Kitabı oku: «Bessie at the Sea-Side», sayfa 8

XVI.
THE BIRTHDAY PRESENTS

THE tenth of August was Maggie's birthday. She would be seven years old, and on that day she was to have a party. At first, Mrs. Bradford had intended to have only twenty little children at this party, but there seemed some good reason for inviting this one and that one, until it was found that there were about thirty to come.

Maggie begged that she might print her own invitations on some of the paper which Grandpapa Duncan had sent. Mamma said she might try, but she thought Maggie would be tired before she was half through, and she was right. By the time Maggie had printed four notes, her little fingers were cramped, and she had to ask her mother to write the rest for her. Mrs. Bradford did so, putting Maggie's own words on Maggie's and Bessie's own stamped paper. Maggie said this was Bessie's party just as much as hers, and the invitations must come from her too. So they were written in this way.

"Please to have the pleasure of coming to have a party with us, on Tuesday afternoon, at four o'clock.

"Maggie and Bessie."

Among those which Maggie had printed herself, was one to Colonel and Mrs. Rush.

"What do you send them an invitation for?" said Fred. "They wont come. The colonel can't walk so far, and Mrs. Rush wont leave him."

"Then they can send us a refuse," said Maggie. "I know the colonel can't come, but maybe Mrs. Rush will for a little while. We're going to ask them, anyhow. They'll think it a great discompliment if we don't."

Such busy little girls as they were on the day before the birthday! The dolls had to be all dressed in their best, and the dolls' tea things washed about a dozen times in the course of the morning. Then Bessie had a birthday present for Maggie. She had been saving all her money for some time to buy it. Papa had bought it for her, and brought it from town the night before. Every half-hour or so, Bessie had to run and peep at it, to be sure it was all safe, taking great care that Maggie did not see.

They went to bed early, that, as Maggie said, "to-morrow might come soon," but they lay awake laughing and talking until nurse told them it was long past their usual bedtime, and they must go right to sleep.

The next morning Bessie was the first to wake. She knew by the light that it was very early, not time to get up. She looked at her sister, but Maggie showed no signs of waking.

"Oh, this is Maggie's birthday!" said the little girl to herself. "My dear Maggie! I wish she would wake up, so I could kiss her and wish her a happy birthday. 'Many happy yeturns,' that's what people say when other people have birthdays. I'll say it to Maggie when she wakes up. But now I'll go to sleep again for a little while."

Bessie turned over for another nap, when her eye was caught by something on the foot of the bed. She raised her head, then sat upright. No more thought of sleep for Bessie. She looked one moment, then laid her hand upon her sleeping sister.

"Maggie, dear Maggie, wake up! Just see what somebody brought here!"

Maggie stirred, and sleepily rubbed her eyes.

"Wake up wide, Maggie! Only look! Did you ever see such a thing?"

Maggie opened her eyes, and sat up beside Bessie. On the foot of the bed – one on Maggie's side, one on Bessie's – were two boxes. On each sat a large doll – and such dolls! They had beautiful faces, waxen hands and feet, and what Bessie called "live hair, yeal live hair." They were dressed in little white night-gowns, and sat there before the surprised and delighted children as if they had themselves just wakened from sleep. Maggie threw off the bed-covers, scrambled down to the foot of the bed, and seized the doll nearest to her.

"Who did it, Bessie?" she said.

"I don't know," said Bessie. "Mamma, I guess. I think they're for your birthday."

"Why, so I s'pose it is!" said Maggie. "Why don't you come and take yours, Bessie?"

"But it is not my birthday," said Bessie, creeping down to where her sister sat. "I don't believe somebody gave me one; but you will let me play with one; wont you, Maggie?"

"Bessie, if anybody did be so foolish as to give me two such beautiful dolls, do you think I'd keep them both myself, and not give you one? Indeed, I wouldn't. And even if they only gave me one, I'd let it be half yours, Bessie."

Bessie put her arm about her sister's neck and kissed her, and then took up the other doll.

"What cunning little ni'-gowns!" she said. "I wonder if they have any day clo's."

"Maybe they're in these boxes," said Maggie. "I'm going to look. Gracie Howard's aunt did a very unkind, selfish thing. She gave her a great big doll with not a thing to put on it. I don't believe anybody would do so to us. Oh, no! here's lots and lots of clo's! Pull off your cover quick, Bessie. Oh, I am so very, very pleased! I know mamma did it. I don't believe anybody else would be so kind. See, there's a white frock and a silk frock and a muslin one, and – oh! goody, goody! – a sweet little sack and a round hat, and petticoats and drawers and everything! Why don't you look at yours, Bessie, and see if they are just the same?"

