The Staying Guest

Ladybird smiled at her aunt in a bewitching way.

“I don’t know, aunty,” she said. “Where could I keep him?”

“You can’t keep him at all, Lavinia. You know both your Aunt Dorinda and I detest dogs, and so you must either sell him or give him away.”

Ladybird gazed at her aunt with great, serious eyes.

“I won’t sell him,” she said slowly; “but I will give him away.”

“That’s a good girl,” said her aunt, approvingly. “And will you do it to-day?”

“Yes; right away,” said Ladybird, rising, with Cloppy still cuddled in her arms.

“Ah!” said Miss Priscilla, uncertain how to account for such docility. “And to whom will you give him?”

“To you,” cried Ladybird, and depositing the moppy mass in her aunt’s lap, she ran laughing from the room.

Miss Priscilla rang a furious peal on the bell, and when Ladybird, who was dancing through the hall, saw Martha appear and answer to the summons, she sauntered leisurely into the room behind the rustling maid.

“Martha,” said Miss Priscilla, pointing to the dog, which she had slid from her lap to the floor, “take that animal and dispose of it somehow. You may give it away or sell it, or take it to the pound; but never let me see it in or near this house again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Martha, picking up Cloppy, while Ladybird burst into a peal of ringing laughter.

“Such a funny aunty!” she cried, dancing over to Miss Flint, and putting one little thin arm round the old lady’s neck. “Martha, of course aunty is only joking. Please put Cloppy in his basket in my room; I’m sure he wants a nap.”

“Yes, miss,” said Martha, glancing furtively at Miss Priscilla.

But whether it was the touch of the child’s tiny fingers on her old cheek, or whether her will bowed perforce to a superior one, Miss Priscilla’s face expressed no contrary orders.

Martha left the room, and Ladybird, dreamily curling a wisp of her aunt’s hair over her forefinger, remarked:

“That lemon-pie yesterday was so good, aunty, can’t we have another to-day?”

“Yes, child, of course, if you want it. Run and ask Bridget to make one, and then come back here; for I want to talk to you about some new clothes.”

“Geranium blossom!” said Ladybird to herself, as she walked slowly along the hall. She always manufactured her own expletives.

“Now I shall have a high old time! It seems to me that Aunt Priscilla won’t have the same ideas about clothes that I do; and the trick is to change her opinions.”

Without having formed any definite plans, but with a sublime determination to conquer in the fray, Ladybird came back and sat down demurely in a small chair facing her aunt.

“Your clothes, Lavinia,” Miss Priscilla began, “are shocking, and quite unfit for you to wear.”

“Do you think so?” said Ladybird, with the air of polite interest which her aunts had learned to regard as ominous. “Now I think they’re real pretty. They were made for me in Bombay. I picked out the stuffs myself.”

“I should think you did,” said Miss Priscilla; “and they’re hideous. Now that white dress with the huge round red spots is something awful, and you shall never wear it again.”

“Oh, I guess I will, aunty,” said Ladybird, cheerfully; “that’s my very favoritest dress of all, and I wouldn’t let you send that to the heathen for anything.”

“It’s far more suitable for a Fiji cannibal than for a Christian child. Your clothes are all too gaudy in coloring, Lavinia, and they must be discarded. I shall buy you some neat, quiet patterns in soft grays and browns, which will be much more suitable for a refined little gentlewoman.”

“Aunty,” cried Ladybird, springing up, her black elf-locks flying about her thin little face, and her long arms waving, while her whole body quivered with excitement, “do I look like a refined little gentlewoman?”

“You do not,” said Miss Priscilla Flint, staring critically at her niece; “but I shall do all in my power to make you look like one.”

Ladybird leaned her head on one hand and gazed thoughtfully at her aunt. After a few moments’ pause, she said reflectively:

“Well, that black-and-yellow striped frock of mine is really a fright; and the red-and-green plaid isn’t much better: it’s such a ’normous plaid; but” – and Ladybird shook her forefinger decisively at her aunt – “it seems to me I shall keep that white dress with the great big red spots. And so we’ll consider that matter settled.”

“It is settled,” said Miss Flint, rising, “but not in the way you seem to think. You shall never wear that dress again, Lavinia. Now the Dorcas Circle meets here this afternoon, and I wish you to do me credit. Wear that new brown dress I had made for you, and do not dare to appear before my guests in those red spots.”

“Aunty,” said Ladybird, and the little forefinger was again wagged at the old lady, not threateningly, but as a token of final decision, “if I don’t wear those red spots to the Dorcas meeting, you’ll have to wear them yourself.”

“Whatever nonsense are you talking, child?” inquired Miss Priscilla, whose thoughts were already busy with the supper for the Dorcas Circle.

“’Tisn’t nonsense, aunty; it’s plain, ungarnished truth.”

“Well, wear your brown dress, Lavinia,” said Miss Priscilla, as she started for the kitchen in the interests of the elaborate feast demanded by the august and self-respecting Dorcas Circle.

Ladybird, with a peculiar nod of her head that betokened a completed plan of action, went up-stairs to her room.

“It seems to me,” she said to herself, “that I just must do it.”

She took the red-spotted dress down from its hook and threw it on the bed. Then she knelt beside it, and burying her little face in its soft folds, she burst into furious tears.

“I do love it so,” she sobbed, “it’s so bright and gay and comforting: and I think Aunt Priscilla is mean. Hominy hornets, but she’s mean! I wouldn’t treat a little girl so. I wouldn’t make her wear old mud-colored frocks when she loves red, red, RED! And these red spots are so beautiful! But since I can’t wear them, Aunt Priscilla shall.”

Stamping her feet as she rose, and angrily brushing the tears from her eyes, Ladybird took her sharp little scissors and carefully cut out a score or more of the large disks from the condemned dress. She grew more cheerful as she did this, and her merry smiles came back, though they alternated with an expression of angry sadness.

Gathering up the red scraps, she went to her Aunt Priscilla’s room. Spread out in stately grandeur on the bed lay the black silk dress that was as much a part of the Dorcas meeting as the lady who wore it.

Taking the paste-pot from her aunt’s writing-table, Ladybird proceeded to paste the bits of red fabric at intervals over the black silk skirt and bodice. She worked diligently and rapidly, and after a few moments surveyed the effect with great satisfaction.

“Now,” she said to herself, as she replaced the paste-pot, “I think it would be wise for me to go out to spend the day.”

Slipping on the despised brown frock, a mild and amiable-looking Ladybird walked through the kitchen, humming a little tune.

“I’m going out, aunties,” she said, “and I won’t be back until late this afternoon.”

The Flint ladies were not surprised at this, for Ladybird often spent a whole day out in the fields and orchards.

“Take something to eat before you go,” said Miss Dorinda; “here are some fresh seed-cakes.”

Ladybird accepted half a dozen, and Miss Priscilla, looking approvingly at the brown frock, said:

“Be back by four. The Dorcas ladies will be here, you know.”

“Yes, aunty,” said Ladybird, “and I hope they’ll think the red spots are becoming to you.”