START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE S. W. F. CLUB*** E-text prepared by Al Haines THE S. W. F. CLUB by CAROLINE E. JACOBS Author of _Joan of Jupiter Inn_, _Joan's Jolly Vacation_, _Patricia_, etc. The Goldsmith Publishing Co. Cleveland, Ohio George W. Jacobs & Company 1912 CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAULINE'S FLAG II THE MAPLES III UNCLE PAUL'S ANSWER IV BEGINNINGS V BEDELIA VI PERSONALLY CONDUCTED VII HILARY'S TURN VIII SNAP-SHOTS IX AT THE MANOR X THE END OF SUMMER CHAPTER I PAULINE'S FLAG Pauline dropped the napkin she was hemming and, leaning back in her chair, stared soberly down into the rain-swept garden. Overhead, Patience was having a "clarin' up scrape" in her particular corner of the big garret, to the tune of "There's a Good Time Coming." Pauline drew a quick breath; probably, there was a good time coming--any number of them--only they were not coming her way; they would go right by on the main road, they always did. "'There's a good time coming,'" Patience insisted shrilly, "'Help it on! Help it on!'" Pauline drew another quick breath. She would help them on! If they would none of them stop on their own account, they must be flagged. And--yes, she would do it--right now. Getting up, she brought her writing-portfolio from the closet, clearing a place for it on the little table before the window. Then her eyes went back to the dreary, rain-soaked garden. How did one begin a letter to an uncle one had never seen; and of whom one meant to ask a great favor? But at last, after more than one false start, the letter got itself written, after a fashion. Pauline read it over to herself, a little dissatisfied pucker between her brows:-- _Mr. Paul Almy Shaw, New York City, New York_. MY DEAR UNCLE PAUL: First, I should like you to understand that neither father nor mother know that I am writing this letter to you; and that if they did, I think they would forbid it; and I should like you to believe, too, that if it were not for Hilary I should not dream of writing it. You know so little about us, that perhaps you do not remember which of us Hilary is. She comes next to me, and is just thirteen. She hasn't been well for a long time, not since she had to leave school last winter, and the doctor says that what she needs is a thorough change. Mother and I have talked it over and over, but we simply can't manage it. I would try to earn some money, but I haven't a single accomplishment; besides I don't see how I could leave home, and anyway it would take so long, and Hilary needs a change now. And so I am writing to ask you to please help us out a little. I do hope you won't be angry at my asking; and I hope very, very much, that you will answer favorably. I remain, Very respectfully, PAULINE ALMY SHAW. WINTON, VT., May Sixteenth. Pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an envelope and addressed it. It wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it would serve her purpose. Tucking the letter into her blouse, Pauline ran down-stairs to the sitting-room, where her mother and Hilary were. "I'm going down to the post-office, mother," she said; "any errands?" "My dear, in this rain?" "There won't be any mail for us, Paul," Hilary said, glancing listlessly up from the book she was trying to read; "you'll only get all wet and uncomfortable for nothing." Pauline's gray eyes were dancing; "No," she agreed, "I don't suppose there will be any mail for us--to-day; but I want a walk. It won't hurt me, mother. I love to be out in the rain." And all the way down the slippery village street the girl's eyes continued to dance with excitement. It was so much to have actually started her ball rolling; and, at the moment, it seemed that Uncle Paul must send it bounding back in the promptest and most delightful of letters. He had never married, and somewhere down at the bottom of his apparently crusty, old heart he must have kept a soft spot for the children of his only brother. Thus Pauline's imagination ran on, until near the post-office she met her father. The whole family had just finished a tour of the West in Mr. Paul Shaw's private car--of course, he must have a private car, wasn't he a big railroad man?--and Pauline had come back to Winton long enough to gather up her skirts a little more firmly when she saw Mr. Shaw struggling up the hill against the wind. "Pauline!" he stopped, straightening his tall, scholarly figure. "What brought you out in such a storm?" With a sudden feeling of uneasiness, Pauline wondered what he would say if she were to explain exactly what it was that had brought her out. With an impulse towards at least a half-confession, she said hurriedly, "I wanted to post a letter I'd just written; I'll be home almost as soon as you are, father." Then she ran on down the street. All at once she felt her courage weakening; unless she got her letter posted immediately she felt she should end by tearing it up. When it had slipped from her sight through the narrow slit labeled "LETTERS," she stood a moment, almost wishing it were possible to get it back again. She went home rather slowly. Should she confess at once, or wait until Uncle Paul's answer came? It should be here inside of a week, surely; and if it were favorable--and, oh, it must be favorable--would not that in itself seem to justify her in what she had done? On the front piazza, Patience was waiting for her, a look of mischief in her blue eyes. Patience was ten, a red-haired, freckled slip of a girl. She danced about Pauline now. "Why didn't you tell me you were going out so I could've gone, too? And what have you been up to, Paul Shaw? Something! You needn't tell me you haven't." "I'm not going to tell you anything," Pauline answered, going