"Yes," said Bessie; "they are, and here's shoes and stockings, and oh! such a cunning parasol, and here's – oh, Maggie, here's the dear little cap that I saw in Mrs. Yush's drawer the day the colonel sent me to find his knife! Why, she must have done it!"

"And look here, Bessie, at this dear little petticoat all 'broidered. That's the very pattern we saw Aunt Annie working the day that 'bomnable Miss Adams pulled your hair. Isn't it pretty?"

"And see, Maggie! Mrs. Yush was sewing on a piece of silk just like this dear little dress, and she wouldn't tell us what it was. I do believe she did it, and Aunt Annie and maybe the colonel."

"How could the colonel make dolls' clothes?" said Maggie. "Men can't sew."

"Soldier men can," said Bessie. "Don't you yemember how Colonel Yush told us he had to sew on his buttons? But I did not mean he made the dolly's clothes, only maybe he gave us the dolls, and Mrs. Yush and Aunt Annie made their things. Oh, here's another ni'-gown, – two ni'-gowns!"

"Yes," said Maggie. "I was counting, and there's two ni'-gowns, and two chemise, and two everything, except only dresses, and there's four of those, and they're all marked like our things, – 'Bessie,' for yours, and 'Maggie' for mine. Oh, what a happy birthday! Bessie, I'm so glad you've got a doll too! Oh, I'm so very gratified!"

"I have something nice for you too, Maggie. Please give me my slippers, and I'll go and get it."

Maggie leaned over the side of the trundle-bed, to reach her sister's slippers, but what she saw there quite made her forget them. She gave a little scream of pleasure, and began hugging up her knees and rolling about the bed squealing with delight. Bessie crept to the edge of the bed, and peeped over. There stood two little perambulators, just of the right size for the new dolls, and in each, lay neatly folded, a tiny affghan.

When this new excitement was over, Bessie put on her slippers and went for her present for Maggie. This was a little brown morocco work-bag, lined with blue silk, and fitted up with scissors, thimble, bodkin, and several other things. She gave it to her sister saying, "I make you many happy yeturns, dear Maggie." Then Maggie had another fit of rolling, tumbling, and screaming, until nurse, who was watching the children from her bed, though they did not know it, could stand it no longer, but broke into a hearty laugh.

"Now, nursey," said Maggie.

"Is it a pig or a puppy we have got here for a birthday?" said nurse. "Sure, it is a happy one I wish you, my pet, and many of 'em, and may you never want for nothing more than you do now. Now don't you make such a noise there, and wake Franky. I s'pose I may just as well get up and wash and dress you, for there'll be no more sleep, I'm thinking."

"Who gave us these dolls and all these things, nursey?" asked Maggie.

"Indeed, then, Bessie was just right," said nurse. "Colonel Rush gave you the dolls, and his wife, with Miss Annie, made the clothes; and did you ever see dolls that had such a fittin' out? It was your mamma that bought the wagons and made the blankets."

"We didn't see her," said Bessie.

"No, but she did them when you were out or asleep; but you see Mrs. Rush and Miss Annie had to be working all the time on the clothes, lest they wouldn't be done; and you're round there so much, they had to let you see."

"But we never knew," said Maggie.

The children could scarcely keep still long enough to let nurse bathe and dress them; but at last it was done, and then the dolls were dressed, and the rest of the clothes put nicely away in the boxes. As soon as baby awoke, they were off to their mamma's room, scrambling up on the bed to show their treasures, and talking as fast as their tongues could go.

"I was so very surprised, mamma!" said Maggie.

"You were not; were you, Bessie?" said mamma, laughing.

"Why, yes, I was."

"Didn't you see or hear something last night?" asked mamma.

Bessie looked at her mother for a minute, and then exclaimed, "Oh, yes, I do yemember, now! Maggie, last night I woke up and somebody was laughing, and I thought it was Aunt Annie; but when I opened my eyes, only mamma was there, and when I asked her where Aunt Annie was, she said, 'Go to sleep; you shall see Aunt Annie in the morning.' Mamma, I thought you came to kiss us, as you do every night before you go to bed. I suppose you put the dolls there that time?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Bradford.

"That's what I call being mysteyious," said Bessie.

"Do you like people to be mysterious, Bessie?" asked her father, laughing.

"About dolls, I do, papa; but about some things, I don't."

