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With a good wind.
(See page 243.)
CHRISTINE'S CAREER
A STORY FOR GIRLS
BY
PAULINE KING
ILLUSTRATED
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NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
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TO NEW 'YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR,
TILBSN FQU.-DAi 1
R 126 L
COPYRIGHT, 1896,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
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THIS VOLUME IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO
CHRISTOPHER, CORNELIA, AND MERRITT.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY 1
II. AUNT GEORGIANA 14
III. THE WHITE DRESS 25
IV. THE CHATEAU 37
V. THE FIRST COMMUNION 47
VI. GOOD-BYES 61
VII. ON THE OCEAN 70
VIII. AMERICA 82
IX. COUSINS 91
X. SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS 102
XI. SAD DAYS 115
XII. THE PLAY'S THE THING 124
XIII. TREASURE TROVE 135
XIV. CHRISTMAS 143
XV. AN AMERICAN GIRL INDEED 152
XVI. DICK'S HAPPY HOUR 159
XVII. LEAD us NOT INTO TEMPTATION 174
XVIII. CONTENTMENT is BETTER THAN WEALTH . . . 190
XIX. THE KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS .... 207
XX. THE HEART PARTY 218
XXL BY THE SEA 230
XXII. AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 241
XXIII. SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION 253
LIST OF ILLUSTKATIOXS.
FACINO
PAGK
With a good wind Fronii^nece
" Mademoiselle ! help me, dear child " 4
The first communion 50
Notre Dame 61
Medici Fountain, Luxembourg Garden ..... 69
Comforters 87
The Victory of the Louvre 141
Dick's " Happy Hour " 163
The Royal Family of Hearts 224
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
CHAPTER I.
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY.
[HE Seine is a wonderful river with its wind-
ings and twisting through meadows, fields,
and cities down to Paris and the sea. It
sees many quaint and curious sights in all its travels,
but nowhere is it more beautiful than at Ververney,
where it passes under the old crumbling gray bridge.
Yerverney is only a little mouldering market town
now, but it was a thriving Norman city once, in the days
when the beautiful half-ruined cathedral, the graceful
spires of which are to be seen for miles around, was new.
When the quaint, bulging fronted houses, that Hue the
narrow streets, settled quite off the perpendicular in the
centuries since they were builded, were the homes of
stout burghers and men-at-arms.
Once a week, on market days, the town breaks out
1
2 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
into great excitement peasants with baskets of fruit
and vegetables, venders of poultry and cattle, and ped-
dlers of quaint Norman pottery, bargain and scream
themselves hoarse for a few hours. The rest of the time
the town sleeps away its existence, and flocks of pigeons
fly about the streets undisturbed save by the evening
chimes.
Up from the river valley rise gently sloping hills,
divided off into neat garden patches and trim vineyards,
with each carefully pruned vine twined in an orderly
manner around a green stake. Nestling in among the
gardens and vineyards are dotted clusters of dwellings.
Over the tops of the high stone walls, with which every
little holding is surrounded, one catches sight of small
one-story stucco cottages coloured pink or green or blue,
which the sun and rain of many years have transformed
into beautiful hues. And there are glimpses of gay
flower gardens and of old gnarled orchard trees through
the iron gateways.
Straight up the long hill about two miles from Ver-
verney there is such a cluster of little houses, which
wear a more prosperous air than most of those in the
neighbourhood. Once upon a time, indeed, and not
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY. . 3
so many years ago, it was as unkempt and forlorn as
any of its neighbours, and then, so the story goes, a
great artist wandering down from Paris ctopped there
and found the place beautiful, and, staying there to
paint, he bought one of the little cottages, and lived
in it for many years. Thus the fame of the beauty of
Ververney spread, and many artists came, and they,
too, settled down in the little pink and blue cottages,
until the place was full of French and English. and
American families.
In one of these gardens on a warm August after-
noon a girl of some twelve years was lying in the shade
of an apple tree reading a book. She was quite flat on
the grass, with her feet kicking in the air, and her short
red hair tumbled about her face in disorder. She was
so absorbed in her book and indeed how could it be
otherwise, for she is reading Little Women for the first
time? that though we enter the garden she will not
raise her head, but goes on reading, her chin in her
hands, quite oblivious even of the ripe mulberry bushes
hanging with luscious fruit, which are well within her
reach.
The gate opens and shuts, but she heeds it not; then
4 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
suddenly a gruff but kindly voice, speaking in the Nor-
man patois, breaks the stillness.
" Mademoiselle ! Mademoiselle ! help me, dear
child; the dinner of Monsieur will assuredly be late.
The market was truly so fascinating that it was impos-
sible to tear one's self away, and already it is close to
the hour when Monsieur will return."
The speaker was a little, bent old woman whose
wrinkled and weather-worn face was surrounded by a
spotless white cap with wide flapping sides, the head-
dress of the peasants in that part of the country. She
wore also the customary sack and short blue petticoat,
the latter displaying a great pair of wooden shoes, and
strapped over her back was a big willow pannier out of
which stuck the ends of the various purchases she had
been making in the town.
Christine sprang up from the grass, dropping Little
Women in haste. As she stood aiding the old woman
to unstrap her load one could see that she was rather
tall for her age, and her face, now that the mass of
heavy locks was pushed away from it, was, though in
no wise regularly beautiful, a sweet, girlish one, lit with
a pair of intelligent hazel eyes.
" Mademoiselle ! help me. dear child."
\
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY. 5
Christine deftly unfastened the straps of the pan-
nier, listening while the good woman displayed her
bargains, each one of which had been secured only by
her remarkable sagacity in beating down the price sou
after sou. The old woman's economical foibles and her
ancient enemies in the market were well known to Chris-
tine.
" You need not worry about being late," she said,
answering the servant's self-reproaches at being so long
delayed. " It's such a clear evening I fancy father
will stop to finish the sunset by the brook, so dinner
would have to be late anyway." She spoke quickly in
French, speaking it as though it were her mother tongue,
with an accent very different from the old woman's
nasal patois.
" Ah, mademoiselle, if you will only spread the
table for me, everything else I can attend to." And
she carried the heavy basket into the small tiled kitchen
which glistened with an array of burnished copper uten-
sils.
While 'Toinette, called " Bon f emme ' ' in affection
by the little girl, was bustling about in the kitchen,
lighting the stove and muttering ejaculations of horror
(J CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
at the lateness of the hour, accompanied by many
twitchings of the immaculate cap, Christine had tied
a big apron over her pretty short-waisted muslin and
was piling dishes upon a tray, with a skilf ulness which
argued that this was not the first time the market of
Yerverney had proved attractive to 'Toinette.
" Forget not the salad plates, nor the bowl of mayon-
naise, mademoiselle," called 'Toinette, breathlessly
puffing at the bellows to light the charcoal stove.
" Also "
But Christine, not heeding, was out of the door and
down the garden path, carrying the big tray with its
glistening array of glass and china. On she went to the
spacious vine-covered arbour at the end of the garden,
for, strange as it may appear to boys and girls who
regard eating in the open air as a picnic, it is the cus-
tom in France, with rich and poor alike, to dine and
even breakfast out of doors in fair weather.
There was a big table in the arbour, and Christine
took a linen cloth out of the drawer and set it with a
great bowl of roses in the centre, a dish of crisp green
lettuce at one side and a tall Venetian flagon of " vin
du pays ' just as she knew her father liked to see it.
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY. 7
Tlien she went down to the gate to watch for the
first glimpse of her father coming down the flat road.
The peasants going home from their work in the fields
nodded " bon soir 7 ' as they passed, to the little wistful
face pressed against the bars. The last gleam of their
white caps faded out of sight and the road was quite
quiet, but still her father did not come.
" Bon fenirne," she cried at last, " I am going down
to fetch papa; he must have forgotten how late it is,
and he will be very hungry."
The big iron gate slammed behind her and she sped
down the road in the direction of the brook where she
knew her father was painting. There, sure enough,
he was sitting in front of his easel with his big palette
on his thumb and his great sketching box at his
feet.
"All! here comes my little dinner bell," Mr.
Averil called gaily as he caught sight of the little fig-
ure with its flying curls tearing along through the
meadow.
Christine snatched a hurried kiss, keeping clear of
his great sheaf of wet brushes and the large palette,
terrible destroyer of muslin gowns. Then she looked
8 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
at his sketch of the evening sky, the willow trees, and
the water radiant with the inany-hued reflections of
the setting sun.
" Such a beautiful picture, papa! ' she said, which
was her invariable comment upon every sketch, for she
thought everything that her father said or did was ab-
solutely perfect. "Isn't it most done? Wouldn't you
like some dinner? '
Mr. Averil laughed, scraping up his palette and
picking up his sketching things.
" Yes, dear, quite done." The father and daugh-
ter spoke in English. " I was just going home when
I saw my Will-o'-the-wisp coming after me." He
packed up the wet sketch and, shouldering the load,
they left the meadow, walking home slowly through the
clear twilight which lasts so long abroad.
For all the years Mr. Averil had lived abroad, one
would never have mistaken him for anything but an
American, and although Christine was born in France
and had never seen her own country, she had the un-
mistakable stamp of an American girl.
Christine's mother died when she was a tiny baby,
and the father and daughter were all in all to each other.
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY. 9
In the winter they live in Paris, and Mr. Averil paints
in the big studio, while Christine went to school in the
" Hue des petits enfants." In the summer they come
down to Yerverney, where they own one of the pic-
turesque cottages, and Christine lives out of doors from
morning until night.
The big paint box has to be put away and Chris-
tine's rough locks put in order before they can sit
down to dinner; but finally she is seated opposite her
father at the table in the arbour with a steaming bowl
of appetizing bouillon before her.
" And what has my little girl been doing all this
afternoon? It was market day, was it not, and you
were alone ? '
" Oh, yes. Bon feinme went to market."
" And was delayed, I suppose." For it is a standing
joke that Bon femme never, never can understand
where the time goes on market day.
" Oh, yes, and I set the table; does it look quite
right?"
" Quite right, my little daughter," looking over the
tasteful table. " You have certainly improved since
the first time; you are getting to be quite a house-
2
10 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
keeper. It didn't take you all the afternoon to ac-
complish such perfection, did it? '
" Oh, no, papa, certainly not; I did lots of other
things. I had a beautiful drive with Cherie."
Now Cherie which in French is about the equiva-
lent for darling had been, when first given to Chris-
tine, a soft and amiable young donkey who quite an-
swered to the description of his name. "With years
Cherie, however, had grown stiff and cranky, but he
was still in his mistress's eyes the most beautiful steed
in the world, and she was never happier than when,
seated in her little tan-coloured cart, she was urging
him off a walk or trying to persuade him that meals
.of thistles at all hours were not a bit good for his di-
gestion.
The idea of anybody having a beautiful drive with
Cherie struck Mr. Averil as rather a remarkable feat;
but Christine went on recounting her adventures:
" Then when Cherie got tired of going he just
turned around and came home, and I read all the after-
noon. I had a new book called Little Women such
a lovely story one of the "
But Christine broke off suddenly; her spoon re-
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY.
mained suspended in the air as she gazed in astonish-
ment over her father's shoulder. Mr. Averil turned his
head and was no less surprised than his daughter. A
lady with severe features and gray hair, her tall figure
clad in black, was coming up the garden path. She
had a strange foreign air quite different from any one
Christine had seen before, and, as she stood hesitating
which way to turn among the rows of hollyhocks and
dahlias, her stiff black figure looked like a veritable
bad fairy godmother to Christine, and she felt quite
stony when the unknown lady, catching sight of the
inhabitants of the arbour, turned that way.
Why, Georgie," cried Mr. Averil, recovering from
his astonishment and advancing enthusiastically to meet
the stranger with outstretched hands, " what a wonder-
ful surprise ! Christine, dear, this is your Aunt Georgi-
ana.'
Another moment and she realized that the lady's
face, for all its stern features, was most sweet and
kindly. She was folded in the stranger's arms, and
a soft, gentle voice said pleasantly:
e My dear little niece, how glad I am to see you ! '
Of course Christine had alwavs known that she had
12 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
an Aunt Georgiana away off in America. Several times
a year she wrote English letters to her in her little
cramped French hand, and at Christmas and on birth-
days she always received some pretty gift from across
the sea, with a few short messages of love and congratu-
lation. But this distant aunt had never seemed like a
real person to her, and America and everything con-
nected with it was so hazy in her mind that she could
not have been more surprised if her relative had an-
nounced that she had just arrived from the moon.
" I meant to send vou word I was coming, Chris-
t/ O /
topher," said Aunt Georgie, " but I am such a poor
sailor that I was afraid I might not come at the last
moment. Some friends of mine were coming over, and
I joined them, though my trip can only be a flying one.
I was absolutely wearying for a sight of my little niece."
Bon femme, all excited by the new arrival, bustled
out of the cottage with an extra plate, knife, and fork,
laying a place for " Madame," with many apologies lest
the soup should be cold.
Aunt Georgie did not look a bit like a bad fairy
when she took off her bonnet, showing a smooth, broad
forehead and soft gray hair waved away from a straight
THE COTTAGE AT VERVERNEY. 13
parting. Her eyes were so friendly that Christine,
though too shy to speak, could not help thinking that
she was an especially nice aunt.
She seated herself at the table and tried Bon
femme's excellent soup, her quick eyes taking in the
dainty arrangements of the table, the pretty garden,
and the vine-covered house which was bathed in the
last rays of the setting sun.
" This is absolutely Arcadia, Christopher," she said.
" I don't wonder people like to live abroad when they
can find such a charming place as this. I am sure if
I staid here any length of time I should never be able
to tear myself away from a pale-green house and such
excellent dinners in a picturesque arbour."
Christine sat listening. She wondered what colour
the houses were in America, and why her aunt thought
it picturesque to have dinner in the arbour.
CIIAPTEK II.
AUNT GEOEGIANA.
JHRISTINE never forgot that meal as long as
she lived. Although she is now a woman,
she can shut her eyes and see the arbour and
the dinner table, her father sitting opposite her and her
aunt's erect figure against the background of vine leaves.
She was quite awed by the stranger's arrival, for though
she was such a chatterbox when she was alone with her
father or Bon f emme, she was always very shy with other
grown-up people.
Aunt Georgie evidently understood the nature of
little girls and the excellence of the motto that they
should " be seen and not heard/' for, her affectionate
greeting being over, she devoted herself to conversing
with Mr. Averil about America and people and things
of which Christine had never heard before. Xow and
then she would smile pleasantly at her little niece or
glance affectionately at her with her dark eyes, so that
- 14
AUNT GEORGIANA. 15
Christine's shyness began to wear off, and with the ap-
pearance of dessert a great bowl of strawberries and a
pitcher of yellow creani she found voice to hazard the
remark which had been hovering on her lips for some
time.
" Perhaps you are tired and would like a cup of tea,
madame," not quite knowing whether to say aunt or
not. " Shall I go and make it? "
" Aunt not madame," said the lady, and it was
i/ /
surprising how, when she spoke, her thin face was lit
by such a lovely smile that no one would ever have
thought her a bit severe. " But do you know how to
make tea, dear? '
" Oh, yes," said Mr. Averil, putting his arm lovingly
around his daughter, for she had slipped from her chair.
*
" Christine is my tea-maker, home-maker, and all you
can trust to her making it just right. Bon femme con-
siders tea a medicine to be taken after much boiling
in case of severe illness, so an English lady showed
Christine just how to make it. She is very careful to
heat the pot and have the water boiling just as she
should."
Christine turned to go to the house, but before
16 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
she got quite out of earshot she heard her aunt
say:
" What a big girl she is for her age, and what a
nice little maiden! Is she talented? She looks interest-
ing."
Christine heard the remark and immediately quick-
ened her pace. She did not care to hear her father's
reply. It was the one blot on an otherwise happy child-
hood that people always would say when they saw her
for the first time, " Well, my dear, are you going to be
an artist like your father? I fancy you will be having
a great career one of these days." Then Christine
would blush and hang her head, for, truth to tell, she
showed not the slightest symptom of inheriting either
her father's talents for painting or the genius of her
young mother, who, when only eighteen, had modelled
a statue so beautiful that the French Government had
bought it and placed it in the Luxembourg Garden.
Most of the time for Christine was a healthv, nor-
/ /
mal child her mind was filled with childlike things,
but now and then the strange lack of talents in one
who by right should have had them made her think
seriously, and the question of what the career that
AUNT GEORGIANA. 17
was expected of her could possibly be, puzzled her ex-
tremely.
In a little while she came back to the arbour bearing
a steaming pot of good strong tea which was very re-
freshing to her aunt after the hot journey down from
Paris. The grown people were still interested in talk-
ing of matters with which she had no concern, so she
went out into the garden and sat down on the ground
under her favourite tree. She wondered what America
was like and if she would ever go there ; and if the boys
and girls all had such a good time as they had in Little
Women, one of the few American stories that she had
read. She was sure that she would like her new relative
ever so much, and she only hoped that her aunt would
like her as well and not be disappointed at the dearth
of those talents about lack of which she was herself so
much concerned.
" Dear, dear! ' thought the child, " if only a fairy
would come along and say to me, ' Dear Christine, what
would you like to have? ' I would just answer, ' Oh,
a talent, fairy, anything at all, I don't care what, but
a nice big talent so that people won't be disappointed
in me.' "
18 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Her meditations were just then broken in upon by
a click of the garden gate and an apparition appeared
which, while it could certainly have never been a fairy,
presented in the dim light something of the appearance
of an elf a girl in the shortest of short blue petticoats
with thin, lathlike legs stuck into big wooden shoes, and
her thin, angular body so closely squeezed into gar-
ments that she had evidently outgrown that the big flap-
ping white cap which she wore on her head gave her the
appearance of a mushroom on a thin stalk. She entered
the gate holding by a halter a mild and chastened-look-
ing beast which proved to be Christine's donkey Cherie,
sorrow for his wicked conduct in running a\vay being
imprinted upon his downcast head and hypocritical coun-
tenance.
In the winter when the Averils were in Paris Cherie
was left in charge of one of the peasant families, and it
was characteristic of the amiable animal that whatever
place he really belonged in, he was always anxious to
return to the other by fair means or foul.
" Oh, Celeste! ' cried Christine, recognising the
quaint figure as a denizen of this earth, " where did you
catch him? How could he have got out? Oh, you
AUNT GEORGIAXA. 19
naughty, naughty Cherie! I must have left the gate
unlatched when I went down to the brook to call papa
to dinner, and you must have got out of the shed then.
It is strange he did not stop to eat up our flowers," for
the donkey usually left a trail of destruction behind
him. " I hope he did not eat up any one's garden."
" ]STo, indeed, mademoiselle, he has done no dam-
age," answered Celeste, tying the donkey's halter to the
apple tree so he could graze contentedly. When we
were at supper we were suddenly startled by hearing
him bray, and there he was with his head stuck over the
garden gate as though saying ( Bon soir ! '
" Sit down, Celeste," said Christine hospitably, "and
have some mulberries; that bush is just full of ripe
ones.'
ly mademoiselle! ' and Celeste, seating her-
self on the turf, stretched out her hand for the luscious
fruit. " Mademoiselle is too kind," she said in her po-
lite French way.
Although she was only a few years older than Chris-
tine, and much smaller, she had the air of being a little
wise old woman as she sat munching the mulberries
Celeste, " la petite blanchisseuse ' ' she was called. In-
20 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
deed, so early do the French children learn to help in
the house and fields that when a mere toddler she had
taken charge of the soap at her mother's side when
washing in the Seine. During the past winter all sorts
of misfortunes had come knocking at their cottage door,
and her mother, after a long lingering illness, had died.
Then Celeste had bravely taken her place at the wash-
ing trough and had washed and ironed, fluted and
starched, with the nimblest fingers.
Christine, who had seen Celeste every summer since
she was born, was further attached to her because of
her devotion to Cherie despite his eccentricities, and
she was glad to have the girl take a quiet hour's rest
from the hot kitchen in which she was always at work
when she was not carrying great baskets of clean linen
home.
" My aunt has come to see me from America," said
Christine, for, after the manner of French peasants,
Celeste would not speak to one her superior in station
unless spoken to.
" Your aunt, mademoiselle, the sister of monsieur? '
"No, mamma's sister; and, oh! she looks so nice."
" You must not let her carry you home with her,"
AUNT GEORGIANA. 21
said Celeste, for, in common with many of the other
peasant girls, the advent of Christine each spring with
her bright face and kind ways was an event in their
workaday lives.
" ]STo, indeed, how could she take me with her? I
would never leave father, and I'm sure he would never
go away from Paris. Perhaps some time we may go
for a little while, but I've never thought of it."
The two girls talked on of little events and inter-
ests. Celeste's capacity for mulberries seemed un-
limited, and Christine did not hurry her until their
conversation was interrupted by hearing Mr. Averil
calling,
"Christine! Christine! Where are you? "We
must be going in. See, the moon is coming up over
the wall and it is quite late."
" In a moment, papa," she answered. " I must put
Cherie back in his stall," and having, with Celeste's aid,
secured the animal in the little stable and closed the
garden gate after polite " bon soirs " and courtesies from
her white-capped guest, she joined her father and aunt
in the drawing-room.
Bon femme had gone to bed long ago to be ready
22 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
to rise at dawn in thrifty French peasant style, but
she had lighted the candles in their brass sconces so
that the big room which served as half studio, half
drawing-room, looked most picturesque in the dim light
with its big piano, the tapestry-hung walls, and bits of
choice bric-a-brac
" What a beautiful room!' said Aunt Georgiana,
settling into a comfortable chair. " But, Christopher,
does Christine always have late dinners with you and
sit up so late? '
" I was wondering," laughed Mr. Averil, " if our
odd arrangements did not rather surprise you. Yes,
Christine always had her little bowl of milk with me
when she was quite a baby. We were all the family,
you see, and I didn't want the child to be lonely. You
may have noticed that she by no means ate a din-
ner to-night; she has her supper with me, that's all.
She usually goes to bed at nine, but to-night she
knows she can have an extra half hour on your ac-
count."
Just then Christine came in and curled up in a cor-
ner of a big comfortable-looking divan that was covered
with soft pillows.
AUNT GEORGIANA. 23
"Won't you play for me, Christine?' said Aunt
Georgie, wishing to draw the little girl out.
There was a trying moment while Mr. Averil said
that Christine's music had been given up because the
little girl had absolutely no ear. And then he sat
down to the piano and played Chopin's and Schumann's
beautiful music, which he had played to Christine ever
since she was a baby and were like her cradle songs.
Soon it was time to take Aunt Georgiana up to the
inn for the night, as the little cottage could in no wise
be stretched to accommodate a guest. So the big lan-
tern was lighted, for there are no street lamps in little
French towns, and Christine tripped on ahead with it
while Aunt Georgiana followed on Mr. Averil's arm.
Truth to tell, Aunt Georgiana had never spent such
an amusing evening before the dinner in the arbour,
the music, wandering through the high-walled lanes
escorted by a child carrying a lantern it was like the
things people did in books, and she wondered what her
correct Boston friends would think if thev could see
t)
her.
Christine banged on the wooden gates of the inn
courtyard, calling " Cordon! ' The concierge pulled
24: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
the gates open from some mysterious distance, and
Aunt Georgiana disappeared.
Then Christine and her father hurried home, for it
was far, far past her usual bedtime.
As Mr. Averil kissed her good-night he said quietly :
" You have not been unhappy alone with father? '
" No, no, indeed."
" Nor missed having other children to play with? '
Christine drew herself up a little.
" You have not been lonely without any grown-up
people, but just me, have you?'
" No, indeed, dear little daughter."
Christine wondered why he spoke so sadly, as though
their good time together was at an end. Perhaps Aunt
Georgiana was coming to live with them, she thought;
and indeed on the following day, when her father went
up to the inn and had a long talk with her aunt, Chris-
tine decided that it must be so. She wondered how
such a very particular-looking lady would like living
in the studio in Paris, where great pictures were always
going on accompanied by a strong smell of paint and
turpentine.
CHAPTER III.
THE WHITE DRESS.
fUNT GEORGIE stayed for a week at Ver-
verney, and before many days were over
Christine felt as though she had known her
all her life, for, instead of the forbidding fairy god-
mother which she had at first appeared, she was a veri-
table good fairy who knew the very shortest and easiest
road into little girls' hearts.
Christine soon talked to her quite as though she
was her own age, and confessed how her career bothered
her, and many other of her childish worries. In the
morning they would sit in the shady garden, and while
Christine would be busv with the beautiful ernbroid-
it
ery that the Carmelite nuns had taught her to do, her
aunt would tell her all about America about the boys
and girls there, and the good times they had, until the
little girl began to long to see her native land and wished
3 25
26 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
that just for a few weeks she could run across to see
what America was really like.
Christine had never had many friends of her own
age, and she had never been happier than during these
quiet mornings, or when in the afternoon they would
take long walks to gather flowers and see the beautiful
views from the vine-clad hills. Their only point of
disagreement was in their different estimates of Cherie
the donkey's character. Christine loved her pet so
dearly that she could not help being disappointed at
the bad impression he was apt to make upon strangers
unaccustomed to his foibles. He had always to be
started the wrong way, and it hurt Aunt Georgie's sense
of reason to start off with your back to the place you
were going to. Then, too, he refused to go without
an amount of cheerful whipping and urging, which he
considered companionable. In fact, he absorbed the
entire conversation, so after one or two excursions
Cherie was given up as a means of locomotion during
her stay, though he was offered to take her to the train
when she left, in the knowledge that the knowing beast
could never be got to go the full way to the town and
would certainly bring her back.
THE WHITE DRESS. 27
But Christine had another great source of amuse-
ment besides the donkey, and that was a rowboat on the
Lefte, a quiet little stream which was bordered by wil-
low trees and flowed gently down to the Seine, having
done its duty as a little stream should by being shady
and cool and turning the little mill up at Petit Ver-
verney.
Aunt Georgie had many happy hours on the river
with her niece. Christine w r ould tell her who all the
holdings belonged to and all that she knew of the fami-
lies. One fine afternoon they got Pierre, the gardener's
big boy, to row them down the Seine through the swift,
strong current, to the bridge at Yerverney. There they
got out at the winding stairway with its worn stone
steps which have been the passageway for generations
for those going up from the river to the town. There
was quite a crowd of boats collected there, for it was
market day, and the women had come in from all the
country round with eggs and poultry, vegetables and
fruit. What a scene was the market as they passed
under the hoary gateway where the tocsin used to be
rung in the days when broils were rife between the
burghers and the ISTorman lords!
28 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
All was peace now, the sun shining down on the
great courtyard which was set around with great tables
and trestles covered with every kind of fruit and
produce.
Geese and chickens in crates, lambs and soft-nosed
calves, were exhibited by their owners, who extolled
their merits in high Norman patois. A babble of
tongues screaming sous and francs mingled with the
noises of the animals and the twittering of the birds
from the fancier's stall. It seemed like some chapter
out of the Middle Ages, and Aunt Georgie and Chris-
tine lingered for a long time buying small souvenirs,
which Bon femme, who followed them, stowed away
in the all-embracing pannier.
Aunt Georgie was much amused with the shelves
of pottery which were decorated with the strangest fig-
ures of Breton men and women dressed in quaint old
costumes of long ago, for what was good enough for
their fathers is good enough for themselves, these sim-
ple people think, and they do not change the pattern
of their china once in a hundred years.
The party were laden with a good supply of this
old china, which Aunt Georgie proposed taking home
THE WHITE DRESS. 29
with her to Boston, and the huge bouquets they had
bought at the flower stalls, which no French market,
however small, is without.
It was cool and pleasant going home on the beau-
tiful river, but, despite her happy afternoon, Christine
could not help remembering that this was the last day
of her aunt's stay, and she knew she would miss her
sorely. Indeed, when the parting finally came she
threw her arms around her aunt's neck, kissing her
again and again, and could only be consoled for her
departure by Mr. Averil's promising that before Aunt
Georgie returned home Christine should see her
again.
The garden seemed very quiet and lonesome when
she had seen her aunt drive away, and I think she would
probably have gone off to her room for a little cry had
not her thoughts been diverted from the parting by hear-
ing Bon femme calling,
" ^lademoiselle ! Mademoiselle! '
The old woman was standing in the immaculate
kitchen holding in one hand a pretty muslin gown which
Christine had quite outgrown.
" Bon femme," said Christine, " you can not ask me
30 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
to put on that dress. You simply could not squeeze me
into it however you tried."
" Surely," answered the old woman, " but with the
first communion to-morrow I wondered if some one else
might not have need of it. I did not like to speak of
it while you were so engaged with madame, your aunt,
but if there is nothing else you wish to do, why should
you not go up to the inn and inquire of madame if
Bettine, the daughter of the gardener Pierre, has a
white dress for the communion on the morrow; or per-
haps Celeste t la petit blanchiesseuse ' may not have
one. But madame will know; for is not the beautiful
muslin of yours far too small, and monsieur has kindly
said that it could be given to some one."
All this was said in the most offhand way, as though
the old woman had not out of the kindness of her heart
devised this errand so that her nurseling should not feel
the sadness of the separation.
Christine was delighted to go and see madame and
to give any one who might need it her muslin dress.
She at once acquiesced in Bon fernme's scheme.
" I'll go at once," she said.
" The bundle will be small, and with madarne's ad-
THE WHITE DRESS. 31
vice you may present it yourself/ 7 went on the wily old
woman, who thus saw a means of keeping the girl busy
the entire afternoon.
Christine, nothing loath, rolled the dress up under
her arm and was speeding out of the garden gate when
she was aware of Bon femme panting after her.
" Mademoiselle," reaching her a large straw hat,
" forget not your hat; the freckles upon your nose are
becoming terrific. The good baby! ' as Christine tied
the hat under her chin. " jSTow run along on your
errand of mercy."
Madame at the inn was a stout lady who had
known and petted Christine ever since she was a
baby.
