"Imagine your great-uncle's feelings, when suddenly his office door opened, and a gentleman appeared leading those two ridiculous looking little creatures.

"Their faces were grimy, their hair bristling with burs, their feet splashed with mud, their little straight night-gowns stained with strawberry juice from neck to hem,--looking startlingly like blood at first sight,--but in spite of all, the most beaming of smiles, for they had had a beautiful time.

"'We has tum to see 'oo,' said Margaret, giving him a very burry hug, for as she threw her arms around his neck, the burs in her hair caught in his heavy beard. Margaret screamed as her hair pulled, and they had some trouble to get her disentangled.

"'We hasn't yunned away, Uncle Darling. We has came in a carriage,' said Jean.

"The gentleman was a business friend of your great-uncle's. He delivered the children over into his charge, telling him the story. Of course he started home with them immediately, knowing how frightened we would be if we got home and discovered that they were missing.

"Fortunately for my peace of mind, we had been detained later than we expected to be, and so just as we got out of the horse-cars in front of my sister's house, a cab drew up at the door, and out got your uncle, and with him two of the most disreputable looking little objects you ever saw. We could hardly believe our eyes.

"'We has tum home aden,' Margaret called, cheerfully, as she saw us.

"Well you can imagine how quickly we got both those children into the house, and into the bath-tub, where we satisfied ourselves that they were not bleeding to death.

"We had to get the first coating of dirt off before we could undertake to disentangle those dreadful burs. My heart sank at the sight, I must say. I was so proud of their beautiful golden hair. They each had so much of it, and it was as fine as floss; but this only made it the more difficult to get those sticky burs out. My sister and I each took a child, and began at the burs. We worked at them a long time, but they were so hopelessly twisted in, and the fine silky hair was so wound up in them, that at last I had to get the scissors, very sorrowfully. Way underneath, close to their necks, we found these little locks, that by some work and careful snipping we managed to get quite free of burs, so I cut them off to preserve. I simply cut the rest off, in any way, as best I could, to do for the night, as it was too late to take them to the barber's that afternoon.

"What dreadful looking little things they were then! Did you ever see a sheared sheep? Well, they looked just like that, for I had snipped their hair here and there, as best I could, and it stood up in little, rough, jagged, irregular tufts all over their heads. I almost cried as I looked at them. 'I had thought I had two pretty children,' I said, mournfully.

Their heads looked so comically small, and their necks like little pipe-stems.

"Of course the barber clipped their hair smooth the next day, but I felt for a long time as if I could not let people see them. Their heads were simply lost in every hat and bonnet they had."

"To think of my mother having been such a little _scallawag_," murmured Cricket, in an awestruck tone.

"Poor little things! They had a sad time the next day, for their feet were so swollen and cut that they couldn't get on a shoe. I can't imagine how they managed to walk so far on the hot pavements with their tender little feet."

"I know. The palms of your feet get dreadfully hot and sting-y when you go barefoot. I've tried it. Did they ever run away again?"

"No, never, I believe. That one experience was enough. And now, my small maid, will you go and ask Luke to harness Mopsie for you? I would like to send a note over to Mrs. Carter, if you would please take it for me."

Cricket sprang up with a bound.

"Would you really like me to go? Oh, thank you! I mean, of course, I love to stay with you, but--"

"Yes," said grandma, smiling, "and I enjoy my little maid's company extremely, but I think she had better have some fresh air, this lovely day."

Cricket gave a hop, skip, and jump.

"Thank you so much for your stories, grandma, dear. I'd love to go with your note. Oh, George W., you bad, bad cat! You've gone and snarled your Aunt Zaidee's wash-rag all up while I was listening to a beautiful story about your Grandma Ward. Look, grandma! he's made it just as worse as burs!"

"I'll put it in order, while you're gone," said grandma, taking the very hopeless looking knitting.

"Hand me my writing things, and I'll have the note ready when you come back for it. Really, I shall be tempted to sprain my ankle again, Jean, if it brings me such a dear little nurse."