on into the house. The study door was half open, and when she had taken off her things, Pauline stood a moment a little uncertainly outside it. Then suddenly, much to her small sister's disgust, she went in, closing the door behind her. Mr. Shaw was leaning back in his big chair at one corner of the fireplace. "Well," he asked, looking up, "did you get your letter in in time, my dear?" "Oh, it wasn't the time." Pauline sat down on a low bench at the other end of the fireplace. "It was that I wanted to feel that it was really mailed. Did you ever feel that way about a letter, father? And as if, if you didn't hurry and get it in--you wouldn't--mail it?" Something in her tone made her father glance at her more closely; it was very like the tone in which Patience was apt to make her rather numerous confessions. Then it occurred to him, that, whether by accident or design, she was sitting on the very stool on which Patience usually placed herself at such times, and which had gained thereby the name of "the stool of penitence." "Yes," he answered, "I have written such letters once or twice in my life." Pauline stooped to straighten out the hearth rug. "Father," she said abruptly; "I have been writing to Uncle Paul." She drew a sharp breath of relief. "You have been writing to your Uncle Paul! About what, Pauline?" And Pauline told him. When she had finished, Mr. Shaw sat for some moments without speaking, his eyes on the fire. "It didn't seem very--wrong, at the time," Pauline ventured. "I had to do something for Hilary." "Why did you not consult your mother, or myself, before taking such a step, Pauline?" "I was afraid--if I did--that you would--forbid it; and I was so anxious to do something. It's nearly a month now since Dr. Brice said Hilary must have a change. We used to have such good times together--Hilary and I--but we never have fun anymore--she doesn't care about anything; and to-day it seemed as if I couldn't bear it any longer, so I wrote. I--I am sorry, if you're displeased with me, father, and yet, if Uncle Paul writes back favorably, I'm afraid I can't help being glad I wrote." Mr. Shaw rose, lighting the low reading-lamp, standing on the study table. "You are frank enough after the event, at least, Pauline. To be equally so, I am displeased; displeased and exceedingly annoyed. However, we will let the matter rest where it is until you have heard from your uncle, I should advise your saying nothing to your sisters until his reply comes. I am afraid you will find it disappointing." Pauline flushed. "I never intended telling Hilary anything about it unless I had good news for her; as for Patience--" Out in the hall again, with the study door closed behind her, Pauline stood a moment choking back a sudden lump in her throat. Would Uncle Paul treat her letter as a mere piece of school-girl impertinence, as father seemed to? From the sitting-room came an impatient summons. "Paul, will you never come!" "What is it, Hilary?" Pauline asked, coming to sit at one end of the old sofa. "That's what I want to know," Hilary answered from the other end. "Impatience says you've been writing all sorts of mysterious letters this afternoon, and that you came home just now looking like---" "Well, like what?" "Like you'd been up to something--and weren't quite sure how the grown-ups were going to take it," Patience explained from the rug before the fire. "How do you know I have been writing--anything?" Pauline asked. "There, you see!" Patience turned to Hilary, "she doesn't deny it!" "I'm not taking the trouble to deny or confirm little girl nonsense," Pauline declared. "But what makes you think I've been writing letters?" "Oh, 'by the pricking of my thumbs'!" Patience rolled over, and resting her sharp little chin in her hands, stared up at her sisters from under her mop of short red curls. "Pen! Ink! Paper! And such a lot of torn-up scraps! It's really very simple!" But Pauline was on her way to the dining-room. "Terribly convincing, isn't it?" Her tone should have squelched Patience, but it didn't. "You can't fool me!" that young person retorted. "I know you've been up to something! And I'm pretty sure father doesn't approve, from the way you waited out there in the hall just now." Pauline did not answer; she was busy laying the cloth for supper. "Anything up, Paul?" Hilary urged, following her sister out to the dining-room. "The barometer--a very little; I shouldn't wonder if we had a clear day to-morrow." "You are as provoking as Impatience! But I needn't have asked; nothing worth while ever does happen to us." "You know perfectly well, Pauline Almy Shaw!" Patience proclaimed, from the curtained archway between the rooms. "You know perfectly well, that the ev'dence against you is most in-crim-i-na-ting!" Patience delighted in big words. "Hilary," Pauline broke in, "I forgot to tell you, I met Mrs. Dane this morning; she wants us to get up a social--'If the young ladies at the parsonage will,' and so forth." "I hate socials! Besides, there aren't any 'young ladies' at the parsonage; or, at any rate, only one. I shan't have to be a young lady for two years yet." "Most in-crim-i-na-ting!" Patience repeated insistently; "you wrote." Pauline turned abruptly and going into the pantry began taking down the cups and saucers for the table. As soon as Hilary had gone back to the sitting-room, she called softly, "Patty, O Patty!" Patience grinned wickedly; she was seldom called Patty, least of all by Pauline. "Well?" she answered. "Come here--please," and when Patience was safely inside the pantry, Pauline shut the door gently--"Now see here, Impatience--" "That isn't what you called me just now!" "Patty then--Listen, suppose--suppose I have been--trying to do something to--to help