" Oh, it is the dear infant," she cried with as much
enthusiasm as though she was not in the habit of seeing
Christine several times a week all summer. " Enter,"
she said hospitably; " we have been gathering most de-
licious plums; refresh yourself, mademoiselle, after
your long walk."
Christine refreshed herself with a big plate of the
plums, and indeed she was glad of the cool shade of the
courtyard after her hot walk up the hill. After drink-
32 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
ing a glass of cold eau sucre she was allowed to state
her errand.
Madame shook out the white dress with enthusiasm.
" Such a very magnificent gift on the part of made-
moiselle ! ' she said in her French hyperbole. " Would
it best fit Pierre's Bettine, or Celeste, or " Indeed,
it seemed as though the entire village would have to
take turns in wearing Christine's cast-off dress.
" I would rather give it to Celeste than any one
else, madame, because she works so hard and is so good
to Cherie; only she may have a white dress and feel
hurt at my offering my old one. I do not know if she
needs it, do you ? '
Madame was not sure. Celeste had great pride and
rarely let her wants be known, lest she should impose
upon the neighbours, who had already shown themselves
so ready to help her in her affliction.
Finally the matter was decided, inasmuch as Pierre's
Bettine came in with the joyful tidings that her god-
father had sent her down from Paris a veritable con-
fection of a robe. Bettine was Celeste's next-door
neighbour, and she was able to report that the little
Wanchisseuse was still without a gown.
THE WHITE DRESS. 33
" And I never knew it until this morning, when I
found her fixing up her black gown for the morrow,"
said Bettine. " She said that every one had been so
kind that she could not let any more wants be known
for fear people would think she was begging. All
summer she had saved for her first communion toilet;
she had white shoes and stockings and the long veil
but then, alas! during her mother's illness all her spare
money had to go for doctor's bills and medicine. It
would be such kindness of mademoiselle to give her the
dress. Although she was fifteen she was ever so much
smaller; surely it would fit. Poor Celeste was in such
great sorrow not to be robed in white as the others were,
she would be overjoyed at such a present."
Christine started up at once to carry the dress to
Celeste. As she went past the meadows by the river a
bevy of girls, their white caps gleaming in the sun,
were busy raking hay, and as they worked they sang
over and over again an old ]SJ"ormandy round while they
kept time with their rakes. Christine joined in with
her shrill young voice and stopped to make sure that
Celeste was not among them.
"Where is Celeste?" she called.
34 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" At home ironing."
So she went on to Celeste's cottage, which on the
outside, with its high wall and iron gate, seemed in no-
wise different from the house where she lived herself.
The garden, too, was neat and trim, with rows of pop-
pies up the walk, and beds of lettuce and onions. The
door was wide open and at the window the old grand-
mother was knitting. Christine stepped into the cool
room, which was flagged with bricks and ornamented
with high beds built against the wall. The old
woman was quite deaf, but she clapped her wooden
shoes hard on the brick pavement, and at this signal,
mopping her face, which was red from the heat of iron-
ing, Celeste came in from the kitchen, looking quainter
than ever and nearly the age of her grandmother, such
was the businesslike air and gravity of her countenance.
She wiped her red hands on the coarse check apron
which covered her faded patched petticoats; then she
caught sight of the dress on her visitor's arm.
" Mademoiselle wishes her dress laundered," she said
with a pang at heart that white dresses were bestowed
so unequally that Christine might wear one every day
in the week, while she, alas ! had not the coarsest, poor-
THE WHITE DRESS. 35
est one to wear on the greatest day of her life her first
communion.
" No/' said Christine, " it is quite fresh; it has not
been worn since you did it up before. I brought it for
a little present for you, Celeste, to wear at the first
communion."
A perfect howl of joy rang through the room. Ce-
leste's aged and businesslike demeanour had disap-
peared; she sank on her knees with joy, examining it.
" Ah, mademoiselle," she said, lifting her face with
her eyes full of tears, " you are an angel. If you but
knew the temptation which I had to burn a great hole
in the front breadth of this very gown the last time I
ironed it out of sheer envy! '
Indeed, her happiness passed all bounds when Chris-
tine drew from her pocket a roll of sadly crumpled white
satin ribbon for, alas! it must be confessed that our
heroine had very careless ways.
" You can press it out, I hope," she said in dismay,
putting it into Celeste's hands. " It was nice and fresh
when I took it out of the drawer, but I am afraid I must
have been sitting on it."
It would come all right Celeste was sure, and she
36 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
%
dampened and pressed it in the twinkling of an eye,
bringing it back just as good as new. Then from a high
black press she took out the tarlaton veil and the white
cotton stockings and satin slippers which had cost her
so much toil. They made quite a grand show all laid
out on the blue counterpane of one of the high beds.
The old grandmother looked on smiling and admiring
as the history of the donation was howled at her through
an enormous trumpet like a trombone.
" How selfish I have been ! ' thought Christine.
" I have been so wrapped up in Aunt Greorgie that I
have thought of nothing else, and if Bon f emme had not
been so thoughtful, poor Celeste might have had to go
to communion in her faded black dress, when I could
have saved her the mortification just as well as not."
Being a kind, conscientious little girl, she was glad that
the dress had not been given too late, and she made up
her mind not to go home and be unhappy because her
aunt was no longer there, but to settle down to her
ordinary life, that she might have no further cause to
reproach herself with forgetfulness of those about her.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHATEAU.
[HE1N" at last Christine tore herself away from
Celeste's thanks she went home and had
Cherie put into the little cart and started
out to exercise the beast. She had no particular errand
to do anywhere and no one to go and see, so she said to
herself, " We will go to the chateau/ 7 and pointed the
donkey's nose in the opposite direction, whereupon he
turned suddenly around and started on the road she
wished him to take.
Christine had never been to the chateau in her life,
and she had no real intention of getting there this day.
The Chateau Beauvoir stood up on the top of a steep
hill and was ever so many miles away far beyond
Cherie's uncertain powers. There it stood, however,
like a crown on top of the hill, as tantalizing as the
blue grass which the little girl kept seeing far away,
but never near.
37
38 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
When Christine had nothing else to do she would
start on a voyage of discovery to the chateau. There
was a little girl living there she knew, for she had seen
her in church the year before at the first communion,
on which day all the inhabitants of Yerverney, includ-
ing the Protestants, turn out at the parish church to
see the beautiful ceremonial.
This day Cherie had reverted to the angelic temper
of his youth; he gambolled and frisked, kicking up
clouds of dust, it is true, but getting over the ground
at a marvellous rate. Christine became quite elated;
perhaps she should get to the chateau after all. Her
hopes, however, were arrested by coming to a low
barbed-wire paling. Planted around in the meadows
and on the fences were a series of terrifying notices
which read that any one who trespassed on the prop-
erty of Monsieur le Comte de Beauvoir would be fined
and imprisoned. She was about to turn and flee, when
a sweet voice called in English,
"Not run zeway! Arret! Arret! I with you be
in ze seconds! '
This extraordinary summons sounded very funny to
Christine, and she began to laugh, at which a girl of her
THE CHATEAU. 39
own age came hopping out on one foot from behind a
tree, holding a shoe and stocking in her hand.
" Pardon, mademoiselle/' she said, waving the shoe;
" I wad' in ze stream; my shoe she will no on fast; but
I have fear you tink me the gendarmes and run off if
I calls." The whole effect of the girl rattling out the
/
most strangely constructed sentences while she steadied
herself on one of the threatening placards and put on
her shoe was irresistibly comical. Christine could
scarcely repress a smile, which, however, the stranger
seemed only to interpret in friendliness and good-will.
Having wriggled her foot into her shoe, she came for-
ward to the bristling paling and said with frank polite-
ness: "How do do? You are ze English artist's girl
I tink. I sees you in church in Yerverney."
" I am an American Christine Averil and you? '
" Felice de Beauvoir; but I likes you all, ze Eng-
leese, ze Americains. I have an Engleese governess;
she talk, talk, talk of ze fine time ze girl have. She
say I talk like a natif."
Christine wondered like a native of what. But her
new acquaintance was so pretty, with her dark eyes and
soft curly hair, and her voice was so sweet, and her de-
40 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
sire to cultivate Christine's acquaintance so very evident
that she felt that her English, though it might not be
very correct, sounded rather nice and friendly. She
got out of the donkey cart, and going as near as she
dared to the prickly fence, the girls shook hands over
it. This ceremony over, Christine asked if the castle
was near, for she felt that perhaps the object of her
desire might be reached this very afternoon.
" No," said Felice, forgetting her strange English
and speaking in her own beautiful language, ( it is a
long drive through the woods. I've not been very well,
and they sent me down to Jeanneton's, my nurse's cot-
tage, which is not far from here. If vou will turn
O / V
around and drive down the road a little way you will
see it; you passed it coming up. If you will stop there
Jeanneton will give us some cream and baked apples;
she always expects me in at this time."
" That would be nice," said Christine, " only Cherie
is so frisky I'm afraid I'll get there first."
" Oh, I'll come too," answered Mademoiselle de
Beauvoir, and with the lightness of a cat she climbed
the fence, catching and tearing her garments on the
barbed wire and alighting in a heap in the road. The
THE CHATEAU. 41
damage to her garments did not seem, however, to ruffle
her spirits in any way, and shaking off the dust she got
into the cart.
" Fragments of me are all over," she said, shrug-
ging her shoulders. " That terrible fence takes pieces
out of me whenever I go over it."
For once Cherie behaved like an. angel. He turned
around as quietly as a lamb, and even made no objec-
tion to the stop at Jeanneton's cottage. The old woman
bustled out at sight of the girls and brought out some
delicious puffy tarts filled with whipped cream. Chris-
tine wondered what could have been the matter with
her friend as she saw her dispose of tart after tart, and
when she politely asked her if she had been very ill, both
girls shrieked with laughter, as, taking another tart,
Felice said, with a sparkling, mischievous look:
" I'd lost my appetite."
" But you seem to have found it again."
" Whenever I don't feel very well I am always sent
down to Jeanneton and I get better right away. I used
to be here all the time when I was a baby, and I like
to come down here and play. You see I don't have
to be under surveillance here."
42 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Surveillance ?"
" Yes; oh, you don't know. French girls are never
left alone a moment; some one is watching me all the
time. Papa has lived a lot in England, and he would
like me to have more freedom; but mamma she is so
strict! I get so tired of my governess, and the chateau
is so gloomy." The girl sighed as she spoke, and Chris-
tine felt that perhaps however fine chateaus might be
in books, cottages were better to live in.
Jeanneton's cottage was certainly not gloomy with
its glowing garden bathed in sunshine and a flock of
many-hued pigeons tumbling and circling through the
air. It was so pleasant, in fact, that the afternoon
passed very quickly, and the clock striking four sud-
denly reminded Christine that she must hasten home.
Cherie was with much persuasion induced to leave a
meal of thistles, and the girls parted, expecting to meet
again on the morrow, as Felice was to attend her first
communion, and of course Christine and her father
would be at church. Cherie was glad to go home, and
rattled along in fine style, but it was quite late and the
afternoon shadows lay long on the grass before she
reached the town. Mr. Averil was just packing up his
THE CHATEAU. 43
sketching things as she passed the brook, and he shoul-
dered his paraphernalia and put it in the cart, leading
the donkey, who was just beginning to feel that he
would like to go to Celeste's stable instead of his own.
Of course Mr. Averil had to hear all about the
meeting with Felice, and he looked rather grave at first
to think how far Christine had been. " Dear me," he
thought to himself, " she is getting to be such a big girl
I'm afraid it isn't just the right thing for her to go about
the country so much alone with the donkey. I wish
she had a mother to guide her."
" Don't go so far again; it worries me, daughter,"
he said kindly, " and tell me to whom did you give the
white dress? '
Christine told him about Celeste's joy at the pres-
ent. So many important events required a long time
to tell, and so effectually drove the sadness of parting
from her new-found aunt out of Christine's mind, that
it was not until just before bedtime, when she was sit-
ting on her father's knee, that she said:
" We miss auntie, don't we? '
" Would you like to live with Aunt Georgiana al-
ways? '
44 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
tt
Oh, wouldn't that be lovely? ' cried Christine.
And then her father talked to her very seriously
quite as though she was a grown-up person. He told
her how Aunt Georgiana had been many years older
than her sister, Christine's mother, and how she had
brought her up and loved her very dearly. That she had
never been able until now to come across the sea to see
her little niece because she had ties and duties which
had kept her at home. But that since she had seen
Christine, she thought it a pity that a little American
girl should grow up in a foreign land among strangers
and with foreign ways.
" I have been thinking," went on Mr. Averil, " that
it would be a good plan if we went home where you
could be with your aunt, who could help you to grow
into being such a lovely woman as your mother was."
It seemed a tremendous step to Christine to go away
from madame, the big studio in Paris, Bon femme, and
the lovely garden. America was full of strangers, and
she was so shy of meeting strangers; they always made
her wish that her nose wasn't so freckled, or that she
had some wonderful talent like the infant Mozart or
the children in English story books. To leave Cherie
THE CHATEAU. 45
and the river and all the places where she had played
so long, and just now when she had met Felice it
seemed too dreadful; but she was used to minding, and
she knew if her father said they must go it was for the
best. She hid her face on his shoulder and said:
" It is a long way, papa."
" Yes, little daughter, but it won't seem long.
That's a brave little daughter," he said, patting her
soft hair. " After all, I don't want my little girl to
grow up without any country. You will see what a
good time the girls have there and grow to be self-reliant
and independent. There will be lots of friends and
cousins there for you to associate with, and you will like
it much better than just knowing the peasants down
here, who never can be real friends, or the stiff little
girls at the convent, whom you have never cared much
for out of school hours."
Christine tried to keep the tears back, but they
would come and she began to cry softly, though she
could not have told why; but the years with her father
in sunny France had been happy ones and she was sorry
that they were over.
Mr. Averil comforted her and let her cry it out,
46 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
knowing it was the best thing for little girls, and he
talked to her gently about her new home until she was
quite composed.
" The next thing, papa," she said, with a wan ghost
of a smile, " you'll be telling me there are American
fairies."
" Well, not exactly fairies, still there are fairy
stories. Let me see, there is the legend of i Sleepy Hol-
low.' Come, close your eyes and let me see if you can
keep awake while I am telling you the story."
As you can fancy, Christine kept quite awake to
hear every word of Rip Yan Winkle's adventures, and
when she was curled up in her little white bed she
fell asleep with her brain full of dreams of real Ameri-
can fairies.
CHAPTER Y.
THE FIRST COMMUNION.
HEX Christine awoke the next morning the
sunshine was streaming over her bed and she
sat up rubbing her eves with a pleasurable
sense that something tremendously important had hap-
pened.
" Bon jour! ' said Bon femme, coming in with the
hot water. " It is veritable saint's weather for the first
communion."
Christine jumped out of bed at once. The first
communion the day of the greatest fete in Xormandy !
Many of the girls from the immediate neighbourhood
whom she knew were to be confirmed this year, and
then she would see Eelice again, which was an added
interest.
"Bon jour, papa!' she called as she heard her
father going downstairs, and she put her rosy face out
47
4:8 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
of a crack in the door to be kissed. " May I take my
tub to America with me ? '
" Yes, dear, if you wish I will pack you in it
and send you by express. But hasten down; we
have overslept and the sun is high over the gar-
den."
She drew on her long black stockings and buttoned
her frock, singing a little rippling French air about
Suzanne and bon jour, and then she jumped downstairs
two at a time and out into the fresh dewy garden, look-
ing as fresh as any of the flowers, for the sun was so
bright that it would have made any little girl feel like
running and singing.
Before they had finished breakfast there came a
ring at the garden gate, and there, transfigured, stood
Celeste smoothing down the white muslin which fitted
her to a marvel. The veil shaded her little red face
and her rough, hard-working hands were clad in
large white gloves. Christine was speechless with ad-
miration at the beauty of her appearance, and Celeste
was equally embarrassed. It finally transpired, how-
ever, with many blushes and stammers, that monsieur
the cure had sent word that if they would like to do so
THE FIRST COMMUNION. 49
they could come down and see the procession of com-
municants start from his garden.
Christine went upstairs and put on the fresh frock
suited to the occasion. The town was bathed in sun-
shine and quiet until the old bells in the crumbling-
church tower rang out peal upon peal. Then out of
the gray gateway fluttered, like white doves, figures in
white gowns with floating veils. "Wagons drove up to
the inn filled with communicants from the outlying
towns and hamlets, and soon the streets were thronged
with girls whose spotless draperies shone in the sun, and
fresh, smiling young faces beaming with pride and hap-
piness.
The cure's garden was a lovely old spot with a
closely clipped lawn and old-fashioned trimmed yew
trees. The girls slipped in the gate timidly by twos
and threes, and mademoiselle, the cure's little old sister,
marshalled them into line, and the acolyte put a lighted
candle into each girl's right hand. Christine thought
she had never seen such a beautiful sight as the proces-
sion as it wound out of the gateway. The band played
sacred strains, which echoed and re-echoed over the si-
lent hills. First there came row after row of little chil-
50 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
dren clad in white with wreaths of roses on their heads;
then the boy communicants with sheepish, downcast
faces, holding their candles at uncertain angles; and
finally the lines of girls in their white array, holding
their candles proudly, with evident pleasure in the ad-
miration their appearance excited. Elaborate silk ban-
ners floated in the breeze, the band played gaily, and
the procession moved up the hill through the church-
yard, with its rough-hewed crosses, into the little Nor-
man church which was so old that the knight crusaders
might have knelt there to have their banners blessed
before they went to Palestine.
There were four girls daughters of the neighbour-
ing gentry who headed the procession, and Christine
recognised at once, as the white figures swept down the
aisle, her friend Felice leading the procession. Her
flowerlike face looked more beautiful than ever framed
in the masses of her veil, and Christine thought she
had never seen any one look so much like an angel.
The simple ceremony was soon concluded and the
white procession again fluttered out the door, the band
playing triumphantly. Friends and acquaintances
greeted Christine and her father on every side, for the
The first communion.
THE tfW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LENOX AMD
T1LDEN
THE FIRST COMMUNION. 51
news that they were going back to America had already
got about, and they found themselves the centre of at-
traction when the pageant had moved on. Christine
felt very proud of the importance the coming journey
gave her. She put on a quite superior air, and when a
little English girl asked her how long it took to get to
America, she said:
" A month, I think," not liking to confess that she
did not know.
One of the American ladies smiled and said:
" Only a week, dear, unless you have an accident."
Christine felt quite grieved. A week's journey
wasn't so very long; she had fancied America much
farther away.
The big courtyard of the inn was set with great
tables ornamented with masses of white flowers and
candles, and rows of white-veiled figures stood with
bowed heads while monsieur the cure pronounced a short
grace. Long drives and early rising had sharpened ap-
petites, and in a few minutes the good fare had loosened
all tongues and the courtyard was filled with a clatter
of knives and forks and high French voices.
Christine and her father sat at monsieur the cure's
52 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
own table, which was spread in the long, low dining-
saloon. Christine was much impressed with the honour
of sitting down to dinner with all the high church
dignitaries who had worn such magnificently embroid-
ered robes during the ceremony. Next to the cure sat
a grave little man with gray hair, and a frail, exquisite-
looking lady, whom Christine knew were the Count and
Countess de Beauvoir.
Felice's place was next to Christine, and they
squeezed each other's hands affectionately under the
table, but they did not dare speak in such exalted com-
pany until in the general buzz of conversation they felt
that no one would pay any attention to them.
" Isn't your veil very heavy? ' Christine whispered
at last.
Felice smiled, showing rows of little pearly teeth.
Oh, no," said she, shaking back the gauze folds.
I tried on Celeste's," said Christine, " and I
thought it would draw my head over backward it was
so heavy."
" Celeste! Have you a playmate, Celeste?'
" Well, not exactly a playmate," said Christine,
blushing, for she did not think it was quite the right
a
\^
a
THE FIRST COMMUNION. 53
thing to talk about a washerwoman to a count's daugh-
ter. " Celeste, ' la petite blanchisseuse,' you know."
Felice looked up from under her veil to see that her
mother was not observing.
" Did you ever wash clothes in the brook? ' said
this astonishing young lady of the high nobility.
" No," said Christine.
" It is more fun than mud pies," continued the aris-
tocratic child. " When mamma is up in Paris I have a
beautiful time. I am kept, oh, so strict when she is
here, but afterward what fun I have! Sometimes old
Jeanneton lets me help her wash stockings in the
brook."
Christine gazed at her with wide-opened eyes.
" Of course I shall not do it any more, now I'm so
big and have been to communion. Indeed, I'm going
to Paris in the fall to a convent to learn accomplish-
ments. Have you learned any accomplishments? '
Christine had to confess that she had no accomplish-
ments.
" "Wait until vou're older and have been what do
i/
you call it? confirmed," said Felice with a superior
air.
54 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Just then, dessert being put on, the good cure dis-
missed the children each with an orange, and, as the
courtyard was full of people who paid no attention to
them, they passed out into the road.
" Let us go to the brook," said Felice; " we will soon
be back, and no one wants to be bothered with us."
The girls walked along under the trees which bor-
dered the stream, chattering of their likes and dislikes
much as older people do, when, alas! temptation in a
sudden guise assailed Felice, though she had been that
very morning to her first communion, and though she
was old enough to go to Paris to learn accomplishments,
for there in a shady nook was the washing box in which
Celeste knelt when she laundered linen. In a moment
Felice, regardless of her white gown, was kneeling down
in the box paddling her little hands in the current.
But alas! suddenly the box slipped out between the
stones and poor Felice in all her finery was overturned
into the water. It was well that at this moment her
governess and a footman, who had forgotten their small
mistress, were passing by. The water was shallow and
in a few minutes the dripping girl was on land again.
Felice, wrapped in the footman's coat, was carried
THE FIRST COMMUNION. 55
to Christine's cottage, which was not far away, where
Bon f emnie stripped off her dripping clothes and poured
a decoction of scalding-hot boiled tea down her throat
" a tisane marvellous against taking cold! ' to use her
own expression.
By the time the count and countess arrived from
the inn they found their daughter sitting up in an arm-
chair in the studio looking as sweet as though she was
quite incapable of standing on her head in a brook. She
asked their pardon so sweetly and was so penitent that
Christine could scarcely believe she could be the same
girl who wanted to wash stockings.
Monsieur and madame were sorry to hear of Mr.
Averil's departure so soon for America, and they went
into raptures over the unfinished sketch which stood
on the easel. It was not long, however, before their
landau drove up to take them home, and Felice, wrapped
up in rugs and wraps to keep her from taking cold, kissed
Christine affectionately on each cheek and said effu-
sively :
" We will be friends forever."
Christine was so used to French exaggeration that
she did not feel surprised at this intense declaration;
56 CHRISTINE'S CAREER
indeed, slie thought Felice a very jolly girl, which
she certainly was, and she thought it would be nice to
write to her all about her new home in America and
hear the news of Yerverney in return.
V
In a few days the count's carriage stopped again
at the Averils' garden gate and out stepped the gov-
erness, who had so neglected her charge the Sunday
before, with a note all coroneted and sealed from ma-
dame the countess asking that Christine might come
over and spend the afternoon with Mademoiselle Felice.
Christine was delighted, you may be sure, to see her
friend again, and though when she drove up the park
drive she found that the chateau was rather small and
did not look nearly as imposing close to as it did from
the valley, she thought it must be very fine to live in
so old a place. The drawing-room had spindle-legged
arm-chairs and sofas set stiffly about it, and was so big
that when one spoke it made quite an echo. She was
dreadfully afraid of slipping on the shining polished
floor, and was thankful when she had reached the wide
fireplace with its high carved mantel, where Madame
Beauvoir stood beside a little tea table.
Felice, though she kissed Christine warmly on both
THE FIRST COMMUNION. 57
cheeks, seemed as much depressed by her ancestral
grandeur as her guest, and the two girls sat on the
straight uncomfortable chairs drinking weak tea out of
dainty Sevres cups and feeling altogether shy and mis-
erable.
The tea drunk, however, Madame Beauvoir said
kindly :
" Now you may go and play like good chil-
dren."
And the permission being given, they hastened as
fast as good manners would permit across the slippery
floor.
" Oh," said Felice when the door had closed behind
them, " don't you hate being with grown-ups? '
" jSTot always," answered Christine, thinking of her
father and Aunt Georgie.
" What would you like to see? ' said Felice on hos-
pitable thoughts intent. " There is the carp pool, and
at four o'clock we may go around and feed the fish;
then there is the old chapel; it's mostly in ruins and it's
the loveliest place to play hide and seek. Or my dolls?
I'm sure you'd like to see my dolls."
Do you still play dolls? '
..
58 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" No, not exactly, you'll see. Oh, mademoiselle "
to her governess " may we see the dolls? '
The governess brought out a little carved oak chest,
and in it were a collection of the most marvellous dolls.
Their faces were old and black with age and they were
attired in the most wonderful costumes trains of bro-
cade and garments of bygone times.
" They belonged to my great-great-grandmother,"
said Felice proudly. " She was married when she was
only fourteen, and she had these dolls to play with;
when she got tired of them they were put away, and
ever so many children have played with them since. I
didn't; I wanted a brand-new doll with a cry. I like
new things; everything here is so old. I like the new
order. Now you you are brought up English fashion
and that is why I like you."
Christine could quite believe that so many ancestors,
like the career that she ought to have, might be some-
thing of a burden. But she thought the old dolls in
their faded brocade most interesting. She looked at
them all, examining their costumes and thinking of the
scenes which they must have seen when they were new,
before the French Revolution.
THE FIRST COMMUNION. 59
But Felice, who was nothing of a dreamer, inter-
rupted her thoughts by impetuously sweeping them back
into their casket. Then together the girls ran down
the polished corridors, which seemed of endless length
and number, until they reached the old chapel, where
Felice immediately disappeared behind a monument and
cried " Seek! ' But Christine did not like to play a
game in the gloomy ruined place, and mischievous as
Felice w T as, she was too polite to do anything that her
guest did not desire. So they wandered out into the
garden, to the old carp pool, and when the shadow had
crept around a mossy old sun dial which had stood
there since the old days when even nobles did not carry
watches, the two girls sat down on the grassy edge of
the basin and threw crumbs to the greedy fish who
were hoary with age, for carp live a very long time.
" See that big fish; what a hideous creature he is
and how greedy! '
"Yes, we call him Gargantua; he is very old in-
deed. Christine, I'm so sorry you are going away to
America; it's so nice to have you here to play with.
I've got to go to a convent in the fall, and I know that
I shall hate it cooped up all day long in a house. Papa
60 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
does not want me to go at all; he says it is better to
be on one's honour than to be watched all the time,
but mamma is afraid that I won't have any manners.
I hate manners. I like to row and ride and fish with
papa."
" Poor little Felice ! ' said Christine, putting her
arm around her friend's neck and kissing her warmly.
" I should think it would be awful after being on your
honour to have to be watched. I'm glad I'm an Ameri-
can."
And Felice, daughter of a long line of noblemen,
raptuously returned her hug and said:
" You must tell me of everything American, and
when I'm grown up I shall go to America to see you."
So they talked, and they were sorry enough to part
when mademoiselle came hurrying down to the carp
pool to say that the carriage was waiting to take Chris-
tine home. She said good-bye to Madame in the mag-
nificent salon and drove away, wishing that Felice could
abandon her ancestral chateau and go to America too.
THt NEW YORK
PUBLIC LiBKAp
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CHAPTER VI.
GOOD-BYES.
'LL this time the little cottage had been in
a great whirl of bustle and packing, for Mr.
Averil had made up his mind that as long
as the break was to be made it was well to make it
quickly and be able to sail from Antwerp in the same
steamer on which Aunt Georgiana would return.
Workmen came down from Paris and put all the pic-
,j
tures and furniture into big boxes labelled " Etats Unis,
Amerique." They made a perfect little house for the
piano and rolled it in, and Christine felt very forlorn
in the dismantled rooms.
There were many places to be visited for the last
time. She went about saying good-bye to all her famil-
iar playgrounds. Her boat and oars were handed over
to Pierre's Bettine, who had always wanted a boat to
take her fresh vegetables down to the market at Ver-
61
62 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
verney, instead of having to carry the heavy baskets
by the long, hot highroad.
Cherie had often spent comfortable winters in the
warm stone shed back of Celeste's cottage in company
with her own uncertain-tempered donkey.
French people are very domestic and have extremely
tender hearts for dumb creatures, and the " donkey of
Mademoiselle Christine ' had always had the kindest
usage at the family's hands. In the general misfortune
that had overtaken the poor family their old donkey
had died. When it was broken to Celeste that Cherie
could not be taken to America, and equally could not
be sold, to perhaps fall into bad hands who might mal-
treat him, and that Mr. Averil was willing to provide
a small sum for his maintenance and care, and if she
would promise to treat him as well as heretofore, the
donkey should be left in her hands, she almost sobbed
for joy.
" He shall be as one of the familv " she said. And
i/ /
Christine, taking him back to his stall in his future
home, feeding him, with parting, carrots, and affec-
tionately rubbing his soft nose, knew that she might
rest assured of her pet's happy future.
GOOD-BYES. 63
The last day Felice came scampering over on a little
black pony which she rode at a pace that she consid-
ered altogether English, much to the evident annoy-
ance of the stiff footman who rode jerkily after her.
The girls went all around the garden together and over
the dismantled cottage, and when the groom respect-
fully but firmly said it was time to go they clung to each
other, saying good-bye again and again. Then Felice
squeezed into her friend's hand a parting present a
housewife made of bright, sticky red leather embroid-
ered with the Beauvoir crest and glittering with bright
needles and bodkins and mounted her little steed,
bending down to give her friend a parting hug.
Christine's last vision of her was as she scampered
up the steep hill waving and kissing her hand, with the
staid man-servant solemnly pounding on behind. Then
madame from the inn and all the artists from the other
cottages, and even the peasants who had worked for Mr.
Averil or sat for his pictures, came to say good-bye and
wish them " bon voyage " in the cheery French fashion.
