Girls of the Forest Part 3

"Good heavens! I did think I had come to the end of my worries. And what on earth does this mean? Penelope, my child, what a hideous bouquet you have in your hand! Come here and kiss father, my little one."

Penelope trotted briskly forward.

"Do you like my red frock, father?" she asked.

"It is very nice indeed."

"I thought it wor. And is my hair real tidy, father?"

"It stands very upright, Penelope."

"I thought it did. And you like my little blue stockings, father?"

"Very neat, dear."

"I thought they wor."

"You look completely unlike yourself, Penelope. What is the matter?"

"I want to be a true, kind lady," said the little girl. "I am gathering gra.s.ses for my aunty; so I are."

She trotted away into the house.

"What a pretty, neat, orderly little girl Penelope has become!" said Mr.

Dale. "But---- You really must excuse me, my dear girls. You are most charming, all of you. Ah, my dears!--so fresh, so unsophisticated, so--yes, that is the word--so unworldly. But I must get back to my beloved Virgil. You don't know--you can never know--what a moment of triumph is mine. You must excuse me, darlings--Verena, you are nearly grown up; you will see to the others. Do what you can to make them happy--a little treat if necessary; I should not mind it."

"Give us fourpence to buy a pound of golden syrup for tea, please, Padre," suddenly said Briar. "If there is a thing I love, it is golden syrup. A pound between us will give us quite a feast--won't it, Renny?"

"Only we must save a little for the aunt," cried Patty.

"I do hope one thing," said Pauline: "that, whatever her faults, she won't be greedy. There isn't room for any one to be greedy in this house.

The law of this house is the law of self-denial; isn't it, Padre?"

"I begin to perceive that it is, Pauline. But whom are you talking of?"

"Now, Padre," said Verena, "if you don't wake and rouse yourself, and act like a decent Christian, you'll be just prodded--you'll be just shaken.

We will do it. There are eight of us, and we'll make your life a burden."

"Eh--eh!" said Mr. Dale. "Really, girls, you are enough to startle a man.

And you say----"

"I say, Paddy, that Miss Sophia Tredgold is on her way here. Each instant she is coming nearer. She is coming in the old pony cart, and the old pony is struggling with all his might to convey her here. She is coming with her luggage, intending to stay, and our object is to get her to go away again. Do you hear, Padre?"

"Yes, my dear, I hear. I comprehend. It takes a great deal to bring a man back down the ages--down--down to this small, poor, parsimonious life; it takes a great deal. A man is not easily roused, nor brought back; but I am back now, darlings.--Excuse me, Briar; no more prodding.--Hands off, Pauline.--Hands off, Patty. Perhaps I had better tidy myself."

"You certainly would look nicer, and more like the owner of The Dales, if you got into your other coat," said Briar.

"Shall we all come up and help you, Padre?" called out the eight in a breath.

"No, no, dears. I object to ladies hovering about my room. I'll run away now."

"Yes, yes; and you'd better be quick, Padre, for I hear wheels."

"I am going, loves, this moment."

Mr. Dale turned and absolutely ran to the shelter of the house, for the wheels were getting near--rumbling, jumping, uncertain. Now the rumbling and the jumping and the uncertainty got into the avenue, and came nearer and nearer; and finally the tumble-down pony cart drew up at the house.

The pony printed his uncertain feet awkwardly but firmly on the weed-grown sweep in front of the unpainted hall door, and Miss Tredgold gazed around her.

Miss Tredgold was a very thin, tall woman of about forty-five years of age. She was dressed in the extreme of fas.h.i.+on. She wore a perfectly immaculate traveling dress of dark-gray tweed. It fitted her well-proportioned figure like a glove. She had on a small, very neat black hat, and a spotted veil surrounded her face. She stepped down from the pony cart and looked around her.

"Ah!" she said, seeing Verena, "will you kindly mention to some of the ladies of the family that I have arrived?"

"I think I need not mention it, because we all know," said Verena. "I am your niece Verena."

"You!"

Miss Tredgold could throw unutterable scorn into her voice. Verena stepped back, and her pretty face grew first red and then pale. What she would have said next will never be known to history, for at that instant the very good child, Penelope, appeared out of the house.

"Is you my Aunty Sophy?" she said. "How are you, Aunty Sophy? I am very pleased to see you."

Miss Sophia stared for a moment at Penelope. Penelope was hideously attired, but she was at least clean. The other girls were anyhow. They were disheveled; they wore torn and unsightly skirts; their hair was arranged anyhow or not at all; on more than one face appeared traces of recent acquaintance with the earth in the shape of a tumble. One little girl with very black eyes had an ugly scratch across her left cheek; another girl had the gathers out of her frock, which streamed in the most hopeless fas.h.i.+on on the ground.

"How do you do?" said Aunt Sophia. "Where is your father? Will you have the goodness, little girl, to acquaint your father with the fact that his sister-in-law, Sophia Tredgold, has come?"

"Please come into the house, Aunt Sophy, and I'll take you to father's study--so I will," exclaimed champion Penelope.

CHAPTER III.

PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT.

Penelope held up a chubby hand, which Miss Tredgold pretended not to see.

"Go on in front, little girl," she said. "Don't paw me. I hate being pawed by children."

Penelope's back became very square as she listened to these words, and the red which suffused her face went right round her neck. But she walked solemnly on in front without a word.

"Aunties are unpleasant things," she said to herself; "but, all the same, I mean to fuss over this one."

Here she opened a door, flung it wide, and cried out to her parent:

"Paddy, here comes Aunt Sophia Tredgold."

But she spoke to empty air--Mr. Dale was still busy over his toilet.