Hilary to get well; can't you see that I wouldn't want her to know, until I was sure, really sure, it was going to come to something?" Patience gave a little jump of excitement. "How jolly! But who have you been writing to--about it, Paul!" "I haven't said that--" "See here, Paul, I'll play fair, if you do; but if you go trying to act any 'grown-up sister' business I'll--" And Pauline capitulated. "I can't tell you about it yet, Patty; father said not to. I want you to promise not to ask questions, or say anything about it, before Hilary. We don't want her to get all worked up, thinking something nice is going to happen, and then maybe have her disappointed." "Will it be nice--very nice?" "I hope so." "And will I be in it?" "I don't know. I don't know what it'll be, or when it'll be." "Oh, dear! I wish you did. I can't think who it is you wrote to, Paul. And why didn't father like your doing it?" "I haven't said that he--" "Paul, you're very tiresome. Didn't he know you were going to do it?" Pauline gathered up her cups and saucers without answering. "Then he didn't," Patience observed. "Does mother know about it?" "I mean to tell her as soon as I get a good chance," Pauline said impatiently, going back to the dining-room. When she returned a few moments later, she found Patience still in the pantry, sitting thoughtfully on the old, blue sugar bucket. "I know," Patience announced triumphantly. "You've been writing to Uncle Paul!" Pauline gasped and fled to the kitchen; there were times when flight was the better part of discretion, in dealing with the youngest member of the Shaw family. On the whole, Patience behaved very well that evening, only, on going to bid her father good-night, did she ask anxiously, how long it took to send a letter to New York and get an answer. "That depends considerably upon the promptness with which the party written to answers the letter," Mr. Shaw told her. "A week?" Patience questioned. "Probably--if not longer." Patience sighed. "Have _you_ been writing a letter to someone in New York?" her father asked. "No, indeed," the child said gravely, "but," she looked up, answering his glance. "Paul didn't tell me, father; I--guessed. Uncle Paul does live in New York, doesn't he?" "Yes," Mr. Shaw answered, almost sharply. "Now run to bed, my dear." But when the stairs were reached. Patience most certainly did not run. "I think people are very queer," she said to herself, "they seem to think _ten_ years isn't a bit more grown-up than six or seven." "Mummy," she asked, when later her mother came to take away her light, "father and Uncle Paul are brethren, aren't they?" "My dear! What put that into your head?" "Aren't they?" "Certainly, dear." "Then why don't they 'dwell together in unity'?" "Patience!" Mrs. Shaw stared down at the sharp inquisitive little face. "Why don't they?" Patience persisted. If persistency be a virtue, Patience was to be highly commended. "My dear, who has said that they do not?" Patience shrugged; as if things had always to be said. "But, mummy--" "Go to sleep now, dear." Mrs. Shaw bent to kiss her good-night. "All the same," Patience confided to the darkness, "I know they don't." She gave a little shiver of delight--something very mysterious was afoot evidently. Out on the landing, Mrs. Shaw found Pauline waiting for her. "Come into your room, mother, please, I've started up the fire; I want to tell you something." "I thought as much," her mother answered. She sat down in the big armchair and Pauline drew up before the fire. "I've been expecting it all the evening." Pauline dropped down on the floor, her head against her mother's knee. "This family is dreadfully keen-sighted. Mother dear, please don't be angry--" and Pauline made confession. When she had finished, Mrs. Shaw sat for some moments, as her husband had done, her eyes on the fire. "You told him that we could not manage it, Pauline?" she said at last. "My dear, how could you!" "But, mother dear, I was--desperate; something has to be done for--Hilary, and I had to do it!" "Do you suppose your father and I do not realize that quite as well as you do, Pauline?" "You and I have talked it over and over, and father never says--anything." "Not to you, perhaps; but he is giving the matter very careful consideration, and later he hopes--" "Mother dear, that is so indefinite!" Pauline broke in. "And I can't see--Father is Uncle Paul's only brother! If I were rich, and Hilary were not and needed things, I would want her to let me know." "It is possible, that under certain conditions, Hilary would not wish you to know." Mrs. Shaw hesitated, then she said slowly, "You know, Pauline, that your uncle is much older than your father; so much older, that he seemed to stand--when your father was a boy--more in the light of a father to him, than an older brother. He was much opposed to your father's going into the ministry, he wanted him to go into business with him. He is a strong-willed man, and does not easily relinquish any plan of his own making. It went hard with him, when your father refused to yield; later, when your father received the call to this parish, your uncle quite as strongly opposed his accepting it--burying himself alive in a little out-of-the-way hole, he called it. It came to the point, finally, on your uncle's insisting on his making it a choice between himself and Winton. He refused to ever come near the place and the two or three letters your father wrote at first remained unanswered. The breach between them has been one of the hardest trials your father has had to bear." "Oh," Pauline cried miserably, "what a horrid interfering thing father must think me! Rushing in where I had no right to! I wish I'd known--I just thought--you see, father speaks of Uncle