Christine felt a big lump in her throat when the
garden gate closed after her for the last time. She
had gone back again and again to embrace good old
64: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Bon femme, whose fear of the sea was too great for her
to follow her nursling and who was to stay and take
care of the cottage. At last, however no more time
could be spared one more dear hug and Christine was
lifted in the carriage and whirled away to the station.
The big studio in Paris was dismantled and shut up,
all the beautiful things in it having been packed and
sent on with the furniture from Yerverney; so Chris-
tine and her father went to a little hotel, for there were
yet a few days before the steamer sailed and they had
some good-bye visits to pay. Mr. Averil went about
seeing all his friends who were in town and leaving
cards on others, and Christine would sit in the cab in
the street and be so full of her own thoughts concern-
ing the journey before them that the time never seemed
long. Then, too, Christine had her own visits to pay
to the school in the " rue des petits enfants," to see
some little English girls, and to take a message to Bon
femme's niece, who kept a small millinery shop.
' Now is there anywhere else you would like to
go ? " said her father on the last day as they were driv-
ing home across the " Pont Neuf," the old, old bridge
across the Seine which was christened when it was new.
GOOD-BYES. 65
Christine looked up the river to the island where
Xotre Dame stands fronting the city, with its great
square towers.
" Yes/' she said hesitatingly, " I would like but I
think you intend for us to go there to go and see
mamma's statue in the Luxembourg Garden. And I
want to say good-bye to the big Victory in the Louvre.
You see I've been there so often ever since I can re-
member that I think it would be rather sudden to stop
going all at once. I suppose I shall be a grown-up young
lady when I see her again, and I should like to be able
to say to her when I come back, ' You can't have for-
gotten me, for I'm Christine Averil who said good-bye
to you so politely before she went to America.'
Mr. Averil laughed, but he had the cabman drive
to the Louvre. They walked through the great corri-
dors which are lined with Greek and Roman statues, to
the foot of the staircase where in old days, when the
Louvre was the palace where the French kings lived,
all the nobility and flower and beauty of France went
up and down. But they are all gone now, that courtly
crowd, and the great staircase is indeed a worthy place
for the great Victory the beautiful statue with out-
66 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
spread wings triumphantly standing on the prow of a
boat, which was erected to celebrate some great Athe-
nian victory.
Christine stood with her hand in her father's look-
ing up at it for a few minutes; then she turned away
and waved her hand good-bye. Then they drove to the
Luxembourg Garden, where Christine came to play
every day when she was in Paris. They sat down on
a bench in a shaded alleyway, and through the green
opening in the trees they could see the beautiful bronze
statue that Christine's mother had designed when she
was only eighteen.
Though they sat there a long time, it was still early
in the afternoon, and they walked down the street si-
f
lently until they came to the gates of the Ecole des
Beaux Arts, which is the great school where all the
painters and sculptors and architects go. Christine had
never been there before, but her father turned in at the
gate and led her up to the studio where he had studied
many years before. The walls were hung with rough
sketches, and high up around the walls were written
in chalk the names of the men who had studied there
and since grown famous.
GOOD-BYES. 67
Christine looked, and there, sure enough, was
" Christopher Averil." She was proud to think of her
father's name being there.
" Won't it get rubbed out, papa? it's only a chalk
mark," she said.
" That's what all fame is a chalk mark; most of
them get rubbed out in time, dear."
But Christine felt sure that never, never would that
special mark be rubbed away.
As they came out into the courtyard again, which is
full of beautiful old pillars and arches placed there for
the students to see, Christine noticed a sweet gray-haired
lady w T ith a big boy of fourteen or fifteen, who looked
keenly interested when Mr. Averil stopped to point out
to Christine the exquisite beauty of some of the capitals.
The boy came and stood near to listen, and when Mr.
Averil stopped speaking
" Did you study here, sir? ' he broke in bluntly,
looking up at him with a frank pair of gray eyes.
" Yes, my boy."
" Are you an architect? ' he went on breathlessly.
" I want to come here and study to be an architect when
I'm grown up."
68 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" No, I am an artist," said Mr. Averil, raising his
hat politely to the little lady who seemed much embar-
rassed by her son's unconventional conduct.
" You must excuse my son/' she said; " he is so in-
terested he forgets that he should not trouble strangers."
And as the pair went out Christine heard her say,
" Teddy, Teddy, what could the gentleman have
thought of you? '
Christine wondered who they were, and hoped she
should meet them again. She hoped she wasn't going
to keep meeting nice people whom she would never
see again. But the gates of the Beaux Arts closed on
the mother and son, and there seemed but little likeli-
hood of any further acquaintance.
The following day Christine and her father went
down to Antwerp, where they were to meet Aunt
Georgie and take the steamer for home. Now, Ant-
werp is a queer old town, and although Christine was
used to foreign cities and sights, she was delighted with
the quaint people whom she saw passing in the streets.
Old women with flapping caps and wooden shoes of such
enormous dimensions that they looked as though stand-
ing on pedestals, great rough dogs drawing little milk
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LENOX AND
T1LDEN FOUNDATIONS
Medici Fountain, Luxembourg Garden.
GOOD-BYES. 69
carts filled with shining brass and copper cans, girls
with copper pails swung from a yoke over their shoul-
ders went swinging by. Then in the midst of it all
who should she see bnt the gray-haired lady with the
big boy whom she had met in the court of the Beaux
Arts.
Almost at the same moment a cab came down the
street scattering the crowd right and left, and in it sat
Aunt Georgie. Then, to Christine's surprise, the cab
stopped suddenly and Aunt Georgie, all smiles and bows,
shook hands with the lady and the boy and, as the cabby
whipped up his horse, called back:
I'll see you again to-morrow."
%.
CHAPTEE VII.
ON THE OCEAN.
[URELY enough, the first people whom Chris-
tine saw when they went on board the
steamer the following day were her inter-
esting acquaintances of the Beaux Arts, who proved to
be a Mrs. Hubbard and her son Teddy, great friends
and near neighbours of Aunt Georgiana in Boston.
Christine, though rather in awe of Teddy, for she had
never talked to such a big boy before, tried to make
friends, but Teddy evidently did not care much for
girls and patronized her a good deal. There were no
other boys on the ship in fact, no other young people
so perforce they were thrown upon each other for
society. Teddy had been in Switzerland climbing
mountains, and the first evening out the children sat
against the deck house and he related his hairbreadth
escapes on icy gorges and glaciers until Christine felt
that he was a perfect hero.
70
ON THE OCEAN. fl
The next day, however, all this was changed; a
heavy sea was on, and Christine dressed holding on to
the berth. When she went to breakfast there were great
gaps in the places at the table. Teddy, the hero of
mountain escapades, was not there. Indeed, she found
him on deck swathed in rugs lying in a steamer chair
a miserable seasick heap unable to hold up his head.
" Good-morning! ' she said, sticking the pillow
which the rolling of the ship had jerked out of place
back under his head.
Teddy groaned. " Oh, is that you? 7 he said, all
his superiority quite gone. " Don't you feel badly? '
" 'Noj indeed," said Christine, sitting down cross-
legged beside the sufferer. " I've been about with
father a lot and I never mind the sea at all. When we
went to Greece
" Greece! ' cried Teddy, raising an interested pea-
green countenance. " Did you see the old buildings
with the long names off there? I'm going to be an
architect when I'm a man, and I've been told that the
old Greeks were the greatest architects."
Christine had been many times with her father to
see the Parthenon on the beautiful hill outside Athens.
72 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
She was not sorry that a topic had arisen which showed
that she was not altogether inferior, although she knew
nothing of glaciers, so she talked away about her being
in Greece until she looked up, and, lo! her audience
had paid her the compliment of falling asleep.
Christine took her embroidery out of her pocket,
for little girls are brought up in France never to be idle,
and sat quietly sewing in the sun. It was not long
before Teddy awoke again.
" Go on," he said; " tell me some more about the
Parthenon, or whatever you call it."
" No," said Christine, " I think you'd better have
some lemonade; it's good for you when you've been
asleep," and she went and got a glass, which Teddy
drank gratefully.
" You're an odd little creature," remarked the boy
as she settled herself again with her work.
" Am I? ' indignantly. &
" Yes, you're not a bit like an American girl."
" Why not, I should like to know?'
" Oh, you look different somehow; you don't put on
airs like most of them; besides, American girls don't sit
about and sew.'
ON THE OCEAN. 73
" Well," said Christine, " if I've got to be idle to be
an American girl I think I'll keep on as I am."
" You needn't get huffy just because I said you
were odd. American girls are awfully nice, and so
pretty, you know. Not but what " with a great effort
at politeness " I think you'd be real good-looking if
your nose wasn't so freckled and you were not so thin
and your hair wasn't red."
" Thank you," said Christine savagely.
" Looks aren't everything," went on the sage from
the steamer chair, who was feeling better after the
lemonade. " Probably you are clever? '
" I'm not a bit."
" Not clever? Well, never mind, people will like
you just as much if you're not. Now I like you ever
so much, and I usually can't stand girls they're such
geese."
Christine longed further to discuss why she appeared
so different, but just then a huge wave struck the ship
and her mentor subsided into a heap again in his chair.
Thus the friendship between the boy and girl began.
Teddy ceased to patronize her or think she was odd
after two days, during which she fed him with lemon-
.6
74 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
ade. He was perfectly insatiable, asking Christine many
more questions about Paris than she could possibly an-
swer, and relating in turn all about his school and his
mates in Boston. Aunt Georgiana and Mrs. Hubbard,
sitting with their work and novels a little distance away,
would often look up as peals of laughter reached them
from the young people. Mrs. Hubbard, Teddy's moth-
er, was glad of the intimacy. Having no sister and
his brothers being several years older, she had been
afraid, seeing her son grow so big and strong, that he
was growing rather rough and domineering. She felt
that being thrown so much with a little girl would
prove just the softening influence which he needed.
She got to be very fond of the girl herself, and after-
noons when Aunt Georgie was lying down Christine
would often desert Teddy and sit beside Mrs. Hubbard's
chair with her embroiderv.
>
" You're a dear little girl," said Mrs. Hubbard one
afternoon, stroking Christine's rough hair, for now that
Bon femme was not about to continually remind her
of her hat, she often forgot that necessary article.
" You remind me very much of your mother at your
age."
ON THE OCEAN. 75
Christine blushed with pleasure. After the strict-
ures which. Teddy had passed upon her nose and her
hair and her thinness, to be likened to her beautiful
mother was a compliment indeed.
" Did you know mamma? ' said Christine.
" Oh, yes, from the time she was a baby, though
your aunt was my great friend; we went to school to-
gether."
" I was so afraid of Aunt Georgiana when I first
saw her," said Christine. " She looked so stiff and tall
that when I saw her come into the garden at Yerverney
I thought she looked like a bad fairy godmother; and
now I love her so dearly better than any one in the
world except papa."
" Indeed you well may," said Mrs. Hubbard. Then
she told Christine how Aunt Georgie had been many
years older than her sister, Christine's mother, and that
the two girls being orphans, she had devoted herself like
a little mother to her sister's education. " Your aunt
was engaged to be married to a young doctor," she went
on, " but when her mother died she put off her wed-
ding and devoted herself to her father and little sister,
who had so much need of her. Then the war broke out
76 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
and Dr. Halstead volunteered and was killed my dear,
that was many years before you were born, but your
aunt has always remained single and always worn black
or lavender since the news came of his death. And
though people may think she looks a little stern when
they first meet her, her friends think she has the dear-
est, sweetest face in the world."
Christine, who was a very tender-hearted little girl,
began to sob, and Mrs. Hubbard drew her on to her
lap and comforted her until Teddy, watching them
from his chair, was quite jealous, and, walking un-
steadily across to them, put his arms around the back
of his mother's chair and nearly hugged her head off,
crying :
" Mumsie, every one pets Christine; you musn't go
back on me."
In a few days the sea grew calm and every one
got their sea legs on. Very few were the vacant chairs
in the dining-saloon, and as for Christine and Teddy,
their appetites were so good that they could have eaten
from morning until night. You may believe there was
no more sitting quiet and sewing for the little girl after
Teddy was well enough to run about. They were here,
ON THE OCEAN. 77
there, and everywhere, watching the streak of phosphor-
escence that the ship leaves in its wake, exploring the
engine-room and the cook's cabin; there was no spot
they did not visit. One day the chief officer took them
through the steerage, the lower part of the ship where
the emigrants, who can only afford to pay a few dollars
for their passage, are stowed away in very bare but
clean quarters. Most of them were fat Dutch fraus
and their husbands, who were going out to settle in
the West; but there was one little French girl dressed
in shabby black who seemed to be alone. The officer
patted her head kindly and said:
" I wish I could speak in French to her; she is in
the company's charge to be sent out to Manitoba, and
she doesn't know one word of English."
Quick as a flash Christine spoke in French, and
the despondent girl raised her dark eyes in gratitude
at hearing her native tongue spoken. Christine was
touched with her sad plight a friendless orphan going
so many miles alone, and she could not think of any-
thing else all through their visit, though one of the
men who was taking over some monkeys he had trained
for a circus exhibited his pets for their amusement.
7S CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
When they were again on deck, where the fresh
air felt delicious after the closely packed steerage,
Christine, with a determination that she but seldom
displayed, seized Teddy by the arm and hastened him
behind one of the boats, which w T as their favourite place
for devising plans secretly.
" Teddy, I'm going to give a concert," she said.
" A concert ! ' gasped Teddy.
" Yes, a concert."
" But you can't play, and I can't either. Christine,
you're crazy."
" No, I'm not. Didn't the grown-up people give a
concert last night and make hundreds of dollars? Xow
suppose we give one ; we're sure to make something, and
then we can give the money to that poor little French
girl. Her mother's dead and she's going out to Mani-
toba to her grandmother, who may be dead too for all
she knows."
The grown-up people had been very busy with their
concert the night before, and Teddy felt that it would
be great fun to do as they had, though he couldn't in
the least understand how it was to be given, when
neither of them knew how to play or sing.
ON THE OCEAN. 79
Just then a large, stout gentleman appeared behind
the boat dragging his steamer chair into a sunny spot.
" Don't let -me interrupt you, little people," he said
in a very melodious voice. " You look as though you
were hatching a conspiracy to blow up the ship. 7 '
The children were great favourites of this gentle-
man, who was no other than Jan Van der Veer, the
great Dutch tenor, who was going to New York to
sing in the opera, as the whole ship knew. Usually
they would have sat down beside his chair and talked,
but to-day they could only stare at him with wide-open
eyes, for there in that deck chair placidly smoking a
cigarette they felt was their concert. If only they could
wind him up like a music box and make him go!
" He wouldn't sing for the grown-ups," said Teddy.
" But perhaps he would for us, and, Teddy, we
might get the performing monkeys too; that would
make a beautiful concert."
Mr. Van der Veer suddenly became conscious of
i/
the four eager eyes fixed upon him.
Do you want me to do something for you, my
dear?' he said kindlv to Christine.
i>
" Oh, monsieur," she broke out, " we want to give
SO CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
a concert if only you will sing, and we will get the
performing monkeys that are down in the steerage
too."
Mr. Van der Veer laughed until the tears rolled
down his face.
" The performing monkeys and me! Do you want
me for the performing bear? '
Christine was afraid he was offended, and tried to
apologize as best she could, but the singer only laughed
the louder, rolling himself up in his big ulster and
emitting terrible roars and grunts like the most infuri-
ated of bears. When, however, he heard the kindly
object the children had in mind although he did not
promise to sing he took their concert in hand and
helped them make a programme, arranging with the
monkeys' keeper for an exhibition.
So that afternoon, when all the passengers were
sitting around, the children gave their concert, with
some school recitations, and the trick animals, who went
through all their antics bravely. Then when the
laughter had subsided and Christine was starting to go
around for donations for her little French girl, Mr.
Van der Yeer went to the piano and sang an aria from
OX THE OCEAN. 81
Faust in the beautiful rich voice which had made him
world-famous.
You can imagine the enthusiasm, how every one ap-
plauded, and what a store of coins was rained into
Christine's lap for her protegee. But all the furor he
had created seemed not to please the kind tenor one bit
more than the honest astonishment he saw in the chil-
dren's faces, for they had no idea any human being
could sing so beautifully.
" That's how the bear growls," he said laughingly
to them, and Christine did not wonder that he had
laughed when she had thought he was in nowise so su-
perior an attraction for their concert as the monkeys.
CHAPTER VIIL
AMERICA.
HEISTIISTE got to know the captain and all
tlie officers and passengers on board, and
was familiar with every inch of the ship,
perching in the rigging and exploring the engine-room
and the cook's pantry with Teddy. The days went re-
markably fast, and indeed it seemed only yesterday that
they had left Antwerp before they were sailing up
^ew York Harbor, Teddy, in a wild state of excitement,
pointing out the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge,
Castle Garden, and all the other objects of interest.
The crowd of people on the dock waiting to wel-
come their friends as they came down the gang plank;
the examination of the luggage; the strange new city,
which seemed to be " all alike ' ' ; the novelty of hear-
ing every one speak English seemed strange and new
to the little ffirl who had alwavs lived in France. Mr.
Hubbard had come to meet his wife, and the family
82
AMERICA. 83
were going to the same hotel with Aunt Georgiana and
the Averils, so there was no good-bye to say to Teddy.
Kow, when Christine was feeling homesick and
strange in this new land, her first great trial and the
temptation to be selfish and think only of herself came
as trials and temptations are apt to do just when one
is least able to resist them.
Xo sooner had they reached the Brevoort House,
which is an old-fashioned hotel down in the old part
of the city near Washington Square, than a gentleman
called to see Mr. Averil and they were closeted for a
long time together. "When he went away Christine was
sent for, and she found her aunt and her father talking
with grave faces. Then Aunt Georgiana kissed Christine
lovingly and left the room, and Mr. Averil drew his
o i/
little daughter down on his knee and, as he had often
done when she was a tiny child too small to understand,
t/ '
told her about a wonderful big piece of work which had
been offered to him. It seemed that there was a great
national fair to be held in Chicago, and many beautiful
pictures and statues were to be wrought to decorate
the buildings there, and the manager had sent to ask
Mr. Averil if he would undertake a commission to
84: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
decorate a big dome in one of the most important of
them.
Of course you young people all know that this was
the great Columbian Fair, and you probably stood right
under Mr. Averil's dome when you went there. But
Christine had never heard of it before, and indeed she
had but a small idea of where Chicago could be.
"Won't it be splendid, papa? Shall we go right
out there to-morrow ? ' she asked. Then noticing a
shade on his face " Wiry, what is the matter? '
Mr. Averil had to tell her that his going at all
depended upon his having a brave little daughter who
would try to help him in his work, because Chicago
was a long way off and Jackson Park was all torn up
with building and machinery and not a place where
he could take her.
Christine uttered a cry of dismay, l^ever, never
could she be left alone in this strange land separated
from her clear father, from whom she had never been
parted for a day.
" Oh, papa, papa," she sobbed, " how I wish we had
never come to America! TTe were so happy in France
and you never had to go away there." She cried so
AMERICA. 85
hysterically that her father could only pat her hair
softly and try to comfort her.
" It's just as hard, dear, for papa as it is for you; in-
deed, I shouldn't think of going if I didn't think that
you would be happy with Aunt Georgie."
" Aunt Georgie isn't you, papa ; but I'm going to
be good and not cry any more, only I wish I was
bigger."
Mr. Averil sighed.
" Christine," he said, " big people have to be sep-
arated and have to do things they don't like just as
much as little ones. I never wanted to be separated
from your mother for a day, and yet God in his good-
ness took her away and I have had to live without her
these eleven years."
Then Christine put up her face to be kissed and
said bravely that papa should go, and he must paint the
most beautiful picture and come back as soon as ever
he could. She dried her eyes and they sat together in
the dark for a long time until, worn out with the ex-
citement of the day, she fell asleep in her father's
arms.
When Christine awoke Aunt Georgie was coming
86 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
softly into the room, and she put her arms around her
niece and said:
" My dear brave little girl ! '
She brushed out Christine's hair and bathed her
face as though she was ill, and indeed the little girl
felt very weak after crying so hard. By the time
this was done there came a knock on the door, and
in came a waiter carrying a big tray which was laden
with toast and oysters and other good things for
supper.
We didn't think you were quite old enough to
come down to the hotel late dinner," she said, " so you
and Teddy are to picnic up here." And the contents
of the tray having been cosily arranged on a small table,
Aunt Georgie left the young people to their meal and
went off to her own dinner.
There was a certain blankness about Teddy's ex-
pression when he had entered the room which Christine
could not understand. He had looked that way some-
times on shipboard when he had been up to some great
piece of mischief. But Christine knew that he never
could be so heartless as to indulge in any pranks when
she was in such trouble. As soon as Aunt Georgie was
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LENOX -
TILDEN FOUNDATION
jjpr:.i oj _-
Comforters.
AMERICA. 87
gone, however, Teddy began feeling with great caution
in the pockets of his jacket.
" I hope they're not suffocated," he said sympa-
thetically, and then triumphantly held up by their ears
a small rabbit and a minute guinea-pig, who while
they were alive, as could be told from the guinea-
pig's squeals, had a certain look of having been folded
and pressed. " I bought them for you in Jefferson
Market," said Teddy proudly. " Don't you like
them?"
" Like them! ' The tears came into Christine's eyes
as the little rabbit hopped across her dress, and cuddling
her treasures she gave Teddy a warm hug, which the
little crushed guinea-pig resented with further faint
squeals.
" You'll get along all right in Boston," said Teddy
comfortingly when the animals, temporarily accommo-
dated with a home in the scrap basket, had been fed
with some greens which he thoughtfully produced from
another pocket. " The time will go just like anything,
and your father will be back before you know it. I
live only two doors from Aunt Georgie, and I'm there
half the time. I'll be just as good as a brother. It's
83 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
a great misfortune to be a girl, of course, but to be a
girl without any brothers is awful."
" Yes," said Christine gloomily, " I suppose it is."
She looked so unhappy that Teddy was afraid she
was going to cry, and picking up the rabbit, he deposited
it in her lap again. This touching attention, as though
little rabbits were sure comforters, made her laugh in-
stead of cry.
" Yes," went on Teddy. " You see for a girl you
are not half bad. You're not so pretty or so clever as
some, but you're what I call a perfect brick. I wouldn't
mind having you for a sister one bit."
"Wouldn't you?"
" !Not in the least. ]STow don't you get spoiled and
airy and I'll be a brother to you and see that you have
a good time this winter." He stretched out his hand
and the two children clasped hands, and with the rabbit
and the guinea-pig for witnesses agreed to be brother
and sister.
" Now let's have supper," went on Teddy cheer-
fully. "What have we here? Oysters! Toast! Salad!
Oysters for me, toast for you, salad for the beastises."
And then, with more forethought than one would have
AMERICA. 89
imagined he possessed, he made her plate look dainty
and nice and arranged her pillows so that she could sit
up comfortably to the table.
" When I'm a young lady," said Christine, begin-
ning to feel like her own self again, " I shall declare
that the first gift you ever gave me was a pig."
" A pig! ' said Teddy. " A pig in a poke. Look,
Christine, look! "
Tears and tragedies of separation were forgotten.
The children screamed with laughter at the spectacle
they saw, for the little guinea-pig, finding itself un-
heeded in the recent conversation, had become inter-
ested in Aunt Georgie's bonnet, which was ornamented
with white daisies, and becoming entangled in the lin-
ing, the bonnet seemed to be rolling around on the
floor uttering piercing squeals.
Aunt Georgie, coming back to see if they had been
liberally provided with supper, rejoiced to hear their
ringing voices as she opened the door, but she could
not exactly understand the strange capers of her travel-
ling bonnet.
" What is it? What is it?' she cried in dismay.
At last Teddy's mirth subsided sufficiently for him
7
90 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
to extricate the guinea-pig from the mass of silk and
ribbon, and he shamefacedly presented the crumpled
bonnet to Aunt Georgie.
However, when she heard how he had brought the
little creatures for Christine in her trouble, she had no
word of reproach for the ruffled condition of her prop-
erty, but straightened it out, remarking " that it had
seen its best days long ago."
At which Teddy, who was her godson, threw his
arms around her and said to Christine:
" Now you know you can't help but be happy with
such a dear auntie."
At first it seemed impossible to keep the little ani-
mals over night in the hotel, but Christine's heart was
so set upon them that they were finally accommodated
in a wooden box with slats nailed across the top, and
thus they were carried triumphantly on to Boston.
We will not dwell upon Christine's parting from
her father save to say that she was as good and brave
as a little girl could be. We will not see her again
until her tears are quite dried and she is her sweet
sunny self, happy as can be in her new home.
CHAPTEE IX.
COUSDfS.
TXT GEOKGIE'S big house on Mount Ver-
non Street was very much as her grand-
father had built it large, roomy, and com-
modious. Her grandfather and her uncles had been
sea captains and travellers in the days when ships w T ent
all the way around the Horn to India and China, and
the house was full of quaint things which they had
brought home. There were great potpourri jars set about
everywhere, emitting delicious odours, and boxes of
sandalwood, and quaint Chinese things which reminded
Christine of the things Uncle Alex brought home in
the Eight Cousins. There was one blue jar on the stair-
way which she liked especially; it had a great green
dragon straddled across the top, and every time she
went up and down she would stroke the queer grin-
ning monster's back.
The night they arrived Aunt Georgie said:
91
92 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" My dear, I am going to let you choose your own
room; there are two little bedrooms in the house, and
you may have either of them that you prefer."
The first one they went into quite took Christine's
breath away, for it was just the ideal girl's bedroom.
There was a little brass bed with a dainty lace canopy
over it, and there were goatskin rugs on the floor. The
furniture was all white too, and the walls were hung
with water colours in white frames.
" Oh, I'm sure I shall like this one best," said Chris-
tine.
In the back of the house looking over the garden
was the other little room. It contained a small four-
post bed and some quaint Chippendale furniture, some
childish drawings framed in oak, and a bookcase full
of worn volumes of poetry and girl's books. Christine
stood for a moment on the threshold wondering what
little girl had lived there before. Then she looked up
into Aunt Georgie's face, and she knew that it had
been her mother's.
" Indeed I would much rather have this one," she
said. And the next day Aunt Georgie helped her un-
pack her dresses and put them away neatly in the big
COUSINS. 93
lavender-scented closet that was about as large as the
bedrooms had been in the cottage at Ververney. There
were some pictures too of the little cottage, of the beauti-
ful Victory, and of Bon femme with her dear wrinkled
face and white cap, which had to be hung in their places.
The bookshelves were quite filled up with The Child's
History of England, Paul et Yirginie, and the rest of
Christine's polyglot library. AVhen all the things were
arranged to her satisfaction she felt quite at home and
wrote a cheerful if somewhat illegible letter to her
father in her small cramped French hand.
" I am afraid my little girl will be lonely before
school commences," said Aunt Georgie one day; " but
in another week you will have plenty of companion-
ship, for my brother Robert has written me that he
wants me to take charge of your cousins Jack and Dick,
and I have just had a letter from him that the boys
started from San Francisco yesterday."
Christine felt that she was growing rich in relations;
first an aunt and now cousins. Of course she had al-
wavs known that she had an uncle who was a mission-
/
ary out in Hawaii. There were pictures of the big
volcano and of Honolulu harbour in the drawing-room,
94: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
and queer straw mats which the natives there weave,
in the halls, and a wonderful feather mantle made of
thousands of yellow feathers that had belonged to some
old native king. But all these strange things seemed
only a part of the old Indian and Chinese curios, and
Christine could not imagine real little girls and boys
living there.
It was hard for her, with her vague ideas of geogra-
phy and of the distance to Chicago, to fancy any one
would ever come to Boston from Hawaii. She looked
it up on the map and it seemed an impossible journey.
She was much interested, however, over the prospect
of her cousins' arrival, and confided the news at once
to Teddy, who, true to his word, kept up the friend-
liest relations with her and was always coming in to
inquire about the rabbit and the guinea-pig who were
domesticated in a pen in the back garden.
Teddy's knowledge of Hawaii was quite as limited
as her own. He had seen a picture of the King, how-
ever, who was a gentleman of rather a dusky complex-
ion, and he expressed the polite hope that Christine's
cousins would not be very black and would know how
to speak English.
COUSINS. 95
Aunt Georgie laughed well at the two children and
told them that white people were white people all the
world over ; that Jack, who was fourteen, was very
bright and much farther on with his studies than Teddy
himself, but that Dick, who was twelve and then she
paused and said:
" I think I should tell you that little Dick is lame
and his spine is not very strong, so he is not able to
study or run about quite like other boys. His father
has always written, however, that he is so brave and
amiable under his afflictions that every one loves him,
so you must just take no notice of his infirmity and
treat him like any other boy."
" Dear me, Auntie, can't he play games and things?
How sad! ' said Christine.
" Xot much, dear. He can only walk a little way
at a time. I am going to have a Shetland pony for
him so he can get about. He is very contented, how-
ever, with his lot, and they write me that he plays very
beautifully on the violin, which is his great source of
amusement."
Christine thought a great deal about the little lame
cousin, and, remembering how lonely she had been at
96 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
first in Boston, she made up her mind to do everything
in her power to make Dick feel at home.
Aunt Georgie asked Teddy to tea the night the new
cousins were expected, thinking that the ice would
sooner be broken if there was a boy to talk to. She
drove away to the station, and the children pressed
their noses against the window trying not to show the
excitement they felt.
" I say," said Teddy, after a few minutes silence,
" you musn't let them cut a fellow out."
"Cut a fellow out?"
" Yes," awkwardly. " You musn't think more of
them than you do of me, for you knew me first."
" Indeed I shan't, Teddy. Didn't you give me the
rabbit?"
" Yes, but they might give you a canary bird," said
Teddy gloomily, who evidently had no belief whatever
in feminine constancy. " Now," he went on, growing
very red, " you know my big brother Frank, who is at
Harvard, is engaged to be married to a big girl, and
he gave her a ring. Suppose I gave you a ring and you
promised never, never to go back on me; you'd have to
keep it, now wouldn't you? '
COUSINS. 97
" Yes indeed," said Christine. " I shouldn't break
a promise, and indeed I shouldn't want to Fin sure."
