Five Little Peppers at School Part 58

"Of course you haven't," a.s.sented Clem coolly. "You've worried her life nearly out of her."

"And oh, dear me! I'm sorry now,"--said Alexia, not minding in the least what Clem was saying. "I wonder why it is that I'm forever being sorry about things."

"Because you're forever having your own way," said Clem; "I'll tell you."

"And so I'm going to be nice to her now," said Alexia, with a perfectly composed glance at Clem. "Let's all be, girls. I mean, behind her back."

Polly Pepper ran over across the room to slip her arm within Alexia's, and give her a little approving pat.

"It will be so strange not to make fun of her," observed Amy Garrett, "but I suppose we can't now, anyway, that she is to be Mrs. John Clemcy."

"Mrs. John Clemcy, indeed!" exclaimed Alexia, standing very tall. "She was just as nice before, as sister of our Miss Salisbury, I'd have you to know, girls."

"Well, now what are we to give her as a wedding present?" said Polly Pepper. "You know we, as the committee, ought to talk it over at once.

Let's sit down on the floor in a ring and begin."

"Yes," said Alexia; "now all flop." And setting the example, she got down on the floor; and the girls tumbling after, the ring was soon formed.

"Hush now, do be quiet, Clem, if you can," cried Alexia, to pay up old scores.

"I guess I'm not making as much noise as some other people," said Clem, with a wry face.

"Well, Polly's going to begin; and as she's chairman, we've all got to be still as mice. Hush!"

"I think," said Polly, "the best way would be, instead of wasting so much time in talking, and--"

"Getting into a hubbub," interpolated Alexia.

"Who's talking now," cried Clem triumphantly, "and making a noise?"

"Getting in confusion," finished Polly, "would be, for us each to write out the things that Miss Anstice might like, on a piece of paper, without showing it to any of the other girls; then pa.s.s them in to me, and I'll read them aloud. And perhaps we'll choose something out of all the lists."

"Oh, Polly, how fine!--just the thing."

"I'll get the paper."

"And the pencils." The ring was in a hubbub; Alexia, as usual, the first to hop out of her place.

"Sit down, girls," said Polly as chairman. So they all flew back again.

"There, you see now," said Alexia, huddling expeditiously into her place next to Polly, "how no one can stir till the chairman tells us to."

"Who jumped first of all?" exclaimed Clem, bursting into a laugh.

"Well, I'm back again, anyhow," said Alexia coolly, and folding her hands in her lap.

"I'll appoint Lucy Bennett and Silvia Horne to get the paper and pencils," said Polly. "They are on my desk, girls."

Alexia smothered the sigh at her failure to be one of the girls to perform this delightful task; but the paper being brought, she soon forgot her disappointment, in having something to do.

"We must all tear it up into strips," said the chairman, and, beginning on a sheet, "Lucy, you can be giving around the pencils."

And presently the whole committee was racking its brains over this terribly important question thrust upon them.

"It must be something that will always reflect credit on the Salisbury School," observed Alexia, leaning her chin on her hand while she played with her pencil.

"Ugh! do be still." Lucy, on the other side, nudged her. "I can't think, if anybody speaks a word."

"And fit in well with those old portraits," said Clem, with a look at Alexia.

"Well, I hope and pray that we won't give her anything old. I want it spick, span, new; and to be absolutely up-to-date." Alexia took her chin out of her hand, and sat up decidedly. "The idea of matching up those mouldy old portraits!--and that house just bursting with antiques."

"Ugh! do hush," cried the girls.

"And write what you want to, Alexia, on your own slip, and keep still,"

said Silvia, wrinkling her brows; "you just put something out of my head; and it was perfectly splendid."

"But I can't think of a thing that would be good enough," grumbled Alexia, "for the Salisbury School to give. Oh dear me!" and she regarded enviously the other pencils scribbling away.

"My list is done." Amy Garrett pinched hers into a little three-cornered note, and threw it into Polly's lap.

"And mine--and mine." They all came in fast in a small white shower.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Alexia, much alarmed that she would be left out altogether. "Wait, Chairman--I mean, Polly," and she began scribbling away for dear life.

"Oh dear me!" The chairman unfolded the first strip, and began to read.

"A piano--why, girls, Miss Anstice can't play."

"Well, it would look nice in that great big drawing-room," said Clem, letting herself out with a very red face.

"Oh, my! you wrote _a piano_!" Alexia went over backward suddenly to lie flat on the floor and laugh. "Besides, there is one in that house."

"An old thing!" exclaimed Clem in disdain.

"Well, let's see; here's something nice"--Polly ran along the list--"a handsome chair, a desk, a cabinet. Those are fine!"

"Clem has gone into the furniture business, I should think," said Philena.

"And a cabinet!" exclaimed Amy Garrett, "when that house is just full of 'em."

"Oh, I mean a jewel cabinet, or something of that sort," explained Clem hastily.

"That's not bad," announced Silvia, "for I suppose he'll give her all the rest of those heirlooms; great strings of pearls probably he's got, and everything else. Dear me, don't I wish we girls could see them!" and she lost herself in admiration over the fabulous Clemcy jewels.

"Well, Chairman--Polly, I mean"--Alexia flew into position--"what's the next list?"

"This is quite different," said Polly, unrolling it; "some handsome lace, a fan, a lorgnette, a bracelet."

"It's easy enough to see that's Silvia's," said Alexia--"all that finery and furbelows."