"This is more satisfactory than telephoning," she said. "Now, Sue, take a long breath and tell me all about it."
Sue breathed deep, and began again the wonderful tale:
"Why, I met Annie Rooney this morning, when I went down for the mail. You remember Annie, who used to live with us? Mamma doesn't like her much, but she was always nice to me, and she always likes to stop and talk when I meet her. Well! and so she told me. They may be here any day now, Mr. Packard and his daughter. Her name is Clarice – oh! I told you that, didn't I? Don't you think it 's a perfectly lovely name, Mary? It sounds like a book, you know, with long, golden hair, and deep, unfathomable eyes, and – "
"I never saw a book with golden hair," said Mary, "to say nothing of unfathomable eyes."
"Mary, now stop teasing me! You know perfectly well what I mean. I am sure she must be beautiful with a name like that. Oh, dear! I wish I had a name like that, instead of this stupid one. Susan! I don't see how any one could possibly be so cruel as to name a child Susan. When I grow up, Mary, do you know what I am going to do? I made up my mind as soon as I heard about Clarice Packard. I'm going to appear before the President and ask him to change my name."
"Sue, what do you mean?"
"My dear, it's true! It's what they do. I've read about it somewhere. It has to be done by act of legislature, and of course the President tells Congress, and they see about it. I should like to have that same name – Clarice. It's the prettiest name I ever heard of; don't you think so, Mary? But of course I can't be a copy-cat, so I am going to have it Faeroline – you remember that story about Faeroline? Faeroline Medora, or else Medora Faeroline. Which do you think would be prettiest, Mary?"
"I like Sue better than either!" said Mary, stoutly.
"Oh, Mary, you do discourage me sometimes! Well, where was I?"
"You had got as far as her name," said Mary.
"Oh, yes. Well, and her father is rich. I should think he must be enormously rich. And she must be beautiful, – I am quite sure she must; and – she dresses splendidly, Annie says; and – and they are coming to live at the hotel; and she is fifteen – I told you that? And – well, I suppose that is all I really know just yet, Mary; but I feel a great, great deal more. I feel, somehow, that this is a very serious event in my life, Mary. You know how I have been longing for something exciting to happen. Only yesterday, don't you remember, I was saying that I didn't believe anything would ever happen, now that we had finished 'Ivanhoe'; and now just see!"
"I should think they would try to get a house, if they are well off," said practical Mary. "It must be horrid, living at a hotel."
"Oh, Mary, you have no imagination! I think it would be perfectly delightful to stay at a hotel. I've always just longed to; it has been one of my dreams that some day we might give up housekeeping and live at the hotel; but of course we never shall."
"For pity's sake! I should hope not, Sue, with a good home of your own! Why, what would there be to like about it?"
"Oh, it would be so exciting! People coming and going all the time, and bells ringing, and looking-glasses everywhere, and – and never knowing what one is going to have for dinner, and all kinds of good things in little covered dishes, just like 'Little Kid Milk, table appear!' Don't you remember? And – it would be so exciting! You know I love excitement, Mary, and I just hate to know what I am going to have for dinner."
"I know I am going to have peas for dinner," said Mary, – "at least, I want them. Sue, you haven't shelled a dozen peas; I shall have to go and get Bridget to help me."
"Oh, no; I will, I truly will!" cried Sue; and she shelled with ardor for a few minutes, the pods flying open and the peas rattling merrily into the tin basin.
"Do you remember the three peas in the Andersen story?" she said presently. "I always used to wish I had been one of those – the one that grew up, you know, and made a little garden for the sick girl. Wouldn't it be lovely, Mary, to come up out of the ground, and find you could grow, and put out leaves, and then have flowers? Only, I would be sweet peas, – not this kind, – and look so lovely, just like sunset wings, and smell sweet for sick people, and – Mary! Mary Hart! who is that?"
Sue was looking down the street eagerly. Mary looked too, and saw a carriage coming toward them with two people in it.
"No one we know, I think," said Mary.
"They are strangers!" cried Sue, in great excitement, – "a man and a girl. Mary Hart, I do believe it is Mr. Packard and Clarice! It must be. They are strangers, I tell you! I never saw either of them in my life. And look at her hat! Mary, will you look at her hat?"
"I am looking at it!" said Mary. "Yes, Sue; I shouldn't wonder if you were right. Where are you going?"
"Indoors, so that I can stare. You wouldn't be so rude, Mary, as to stare at her where she can see you? You aren't going to stare at all! Oh, Mary, what's the use of not being human? You are too poky for anything. A stranger, – and that girl, of all the world, – and not have a good look at her? Mary, I do find you trying sometimes. Well, I am going. Good-by."
And Sue flew into the house, and flattened herself behind the window-curtain, where she could see without being seen. Mary was provoked for a moment, but her vexation passed with the cracking of a dozen pods. It was impossible to be long vexed with Sue.
As the gay carriage passed, she looked up quietly for a moment, to meet the unwinking stare of a pair of pale blue eyes, which seemed to be studying her as a new species in creation. A slender girl, with very light hair and eyebrows, a pale skin, and a thin, set mouth – not pretty, Mary thought, but with an "air," as Sue would say, and very showily dressed. The blouse of bright changeable silk, with numberless lace ruffles, the vast hat, like a flower-garden and bird-shop in one, the gold chain and lace parasol, shone strangely in the peaceful village street.
Mary returned the stare with a quiet look, then looked down at her peas again.
"What, oh, what shall we do,"
she said to herself, quoting a rhyme her father had once made, —
"What, oh, what shall we do
With our poor little Quicksilver Sue?"
CHAPTER II
THE NEW-COMER
Sue Penrose went home that day feeling, as she had said to Mary, that something serious had happened. The advent of a stranger, and that stranger a girl not very far from her own and Mary's age, was indeed a wonderful thing. Hilton was a quiet village, and it happened that she and Mary had few friends of their own age. They had never felt the need of any, being always together from babyhood. Mary would never, it might be, feel the need; but Sue was always a dreamer of dreams, and always longed for something new, something different from every-day pleasures and cares. When the schooners came up the river, in summer, to load with ice from Mr. Hart's great ice-houses, Sue always longed to go with them when they sailed. There were little girls on them sometimes; she had seen them. She had gone so far as to beg Mr. Hart to let her go as stewardess on board the "Rosy Dawn." She felt that a voyage on a vessel with such a name must be joy indeed. But Mr. Hart always laughed at her so, it would have been hard to have patience with him if he were not so dear and good. She longed to go away on the trains, too, or to have the pair of cream-colored horses that were the pride of the livery-stable – to take them and the buckboard, and drive away, quite away, to new places, where people didn't have their dresses made over every year, and where they had new things every day in the shop-windows. Her dreams always took her away from Hilton; for it seemed impossible that anything new or strange should ever come there to the sleepy home village. She and Mary had always made their plays out of books, and so had plenty of excitement in that way; but Hilton itself was asleep, – her mother said so, – and it would never wake up. And now, all in a moment, the scene was changed. Here, into the very village street, had come a stranger – a wonderful girl looking like a princess, with jewels and gold chains and shimmering