Teddy took out of his pocket a heavy tarnished ring
which had an enamelled pansy set in the front and a
motto, " Dieu vous garde," in half -worn-out blue letters
around the band.
" I found this in our attic a long time ago," he said,
" and mamma said I might have it. I thought you
might like it because it's in French. It means ' God
bless you ! ' doesn't it ? ' for he was not much of a
linguist.
Christine tried it on each of her fingers and ad-
mired her little brown paw immensely.
" It's lovely, Teddy," she said, " and I promise al-
ways to consider you my best friend." And indeed she
kept her word.
They had been so absorbed that the time had slipped
by quickly and Aunt Georgie was just driving up to
the door with, surely enough, two boys in the coupe.
But, alas! for the expected black young gentlemen.
They were quite fair with yellow hair and soft musical
English voices. Jack was nearly as tall as Teddy and
very, very stout, for living in warm countries where
98 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
one can not take much exercise is apt to make even the
children corpulent.
Little Dick ! How shall I describe his little pathetic
face with its bright, birdlike blue eyes and soft mussed-
up hair? He was quite exhausted with the long tire-
some journey, and yet there was so much of brightness
about him in spite of it that both Christine and Teddy
loved him at once. He was very little and lame. His
back was sorely twisted from a fall which he had had
when a baby, and yet as he sat in Aunt Georgie's strange
drawing-room thousands of miles away from his mother
and father his face wore the look which it was never
without of high courage and brave cheerfulness.
Teddy, who was never shy with boys of his own age,
shook hands with them warmly, and they soon sat down
to a nice hot supper which loosened their tongues and
made them feel at home together.
" I suppose, " said Dick, pausing over his plate of
hot soup, " that you thought we would be rather black
and would talk broken English."
Christine and Teddy blushed at this and confessed
that they had thought so.
" I knew it," he said, going off into peals of laughter.
COUSINS. 99
tt
Of course we talk ' native/ but we wouldn't think any
more of not being English than you would of being
French because you lived in France."
"Aren't you Americans?' asked Christine of her
eldest cousin, who had scarcely spoken as yet.
" No, we're Hawaiians," he said gruffly, and con-
tinued his supper as though he had a more serious oc-
cupation than talking.
" What a bundle of foreign little people I have to
be sure ! ' said Aunt Georgie. " Christine travelled a
whole week from one direction, and you travelled double
that time from another. TVhen you are all grown up
I think I shall take a basket and go around in strange
lands again to collect some more nice American chil-
dren."
" You might be able to carry my size in your
basket," said Dick gaily, " but I'd advise you not to at-
tempt Jack's " with a glance at his brother's propor-
tions " if you have to carry the basket yourself."
Jack joined good naturedly in the laugh that fol-
lowed, as he always did at everything that Dick said,
but he offered no remarks himself and went on silently
eating.
p
Of .*"-r^;r A
'
100 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Christine noticed that, despite Dick's brightness, the
little fellow was scarcely able to touch his supper. As
soon as the meal was finished Aunt Georgie took the
young travellers off to bed, hoping that after a good
night's rest they would be somewhat recovered from
the effects of the long journey.
When Aunt Georgie went into Christine's room to
O
kiss her, as she did every night before the little girl went
to sleep, Christine held up her funny enamelled ring
and told her how Teddy had given it to her.
" I don't approve of my little girl's having jewel-
lery," she said. " It seems to me it will be plenty of
time when she is seventeen or eighteen for her to have
a ring."
Christine sat up in bed in dismay.
" Oh, dear Auntie, may I not wear it? I like it so
much. It looks so pretty on my finger that I'm sure
I shall remember to keep my hands nicer and not forget
to wash them after I have been playing, and not bite
my nails." For Christine, as I have said before, was a
sadly careless little girl in many ways, and the condition
of her hands tried Aunt Georgie sorely.
" Perhaps you would," said Aunt Georgie kindly.
COUSINS. 101
" We will see. After all, it is a very simple ring and
is not set with a stone, which I could not allow; only
you must never take anything else from Teddy without
asking me."
Christine promised and put her arms around her
aunt's neck, kissing her again and again.
" Dear," said Aunt Georgie, " I think we must make
this a magic ring, which not only will keep your hands
clean but will do something for Teddy as well. One
day on the steamer I heard him use a very bad expres-
sion which I did not like to hear from his lips, or think
my little girl might hear. So I think if you are to wear
his ring he ought to promise something too that he
will never use any words which are coarse and swear-
ing."
Christine thought so too. She kissed Aunt Georgie
good-night warmly and fell asleep with the hand which
wore the magic ring tucked under her warm cheek.
CIIAPTEE X.
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS.
T was several days before little Dick was quite
recovered from the effects of the journey,
but he won all hearts by his uncomplain-
ing conduct. It was a happy hour when he was able to
go out to the stable and inspect the small sturdy brown
pony named Whiskers which Aunt Georgie had bought
for him to drive in a little low tan-coloured cart. The
little beast evidently realized to whom he belonged, for
when Dick put out his hand he put his nose confidingly
down into it. It was characteristic of the boy that all
animals displayed the utmost confidence in him.
Of course Dick had to see Bunny and the guinea-
pig, now grown double their original size, and by the
time the inspection was over Whiskers had been har-
nessed and they tried his gait up and down the street
in front of the house, with Aunt Georgie looking out
of the window.
102
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS. 103
For some days Dick and Christine were thrown a
good deal in each other's society for Jack had begun
school right away, he was in the class with Teddy
and they soon got very much at home with each other
and had good long drives in the afternoon behind the
amiable little pony, whom Christine grew very fond of,
though he never quite obliterated the glorified memory
of Cherie.
The next week Miss Baldwin's school began, and
Dick also commenced his lessons. He used to drive
Christine and her books to the door every morning and
come for her when school was out. It was always a
happy moment for her when she saw her cousin and the
funny pony scampering down the street, for, truth to
tell, her school hours were far from happy. It was
all so different from the school in the Eue des petits
enfants, where only the biggest girls were in fractions,
and the gentle sisters with their sweet voices were al-
ways ready to stop and explain the simple lessons, and
took more pride in the girls' embroidery than in any
of their other studies. Christine felt that here she was
expected to know everything. She had to be put into
a very low grade with quite little girls, and even they
104; CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
seemed to spin through quantities of lessons with such
rapidity that after a morning of marching from one
class-room to another and opening books on all sorts of
topics Christine was quite bewildered. She said nothing
about it at home, hoping that she would soon grow into
American ways, but, alas! she only seemed to get more
and more involved.
" TThat is the science class? ' she asked one day in
despair of the girl next to her as she surveyed this ap-
palling name on her programme.
" About creation and creatures," said the girl sharp-
ly; " don't you know that? '
" And zoology ? ?
" About animals."
" And Delsarte ? "
" How to wriggle gracefully."
It sounded a good deal like " wreathing ' and
" writhing " and " fainting in coils," Christine thought.
She sighed in despair. And all these lessons coming
on that day, she became so discouraged at her ignorance
that when school was over she rushed awav without wait-
t-
ing for little Dick. She burst into the house and rushed
to Aunt Georgie weeping as though her heart would
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS. 1Q5
break. At first her aunt could not understand about
it at all, for Miss Baldwin's was considered a very fine
school; but when she came to look over the school-
books and see so many subjects, she was much surprised,
for little girls did not study such difficult topics in her
young days.
She kept Christine at home for a few days, and was
really distressed to know what to do with the child until
she thought of a young friend of hers, Miss Howe, who
was educating her nieces Lily and Isabel Xorton, and
who would not be averse to having another little girl
join them in their studies.
So Christine was sent to Miss Howe, and her les-
sons became a joy and a pleasure to her, for indeed she
was not a dull child at all. She came to love her teacher
and her little mates, though they were none of them
so brilliant as to be studying " ologies " before they were
in their teens, but were quite far enough along for their
years. There were no more piles of heavy books to be
carried home and no more bursts of hysterical weeping,
and Christine's school hours were as they should be
among her happiest hours.
There was a great square hall at the top of the house
8
106 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
which boasted an old haircloth sofa, some battered easy-
chairs, and a piano which was not so new that the chil-
dren's playing could spoil it, nor so old that it had lost
its tone. Here the children kept their multifarious
traps, workboxes, games, etc., and on rainy days it was
the gathering place for Teddy and the Norton girls as
well. Dick had a special place on the sofa, and never
mind how his back ached, or how much the rain had
given him pains in his bones, he was always found
cheerfully lying there in a little heap, his bright eyes
and mussed-up hair giving him the appearance of a
downy chicken in a nest of cushions. He was always
ready to join in anything as an audience, dear little Dick.
One rainy afternoon when the children were all as-
sembled the girls sat in a ring around the fire, with a
mysterious collection of lace and ribbons which they
were fashioning into a set of toilet cases for Miss Howe.
Teddy was as usual doing nothing, and Jack, who nei-
ther cared to talk, to girls nor seemed to hit it off with
Teddy, sat in his corner, for he had a chalk mark on
the floor to mark off his own especial place, and got
very angry if any one stepped inside of it or touched
his things.
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS. 1Q7
Jack always seemed to despise the other children.
He never would join in their roinps, which he said were
babyish. He did not seem able to adjust himself as
Dick did to the new conditions of his life. Clever as
he was at his lessons, he could not get along with the
other boys at school, who called him " Fatty 7 and
scorned his overbearing ways. He had been used to
being considered a superior being by the native boys
at home, and his vanity had been so fostered and the
indolent lazy side of his nature so developed by the easy
tropical life, where there was always a servant at every
hand, that rubbing against a number of young people
who were just as good as he, kept his temper in a con-
stant state of friction. He knew that his father had sent
him on with Dick, who was being treated by a great
Boston doctor, just to break up his domineering ways,
which had long been a source of great grievance to his
parents, and that they thought a few years with other
boys of his own class would rub off his angles and pe-
culiarities. But as yet Jack had simply retired into his
shell, hating Boston and eastern ways, disliking the
regular habits upon which Aunt Georgie insisted, and,
while not making himself actively disagreeable, show-
108 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
ing by his manner that he wasn't going to be soft-
soaped into being pleasant and agreeable when he did
not feel so.
Christine loved little Dick, and indeed who could
help it? She would sit beside him during the hours
that he had to lie still, and he would tell her all about
his home, of their great tropical garden full of bushes
of jasmine and pomegranate, of the great blue bay where
he watched the other children dive and swim half the
day, and of the volcano which belched forth lava and
smoke when it was angry. He knew many stories also
that his native nurse had told him afternoons when he
lay in his hammock under the fragrant branches tales
of the days when all men and creatures were one great
family and the sharks did not bite nor the insects sting
because they were men's brothers.
All this was most beautiful, Christine thought, and
she felt it must be lovely to live on an island which
glowed with flowers and sunshine all the year round.
But with her elder cousin she could make no head-
way at all. Her advances toward friendship had
been treated will chilling reserve, and Jack said one
day that girls were not thought much of in Hawaii,
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS. 109
especially if they had red hair, which incensed her
deeply.
Such was the state of affairs there this rainy after-
noon when every one was kept in the house. Jack had
ensconced himself in his chalked-off corner, which, along
with his tool chest and other possessions, contained a
little row of bottles of harmless acids and chemicals
w r hich had been used in his chemistry class. The study
was one which the boy took a special interest in, and
although he knew that there was no danger in any of
the fluids, he had warned the girls not to touch any
of them for fear of being blown up. He tried to study
out some experiments that he had heard the larger boys
talking about, but the buzz of conversation was entirely
too disturbing. He wished girls didn't chatter so.
And just then Christine teasingly called attention to
his glowing face.
" Jack looks like a professor, doesn't he ? '
Jack turned red and was going to answer angrily
when the rest all broke in,
' Oh, yes, let's call Jack the professor; it just suits
him."
" I wish you would leave me alone and keep still,"
HO CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
said Jack angrily. " You chatter so that a person can't
think; I never knew such chatterboxes as girls are."
The girls were properly indignant. It was their
recreation time and they had a good right to talk;
they felt that Jack with his superior airs should be
shown that they weren't to be ordered to keep still.
So, instead of being quieter, they only made more noise,
singing as loud as they could:
" Oh, give me a ride, dear, do,"
Said the duck to the kangaroo.
" My life is a bore in this nasty dull pond,
And I long to get out in the world beyond.
I wish I could hop like you,"
Said the duck to the kangaroo.
Every one joined in the chorus, whooping up the
" roo roo roo," and Teddy pounded out the time on
the banister to add to the hubbub.
More rollicking choruses followed, and Jack was at
a white heat. Little Dick, the peacemaker, with a desire
for quelling the racket, began singing native songs, and
Jack, who had one soft spot in his heart and that was
for his little brother leaned back in his corner, angry,
homesick, and wretched, while Dick's sweet soprano
voice rang out the pretty birdlike words of the song
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS.
that their nurse had sung to them when they were
babies :
Haa heo kanina pali
Ke ni hiae la i kana hele
E uhai ana papa ikaliko
Pua lehua ahihi O U ka.
Aloha oe ! Aloha oe !
E ke ona ona noho i ka lipo.
But alas! when little Dick stopped singing after
many, many encores, backs were tired of bending over
sewing and legs needed to be shaken out. A wild game
of blind-man's-buff ensued, and then of puss in the cor-
ner. Of course it was impossible for Jack to go on
with his work with boys and girls flying wildly around
the hall calling " Puss! ' " Puss! ' and Aunt Georgie
had expressly forbidden his shutting himself up in his
room w T hen the others were together. If Aunt Georgie
had been at home he would have gone to her, and she
would certainly have seen that his temper was sorely
tried and have kept him with her; but she was out for
the afternoon, and Jack remained in his corner nurs-
ing his rage.
When the game was over and the girls had gone
down stairs to arrange their dishevelled hair and Teddy
112 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
had carried little Dick off to give him a tune on his
fiddle, Jack sat brooding sullenly, his heart full of anger
and a great temptation knocking at the door; there was
nothing to keep it out, so in it went, as temptations
always do when the door is standing ajar for them. He
had had a bad toothache some days before and Aunt
Georgie had given him some soothing drops to rub the
gum with. She had a medicine chest in her room which
contained such simple remedies as the household might
suddenly need. It was usually kept locked, but to-day
Jack knew that it was not, for he had just remem-
berer to return the bottle of toothache drops before
he came up to the play hall and the lid had been
partly open, Aunt Georgie evidently having forgotten
to close it. Jack had looked at all the bottles curiously,
but the one that attracted his attention most was labelled
" Chloroform."
Now Jack, with his love of science and chemistry,
had heard of this wonderful drug that surgeons use to
put people to sleep, and this afternoon the bad, wicked
thought came into his mind that he would get the bottle
and put Christine's Bunny to sleep just to see how he
would behave. No sooner thought than, I am sorry
SCHOOL HOURS AND PLAY HOURS. H3
to say, Jack went down to Aunt Georgia's room she
was still away and having secured the bottle, went
to the hutch and caught Bunny, bringing him into the
house under his coat.
Bunny did not like the smell of chloroform at all.
He wriggled and twisted and finally lay quite still.
There was not so much fun in the experiment as Jack
had fancied. He wished the rabbit would begin to wake
up, but he lay quite stark and stiff as though dead. He
began to be afraid that he was dead, and was in great
trouble, for he had not meant to hurt the little creature
in the least.
Now Christine, though she had teasing ways, was
always sorry afterward, and when she found Jack
was staying all by himself upstairs her conscience
pricked her and she went up to ask him to come
down. There she found him with a candle, for it
was quite dark now, bending over poor little dead
Bunny.
Teddy was astonished a few minutes afterward when
he went upstairs to say good-bye, to see her sitting on
the floor weeping, rocking herself in perfect agony over
the little ball of fur.
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Jack killed Bunny ! Jack killed Bunny ! ' she
sobbed.
Teddy felt of the rabbit.
" It's quite dead. Did you do it, Jack? '
" Yes, but I didn't mean to."
He got no further, for Teddy doubled up his fists
and Jack went reeling backward. Then something hap-
pened which Jack could never have foreseen when he
took the chloroform out of the chest; but bad deeds
follow quickly on each other. He caught at the table-
cloth to save his fall and the candle and the bottle of
chloroform were overturned. Chloroform is a terrible
explosive. It went off with a terrible report, and Jack
was badly burned while poor little Christine was almost
scared out of her wits.
Aunt Georgie, who had just come in, heard the
noise and dashed upstairs to see what was the matter.
It was a sad sight that met her eyes, and she had her
hands full quieting Christine, putting Jack to bed, and
sending for the doctor. Teddy went home, taking poor
little Bunny's body to be buried, and a strange hush
and quiet fell over the usually merry house.
CHAPTER XL
SAD DAYS.
ICK and Christine could scarcely eat any sup-
per they were so sad and upset, and they
spent a forlorn evening together. Dick
started to tune his violin, but Christine said piteously,
" Oh, don't play, Dick," so they sat in melancholy si-
lence. At last when the clock struck half past eight
Dick hobbled across the room and said:
" You'll go up now it's most bedtime and say
good-night to Jack, won't you? '
" No, no, Dick."
" Yes you- will, dear."
" 2s"o, not if a person had gone and hurt something
you loved you couldn't forgive them right away. I
know you couldn't."
Dick's eyes shone like stars.
" There was a little boy " he said unsteadily " a
<J V
little boy who always would be a little boy because his
115
116 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
nurse dropped him when lie was a baby, and one day lie
went out to see her at "
" Dick, Dick! 3 cried Christine, putting her arms
around his neck. " I know what you are going to say,
dear that he forgave her for it, and if you could for-
give such a terrible thing I'm sure I ought to forgive
Jack."
She was struck to the heart to think how unfor-
giving she had felt, and the death of the rabbit was
really such a little thing in comparison with her cousin's
being maimed for life.
" Oh, Dick, Dick, you're so good ! ' she said, rump-
ling up his hair into most grotesque fashion with her
hugs.
" !N"o, no, dear, I'm not a bit good; you mustn't say
so," he said, putting his hand over her mouth. " You
don't know how awful I feel inside sometimes. I talk
to Fred, and you can't fancy how I abuse and torment
him and what awful rages I get into. Oh, he used to
have a terrible time before I got my fiddle; now when
I feel myself getting all horrid I play on the violin
mostly and it says beautiful, beautiful things to me, but
once in a while I have to let out on Fred."
SAD DAYS. 117
" Fred ! ' cried Christine in astonishment. " But
who is Fred ? '
" Oh, Fred! Did I never tell you about him before?
"Well, he's my imagined friend. Didn't you ever have
an imagined friend? '
" Xo," said Christine.
" I thought of him ever so long ago. Mamma and
I, when the other children used to play hide and seek
and run-around games, used to play thinking games;
then we thought it would be nice to have some one else
play with us, so I thought of having a little play friend
Fred."
" I never heard anything so dear."
" "When I grew bigger and mamma was so busy with
the native school and the other children that she didn't
have time to play so much with me, Fred and I got to
be great chums. You don't know what a comfort he
was to me before I got the fiddle."
It seemed as though the little boy could almost see
his friend in his mind's eye.
Despite his assertions, Christine did not believe that
he led Fred a very hard life. They went upstairs to-
gether with their arms around each other's shoulders
118 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
lovingly, and at Jack's door the little man gave her a
last encouraging hug while Christine knocked timidly.
" Come in, dear/ 7 said Aunt Georgie, smiling sweet-
ly at her, glad that she was not going to rest with angry
thoughts against her cousin in her heart. " I thought
my little girl would be in. Jack is very ill, dear, and
I am glad you came. I think he has been listening,
hoping you would come, but he did not want me to
send for you. He is in great pain, so you must only
stay a moment. 7 '
How glad Christine was that she had come when
she saw how terribly ill her cousin looked! His hands
were swathed in great masses of cotton and the colour
of his feverish cheeks was heightened by the white pil-
low and the cold compress bound across his forehead.
Christine had never seen any one who was so very ill
before, and her heart nearly burst with compassion.
Without a word she knelt down beside the bed and put
her arras around his shoulders, laying her soft cheek
against his.
Poor Jack ! All his self-confidence in his knowledge
and power melted away in the shock of the accident and
the terrible pain from the burns which he had endured
SAD DAYS. 119
with absolute heroism. lie had gritted his teeth and
not a moan had escaped him, but now Christine's lov-
ing touch was more than he could bear, and for a few
moments he sobbed, hiding his face against hers. Then
for he could not move his poor maimed hands the
little girl pressed her apron against his hot eyes.
" Dear little Christine ! ' he said, and then the
cousins kissed each other for the first time a dear lov-
ing kiss that meant forgiveness and toleration on both
sides.
For days Jack lay very ill, for to add to the burns
he had a high fever. The house was so hushed and
quiet that the children spoke together in whispers, in-
stead of their former bursts of fun and laughter. Chris-
tine and little Dick were not allowed to enter the room,
but as soon as they returned from school they would
creep upstairs and wait outside Jack's door to catch the
nurse or Aunt Georgie coming out and hear the very
latest news.
Teddy, too, Jack's absolute foe, forgot his enmity in
the common sorrow. His self-reproach for the part he
had played in the tragedy was keen. He never let his
feelings come uppermost in this sad time, but upheld
120 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
the others bravely, keeping Christine out of the house
as much as possible and interesting her in the selection
of the fresh flowers which she sent every day to the
sick-room with a loving message. It was a happy day
indeed when the doctor pronounced that the fever was
going down, and then Jack mended rapidly, though
the children when they were admitted to his room could
scarcely believe that the gaunt, hollow-eyed form
stretched out so languidly was the fat, robust boy of a
few weeks before. But the change in Jack's outward
appearance was nothing in comparison to the difference
that the hours of suffering had wrought in his character.
The killing of the rabbit had brought him face to face
with the seriousness of the consequences attending his
ungoverned temper and had taught him a lesson that
he never forgot as long as he lived. He was shy and
ashamed of meeting the others at first, but as his con-
valescence progressed and he found that his sick-room
was made the centre for the children's gatherings, and
that everything was given up in which he had been in-
cluded, his shame gave way to a feeling nearer to love
and unselfish affection than he had ever known in his
life before.
SAD DAYS. 121
His first going downstairs was made a regular fete
by the whole household. But before he left the room
he made a clean breast to Aunt Georgie of how he had
been tempted to get the chloroform out of the medicine
chest, and how he had only intended to experiment on
Bunny and had had no idea that the drug would kill
him.
Aunt Georgie had never spoken to him of the mat-
ter, thinking that he had been sufficiently punished.
But she was glad that he would speak of it him-
self.
When we are doing wrong, things turn out dif-
ferently from what we intend," she said gravely. " It
wasn't very kind and manly to try experiments on a poor
little animal who could not tell you whether it was suf-
fering or not, now was it? '
" Are manly and kind the same things? '
" Yes, dear, I think so. The knights of chivalry
whom you are so fond of reading about protected weak
women and the oppressed. Now that our civilization
has settled most of the questions they fought for, it
seems to me that nineteenth-century knights not only
should be kind and gentle in their thoughts to all with
122 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
whom they come in contact, but they should be espe-
cially tender of all dumb creatures."
Jack, who was very fond of reading about the brave
men in the old wars, looked red and ashamed.
" I'll never torment an animal again/' he said.
Then Aunt Georgie told him of the great Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which looks
after the rights and wrongs of creatures, and punishes
those who maltreat them; and seeing a new look of
resolution and thought on the boy's face, she put her
arm lovingly around him and said:
" Dear Jack, you mustn't think about it any more.
It is by such mistakes and such lessons that we see our
faults and learn to correct them."
K"or indeed was that all his contrition, for Teddy
blurting out that he was sorry to have exploded him,
Jack answered manfully enough:
" You needn't be sorry. I've lived out there in
Hawaii and bossed the native boys on the plantation
until I forgot that I couldn't always have my own way.
That's why father sent me here. I'm awfully ashamed
of myself, but indeed that won't bring the rabbit to life
or make you and Christine ever like me again."
SAD DAYS. 123
" Xonsense ! ' said Teddy. "I like you ever so
much better than I did before, and as for Christine, she
has told me every day how patient you've been; she's
the last one to bear malice."
So the matter was all forgiven and, save for Jack's
scarred hands, passed out of every one's mind. Indeed,
the common sorrow had united the once discordant ele-
ments in the household, and instead of being barely
tolerated, and barely tolerating, Jack had found his
place in their hearts and he appreciated it at its full
value.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PLAY'S THE THING.
JUT Aunt Georgie had received a great shock
in the accident with the chloroform, and
while she had no intentions of putting the
young people under surveillance, she decided to keep
a little more with them than before, so she proposed
to Christine that Lily and Isabel Norton should come
over on rainy afternoons, and that the preparations for
Christmas that were then being carried on should be
done in company. Every one was to sit with their
backs to every one else, and some little screens and
chairs with draperies having been arranged, the girls
settled down in their corners with their workboxes and
mysteriously covered packages.
Dick was struggling with some wood carving, Teddy
was doing what he fancied was an architectural draw-
ing, and Jack lay nursing his hand and watching them
all.
124
"
"
THE PLAY'S THE THING. 125
" ISTow wouldn't you like me to read to you? ' said
Aunt Georgie.
" Yes! Yes! ' they all cried.
" What shall I read?"
" The Jungle Book," said Lily.
" The Pathfinder," said Teddy.
" The Old-Fashioned Girl," suggested Christine.
" Afloat in the Forest," added Jack.
" Alice in the Looking Glass," said Isabel.
Water Babies," said Dick.
What a library ! Every one has told me what they
would like, but none of the books would quite suit you
all. How would you like a grown-up people's book? '
" A book," said Dick, " that if we were grown up we
would all be sure to like? '
" Yes."
" Oh, do read us a grown-up book," they all shouted.
" I'll begin it," said Aunt Georgie, " and if you
don't like it you must say so."
Then she began The Lady of the Lake. At the
very first lines about the hunt and the wild mountains
in Scotland the boys pricked up their ears, and the girls
too listened attentively, although the poem did not pos-
126 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
sess much interest for them until the place where the
Lady of the Lake appears in her skiff upon the loch.
" Is every one asleep? ' said Aunt Georgie, look-
ing up from the book.
Six pairs of bright eyes were looking fixedly at her
and six pairs of hands were reaching for the work that
had been laid down in the interest of listening.
" Go on," they shouted.
But Aunt Georgie would not read any more that
day. Too much sitting still was not good for boys and
girls she thought. She sent down for some sponge
cake, and when it had mysteriously disappeared and
the children were refreshed she struck up a gay tune
on the piano and they played " puss in the corner ? to
inspiring melodies.
It rained nearly all that week, for there is a great
deal of bad weather during the winter in Boston, and
Aunt Georgie and The Lady of the Lake were in great
demand during the long wet afternoons. Out of it grew
a new and amazing idea, but that was owing to little
Dick, who was always full of expedients for the amuse-
ment of others.
" Do you know," he said one afternoon after the
THE PLAY'S THE THING. 127
reading, " I think it would be beautiful to act The
Ladv of the Lake. Jack has acted out home and we
/
think he did splendidly. Let's try it."
The idea took like wildfire. " Let's have the play
for Christmas. Let's surprise Auntie. Who'll be
who? ' they all cried at once.
Christine must be the Lady, but who will be Rod-
erick Dim and James Fitz- James and Malcolm Graeme?
There were really not boys enough to go around, but
it was finally decided that Teddy should be Fitz-James,
Jack be Roderick Dim, and Dick should be a minstrel
and sing a Scotch song by the camp fire.
" It doesn't seem as though we need have Malcolm
Graeme in it at all," said Isabel, who was great for
ways and means. " He doesn't do much; he only mar-
ries the Lady."
So Malcolm was left out as well as Fitz-James's " gal-
lant gray," for they concluded that their first idea to
have Whiskers act the part was impossible, as Aunt
Georgie would never allow him to come into the draw-
ing-room.
Now began arranging of scenes and costumes which
exercised all the ingenuity of which they were capable.
128 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
In the first place, an old plaid bed-spread furnished
forth the kilts for the " bold highland men." The lake
and skiff, however, were terrible questions which quite
paralyzed their imaginations, and the play might have
been given up had not Frank, Teddy's big brother who
went to Harvard, come to their rescue. He suggested
a row of rushes at the front of the stage for the bank
and a big pasteboard prow of a boat with Christine sit-
ting behind it as though she was rowing.
Indeed, Frank was the most good-natured of big
brothers, and he stage managed and property managed
the piece into great shape.
But you must not think that all the days were spent
indoors over Christmas presents and rehearsals. The
weather cleared off cold and the ponds were frozen over
and made excellent skating. If there was one sport that
Christine was fond of it was skating. The meadows
along the Seine at Yerverney had often been frozen
over, and she and her father would run down from
Paris and stay a few days at the cottage while the ice
held. Her skates seemed clumsy enough besides the
boys' sharp American ones, and they thought she would
never be able to manage them, but she only laughed
THE PLAY'S THE THING. 129
and struck out as freely on the ice as any of them.
What fun they all had those afternoons flying about in
the cold with glowing pulses and rosy cheeks! Then
when it grew dark little Dick and Whiskers would
appear to drive Christine home. It was a great game
with Teddy and Jack to see how nearly they could beat
the pony. They would dash off their skates and sprint
up the street after the scampering pony, who always
seemed to appreciate the race in which, of course, he
always came in ahead. The merry crew quite woke up
Mount Yernon Street with their ringing laughter and
merry ways. Aunt Georgia, at the window seeing them
come, as she looked into their bright faces would live
over her own youth with her dear sister and think to her-
self, " I^o children are happier than mine."
Amid all the new distractions and attractions of
Christine's life she missed her father more than any
one would have supposed, and when Mr. Averil re-
turned early in December she felt as though her cup
of happiness was complete.
Mr. Averil took a studio in one of the big buildings
near Mount Yernon Street and settled down to his paint-
ing for the winter, but he decided that it was best for
130 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
his little girl with her foreign training to live in an
American household, and as Aunt Georgie's house was
wide enough for many extra members, Christine and
her father continued to live there.
