“Oh, dear! now you’re going to nag!” growled Clarence, in an injured voice.
“No, I’m not,—not the least in the world. I’ll promise not to. But just tell me,”—and Clover put her hand on the rough, red-brown hair, and stroked it,—“just tell me why you ‘go for to do’ such things? They’re not a bit nice.”
“Lilly’s so hateful!” grumbled Clarence.
“Well,—she is sometimes, I know,” admitted Clover, candidly. “But because she is hateful is no reason why you should be unmanly.”
“Unmanly!” cried Clarence, flushing.
“Yes. I call it unmanly to tease and quarrel, and contradict like that. It’s like girls. They do it sometimes, but I didn’t think a boy would. I thought he’d be ashamed!”
“Doesn’t Dorry ever quarrel or tease?” asked Clarence, who liked to hear about Clover’s brothers and sisters.
“Not now, and never in that way. He used to sometimes when he was little, but now he’s real nice. He wouldn’t speak to a girl as you speak to Lilly for any thing in the world. He’d think it wasn’t being a gentleman.”
“Stuff about gentleman, and all that!” retorted Clarence. “Mother dings the word in my ears till I hate it!”
“Well, it is rather teasing to be reminded all the time, I admit; but you can’t wonder that your mother wants you to be a gentleman, Clarence. It’s the best thing in the world, I think. I hope Phil and Dorry will grow up just like papa, for everybody says he’s the most perfect gentleman, and it makes me so proud to hear them.”
“But what does it mean any way! Mother says it’s how you hold your fork, and how you chew, and how you put on your hat. If that’s all, I don’t think it amounts to much.”
“Oh, that isn’t all. It’s being gentle, don’t you see? Gentle and nice to everybody, and just as polite to poor people as to rich ones,” said Clover, talking fast, in her eagerness to explain her meaning,— “and never being selfish, or noisy, or pushing people out of their place. Forks, and hats, and all that are only little ways of making one’s self more agreeable to other people. A gentleman is a gentleman inside,—all through! Oh, I wish I could make you see what I mean!”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Clarence. Whether he understood or not, Clover could not tell; or whether she had done any good or not; but she had the discretion to say no more; and certainly Clarence was not offended, for after that day he grew fonder of her than ever. Lilly became absolutely jealous. She had never cared particularly for Clarence’s affection, but she did not like to have any one preferred above herself.
“It’s pretty hard, I think,” she told Clover. “Clare does every thing you tell him, and he treats me awfully. It isn’t a bit fair! I’m his sister, and you’re only a second cousin.”
All this time the girls had seen almost nothing of Louisa Agnew. She called once, but Lilly received the call with them, and so cool and stiff that Louisa grew stiff also, and made but a short stay; and when the girls returned the visit she was out. A few days before the close of vacation, however, a note came from her.
“Dear Katy,—I am so sorry not to have seen more of you and Clover. Won’t you come and spend Wednesday with us? Mamma sends her love, and hopes you will come early, so as to have a long day, for she wants to know you. I long to show you the baby and every thing. Do come. Papa will see you home in the evening. Remember me to Lilly. She has so many friends to see during vacation that I am sure she will forgive me for stealing you for one day. “Yours affectionately, “Louisa.”
Katy thought this message very politely expressed, but Lilly, when she heard it, tossed her head, and said she “really thought Miss Agnew might let her name alone when she wrote notes.” Mrs. Page seemed to pity the girls for having to go. They must, she supposed, as it was a schoolmate; but she feared it would be stupid for them. The Agnews were queer sort of people, not in society at all. Mr. Agnew was clever, people said; but, really, she knew very little about the family. Perhaps it would not do to decline.
Katy and Clover had no idea of declining. They sent a warm little note of acceptance, and on the appointed day set off bright and early with a good deal of pleasant anticipation. The vacation had been rather dull at Cousin Olivia’s. Lilly was a good deal with her own friends, and Mrs. Page with hers; and there never seemed any special place where they might sit, or any thing in particular for then to do.
Louisa’s home was at some distance from Mr. Page’s, and in a less fashionable street. It looked pleasant and cosy as the girls opened the gate. There was a small garden in front with gay flower-beds; and on the piazza, which was shaded with vines, sat Mrs. Agnew with a little work-table by her side. She was a pretty and youthful- looking woman, and her voice and smile made them feel at home immediately.
“There is no need of anybody to introduce you,” she said. “Lulu has described you so often that I know perfectly well which is Katy and which is Clover. I am so glad you could come. Won’t you go right in my bed-room by that long window and take off your things? Lulu has explained to you that I am lame and never walk, so you won’t think it strange that I do not show you the way. She will be here in a moment. She ran upstairs to fetch the baby.”
The girls went into the bed-room. It was a pretty and unusual-looking apartment. The furniture was simple as could be, but bed and toilet and windows were curtained and frilled with white, and the walls were covered thick with pictures, photographs, and pen-and-ink sketches, and water-color drawings, unframed most of them, and just pinned up without regularity, so as to give each the best possible light. It was an odd way of arranging pictures; but Katy liked it, and would gladly have lingered to look at each one, only that she feared Mrs. Agnew would expect them and would think it strange that they did not come back.
Just as they went out again to the piazza, Louisa came running downstairs with her little sister in her arms.
“I was curling her hair,” she explained, “and did not hear you come in. Daisy, give Katy a kiss. Now another for Clover. Isn’t she a darling?” embracing the child rapturously herself, “now isn’t she a little beauty?”
“Perfectly lovely?” cried the others, and soon all three were seated on the floor of the piazza, with Daisy in the midst, passing her from hand to hand as if she had been something good to eat. She was used to it, and submitted with perfect good nature to being kissed, trotted, carried up and down, and generally made love to. Mrs. Agnew sat by and laughed at the spectacle. When Baby was taken off for her noonday nap, Louisa took the girls into the parlor, another odd and pretty room, full of prints and sketches, and pictures of all sorts, some with frames, others with a knot of autumn leaves or a twist of ivy around them by way of a finish. There was a bowl of beautiful autumn roses on the table; and, though the price of one of Mrs. Page’s damask curtains would probably have bought the whole furniture of the room, every thing was so bright and homelike and pleasant-looking that Katy’s heart warmed at the sight. They were examining a portrait of Louisa with Daisy in her lap, painted by her father, when Mr. Agnew came in. The girls liked his face at once. It was fine and frank; and nothing could be prettier than to see him pick up his sweet invalid wife as if she had been a child, and carry her into the dining-room to her place at the head of the table.
Katy and Clover agreed afterward that it was the merriest dinner they had had since they left home. Mr. Agnew told stories about painters and painting, and was delightful. No less so was the nice gossip upstairs in Louisa’s room which followed dinner, or the afternoon frolic with Daisy, or the long evening spent in looking over books and photographs. Altogether the day seemed only too short. As they went out of the gate at ten o’clock, Mr. Agnew following, lo! a dark figure emerged from behind a tree and joined Clover. It was Clarence!
“I thought I’d just walk this way,” he explained, “the house has been dreadfully dull all day without you.”
Clover was immensely flattered, but Mrs.