A Flock of Girls and Boys.

by Nora Perry.

THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.

CHAPTER I.

"The Pelhams are coming next month."

"Who are the Pelhams?"

Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as she exclaimed:

"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the Pelhams are?"

Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up _her_ nose as she replied,--

"I do mean to say just that."

"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.

"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.

"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson, with a laugh.

"But the Pelhams,--I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further irritated, cried impulsively,--

"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done, pray tell, that everybody should know of them?"

"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one of the oldest families of Boston."

"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until it b.u.mped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,--

"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"

Then another girl giggled,--it was another of the Robsons,--Dora's Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,--

"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her 'Crack Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."

"You'd better call her L.H.,--'Level Head,'" a voice--a boy's voice--called out here.

The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.

"Who--what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing, exclaimed,--

"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie, by hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our secrets?"

"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or more when you girls came to this end of the piazza."

"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let me see it."

"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."

"Let me see it."

Will held up the book.

"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"

"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of boy's sports," returned Will.

"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her head.

"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.

"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.

"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."

Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."

"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.

"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read it twice."

Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in pleased astonishment,--

"Come, I say now!"

"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever read,--that part about the boat-race I've read over three or four times."

"Well, your head _is_ level," cried Will, sitting up still straighter in the hammock, and regarding Tilly with a look of respect.

"Because I don't care anything for Boston's grand folks and do care for 'Jack Hall'?" laughed Tilly.

"Yes, that's about it," responded Will, with a little grin. "I'm so sick and tired," he went on, "hearing about 'swells' and money. The best fellow I know at school is quite poor; and one of the worst of the lot is what you'd call a swell, and has no end of money."

"There are all kinds of swells, Master Willie. Why, you know perfectly well that you belong to the swells yourself," retorted Dora.

"I don't!" growled Will.

"Well, I should just like to hear what your cousin Frances would say to that."

"Oh, Fan!" cried Will, contemptuously.

"If you don't think much of the old Wentworth name--"