At first Christine felt badly at not having her father
all to herself as in the bygone days in France, but he
pointed out to her that they would never be able to get
along without Bon femme, and he promised that when
she was eighteen she should keep house for him, only
she must learn to keep things in order and how to man-
age a house so that affairs should go smoothly. This
was quite a comfort to Christine and seemed to dis-
pose of the question which was always bothering her
as to her having no particular talents. She might have
a talent for keeping house.
Shortly after this talk the medley of collars, laces,
and ribbons which formed the contents of her top drawer
were put in order. With constant labour it remained
so for the most part until it grew to be Christine's
second nature to keep things tidy. Although eighteen
was a long way off, she found that she did not have to
wait until then to be a great help and assistance to her
father.
THE PLAY'S THE THING.
Mr. Averil came home from the studio one day quite
worried and worn out. He had had a discouraging
afternoon, for he was to have begun the portrait of a
little boy, and the child had absolutely refused to keep
still, wriggling, twisting, and making up faces until it
was impossible to paint a stroke.
It was an important commission intended as a Christ-
mas gift for the child's grandmother, and Mr. Averil
was in despair.
" Papa," said Christine, " don't you remember how
I used to talk to Beppo, the little Italian model who
wriggled so? Now why can't I come to the studio and
try to keep this little Tommy Higgleston amused? '
It was a forlorn hope, but Mr. Averil concluded
that she might try, and when Tommy arrived the next
day Christine was there sitting by the window.
Tommy Higgleston was certainly a beautiful little
boy to look at. He was five years old and had a little
peachy face like a cherub and a mass of lovely yellow
curls. Tommy hated curls; hair only an inch long was
good enough for him. He hated being told what a
beautiful child he was. Having a portrait painted when
he was all dressed up and curled was the last added in-
132 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
suit to having been kept clean for five whole years. It
was in vain that his mother told him that he looked
like a Vandyke in his gray velvet suit with its broad
lace collar. He didn't know what a Vandyke was, and
he didn't care; he onlv knew that he wanted to tear
t/
up his collar and cut his hair off with his dull penknife.
" Tommy will be good to-day," his mother said,
drawing him reluctantly into the studio door.
Tommy wasn't so sure about being good. He knew
he had deserved the whipping he had received the day
before, and he only hoped he wouldn't deserve another
to-day. When he saw Christine he knew that she would
stare at him and make him naughtier than ever.
But Christine did not stare. She went right on with
what she was doing, and Tommy watched her with big
round eyes. First she folded a piece of paper in squares,
then she drew some lines on it, and cutting away, dis-
closed a whole row of paper doll horses; then she took
a water-colour brush and asked:
" Would vou like them brown or black? '
V
Tommy was fascinated.
" Brown, with a red saddle."
Christine and the water-colour box did great exe-
THE PLAY'S THE THING. 133
cution, and horses were not the limit of her capabilities.
Dogs and cats, girls and boys she could cut them all
out with nimble fingers. She would tell stories about
them too, so that the sitting wore away before Tommy
had time to be naughty.
Then Christine made some tea for Mrs. Higgleston,
and she and Tommy had some of a very light cambric
varietv on the model stand.
u
" AVill you be here next time? ' said Tommy as he
went away.
i/
" Yes."
" Then I don't mind coming a bit." And the sturdy
little fellow clattered down the stairs without waiting
for his mother, who thanked Christine again and again.
After that the portrait came on famously and
Tommy and Christine got to be great chums.
Teddy would often come over after the sittings to
look at the picture, and then they would bring out the
big books of photographs that Mr. Averil had collected
abroad. As they pored over the pages Teddy would
tell Christine how when he was studying to be an archi-
tect in Paris he should go in his vacations to see all
the galleries and the beautiful buildings in Europe.
134: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Perhaps you and your father will come over and
we can all see them together/ 7 he added.
They got in the habit of planning long trips to-
gether, spending quite a long time in each place and
seeing every picture in the books. They seriously quar-
relled one day in the beautiful tiled courtyard of the
Alhambra at Granada, and made up in Madrid in the
gallery among the portraits of the quaint little Infantas
and Infants which Velasquez painted.
Mr. Averil would interrupt their wanderings to tell
them interesting stories about this artist, who was a great
grandee and courtier as well as a painter; of the boy
Murillo painting holy pictures for a few dimes in the
market place of the town where he afterward became
so famous, and the legends and histories about many
other celebrated men and places.
Then when it was time for the studio to be closed
for the night the books would be reluctantly put aside,
and Christine and Teddy would dance home through the
cold streets, clinging to Mr. Averil's arm, and come in
with their cheeks tingling with the cold and their appe-
tites sharpened for supper.
CHAPTER XIII.
TREASURE TROVE.
[HRISTINE was much surprised at the prep-
arations that went on for Christmas, for
they do not make much of a festival of it in
France. The loads of holly and mistletoe, the making
of wreaths and garlands, the general tone of high festiv-
ity that filled the house, was very exciting indeed. Aunt
Georgie's closet was filled with parcels Aunt Georgie
being in possession of every one's secrets and advising
wisely so that presents were not duplicated.
It was planned that the children should give their
play and have their tree on Christmas eve, and that the
following night it should be lighted again and rehung
with gifts for Aunt Georgie's mission class. The
schools were out for a week's vacation, and as Lily and
Isabel Norton had been asked to spend it with Christine,
the house rang with merriment from morning until
night.
135
136 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
A great change had come over Jack since his acci-
dent. He was so glad not to be greeted as " Fatty '
when he returned to school that he took up training and
gymnastics in earnest in strong contrast to the inert,
sluggish life which he had led before. His eyes grew
bright, his carriage erect and manly, and his heavy si-
lent ways gave way to a more boyish unconsciousness.
Of course he did not conquer himself at once. Over
and over again he would sink back into his old inertia
and find himself starting to tyrannize over some one
weaker. But he had good stuff in him at bottom, and
he would begin again bravely. The boys at school,
always ready to give each other their due, began to vote
that Jack Learning wasn't half bad, and many of the
fellows who had treated him to the cold shoulder at
first grew quite chummy with the once-despised
" Fatty."
As Christmas drew near, the boy puzzled and
thought over a suitable gift for Christine. He wanted
to make up to her forever and forever for the rabbit's
death, she had forgiven him so generously at the time
and had stuck so loyally to him since in all his blue and
silent moods. Being of somewhat an unexpressive na-
TREASURE TROVE. 137
ture, lie was afraid she might not understand how much
he appreciated it, and a very glorious gift he thought
was the best way to show his gratitude.
So he saved his pocket money, denying himself
sweets of which he was very fond, and breaking up his
indolent habits by walking and saving car fares. He
asked no one's advice in the matter. He wanted it to
be quite his own idea, and a few days before Christ-
mas he went around with a beaming expression. He
had made up his mind and the present was found.
Aunt Georgie gave both he and Teddy a certain
sum to purchase new skates, which were to be hung on
the tree and not worn until Christmas day. The boys
tore themselves awav from the last rehearsal of The
/
Lady with difficulty and went off to purchase them,
which they thought was half the fun of possession.
Though their choice had been made for weeks and
weeks, they could not resist the delight of looking over
all the shining blades and seeing once more all the
skates in the shop.
At last, however, Teddy said:
" Two pairs of those."
' ~No, only one pair," said Jack. " I'm going to
10
138 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
buy something else. Aunt Georgie told me the money
was my very own and that I could spend it as I liked."
skates whew! ' said Teddy.
/' said Jack as they left the shop, " if you like
you can come with me. I've saved all my allowance
for a month, and with my skate money I've seven dol-
lars. I'm going to get the most beautiful present for
Christine that will just make her forget all about the
rabbit."
" Seven dollars! ' gasped Teddy.
Jack as a bondholder walked ahead proudly, Teddy
following.
" You know," he said, " Christine is so fond of pic-
tures, so I knew if I got her a picture I should just
suit her. I've found a pair of real oil paintings that are
seven dollars. I knew they were just the thing she
would like, but I thought I would like you to see them
before I bought them."
Teddy was sure that pictures were the very thing
Christine would like, and was properly flattered at his
opinion, as a connoisseur, being asked. Beside such a
royal gift as real oil paintings his own present of a fluffy
St. Bernard puppy sunk into insignificance. He real-
TREASURE TROVE. 139
ized Jack's feeling in the matter and felt that to deny
one's self new skates and practise small economies for a
month was making reparation with a vengeance.
The place where Jack's treasures reposed was a small
dingy shop where battered silver teapots and cracked
blue china was exposed in the window. He led the way
in proudly and pointed to the pictures which were on
the counter. Teddy looked from one to the other and
his heart sank. Of course he did not know much about
oil paintings, but it seemed to him that they were not
usually so bright and shiny. He remembered the ones
in the galleries abroad were quite dull, but he knew
they were very old- -perhaps they had started out this
way. He was afraid Christine would like old ones
better.
The pictures were very large and framed in glitter-
ing new frames. In one a bright-red cow was walking
down a steep blue stream while a milkmaid Avas issuing
from a cottage so strange in perspective that when she
was inside, her head must certainly have had to stick
out of the chimney. The companion piece was the same
gay milkmaid driving the cow home up the hill, which
it seemed to adhere to as a fly does to the ceiling.
140 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" The frames are real gilt," said the shopman en-
ticingly.
This last remark nearly persuaded Jack to the pur-
chase. He was just going to take out his savings when
Teddy's big brother Frank, passing by, saw the boys
and came into the shop with a friendly
" Hello, youngsters, what's up? '
He looked at the pictures and listened to Jack's ex-
planation and his breathless demands for Frank's opin-
ion of his contemplated purchase. Then he turned to
the man. " You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he
said sternly, " trying to swindle a little chap like that
out of his money- Those are not old paintings at all,
Jack, but chromos not worth a dollar. If I hear of your
trying such a trick again I'll report you to the police,
so vou'd better look out " he continued to the cowed
V
shopman as he led the w r ay out into the street.
Poor Jack was absolutely crushed at the downfall
of his plan. He looked so dejected that Frank patted
him cheerfully on the back and said kindly:
" Come now, don't feel so badly. Seven dollars is a
lot of money. I think your idea of a picture is just
the thing for Christine, but I'd go to some first-rate pic-
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
A.STOR. L.ENOX AND
TLLDEN FOUNDATIONS
The Victory of the Loiivre.
TREASURE TROVE.
tare shop to get it. If you like, I'll go along and help
you choose."
" Oh, please come," replied Jack gratefully. And
just then both he and Teddy caught sight of something
in a window across the way, and they gave a loud yell
and took to their heels, leaving Frank to follow as be-
fitted his more dignified years.
You will remember the Victory in the Louvre that
Christine went to say good-bye to. She had a beautiful
photograph of it in her room and the boys knew that it
was a great treasure, for when they would tease her to
tell them about Paris there was nothing that she would
speak of so often as the statue in the Luxembourg Gar-
den which her mother had designed, and the Victory
that stood at the head of the stairway in the Louvre.
And there in this Boston street, in a shop window,
was a plaster cast of a woman's figure with wings out-
spread, standing on the prow of a ship, just as Christine
had described it.
The Italian who kept the shop which was full of
casts in plaster from all sorts of beautiful works of art
said, " Oh, yes, that was the Victory." He had just
brought it back from Paris.
142 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
It was less ever so much less than the terrible
chronics, and Jack bought it at once. The bovs saw
O i/
it swathed in tissue paper and put in a big basket to
be sent home.
Then Frank advised, since there was plenty of
money left over, that Jack should have his skates and
that the boys should speed off to get them before it
was time for the shop to close.
Jack wrung his hand as they separated and said:
" Thank you for helping me out." And then he and
Teddy took to their heels, dashing in and out among
cars and trucks and carriages in the crowded shopping-
streets, and getting to their destination in good time to
examine the skates all over again before making their
purchase.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHRISTMAS.
T had been arranged to give the play at half
past seven o'clock on Christmas eve, and
to the surprise of all, but owing mainly to
Frank's wonderful stage management, the curtain was
promptly rung up at that hour. The audience, consist-
ing of not only the household but many friends and
neighbours, sat in rows in the dining-room just as though
they were at a real theatre. There was an extension at
the end of the room a square bay window raised two
or three steps that made a splendid stage, and though
the only exit was through a window into the butler's
pantry, Terence, the outdoor man, held a short ladder
against the sill and assisted the troupe up and down with
unfailing patience.
It must be owned that the star and most important
performer in the piece was a wonderful moon which
143
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Jack had made by means of glazed paper with a lamp
behind it, and the agitating question was not whether
every one knew their parts, but whether the moon would
work properly or not.
In the course of time you will undoubtedly read The
Lady of the Lake and know just what it is about, but
the play as they played it, with all the alterations and
changes which had to be made because of the limita-
tions of properties and performers, would have greatly
surprised and indeed somewhat amused Sir Walter Scott
I fancy.
When the audience was well assembled Frank read
in a clear distinct voice some verses of the canto, and
the curtain rose without a hitch on the stage which
was crowded with evergreens. Mr. Averil had outlined
a high snow-covered mountain on the blue paper-muslin
sky, and the moon soared above it in great style. There
were faint cries and windings of a horn in the distance,
and then Teddy, in tartan plaid, appeared in evident
distress. Then out from among the trees was shoved
the prow of the Lady's boat with Christine punting.
The moon shone forth with renewed vigour, and Teddy,
stepping in among the cat-tails and bulrushes which were
CHRISTMAS. 145
tastefully arranged as a bank, got into the skiff and it
was pulled out of sight.
This was really a very pretty scene. The dim wood,
the horn- -Teddy had driven his mother nearly dis-
tracted practising on it and the appearance of the Lady
in her fantastically fashioned boat, was deemed a great
success.
The next scene was in the Lady's home, the outlaws
being collected about a camp fire. Although the logs
did not burn, it gained a kind of cheerfulness from a
smoking kettle of hot water that hung over it. Several
of Teddy's classmates had agreed to be outlaws, and
they lounged about, a wild and awful company, while
Dick twanged on an old guitar, the nearest approach
they could find to a harp.
Then the Lady came in bringing James Fitz-James
and asking hospitality for the wanderer, introducing him
to her father, Roderick Dim, and the other outlaws,
and while they sat around the fire in amity Dick's sweet
voice rang out the ballad:
Merry it is in the good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing,
When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter's horn is ringing.
146 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in fairyland
When fairy birds are singing,
When the court doth ride by their monarch's side,
With bit and^bridle ringing.
The audience applauded loudly and demanded en-
core after encore until the small minstrel felt quite the
hero of the play.
Then the curtain went up again on the place where
Roderick Dhu guides James Fitz-James over the moun-
tains and where, to show the stranger his power, he
whistles, and from behind every heather bush there
starts a canny Scot in ambush. The outlaws, who had
now warmed to their work, came out from behind the
trees with ferocious mien wonderful to see, retreating
again as silent as they came.
According to the story, when James Fitz-James is
on his own land the outlaw challenges him to fight, and
the boys gave a pretty exhibition of their wrestling
powers which was good to see, although it was decreed
beforehand that Teddy must be the winner.
Last came the court scene, with the bandits turned
into loyal and elegant court gentlemen dressed in beauti-
ful silesia cloaks and fur-lined circulars doing duty as
ermine. Lily and Isabel Norton were resplendent in
CHRISTMAS. 147
trained skirts, and waved Aunt Georgie's big feather
fans as though they had been princesses all their lives.
Then enters the Lady in her simple plaid and looks
about to see which of the magnificent gentlemen is the
most magnificent, for of course he will be the king.
Suddenly the crowd parts, and all the gorgeous hats
sweep off, and all the courtly crowd bow low, and there,
with his head covered, in his simple suit of forest green,
stood Teddy raising the Lady, who had sunk to her
knees with surprise and loyalty,
" For James Fitz-James was Scotland's king."
Every one agreed that it was a very fine play, and
the happy troupe tripped down the ladder, glad to get
off their trains and finery and assume short frocks and
knickerbockers.
I can not begin to tell you of all the beautiful things
that were on the Christmas tree; how Jack's heart gave
a bound as Christine unwrapped the Victory; or her
rapture when Terence handed in a big basket which
was full of hay and out of it peeped a soft brown nose,
two floppy ears, and a pair of bright eyes. A puppy!
A big, soft, fluffy ball of fur tottering on four wobbly
legs.
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Keleased from the basket, he stuck out his soft red
tongue and whined, and clambered into Christine's lap.
"Is he for me absolutely for me? Oh, Teddy,
how could you ever give him away?"
" Well, I did want awfully to keep him myself.
He's a Saint Bernard," said Teddy with pride. " He'll
grow to be enormous, and his name is Benjamin, be-
cause he was the smallest of the puppies. You can call
him Ben for short."
"Or Jam," said Christine. "Why not call him
Jam, after the jam that the white queen had yesterday
but never to-day? "- -for she was just reading Alice
for the first time.
So Jam the puppy was called, and he slept at the
foot of Christine's bed in his basket until he grew to
be so big that he had to be transferred to the rug at the
door.
" Everywhere that Christine went her Jam was sure
to go," the boys said. And indeed his affection for his
mistress grew as rapidly as his legs, which ere long were
able to stride up the stairway, which at first he had been
unable to accomplish save by hopping from step to step.
But Jam was not the only surprise of the evening.
CHRISTMAS. 149
Every one wondered how all the secret wishes of their
hearts had been known; but perhaps little Dick was
the happiest of all as he sat hugging his gifts.
Aunt Georgie had a precious violin which had been
kept under a glass case. It was so old, the legend went,
that it had been made for the greatest master of the
sixteenth century, and had been handed down from col-
lection to collection until at last it had been owned by
Ole Bull, the great Xorwegian violinist.
AVhen he died his wife, who was a great friend of
Aunt Georgie, gave it to her in his memory. For years
it had reposed in its glass case, but when Aunt Georgie
found how highly Dick's teacher thought of his talent
and noticed how often his eyes w r andered longingly to
the old violin, she took it out and gave it to him for
his Christmas present.
" Dick must christen the violin to-night," cried the
children, who were sitting about the floor amid heaps
of wrapping-paper. " Dick, play to us."
So he slipped away to the dark play-room and with
his correct ear soon tuned the instrument into harmony.
Then he came back and, tucking the violin under his
chin, he drew the bow softly and reverently across the
150 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
strings, which had not been stirred to music since the
hand of the Norwegian musician had laid it aside.
What did he play? A Christmas carol? One of
the difficult nocturnes that his teacher was so proud of
his attaining ? No. A Norwegian cradle song that they
sing to the babies so far away. Then it changed into
sad minor chords a dirge for the dead; and then to
'a ripple of joy joy to be out of the glass case, to be
making music- -joy that it had entered again into its
kingdom of sweet sounds once more.
Dear little Dick! He could not jump and run like
other boys, but much had been given to him, for he held
the key to a whole w r orld of fancy and dreams, which
onlv the eves of imagination can see.
t/ t> O
By this time it was quite late time to hang the
stockings up in a row in the big dining-room fireplace,
for only the larger presents had been put on the tree.
So passed Christine's first Christmas in her own
country, and as she fell asleep clasping soft little Jam
in her arms for he awoke and wheezed and whined
to be petted her thoughts went back to all the quiet
Christmases in Paris, and she was glad she had had one
Christmas like the merry ones she had read of in books.
CHRISTMAS. 151
It seemed indeed as though she had scarcely been asleep
at all before the house was astir with little scampering
figures in dressing gowns flying to get their stockings.
It was a happy time for Aunt Georgie also, and she
awoke to hear their clear young voices, led by little
Dick, ringing out the old Christmas carol,
" Peace on earth, good will to all men."
CHAPTER XV.
AN AMERICAN GIRL INDEED.
T seemed as though so much pleasure could
scarcely have been crammed into a week,
yet the days flew by and, before they were
well aware, holidays were over and school and ordinary
tasks had begun again. Christine had not lost sight of
the fact that she was to be her father's hornemaker and
housekeeper. Miss Howe entered into the little girl's
ideas, and after her class had well settled down to their
lessons she established a little afternoon cooking class.
They cooked on a small coal stove, learning to build the
fire and keep it at a regular temperature, and Christine
was never so happy as when, covered up in a big apron,
she was stirring things in bowls or watching things in
the oven. Her beaming face over the big dish pan,
washing the dishes when the lesson was over, was a
happy sight to see, and Lily Norton, ablest of dish-
wipers, never could find fault with a single article.
152
AN AMERICAN GIRL INDEED. 153
Of course the cookery was of Aavied results, yet,
though Christine never learned to make a loaf of light
bread like Rose in Eight Cousins for, as she said,
" Why should we make bread when it is so very good
and so very cheap ? ' -she learned many other useful
things ; and since the girls had entire charge of the little
cooking-room, it was like playing in a larger doll house
and gave them a practical basis for managing kitchens
of their own. She learned to market also, for they took
turns in choosing and buying what was to be cooked,
and her only disappointment was that one did not carry
home their purchases in a picturesque basket as Bon
femrne did in France, but that they were sent home in
a big wagon.
Tommy Higgleston's portrait had proved such a suc-
cess that other people brought their children to Mr.
Averil's studio to have their portraits painted. When
they were restless and fidgety, Christine would go over
during the sittings and amuse them, and so she proved
to be a great help to her father. In this way she made
several pleasant acquaintances, and thus she met Marion
Burton, and her friendship with Marion, while it was
never the real tangible affection which bound her to
11
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
.
Lily and IsabeLif id the boys, was for a time a great
influence in her life.
Marion was fourteen a slight, elegant girl with
pretty wavy hair and fine complexion. She was an only
child, the idol of her parents, whose every thought was
to minister to her comfort and pleasure. She was posing
for her portrait playing on a harp, an instrument on
which she took lessons, and though she sat exactly in
position and never moved an eyelash, in her desire that
the picture should be perfect, her face grew so hard and
rigid that Mr. Averil felt that unless she could get rid
of her self -consciousness he could never get a satisfactory
likeness. So Christine was sent for to come and talk
with her.
Christine thought when she entered the studio that
she had never seen such a beautiful creature as Marion,
who sat on the platform in a billowy white muslin with
her hands gracefully posed, touching the harp. She
felt like a very little girl, although she was only two
years younger, and for some minutes her ready wits
quite deserted her and she could only gaze shyly at
the vision on the platform. But Marion was already
rather tired of keeping the pose, and so glad to see
AN AMERICAN GIRL INDEED. 155
some one to talk to that she smiled and made the first
advances in the pleasantest manner. She Avas unques-
tionably a very bright, charming girl, and soon put
Christine at her ease, though, truth to tell, she did most
of the talking herself, skimming lightly from one sub-
ject to another.
" Did Christine like to go to parties?'
Xo. She had never been to a party, unless the
Christmas-eve gathering could be called a party. Marion
had been to a great many parties. Of course she wasn't
" out ' yet, but she went a good deal to entertainments
given by girls of her own age.
"Did Christine like the theatre?"
As Christine had never gone but once to see Sir
Henry Irving at a matinee she was deeply impressed
bv a ffirl who had been " hundreds of times." Marion's
B>
beautiful person and a certain quick superficial clever-
ness gave her a wonderful charm, and it was not odd
that she made an impression upon Christine.
She had never seen anv one before who was so clever
t/
and entertaining, and everything that her new acquaint-
ance said and did seemed absolutely admirable. Almost
every girl or boy has a period of hero worshipping, and
156 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Christine's time had come. She thought about Marion
a great deal, and counted the days between the sittings
when they should meet again.
The afternoons at the studio were absolutely couleur
de rose. She would always be there first, waiting to
catch the sound of Marion's light footstep on the stairs,
and would be all smiles to welcome her friend, who
would come in looking as gay and pretty as possible in
an exquisitely made gown with a hat to match covered
with w r aving plumes. Drawing off her long gloves with
the air of a young lady, she would rattle away about
the events of the past days, her gowns, her little lunches
and dances, the compliments she had had, and how she
had been up so late the night before that she had not
been to school all with a woman-of-the-world air which
Christine thought perfectly charming.
If Mr. Averil had been listening he would certainly
have been surprised and have thought it just as well
that his simple little girl heard no more of such gay
doings. But he was busy with his work and paid no
attention to them.
She had a quick, witty way that seemed superla-
tively clever to Christine, and indeed it must be con-
AN AMERICAN GIRL INDEED. 157
fessed that in her admiration for her new friend our
little girl went sadly astray from the sensible path which
her good sense and her education had taught her. She
tried to ape Marion's airs and graces. She wished she
were grown up and went to parties, and took to dream-
ing that she was always a guest of honour at the enter-
tainments to which Marion went. Indeed, if she did not
envy her friend her little enamel watch, her rings, and
all her elaborate trinkets, she certainly grew discon-
tented with her own plain frocks that buttoned down the
back, and longed for stylish gowns and hats such as the
elder girl possessed. In fact, she was in as discontented
a frame of mind as well could be, and would have shown
her feelings quite openly had she not felt that the boys
would make game of her aspirations.
Jack and Teddy were very busy on some examina-
tions at this time, so Christine was thrown on her own re-
sources a good deal, and became more and more ab-
sorbed in her new acquaintance. Teddy laughed and
teased her about her enthusiasm until she became quite
indignant, and affairs were not at all bettered when one
afternoon, as she and Teddy were out walking, they
caught sight of Marion sitting in her mother's carriage
158 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
outside a house in Chestnut Street. Marion bowed, and
Christine was delighted that Teddy should see her
friend. But Teddy, though he lifted his hat politely,
as soon as they had got by said gruffly:
" "Well, I don't think much of her. She looks as
though she was saying ' Admire me.'
Christine felt very angry. She had thought, of
course, he would admire Marion, and she had always
thought so highly of his opinion that she could not help
feeling hurt.
" Don't you get to be like her/' went on Teddy
and indeed that was the height of Christine's ambition
just then " or Jack and Dick and I will have nothing
to do with you, and " as a last threat " I don't be-
lieve that Jam," who was puttering along at their feet,
" would either."
CHAPTEK XVI.
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR.
" the whole world there was never a happier
creature than little Dick. When his poor
back ached and he was forced to lie down
for hours he would still smile brightly and be ready to
joke with any one who came along, and in his hours of
health he w r as always ready to join in all the fun that
was going.
His imaginary friend Fred, whom he had treated
so harshly and scolded so often according to his own
account, quite faded out of his mind after the possession
of the Ole Bull violin, excepting at rare intervals, when
he would remark jocosely, " Why, Fred, I haven't had
a temper for a long time, have I ? But you needn't feel
lonely; I shall let out terribly some day."
However, no one else ever heard of these tempers,
and if he was depressed and unhappy no one knew, for
he would take his violin and play away his sorrow upon
159
160 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
it, peopling a world of his own where little boys did
not have crooked backs and bad knees.
One day when he was driving along in his little pony
cart with Whiskers he passed a great brick building
in the front of which was a large glass window almost
like a conservatory. The sun streamed down on the
glass, and in the cheerful room Dick could see any num-
ber of children looking out, watching him, and they
were all little children who were ill, or deformed, or crip-
pled in some way, though they did not look at all un-
happy sittting there with their toys amid pots of flower-
ing plants. Dick wished that he could go in and talk to
them. He had always been a little deformed child
among straight children, and his heart warmed to these
little ones who were unfortunate like himself.
Just tlien Dr. Mclntyre, who had been trying all
winter to straighten Dick's back, came out of the wide
door. The boy reined in his pony and called shrilly:
"Doctor! Doctor!"
"Is that you, Dick? Well, I declare!" said the
doctor kindly.
" Is that your hospital, doctor? ' said little Dick,
looking up at the big man with a grave little face.
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR.
" It's not exactly mine, Dick, but I come here every
day. Do you think you'd like to go in and see the chil-
dren? AVell, hop out, then, my little man. I've half
an hour to spare and I'll take you in."
He led the way through the long marble corridor
into the great sunny room. It was such a pretty room
with its soft pink walls hung with bright pictures, the
rows of little white beds along the walls with little ones
sitting up in them playing with books and toys, and the
group of children sitting among the flowers in the win-
dow that Dick thought a hospital was a beautiful
place.
" Here's our doctor! Our doctor's got back! ' they
all cried, and those who were able to walk about ran
across the polished floor to grasp his hands and coat-
tails. A sweet-looking nurse with a soft blue dress and
a white cap and apron came in from the next room
carrying a baby, and when she found that the doctor's
visit was not professional she sat down in a rocking-
chair, holding the baby while the doctor took little
Dick about.
" This is Mick," he said, " who is always breaking
his bones just so we can have the fun of putting him
162 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
together again. And this is Annie. She's my girl, isn't
she? " lifting the little girl, whose foot was in a plaster
cast, affectionately in his arms.
When they had been all around the room, the big
doctor carrying patient-faced Annie, and Dick had been
introduced to all the little sufferers, the doctor said ab-
/ruptly:
" Now, my little man, haven't I heard you sing?
Suppose you give us a song. All these little people
like to be sung to."
Dick was never a bit shy of singing before strangers.
He wound up the piano stool and sat down.
"What shall it be?" Ije said.
" Annie Rooney, mister," said Mick, who was
no bigger than Dick, although his face looked
older.
So Dick sang Annie Rooney and all the street songs
and Irish ballads he could think of. The children joined
in the choruses, vigorously pounding on the floor with
their crutches and keeping time on their trays with their
toys to show their appreciation. Dr. Mclntyre found
that the half hour had slipped away before he knew it
and that it was time to be off.
NEW YORK"* "1
* U6RARY
.
Dick's "Happy Hour/'
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR. 163
" We must be going along, little Dick, I'm afraid,"
lie said at last.
" Come again, come again," the children called after
them, and Annie, swinging along on her crutches,
cried :
" We've had such a happy hour, mister! You sing
nicer than the organs."
" It doesn't make you feel sad to see the sick chil-
dren, does it? ' said the doctor as he put the little fel-
low back in his cart.
" !N"o, indeed; they're just like me. I don't make
people sad, do I? '
"Bless your little heart, no; you're a sunbeam,"
said the doctor kindly.