Paul now and then--that maybe they'd only--grown apart--and that if Uncle Paul knew! But perhaps my letter will get lost. It would serve me right; and yet, if it does, I'm afraid I can't help feeling somewhat disappointed--on Hilary's account." Her mother smiled. "We can only wait and see. I would rather you said nothing of what I have been telling you to either Hilary or Patience, Pauline." "I won't, Mother Shaw. It seems I have a lot of secrets from Hilary. And I won't write any more such letters without consulting you or father, you can depend on that." Mr. Paul Shaw's answer did not come within the allotted week. It was the longest week Pauline had ever known; and when the second went by and still no word from her uncle, the waiting and uncertainty became very hard to bear, all the harder, that her usual confidant, Hilary, must not be allowed to suspect anything. The weather had turned suddenly warm, and Hilary's listlessness had increased proportionately, which probably accounted for the dying out of what little interest she had felt at first in Patience's "mysterious letter." Patience, herself, was doing her best to play fair; fortunately, she was in school the greater part of the day, else the strain upon her powers of self-control might have proved too heavy. "Mother," Pauline said one evening, lingering in her mother's room, after Hilary had gone to bed, "I don't believe Uncle Paul means answering at all. I wish I'd never asked him to do anything." "So do I, Pauline. Still it is rather early yet for you to give up hope. It's hard waiting, I know, dear, but that is something we all have to learn to do, sooner or later." "I don't think 'no news is good news,'" Pauline said; then she brightened. "Oh, Mother Shaw! Suppose the letter is on the way now, and that Hilary is to have a sea voyage! You'd have to go, too." "Pauline, Pauline, not so fast! Listen, dear, we might send Hilary out to The Maples for a week or two. Mrs. Boyd would be delighted to have her; and it wouldn't be too far away, in case we should be getting her ready for that--sea voyage." "I don't believe she'd care to go; it's quieter than here at home." "But it would be a change. I believe I'll suggest it to her in the morning." But when Mrs. Shaw did suggest it the next morning, Hilary was quite of Pauline's opinion. "I shouldn't like it a bit, mother! It would be worse than home--duller, I mean; and Mrs. Boyd would fuss over me so," she said impatiently. "You used to like going there, Hilary." "Mother, you can't want me to go." "I think it might do you good, Hilary. I should like you to try it." "Please, mother, I don't see the use of bothering with little half-way things." "I do, Hilary, when they are the only ones within reach." The girl moved restlessly, settling her hammock cushions; then she lay looking out over the sunny garden with discontented eyes. It was a large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. On the back steps of the church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster. She was old and gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had succeeded her father, were her great delight. The will with which she sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the girl stretched out idly in the hammock. Nothing more than half-way things, and not too many of those, had ever come Sextoness Jane's way. Yet she was singing now over her work. Hilary moved impatiently, turning her back on the garden and the bent old figure moving about in the church beyond; but, somehow, she couldn't turn her back on what that bent old figure had suddenly come to stand for. Fifteen minutes later, she sat up, pushing herself slowly back and forth. "I wish Jane had chosen any other morning to clean the church in, Mother Shaw!" she protested with spirit. Her mother looked up from her mending. "Why, dear? It is her regular day." "Couldn't she do it, I wonder, on an irregular day! Anyhow, if she had, I shouldn't have to go to The Maples this afternoon. Must I take a trunk, mother?" "Hilary! But what has Jane to do with your going?" "Pretty nearly everything, I reckon. Must I, mother?" "No, indeed, dear; and you are not to go at all, unless you can do it willingly." "Oh, I'm fairly resigned; don't press me too hard, Mother Shaw. I think I'll go tell Paul now." "Well," Pauline said, "I'm glad you've decided to go, Hilary. I--that is, maybe it won't be for very long." CHAPTER II THE MAPLES That afternoon Pauline drove Hilary out to the big, busy, pleasant farm, called The Maples. As they jogged slowly down the one principal street of the sleepy, old town, Pauline tried to imagine that presently they would turn off down the by-road, leading to the station. Through the still air came the sound of the afternoon train, panting and puffing to be off with as much importance as the big train, which later, it would connect with down at the junction. "Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you thinking about?" Pauline slapped the reins lightly across old Fanny's plump sides. "Oh, different things--traveling for one." Suppose Uncle Paul's letter should come in this afternoon's mail! That she would find it waiting for her when she got home! "So was I," Hilary said. "I was wishing that you and I were going off on that train, Paul." "Where to?" Paul asked. After all, it couldn't do any harm--Hilary would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to have some definite basis to build on later. "Anywhere," Hilary answered. "I would like to go to the seashore somewhere; but most anywhere, where there were people and interesting things to do and see, would do." "Yes," Pauline agreed. "There's Josie," Hilary said, and her sister drew rein, as a girl came to the edge of the