"I'm sorry," began Granny.
"There's no use talking. I wouldn't have the girl on any account. I can get her betters any day. You'll come to no good end, I can tell you!"
With that, Mrs. Van Wyck flounced out; but at the first turn tumbled over Kit, who had rolled himself in a ball on the doorstep.
Down she went, and Joe set up a shout. Hal couldn't help laughing, and Charlie ran to pull out Kit.
"You good-for-nothing, beggarly wretches!"
While she was sputtering and scrambling about, Joe began a hideous caterwauling.
"Drat that cat! Pity I hadn't broken his neck! And my second-best bonnet!"
Kit hid himself in his grandmother's gown, sorely frightened, and a little bruised.
"It's the last time I'll ever step inside of this place. Such an awful set of children I never did see!"
To use Joe's expressive phraseology, she "slathered" right and left, her shrill voice adding to the confusion.
Granny watched the retreating figure with the utmost bewilderment.
"The mean old thing!" began Florence, half crying. "Why, I couldn't stand her temper and her scolding, and to be a common kitchen-girl!"
"She meant well, dear. In my day girls thought it no disgrace to live out."
"Wasn't it gay and festive, Granny? I believe I've burst every button, laughing; and you'll have to put a mustard plaster on my side to draw out the soreness. And oh, Kit, what a horrible yell you gave! How could you be the ruin of that second best bonnet?"
"'Twasn't me," said Kit, rubbing his eyes. "But she most squeezed the breath out of me."
"Flossy, here is your fortune, and your coach-and-four. My dear child, I hope you will not be too much elated, for you must remember"—
"'Satan finds some mischief still,' &c."
Joe whisked around, holding Dot's apron at full length in imitation of a streamer.
"I wonder if she really thought I would go. Scouring and scrubbing, and washing dishes. I'd do with one meal a day first."
"She is a coarse, ill-bred woman," said Hal; "not a bit like Mrs. Kinsey."
"We will not be separated just yet," exclaimed Granny, with a sigh for the time that must come.
"And I don't mean to live out," was the emphatic rejoinder of Florence.
"My dear, you mustn't be too proud," cautioned Granny.
"It isn't altogether pride. Why should I wash dishes when I can do something better?"
"That's the grit, Flossy. I'll bet on you!"
"O Joe! don't. I wish you would learn to be refined. Now, you see all Mrs. Van Wyck's money cannot make her a lady."
Joe put on a solemn face; but the next moment declared that he must keep a sharp look out, or some old sea-captain would snap him up, and set him to scrubbing decks, and holystoning the cable.
And yet they felt quite grave when the fun was over. Their merry vacation had ended, and there was no telling what a year might bring forth.
"I think I should like most of all to be a school-teacher," Florence declared.
"You'll have to wait till you're forty. Who do you s'pose is going to mind a little gal?"
"Not you; for you never mind anybody," was the severe reply.
Florence felt quite grand on the following day, attired in her new green delaine, and her "lovely" gloves. Granny was so busy with the others that she never noticed them; and Florence quieted her conscience by thinking that the money was her own, and she could do what she liked with it. She kept self generally in view, it must be admitted.
Mrs. Van Wyck's overture was destined to make quite a stir. She repeated it to her neighbors in such glowing terms that it really looked like an offer to adopt Florence; and she declaimed bitterly against the pride and the ingratitude of the whole Kenneth family.
Florence held her head loftily, and took great pains to contradict the story; and Joe became the stoutest of champions, though he teased her at home.
"But it's too bad to have her tell everybody such falsehoods; and, after all, three dollars a month would be very low wages. Why, Mary Connor gets a dollar a week for tending Mrs. Hall's baby; and she never scrubs or scours a thing!"
Truth to tell, Florence felt a good deal insulted.
But the whole five went to school pretty regularly. Hal was very studious, and Florence also, in spite of her small vanities; but Joe was incorrigible everywhere.
Florence gained courage one day to ask Mr. Fielder about the prospect of becoming a teacher. She was ambitious, and desired some kind of a position that would be ladylike.
"It's pretty hard work at first," he answered with a smile.
"But how long would I have to study?"
"Let me see—you are fourteen now: in three years you might be able to take a situation. Public schools in the city are always better for girls, for they can begin earlier in the primary department. A country school, you see, may have some troublesome urchins in it."
Florence sighed. Three years would be a long while to wait.
"I will give you all the assistance in my power," Mr. Fielder said kindly. "And I may be able to hear of something that will be to your advantage."
Florence thanked him, but somehow the prospect did not look brilliant.
Then she thought of dressmaking. Miss Brown had a pretty cottage, furnished very nicely indeed; and it was her boast that she did it all with her own hands. She kept a servant, and dressed quite elegantly; and all the ladies round went to her in their carriages. Then she had such beautiful pieces for cushions and wonderful bedquilts,—"Though I never take but the least snip of a dress," she would say with a virtuous sniff. "I have heard of people who kept a yard or two, but to my mind it's downright stealing."
There was a drawback to this picture of serene contentment. Miss Brown was an old maid, and Florence hoped devoutly that would never be her fate. And then Miss Skinner, who went out by the day, was single also. Was it the natural result of the employment?
Chapter IV.
The Identical Shoe
They did pretty well through the fall. Joe came across odd jobs, gathered stores of hickory-nuts and chestnuts; and now and then of an evening they had what he called a rousing good boil; and certainly chestnuts never tasted better. They sat round the fire, and told riddles or stories, and laughed as only healthy, happy children can. What if they were poor, and had to live in a little tumble-down shanty!
Sometimes Joe would surprise them with a somerset in the middle of the floor, or a good stand on his head in one corner.
"Joe," Granny would say solemnly, "I once knowed a man who fell that way on his head off a load of hay, and broke his back."
"Granny dear, 'knowed' is bad grammar. When you go to see Florence in her palace, you must say knew, to rhyme with blew. But your old man's back must have grown cranky with rheumatism, while mine is limber as an eel."
"He wasn't old, Joe. And in my day they never learned grammar."
"Oh, tell us about the good old times!" and Hal's head was laid in Granny's lap.
The children