This was the beginning of Dick's " happy hours."
Once or twice a week the pony would rattle up to the
door of the hospital and Dick would go in to chat and
sing. Sometimes he would bring his fiddle, and it is
doubtful if the old Cremona ever had a more attentive
audience than those children when Dick gave them
Dancing in the Barn and other lively tunes.
He got to be great friends with the nurses and the
doctor and many of the children, more especially with
164: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
the little boy with the old face Mick the newsboy
who had been injured by falling off a car.
No one knew anything about the " happy hours '
for a long time, for Dick was shy of letting his left hand
know what his right hand had accomplished. Of course
Aunt Georgie knew, because every one told Aunt
Georgie everything; but Christine was very much sur-
prised one day as they were driving up Commonwealth
Avenue to hear a shout of joy behind them, and there
stood Mick, recently dismissed from the hospital, with
a great sheaf of the afternoon edition under his arm.
Dick drew up Whiskers and, to Christine's great
astonishment, not only bought two papers, but held out
his hand and said:
" How do you do, Mick? Mick is a great friend of
mine, and I want you to know him, Christine."
Mick grinned, showing an even row of white teeth
as Christine held out her little gloved hand.
It was a lovely springlike afternoon when every one
was out driving, and just as Christine held out her hand
a landau drove by in which sat Marion most beautifully
dressed, but she turned her head away when she saw
the children talking to the newsboy and went by with-
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR.
out bowing, which. Christine thought was very queer,
for she was sure she had noticed them.
" I'm coming to see you some day, Mick," said Dick.
" Whiskers won't stand any longer now, but you know ,
where I live, and you're welcome to come and see me
at any time."
Mick pulled off his fragment of a cap and smiled
again. His not very intelligent wits were quite dazed
by his meeting the " little singin' gent what ain't no
bigger'n me."
Christine, with her sweet face in its aureole of ruddy
hair and the way she smiled when she shook hands, re-
mained as a sort of glorified vision in his mind forever.
" They shuck han's with me," he related at home
over and over again, " an' they was bowin' right and lef
ter gran' folks in kerriges. You'd thought I wuz ez
good ez eny of 'em. Papers! Boots blacked! Ther'
ain't nothin' in them lines that the littl' singin' gent
couldn't have indef'nit'."
Christine persuaded little Dick to tell her about
Mick, and the lame children, and the happy hours. She
was so touched that she wanted to hug him right in the
middle of the fashionable street, though to have heard
166 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
him talk you would have never supposed that he had
done nothing at all, and indeed such was his sweetness
of heart that it never struck him that he had.
It gave Christine's conscience a good prick to think
how nobly he had been using his time while she had
been wasting hers in idle longings to be grown up and
lead a fashionable existence such as Marion found so
enjoyable.
She made many good resolutions to be contented
and happy as she was, and on the homeward drive
did not think once of her absent friend, but was her
own sweet self once more. The boys had finished their
examinations, with great success where they had pre-
dicted failure, and vice versa, as is often the case, and
when she reached home she became absorbed in their
triumphs and defeats, and they all spent a happy even-
ing together.
The following day Mr. Averil had a sudden head-
ache and was obliged to return home from the studio
a few minutes before the hour set for Marion's arrival,
and he left Christine there to make his excuses and set
the time for another sitting, promising to send Jack
over for her very soon. In a short time Christine heard
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR. 167
the rustle of Marion's dress, and there was her friend
fresh and smiling, looking like a picture as usual.
Marion expressed her sorrow at Mr. Averil's illness in
the politest manner, and after flitting around the
studio looking at the pretty things for a while, she
said:
" The sleigh is waiting downstairs for me, and as
long as I am not to pose why can't you come and spend
the afternoon at my house ? '
Christine longed to go, but she could not do so
without permission, so they finally decided that Marion
should go home with her, and that the call would be
returned as soon as possible.
So the girls got into the pretty sleigh, and the horses,
glad enough to be released from pacing up and down
in the biting cold, whirled them quickly through the
snow-covered streets. Christine could not have felt
grander had she been ushering in an enchanted princess
than when Marion entered her home. She swelled with
pride at her position as hostess, and on the way had
turned over in her mind what she could do for the
amusement of her beautiful guest. Aunt Georgie was
unfortunately out, but she intended getting the boys
168 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
into their best neckties and coats and have them come
down to the drawing-room to talk to Marion.
But alas for Christine's dignity and importance!
"No sooner had she entered the hall than it was rudely
shattered, for the boys, who were in the upper playroom
looked over the banisters, and seeing her familiar hat,
boy like, never noticed that she was accompanied, but
immediately leaned over to attract her attention, shout-
ing to her to come and join them.
" Come and black up our faces, Christine," cried
Teddy.
" How did you manage to tear yourself away from
your beloved friend so soon? I was getting ready to go
over and get you," called Jack.
And even little Dick, who was usually so tactful,
shouted :
" Bring up a needle and thread. Jack's all burst-
ing out of his coat."
Christine blushed for this exhibition of the bad man-
ners of her familv. She hurriedly seated Marion in the
u *J
drawing-room and rushed upstairs. Jack and Teddy,
the strangest of figures, careered wildly round, shriek-
ing to her to admire them, and indeed Christine had
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR. 169
never seen two such grotesque figures in her life. In
place of their usual coats and knickerbockers, they were
arrayed in the most forlorn and extraordinary garments.
Teddy in a pair of large greenish trousers confined at
the waist by a strap, a red sweater, and a battered oil-
skin sou'wester, challenging comparison with Jack, who,
in addition to white duck trousers, a ragged mackintosh,
and a crushed derby far too large for his head, sported
a neat pair of small red whiskers and a black patch over
one eye. Both boys were so large and well formed for
their age that they looked, in the groAvn-up garments,
like a pair of rough young tramps.
Christine's heart sunk within her. Here were no
nice young gentlemen to introduce to Marion.
" We're going out to shovel up snow," said Jack
in explanation. " The streets are so packed that all
the boys from the school are going out this after-
noon to help clear them. Teddy and I and the Thatch-
ers have dressed up, and I guess the other boys
will be wild that they didn't think of it when they
see us.'
" Ain't we fine? ' cried Teddy, jumping around on
one leg. " Paint us up a little, Christine. Dick is far
12
170 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
too dainty with the charcoal. We want to be real black
while we are about it."
What could Christine do in the face of these rollick-
ing boys, who were all excitement and boisterous mirth
over carrying out their prank.
" Oh, boys/' she pleaded, " won't you take those
things off and stay at home this afternoon? Marion has
come home with me and I want to introduce you to
her."
" I'm glad we're going out, then," said Teddy. " I
can't bear that girl, and I wouldn't speak to her any-
way, so it's just as w T ell."
" If she wants to see us we'll come right down as
we are," cried Jack teasingly. " She will certainly be
pleased with our clothes. I'm sure she never saw any-
thing more stylish than the set of Teddy's breeches, and
as for my coat," draping the long tattered garment about
him, " 'tis the latest thing from Paree."
" I'm perfectly ashamed of you, boys," said Chris-
tine angrily. " I'm always nice to the boys you bring
home, and I think that you need not be so disagreeable
about Marion. You scream so loud that she has prob-
ably heard every word you have said, and very likely
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR.
will never come to see me again because you have been
so rude."
" We'd be glad if she didn't/' jeered the boys, and
Christine went downstairs again to her guest angry
enough; nor was the matter made any better by meet-
ing the two grotesque figures on the stairs as she was
taking Marion up to her own room to show her the pic-
tures of Yerverney and the place where they had lived
in Paris.
How true it is that pleasures are often much more
enjoyable in the anticipation than in the fulfilment!
Christine would have said that nothing would have made
her happier than to have Marion all to herself for a
whole afternoon. But, truth to tell, the afternoon wore
away dully enough, for as soon as Marion had exhausted
the budget of her latest doings there seemed nothing
else that she was interested in. Christine felt quite
ashamed of exhibiting the picture of the little cottage
when Marion told her of all the fine hotels where she
had staved when she had been abroad with her mother,
V
and as for Christine's little stock of dresses which Mari-
on wished to see, she could plainly see in her friend's
face that she considered them a very scanty and un-
172 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
fashionable wardrobe. She became more and more dis-
couraged comparing herself to her elegant guest, and
when a plate of fresh cakes that the cook sent up had
been devoured she was not sorry that Marion suggested,
since the sleigh was so late in returning, that they
should walk round to her house, which was not many
blocks away. So Martha, the maid, put on her hat and
jacket to accompany them, and Christine's drooping
spirits revived with the cold air and the brisk exercise.
But as they neared Marion's house she found that her
troubles for the day were not over. A number of men
were shovelling snow outside of the door, and she recog-
nised only too well, in the baggy green trousers, the old
sou'wester, and the ragged mackintosh, the habiliments
in which Jack and Teddy had rigged themselves. The
Thatcher boys vied with them in appearance, and they
were all shovelling away like day labourers.
Christine hoped she might pass unnoticed, but not
at all. The four boys politely took off their very mis-
cellaneous collection of hats as she passed and shouted
joyfully:
" Come and help us, Chris. It's lots of fun, you
bet."
DICK'S HAPPY HOUR. 173
But Christine walked back sedately with Martha,
feeling more than one soft snowball on her back some-
what detract from the dignity of her gait. She thought
that boys were perfectly horrid, and knew she never
could love them again after the way they had spoiled
her afternoon.
CHAPTER XVII.
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.
UT after a good cry, as she lay on her little
white bed thinking over all the disappoint-
ments of the dav, Christine found that her
t/ /
resolves never, never to have anything more to do with
the boys, excepting in the most formal politeness, quite
melted away. The time dragged heavily, and she was
glad enough to see them, when they did arrive, burst-
ing in in boisterous spirits, their garments the wrecks
of their original loveliness and their pulses thrilling
from the rough exercise.
On their side Jack and Teddy had wisely agreed
to stop teasing Christine about Marion and in no way
to refer to her lack of interest in their afternoon prank. '
" Just leave Christine alone," remarked Teddy sage-
ly, " and she'll get tired enough of that stuck-up girl.
The more we tease her the more set she will be."
So Christine enjoyed a rest from the torrent of
174
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 175
witticisms which usually greeted her after having been
with her friend, and, truth to tell, as time went on,
Teddy's words came to have their just fulfilment, for
before the portrait was completed Marion's capricious
temper and her desire for excitement gave Christine
many a trying hour. Although the latter's loyal little
heart would not confess it, she sometimes took advan-
tage of the little girl's devotion to impose her whims
upon her without restraint. The subtle delicacy of her
face was hard for Mr. Averil to catch exactly, and the
portrait dragged out into many sittings, until Christine
was at her wits' ends to know how to keep her friend
cheerful and amused during the monotonous hours.
Sometimes Marion would be cross and petulant, at other
times most loving and devoted, calling in Mount Vernon
Street to see her dear Christine and making much of her
after having wounded her deeply.
After a very trying afternoon at the studio the day
before, Marion drove up one Saturday morning radiant
and smiling. Aunt Georgie was coming down the steps,
and Marion leaned out of the carriage and asked her
very sweetly if Christine might come to lunch and spend
the afternoon with her. To this Aunt Georgie readily
176 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
agreed. Christine would much rather not have gone,
but permission having been given, she could not de-
cline without great rudeness, so she hurried on her best
frock and hat and went down.
" What a baby you are! ' said Marion when they
were whirling along. " I don't suppose you would have
dared come without asking leave. Now I do just as I
like. I go anywhere that I wish to."
This was not exactlv true, but Marion was so anxious
t/ r
to show how grown up she was that she did not think
what she was saving.
i/ O
Mrs. Burton was away at a lunch party, but the girls
had a delicious little luncheon with Marion's German
Fraulein officiating. The beautiful dining-room, in
which everything was very new and elegant, did not
seem half so nice to Christine as Aunt Georgie's old-
fashioned mahogany-furnished room, nor was she so
much impressed by the soft-stepping butler who waited
as she had expected to be.
"What would you think of going to a matinee?'
said Marion after lunch, when the girls were up in her
room, which was a perfect little bower of comfort and
luxurv. She had showed her friend all her beautiful
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 177
toilet articles, lier dainty frocks, and the two or three
evening gowns which she had for " going out," and
Christine, fresh from the simple cottage at Ververney,
was much impressed with all these beautiful things.
" A matinee ! ' said Christine. " But I'm afraid
Auntie wouldn't like me to go."
" Oh, yes, I asked her," Marion replied glibly, and
without more pressing, Christine put on her hat and
jacket.
She was a little surprised when Marion told the
sleepy-looking Fraulein, who was reading a novel in
the next room, that they would be gone most of the
afternoon.
" Are we going alone, Marion? '
" Yes. You're not afraid, are you? '
" Xo o," said Christine, not wishing to appear
babyish, but in truth she was not much used to going
about alone in the city.
It was one thing to drive around the shady lanes
of Yerverney and another to pick your way in crowded,
winding streets. In Paris she had never gone out un-
attended, and with so many people in the family in Bos-
ton some one always was going her way.
178 CHRISTINE'S CAREER. ;
Marion dodged about among the grown-up people
on the crowded down-town streets, with Christine trying
hard to keep up with her, and though the theatre lobby
was full of people who turned inquiringly to look at
the two girls, she bought the tickets with perfect self-
possession.
But Christine was not comfortable. She felt as
though every one was saying, " What are you little
girls doing here by yourselves? ' and the sprightly
music of the overture could not make her quite happy
in her mind. But when the curtain rose, all else w r as
forgotten in the interest of the stage. The play was
The Old Homestead a perfect play for boys and girls,
with its fun and jolly choruses. The girls were enrap-
tured.
"Aren't you glad you came?' said Marion when
the curtain went down, for, truth to tell, for all her
brave outside show, she had been considerably fright-
ened by the crowd, and knew quite well that if her
mother had been at home, they never would have been
been allowed to corne alone.
" Oh, it's beautiful," said Christine, " and why,
there's Teddy! ' for sure enough, a few rows in front
a
(t
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 179
of them, was his familiar figure sitting beside his brother
Frank.
But Marion was very much embarrassed.
" I do hope they won't see us. I wouldn't have
them see us for the world. "
"But why not?''
Oh, you're such a baby/' said Marion crossly.
You don't really suppose I asked your aunt if you
could come, do you? I knew of course she wouldn't
let you, so I said nothing about it. Mamma doesn't
know of it either; but I hoped no one would see us,
so she never would find out about it."
Christine started indignantly from her seat.
i/
" Why, Marion, you told me a lie. You said you
asked Aunt Georgie if I might come."
" "Well, suppose I did," said Marion, who was really
feeling very much ashamed of herself before the blaz-
ing indignation of her friend's honest eyes.
you're here, can't you sit down and enjoy yourself?
But Christine refused to sit down. She was going
home, and that at once. Then as she looked around
she became aware that something unusual was hap-
pening.
"
'
180 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
In the lieat of the argument neither of the girls had
noticed that people were rising and hastening toward
the doors. A smell of smoke came from the stage, and
the curtain was hastily rung down. They stood hold-
ing each other's hands motionless with terror and dared
not stir. The densely-packed crowds of people at the
doors seemed to be unable to get out with any rapidity,
but Marion would have darted to join them in the de-
spair of doing nothing had not Christine held her firmly
by the wrists.
" You must keep still, Marion; you couldn't do any-
thing in such a crowd as that; you mustn't stir from
here," she said sternly. The smoke pouring up made
her eyes smart, and the tears came into them, though
she scarcely realized it.
" Let me go, Christine, let me go/ 7 Marion sobbed
wildly, and she would probably have wrenched herself
away but for the sudden reappearance of Frank and
Teddy, who had seemed to vanish most mysteriously.
They had climbed into one of the boxes to see if they
could find out where the fire was, and Christine called
to them with all the strength of her young lungs.
Teddy could scarcely believe his senses when he heard
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 181
her familiar voice calling his name, but in a moment
he and Frank were beside her. There was no time for
explanations. There the girls were, and the boys ac-
cepted the responsibility of taking care of them. Al-
though the smoke seemed dense in the big room, Frank,
who had reconnoitred thoroughly, assured them that if
they only waited until the crowding somewhat dimin-
ished there was absolutely no danger. Still it seemed
a terrible situation the dark theatre, for all the lights
were now out, volumes of smoke escaping from every
crack and crevice, the hiss of the hose which were being
played on the inflammable scenery, and the cries and
screams of frightened women.
It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed
like hours to Christine as she stood there, brave out-
wardly but with a fearful feeling at her heart.
" Come now r ! ' said Frank and Teddy at last; and
keeping tight hold of the girls, they rushed them into
the open air through the crowd which was now much
thinned.
And now it must be told that when she saw the
familiar street, the people, the cars, and the snow, just
as it had been when thev went in to the theatre hours
182 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
before, Christine, who had been such a heroine through
the real danger, who had upheld Marion's courage and
kept her with the grip of a young lioness from rushing
to be crushed in the crowd our heroine, for such she
is, looked at Teddy wonderingiy, and then for the first
time in her life she found the world swimming before
her eyes as though it was no longer real, and she fainted
away quite unconscious of all about her.
When Christine came to herself she was lying on the
sofa in Aunt Georgia's room, and there was a strong
smell of ammonia in the air. She realized that her
father and aunt were bending over her with much solici-
tude, but everything seemed foggy and indistinct.
" Where's Marion? ' she said suddenly, trying to
raise her head.
" She is all right, dear, lie down; she is safe at
home," answered Aunt Georgie gently, giving her a
soothing mixture, after which the girl, worn out with
the terrible excitement of the afternoon, fell into a deep
sleep.
How Christine came to be at the theatre appeared
to Mr. Averil and Aunt Georgie as strange and mys-
terious as it did to the boys. Full of pranks and natural
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 183
spirits she had always been, but never in her life wil-
fully disobedient. Marion had gone off into a fit of
hysterics when she saw Christine faint, so that it had
i/
been impossible to get any explanation from her. In
the hours that Mr. Averil sat beside his sleeping daugh-
ter he could not help feeling that if his dear, gentle
little Christine had changed in so few months into a
girl who would go to a matinee without permission, he
wished he had never left France, where little girls do
not learn such independent ways.
The next day, though feeling very ill and weak,
Christine was able to sit up in bed and eat the dainty
meals which cook sent up to her. The doctor came and
announced that she was doing finely, and that a rest in
bed for a few days was all she needed to set her up all
right. He cautioned Aunt Georgie not to speak to her
of the fire.
" Let the shock wear off her mind as quickly as pos-
sible," he said. And so nothing was said on the subject,
and indeed Christine was glad, for she did not like to
tell the part which Marion had played in the matter.
So the older people waited until the time should
come when she should speak of her own accord. But
184: CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
there was one person who, in his blunt, honest heart,
felt that there could never be any explanation which
would make him trust and believe in Christine as he
had done before, and that person was Teddy.
He had always disliked girls fibbing, sneaking
things he called them and Christine had only won his
heart by her lack of airs and evident honesty. All her
sweet little-womanly ways had twined themselves deeply
around his heart, and now to find that she was just the
same as all the others was too bad. Righteous indig-
nation filled Teddy's mind, and he asked no questions
about her recovery, talking to the boys about general
subjects as though there was no little girl lying up-
stairs whose ruddy head had once been a veritable sun-
beam in the house.
Indeed, when the boys were allowed to go up for
a few minutes to see her, Teddy would have gladly
slipped home, but Aunt Georgie, having no idea of what
was passing in his mind, asked him to carry up some
flowers, and there was no way of his escaping.
But Christine knew what was the matter the min-
ute she saw him. This stern judicial Teddy was not
her dear friend at all; all the brightness died out of her
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 185
face at his cool greeting, and she turned her face to the
wall to keep him from seeing her tears.
During the afternoon Teddy quieted his conscience
by saying that it was quite right to be angry with a
person for just cause, and that he had been none too
cool to Christine. But after he had gone to bed that
night he could not sleep for thinking how sweet and
expectant she had looked sitting by the fire in her pretty
blue wrapper, and how sadly she had turned away.
Teddy got up and looked out the window. There
was Aunt Georgie's house and the night light burn-
ing in Christine's room. Suppose she should die
how he wished he could see her that moment and tell
her she mustn't feel badly! He put on his clothes,
though he did not know exactly why, and just then,
as the clock was striking eleven, he saw one of the
servants, who had been spending the evening out, stop
at the area gate. Quick as a flash Teddy was out of
the house, and the tired cook, who was used to seeing
him in and out at all hours, made no objections to let-
ting him in. He crept upstairs to Christine's door and
listened.
" Who is there? ' said Christine softly, for, just as
13
186 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Teddy had imagined, she had been lying awake won-
dering if they would ever be friends again.
" It's Teddy."
Then in a moment Christine, wrapped up in the big
blue gown which made her look very tall and stately,
came out into the hall, and he drew her down on the
stairs beside him. They didn't say one word for some
time, but somehow, sitting there, Christine knew that
everything was quite right again between them.
" I'll tell you all about it, Teddy," she said bravely
at last.
" No, indeed, you needn't; it's not necessary."
" Yes it is." And then, not blaming Marion more
than she could help, Christine told him just how they
had gone to the matinee.
He said no further word of dispraise concerning
the friendship, for he thought it had been tried and
found wanting.
"Dear Chris!' he said, when she had finished,
" here I've been so angry at you when you were not
to blame at all, and you have been a perfect heroine.
You looked as brave as could be when I saw you stand-
ing up there in the theatre."
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 187
" I was scared enough inside," said Christine, " I
can tell you."
" I'm sorry that I was so cross before you told me.
I ought to have believed in you anyway. You'd be-
lieve in me I know, even if everything was against me,"
he said contritely.
" Yes, I should," said Christine, and she kept her
word. Through all the trials and temptations of Ted-
dy's boyhood and manhood, however much he was mis-
judged by others, he could always comfort himself with
the thought that she understood him and believed no
evil.
Then, lest, in spite of the woolly dressing gown, she
should take cold, Teddy begged her to go back to bed,
and with a warm parting hug of complete reconciliation,
Christine ran back to her room and Teddy flew back
to his own house, where happily, the street being a quiet
one, no one had noticed the front door was ajar.
Teddy went over the next morning and told Aunt
Georgie the whole story, and a great load was lifted
from her mind. She went straight to Christine's room
and held the girl in her arms, kissing her again and
again to think how bravely she had acted.
188 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Christine's recovery, now that her mind was at rest,
was very rapid, and great was the jubilation among the
boys when she was able to come downstairs for the first
time.
Lying on the sofa in the playroom holding one of
Aunt Georgie's hands and fondling Jam's soft head
with the other, the three boys grouped about at her
feet and gazing at her with loving eyes, Christine felt
that with such dear true friends she had been foolish
to long for other companionship. The tears came to
her eyes again to think of Marion's conduct, and the
boys, seeing her look so woebegone, began to cut up
antics and dance about the sofa, singing " Now she's
a jolly good fellow ' until she was half laughing amid
her tears.
Then Teddy and Jack, for her further cheering,
stripped off their coats and gave a great exhibition of
strength, hanging from the doors, standing on their
heads, swinging Indian clubs in all sorts of gyrations,
and executing many remarkable antics which they called
the circus.
Aunt Georgie sat beside Christine, almost afraid to
let her out of her sight, and they laughed until they
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. 189
were quite exhausted at the boys' funny tricks, which
wound up in great shape with a hippodrome a race
between Jam and the pussy.
When supper was ready the boys carried Christine
downstairs on their clasped hands. It was an extra good
one, and it seemed as though no one could do enough
to show how thankful they were that she had escaped
such terrible peril and was their dear companion once
more.
CHAPTER XVIIL
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH.
Christine was running about as well and
happy as ever, but her mind was not per-
fectly at ease until one afternoon when her
father came home early from his studio and she found
him sitting by the fire. She climbed up onto his knee
and told him of all her sad impatience during the past
weeks; how she had wanted to be fashionable, and to
have fine frocks like Marion's, and had disliked her own
pretty clothes and even her dear home.
" I even wanted to lace in my waist; it seemed
awfully big," she said.
Mr. Averil had no word of reproof to utter. He
thought she had worked out the lesson for herself.
" Well, dear, one of these days you will be a young
lady, I suppose, but I hope you will have the good sense
not to lace in your waist. You must never expect, even
though you grow to be quite an old woman, to be
190
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 191
anything but a little girl to father," was all lie said
kindly.
She was glad enough to remain a little girl now, for
she had had her first experience of the outside world
and it had been a bitter one. She had been taught a
hard lesson, and never, never again, though she made
many mistakes, was she easily led away by appearances.
The boys vied with each other in making much of
her, and it was a proud moment for Dick when he
took her to drive for the first time, Whiskers being-
more than usually spry in dashing in and out among
the big carriages. The afternoon was warm and sunny,
and many of their acquaintances were out driving.
They passed Marion, who smiled and waved her hand,
and many other people smiled pleasantly at the funny
little equipage with the two children's bright faces
beaming out of the fur robes.
There at the crossing stood Mick, and when he saw
them coming he grinned from ear to ear.
" Glad to see yer out again, miss," he managed to
get out.
" I'm coming to see you very soon, now my cousin's
better," said Dick politely. " Good-bye," as the pony,
192 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
unwilling to stand, took the bit in his teeth and scam-
pered away.
" Don't you think I could go too? ' said Christine.
" I used to know lots of poor people in Yerverney.
Every one was poor there, and even when they were
quite little they used to have to work instead of playing.
There was Celeste ' la petit blanchisseuse.' I gave her
my old white dress for her first communion."
But when a visit to Mick's mother was broached
to Aunt Georgie she shook her head.
" Poor people in America don't live in nice clean
cottages, but in rickety old tenements. I think I had
better go with Dick myself and find out if the family
stands in any need of assistance," she said. So the next
afternoon they started out to hunt up the Rafferty
family.
The address which Mick had given was way down
in the east end, and Aunt Georgie, who was used to
" slumming," was not surprised at the dirty streets, but
it brought little Dick's heart up in his mouth to see so
many shivering little children thinly clad on such a
cold winter's day with the east wind blowing.
In answer to their inquiries for Mick Rafferty the
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 193
paper boy, they were told to go upstairs three flights
back; and they toiled up the steep black stairway in
such a very old rickety building that Aunt Georgic
was glad enough that she had accompanied her small
nephew.
The Rafferty household was evidently not used to
receiving guests, for when, after a shrill " Come in! '
Dick pushed open the door, the inhabitants of the room
gazed at him open-mouthed. In the centre of the room
stood a little girl with one side of her face swollen to
enormous dimensions and a great red flannel rag tied
around it, the large ends standing up on top of her
head like rabbits' ears. In her arms she held a heavy
baby who was evidently perfectly entranced with trying
to catch hold of the red flannel, which wobbled about
grotesquely as she moved her head.
" Mother's out and Mick's out," said this extraor-
dinary little person, recovering from her surprise at see-
ing such unexpected callers. " You're the little singin'
gent what Mick talks about, ain't yer? ' she queried
as Dick advanced into the room. " Don't yer be feared
of ketchin' my face; its toothache, not mumps. Mick
'ill be in soon. Won't ver come in and wait fer him? '
194 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
She deposited the baby on the floor and hospitably
dusted off two chairs with her apron, and, when her
visitors were seated, patiently picked the child up again,
standing holding him as she talked.
Aunt Georgie's quick eyes were noting the contents
of the room. Bare and poor as it was, it was clean.
The baby, though ragged, was evidently not neglected,
and the little children were sweet and clean. It was
fearfully cold, however; there had evidently been no
fire in the stove that day, and the cupboard, of which
the door stood open, was quite empty.
" Mother's out looking for work," said Bridget.
" Mick will bring in some coals and things when he
comes if he's had a good day. The fire's only been out
a little while."
" Do you stay and take care of the children? ' said
Aunt Georgie, smiling at the odd little face peering out
of the big red flannel bandage.
" Yes ' -the child drew herself up proudly " I'm
a ' Little Mother.' There was a young lady came round
last fall and axed me to jine her 'sociation. They
teaches us to sew and cook, and we leaves our babies in
the nursery next door "
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 195
Just then Mick's face appeared in the doorway, and,
oblivious of the presence of the strangers, the babies
set up a loud hand-clapping. Mick pulled off his cap
and showed his white teeth in an enormous grin. In
one hand he was carrying a scuttle of coal, and various
parcels peeped out of his pockets.
" Yer must me excusin' there bein' no fire," apolo-
getically. " Mother's out of work and things is kinder
run out. I'd a good day and we'll soon be comf'table."
Contentment and happiness beamed on the chil-
dren's faces as he lit the fire with a few treasured bits
of wood.
Aunt Georgie was afraid to stay longer for fear of
taking cold, but just then the children cried " Mother!
Mother! ' and the baby toddled on his uncertain legs
toward the door.
Then what a surprise! "Who should Mrs. Rafferty
be but a maid of Aunt Georgia's who had left her to
be married years before. She shed tears of joy to see
her old mistress, and when Aunt Georgie told her that
she was in need of a laundress and would be glad for
her old servant to have the place, no happier sight can
be imagined than the gratitude on their faces.
196 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
The dingy tenement was much too far away for
Mrs. Rafferty to go back and forward to her work, so
Aunt Georgie advised her moving to a clean little flat
in a model tenement not so far from Mount Yernon
Street.
The settling of the family in their new abode was
a great amusement to the children, who always called
them " Dick's family." The girls did not wish to be
left out of the fun, and, under Aunt Georgie's super-
vision, they basted and got ready for the machine
many neat little garments for the children, and neces-
sary bed and house linen.
Aunt Georgie cut and planned and Martha, the
maid, sewed on the machine, so that the work was soon
completed. This led to the girls wishing to keep up a
sewing-circle, and Aunt Georgie read aloud David Cop-
perfield and Our Mutual Friend while they were at
work.
At first the boys laughed at the sewing, but they
soon got into the habit of coming to hear the reading,
for they did not like to drop behind in the interesting
history of the Boffins.
" I wish I knew how to sew," said Teddy one day.
