Chapter 1
CHAPTER I. A COLONY OF GIRLS by Kate Livingston Willard THE LAWNCES AND OTHERS I cannot understand why the children do not return from the beach. They've been gone so long. None too long, sighed Natalie Lawnce, swinging lazily to and fro in a hammock which was hung
across one end of the veranda. What heaven it is without them, I declare, Helen! she continued, addressing her sister in a grieved tone. You do get a lot of those children, some where or other. For my part, I cannot see why you let them stay with us all the time, when they are a
thousand times better off with Mary. And she gave a vindictive tug at her rope fastened to the railing, which sent the hammock back and forth with the utmost rapidity. Take care, Nat. You will be out next, and there will be a hubbub worse than the children would think
of making in their wildest moments. The young girl, who thus spoke, laughed a low musical laugh and looked up from her book with a pair of wide-open blue eyes. Natalie's usual thinks only of herself, said Helen, with a frown as she walked away. I can never say one word about those children without raising Helen's ire.
She spoils them, she might as well admit it. In my short and uneventful career, responded Jean, smiling, I have not found that people are over-fun of admitting anything, least of all their weaknesses. I don't see how you can expect Helen to be superior to all the rest of the world, yourself and myself included.
Now imagine, she continued tantalizingly, if anyone insisted upon your admitting your weakness for Mr. Church. Okay, quiet, Jean, you're too stupid. Dear, dear, cried Jean, jumping up and closing her book. Of course I am, and that is my weakness, so now we are quits.
Natalie tossed her head as much as her position would permit. Jean Lawrence, she said solemnly, you bore me. What a catastrophe! Jean flung back ahead with a merry laugh. Good-bye, my dear, you are the picture of injured innocence.
Jean come back, cried Natalie, struggling to obtain an upright position. I do think you are too bad. Ah, well, some day, then breaking into song, some day, some day, some day I shall meet you, love I know not when nor how, love I know not when nor how, only this, only this, only this, at once you loved me, only this I love you now.
What? Called out a small voice from the lawn below. Natalie raised herself on her elbow and peered through the railing. Larry, I am thunderstruck, what is the meaning of that weird expression? Natalie singing a love song, cried Larry, scampering about on the lawn.
Oh, what fun! Larry, where are Willie and Gladys? Why did you stay so long? I've been worrying about you. Oh, they're coming along.
Now don't you worry, Helen, because we was all right. You don't need never to send Mary with us, he added eagerly, because we wouldn't get drowned in nor nothing really. Jean strolled back from the other end of the veranda and put her hand on Helen's shoulder. Larry, love, she said, looking down at her little brother, your grammar is something
to be deplored. A fleeting smile lit up Helen's pale face and gentle brown eyes. Ah, here come the little corporates, she cried, starting forward. Gladys, my precious baby, I've been worried to death about you. What naughty chicks to have stayed so long.
Willie, I can never trust you. Willie was a grave little fellow, the eldest of the three children. Why, Helen, we weren't gone long. Gladys was good, and so was Larry. Gladys, pretty, he added, deprecatingly.
The moment I said, come on, children, we all started, only Gladys. She couldn't walk very fast, so Larry wouldn't wait for us. Oh, sighed Willie, his grave little face and a pucker at the recollection. I would rather Mary went along with Gladys another time. Anyhow, I was awful good, sister, lisp little Gladys trying to frown on Willie.
Only, only your short little legs would not carry you any quicker. Is that not so, darling? Well, since you are all good, there was nothing to scold you about. Helen's faith is sublime, laughed Jean, in an aside to Natalie. Helen took little Gladys in her arms and sat down in a large rocker,
which stood close to the front door. She was a slender, frail-looking girl. Her soft brown hair was arranged close to her head, with the utmost simplicity, and her rather pale face would perhaps have been plain, had it not been redeemed by a pair of beautiful, sad, brown eyes.
She was the eldest of the Lawrence's, and it seemed to her only a brief time since the angel of death had, twice in one short year, visited their home, leaving them bereft of father and mother. Her father had been a physician of undoubted skill, a man of wide learning and great culture.
Had the lash of poverty given an incentive to his somewhat lagging spirit, he might have commanded the attention and the admiration of his fellow men. But his was a nature of great shyness and reserve, and when his father died, leaving him a comfortable fortune, he had, with an almost unconscious sigh of relief, turned his back on ambition and withdrawn to the old homestead in the sleepy little
town of Hetherford, content with a small country practice which left him undisturbed hours among his books and in his laboratory. Mrs. Lawrence's inclinations were thoroughly social, but so unbounded was her faith in her husband's judgment that it never occurred to her to complain of the narrowness and isolation of their life in Hetherford.
As her girls grew older, however, she reproached herself with the thought that she was hardly doing them justice, and thus secluding them from the advantages of contact with the great world which lay beyond their own pretty village. She appeased her conscience by giving them occasional visits to town, and one long happy summer in Europe which they had enjoyed to their heart's content.
