SOME PEOPLE WHO DID NOT FLATTER.
They were not an agreeable-looking
pair; they had evidently been dining, and their faces
were sticky. They had also been quarreling, for
they cast scowling glances at each other, and were
in far too bad a temper to be civil to the newcomer.
“I don’t want her to play
with us,” said Tootsie, and he half turned his
back.
“I’m sure then she shan’t
play with me,” said Fanny. “I don’t
wish to play with anyone, I’m sick of play.
It’s just like that horrid Maisie.”
“She isn’t a bit more
horrid than you and Tootsie!” suddenly remarked
Ermengarde, finding her voice, and speaking with what
seemed to the two children slow and biting emphasis.
“You’re all horrid together; I never met
such horrid people. You are none of you ladies
and gentlemen. I wouldn’t play with you
for the world! Good-by; I’m going home.”
Ermengarde turned her back, and began
to walk rapidly away from the picnic party. Whether
she would have succeeded in finding her way back to
Glendower remains a mystery, for she had not gone a
dozen yards before she encountered a stout old lady,
who spread out her arms as she approached, and made
herself look like a great fan.
“Whither away, now, little maid
of the woods?” she said. “Oh, I suppose
you are the little girl called Wilton, whom Florrie
brought over from Glendower with her. Maisie
told me of you.”
“I’m going home; please let me pass,”
said Ermengarde.
“Oh, highty-tighty! not a bit
of you, dearie. You’ll stay here till Florrie
wants to go back. You’d get her into no
end of a scrape if you were to leave her now.
You must stick to her, my love. It would be unkind
to desert poor Florrie in that fashion. I thought
Maisie had left you with Fanny and Tootsie.”
“Yes, but they are horrid rude
children. I could not possibly play with them.”
“Well, they are handfuls,”
said the stout lady. “I’m their mother,
so I ought to know. You don’t mind staying
with me, then, love, do you?”
“I’d much rather go home,” repeated
Ermengarde.
“But you can’t do that,
my dear child, so there’s no use thinking about
it. Come, let us walk about and be cozy, and you
tell me all about Glendower.”
The old lady now drew Ermengarde’s
slim hand through her arm, and she found herself forced
to walk up and down the greensward in her company.
Mrs. Burroughs was a downright sort
of person. After her fashion she was kind to
Ermie, but it never entered into her head to flatter
her. She was a gossiping sort of body, and she
wanted the child to recount to her all the tittle-tattle
she knew about Glendower. Ermengarde had neither
the power nor the inclination to describe the goings
on at Glendower graphically. The stout lady soon
got tired of her short answers, and began to survey
her from head to foot in a critical and not too kindly
spirit.
“Dear, dear!” she said,
“what an overgrown poor young thing you are!
But we must all go through the gawky age; we must each
of us take our turn. Maisie is just through her
bad time, but when she was fourteen, wasn’t
she a show just! You’re fourteen, ain’t
you, my love?”
“Yes,” said Ermengarde.
“Ah, I thought as much!
I said so the moment I set eyes on you. I knew
it by your walk. Neither fish, flesh nor good
red herring is a maid of fourteen; she’s all
right once she passes seventeen, so you take heart,
my love. I dare say you’ll be a fine girl
then.”
“Mrs. Burroughs,” interrupted
Ermengarde, “I really must look for Flora.
It is time for us to be going back. I must find
her, and if she won’t come, I’ll go alone.”
She wrenched her hand away from the
stout lady’s arm, and before she could prevent
her, began running through the woods to look for Flora.
Miss St. Leger was nowhere in sight,
so Ermie, feeling her present position past enduring,
determined that, whatever happened, she would go back
to Glendower. She was fortunate enough to meet
one of the gamekeepers, and guided by his instructions
presently found herself back in the house. Weary
and stiff, her head aching, she crept up to her room,
and threw herself on her bed. Oh, what horrid
people Flora knew! Oh, what a horrid girl Flora
really was!
Ermengarde wondered how she could
ever have liked or admired Flora, or made a friend
of such a girl. She lay on the bed and listened
intently, wondering what would happen if the picnic
party returned before Flora chose to put in an appearance.
In that case, would she, Ermengarde, be blamed?
Would suspicion attach to her? Would her father
discover how deceitfully she had behaved?
“He would send me straight home
if he knew it,” thought Ermie. “Oh,
what a lot of scrapes I’ve been getting into
lately! What with Susy and the miniature, and
Miss Nelson and Basil, and now this horrid mean Flora?
Oh dear, oh dear? I’m sure I’m not
a bit happy. I wish I could get straight somehow,
only it’s hopeless. I seem to get deeper
and deeper into a dark wood every day. Oh dear!
there is nothing whatever for me but to hope that
things won’t be found out.”
There came a gentle knock at Ermengarde’s door.
“Come in,” she said, in
a shaking voice. Her fears made her tremble at
every sound.
Petite appeared, bringing in a tempting
little tray, with tea, and bread-and-butter, and cake.
She inquired if Ermengarde knew where Miss St. Leger
was. Ermie murmured something which the French
maid tried to interpret in vain.
“I’ll look for ma’mselle in her
room,” she said.
She arranged the tea-tray comfortably for Ermie, and
withdrew.
The little girl drank her tea; it
soothed and comforted her, and she was just falling
into a doze, when her room door was opened without
any preliminary knock, and Flora, flushed, panting,
and frightened, ran in.
“Ermengarde, they are all returning.
They are in the avenue already. Oh, how cruel
of you to come home without me! You might have
got me into an awful scrape.”
“I could not help it, Flora.
You should not have left me with such people.
They are not at all in our set. Father would not
wish me to know them.”
“Oh, nonsense! They are as good as anybody.”
“They are not; they are not
good at all. They are vulgar and horrid.
I am surprised you should have taken me to see such
people.”
“Well, well, child, it’s
all over now. You’ll never tell about to-day,
will you, Ermengarde?”
“Oh, I suppose not, Flora.”
“You suppose not?
But you must promise faithfully. You don’t
know what mischief you’ll make, if you tell.
Promise now, Ermengarde; promise that you won’t
tell.”
“Very well, I promise,”
replied Ermie, in a tired-out voice.
“That’s a darling.
I knew you were a pretty, sweet little pet. If
ever I can do anything for you, Ermie, I will.
Kiss me now, love. I hear their voices in the
hall, and I must fly.”
Flora rushed noisily out of the room,
and Ermie breathed a sigh of relief.
That evening at dinner the stout old
gentleman was very kind to the little girl who, with
her hair down her back, and in a very simple muslin
frock, sat by his side. In fact he took a great
deal more notice of her than he did of the richly-attired
young lady of the previous evening. In the course
of the meal he imparted one piece of information to
Ermengarde, which put her into extremely good spirits.
He told her that Miss St. Leger and her mamma were
leaving by a very early train on the following morning.
Ermengarde quite laughed when she heard this, and
the old gentleman gave her a quick pleased wink, as
much as to say, “I thought you were too sensible
to be long influenced by the flattery of that young
person.”
Flora herself avoided Ermengarde all
through the evening. She left her entirely to
the society of her child friend Lilias, and finally
went to bed without even bidding her good-by.