A Colony of Girls Part 1

A Colony of Girls.

by Kate Livingston Willard.

CHAPTER I.

THE LAWRENCES AND OTHERS.

"I cannot understand why the children do not return from the beach.

They have been gone so long."

"None too long," sighed Nathalie Lawrence, swinging lazily to and fro in a hammock which was hung across one end of the veranda. "What a heaven it is without them. I declare, Helen," she continued, addressing her sister in aggrieved tone, "we do get a lot of those children, somehow or other. For my part, I cannot see why you let them stay about with us all the time, when they are a thousand times better off with Mary," and she gave a vindictive tug at a rope fastened to the railing, which sent the hammock back and forth with the utmost rapidity.

"Take care, Nat; you will be out next, and there will be a hubbub worse than the children would think of making in their wildest moments."

The young girl who thus spoke laughed a low, musical laugh, and looked up from her book with a pair of wide-open blue eyes.

"Nathalie, as usual, thinks only of herself," said Helen with a frown, as she walked away.

"I never can say one word about those children without raising Helen's ire. She spoils them, and she might as well admit it."

"In my short and uneventful career," responded Jean smiling, "I have not found that people are over-fond of admitting anything, least of all their weaknesses. I don't see how you can expect Helen to be superior to all the rest of the world--yourself and myself included.

Now, imagine," she continued tantalizingly, "if anyone insisted upon your admitting your weakness for Mr. Church----"

"Oh, keep quiet, Jean; you are too stupid."

"Dear, dear," cried Jean, jumping up and closing her book, "of course I am, and that is my weakness; so now we are quits."

Nathalie tossed her head as much as her position would permit.

"Jean Lawrence," she said solemnly, "you bore me."

"What a catastrophe!" Jean flung back her head with a merry laugh.

"Good-by, dear; you are the picture of injured innocence."

"Jean, come back," cried Nathalie, struggling to obtain an upright position. "I do think you are too bad. Ah, well, some day,"--then breaking into song:

"Some day, some day, some day I shall meet you, Love, I know not when nor how; Love, I know not when nor how. Only this, Only this, only this, that once you loved me; Only this, I love you now----"

"Rats!" called out a small voice from the lawn below.

Nathalie raised herself on her elbow, and peered through the railing.

"Larry, I am thunderstruck. What is the meaning of that weird expression?"

"Nathalie singing a love song," cried Larry, scampering about on the lawn. "Oh, what fun!"

"Larry," called Helen, coming out once more on to the veranda. "Where are Willie and Gladys? Why did you stay so long? I have been worrying about you."

"Oh, they're coming along. Now, don't you worry, Helen, 'cause we was all right. You don't need never to send Mary with us," he added eagerly, "'cause we wouldn't get drownded, nor nothing, really."

Jean strolled back from the other end of the veranda, and put her hand on Helen's shoulder.

"Larry, love," she said, looking down at her little brother, "your grammar is something to be deplored."

A fleeting smile lit up Helen's pale face and gentle brown eyes.

"Ah, here come the little culprits," she cried, starting forward.

"Gladys, my precious baby, I have been worried to death about you.

What naughty chicks to have staid so long. Willie, I can never trust you."

Willie was a grave little fellow, the eldest of the three children.

"Why, Helen, we weren't gone long. Gladys was good, and so was Larry--that is pretty----" he added deprecatingly. "The moment I said 'Come on, children,' we all started; only Gladys, she couldn't walk very fast, so Larry wouldn't wait for us. Oh," sighed Willie, his grave little face in a pucker at the recollection, "I would rather Mary went along with Gladys another time."

"Anyhow I was awful good, sister," lisped little Gladys, trying to frown on Willie, "only----"

"Only your short little legs would not carry you any quicker. Is that not so, darling? Well, since you were all good, there is nothing to scold you about."

"Helen's faith is sublime," laughed Jean, in an aside to Nathalie.

Helen took little Gladys in her arms, and sat down in a large rocker, which stood close to the front door.

She was a slender, frail-looking girl. Her soft, brown hair was arranged close to her head with the utmost simplicity, and her rather pale face would perhaps have been plain, had it not been redeemed by a pair of beautiful sad brown eyes. She was the eldest of the Lawrences, and it seemed to her only a brief time since the Angel of Death had, twice in one short year, visited their home, leaving them bereft of father and mother.

Her father had been a physician of undoubted skill, a man of wide learning and great culture. Had the lash of poverty given an incentive to his somewhat lagging spirit, he might have commanded the attention and the admiration of his fellow-men; but his was a nature of great shyness and reserve, and when his father died, leaving him a comfortable fortune, he had, with an almost unconscious sigh of relief, turned his back on ambition and withdrawn to the old homestead in the sleepy little town of Hetherford, content with a small country practice which left him undisturbed hours among his books and in his laboratory.

Mrs. Lawrence's inclinations were thoroughly social; but so unbounded was her faith in her husband's judgment that it never occurred to her to complain of the narrowness and isolation of their life in Hetherford. As her girls grew older, however, she reproached herself with the thought that she was hardly doing them justice in thus secluding them from the advantages of contact with the great world which lay beyond their own pretty village. She appeased her conscience by giving them occasional visits to town and one long, happy summer in Europe, which they had enjoyed to their hearts' content.

The winter following this last delightful holiday, Dr. Lawrence had been stricken with a fatal illness and, after weeks of suffering, had pa.s.sed away.

Mrs. Lawrence survived this blow but two months, and at little Gladys'

birth had turned to Helen with a weary, heartbroken sigh:

"My darling, I am so lonely--your father. Take care of the little ones--this wee lamb. G.o.d bless you, my----"

Helen had sunk speechless at her mother's bedside, until the sound of a wailing cry brought her once more to herself.

"My dear," said gentle Aunt Helen, leaning over her, "won't you take the poor little baby? Perhaps she will help to comfort you."

And Helen took her little sister in her arms, and made her way into the nursery, where, in two small cribs, side by side, lay her little brothers, fast asleep.

Jean and Nathalie stood by the nursery window, looking out into the night. At Helen's entrance they turned sharply.

"O Helen, how is mamma?" Jean stopped short, appalled at the change in her sister's face.

"Helen," she cried, a sharp ring of pain in her voice, "mamma is not--"