walk to speak to them. "Going away?" she asked, catching sight of the valise. "Only out to the Boyds'," Pauline told her, "to leave Hilary." Josie shifted the strap of school-books under her arm impatiently. "'Only!'" she repeated. "Well, I just wish I was going, too; it's a deal pleasanter out there, than in a stuffy school room these days." "It's stupid--and you both know it," Hilary protested. She glanced enviously at Josie's strap of hooks. "And when school closes, you'll be through for good, Josie Brice. We shan't finish together, after all, now." "Oh, I'm not through yet," Josie assured her. "Father'll be going out past The Maples Saturday morning, I'll get him to take me along." Hilary brightened. "Don't forget," she urged, and as she and Pauline drove on, she added, "I suppose I can stick it out for a week." "Well, I should think as much. _Will_ you go on, Fanny!" Pauline slapped the dignified, complacent Fanny with rather more severity than before. "She's one great mass of laziness," she declared. "Father's spoiled her a great deal more than he ever has any of us." It was a three-mile drive from the village to The Maples, through pleasant winding roads, hardly deserving of a more important title than lane. Now and then, from the top of a low hill, they caught a glimpse of the great lake beyond, shining in the afternoon sunlight, a little ruffled by the light breeze sweeping down to it from the mountains bordering it on the further side. Hilary leaned back in the wide shaded gig; she looked tired, and yet the new touch of color in her cheeks was not altogether due to weariness. "The ride's done you good," Pauline said. "I wonder what there'll be for supper," Hilary remarked. "You'll stay, Paul?" "If you promise to eat a good one." It was comforting to have Hilary actually wondering what they would have. They had reached the broad avenue of maples leading from the road up to the house. It was a long, low, weather-stained house, breathing an unmistakable air of generous and warm-hearted hospitality. Pauline never came to it, without a sense of pity for the kindly elderly couple, who were so fond of young folks, and who had none of their own. Mrs. Boyd had seen them coming, and she came out to meet them, as they turned into the dooryard. And an old dog, sunning himself on the doorstep, rose with a slow wag of welcome. "Mother's sent you something she was sure you would like to have," Pauline said. "Please, will you take in a visitor for a few days?" she added, laying a hand on Hilary's. "You've brought Hilary out to stop?" Mrs. Boyd cried delightedly. "Now I call that mighty good of your mother. You come right 'long in, both of you: you're sure you can't stop, too, Pauline?" "Only to supper, thank you." Mrs. Boyd had the big valise out from under the seat by now. "Come right 'long in," she repeated. "You're tired, aren't you, Hilary? But a good night's rest'll set you up wonderful. Take her into the spare room, Pauline. Dear me, I must have felt you was coming, seeing that I aired it out beautiful only this morning. I'll go call Mr. Boyd to take Fanny to the barn." "Isn't she the dearest thing!" Pauline declared, as she and Hilary went indoors. The spare room was back of the parlor, a large comfortable room, with broad windows facing south and west, and a small vine-covered porch all its own on the south side of the room. Pauline pulled forward a great chintz-cushioned rocker, putting her sister into it, and opened the porch door. Beyond lay a wide, sloping meadow and beyond the meadow, the lake sparkled and rippled in the sunshine. "If you're not contented here, Hilary Shaw!" Pauline said, standing in the low doorway. "Suppose you pretend you've never been here before! I reckon you'd travel a long ways to find a nicer place to stay in." "I shouldn't doubt it if you were going to stay with me, Paul; I know I'm going to be homesick." Pauline stretched out a hand to Captain, the old dog, who had come around to pay his compliments. Captain liked visitors--when he was convinced that they really were visitors, not peddlers, nor agents, quite as well as his master and mistress did. "You'd be homesick enough, if you really were off on your travels--you'd better get used to it. Hadn't she, Captain?" Pauline went to unpack the valise, opening the drawers of the old-fashioned mahogany bureau with a little breath of pleasure. "Lavender! Hilary." Hilary smiled, catching some of her sister's enthusiasm. She leaned back among her cushions, her eyes on the stretch of shining water at the far end of the pasture. "I wish you were going to be here, Paul, so that we could go rowing. I wonder if I'll ever feel as if I could row again, myself." "Of course you will, and a great deal sooner than you think." Pauline hung Hilary's dressing-gown across the foot of the high double bed. "Now I think you're all settled, ma'am, and I hope to your satisfaction. Isn't it a veritable 'chamber of peace,' Hilary?" Through the open door and windows came the distant tinkle of a cow bell, and other farm sounds. There came, too, the scent of the early May pinks growing in the borders of Mrs. Boyd's old-fashioned flower beds. Already the peace and quiet of the house, the homely comfort, had done Hilary good; the thought of the long simple days to come, were not so depressing as they had seemed when thought of that morning. "Bless me, I'd forgotten, but I've a bit of news for you," Mrs. Boyd said, coming in, a moment or so later; "the manor's taken for the summer." "Really?" Pauline cried, "why it's been empty for ever and ever so long." The manor was an old rambling stone house, standing a little back from a bit of sandy beach, that jutted out into the lake about a mile from The Maples. It was a pleasant