"Well, if he don't, he can go to thunder!" bristled Harley wrathfully.

"I'm not going to have him looking down on Shirley. She's as good as his baby-doll sister with her pink cheeks, and her little white hands, and her high heels and airs, any day! She's a nut, she is."

"Harley! You stop!" declared Carol, getting wrathful. "Elizabeth's a dear, and you're not going to talk about her that way. Just because she is pretty and doesn't have to work."

"Well, you said her brother looked down on our sister," declared Harley.

"I did not! I only said he _might_! I only meant that was the way _some_ gentlemen would. I only said people kind of expect gentlemen to do that."

"Not if they're real gentlemen, they won't. And anyhow _he_ won't. If I find him looking down on my sister Shirley, I'll punch his face for him. Yes, I will! I'm not afraid. George and I could beat the stuffing out of him, and we will if he does any looking-down stunts, and don't you forget it!"

"Well, I'm sure he doesn't," said Carol pacifically, trying to put a soothing sound into her voice as wise elder sisters learn to do. "You see if he did look down on her, Shirley would know it; right away she'd know it. n.o.body would have to tell _her_! She'd see it in his voice and smile and everything. And, if he had, she wouldn't have gone out there to live in the place he owns, you know. So I guess you can trust Shirley. _I_ think he's been just dandy, fixing up that fireplace and stairs and lights and water and everything."

"Well, mebbe!" said Harley grudgingly. "Say, this is slow. I'm going out to meet the fellows when they come from school, and see what the score of the game is. Gee! I wish I could play to-day!"

"You'll be sure to come back in time?" asked Carol anxiously.

"Sure! You don't suppose I'd miss going out in that car, do you?" said the brother contemptuously. "Not on your tintype!"

"Well, maybe there won't be room for you. Maybe Elizabeth'll come along, and you'll have to go in the trolley with George."

"No chance!" declared the boy. "Mr. Graham said I should ride with him in the front seat, and he looks like a man that kept his word."

"You see! _You_ know he's a gentleman!" triumphed Carol. "Well, I think you'd better stay here with me. You'll forget and be late, and make a mess waiting for you."

"No, I won't!" said the restless boy. "I can't be bothered sticking round this dump all afternoon"; and Harley seized his cap, and disappeared with a whoop around the corner. After he was gone Carol found she was tired out herself, and, curling up on a mattress that was lying ready for the cartman, was soon asleep. It was so that Harley found her when he hurried back an hour later, a trifle anxious, it must be confessed, lest he had stayed too long. He stirred up the small household noisily, and in no time had Carol in a panic brewing the cup of tea that was to give her mother strength to take the journey, dressing Doris, smoothing her own hair, putting the last things into bags and baskets and boxes, and directing the cartman, who arrived half an hour sooner than he promised. Carol was quite a little woman, going from one thing to another and taking the place of everybody.

Meantime Elizabeth Graham and her brother had been spending the afternoon in business of their own. It was Elizabeth who had suggested it, and her brother saw no reason why she should not carry out her plan and why he should not help her.

She came down in the car after lunch, the chauffeur driving her, a great basket of cut and potted flowers from the home conservatory in the tonneau beside her, carefully wrapped in wax-paper. She stopped at the office for her brother, and together they went about to several shops giving orders and making purchases. When they had finished they drove out to Glenside to unpack their bundles and baskets. Graham left Elizabeth with the old servant to help her, and drove rapidly back to his office, where he telephoned to Shirley.

Certainly Elizabeth had never had such fun in her life. She scarcely knew which delightful thing to do first, and she had only about two hours to complete her arrangements before the family would arrive.

She decided to decorate first, and the great hamper of flowers was forthwith brought into the barn, and the chauffeur set to work twining ropes and sprays of smilax and asparagus fern over doorways and pictures, and training it like a vine about the stone chimney. Then came the flowers. Pots of tall starry lilies, great, heavy-headed, exquisite-breathed roses, pink, white, yellow, and crimson; daffodils and sweet peas, with quant.i.ties of sweet violets in the bottom of the basket. Elizabeth with deft fingers selected the flowers skilfully, putting pots of lilies on the window-sills, ma.s.sing a quant.i.ty of pink roses in a dull gray jar she found among the kitchen things, that looked to the initiated amazingly as though it might once have been part of a water-filter, but it suited the pink roses wonderfully. The tall vases on the bookcases each Bide of the fireplace held daffodils.

Sweet peas were glowing in small vases and gla.s.ses and bowls, and violets in saucers filled the air with fragrance. White and yellow roses were on the dining-table, and three exquisite tall crimson rosebuds glowed in a slender gla.s.s vase Elizabeth had brought with her.

This she placed in Mrs. Hollister's room on the little stand that she judged would be placed beside the bed when the bed arrived. The flowers certainly did give an atmosphere to the place in more senses than one; and the girl was delighted, and fluttered from one spot to another, changing the position of a vase or bowl, and then standing off to get the effect.

"Now bring me the big bundle, Jenkins, please," she said at length when she was satisfied with the effect. "Oh, and the little long box. Be careful. It is broken at one end, and the screws may fall out."

Jenkins was soon back with the things.

"Now, you get the rods put up at the windows, Jenkins, while I get out the curtains," and she untied the big bundle with eager fingers.

