The Staying Guest

“Stay there all night!” cried Miss Priscilla. “How ridiculous! She must come down at once.”

“Perhaps we can coax her down with something to eat,” said Miss Dorinda.

“Perhaps, ma’am,” said Matthew, his eyes twinkling.

“Bring us our things, Martha,” said Miss Priscilla, with a dogged, do-or-die air, “and then Matthew can show us where our niece is, and we will bring her back.”

“If yez do, she’ll come home holding the ribbons,” thought Matthew to himself, as he respectfully waited his mistresses’ pleasure.

Martha brought to each of the Flint ladies a long black cloak, a wool crocheted cloud, and black worsted gloves; for without such sufficient protection the sisters never went out after dusk.

“And I think rubbers, Martha,” said Miss Priscilla, anxiously scanning the sky.

“Oh, sister, the grass is as dry as a bone,” said Miss Dorinda.

“No signs of rain, ma’am,” said Matthew.

“Rubbers, Martha,” said Miss Priscilla.

Martha obediently brought four large rubber overshoes, and in a few moments the two aunts were following old Matthew in search of their wayward and erratic niece.

The party paused under the apple-tree which Matthew had designated. But though the old ladies peered anxiously up into the tree, they could see nothing but leaves.

“Lavinia,” called Miss Priscilla, in a calm, dignified voice.

No answer.

“Lavinia,” she called again, and still no sound came from the apple-tree.

Then Miss Priscilla Flint, moved by the exigencies of the occasion, made what was perhaps the greatest effort of her long and uneventful life.

“Ladybird,” she called, more graciously; and a little voice piped down from the tree-top:

“What is it, aunty?”

Like the larger proportion of human nature, Miss Priscilla, having gained her point, returned to her former mental attitude.

“Child,” she said sternly, “come down at once from that tree!”

“Why?” said Ladybird.

“Because I tell you to,” said Miss Priscilla.

“Why?” said Ladybird.

“Because I wish you to,” said Miss Priscilla, with a shade more of gentleness in her tone.

“Why?” said Ladybird, with two shades more of gentleness in hers.

“Tell her she’s going to stay with us,” whispered Miss Dorinda; “tell her we want her to.”

But such was the perversity of Miss Priscilla’s nature that a suggestion from her sister to do the thing she wanted to do most, made her do just the reverse.

“You are to come down,” she said, again addressing the top of the tree, “because I command you to do so. You are a naughty girl!”

“Am I a naughty girl?” called back Ladybird; “then I’ll stay up here and be naughty. It will make you less trouble than if I’m naughty down there.”

“Tell her, sister,” urged Miss Dorinda.

“Tell her yourself,” said Miss Priscilla, shortly.

Dorinda needed no second bidding.

“Ladybird,” she cried gladly, “come down, dearie. You are going to stay with us. So come down and be a good girl.”

“Of course I’m going to stay with you;
I told you, and I told you true,”

chanted Ladybird, in her crooning, musical voice.

“Then come down at once,” said Miss Priscilla, whose patience was nearly exhausted.

“Why?” said Ladybird, gently, but aggravatingly.

“Because I want you,” said Miss Priscilla Flint, with a sudden burst of whole-hearted welcome. “Because I want you to live with us and be our little girl, – my little girl.”

“All right, aunty dear, I’ll come right straight smack down!” and Ladybird, gathering up her basket of fragments, began to scramble rapidly down through the gnarled branches of the old apple-tree.

CHAPTER VII

CIVIL WAR

Miss Priscilla Flint was a lady who never did anything by halves or any other fractions.

Once having accepted the fact that Ladybird was to remain at Primrose Hall, Miss Priscilla began to lay plans as to how her small niece should live and move and have her being.

Details were the delight of Miss Priscilla Flint’s heart, and she prepared to attend to the details of Ladybird’s life with a great and large gusto; but in her planning she reckoned without her niece, who proved a not unimportant factor in the case.

Although Miss Flint’s indomitable will could unflinchingly face battle, murder, and sudden death, the will of her young relative was of the sort that jumped right over such obstacles and came down smiling on the other side.

One of the first of these Greek tugs of war was in reference to Ladybird’s dog.

“Of course, Lavinia,” Miss Priscilla said, “you must see that it will be impossible for you to keep that beast here.”

There was no reply from Ladybird, who sat with a happy, beaming countenance, swaying back and forth in a tiny, old-fashioned rocker, with her blinking terrier closely clasped in her arms.

Miss Priscilla had effectually learned that to get any answer from her niece she must call her Ladybird. But the good lady compromised by using the more dignified title when making a statement which required no answer.

“I say you cannot keep that dog here. What are you going to do about it – Ladybird?”