The Corner House Girls in a Play Part 2

said the lady, thoughtfully. "Or, they used to have."

"Oh, dear me!" wailed Tess. "I wish I knew how to remember the old things. But I don't."

"Suppose I teach you the rhyme I learned when I was a very little girl at school?"

"Oh, would you?" cried Tess, her pretty face lighting up as she gazed admiringly again at the woman in the gray cloak.

"Yes. And we will add a couplet or two at the end to bring the list down to date--for there have been two more sovereigns since the good Queen Victoria pa.s.sed away. Now attend! Here is the rhyme. I will recite it for you, and then I will write it down and you may learn it at your leisure."

Both Tess and Dot--and of course the Alice-doll--were very attentive as the lady recited:

"'First William, the Norman, Then William, his son; Henry, Stephen, and Henry, Then Richard and John; Next Henry the Third; Edwards one, two, and three, And again after Richard Three Henrys we see; Two Edwards, third Richard, If rightly I guess, Two Henrys, sixth Edward, Queen Mary, Queen Bess, Then Jamie, the Scotchman, Then Charles, whom they slew, Yet received after Cromwell Another Charles, too; Next James the Second Ascended the throne; Then good William and Mary Together came on; Till Anne, Georges four, And fourth William, all past, G.o.d sent Queen Victoria, Who long was the last; Then Edward, the Seventh But shortly did reign, With George, the Fifth, England's present sovereign.'

There you have it--with an original four lines at the end to complete the list," laughed the lady.

Dot's eyes were big; she had lost the sense of the rhyme long before; but Tess was very earnest. "I--I believe I _could_ learn 'em that way,"

she confessed. "I can remember poetry quite well. Can't I, Dot?"

"You recite 'Little Drops of Water, Little Grains of Sand' beautifully,"

said the smallest Corner House girl, loyally.

"Of course you can learn it," said the lady, confidently. "Now, Tess--is that your name--Theresa?"

"Yes, ma'am--only almost n.o.body ever calls me by it _all_. Miss Andrews used to when she was very, very angry. But I hope my new teacher, Miss Pepperill, won't be angry with me at all--if I can only learn these sovereigns."

"You shall," declared the lady in gray. "I have a pencil here in my bag.

And here is a piece of paper. I will write it all out for you and you can study it from now until the day school opens. Then, when this Miss Pepperill demands it, you will have it pat--right on the end of your tongue."

"I hope so," said Tess, with dawning cheerfulness.

"'First William, the Norman, Then William, his son;'

I believe I _can_ learn to recite it all if you are kind enough to write it down."

The lady did so, writing the lines in a beautiful, round hand, and so plain that even Dot, who was a trifle "weak" in reading anything but print, could quite easily spell out the words.

"Weren't there any more names for kings when those lived?" the youngest Kenway asked seriously.

"Why, what makes you ask that?" asked the smiling lady.

"Maybe there weren't enough to go 'round," continued the puzzled Dot.

"There are so many of 'em of one name----Williams, and Georges, and Edwardses. Don't English people have any more names to give to their sov-runs?"

"Sov-er-eigns," whispered Tess, sharply.

"That's what I mean," said the placid Dot. "The lady knows what I mean."

"Of course I do, dear," agreed the woman in the gray cloak. "But I expect the mothers of kings, like the mothers of other little boys, like to name their sons after their fathers.

"Now, children, I must go," she added briskly, getting up off the bench and handing Tess the written paper. "Good-bye. I hope I shall meet you both again very soon. Let me kiss you, Tess--and you, Dorothy Kenway. It has done me good to know you."

She kissed both children quickly, and then set off along the Parade Ground walk. Tess and Dot bade her good-bye shrilly, turning themselves toward the old Corner House.

"Oh, Dot!" exclaimed Tess, suddenly.

"What's the matter now?" asked Dot.

"We never asked the lady her name--or who she was."

"We-ell----would that be perlite?" asked Dot, doubtfully.

"Yes. She asked our names. We don't know anything about her--and I _do_ think she is so nice!"

"So do I," agreed Dot. "And that gray cloak----"

"With the pretty little bonnet and ruche," added Tess.

"She isn't the Salvation Army," said Dot, remembering that that order was uniformed from seeing them on the streets of Bloomingsburg, where the Kenways had lived before they had fallen heir to Uncle Peter Stower's estate.

"Of course not!" Tess cried. "And she don't look like one o' those deaconesses that came to see Ethel Mumford's mother when she was sick--do you remember?"

"Of course I remember--everything!" said the positive Dot. "Wasn't I a great, big girl when we came to Milton to live?"

"Why--why," stammered her sister, not wis.h.i.+ng to displease Dot, but bound to be honest. "You aren't a very big girl, even now, Dot Kenway."

"Humph!" exclaimed Dot, quite vexed. "I wear bigger shoes and stockings, and Ruth is having Miss Ann t.i.tus let down the hems of all my old dresses a full inch--so now!"

"I expect you _have_ grown some, Dot," admitted Tess, reflectively. "But you aren't big enough even now to brag about."

The youngest Kenway might have been deeply offended by this--and shown that she had taken offence, too--had something new not taken her attention at the very moment she and Tess were entering the side gate of the old Corner House premises.

The house was a three story and attic mansion which was set well back from Main Street, but the side of which was separated from Willow Street by only a narrow strip of sward. The kitchen was in the wing nearest this last-named street, and there was a big, half-enclosed side porch, to which the woodshed was attached, and beyond which was the long grape arbor.

The length of the old Corner House yard, running parallel with Willow Street, was much greater than its width. The garden, summer house, henhouses, and other outbuildings were at the back. The lawn in front was well shaded, and there were plenty of fruit trees around the house.

Not many dwellings in Milton had as much yard-room as the Stower homestead.

"Oh my, Tess!" gasped Dot, with deep interest, staring at the porch stoop. "Who is that--and what's he doing?"

"Dear me!" returned Tess, hesitating at the gate. "That's Seneca Sprague--the man who wears a linen duster and straw hat all the year round, and 'most always goes barefooted. He--he isn't just right, they say, Dot."

"Just right about what?" asked Dot.

"Mercy me, Dot!" exclaimed Tess, exasperated.

"Well, what _is_ he?" asked Dot, with vigor.

"Well--I guess," said Tess, "that he thinks he is a minister. And, I do declare, I believe he's preaching to Sandyface and her kittens! Listen, Dot!"