"We've had a lovely time, I think," said Cricket, giving her dear, comforting grandma a prodigious hug. "Let's have a knitting bee again, sometime, grandma. Perhaps, I'd get my wash-rag done this summer if we did."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HILDA'S ARRIVAL]

CHAPTER XVII.

HILDA ARRIVES.

Of course, Cricket went with Auntie Jean to the station on Friday afternoon to meet Hilda.

Hilda had never stayed at the seash.o.r.e before, for her mother was very fond of the mountains, and went every summer to the Catskills.

Therefore, there was everything to show her. Think of it. She had never even been in bathing in the ocean! This fact interested Cricket more than anything else, and so the very first morning she got Hilda up early to get a dip before breakfast.

"Ouch!" squealed Hilda, shrinking back, as the cold waves touched her bare toes. "Why, Cricket! it's cold!"

"It won't be as soon as you're fairly in," urged Cricket. "Just make a dash, and go in all over. Wade out to the raft, and dive off. You don't know what fun it is to go slap-dash into the water and get all gurgled,"

which was Cricket for choked.

"But I'll get all _wet_," objected Hilda, "besides, it's _so_ cold, Cricket," and she drew back further up on the beach, and stood poking her toes into the warm sand.

"Get wet?" said Archie, politely. "No, you wouldn't. We keep dry water for any one making a first attempt."

"And if you _should_ get wet, what would it matter? A bathing-suit isn't a party dress, Hilda," urged Cricket. "We usually expect to get wet when we go into the water, anyway."

"Mother, may I go out to swim?" sang Archie, teasingly.

"Come on, Hilda. Just go right forward, ker-chunk," and Cricket made a run and threw herself full length in the shallow water. She rolled over and over, and came up sputtering, and laughing. "Don't be afraid, you goosey girl."

"I'm not a goosey girl. Suppose I should go out there and get drowned?"

"You _can't_ drown. Archie, and Will, and I, all can swim, and we'll save you. Will taught me this summer. It's lovely," and Cricket led Hilda, hanging back and protesting, into the water, ankle deep.

The truth really was, that Hilda did not want to wet her pretty new bathing-suit. She was such a careful, orderly little person, that she did not like the idea of doing anything so untidy. Besides, Cricket's dripping, clinging skirt looked very uncomfortable.

Just then, Will and Archie, at a private signal, threw themselves, splash, into the water on each side of her, spattering her well, and Cricket, seizing the opportunity, cried out:

"Now, you're a little wet, you must go under right away, or else you'll take cold," and Hilda yielded very unwillingly, and protesting that she was freezing to death. She squealed and choked as the boys ducked her under the water, and she really thought for one dreadful minute that her last hour had come.

"If _this_ is bathing, I think it's _awful_," she said, with emphasis, as soon as she could speak. The boys had piloted her as far as the swimming raft, and, imitating Cricket's example, she climbed up on it, trying to rub off her wet face with her wetter sleeve, and looking perfectly miserable. "Archie, I've got to have a handkerchief, or a towel, or something, to dry my face. Please bring me one."

The boys both laughed at her. "Oh, certainly," said Archie. "I'll telephone to the laundry to send down a cartload right away. We usually have Luke put a supply of clean ones on the raft, all ready for us. He must have forgotten it this morning."

"You needn't laugh at me. I do hate to have my face stay wet."

"Dive again, then," advised Will, setting the example. "Come, Cricket, race me to the rock and back again."

Cricket promptly dived, but Hilda could not be coaxed off her perch till the others were ready to go in. So, altogether, the first bath was not a great success, and Hilda almost made up her mind that she would never try it again, for it was, by no means, such fun as it was reported to be. But over Sunday she had time to forget her sensations, and when Cricket sprang up early Monday morning, as usual, Hilda finally concluded she would try it again. To her great surprise--perhaps it was partly because the first newness was worn off her bathing-suit--she found that she enjoyed it a great deal more than the first time. She actually waded around with the water nearly up to her shoulders, and half learned to float, with Will supporting her. The next morning completed the lesson, and she began to feel very independent.

On Monday morning Auntie Jean drove the four girls over to Plymouth, to see the sights there. Hilda was full of eagerness and curiosity to see the famous Rock on which the Pilgrim Fathers landed.