The Staying Guest

“How do you like the process?” said Stella, turning to Lavinia with a pleasant smile.

“She doesn’t like it a bit,” said Ladybird; “but she’s too polite to say so. You see,” she went on, “we’re half-sisters, Lavinia and I, and so we only half like each other. She only likes half the things I like. She likes me, but she doesn’t like Cloppy. She likes my aunts, – her aunts, I mean, – but she doesn’t like Primrose Hall.”

“Well, then, what of us?” said Chester, indicating himself and Stella. “I suppose she likes only one.”

“I suppose so,” said Ladybird, her eyes dancing; “but I don’t know which one.”

“Never mind,” said Stella, hastily. “We don’t want to know which one. We’re both vain enough now. But tell me, Lavinia, don’t you like Primrose Hall?”

“No,” said Lavinia, who was of a straightforward, not to say blunt, nature, “I don’t. It’s not like England, and though my aunts are very kind, they’re not like my grandmother.”

“You mean your grandmother Lovell, I suppose?” said Chester.

“Yes,” said Lavinia – “my father’s mother.”

“My father’s mother, too,” said Ladybird. “But I don’t care a cent about her; I’d rather have my aunties, who are no relation to me, than all the mothers my father ever had.”

“Ah, but you don’t know Grandma Lovell!” said Lavinia.

“No, I don’t,” said Ladybird, “and I don’t want to.”

“But she’s such a dear!” said Lavinia, with almost the first spark of enthusiasm she had shown since coming to America.

“Why is she?” said Ladybird. “What does she do?”

“Oh, she has such a jolly place in London, and we go out driving, and shopping, and even calling. I sit in the carriage while she goes in. Oh, we had beautiful times, and it’s very different from this dull, stupid, farmy old place!”

“Yes, it is different,” said Ladybird, seriously, “I know. I know all about shopping, and calling, and all those things. I did it in India, but I didn’t like it one bit; and I think it’s a thousand times nicer to be at Primrose Hall, with orchards and brooks and trees and birds and sunshine, and my aunts.”

“Oh, do you?” said Lavinia. “Well, I’d rather have one year of London life than a thousand years of Primrose Hall.”

“Well, then, you’re all right,” said Ladybird, “for probably you can get one year of London life again before you die.”

“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Lavinia, so earnestly that they all laughed.

“And if I can help you in any way,” said Ladybird, “I shall be very glad to.”

“I never saw anybody you couldn’t help,” said Stella; whereupon, for some reason, Chester kissed Ladybird, and they all went back to Primrose Hall for dinner.

After dinner, the Flint ladies asked Stella and Mr. Humphreys into the drawing-room for a conference, from which Ladybird and Lavinia were excluded.

“I have had a letter,” began Miss Priscilla, “from London – from Mrs. Lovell, the mother of Jack Lovell, who married our sister Lavinia. In it she says that she is old and alone, and that she wants one of her son’s daughters to live with her. She suggests that Ladybird should come, because, she says, we will naturally want to keep our own niece ourselves. She seems so positive of this that she takes the situation quite for granted and says that we are to send Ladybird over to her at the first opportunity. Now, of course, she is quite right in stating, as she does, that Lavinia is our own blood-niece, while Ladybird is no relation to us whatever; but she is not right in assuming that for those reasons we love Lavinia best.”

“Lavinia seems to be a very sweet girl,” said Stella.

And Miss Dorinda said: “She is indeed a sweet, modest, amiable young girl.”

“She is all of that,” said Miss Priscilla; “and, on the other hand, Ladybird is a fiery, mischievous little scamp; and yet I suppose it’s because I’ve known her longer, but somehow I love Ladybird a thousand times the most.”

The portières at the doorway parted and Ladybird came in. Calmly walking toward the open piano, she seated herself on the keyboard of that instrument with her feet on the piano-stool. This position she took and kept in such a serene, gentle way that it seemed, after all, the only correct place for her to sit.

“No, aunty,” she said placidly, resting her chin on her little, thin brown hand, “it isn’t because you’ve known me longer than Lavinia that you love me more; it’s because I suit you better. Lavinia is a dear girl, and I like her – pretty well; but she isn’t our sort; and somehow she hasn’t any gumption about fun.”

Ladybird was not familiar with the phrase “sense of humor,” or she would have used it right here.

“And so,” she went on cheerfully, “I hear you’ve had a letter from old Mrs. Lovell.”

“Your grandmother, Ladybird,” said Miss Priscilla, a little severely. “And how did you hear it?”

“Yes, my grandmother,” said Ladybird. “And I heard it by listening at the hall door.”

“You’re a naughty girl,” said Miss Dorinda.

“I am,” said Ladybird, serenely; “no nice old lady in London would want such a naughty girl as I am, would she?”

“That doesn’t matter, Ladybird,” said Miss Priscilla. “And you must stop your nonsense now; for your grandmother Lovell has really sent for you, and you must go to her.”

“Indeed!” said Ladybird, with a most derisive accent. “Indeed!”

“Be quiet, Ladybird,” went on Miss Flint; “I am in earnest now – very much in earnest. Mrs. Lovell has sent for you; for naturally she wants one of her grandchildren with her, and Lavinia, being our niece, and the rightful heir to the Flint estates, must, of course, stay with us. By the way, where is the child?”

“She’s up in her room,” said Ladybird; “and she’s crying her eyes out because she can’t go back to England and live with her grandmother Lovell. But she’ll get over it. Oh, yes, she’ll get over it! She’ll change her mind, and she’ll love to live with her Primrose aunties; and she’ll forget all about her London grandmother! Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Oh, yes!”

Ladybird had bounded down from the piano-stool, and with her eyes flashing, and her voice rising to a higher pitch at each word, she flew out of the room, and was heard stamping up the stairs.

“Something must be done, Clops!” she said, shaking her dog almost viciously as she reached her own room. “Something must be done, and it must be done right away! Right here and now, and we’re the ones to do it, Cloppy-dog!”

Apparently the thing to be done was to write a letter, for Ladybird, with the force and flutter of a small cyclone, flew to her desk and began to write. She blotted and tore up many sheets of paper. She made Cloppy’s existence an exceedingly uncomfortable one. She reduced her small pocket-handkerchief to a damp string; but she finally achieved a result which seemed to her successful, and this was it:

To my Grandmother Lovell,

My dear Grandmother:

I am Ladybird Lovell, the daughter of your son Jack’s second wife. Perhaps you think I’m a nice child, but I am not, and this letter is to warn you. I am very, very bad; in fact, I am a turmigant of all the vices. Only to-day my Aunt Dorinda, who is sweetness itself, said I was the naughtiest child she ever saw. I think she has never seen any other, except Lavinia Lovell, my lovely and amiable half-sister and your beloved granddaughter. Which is the reason I am writing this to say I am quite sure you would prefer the gentle, charming, and delicious Lavinia, to the bad, naughty, and altogether disreputable Me.

    And I am, my dear madam,
    Your disobedient servant,
    Ladybird Lovell.

P. S. Lavinia wants to go back to you just fearfully; she’s crying about it.

CHAPTER XXI

AN ORCHARD WEDDING

After Ladybird’s letter was safely on its way to her grandmother, the child told the Flint ladies what she had done, and Miss Priscilla decided to await the outcome of Ladybird’s communication before sending one of her own to Mrs. Lovell.

Matters went on quietly enough at Primrose Hall. The two children got on amiably, though by nature as far apart as the poles.