The Story Book Girls Part 5

"I'm getting tired of giving up to others," said Mabel, still on her determined tack. "You can't think what it has been during these years.

I mustn't do this and that because of the children. It's always been like that. And now when I'm longing to go to dances and b.a.l.l.s, I've got to go right off after dinner and play Mozart with Betty. It's all very well for papa, he hasn't had the work I've had. If I play now, I want to play something better than a tum-tum accompaniment."

"Mozart isn't tum-tum," said Elma, "and papa has been listening to us all these years. It must have been very trying."

"Well, all I can say is that, at his time of life, he ought to be saved from hearing Betty sc.r.a.pe on her fiddle every night as she does nowadays. Instead, you would think he hadn't had one musical daughter, he's so keen on the latest."

"Miss Annie says it never does to be selfish," said Elma gravely. "I think that's being selfish, the way you talk."

Mabel stopped at the unclasping of her waist-belt.

"Miss Annie! Well, I like that! Don't you know there isn't so selfish a person in the world as Miss Annie. I've heard people say it."

She nodded with two pins in her mouth, then released them as she went on.

"Miss Annie made up her mind to lie on a nice bed and have Miss Grace wait on her. And she's done it. There's nothing succeeds like success."

Mabel nodded her head with the wisdom of centuries.

"Oh, Mabs, how can you?" Elma was dreadfully shocked. A vision of poor martyred Miss Annie, with "something internal," being supposed to like what was invariably referred to in that household as "the bed of pain,"

to have conferred on herself this dreadful thing from choice and wilfulness, this vision was an appalling one.

"How can you say such things of Miss Annie? Who would ever go to bed for all these years for the pleasure of the thing?"

"I would," said Mabel. "Yes, at the present moment, I would. I should like to have something very pathetic happen to me, so that I should be obliged to lie in bed like Miss Annie, and have somebody nice and sympathetic come in and stroke my hand! Cousin Harry, for instance. He can look so kind and be so comforting when he likes. But, oh! Elma, he was a beast to-day."

The truth was out at last. Mabel sat suddenly on the couch beside Elma, and burst into tears.

"I think I hate being grown up," she said, "if people treat you in that stiff severe way. n.o.body ever did it before--ever."

Elma stroked and stroked her hand. "The Leighton lump," as they interpreted the slightly hysterical quality which made each girl cry when the other began, rose in riotous disobedience in her throat, and strangled any further effort at consolation.

"Why don't you say something," wailed Mabel.

"I'm trying not to cry too," at last said Elma.

Then they both laughed.

"I should go right to Cousin Harry and tell him all about it," Elma managed to counsel at last. "I thought you were a beast--but it's awfully hard on you. It's awfully hard on all of us--having sisters."

"Yes, isn't it," groaned Mabel.

"Harry is very understanding. Almost as understanding as papa is."

"Papa! _Do_ you think papa understands?"

"Papa understands everything," said Elma. Then a very loyal recollection of the afternoon they had spent in the cheery presence of Mrs. Leighton beset her. "Also mamma, I think she's a duck," said Elma.

CHAPTER IV

Cuthbert

There was a tremendous scurry after this to allow of the four getting ready in time for dinner. Mabel and Elma regained high spirits after their confidences, and everybody seemed in a better key.

Mrs. Leighton came in to inquire of Mabel why Cuthbert had not returned.

Cuthbert, by some years the eldest of the family, had attained great brilliance as a medical student, and now worked at pathology in order to qualify as a specialist. His studies kept him intermittently at home, but to-day he had been down early from town and had gone out bicycling with George Maclean.

"Cuthbert!" exclaimed Mabel. "Why, I can't think--why, where's Cuthbert?"

"Why, yes, where's Cuthbert?" said Jean.

Their minute differences had engaged their minds so fully, that no one had really begun to wonder about Cuthbert until that moment.

"He is always in such good time," said Mrs. Leighton in a puzzled way.

"Didn't he say to any one that he would be late?"

No one knew anything about him. They speculated, and collected at the dinner-table still speculating. Even Cousin Harry knew nothing of him, but that, of course, was because of the flower show. While the meal was in progress, Mr. Maclean appeared quietly in the room. He had prepared a little speech for Mrs. Leighton, but it died on his lips as he saw her face. It was a curious thing, as they afterwards reflected, that Mr.

Maclean went on speaking to Mrs. Leighton as though she knew of everything that had happened to Cuthbert.

"He is all right, Mrs. Leighton, but he wouldn't let me bring him in until I told you that he was all right."

"Bring him in----"

It seemed to the Leightons that Mr. Maclean had been standing all his life in their dining-room saying that Cuthbert was all right, but wouldn't be "brought in."

Mr. Leighton put down his table napkin in a methodical manner.

"You'd better come with me and see him, Lucy," he said to his wife.

Nothing could have more alarmed the girls. On no occasion had Mr.

Leighton ever referred to his wife as Lucy.

"Oh, Cuthbert must be dead," cried Betty.

"Nonsense," said Mr. Leighton, with a white face. "Where is Harry?"

Harry had slipped out after a direct glance from Mr. Maclean, and was at that moment a.s.sisting two doctors to lift Cuthbert from a carriage.

"Look here, you kids," sang out Cuthbert, "I've only broken a rib or two. You needn't look scared. I shall allow you to nurse me. You won't be dull, I can tell you."

Mrs. Leighton gave a sharp little gasp. Her face looked drawn and only half its size.

"Oh, Cuthbert," she said.

"I won't move," said Cuthbert, "till you stop being anxious about me.

Maclean, you are a bit of an idiot--look how you've frightened her!"