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 197
" I often wonder what I shall do about my buttons and
things when I'm studying in Paris. I don't see why
boys are not taught to sew as well as girls. Christine"
for he was a very masterful young man and growing
so big that his Paris studies did not seem so very far
away " Christine, teach me to sew? '
He stuck her little gold thimble on his finger, and
seizing a big needle, tried to thread it. He tried and
tried, but his fingers were so big and the needle so
little that it seemed impossible he would ever hit the
eye.
Then Jack and Dick, anxious to show their abilities,
were set to threading needles. At last Teddy held up
triumphantly a very sticky needle with a rather grayish
thread through the eye. Amid peals of laughter the
lesson proceeded to stitching.
" Whew ! ' said Teddy, straightening up his big
back after a short attempt at a seam. " Does it always
make one's back ache so ? '
Aunt Georgie stopped reading and examined the
pieces which the boys held up proudly. Teddy's had
large stitches gathering and puckering the cloth, Dick
had forgotten to make a knot and the thread had drawn
198 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
through, and Jack's line was of a curving and waving
nature.
" Practice will improve you all," she said. " Keep
on and see if by the time we have finished the book you
won't be able to show me a trim seam and secure but-
tons."
So each sewing day the boys practised with their
needles, and though the results would never be called
" fine sewing," it was a practical lesson which stood
them in good stead.
Christine gave them each a housewife, and though
they laughed and put them aside among their boyish
possessions, in after-years, when Jack was in college and
Teddy away in Paris, their thoughts were often brought
back to the little sewing-circle as they sewed on their
own buttons and put the needles back in the cases Chris-
tine had given them.
But all this is getting way ahead of the Haffertys'
moving, which was a great event to our young people.
As soon as the most necessary articles were finished
they were taken round to the model tenement, at which
the family had not yet arrived, and Christine laid all
the sheets, towels, and pillow-slips in neat piles in the
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 199
kitchen dresser, where Bridget could easily reach them.
She thought the three neat, fresh rooms, with their
miniature modern improvements, the dearest little place
to keep house in, and was continually running to Mar-
tha, who was putting up curtains in the front room, to
show her something new that she had discovered. Sud-
denly she felt her elbow tweaked, and looking around,
there stood Bridget Kafferty, the bandage gone now
from her face, but still presenting the most curious ap-
pearance possible with her thin figure clad in garments
of most assorted sizes and colours.
" Air them fer us? ' she demanded as she took in
the piles of linen, the packages of simple, wholesome
groceries standing on the shelf, and the shining tin
kettles that stood on the tiny range.
" Yes," said Christine.
" And the furniture, the beds, and the booro? '
" Yes," replied Christine again, but she instantly
wished she had said " Xo," for, uttering a piercing
howl, Bridget sat down, throwing her apron over her
head, and burst into the loudest fit of weeping that
Christine had ever heard.
Martha came quickly in to see what was the mat-
200 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
ter, and Bridget ceased as suddenly as she had com-
menced, wiping her eyes on her apron and smiling once
more.
" I feel better now," she said. " Yer see, we was
kinder 'shamed to send our poor sticks round to a place
like this, and I jist was thinkin' ez I came in ter do
the cleanin' how fine 'twould be ef we could hev beds
and booros and curtings, and when I saw the things
I was all took back 'twas so suddin. Couldn't help
cryin'. Mother '11 cry too when she sees them, and Mick
and the baby too, I guess."
Christine wondered if the Rafferty family's one way
of enjoying themselves was having a good cry, and
Martha practically suggested that since the place was
ready they might just as well move in at once. So
Bridget departed to gather her family together and
have them in their new home for the night.
Christine was rather surprised when she went down-
stairs to see, instead of little Dick, whom she expected
was waiting, Teddy sitting in the pony cart while Whis-
kers pawed the ground as though not quite understand-
ing the change of masters.
" Dick's violin teacher wanted him to take a lesson
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 201
this afternoon," lie explained, " so Aunt Georgie said
I might take Whiskers out to be exercised. He is pretty
fresh, for he hasn't been out for two days, and we can
have a long drive, for it is only two o'clock."
Christine thought of the afternoons in Yerverney
when she used to drive her beloved Cherie out to the
chateau, and she wished there was some place like it
near Boston where they could drive on and on even
though they never reached their object.
" Let's go on a pilgrimage," she said.
" A pilgrimage to what? '
" I don't know exactly, but there must be some other
<> '
place besides Longfellow's house in Cambridge where
we could go, we've seen that so often."
" I've just the idea," said Teddy. " Let's go out
to Concord, where Miss Alcott used to live. My great-
aunt Jane lives out at Lexington, and I know Concord
is somewhere near there, so we'll drive out to see her
and ask her the way. I know how to get to her house
all right, and she'll be delighted to see us. Indeed, I
ought to go, for I've only been there once since I came
from abroad."
" That is just the place for us, then," Christine
14
202 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
agreed, and away they went, the frisky pony flying
along at a great rate.
The snow had almost melted away and the fresh
smell of the earth and the faint greenish tinge on the
brown sods told of approaching spring. The country
lanes bordered with bare barberry bushes seemed only
waiting for a few more days to burst into leaf, and a
joyous twittering and chirping told that flocks of early
birds had already come up from the South to get ready
their summer homes before the crowds arrived.
The children thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air and
the thousand and one evidences which they could see
on every hand of Nature returning to life once more.
It had been a happy winter, but still they were glad that
it was not winter always and that the pleasant warm
days, when they could live out of doors, would soon be
here. Whiskers, evidently feeling that he had gone
far enough and must soon come to his journey's end,
rattled fast past the broad meadows where the heroes
of Lexington fell and down the broad elm-lined street
which runs through the centre of the town, where Teddy
pulled up before a high gabled old white house.
Teddy's great-aunt was a dear fat old lady who re-
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 203
ceived them at the door all in a flutter with her cap
strings flying.
" How you've grown ! Ain't you hungry, my
dears? ' she said all in a breath, and she seated them
in her cosey sitting-room that was full of old quaint
furniture, and gave them each a glass of cream and
some daintily-fried crullers which she assured them she
had made with her own hands that morning.
After polite inquiries had been made about every
one's health, Aunt Jane for such was the dear old
lady's name noticed how Christine, quite unmindful
of her good manners, let her eyes wander about the
room, taking in the old pictures, the odd chairs, and
peculiar old mirrors with evident interest.
" Do you like old things, my dear? ' she said.
When Christine answered that she did, and con-
fessed that the only fault that she had to find with
America was that everything was so bright and new,
the little lady started off on her favourite hobby. She
showed them the old set of chairs that had been sent
over from England for Teddy's great-great-grand-
mother when she was married and went to housekeep-
ing. Her name was Priscilla, and there were quaintly
204 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
painted portraits of herself and her young husband
hanging over the fireplace. The old musket that he
had carried through the Eevolution hung over it, and
Christine was glad to hear that he had gone through the
war unscathed and had come home again to stay with
sweet-looking Priscilla in the old house, which in their
day had been new and considered wonderfully elegant.
Then Aunt Jane must show them the great punch-
bowl made in India and brought all the way around
Cape Horn and presented to some naval officer of the
family for gallant services in the War of 1812, and stores
of blue china which careful housewives used to wash
up themselves after breakfast.
Teddy, who was somewhat tired of hearing of his
doughty ancestors and naturally had no great interest
in china, now suggested that he was afraid it was time
for them to be going if they had any intentions of reach-
ing Concord that afternoon.
But Aunt Jane held up her plump hands in amaze-
ment at the proposition of the pilgrimage to Miss Al-
cott's house. " Bless the children," she said, " it's ten
miles farther on to Concord, and you wouldn't get there
before dark. Indeed, I think you had best start for
CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 205
home now if you don't want to give Georgiana a fright
for fear of your being lost."
So they were forced to give up their adventure,
though Christine did not mind much, feeling that they
would get there some time, just as after so many, many
attempts to reach the Chateau de Beauvoir, she had
finally had such a pleasant day with Felice there.
So after many pressings to have something more
to eat for Aunt Jane seemed to feel that young people
were always hungry they prepared to return home.
" We'll come out and see you again very soon," said
Teddy, " but, Auntie, as long as we've given up going
to see Miss Alcott's house, tell Chris something about
her. You used to know her when she was a little girl."
There evidently was some hidden teasing in this,
Teddy looked so mischievous as he spoke.
The old lady shook her head at him reprovingly and
said, severely, " Oh, Teddy, how can you rake up that
old story? '
You remember, Chris," answered the irrepressi-
ble Teddy, " about the story of Aunt Joe's Scrap Bag
where Miss Alcott says that when she was a little girl
she helped a boy cut off thirteen little pigs' tails?"
206 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Hush, hush! ' said Aunt Jane. And then, seeing
Christine's look of wonder, she added: " You see they
were our pigs. Louisa grew up to be such a fine woman,
but I never could quite forgive her for it.' 7
The children shouted with laughter to think that
after so many years those thirteen tails were still un-
forgiven. And just then, Whiskers being brought
around, they kissed Aunt Jane good-bye and drove
away, waving their hands to her until the house was out
of sight.
They had had a delightful afternoon, and Whiskers,
rested and refreshed, knew that his nose was turned
homeward, and had evidently no intentions of loiter-
ing on the way.
CHAPTEE XIX.
THE KIXG OF THE CAXXIBAL ISLANDS.
RED/' said little Dick one afternoon as he
was lying on the sofa in the playroom,
^^^^^^^^1 Fred, come here." He was alone and
no one could hear him, but he did not seem at all put
out by that, but went right on. " You've had a good
long rest, but now you're going to get pitched into, so
come right here."
Fred, as you remember, was Dick's imaginary friend,
and since he had had the Cremona violin which Aunt
Georgie gave him at Christmas he had almost forgot-
ten his friend and confidant, telling his joys and woes
to his beloved instrument as he made sweet music
upon it.
But to-day it was raining, his poor back ached, and
his bones felt miserable. The other children had gone
to dancing-school, and he felt quite alone and sick and
forlorn.
207
208 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
For a few minutes Dick chattered away in the soft
Hawaiian language which they spoke out at his home,
but at last, as though the brunt of his anger had been
borne, but that still he was not to be trifled with, he
said sternly: " ^ow don't pretend you don't understand
English, for I'm going to talk to you and you'd better
understand." Then he lay back, and a drawn, pained
look crept into his face, and although he spoke very,
very low to Fred, what he said was something like this:
It seems that when he had come from home in the fall
he had heard such wonderful tales of the Boston doctors
and all they could accomplish that he had had an idea
that in a few months his back would be quite straight-
ened out and he would be shooting up tall like Jack and
Teddy. But, alas! little by little the conviction had
dawned upon him that while good Dr. Mclntyre was
making him stronger, never, never would he be tall and
straight. He had spoken no word to any one, but had
nursed his hopes until he could hold them no longer,
and now, as he lay there, a few bitter tears rolled down
his thin cheeks and a great ache was in his heart. " I'm
not going to tell any one, only you," he said bravely,
" but it's been a disappointment a terrible disappoint-
THE KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 209
ment. It isn't that I don't have a good time, and every
one loves me and is kind to me, but I should have liked
to have been like other bovs, and now I shall alwavs
/ * I/
be just Little Dick."
Then there came into his mind the remembrance
of another life where all are alike before their Maker,
and the weight of sadness passed away as with simple
faith he once more accepted the burden which had been
given him to bear. He stretched out his hand for his
violin, and when Christine came upstairs the room was
flooded with sweet sounds and his face was full of con-
tentment and peace like an angel's. The two children
sat in the dark as he played, drawn closely together in
their love and appreciation of all that is beautiful.
" Do you like to hear me play, Chris? ' he said.
"Like it! Oh, Dick, it's wonderful! "
i And do you like me ' -for the burden was still
heavy to bear " as well as though I could run around
and do things for you like the boys ? '
Christine's answer was to put her strong young arms
around him. " Ah, Dick," she said, " there are plenty
of boys who can run about and do things, but there
never was another like you. We all love you so just
210 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
as you are/' and so lie was comforted. And indeed
Christine, for all she so regretted having no great tal-
ents, had the power of creeping into people's hearts
and of endearing herself to those about her and, what
is better yet, of keeping their affection after it was
gained. There was no more amusing instance of this
than the case of little Tommy Higgieston, whom you
will remember she had amused during the trying period
when her father was painting his portrait. He had now
emerged from his baby period into being a schoolboy.
His curls had been cut and his velvet suits given way
to rough serge, but his admiration for Christine, her
paper dolls, and her stories was unchanged. When he
met her on the street he would utter a loud yell of happi-
ness, dashing toward her with all the speed of which his
little fat legs were capable, and now and then he would
make his appearance at the house and demand his whole
set of familiar amusements over again.
One afternoon Jack and Christine were coming
across the Common from a visit to the model lodgings
where the Raffertvs were now established, when they
i/
heard a small pathetic voice calling,
" Christine, oh, dear Christine! " and turning, there
THE KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 211
was the usually doughty Tommy, a picture of woe.
" I'm lost," he said. " I've been lost a long time. I
ran away from Maria and I can't find her. I'm so cold
and hungry. I haven't had any lunch, and the big
policeman's keep looking at me so hard."
They comforted the little fellow, who was trying
to keep back his tears, and each holding one of his
little hands, they hurried along, for it was nearly dusk
and they felt that his mother would be terribly worried
about him.
" You can tie me with a string to Maria," sobbed
the child in his repentance when he was safe in his
mother's arms.
Mrs. Higgleston could scarcely express her thanks
to them for having brought her darling home safely and
putting an end to her anxiety. Tommy hugged Chris-
tine good-bye again and again, and then she was sur-
prised to see him throw his arms affectionately around
Jack's neck and to hear him say:
" I'll never, never call you the King of the Cannibal
Islands again."
" What did Tommy mean by the King of the Can-
nibal Islands, Jack? ' she asked when, tucked under her
212 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
cousin's arm, they were running home to be in time
for supper.
" Oh, nothing. They just call me that at school
because I came from Hawaii," he answered, rather em-
barrassed, and Christine, feeling that he wished the sub-
ject dropped, said no more.
But Teddy was more communicative.
" Yes," he said, " of course when Jack first came
and ordered every one around so at school the boys
thought he was fair sport, and they teased him until
he used to nearly have fits. Fellows won't stand any
nonsense you know, and he certainly had the worst of
it. Lately he's been a different fellow, and they like
him ever so much; but the little chaps caught on and
they call him the King of the Cannibal Islands. Little
Higgleston is in the primary and he must have heard
it."
" How horrid bovs are!' said Christine, "and
t/
Jack's so sensitive."
" Nonsense, it's all fair, Christine. Tease and tease
about." answered Tecldv. " Jack's really a good fellow.
t, t/ *
and the thing will soon die out as he grows popular.
That's where boys have the best of things. We all have
THE KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 213
to take our teasings and keep our tempers, and Jack lias
been pretty game lately."
Christine felt very sorry for her cousin, but indeed
she never was able to form any idea of the extent to
which his class-mates had carried their teasing or the
martyrdom which it had been to Jack's pride. When
he opened his desk, black china dolls clad in high paper
collars, labelled " Jack Learning in Native Costume,"
fell out. His books were adorned with caricatures of
savages surrounding a kettle out of which stuck a pair
of boots labelled " Missionary," and other drawings sup-
posed to represent scenes from his former life. Con-
versations were arranged and carried on during recess
by two or three boys concerning the habits and customs
of his native land, while the rest of the class listened and
applauded their sallies.
But the worst of all was a catchy song which some
merry wight imported in a luckless hour for Jack.
They sang it at recess, they hummed it in school
hours :
Holms pokus, crack me crown,
The king of the islands of knock me down
Was thought the prettiest man in town
When dressed in his best for a party.
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Jack could never get away from it. He got into
street cars and a small boy stood on the platform 1mm-
ining it. He went out to walk, and a mysterious sound
would immediately come from somewhere near:
Satins and silks his queen did lack,
But she had some red paint that looked well upon black ;
So she painted her lord and master's back
Before he set out for the party.
" Pigs and whales, and ships with sails,
And flying dragons with curly tails
That's a thing," said she, " that never fails
To charm all the folks at a party."
When Jack appeared after his hand had been so
badly burned there was a slight cessation of hostilities 7
and he had the good sense to see that his mates were
willing to give him a fresh chance for favour, and he
was not slow to take advantage of it. Before the year
was out the boys sung " Hokus pokus " more in affection
than derision, and in after-years, when Jack left the
school for Harvard, graduating with the highest hon-
ours, when the boys had sung the school songs over and
over again on the last day, a shrill young voice suddenly
piped up the once hated tune and hundreds of boys'
THE KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 215
voices shouted out the verses with cheers and shouts
scarcely less enthusiastic than had greeted the beloved
and popular Teddy.
But this is progressing too fast, as Jack is still strug-
gling with his unruly temper.
Christine took to heart what Teddy had said about
/
boys' teasings, and it made her ears burn to think of
the way she would have been tormented could they have
seen into her mind during her infatuation for Marion,
and the train of silly ideas that had filled her head at
the time.
Although Christine felt after the matine'e that she
would never care to be friends with Marion again,
Marion was so sorry, and apologized in such humble
fashion to Aunt Georgie, begging to be forgiven with
such contrition, that it would have taken a far harder
heart than our little maiden possessed to refuse to
make up.
So she went to her father's studio the days Marion
posed just as before, but their friendship was never the
same again. Her belief in her friend's honour and truth
had been destroyed, and she could not help doubting
the sincerity of the pleasant things that she was
216 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
always saying. Therefore wlien the portrait was fin-
ished Christine \vas not unhappy, as she once would
have been, that the opportunities for seeing Marion so
frequently were over. With her schoolmates, the so-
ciety of her cousins, the fun of the cooking lessons, and
the sewing-circle, she was quite engrossed, and though
at intervals she and Marion still met, they parted with
no particular heartache on either side.
One afternoon, not many days after the finding of
Tommy, the young people were assembled in the play-
hall busy with their several employments, when that
small gentleman arrived with a preternaturally grave
countenance. He climbed up on a stiff, high chair and
sat there, a ridiculous little figure with his small feet
sticking straight out in front of him. He had never
been known to be still for a moment before, and indeed
his silence did not last long.
"What do you think the stork brought me? "he
burst out.
"The stork, Tommy?"
" Yes. She brought me a baby sister. She's aw-
fully red, but she's fine," swelling with family pride.
" You should just hear her cry."
THE KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 217
" You mustn't be so naughty any more, Tommy,"
said little Dick from his nest of cushions. " You'll have
to set her a good example now."
" Dear me," said Tommy, sighing as though he was
weighted down with the responsibility, " I don't mean
to be naughty, but I do feel so wicked sometimes; it
gets into niy arms and legs and they will kick out, and
my tongue feels so funny it just tells lies."
He looked so miserable that Christine dropped her
sewing and put her arms around him to comfort him.
" If I'm better after this, Christine, don't you think
I might have a piece of that nice cake with sticky choco-
late on top what I had last time ? ' he said at last.
The cake being produced, he ate it contentedly, and
then, growing restless, slid off his chair and went off
to his nurse, forgetting to say good-bye.
From time to time he would come around to see
Christine and report the progress of the baby, of whom
he was immensely proud, and when in the course of
time he grew to be a fine, manly boy with excellent
control over his arms and legs and tongue, it is impos-
sible to say how much the baby sister's influence had
to do with the result.
15
CHAPTER XX.
THE HEART PARTY.
|XE morning when Christine went down to
breakfast she found at her plate a large
white envelope most formally addressed and
scaled with a big seal. When it was opened it was found
to contain an engraved card stating that she was re-
quested to be present at a party given in honour of
Marion's fifteenth birthday. In the corner of the card
were the words " dancing from 7 to 11 o'clock," just as
though it had been a grown folks' party.
The boys looked at the invitation admiringly, as
though they thought it was very fine getting invita-
tions to dances ; and when Christine, hardly able to con-
i/
tain her excitement, broke out with "Oh! may I go,
Auntie? ' Aunt Georgie only smiled over the coffee-
pot and said:
" We will talk about that later, my dear."
Christine went off to school with the invitation in
her pocket and exhibited it with pride to Lily and Isabel.
218
..
THE HEART PARTY. 219
Of course you're going," said Isabel.
I don't know," answered Christine. " Aunt
Georgie may not want me to go. Indeed, I think if
she did she would have told me so right away; besides,
I have other reasons." For down in Christine's heart
was the feeling that she did not think it was right to
go to Marion's party when she had never forgotten her
conduct on that eventful Saturday. She had never dis-
closed to any one save the family the affairs of that day,
so the Xortons wondered what her other reasons could
be; but she was firm, and to all their questions turned
a deaf ear.
It was the afternoon of the cooking class, so Chris-
tine staid to dinner at Miss Howe's; and when the fire
was burning well in the little stove the girls adjourned
to the kitchen, which was only a bigger kind of play-
house to them. It had been Christine's day to purchase
the marketing things, and she and Miss Howe had con-
cocted a little plan between them.
" We thought," she said, " that it would be ever so
nice to make something which could be carried to the
Raffertys afterward."
T, the last pie-crust which the little cooks had
220 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
attempted, while not so crisp and flaky as a pastry cook
might desire, was still far from being uneatable, and
when Miss Howe added, " I thought they might like
a beefsteak-pie," three squeals of delight went up, for
what so much fun as the rolling and folding, flouring
and cutting of pie-crust?
It was decided to make three little pies, so every
one might have a hand. Three little skillets contain-
ing the beefsteak were put on the fire, and three mould-
ing-boards, rolling-pins, flour-sifters, and glasses of ice-
water were brought out. The greatest excitement pre-
vailed over the rolling out and the careful lining of
the pie-dishes. Finally the meat was turned in, the
crust put on, and the pies closed into the nice hot oven.
There was quite a good deal of pastry left, and Miss
Howe suggested the making of tarts, and they cut out
quite a quantity with their heart-chaped cooky-cutters.
" Now if I was going to have a party," said Lily,
who was extremely practical, reverting to the burning
question of the morning, " I shouldn't have dancing.
I'd have tarts heart-shaped tarts for supper. I should
think one would get very sleepy dancing till eleven
o'clock. I'd rather go to bed at half past eight."
THE HEART PARTY. 221
Miss Howe laughed.
" I once knew some children who dressed up as the
king and queen and knave of hearts," she said.
" Oh, let's do that and have tarts," cried Lily and
Isabel, " only Christine couldn't come. She's going
to Marion's party, so it wouldn't be any fun to have
it," added Lily ruefully.
" Indeed, Lily," answered Christine, " I'm not at all
sure that I shall go. I think it would be lots more fun
to have a little party of our own, but I must see Aunt
Georgie before I say positively."
I am not sure that the alluring prospect of dressing
up as a playing-card did much to influence Christine's
decision. The more she thought about it the more it
seemed to her that if she was really sorry for her im-
patience and silly desires to be fashionable and grown
up she could not show it better than by refusing this
invitation, which was so exactly the fulfilment of her
past day-dreams. " And if we are to have a party of
our own, Marion can't be offended at my refusal," she
thought.
When the pies had been taken out and cooled they
were packed carefully into a basket and, little Dick and
222 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Whiskers having been kept waiting for some time,
Christine drove off with the precious basket on the seat.
Bridget smiled a welcome from the door of the model
o
lodging. It was a pleasant home, with the sunshine
streaming in at the window through a nice clean muslin
curtain which Christine had hemmed herself. The
Haffertys were as glad to see Christine's sunny face ap-
pear as the peasant girls down at Yerverney used to be,
and the children looked at her and the basket with wide-
open eyes of pleasure and recognition.
"We made them in our cooking class this afternoon,"
said Christine, disclosing the three little pies. " Our
initials are in the top crust and you must tell us which
one tasted the nicest. I forgot to put salt in mine, and
the crust is a little burned, but I thought you'd like
them all, as we made them."
Bridget raised the dishes out of the basket and set
them down on the table before saying a word.
"Sure," she said, "it's a perfect party!'
The words made Christine's heart throb " A per-
fect party! ' It pricked her conscience to think of all
the good things that she had every day of her life and
how little she thought of them and valued them, and
THE HEART PARTY. 223
here was Bridget's little face gleaming with happiness
and calling three tough-crusted pies " A perfect party."
It struck a death knell at the desire for luxury and show
which her acquaintance with Marion had nourished.
Dick was waiting in the street below, so Christine
could not stay many minutes, but before she went she
had to admire a sturdy geranium which Bridget had
won by a certain number of good-conduct marks at the
society of the " Little Mothers," and which was the
pride of the whole household.
Christine said very little to Dick on the way home,
but she went straight to Aunt Georgie, and drawing
the invitation out of her pocket said:
" Auntie, I think I should rather not go to Marion's
party."
" What ! Not have a new dress and dance all the
evening like a young lady? '
" !N"o," said Christine, " I know it will be beauti-
ful. I can just hear the music and see how lovely every
one will look, but I think I'll just stay at home.
There'll be lots of time for grown-up parties later on."
Aunt Georgie took her in her arms.
" That's my good sensible little Christine," she said.
224 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" We made up our minds that we would let you think
about it before we influenced you in any way. Both
your father and I will be very proud that our little girl
has shown such good judgment."
The boys fairly howled with glee when they found
Christine was not going to " the ball," as they charac-
terized Marion's party, and they carried out Miss Howe's
idea of a heart party just among themselves, which was
such a success that it is doubtful whether Marion's very-
much-dressed-up company had half as good a time.
In the first place, the cooking class had come out
so strongly on the tarts that there would have been a
great deal of excuse for the naughty knave of hearts'
theft. Jack, with a gilt paper crown and stiff green and
yellow paper cambric robes, sat at the head of the table ;
and Lily, who was certainly the best cook and of whom
it could truthfully be said that " she made those tarts,"
sat opposite with the big plate of tarts in front of her.
Teddy was the " knave," also most splendid in royal
robes. Little Dick was the " ace," with a long, straight,
white gown with a big heart on his chest and one on his
back. Christine and Isabel were the " ten and nine,"
and were considered Maids of Honour. At every one's
The Royal Family of Hearts.
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
THE HEART PARTY. 225
place was put the playing-card which they were to repre-
sent, and on the back of them Miss Howe had fastened
a piece of water-colour paper which read:
THE ROYAL FAMILY OF HEARTS.
TEA AND TARTS.
MAY 14, 189-
The queen of hearts she made some tarts
Upon a summer's day ;
The knave of hearts he stole those tarts
And took them quite away.
The Royal Family had keen appetites, and while
they were talking, sure enough, the knave stole the
tarts. The big dish suddenly and mysteriously disap-
peared, and in its place was only a small empty plate.
I am afraid Teddy must have had some secret un-
derstanding with Martha, who was waiting at table, for
he did not seem much perturbed, but sat looking as
contented and happy as though he had eaten every one.
Then at last, after many teasings and much looking
under the table, Teddy skipped out after Martha and
returned with the dish, and it was captured by the in-
dignant queen, who doled them out to her subjects.
They were certainly very good and the big dish was
rapidly cleared.
226 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Then Martha brought in another dish, but this one
did not contain tarts, but three envelopes, and the girls
could not understand what they were for.
" They're poems," said the king proudly. " Aunt
Georgie was going to buy some decorated cards, but
we said we wanted to write poems and do something
for the party, so long as you made the tarts. We had
a fine time writing the rhymes. There's one for each
of you."
The queen opened hers and read it first, Jack grow-
ing crimson as she proceeded:
I've stuck at this rhyme
An awful long time,
And my brain is on fire
With wrath and with ire
To think I can't write poems out of my head,
But I guess that the best of the poets are dead.
Then Isabel read:
Dainty and light,
Fingers white,
Knead and cut and bake.
Shall it be a pie to-day ?
Or shall it be a cake ?
Be the bread to feed the poor,
Or cates for my lady's table.
THE HEART PARTY. 227
Spare no pains to make it light,
And do the best you are able.
Dainty and light,
Fingers white,
Knead and cut and bake.
Shall it be a pie to-day I
Or shall it be a cake H
It is needless to say this dainty rhyme was little
Dick's. Then Christine read hers, which Teddy had
written in a very different vein:
Oh, we are the Royal Famil ee
The king, the queen, and the little knave ee ;
We want to go and sail on the sea
In anything that will float.
We will go in a carriage, a mousetrap, or pail,
We will start in a calm, or a breeze, or a gale,
We don't care how stout, and we don't care how frail,
But we will not go out in a boat.
For the very best sailors we've heard of so far
Went to sea in a sieve in a crockery jar,
And we're bound to beat them or we'll stay where we are,
So don't talk to us of a boat.
" Of course Aunt Georgie helped us. She started
us off on the right metres, but we did most of them
ourselves/' said the young poets, with evident pride that
228 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
if they could not make tarts, poetry was within their
reach.
Then, supper being over, the Royal Family marched
upstairs, and grouping around the piano, sang Mother
Goose and kindred gay melodies until the big clock in
the hall warned them that it was bedtime.
" Such a nice party, Aunt Georgie! ' said Chris-
tine as she took off her white robe emblazoned with its
nine hearts. And I do not think that she regretted at
all the pomp and circumstance which she had missed
by declining Marion's invitation.
You see that it was now getting well along toward
summer. The trees and grass were green, and the fruit-
trees had already borne and shed their fragrant masses
of blossoms. The children had paid a visit to Aunt
Jane in Lexington during the height of the blossom
time, and had gone wild with delight over the beautiful
spectacle which the old orchards presented. Miss
Howe's school was to close early, and Christine was not
sorry, for the warm days made her feel languid and
lazy. She wished that she could transport Aunt
Georgie, her father, and the boys over to the little cot-
tage at Yerverney, where her summers had always been
THE HEART PARTY. 229
passed, but since that was impossible for this year, she
listened with contentment to Teddy's accounts of the
fun they would have down by the sea, where Aunt
Georgie had a roomy old homestead just suited for hous-
ing young people.
CHAPTEE XXI
BY THE SEA.
