Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School Part 17

"His name is really 'Theophilus', but the boys have always called him 'Hippopotamus,' and now the name sticks to him and everybody forgets he has any other."

"Are you agreed on Hippopotamus, my adopted daughters?" demanded Mrs.

Gray.

It was voted by acclamation, that Hippopotamus was agreeable to the company.

"And now, I have a fourth to propose," announced Mrs. Gray. "I think I should like to import my great-nephew, Tom Gray, from New York. He is a little older than these boys, perhaps. Nineteen is his age, I think, and I haven't seen him since he was a child; but he's obliged to be nice because he bears the name of one beloved by all who knew him."

"Whose name, Mrs. Gray?" asked Nora.

"That of my husband," said the old lady, softly. "The nicest Tom Gray this world has ever known." And she looked at a portrait over the sideboard of a very handsome young man dressed in the uniform of an Army officer.

"He loved his country, my dears, and fought for it n.o.bly. He was a soldier and a gentleman," went on the old lady proudly, "and I am sorry he left no son to follow in his footsteps. He was a great hunter and traveler, too. I used to tell him if he had not loved his family so dearly, he would certainly have been a gypsy. He liked camping and tramping, and used to wander off in Upton Woods for hours at a time. He knew the names of all the trees and birds and animals that exist, I believe. But he loved his home, too, and no woods had the power to draw him away from it for long. I used to tell him he had brought a piece of the forest and put it in our front yard, for he planted all those beautiful trees you now see growing on my lawn, which my old gardener, who has been with me since I was first married, cherishes as he would his own children."

"And is young Tom Gray like him, Mrs. Gray?" interposed Grace.

"I hope so, my dear," sighed the old lady. "If he has inherited the beautiful traits of his uncle, his wholesome tastes for the outdoors and nature, he can't help being a fine fellow. But I have not seen my nephew since he was a child. He has been living here and there all these years, sometimes in America and sometimes in England. His mother and father are both dead, and he has been brought up by his mother's unmarried sisters, who are half English themselves. But he must be a nice boy, even if he has only one drop of his uncle's blood in his veins."

The girls sighed and said nothing. It was touching and beautiful to see the old lady's loyalty and devotion after all these years of loneliness; for her husband had been dead since she was a young woman. Still Mrs.

Gray never brooded. She was always cheerful and happy in doing kindnesses for other people.

"If ever I marry," sentimental Jessica was thinking, "I hope it will be somebody like Mrs. Gray's husband."

"I should like to have a brother like Tom Gray," observed Grace aloud.

"Well," said Mrs. Gray, "we shall have to wait and see what the new Tom Gray is like. He may be utterly unlike _my_ Tom Gray."

And the old lady sighed.

"We shall all have to get new party dresses," exclaimed Nora to change the subject. "I have been wanting one for an age and now I have a good excuse."

"Oh, yes," cried Grace enthusiastically. "Now, at last, I shall be able to get the blue silk mother promised I could have if at any time there was an occasion worthy of it."

"I'm going to ask papa to give me a lavender crepe for a Christmas present," said Jessica.

"O Mrs. Gray," continued Nora, "we are going to have such fun Oakdale can't hold us."

"I think we should have a surprise for Mrs. Gray," announced Grace. "She is doing so much for us. O girls! I have an idea."

"What!" demanded the others breathlessly, including Mrs. Gray herself, who was as full of curiosity as a young girl.

"No, no," cried Grace, "it wouldn't be a surprise if I gave it away. But it's going to require a lot of work and planning to carry it out."

"Is it big or little?" asked the dainty old lady as eager as a child to find out the secret.

"It's rather small," answered Grace.

"Fine or superfine?"

"Both," laughed Grace. "But you'll not know till Christmas night; so stifle your curiosity."

"I suppose I must wait, but it's going to be very hard," replied Mrs.

Gray plaintively.

And so the party was arranged. Notes, written by Anne, were dispatched to the four boys; plans were discussed for the week's amus.e.m.e.nts, and the four girls finally started home in a state of great excitement to look over their wardrobes and furbish up their party dresses.

Only Anne had looked somewhat dubious during the conversation. How could she spend a week in a beautiful house, with parties every night and company all the time, and nothing to wear but that hideous black silk?

"Anne," called Mrs. Gray, as the young girl was about to close the front door and follow the others down the steps. "Wait a moment. I want to see you." She led Anne into the big drawing room. "Do you know that I am greatly in your debt, my child?" continued the old lady, as she drew Anne down beside her on the sofa. "I don't think I could ever possibly repay you for the good you have done me this autumn. But I am going to try, nevertheless, by making you a Christmas present before Christmas arrives. Now, when I was your age, I preferred clothes to other things.

I think all young girls do; or, if they don't they are most unnatural.

Therefore, child, I have decided to pay off some of my indebtedness to you by getting my dressmaker to make you some dresses, if it is agreeable to you. Why, what is this! My little girl crying?"

The tears were streaming down Anne's cheeks.

"You mustn't cry, my own child," sobbed Mrs. Gray. "For I always cry when I see other people doing it, and it's very bad for my old eyes, you know."

"You are so good to me!" said Anne. "It makes me cry because I'm so happy."

"Well, well!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, drying her eyes and beginning to laugh. "What a couple of sillies we are, to be sure. Now go, Anne, to my dressmaker, Mrs. Harvey, who has orders to make you four dresses, two for evening and two for afternoon. Mrs. Harvey has good taste and will help you select them. But perhaps you will like the ones she and I looked at the other day. One of them I am sure you will admire. I chose it specially because it will give color to your pale cheeks."

"What is it, Mrs. Gray?" asked Anne eagerly.

"It's pink crepe de Chine, my dear."

And Anne held her breath to keep from crying again.

CHAPTER XII

MIRIAM PLANS A REVENGE

For weeks Miriam Nesbit had felt a sullen resentment toward her brother, David, because he persisted in being friends with at least two of the girls in Oakdale High School whom she disliked most.

When he announced, one morning at breakfast, that he had been included in Mrs. Gray's house party, his sister suddenly burst into tears of pa.s.sionate rage.

"Please don't cry, Miriam, old girl," said David, who was not of a quarrelsome disposition. "I'm awfully sorry if I hurt you, but, you know, Mrs. Gray was one of my earliest sweethearts."

Which was perfectly true. When David was a little boy he used to crawl through the garden hedge and call on the charming old lady nearly every day.

David had hoped that Miriam would laugh at this, but she stormed all the more, while poor Mrs. Nesbit looked wretched.

"It isn't Mrs. Gray," sobbed Miriam. "But to think that my own brother would a.s.sociate with Grace Harlowe, who is always working against me, and that common little Pierson girl whose sister takes in sewing!"

"Miriam, Miriam!" exclaimed Mrs. Nesbit, "I am shocked to hear you say such things. Because the girl is poor she is not necessarily common.

Your grandfather was a poor man, too. He started his career as a machinist. You would never have had the money and position you have now if he had not become an inventor. Is it possible you would try to keep some one else from rising in life, when your own family struggled with poverty years ago?"