"What things?"

"When they're going to say what they don't want me to hear, and they send me out of the yoom. I don't like that way of being mysteyious at all. It hurts children's feelings very much to be sent out of the yoom."

"What are these magnificent young ladies to be named?" asked Uncle John, at the breakfast-table.

"Mine is to be Bessie Margaret Marion," said Maggie, – "after mamma and Bessie and Mrs. Rush."

"Why, all your dolls are named Bessie," said Harry; "there are big Bessie and little Bessie and middling Bessie."

"I don't care," said Maggie; "this is going to be Bessie too. She will have two other names, so it will be very nice. Besides, I am not going to play with middling Bessie again. The paint is all off her cheeks, and Franky smashed her nose in, and yesterday I picked out her eyes, to see what made them open and shut, so she is not very pretty any more. I am going to let Susie have her."

"And what is yours to be, Bessie?"

"Margayet Colonel Hoyace Yush Byadford," said Bessie, trying very hard to pronounce her r's.

The boys shouted and even the grown people laughed.

"That is a regular boy's name, – all except the Margaret," said Fred, "and the Colonel is no name at all."

"It is," said Bessie, – "it is my own dear soldier's, and it is going to be my dolly's. You're bad to laugh at it, Fred."

"Do not be vexed, my little girl," said her father. "Colonel is not a name; it is only a title given to a man because he commands a regiment of soldiers. Now young ladies do not command regiments, and Horace is a man's name. You may call your doll what you please, but suppose you were to name her Horatia; would not that sound better?"

But Bessie held fast to the Horace; it was her soldier's name, and she was quite determined to give her doll the same.

After breakfast, Mrs. Bradford called Maggie up stairs for a while. "Maggie, dear," she said, when she had taken the little girl up into her lap, "have you remembered this morning that our Father in heaven has brought you to the beginning of another year of your life?"

"Oh, yes, mamma," said Maggie; "I have done nothing but think it was my birthday ever since I woke up. You know I could not forget it when every one was so kind and gave me such lots and lots of lovely things."

"But have you remembered to thank God for letting you see another birthday, and for giving you all these kind friends, and so many other blessings? And have you asked him to make you wiser and better each year, as you grow older?"

"I am afraid I did not think much about it that way," said Maggie, coloring; "but I am very thankful. I know I have a great many blessings. I have you and papa and Bessie, and my new doll, and all the rest of the family. But I want to know one thing, mamma. Isn't it wrong to pray to God about dolls? Bessie said it wasn't, but I thought it must be."

"How to pray about them, dear?"

"To thank God because he made Colonel Rush think of giving us such beautiful ones. Bessie said we ought to, but I thought God would not care to hear about such little things as that. Bessie said we asked every day for our daily bread; and dolls were a great deal better blessing than bread, so we ought to thank him. But I thought he was such a great God, maybe he would be offended if I thanked him for such a little thing as a doll."

"We should thank him for every blessing, dear, great and small. Though we deserve nothing at his hands, all that we have comes from his love and mercy; and these are so great that even our smallest wants are not beneath his notice. He knows all our wishes and feelings, – every thought, whether spoken or not; and if you feel grateful to him because he put it into the hearts of your kind friends to give you this pretty present, he knew the thought, and was pleased that you should feel so. But never fear to thank him for any mercy, however small. Never fear to go to him in any trouble or happiness. He is always ready to listen to the simplest prayer from the youngest child. Shall we thank him now for all the gifts and mercies you have received to-day, and for the care which he has taken of you during the past year?"

"Yes, mamma."

"And, Maggie, I think you have one especial blessing to be grateful for."

"What, mamma?"

"That you have been able, with God's help, to do so much towards conquering a very troublesome fault."

"Oh, yes, mamma! and I do think God helped me to do that, for I asked him every night and morning, since I meddled with papa's inkstand. I mean, when I said, 'God bless,' when I came to 'make me a good little girl,' I used to say quite quick and softly to myself, 'and careful too.'"

"That was right, dear," said Mrs. Bradford, tenderly smoothing Maggie's curls, and kissing her forehead; "you see he did hear that little prayer, and help you in what you were trying to do."

Then Mrs. Bradford knelt down with Maggie, and thanked God that he had spared her child's life, and given her so many blessings, and prayed that each year, as she grew older, she might be better and wiser, and live more to his glory and praise.