LITTLE garden now with flowers growin'
in it that was somethin 7 what I niver
expected to see/' said Bridget Rafferty,
standing in the middle of the garden path and gazing
with round, admiring eyes at Christine, who with a
trowel was transplanting some long-stalked geraniums
into a flower bed.
" You can help if you like, Bridget; indeed, you
can have half the bed. We'll put some little white
stones across the centre so we can tell which side be-
longs to you."
Bridget felt that she was in Paradise as she selected
the stones from the pebbly walk and built the boundary
line.
" Between the gardin and ocean, Miss Christine,
this place do beat anything" she said, carefully digging
her trowel well under the root of a geranium and de-
positing it in the centre of the bed.
230
BY THE SEA. 231
Gray Marshes, while it may not have beaten every-
thing, was certainly a delightful place for the summer
vacation. Close to the rock-bound Cape Cod coast,
where the ocean roared and surged, Aunt Georgie's old
Puritan ancestors had built their low-lying comfortable
/ O
homestead. The well-seasoned timbers had withstood
the sea storms of more than a hundred years, and the
weather-beaten house, with its old-fashioned garden laid
out in box-bordered beds of foxglove, clove pinks, and
sweet Williams, was a veritable happy playground for
the young people. With the warm summer weather
that comes so suddenly upon the dwellers in cities Aunt
Georgie had noticed that Christine's cheeks grew pale
and that Dick lay languidly for many hours among his
pillows. So leaving Jack with Mrs. Hubbard for the
few weeks that remained of his school term, she came
down to Gray Marshes with Dick and Christine.
Christine had never been at the seashore before, and
Dick, who only knew the soft tropical shores of his
native land, was delighted with the strong rugged type
of the rock-bound coast. They drove Whiskers up and
down on the hard beach, they splashed about in the
water, Cap'n Lewis took them out in his big schooner
232 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
to the lobster pots, and their cheeks grew rosy and
brown in the strengthening salt air.
Little Dick was radiantly happy. For two weeks
he had his dear cousin all to himself, and when he grew
tired of running about with her or she worked in her
garden he would curl himself up in one of the broad
window seats and, looking out at the bit of the ocean
which could be seen through an opening in the garden
trees, his hands would noiselessly draw the bow over
the old Cremona as though he was trying to catch the
mysterious melody of the ocean's voice.
But there was one person still more contented, and
that was Bridget Rafferty. She had been ailing, and
Aunt Georgie had provided some one to look after the
babies for a couple of weeks and brought her down to
Gray Marshes. It was all so new to her the flowers,
the trees, the water after the dingy rear tenement in
which almost all her life had been passed, it seemed too
good to be real. She helped the gardener weed the
flower beds, she shelled the peas, and ran countless er-
rands for every one.
" When we're grown up," Christine said to her one
day when she found her at work on one of the tasks
BY THE SEA. 233
that were her idea of playing, " and I keep house for
father, you must come and be my maid."
From that time on Bridget had an ideal, a dream
for which she lived it was to be Christine's maid.
The days flew by quickly and it did not seem as
though three weeks could possibly have passed when
Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard came down to their place, which
was not very far away on the sea road, and with them
came Jack and Teddy, feeling very manly in the con-
sciousness of examinations passed creditably.
With their arrival the trim cat-boat, The Owl and
the Pussy Cat, which was painted a beautiful pea-green
to carry out the legend, was put into sailing order.
With Dick and Christine for passengers, the boys took
many long sails up and down the coast, their strong
young arms being quite equal to the reefing and furl-
ing of the sails.
The Columbian Fair was now opened in Chicago,
but it had been decided that the young people should
go out in September, when the weather was cool.
Christine had never quite forgiven the Fair for hav-
ing separated her so many months from her dear father,
but she felt that things were somewhat equalized when
16
234 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
she found that among the many foreigners whom the
exhibition attracted to this country, who should be com-
ing but her little French friend Felice, whom you will
remember when Christine was living at the cottage in
Vervemev. The two irls had written to each other
t/
all winter, Christine in French, Felice in strangely con-
structed English sentences. Christine knew all about
the convent, and she had kept Felice informed about
her cousins, the Xortons, and all the events of the
winter.
TThen Aunt Georgie learned that the Count and
Countess de Beauvoir were coming to this country she
sent them a kindly worded invitation in case they should
come to Boston, and what was Christine's delight to
find that, their engagements requiring them to visit an
old relative in Brookline, they would gladly let Felice
go to Gray Marshes for a week.
The boys groaned unanimously at the prospect of
a French girl all nerves and chatter. They would take
to the water they would never speak to her. They
vowed it again and again.
"When. Felice came she was most terribly homesick.
Her big brown eyes were so wistful and sad that she
BY THE SEA. 235
was quite pathetic to .behold, and her pretty broken-
English sentences were uttered in a low voice that could
scarcely be called chattering. She clung to Christine
as a link which bound her to her native land, and was
so evidently miserable that the boys laid their heads
together to devise all manner of ways of cheering her.
Now it was that Jack, the once gruff and grumpy,
came to the rescue in a manner wonderful to behold.
Clever as he was in his studies, he was a most indif-
ferent linguist, and the first smile that came to Felice's
face was raised by the extraordinary sentences which
he proudly considered French conversation. Under her
polite criticism he felt he was improving wonderfully.
They soon got to be friends, and Felice in English and
Jack in French carried on Ions talks which certainly.
*J 7
if they could understand each other, were all that could
be desired.
Felice would say:
" Ze ship you go her ze apres, apres after, after-
noon.'
And Jack would reply:
" Oui, a trois o'clock, o'clock, heures; merci, made-
moiselle, a trois heures, vous aussi come."
236 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Then Felice would smile, showing all her pretty,
even teeth, and would be sure to join the party at three
o'clock.
" This is better than being at Ververney with Jean-
iieton," she said one day to Christine when her home-
sickness had worn off and she was once more her lively
self, telling tales of her escapades at the convent, her
intolerance of being watched, and her desire to be
brought up d V Anglais.
" You boat, you swim, you go about with your cou-
sins all the day. Oh, cousins are so stiff in France!
They are no good. I think America must be the place
for little girls."
" I think so too," answered Christine. " I'm sure
it's the place for me, though I was awfully homesick
at first. But come; there's Teddy hoisting the sail on
The Owl and the Pussy Cat. We must hurry up or
we'll be late for the picnic."
" The peek-neek? Let us run," cried Felice, and the
two girls flew along the sand to the place where the boat
lay with its white sails gleaming in the sun, all ready
to take them out to Captain Johnson's Cave, a romantic
spot some miles up the coast which boasted a cave which
BY THE SEA. 237
was supposed to have been used by Captain Johnson
during the Revolution as a storehouse for firearms and
ammunition.
The young people were to have supper in the open
air, and Aunt Georgie and Mrs. Hubbard, with plente-
ous baskets of provisions, accompanied the little boat
in Frank's yacht. On the way out Teddy, who knew
every stick and stone of the coast and all the legends
of wrecks and treasure-trove, beguiled the time with
a real true story of how in the Revolution the British
soldiers had discovered Captain Johnson's hiding-place
and were going to make a raid, when he got wind of
their coming. It seems that it was not always mus-
kets and gunpowder that were concealed there. On
this occasion he had a large amount of Spanish gold
sent by private sympathizers with the rebellious colo-
nies.
There was no time to bury the money, so the sturdy
sailor dropped it down into the cave and was shot by the
soldiers who had been balked of their game.
"What boy's heart does not bound with thoughts of
secret treasures? Even Christine and Felice were filled
with a desire to explore the cave.
238 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Teddy," said Christine when they had finished
their supper, " I want to go down in the cave."
" Xonsense ! ' said Teddy. " You're afraid of lob-
sters; you'd have a fit if you went down in the cave.
"Why, we might meet a sea serpent."
But Aunt Georgie pooh-poohed the idea of the girls
being afraid when the boys were ready for the expedi-
tion.
" I've been down any number of times," she
said, " and I don't think there is the least danger
of a sea serpent or anything else frightening the
girls."
So Christine and Felice joyously set off with Jack
and Teddy, who carried the ship's lantern. They picked
their way gingerly over the stones at the mouth of the
cave, leaping from stone to stone, the vault echoing
with their voices, and finally found themselves in shal-
low water.
Whether the tide was remarkably low, or whether
no one happened to go there when the tide was so far
out, I do not know, but the end of the cave was almost
dry, and Felice, slipping with her wet shoes off a big
stone on to the sand, dug her hands into it to save her-
BY THE SEA. 239
self from falling. When she stood up laughing, her
hands full of sand, she had clutched a stone no, not a
stone, it was a big tarnished coin an old Spanish dollar.
Teddy gave a loud whoop of joy as he examined it
under the light of the lantern. It was the long-buried
treasure he was sure. The children searched and dug,
but no more coins were discovered, and finally they no-
ticed the tide creeping in and were forced to abandon
their search.
They rushed to Aunt Georgie, all talking at once,
and exhibited the treasure, Felice as delighted as pos-
sible at the adventure. The boys were planning schemes
for digging up the entire cave and most of the bay,
when Aunt Georgie, who had been turning the coin
over, interrupted them.
" Why, dears," she said, " this isn't one of Captain
Johnson's coins. See, it has a hole in it. I remember
this quite well. My father wore it on his watch-chain
for many years; indeed, he was quite provoked when
he lost it one day when he took us into the cave Avhen
I was about twelve vears old.'
y
So the golden dreams of a cave full of gold had to
be abandoned, though it seemed nearly as interesting
240 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
as finding the treasure to find a pocket-piece after so
many years.
There was a stiff breeze blowing on the sail home,
and as the tired mariners tumbled into their bed? thev
Ci
declared there had never been such an interesting day.
As for the coin, duly polished it was presented to
Felice, who always kept it as a souvenir of her Ameri-
can visit.
CHAPTER XXII.
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.
of Captain Johnson's brave
spirit must have lingered about the scene
of his gallant defence and death, for after
the visit to the cave and the finding of the Spanish dol-
lar the young people at Gray Marshes broke out into
a tremendous fever of patriotism. There was a great
getting out of histories and telling of revolutionary tales,
and the only drawback seemed to be that Aunt Georgie,
who could tell such interesting stories of the civil war,
had had no personal experience of the Revolution.
Although Christine had studied an outline of Ameri-
can history, she found that it was very different from
the stories Aunt Georgie read of Washington's courage
and heroism, of the stout farmers who fought at Lex-
ington, of the brave hearts who never gave up in the
long struggle, and the wise heads who held to the cause
of freedom through every temptation. Washington,
241
242 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
whom she had formerly associated with being on a post-
age-stamp, grew to be a hero.
" We helped you too," said Felice one day when
they were reading about the Marquis de La Fayette;
and indeed she had come to love this country almost as
ardently as her illustrious countryman.
" Yes, you helped," said Aunt Georgie, smiling into
her beaming face. " The only thing is, children, you
mustn't think the struggle as all over yet. You all
have work to do. Being good citizens and helping
make and keep good laws is just as much a noble thing
as fighting."
" Well," said Teddy, " I'm sure I should like to have
been a general not Washington, but one of the dash-
ing ones or "
" I'd rather have been Xathan Hale," said little
Dick.
" Nathan Hale! Why, he was captured and killed."
" Yes, I know, but I like him best; I think he was
noble," answered little Dick, who had learned in his
short suffering life that the battle is not always to the
strong and that the greatest success does not always
make the greatest hero.
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 243
" Christine and I," said Felice, " would have staid
at home and spun or we would have helped on the sol-
diers if there was a battle near. My ancestress, the Mar-
quise de La Valjen, kept her castle against the English
for days and days until the French army came up. She
is my favourite grandmother, and her portrait hangs in
the gallery at the chateau."
Felice's eyes glistened and her cheeks were bright,
as though she would like nothing better than to imitate
her heroic ancestor.
But Christine said nothing. She was thinking deep-
ly of what Aunt Georgie had said about the struggle
not yet being over, and that one must be a good
citizen.
" Teddy," she said the next day, when they were
scudding along with a good wind in The Owl and the
Pussy Cat, " are girls American citizens too? '
Teddy stopped for a moment in reefing the sail.
" Christine," he said, " what have you got in your
head? You're not going to be strong-minded and want
to vote, are you? '
" Why, no, Teddy, only I was wondering
" "Well, Chris, I shouldn't wonder. Men," drawing
CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
himself up proudly, " attend to all those questions.
Father and Frank talk politics by the hour and mother
sits by and listens. ]X T ow and then she puts in a word,
but not often."
" Very well, Teddy, if when I'm a woman you let
me put in a word now and then I shall be satisfied, only
I hope I shall know what you're talking about, even if
I am a girl."
" Oh, Chris, you've forgotten the centreboard," cried
the citizen reproachfully, and sure enough she had, in
the interest of the conversation, and the little boat was
most unhappily aground on a sand bank.
It was hopelessly stuck and, worst of all, they were
in one of the narrow channels of the salt marshes where
the high weeds on either side of the inlet shut them out
from sight. They sat ruefully in the bottom of the
boat, prepared for several hours' martyrdom before the
tide should float them off. Suddenly they heard a cheer-
ful voice coming from behind the reeds.
"Stuck, be ye?"
' Oh, Captain Jansen," they cried, recognising the
voice of the ancient lobster and clam man, " do you
think you can get us off? '
AX AMERICAN CITIZEN. 245
The ragged sail of his ancient dory appeared around
the corner of the reeds.
" Well, I dew declar'," he said, " howiver did yer
git stuck? "
" We were talking politics," said Teddy, who had
known the old salt for many years and knew he would
enjoy the joke.
" Talkiii' politics! Well, I never! ' he roared out
with a jolly laugh. " Well, just hitch yerselfs inter my
boat and I guess I can float yers off."
Float them off he did with the aid of pulls and tugs,
and when they were safely under weigh again they
could still hear him roaring with laughter and ejacu-
lating, "Talkin' politics!"
Christine felt that her first discussion had not been
a success, and she devoted herself entirely to the cen-
treboard and to ducking her head when the boom swung
around, until they were safely out of the marshes in
the wide bay.
But it would seem as though the afternoon had
been decreed bv Fate to be an eventful one, for late
e/ /
toward dusk, as they were scudding back, just as they
neared the marshes a sudden gust of wind and an un-
246 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
wise tacking of the small sail brought the little craft
over on its side. As it went over, Christine happily
caught hold of the side and, with but small wetting,
climbed on to the upturned keel; but Teddy, thrown
completely overboard by the sudden collapse, was wet
to the skin. It was too far to swim to land, and the
boat was too heavy for him to tow if he could have kept
on for such a distance. At last he succeeded in climb-
ing up beside Christine, his clothes dripping with water
and presenting a very drowned-puppy appearance. By
this time it was quite dark, and they were filled with
anxiety at the thought of spending the night on the up-
turned keel of the boat like mud turtles squatted on a
rock. The slow lapping of the waves as they drifted
with the tide and the strange helplessness of being there
among so much water made their hearts sink, though
they tried to maintain a cheerful demeanour toward
each other and to treat it as a great lark. They screamed
and shouted to attract attention, but no one seemed
moving on the dim shore and the water was perfectly
still not the sound of an oar or the flap of a sail. They
were, oh, so hungry and cold ! and the fog settling down
took all the ardour out of their spirits, and they clung
AX AMERICAN CITIZEN. 247
together for warmth and comfort in the middle of their
uncomfortable craft. When they had given up all hope
and Teddy was trying to keep up Christine's courage
to passing the night drifting about in the bay, they sud-
denly saw a light approaching through the gloom, and
a familiar voice shouted:
" Stranded, be ye? Lork's upsot clean upsot," and
there again was the friendly clam man, his red face and
bushy whiskers appearing in the radius of light.
" Talking politics ag'in, was yer i ' he kept mut-
tering as he steadied the wobbling cat-boat and helped
the stiff and tired pair into his dory. Away they scud-
ded with the upturned boat in tow, and before many
minutes were safe in their respective homes, being put
to bed and fed with hot drinks to prevent any bad con-
sequences from the exposure and wet. Happily enough,
neither of them suffered in the least from their duck-
ing, and for many days they kept the household in roars
of laughter describing their mud-turtley situation and
the sudden appearance of the ancient clam man with
his lantern, peering through the mist like the Dong with
the Luminous Xose. And whenever they met that an-
cient worthy sitting on the sand or sailing his boat, they
24:8 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
would always be greeted by a roar of laughter and a
chuckle, " Talkin' politics, be ye? ' as though their con-
versation had been the one joke which had ever perco-
lated through Captain Jaiiseii's brain.
They happily had no more adventures of the kind,
and the cat-boat remained " right side up with care " for
the rest of the summer. But every day was not pleasant
and sunshiny so they could be out on the water, and the
first rainy day was rather hailed with delight, since they
could do many little things which had been neglected
in the constant enjoyment of outdoor sports.
There w r as a trunk of old costumes in the attic, and
since the history readings had been inaugurated Aunt
Georgie had intended to get them down, but the matter
had been delayed until this very afternoon, when she
thought looking over them would be just the thing for
the children's amusement. So the trunk was brought
down and opened with a big old hand-wrought key, and
its contents, laid away in linen wrappings and scented
with old lavender, were taken out.
They crowded about, examining each parcel, and ex-
claiming over the quaintness of the old coats, and cocked
hats, and the stiff brocaded gowns that the Puritan
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 24:9
belles had worn year after year at the Governor's
balls.
Down in the bottom of the trunk there was a sim-
ple gray homespun gown, and Aunt Georgie said that,
so the story went, her great-grandmother had woven
the stuff with her own hands and worn it for her
wedding gown during the hard days of the Kevolu-
tion.
" Let's dress up," said Felice, true little French-
woman to her finger tips, who longed to array herself
in the old silken finery. So the boys picked out knee-
breeches, and flowered waist-coats, and tail coats, and Fe-
lice found it hard to decide between a short-waisted
white wedding dress and a gorgeous brocade, deciding
at last for the brocade.
But Christine would have none of these. When
the boys with their powdered heads came laughing into
the room, feeling very fine in their bravery, albeit it
was several sizes too big and not guiltless of pins, Felice,
a perfect Dresden-china marquise in her gorgeousness,
with her high hair powdered and a coquettish patch on
her pretty cheek, rose and made a stately court courtesy,
smiling over her big fan.
17
250 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Where's Christine?' cried little Dick from his
favourite seat by the window.
And then Christine came down the old oak stairs,
a veritable picture of the fair-haired wife of the builder
of the house in the old homespun gown, with a white
kerchief around her neck and her long braid turned up
and concealed by a little muslin cap.
The boys clapped their hands at the pretty picture
and executed their best court bows, and Mr. Averil,
Aunt Georgie, and little Dick could not sufficiently ad-
mire the gay group.
Then Aunt Georgie played the opening bars of the
court quadrille which they had all learned at dancing-
school, and they \veiit through the stately dance with
such airs and graces, such posturings and deep rever-
ence, as would not have disgraced their ancestors them-
selves.
Indeed, it may be said that the Puritan lady was
in no way outdone by the fine marquise, and Teddy her
partner quite decided that, for all the freckles on her
nose, Christine was a mighty nice looking girl.
The next day Felice had to go back to Boston to
meet her parents, and great was the sorrow at parting
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 251
from her. The boys, who had dreaded her coming, had
grown to consider her one of themselves, and Christine
was only consoled for her loss by the prospect of seeing
her later in Chicago.
So the summer days flew by at Gray Marshes
happy, happy days. And when the autumn came it was
a rosy-cheeked, hearty little maiden who went out to
the Fair and had a fine time there among all the won-
derful sights, as the boy or girl who is reading this book
probably did.
When they came back from their journey and Chris-
tine was settled once more in the house in Mount Yer-
non Street she was surprised one afternoon to have Aunt
Georgie come up to the big playroom and ask Teddy
to stay to tea.
" We're going to have a little celebration nothing
much, only an extra good cake; but I thought you
would like to stay," she said.
Why, is it some one's birthday? ' asked Jack.
K"o, not a birthday. Don't you remember what
day it is, Christine?'
" :N T o, Auntie."
" Why, it's just a year ago to-day that we landed."
a
a
252 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
"A year! a whole year, Auntie? ^Vhy, it only
seems yesterday. I can't believe it."
" Yes, dear, it really is/ 7 said Aunt Georgie, smil-
ing. " And it shows that it has been a happy one if it
has passed so quickly."
Jack and Teddy looked up from their work and little
Dick from his cushions.
" It has been a happy year for all of us," they said.
CHAPTEE XXIII.
SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION.
'O the years rolled by over Christine's sunny
head four long, happy years well spent
with her studies, her playmates, her cousins,
and the nianv interests which had crown about her
t/
life.
" Sweet seventeen ! ' "What a big girl she feels as
she rises on her birthday morning ! Before she is dressed
in comes Aunt Georgie in her dressing-gown to give
her seventeen kisses and a beautiful gift a gold hair-
pin such as young ladies wear in their hair. Then
Christine realizes that she is old enough to wear her
hair put up, and indeed she is so big and her dresses so
long that this coiling up of her hair only adds to her
sweet womanly look.
Aunt Georgie brushes the waving mass which is
beautiful despite Teddy's epithet of red, which he would
never think of applying now up from her white neck
253
254 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
and coils it around her head in grown-up fashion with
the pin stuck in the top.
Christine looks at herself in the glass and is half
laughing, half crying, to see how much of a young lady
she is.
" I don't want to be anything but your dear girl,
Auntie," she says, but she does not take the pin out.
Then Mr. Averil must admire the new coiffure, and
Dick seems quite in awe of his tall young cousin when
she comes down to breakfast with her head carried very
high in its new dignity and the gold hairpin gleaming
among her ruddy locks. She has to go to school soon,
so the hairpin is taken out and put in its white box, and
she sets off to Miss Howe's with a light heart and with a
letter of congratulaiton from Felice whose father is
dead and who is now the Countess Beauvoir in her
pocket.
The school is just the same, the Norton girls just
as good companions, and they still cook in the little
kitchen, though lately they have not been concocting
leathery beefsteak pies.
There is an afternoon session now, and Christine
is very much interested, I can assure you, in some of
SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION. 255
those very " ologies ' which frightened her so at first
at Miss Baldwin's. But take her all in all, she is not a
very booky girl, though she likes to read the books and
poems that are classics in English, French, and German,
and Miss Howe has proved a kindly mentor in helping
her to choose and discriminate.
When Christine got home from school she went
straight to her room and changed her dress, putting on
a pretty, soft terra-cotta that suited her complexion very
well, and which, if not so " fashionable ' ' as the gowns
she used to envy Marion, was certainly quite as pretty.
As she looked at herself again in the glass, half ashamed
of her vanity in once more wishing to admire her grown-
up coil with the beautiful hairpin in it, Martha knocked
on the door and handed in on a little silver tray a visit-
ing card.
" Who," thought Christine, " can be coming to call
on me so formally?" and her surprise was increased
when she read the card,
"THEODORE CABOT HCJBBARD,
"Mount Vernon Street."
"Why, it's Teddy! " she said, seeing Martha smile.
256 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
" Yes, miss, it's Mister Teddy," said Martha, who
had called the boy Master Teddy from his birth.
Sure enough, of course it was Teddy sitting in the
drawing-room under the picture of the bay of Honolulu
such a big nineteen-year-old Teddy that his friends
were afraid he would never stop growing until he was
so big that he wouldn't be able to get through the
doors.
" Why, what a young lady you are ! ' said Teddy
teasingly. " I heard all about the turned-up hair from
Dick this morning. He stopped in with his fiddle on
the way to the Conservatory, so I thought you might
expect me to come and call with a card. I half fancied
you would send down word that you were out."
Oh, Teddy, you didn't."
Yes, indeed, I did."
Teddy, come up to the playroom and sit on the
old sofa. You look so grown up sitting in that chair
with that depressing picture of the bay of Honolulu
hanging over you that I can't think of anything to talk
about except the weather."
Do you remember how we thought Dick and Jack
would be black?"
a
a
a
SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION. 257
" Yes; I was terribly disappointed, and I think you
were.'
..
So you don't want really to be considered grown
up, Christine, and have formal calls and have compli-
ments paid you you're going right on ;
" Being your little sister, yes, Teddy."
" Very well, Christine, let's go upstairs to the hall.
I grieve that I have wasted upon you my very, very
highest collar, but I thought the occasion demanded it."
For Teddy was much of a dude and sported the very
highest of high collars in these days.
When they were comfortably settled in the dilapi-
dated old chairs in the square hall which had been the
scene of so many useful and happy hours, Teddy, after
much teasing and wondering and boyish " what will
you give to know?' 3 which strung Christine's anxiety up
to a high pitch, imparted the news that in another month
he was going to Paris to take the examinations for en-
tering the Beaux Arts. His boyish dream of wishing
to be an architect was to be fulfilled. He had been
studying in an architect's office all winter, and it had
been decided that he showed sufficient ability to war-
rant the foreign training.
258 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
Christine knew how much his heart had been set
upon it, and she could only say:
" Oh, I'm so glad for you! ' but she had a sharp
pang at heart that her old playmate was going away.
But she entered into all Teddy's plans and hopes
with warm sympathy, and often in his lonely lodgings
in Paris the boy remembered it and longed for a good
talk with her when he was homesick and discouraged
over his work.
" Teddy, you must study so hard," said Christine,
" and get to be a great architect so that your name will
be written up on the wall as father's is. I shall never
forget how proud I was when I saw it there. I used to
make myself so unhappy when I was a little girl because
I wasn't talented like mamma and papa. Do you re-
member telling me on the steamer that I was so homely
you supposed I was clever. I couldn't forget it."
" Oh, dear," said Teddy, " did I say that? What
an awful youngster I must have been! '
" Yes, it made me very wretched. My career was
always bothering me, but somehow since I've lived with
Aunt Georgie I've learned to be contented. You and
Jack and Dick are all going out in the world to do so
SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION. 259
much, but I'm glad that I am going to stay at home
with father and Auntie and always be "
" Our dear little Chris."
Our dear little Chris! Could anything more be
said, for though our heroine will never paint pictures,
carve statues, or write verses, she has the sweet woman-
ly qualities of thoughtfulness, kindness, and sweetness
that attaches all those with whom she comes in con-
tact.
They talk of their meeting in Paris so long ago, re-
viewing past escapades and long-forgotten pranks. Dick,
coming in with his violin under his arm from one of
his " Happy Hours " for he still is a ray of sunshine
to the little crippled children hears their merry laugh-
ter and bounds upstairs to warn them that it is time to
dress for dinner. Yet he can not resist just a few min-
utes' chat, and curls up on the end of the sofa beside
Christine.
'Are you tired, Dick, dear?' she says, smiling.
" Xo, Christine, I'm never tired now," for Dick,
though he is not very big, is quite well and strong owing
to Dr. Mclntyre's wonderful care. " Going to Paris!
Oh, Teddy, how fine ! I shall come over with the fiddle
260 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
some time and ring at the Beaux Arts gates, ' Where,
oh, where is our jolly Teddy? ' and you will come out
with a fierce pair of black mustachios and an enormous
compass in your hand and cry ' Begone ! I only talk
in French.'
" No, I won't. I shall say, ' Is that the voice of
Richard the Knight of Hawaii? Tune up, my friend,
and give us Annie Rooney.'
This ditty being still the favourite of the hospital
children, Dick thinks that he must have been listen-
ing.
So they sit in the dark and make plans for all going
over to France in Teddy's vacations for the doctor
has forbidden Dick's returning to the enervating cli-
mate of Hawaii of the trips they will take together,
and how they will see all the beautiful pictures that
are in Mr. Averil's photograph albums. They talk of
vacations at Gray Marshes, of the heart and tart party,
of the Lady of the Lake, of Felice of everything they
can think of until Martha, with small respect now for
visiting cards and dressed hair, comes up with a sharp
" Master Teddy, Miss Georgie says you have got to go
home to dress.'
SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION. 261
For Christine is to have a little dinner party, just
her own little circle of friends, but a dinner party in-
stead of the tea parties of bygone years.
"When she is dressed in her pretty fluffy white gown
she runs into her aunt's room to see the effect in the
long pier glass, and can scarcely believe that such a beau-
tiful reflection is her own. Lily and Isabel come muf-
fled up in long cloaks, and Marion, who is very much
of a young lady and somewhat bored and languid after
a winter's dissipation, for she is " out ' ' now.
They all march into the dining-room where they
had the heart party and many other jollifications, and
through their soup every one is quite stiff and correct
and they talk quite as stupidly as most grown-up people
do under the same circumstances.
Then tongues are loosened. The football match is
fought up and down the table. The affairs of Harvard,
where Jack is now an uproarious freshman, come in for
their share of interest, and the girls all envy Marion,
who is going to " Class Day."
At last the birthday cake is brought in with its sev-
enteen blazing candles a beautiful light cake frosted
and decorated by whose skilful fingers do you suppose
262 CHRISTINE'S CAREER.
but Bridget Rafferty's, who is still in training to be Miss
Christine's own maid.
A triumphant shout goes up when Teddy gets the
ring, having nearly swallowed it for a raisin. Then
they rise from the table and, singing some of Jack's
college catches, group themselves around Aunt Georgie
at the piano and sing until the roof rings.
Then little Dick must have out his violin the old
Cremona that was Ole Bull's and w r hich has been his
dearest friend since the Christmas night when it came
to be his.
First he plays all the old favourites beautiful music
that touches Aunt Georgie, that makes languid Marion
think of other things beside her new ball dress, that
brings a throb into Teddy's honest heart, and makes
Jack remember that his college life isn't all fun.
Then he plays a new air, a little sad air of parting,
of separation the very thought that has been echoing
in Christine's heart during these last months of her
school days.
But the minor chords change to joyousness, to a
song of life and light, of the fruition of the good seed
that has been sown.
SWEET SEVENTEEN. CONCLUSION. 263
So with the soft strains of the melody echoing in
her ears we will leave Christine standing on the thresh-
old of her new life, a sweet prophecy of the happiness
that will come in her career of loving, thoughtful
womanhood.
THE END.
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT
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taken from the Building
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