The S. W. F. Club Part 4

"Shirley; it's a queer name for a girl, to my thinking."

"Is she pretty?" Pauline went on.

"Not according to my notions; father says she is. She's thin and dark, and I never did see such a mane of hair--and it ain't always too tidy, neither--but she has got nice eyes and a nice friendly way of talking.

Looks to me, like she hasn't been brought up by a woman."

"She sounds--interesting," Pauline said, and when Mrs. Boyd had left them, to make a few changes in her supper arrangements, Pauline turned eagerly to Hilary. "You're in luck, Hilary Shaw! The newest kind of new people; even if it isn't a new place!"

"How do you know they'll, or rather, she'll, want to know me?" Hilary asked, with one of those sudden changes of mood an invalid often shows, "or I her? We haven't seen her yet. Paul, do you suppose Mrs. Boyd would mind letting me have supper in here?"

"Oh, Hilary, she's laid the table in the living-room! I heard her doing it. She'd be ever so disappointed."

"Well," Hilary said, "come on then."

Out in the living-room, they found Mr. Boyd waiting for them, and so heartily glad to see them, that Hilary's momentary impatience vanished.

To Pauline's delight, she really brought quite an appet.i.te to her supper.

"You should've come out here long ago, Hilary," Mr. Boyd told her, and he insisted on her having a second helping of the creamed toast, prepared especially in her honor.

Before supper was over. Captain's deep-toned bark proclaimed a newcomer, or newcomers, seeing that it was answered immediately by a medley of shrill barks, in the midst of which a girl's voice sounded authoritively--"Quiet, Phil! Pat, I'm ashamed of you! Pudgey, if you're not good instantly, you shall stay at home to-morrow night!"

A moment later, the owner of the voice appeared at the porch door, "May I come in, Mrs. Boyd?" she asked.

"Come right in, Miss Shirley. I've a couple of young friends here, I want you should get acquainted with," Mrs. Boyd cried.

"You ain't had your supper yet, have you, Miss Shirley?" Mr. Boyd asked.

"Father and I had tea out on the lake," Shirley answered, "but I'm hungry enough again by now, for a slice of Mrs. Boyd's bread and b.u.t.ter."

And presently, she was seated at the table, chatting away with Paul and Hilary, as if they were old acquaintances, asking Mr. Boyd various questions about farm matters and answering Mrs. Boyd's questions regarding Betsy Todd and her doings, with the most delightful air of good comradeship imaginable.

"Oh, me!" Pauline pushed hack her chair regretfully, "I simply must go, it'll be dark before I get home, as it is."

"I reckon it will, deary," Mrs. Boyd agreed, "so I won't urge you to stay longer. Father, you just whistle to Colin to bring f.a.n.n.y 'round."

Hilary followed her sister into the bedroom. "You'll be over soon, Paul?"

Pauline, putting on her hat before the gla.s.s, turned quickly. "As soon as I can. Hilary, don't you like her?"

Hilary balanced herself on the arm of the big, old-fashioned rocker.

"I think so. Anyway, I love to watch her talk; she talks all over her face."

They went out to the gig, where Mr. and Mrs. Boyd and Shirley were standing. Shirley was feeding f.a.n.n.y with handfuls of fresh gra.s.s.

"Isn't she a fat old dear!" she said.

"She's a fat old poke!" Pauline returned. "Mayn't I give you a lift?

I can go 'round by the manor road 's well as not."

Shirley accepted readily, settling herself in the gig, and balancing her pail of milk on her knee carefully.

"Good-by," Pauline called. "Mind, you're to be ever and ever so much better, next time I come, Hilary."

"Your sister has been sick?" Shirley asked, her voice full of sympathetic interest.

"Not sick--exactly; just run down and listless."

Shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear evening air. "I don't see how anyone can ever get run down--here, in this air; I'm hardly indoors at all. Father and I have our meals out on the porch. You ought to have seen Betsy Todd's face, the first time I proposed it. 'Ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she asked.

"Betsy Todd's a queer old thing," Pauline commented. "Father has the worst time, getting her to come to church."

"We were there last Sunday," Shirley said. "I'm afraid we were rather late; it's a pretty old church, isn't it? I suppose you live in that square white house next to it?"

"Yes," Pauline answered. "Father came to Winton just after he was married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere else--that counted. Any really big city, I mean. We're dreadfully tired of Winton--Hilary, especially."

"It's a mighty pretty place."

"I suppose so." Pauline slapped old f.a.n.n.y impatiently. "Will you go on!"

f.a.n.n.y was making forward most reluctantly; the Boyd barn had been very much to her liking. Now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening her pace involuntarily.

"Don't call them off, please!" Pauline begged Shirley. "She isn't in the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can move."

"All the same, discipline must be maintained," Shirley insisted; and at her command the dogs fell behind.

"Have you been here long?" Pauline asked.

"About two weeks. We were going further up the lake--just on a sketching trip,--and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back from the next landing to see about it. We took it at once and sent for a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren't here yet."

Pauline looked her interest. It seemed a very odd, attractive way of doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand.

Suppose--when Uncle Paul's letter came--they could set off in such fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt like it.

"I can't think," Shirley went on, "how such a charming old place came to be standing idle."

"Isn't it rather--run down?"

"Not enough to matter--really. I want father to buy it, and do what is needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking. The sunsets from that front lawn are gorgeous, don't you think so?"

"Yes," Pauline agreed, "I haven't been over there in two years. We used to have picnics near there."

"I hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me. We adore picnics; we've had several since we came--he and I and the dogs.

The dogs do love picnics so, too."

Pauline had given up wanting to hurry f.a.n.n.y; what a lot she would have to tell her mother when she got home.

She was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the old manor house. "There's father!" Shirley said, nodding to a figure coming towards them across a field. The dogs were off to meet him directly, with shrill barks of pleasure.

"May I get down here, please?" Shirley asked. "Thank you very much for the lift; and I am so glad to have met you and your sister, Miss Shaw.

You'll both come and see me soon, won't you?"