"I am not quite careful yet, mamma," said Maggie, when they rose from their knees. "You know the other day, when nurse told me to bring in Bessie's best hat, I forgot and left it out on the grass, and the rain spoiled it; but I mean to try more and more, and maybe, when I am eight, I will be as careful as Bessie."

XVII.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

MAGGIE said this was the very best birthday she had ever had. The whole day seemed one long pleasure. She and Bessie walked over, with their father and Uncle John, to see Colonel and Mrs. Rush, leaving mamma, Aunt Helen, and Aunt Annie all helping Mrs. Jones to prepare for the evening. There were cakes and ice cream and jelly to make, for such things could not be bought here in the country as they could in town.

The new dolls went too, seated in the perambulators and snugly tucked in with the affghans, though it was such a warm day that when they reached the hotel, Bessie said she was "yoasted."

"So this is a pleasant birthday; is it, Maggie?" said the colonel.

"Oh, yes!" said Maggie; "I wish every day was my birthday or Bessie's."

"Then in sixty days you would be old ladies. How would you like that?" said Uncle John.

"Not a bit," answered Maggie; "old ladies don't have half so much fun as children."

"So you will be content with one birthday in a year?"

"Yes, Uncle John."

"And you liked all your presents, Maggie?" asked the colonel.

"Yes, sir, except only one."

"And what was that?"

"Mrs. Jones gave me a white Canting flannel rabbit, with black silk for its nose, and red beads for its eyes. Idea of it! just as if I was a little girl, and I am seven! I told nurse if baby wanted it, she could have it; and I didn't care if she did put it in her mouth. Nurse said I was ungrateful; but I am not going to be grateful for such a thing as that."

The colonel and Uncle John seemed very much amused when Maggie said this, but her father looked rather grave, though he said nothing.

"Colonel Yush," said Bessie, "you didn't send me a yefuse."

"A what?"

"A yefuse to our party note."

"Oh, I understand. Did you want me to refuse?"

"Oh, no, we didn't want you to; but then we knew you couldn't come, because you are so lame."

"Will it do if you get an answer to-night?" said the colonel.

Bessie said that would do very well.

When they were going home, Mr. Bradford fell a little behind the rest, and called Maggie to him. "Maggie, dear," he said, "I do not want to find fault with my little girl on her birthday, but I do not think you feel very pleasantly towards Mrs. Jones."

"No, papa, I do not; I can't bear her; and the make-believe rabbit too! If you were seven, papa, and some one gave you such a thing, would you like it?"

"Perhaps not; but Mrs. Jones is a poor woman, and she gave you the best she had, thinking to please you."

"Papa, it makes Mrs. Jones very mad to call her poor. The other day I asked her why she didn't put pretty white frocks, like our baby's and Nellie's, on Susie. Bessie said she supposed she was too poor. Mrs. Jones was as cross as anything, and said she wasn't poor, and Mr. Jones was as well off as any man this side the country; but she wasn't going to waste her time doing up white frocks for Susie. She was so mad that Bessie and I ran away."

"Then we will not call her poor if she does not like it," said Mr. Bradford; "but Mrs. Jones is a kind-hearted woman, if she is a little rough sometimes. She tries very hard to please you. Late last night, I went into her kitchen to speak to Mr. Jones, and there she sat making that rabbit, although she had been hard at work all day, trying to finish her wash, so that she might have the whole of to-day to make cakes and other nice things for your party. Yet this morning when she brought it to you, you did not look at all pleased, and scarcely said, 'Thank you.'"

"Ought I to say I was pleased when I was not, papa?"

"No, certainly not; but you should have been pleased, because she meant to be kind, even if you did not like the thing that she brought. It was not like a lady, it was not like a Christian, to be so ungracious; it was not doing as you would be done by. Last week you hemmed a handkerchief for Grandpapa Duncan. Now you know yourself that, although you took a great deal of pains, the hem was rather crooked and some of the stitches quite long, yet grandpapa was more pleased with that one than with the whole dozen which Aunt Helen hemmed, and which were beautifully done, because he knew that you had done the best you could, and that it was a great effort for you. It was not the work, but the wish to do something for him, that pleased him. Now, if grandpa had frowned, and looked at the handkerchief as if it were scarcely worth notice, and grumbled something that hardly sounded like 'Thank you,' how would you have felt?"

"I'd have cried," said Maggie, "and wished I hadn't done it for him."

"Suppose he had told other people that he didn't like work done in that way, and was not going to be grateful for it?"

Maggie hung her head, and looked ashamed. She saw now how unkindly she had felt and acted towards Mrs. Jones.

