The Story Book Girls Part 26

"Oh, Elsie," she said, "Elsie, you sweet little Serpent!" It was an end to the crossed swords feud. Elsie took her in her arms and cried.

When the girls arrived panic-stricken they found Mr. Symington trying to get a coherent answer to his orders from two bedraggled girls, who could do nothing but weep over each other. The brave little Serpent had lost her nerve once more.

"Oh!" she said, "it's very wicked to be a girl. Boys wouldn't give way like this."

Jean looked at her narrowly, "Do you always go about in gymnasium dress, ready to save people?" she asked, with the remains of fear in her voice.

The brave little Serpent looked down on her costume, and the red which glowed in her cheeks only from mortification ran slowly up and dyed her pale face crimson. "Oh!" she said, "oh!" and sat speechless.

Betty sat up s.h.i.+vering. "I do call that presence of mind, don't you?

She flung off her skirt, didn't you, dear?"

The Serpent would have answered except that the "dear" unnerved her.

She faded to tears once more.

"Come, come," said Mr. Symington.

And at that, as they afterwards remembered, Mabel "came."

She came through the trees in a white dress, and the suns.h.i.+ne threw patches of beautiful colour on her hair.

"Oh, little Betty!" she cried.

Then she saw the Serpent.

She took Elsie right up against the beautiful white dress and kissed her. Mabel could not speak at all. But her eyes glowed. She turned them full on Mr. Symington. "We must take these children home at once,"

she said.

Mr. Symington looked as though he had been rescuing an army. "Yes,"

said he gravely.

Robin had trailed in looking somewhat dissatisfied.

"Jean would go, wouldn't she?" he asked.

"Oh no, I don't want mummy to know," said Mabel. "She is up there with Mrs. Clutterbuck. These two must go home, and get hot baths, and be put to bed and sat upon, or they won't stay there. Where can we get a cab, I wonder?"

"Here," said a voice.

Adelaide Maud now came through that beautiful pathway of sun-patched trees with Elma. "I've heard all about it," said she, "and we have the carriage. Borrow wraps from every one and tuck them in. We shall keep Mrs. Clutterbuck employed till Mr. Symington comes back."

It seemed that they all took it for granted that Mr. Symington would go.

Robin showed signs of losing his temper. Mabel as a rule, when these imperious fits descended on him began to investigate her conduct and wonder where she might alter it in order that he might be appeased. This time, however, she was too anxious and concerned over Betty, and while Jean might be quite whole-hearted in her manner of looking after people, one could not depend on her for knowing the best ways in which to set about it. In any case, the two could not be kept there s.h.i.+vering.

Adelaide Maud was a trifle indignant at the interruption. "Quick," she said to Mr. Symington, "get them in and off."

"Oh you are the fairy princess, always, somehow, aren't you," sighed Betty, happily, as on their being tucked in rugs and waterproofs, Adelaide Maud gave quick decided orders to the coachman.

"Isn't she just like a story book," she sighed rapturously. They drove swirling homewards, in a damp quick exciting way until they pulled up at the door of the White House.

"Oh, mine was nearer," said the Serpent nervously. She had never entered the portals of the White House in this intimate manner, and suddenly longed for loneliness once more.

"Well," said Mabel sweetly and nicely, "you will just have to imagine that this is as near for to-day at least. Because I am going to put you to bed."

They laughed very happily because they were being put to bed like babies.

"If only Cuthbert were here," said Mabel anxiously and in a motherly little way to Mr. Symington, afterwards, "he would tell me whether they oughtn't to have a hot drink, and a number of other things they say they won't have."

"I should give them a hot drink," said Mr. Symington with his grave eyes dancing a trifle. "And keep them in blankets for an hour or two."

It was he who found Mr. Leighton and told him a little of what had happened. ("Oh the conspiracies which s.h.i.+eld a parent!") For days Mr.

and Mrs. Leighton, the Professor and Mrs. Clutterbuck, had an idea that the two girls had merely fallen in and got very wet. In any case, Elsie often came home in considerable disrepair. When one found, however, that neither was the worse for the fright, Elsie was made a real heroine. It changed her att.i.tude completely. The Leightons liked her now whether they felt charitable or not. It was a great relief. And one day her own father focussed his far-away gaze on her, as though he had only then considered that there was anything on which to look at her particular place at table.

"They tell me--ahem--that you can swim," he exclaimed. "Very excellent exercise, very."

To an outsider it did not sound like praise, but his sentence set Elsie's heart jumping in a joyous manner.

"Oh, papa," she said. "I was very frightened afterwards."

"Hem," said he, "an excellent time in which to be frightened."

Mrs. Clutterbuck congratulated herself on his having said it (she would have made it "time to be frightened in," and the Professor in such good humour, too!)

Happier days had really dawned in that grim household however.

The growing up of the courage of Elsie became a wonderful thing.

Meanwhile other events had occurred than the saving of Betty. Robin had had to go home alone, and Lance had the benefit of some of his ill-humour on meeting him on the way.

"Who shot c.o.c.k Robin to-day?" reflected Lance with speculative eyes on that retreating person. He nearly ran into a very athletic figure coming swinging round on him from the Leightons'.

Hereward the Wake was in his most magnificent mood and his eyes shone with the light of achievement. He was speaking when he turned, and the words dropped automatically even before the impish gaze of Lance.

"Knew you and named a star," quoted Mr. Symington.

"Now what on earth has that to do with the boat race?" asked Lance.

CHAPTER XIV

The First Peal

Mabel was twenty-one when her cousin Isobel Leighton came to make her home at the White House. Isobel's mother had died ten years before, and since the more recent death of her father, she had stayed for a year or two with her mother's relations. Now, suddenly, it seemed imperative that Mr. Leighton should offer her a place in his own family, since various changes elsewhere left her without a home. It was the most natural thing in the world that everybody should be pleased. The girls got a room ready for her, and took pains towards having it specially attractive. They even made plans amongst their friends for Isobel to be suitably entertained. "Though how we are to manage about dance invitations and that sort of thing, I can't think," said Jean. "It's bad enough with two girls, and sometimes no man at all. It will be awful with three."