place, with a tiny grove of its own, and good-sized garden, which, year after year, in spite of neglect, was bright with old-fashioned hardy annuals planted long ago, when the manor had been something more than an old neglected house, at the mercy of a chance tenant. "Just a father and daughter. They've got old Betsy Todd to look after them," Mrs. Boyd went on. "The girl's about your age, Hilary. You wasn't looking to find company of that sort so near, was you?" Hilary looked interested. "No," she answered. "But, after all, the manor's a mile away." "Oh, she's back and forth every day--for milk, or one thing or another; she's terribly interested in the farm; father's taken a great notion to her. She'll be over after supper, you'll see; and then I'll make you acquainted with her." "Are they city people?" Pauline asked. "From New York!" Mrs. Boyd told her proudly. From her air one would have supposed she had planned the whole affair expressly for Hilary's benefit. "Their name's Dayre." "What is the girl's first name?" Pauline questioned. "Shirley; it's a queer name for a girl, to my thinking." "Is she pretty?" Pauline went on. "Not according to my notions; father says she is. She's thin and dark, and I never did see such a mane of hair--and it ain't always too tidy, neither--but she has got nice eyes and a nice friendly way of talking. Looks to me, like she hasn't been brought up by a woman." "She sounds--interesting," Pauline said, and when Mrs. Boyd had left them, to make a few changes in her supper arrangements, Pauline turned eagerly to Hilary. "You're in luck, Hilary Shaw! The newest kind of new people; even if it isn't a new place!" "How do you know they'll, or rather, she'll, want to know me?" Hilary asked, with one of those sudden changes of mood an invalid often shows, "or I her? We haven't seen her yet. Paul, do you suppose Mrs. Boyd would mind letting me have supper in here?" "Oh, Hilary, she's laid the table in the living-room! I heard her doing it. She'd be ever so disappointed." "Well," Hilary said, "come on then." Out in the living-room, they found Mr. Boyd waiting for them, and so heartily glad to see them, that Hilary's momentary impatience vanished. To Pauline's delight, she really brought quite an appetite to her supper. "You should've come out here long ago, Hilary," Mr. Boyd told her, and he insisted on her having a second helping of the creamed toast, prepared especially in her honor. Before supper was over. Captain's deep-toned bark proclaimed a newcomer, or newcomers, seeing that it was answered immediately by a medley of shrill barks, in the midst of which a girl's voice sounded authoritively--"Quiet, Phil! Pat, I'm ashamed of you! Pudgey, if you're not good instantly, you shall stay at home to-morrow night!" A moment later, the owner of the voice appeared at the porch door, "May I come in, Mrs. Boyd?" she asked. "Come right in, Miss Shirley. I've a couple of young friends here, I want you should get acquainted with," Mrs. Boyd cried. "You ain't had your supper yet, have you, Miss Shirley?" Mr. Boyd asked. "Father and I had tea out on the lake," Shirley answered, "but I'm hungry enough again by now, for a slice of Mrs. Boyd's bread and butter." And presently, she was seated at the table, chatting away with Paul and Hilary, as if they were old acquaintances, asking Mr. Boyd various questions about farm matters and answering Mrs. Boyd's questions regarding Betsy Todd and her doings, with the most delightful air of good comradeship imaginable. "Oh, me!" Pauline pushed hack her chair regretfully, "I simply must go, it'll be dark before I get home, as it is." "I reckon it will, deary," Mrs. Boyd agreed, "so I won't urge you to stay longer. Father, you just whistle to Colin to bring Fanny 'round." Hilary followed her sister into the bedroom. "You'll be over soon, Paul?" Pauline, putting on her hat before the glass, turned quickly. "As soon as I can. Hilary, don't you like her?" Hilary balanced herself on the arm of the big, old-fashioned rocker. "I think so. Anyway, I love to watch her talk; she talks all over her face." They went out to the gig, where Mr. and Mrs. Boyd and Shirley were standing. Shirley was feeding Fanny with handfuls of fresh grass. "Isn't she a fat old dear!" she said. "She's a fat old poke!" Pauline returned. "Mayn't I give you a lift? I can go 'round by the manor road 's well as not." Shirley accepted readily, settling herself in the gig, and balancing her pail of milk on her knee carefully. "Good-by," Pauline called. "Mind, you're to be ever and ever so much better, next time I come, Hilary." "Your sister has been sick?" Shirley asked, her voice full of sympathetic interest. "Not sick--exactly; just run down and listless." Shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear evening air. "I don't see how anyone can ever get run down--here, in this air; I'm hardly indoors at all. Father and I have our meals out on the porch. You ought to have seen Betsy Todd's face, the first time I proposed it. 'Ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she asked. "Betsy Todd's a queer old thing," Pauline commented. "Father has the worst time, getting her to come to church." "We were there last Sunday," Shirley said. "I'm afraid we were rather late; it's a pretty old church, isn't it? I suppose you live in that square white house next to it?" "Yes," Pauline answered. "Father came to Winton just after he was married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere else--that counted. Any really big city, I mean. We're dreadfully tired of Winton--Hilary, especially." "It's a mighty pretty place." "I suppose so." Pauline slapped old Fanny impatiently. "Will you go on!" Fanny was making forward most reluctantly; the Boyd