Jenkins was adaptable, and the rods were simple affairs. He was soon at work, and Elizabeth ran the rods into the curtains.

They were not elegant curtains. Graham had insisted that she should get nothing elaborate, nothing that would be out of keeping with the simplicity. They were soft and straight and creamy, with a frost-like pattern rambling over them in threads of the same, illuminated here and there with a single rose and a leaf in color. There was something cheerful and spring-like to them, and yet they looked exceedingly plain and suitable, no ruffles or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of any kind, just hems. To Elizabeth's mind they had been very cheap. Shirley would have exclaimed over their beauty wistfully and turned from them with a gasp when she heard their price. They were one of those quiet fitting things that cost without flaunting it. They transformed the room into a dream.

"Oh, isn't it _beautiful_!" exclaimed Elizabeth, standing back to look as the first curtain went up.

"Yes, Miss, it's very stunning, Miss," said the man, working away with good will in his face.

When the curtains were all up, Elizabeth pinned one of her cards to the curtain nearest the front door, inscribed, "With love from Elizabeth."

Then in a panic she looked at her watch.

"Oh Jenkins! It's almost six o'clock," she cried in dismay. "They might get here by half-past, perhaps. We must hurry! Bring the other things in quick now, please."

So Jenkins brought them in, bundles and bags and boxes, an ice-cream freezer, and last of all the cooking-outfit belonging to their touring-car.

"Now you get the hot things ready, Jenkins, while I fix the table,"

directed the girl.

Jenkins, well trained in such things, went to work, opening cans and starting his chafing-dish fire. Elizabeth with eager fingers opened her parcels.

A great platter of delicious triangular chicken sandwiches, a dish of fruit and nut salad surrounded by crisp lettuce leaves, a plate of delicate rolls, cream puffs, chocolate eclairs, macaroons, a cocoanut pie, things she liked herself; and then because she knew no feast without them there were olives, salted almonds, and bonbons as a matter of course.

Delicious odors from the kitchen end of the room began to fill the air.

Jenkins was heating a pail of rich soup--chicken with rice and gumbo--from one of the best caterers in the city. He was making rich cocoa to be eaten with whipped cream that Elizabeth was pouring into a gla.s.s pitcher; the pitcher came from the ten-cent store if she had only known it. Jenkins was cooking canned peas and heating lovely little brown potato croquettes. The ice-cream freezer was out in full sight, where they could never miss it. Everything was ready now.

"Jenkins, you better light up that queer stove of theirs now if you're sure you know how,--she said it was just like a lamp the way it worked,--and put those things in the oven to keep warm. Then we'll pack up our things, and hide them out in the gra.s.s where they can't see, and get them in the car when they get out. Hurry, for they'll be here very soon now, I think."

Elizabeth stuck a card in the middle of the rose-bowl that said in pretty letters, "Welcome Home," stood back a minute to see how everything looked, and then fluttered to the door to watch for the car.

CHAPTER XII

When Shirley came down to the street at five o'clock. Graham was waiting for her as he promised, and swung the car door open for her with as much eagerness as if he were taking the girl of his choice on a picnic instead of just doing a poor little stenographer a kindness.

"I telephoned to the store and sent a message to George. We're going to pick him up on our way," he said as the car wended its way skilfully through the traffic.

She was sitting beside him, and he looked down at her as if they were partners in a pleasant scheme. A strange sense of companionship with him thrilled through her, and was properly rebuked and fled at once, without really rippling the surface of her joy much. She had determined to have the pleasure out of this one evening ride at least, and would not let her thoughts play truant to suggest what wider, sweeter realms might be for other girls. She was having this good time. It was for her and no one else, and she would just enjoy it as much as she could, and keep it the sweet, sane, innocent pleasure that it really was. If she was not a fool, everything would be all right.

George was waiting in a quiver of pride and eagerness for them as they swept up to the employees' entrance, and a line of admiring fellow-laborers stood gaping on the sidewalk to watch his departure.

"Oh, gee! Isn't this great?" shouted George, climbing into the back seat hilariously. "Got a whole omnibus of a car this time, haven't you?"

"Yes, I thought we'd have plenty of room for your mother, so she could lie down if she liked."

"That was very kind of you," murmured Shirley. "You think of everything, don't you? I'm sure I don't see how we ever could have managed without your help. I should have been frightened a dozen times and been ready to give up."

"Not you!" said Graham fervently. "You're the kind that never gives up. You've taught me several valuable lessons."

As they turned the corner into the old street where the little brick house stood, Shirley suddenly began to have a vivid realization that she had told her mother nothing whatever about Mr. Graham. What would she think, and how could she explain his presence? She had expected to get there before Graham arrived and have time enough to make her mother understand, but now she began to realize that her real reason for leaving the matter yet unexplained was that she did not know just what to say without telling the whole story from beginning to end.

"I'll hurry in and see if mother is all ready," she said, as the car stopped in front of the house, and the children rushed out eagerly, Doris just behind the others, to see the "booful tar."

"Mother," said Shirley, slipping softly into the house and going over to the bed where she lay with hat and coat on, fully ready. "Mother, I sha'n't have time to explain all about it, but it's all right; so don't think anything. Mr. Graham, the man who owns the place where we are going, has been kind enough to offer to take you in his car. He thinks it will be easier for you than the trolley, and he is out at the door now waiting. It's perfectly all right. He has been very kind about it----"