Mr. Bradford went on: "I think Mrs. Jones was hurt this morning, Maggie. Now, I am sure you did not mean to vex her; did you?"

"No, papa, indeed, I did not. What can I do? I don't think I ought to tell Mrs. Jones that I think the rabbit is pretty when I don't."

"No, of course you must not. Truth before all things. But you might play with it a little, and not put it out of sight, as you did this morning. Perhaps, too, you may find a chance to thank her in a pleasanter way than you did before."

"I'll make a chance," said Maggie.

When they reached the house, Maggie ran up to the nursery. "Nursey," she said, "where is my rabbit; did baby have it?"

"No, indeed," said nurse; "I wasn't going to give it to baby, to hurt Mrs. Jones' feelings, – not while we're here, at least. When we go to town, then my pet may have it, if you don't want it; and a nice plaything it will make for her then. It's up there on the mantel-shelf."

"Please give it to me," said Maggie; "I'm going to cure Mrs. Jones' feelings."

Nurse handed it to her, and she ran down stairs with it. She took her doll out of the little wagon, put the rabbit in its place, and tucked the affghan all round it. Then she ran into the kitchen, pulling the wagon after her.

"Now, come," said Mrs. Jones, the moment she saw her, "I don't want any children here! I've got my hands full; just be off."

"Oh, but, Mrs. Jones," said Maggie, a little frightened, "I only want you to look at my rabbit taking a ride in the wagon. Don't he look cunning? I think you were very kind to make him for me."

"Well, do you know?" said Mrs. Jones. "I declare I thought you didn't care nothing about it, – and me sitting up late last night to make it. I was a little put out when you seemed to take it so cool like, and I thought you were stuck up with all the handsome presents you'd been getting. That wasn't nothing alongside of them, to be sure; but it was the best I could do."

"And you were very kind to make it for me, Mrs. Jones. I am very much obliged to you. No, Susie, you can't have it. Maybe you'd make it dirty, and I'm going to keep it till I'm thirteen; then I'll let baby have it, when she's big enough to take care of it."

"Oh, it will be in the ash-barrel long before that," said Mrs. Jones. "Here's a cake for you and one for Bessie."

"No, thank you," said Maggie; "mamma said we musn't eat any cakes or candies this morning, because we'll want some to-night."

"That's a good girl to mind so nice," said Mrs. Jones; "and your ma's a real lady, and she's bringing you up to be ladies too."

Maggie ran off to the parlor, glad that she had made friends with Mrs. Jones. She found her mother and Aunt Helen and Aunt Annie all making mottoes. They had sheets of bright-colored tissue paper, which they cut into small squares, fringed the ends with sharp scissors, and then rolled up a sugar-plum in each. They allowed Maggie and Bessie to help, by handing the sugar-plums, and the little girls thought it a very pleasant business. And once in a while mamma popped a sugar-plum into one of the two little mouths, instead of wrapping it in the paper; and this they thought a capital plan. Then came a grand frolic in the barn with father and Uncle John and the boys, Tom and Walter being of the party, until Mrs. Bradford called them in, and said Bessie must rest a while, or she would be quite tired out before afternoon. So, taking Bessie on his knee, Grandpapa Duncan read to them out of a new book he had given Maggie that morning. After the early dinner, the dolls, old and new, had to be dressed, and then they were dressed themselves, and ready for their little visitors.

The piazza and small garden and barn seemed fairly swarming with children that afternoon. And such happy children too! Every one was good-natured, ready to please and to be pleased. And, indeed, they would have been very ungrateful if they had not been; for a great deal of pains was taken to amuse and make them happy. Even Mamie Stone was not heard to fret once.

"I do wish I had an Uncle John!" said Mamie, as she sat down to rest on the low porch step, with Bessie and one or two more of the smaller children, and watched Mr. Duncan, as he arranged the others for some new game, keeping them laughing all the time with his merry jokes, – "I do wish I had an Uncle John!"

"You have an Uncle Robert," said Bessie.

"Pooh! he's no good," said Mamie. "He's not nice and kind and funny, like your Uncle John. He's as cross as anything, and he wont let us make a bit of noise when he's in the room. He says children are pests; and when papa laughed, and asked him if he said that because he remembered what a pest he was when he was a child, he looked mad, and said no; children were better behaved when he was a boy."

"I don't think he's very better behaved to talk so," said Bessie, gravely.

"No, he's not," said Mamie. "He's awful. He's not a bit like Mr. Duncan. And I like your Aunt Annie too. She plays so nice, just as if she were a little girl herself; and she helps everybody if they don't know how, or fall down, or anything."

