"I've a perfect right _not_ to answer your question, and I sha'n't!"

"Well, of all the brazen--"

"Elsie!" warned her father, "don't say anything more."

"You'll let me say one thing more, papa. Rhoda told us that this boy was very accommodating, and he brought me such nice big eggs, I thought he was, and meant to give him something to show my appreciation, and I'd like to give it to him now. Here," taking something from her pocket, "give this to your brother," she said to little Bert, who stood eying her curiously. The child's hand opened involuntarily. Into it dropped a _royal purple_ egg.

Royal saw and understood. "Give it back to her!" he cried.

Bert, feeling the pa.s.sion in his brother's voice, drew off, and _flung_ the egg with all his might at Elsie. Luckily for her, it missed its aim and whizzed past, striking some article with a breaking crash beyond her.

"Oh! oh! oh! it's fallen on the painted eggs!" cried Marge, "and,"

running forward, "it has spoiled the lovely cherub head; see, the sh.e.l.l is all cracked to pieces!"

"You horrid, wicked boys!" cried Elsie, in the next breath.

But Royal heard nothing of these comments. The moment he saw that Bert's recklessness had injured no one, he had turned away with him, and was now driving out of the yard, scolding the youngster roundly for his action, and not a little subdued himself at what might have been the result of it.

"Papa, I think they ought to be punished, and the big boy made to tell," exclaimed Elsie, when she found the two were out of her reach.

"What did you say was the name of the boys?" asked Jimmy Barrows, who had taken up the cross and vine egg, and was peering at it very closely.

"Purcel."

"Well, just look at this;" and with the tip-end of a tiny knife-blade Jimmy pointed out something in the delicate vined tendrils that had hitherto escaped notice. It was the name "R. Purcel," cunningly inwound in the tendrils. Every one crowded up to inspect this discovery.

"It must be some relation of the boy's, and that is why he felt he had a right to keep it secret," said Mr. Lloyd.

"But it was Royal's present, whatever relation he got to paint the eggs for him, for it was only Royal who knew about _our_ eggs; and this is the way we've paid him!" cried Marge, with a glance of indignant reproach at Elsie.

"I don't think he got anybody to do it for him; I--I think he did it himself," spoke up Jimmy.

"Royal Purcel! that--that farm-boy?" shrieked Elsie.

"Yes," answered Jimmy. "I thought so all the time, when you--when he was standing under--under your questioning fire." And Jimmy laughed.

"But how did he learn?" cried Elsie, in astonishment.

"I don't think the boy has had much instruction," said Jimmy. "I think he has great natural talent, and has had very little opportunity to study." Jimmy was now peering at the palm and tent egg, and, "See, here's the name again, in this thready gra.s.s," he said, "and he has probably marked all the eggs in this cunning way."

Jimmy was right. On the bird's wing, amid the lily leaves, and on the apple bough, they also found "R. Purcel" hidden deftly from casual observation.

Elsie was silent as, one after another, these discoveries were made.

Finally she could contain herself no longer, and burst out,--

"To think of his painting all these beautiful things and giving them to us,--to me, when I've been such a horrid little cat to him! Oh, papa, I must do something,--I just must!"

"Well, I should think it would become you to say you are sorry and to thank him," said Mr. Lloyd, smiling.

"But, papa, I want to take the pony-carriage and go after him, and ask him to come back to the egg-rolling; and if Jimmy Barrows will go with me--"

"I'd be delighted, Miss Elsie."

"He'd make it easier,--he'd know what to say, and Royal would know what to say to him. The others will excuse us; we won't be long. Oh, may I--may we, papa?"

"Well, as you seem to have settled everything, I don't see but I must--"

But Elsie did not wait to hear more. She knew she had not only her father's consent, but his approval, and was off like a flash to order the carriage.

If the Lloyds had been better acquainted in Lime Ridge, Royal's work would not have been such a great surprise to them. A good many of the Lime Ridge people could have told them of the boy's talent, and how it had been discouraged by his family. There was no money now to support and educate him in that direction, and it had been arranged with an old friend who was in the wool business that the boy should go into his employ as soon as he had graduated from the Lime Ridge High School. This was considered a very lucky prospect for him, but Royal hated it. From a little fellow he had shown a great love for pictures, and had covered every sc.r.a.p of paper he could find with crude drawings.

When he was eight years old, a visitor had given him a box of paints and brushes. Two years later he had become acquainted with an artist who was staying a few weeks at Lime Ridge, and went with him on his sketching-tramps. With him he learned something about an artist's methods, and received from him as a parting gift, various artist's materials that he had made industrious use of.

The whim of painting the eggs and sending them to the sisters had come to him as a sort of apology to them for his exhibition of temper, and he had no idea that his name, so palpable to his artist eye, would escape their observation as it did. He expected his gift and its motives to be recognized at once. Instead, he was questioned as if he were nothing but an ignorant errand-boy; and, bitterest of all, even when he had confessed to a knowledge of the giver, the possibility of his being the painter himself was not for a moment suspected. But while he stood leaning over the farm-gate thinking these bitter thoughts, a stout little pony was bringing him what he little dreamed of. "Catch me ever going amongst 'em again,--an overbearing lot of city folks," he was saying to himself, when, patter, patter, patter, round the turn of the road came the stout little pony, and before the boy could make a movement to get away, Elsie Lloyd had jumped from the wagon, and stood in front of him.

"I've come to ask you to go back with us, and forgive me for being such a horrid little cat to you. I didn't understand. I thought--" and then in a perfect jumble of words Elsie went on, and poured forth her contrition and explanation, at the same time introducing Jimmy Barrows, who knew just what to say, and said it with such effect that Royal's spirits went up with a bound, and almost before he knew to what he had consented, he was sitting on the little back seat of the phaeton, talking with these "city folks" as if they were his best friends, as they turned out to be.

All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing? In Mr.

Carr's mills, learning to pick and buy wool?

Not he. He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting himself by making business ill.u.s.trations for various newspapers. It is humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for higher things; and the "higher things" are not far off, for two or three of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and he has furnished a set of drawings for a child's book that has been well paid for and well spoken of. And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd the other day,--

"Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking! But I guess they began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them last week that he'd paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.

Houp-la!"

"'A howling success'! And it's all through me," laughed Elsie, as she read this portion of Jimmy's letter; "for if I hadn't eaten humble-pie, and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day. Yes; it's all through me and my humble-pie. Houp-la!"

MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.

CHAPTER I.

"Never had a Christmas present?"

"No, never."

"Why, it's just dreadful! Well, there's one thing,--you _shall_ have one this year, you dear thing!" and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas m.u.f.fler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her. The visitor laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so. She was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,--a charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon. Molly Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling face,--a beauty, though she _was_ an Indian. Yes, this charming little maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful tribe. When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian. Molly was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post, for her father had been an army officer until the three years before, when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch. A few miles from this ranch was an Indian reservation. The tribe that occupied it had for a long time been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons. Molly thought they were very welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life, she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded gladly to Molly's friendly advances.

"But to think that you've never had a Christmas present!" exclaimed Molly again, as Wallula's laugh rippled out. "If I'd _only_ known you the first year we came! But I'll make it up _this_ year, you'll see; and oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know--I know what I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped _her_ hands and cried, "Oh, tell me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole.

Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do.