barn had been very much to her liking. Now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening her pace involuntarily. "Don't call them off, please!" Pauline begged Shirley. "She isn't in the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can move." "All the same, discipline must be maintained," Shirley insisted; and at her command the dogs fell behind. "Have you been here long?" Pauline asked. "About two weeks. We were going further up the lake--just on a sketching trip,--and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back from the next landing to see about it. We took it at once and sent for a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren't here yet." Pauline looked her interest. It seemed a very odd, attractive way of doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand. Suppose--when Uncle Paul's letter came--they could set off in such fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt like it. "I can't think," Shirley went on, "how such a charming old place came to be standing idle." "Isn't it rather--run down?" "Not enough to matter--really. I want father to buy it, and do what is needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking. The sunsets from that front lawn are gorgeous, don't you think so?" "Yes," Pauline agreed, "I haven't been over there in two years. We used to have picnics near there." "I hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me. We adore picnics; we've had several since we came--he and I and the dogs. The dogs do love picnics so, too." Pauline had given up wanting to hurry Fanny; what a lot she would have to tell her mother when she got home. She was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the old manor house. "There's father!" Shirley said, nodding to a figure coming towards them across a field. The dogs were off to meet him directly, with shrill barks of pleasure. "May I get down here, please?" Shirley asked. "Thank you very much for the lift; and I am so glad to have met you and your sister, Miss Shaw. You'll both come and see me soon, won't you?" "We'd love to," Pauline answered heartily; "'cross lots, it's not so very far over here from the parsonage, and," she hesitated, "you--you'll be seeing Hilary quite often, while she's at The Maples, perhaps?" "I hope so. Father's on the lookout for a horse and rig for me, and then she and I can have some drives together. She will know where to find the prettiest roads." "Oh, she would enjoy that," Pauline said eagerly, and as she drove on, she turned more than once to glance back at the tall, slender figure crossing the field. Shirley seemed to walk as if the mere act of walking were in itself a pleasure. Pauline thought she had never before known anyone who appeared so alive from head to foot. "Go 'long, Fanny!" she commanded; she was in a hurry to get home now, with her burden of news. It seemed to her as if she had been away a long while, so much had happened in the meantime. At the parsonage gate, Pauline found Patience waiting for her. "You have taken your time, Paul Shaw!" the child said, climbing in beside her sister. "Fanny's time, you mean!" "It hasn't come yet!" Patience said protestingly. "I went for the mail myself this afternoon, so I know!" "Oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," Pauline answered, with so little of real concern in her voice, that Patience wondered. "Suppose you take Fanny on to the barn. Mother's home, isn't she?" Patience glanced at her sharply. "You've got something--particular--to tell mother! O Paul, please wait 'til I come. Is it about--" "You're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day, Impatience!" Pauline told her, getting down from the gig. Patience sniffed. "If nobody ever asked questions, nobody'd ever know anything!" she declared. "Is mother home?" Pauline asked again. "Who's asking things now!" Patience drew the reins up tightly and bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply--"Hi yi! Hi yi!" It was the one method that never failed to rouse Fanny's indignation, producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as Pauline said, it was hardly a proceeding that Hilary or she could adopt, or, least of all, their father. As she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of Fanny's ears expressed injured dignity. Dignity was Fanny's strong point; that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any other horse in Winton. The small human being at the other end of those taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards. "Maybe you don't like it," Patience observed, "but that makes no difference--'s long's it's for your good. You're a very unchristiany horse, Fanny Shaw. And I'll 'hi yi' you every time I get a chance; so now go on." However Patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning of Pauline's story of her afternoon's experience. "I told you," she broke in, "that I saw a nice girl at church last Sunday--in Mrs. Dobson's pew; and Mrs. Dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was saying; and Miranda says, ten to one. Sally Dobson comes out in--" "That will do, Patience," her mother said, "if you are going to interrupt in this fashion, you must run away." Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive. "Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother? Now she'll be contented to stay a week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said. "I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice." "She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know." "Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'" "Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw. "Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that girl?" "On whom, Patience?" Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying at times. "On Paul's and Hilary's new friend, mummy." "Not the first time, Patience; possibly later--" Patience shrugged. "By and by," she observed, addressing the room at large, "when Paul and Hilary are married, I'll be Miss Shaw! And then--" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort. "And maybe, Towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the side porch, "maybe--some day--you and I'll go to call on them on our own account. I'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those dogs--you lived here first, and I can't see why it isn't mine--to call on that girl. Father says, we should always hasten to welcome the stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting." Towser blinked a sleepy acquiescence. In spite of his years, he still followed blindly where Patience led, though the consequences were frequently disastrous. It was the next afternoon that Pauline, reading in the garden, heard an eager little voice calling excitedly, "Paul, where are you! It's come! It's come! I brought it up from the office myself!" Pauline sprang up. "Here I am, Patience! Hurry!" "Well, I like that!" Patience said, coming across the lawn. "Hurry! Haven't I run every inch of the way home!" She waved the letter above her head--"'Miss Pauline A. Shaw!' It's type-written! O Paul, aren't you going to read it out here!" For Pauline, catching the letter from her, had run into the house, crying--"Mother! O Mother Shaw!" CHAPTER III UNCLE PAUL'S ANSWER "Mother! O mother, where are you!" Pauline cried, and on Mrs. Shaw's answering from her own room, she ran on up-stairs. "O Mother Shaw! It's come at last!" she announced breathlessly. "So I thought--when I heard Patience calling just now. Pauline, dear, try not to be too disappointed if--" "You open it, mother--please! Now it's really come, I'm--afraid to." Pauline held out her letter. "No, dear, it is addressed to you," Mrs. Shaw answered quietly. And Pauline, a good deal sobered by the gravity with which her mother had received the news, sat down on the wide window seat, near her mother's chair, tearing open the envelope. As she spread out the heavy businesslike sheet of paper within, a small folded enclosure fell from it into her lap. "Oh, mother!" Pauline caught up the narrow blue slip. She had never received a check from anyone before. "Mother! listen!" and she read aloud, "'Pay to the order of Miss Pauline A. Shaw, the sum of twenty-five dollars.'" Twenty-five dollars! One ought to be able to do a good deal with twenty-five dollars! "Goodness me!" Patience exclaimed. She had followed her sister up-stairs, after a discreet interval, curling herself up unobtrusively in a big chair just inside the doorway. "Can you do what you like with it, Paul?" But Pauline was bending over the letter, a bright spot of color on each cheek. Presently, she handed it to her mother. "I wish--I'd never written to him! Read it, mother!" And Mrs. Shaw read, as follows-- NEW YORK CITY, May 31, 19--. _Miss Pauline A. Shaw, Winton, Vt._ MY DEAR NIECE: Yours of May 16th to hand. I am sorry to learn that your sister Hilary appears to be in such poor health at present. Such being the case, however, it would seem to me that home was the best place for her. I do not at all approve of this modern fashion of running about the country, on any and every pretext. Also, if I remember correctly, your father has frequently described Winton to me as a place of great natural charms, and peculiarly adapted to those suffering from so-called nervous disorders. Altogether, I do not feel inclined to comply with your request to make it possible for your sister to leave home, in search of change and recreation. Instead, beginning with this letter, I will forward you each month during the summer, the sum of twenty-five dollars, to be used in procuring for your sisters and yourself--I understand, there is a third child--such simple and healthful diversions as your parents may approve, the only conditions I make, being, that at no time shall any of your pleasure trips take you further than ten miles from home, and that you keep me informed, from time to time, how this plan of mine is succeeding. Trusting this may prove satisfactory, Very respectfully, PAUL A. SHAW. "What do you think, mother?" Pauline asked, as Mrs. Shaw finished reading. "Isn't it a very--queer sort of letter?" "It is an extremely characteristic one, dear." "I think," Patience could contain herself no longer, "that you are the inconsideratest persons! You know I'm perfectly wild to know what's in that letter!" "Run away now, Patience," her mother said. "You shall hear about it later," and when Patience had obeyed--not very willingly, Mrs. Shaw turned again to Pauline. "We must show this to your father, before making any plans in regard to it, dear." "He's coming now. You show it to him, please, mother." When her mother had gone down-stairs, Pauline still sat there in the window seat, looking soberly out across the lawn to the village street, with its double rows of tall, old trees. So her flag had served little purpose after all! That change for Hilary was still as uncertain, as much a vague part of the future, as it had ever been. It seemed to the girl, at the moment, as if she fairly hated Winton. As though Hilary and she did not already know every stick and stone in it, had not long ago exhausted all its possibilities! New people might think it "quaint" and "pretty" but they had not lived here all their lives. And, besides, she had expressly told Uncle Paul that the doctor had said that Hilary needed a change.
{'title': 'The S. W. F. Club by Caroline Emilia Jacobs', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}