"Are we not having a real nice time, Bessie?" asked Gracie Howard.

"Yes," said Bessie; "but I do wish my soldier and Mrs. Yush could come to our party."

"What makes you care so much about Colonel Rush?" asked Gracie. "He's such a big man."

"He isn't any bigger than my father," said Bessie; "and I love my father dearly, dearly. We can love people just as much if they are big."

"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Gracie; "I meant he's so old. You'd have to love your father, even if you didn't want to, because he is your father, and he takes care of you. But Colonel Rush isn't anything of yours."

"He is," said Bessie; "he is my own soldier, and my great, great friend; and he loves me too."

"I know it," said Gracie. "Mamma says it is strange to see a grown man so fond of a little child who doesn't belong to him."

"I think it is very good of him to love me so much," said Bessie, "and I do wish he was here. I want him very much."

"And so do I," said Maggie, who had come to see why Bessie was not playing; "but we can't have him, 'cause he can't walk up this bank, and the carriage can't come here, either. I just wish there wasn't any bank."

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Uncle John. "Here is the queen of the day looking as if her cup of happiness was not quite full. What is it, Maggie?"

"We want the colonel," said Maggie.

"Why, you disconsolate little monkey! Are there not enough grown people here already, making children of themselves for your amusement, but you must want the colonel too? If he was here, he could not play with you, poor fellow!"

"He could sit still and look at us," said Maggie.

"And we could look at him," said Bessie. "We are very fond of him, Uncle John."

"I know you are," said Uncle John, "and so you should be, for he is very fond of you, and does enough to please you. But I am very fond of you too, and I am going to make a fox of myself, to please you. So all hands must come for a game of fox and chickens before supper."

Away they all went to join the game. Uncle John was the fox, and Mrs. Bradford and Aunt Annie the hens, and Aunt Helen and papa were chickens with the little ones; while grandpa and grandma and Mrs. Jones sat on the piazza, each with a baby on her knee. The fox was such a nimble fellow, the mother hens had hard work to keep their broods together, and had to send them scattering home very often. It was a grand frolic, and the grown people enjoyed it almost as much as the children.

Even Toby seemed to forget himself for a moment or two; and once, when the chickens were all flying over the grass, screaming and laughing, he sprang up from his post on the porch, where he had been quietly watching them, and came bounding down among them with a joyous bark, and seized hold of the fox by the coat tails, just as he pounced on Harry and Walter, as if he thought they had need of his help. How the children laughed! But after that, Toby seemed to be quite ashamed of himself, and walked back to his old seat with the most solemn air possible, as if he meant to say, —

"If you thought it was this respectable dog who was playing with you just now, you were mistaken. It must have been some foolish little puppy, who did not know any better." And not even Bessie could coax him to play any more.

But at last fox, hen, and chickens were all called to supper, and went in together as peaceably as possible. The children were all placed round the room, some of them on the drollest kind of seats, which Mr. Jones had contrived for the occasion. Almost all of them were so low that every child could hold its plate on its lap, for there was not half room enough round the table.

They were scarcely arranged when a curious sound was heard outside, like a tapping on the piazza.

"That sounds just like my soldier's crutches," said Bessie. "But then it couldn't be, because he never could get up the bank."

But it seemed that the colonel could get up the bank, for as Bessie said this, she turned, and there he stood at the door, with Mrs. Rush at his side, both looking very smiling.

"Oh, it is, it is!" said Bessie, her whole face full of delight. "Oh, Maggie, he did come! he did get up! Oh, I'm perferly glad."

And indeed she seemed so. It was pretty to see her as she stood by the colonel, looking up at him with her eyes so full of love and pleasure, and a bright color in her cheeks; while Maggie, almost as much delighted, ran to the heavy arm-chair in which Grandpapa Duncan usually sat, and began tugging and shoving at it with all her might.

"What do you want to do, Maggie?" asked Tom Norris, as he saw her red in the face, and all out of breath.

"I want to take it to the door, so that he need not walk another step. Please help me, Tom," said Maggie, looking at the colonel who stood leaning on his crutches, and shaking hands with all the friends who were so glad to see him.

"Never mind, little woman," said he; "I shall reach the chair with far less trouble than you can bring it to me, and I can go to it quite well. I could not have come up this bank of yours, if I had not been 'nice and spry,' as Mrs. Jones says. I told you you should have the answer to your invitation to-night; did I not?"