at last sat down in a big rocking-chair and began to rock violently.
Suddenly the door burst open and Ladybird came flying in.
“Aunties,” she cried, “the house is on fire! What do you want to save most?”
“Mercy on us!” cried Miss Priscilla, rushing from the room, “let me get my Lady Washington geranium. The buds are just ready to open.”
“Where is it? I’ll get it,” said Ladybird, dancing around in great excitement.
“Up-stairs, on a stand by the south-room window; but you can’t go up – you’ll be burned to death.”
“No, I won’t,” screamed Ladybird, already half-way up-stairs; “I’ll get it. What do you want, Aunt Dorinda?”
“I don’t know, – everything! Oh, my lace handkerchief,” called the distracted lady. “And get some of your own things; and bring our fire-gowns.”
Meantime volumes of smoke rolled into the hall through the dining-room door.
Suddenly Matthew’s face appeared in the midst of the smoke.
“Don’t be frightened, ma’am,” he said; “it’s all right now. The soot got afire in the chimbley; but we’ve put it out. But if the little lady hadn’t been afther runnin’ down an’ tellin’ me that the wall felt hot, I’m 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, ma’am, sure as sure! An’ I’ll jist open the windies till the shmoke disappears.”
Then Miss Priscilla called, “Come down, Ladybird; it’s 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, won’t 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