The winter following this last delightful holiday, Dr. Lawrence had been stricken with a fatal illness, and after weeks of suffering, had passed away. Mrs. Lawrence survived this blow but two months, and at little Goddard's birth, had turned to Helen with a weary, heartbroken sigh. My darling, I'm so lonely.
Your father, take care of the little ones. Sweet lamb, God bless you. Helen had sunk speechless at her mother's bedside until the sound of a wailing cry brought her once more to herself. My dear, said gentle Aunt Helen, leaning over her, won't you take the poor little
baby? Perhaps she will help to comfort you. And Helen took her little sister in her arms, and made her way into the nursery, where in two small cribs, side by side, lay her little brothers fast asleep. Jean and Natalie stood by the nursery window, looking out into the night. At Helen's entrance they turned sharply.
Oh, Helen, how is Mama? Jean stopped short, appalled at the change in her sister's face. Helen, she cried, a sharp ring of pain in her voice. Mama is not, yes, Jean, Natalie. Mama is gone. What shall we do? Helen moaned.
My poor children, said Aunt Helen tenderly, crossing the room and putting her arm around little Natalie, and clasping Jean's hand tightly in hers. Your dear Mama is gone. She was so sad and lonely without Papa. Oh, darlings, do not grieve, but think of her as happy and addressed. You, Helen, must learn to be a mother to these little sisters and brothers,
and teach them all your dear Mama would have them know. And Jean, and even little Natalie, too, can help. Auntie! Helen's tears were falling fast. I will do all I can. Poor baby! She whispered as she kissed the soft little face which was nestled in her
arms, and then she turned toward the cribs, and looked with loving eyes at the sleeping children. God bless them! And help me! Since that sad night six years had rolled by. Natalie was now 18, Jean her elder by two years, and Helen's 23rd birthday was close at hand.
Larry and Willie were respectively 8 and 10, and little Gladys was fast outgrowing her babyhood. Aunt Helen, Mrs. Dennis, had since Mrs. Lawrence's death made her permanent home with her nieces and nephews. She was a sweet, gentle woman, a widow and childless, and her lonely life had been thus gladdened by
the love of this household of happy-go-lucky children. She had always been delicate, and during the past few years had become so great and invalid that she rarely left her room. Thus Helen Lawrence had been obliged to assume unusual cares and responsibilities for so young a girl, and these were not without their
effect on her mind and character. For years the manor house of Heatherford had been in the possession of the Lawances, and no family in the town was better known or more universally loved. The manor itself was a charming old park, stretching out far enough to make it no small walk to compass its grounds. Grand
old trees shaded the well-kept lawns and pretty graveled paths, lined with buckwood, lead hither and thither. The house was old-fashioned in the extreme—large, square, and commodious. A broad veranda ran around three sides of it, and across the front there was an upper balcony, which in the season was covered with trailing vines of roses,
honeysuckles, and passion-flowers. During the warm summer days this was a favorite retreat of the girls. A few rugs were thrown down, comfortable wicker chairs were scattered here and there, and on the low round table in the center there was always a motley collection of books, writing materials, and work baskets. To occasional openings in the vines were
revealed pretty vistas of lawn and flowering rose beds, beyond which stretched the blue waters of the Sound, sparkling in the sunshine as if strewn with a thousand jewels. It was indeed an Arcadian spot. Within doors everything was equally old-fashioned and comfortable. Opening on to the broad hall, which ran to the middle of the house, were
four large, airy rooms, simply but substantially furnished, and with an unmistakable air of being lived in. Upstairs, in addition to the rooms occupied by the family, each one of which was bright and cheery, and clearly revealed the individuality of its occupant, were several guest chambers with heavy four-post bedsteads and quaint mahogany dressing
tables, and during the summer season these were rarely untenanted, for the Lawrence's hospitality was as old-fashioned as their home. Quiet Hetherford was almost unknown as a summer resort, but the few people who had once found their way there came again and again, and with them all the Lawrence's were on intimate and friendly terms. It was not
strange that young men came but rarely to this out-of-the-way little village, but a colony of girls thrived and were happy there, happier perhaps for this very lack of the masculine element. The girls often laughed merrily over it, and not one of them seemed to take it very much to heart, save pretty little dark-eyed Emily Varian, who spent her
summers with her uncle, Dr. Evelyn Birdsell, the Presbyterian Minister. "'It is deplorable,' she sighed, "'and if the girls were not selfishly lazy, they could quite easily get some men to come out here. Certainly town is not so far off, so as to make us quite out of the world. It is nothing but stupid nonsense and vanity on the girls' part. They think it
is something fine and independent, never to see anything of men. For my part I should think they would be ashamed of it.' There was one girl who always laughed good-humouredly at Emily's grumbling, and she was none other than charming Ellen Hale, however she had less cause to complain, for Emily went from her winter home in one
little country town to sleepier Heatherford for the summer months. Miss Hale, for more than half of every year, led the gayest of lives in New York. When June came with its warm sunshine and long days, she and her mother gladly turned their face toward pretty, dreamy Heatherford, to them the dearest spot in the world. Molly Andrews said that for her part
she didn't care. Taking it all in, she did not see, but that they had a pretty good time. The Andrews had been coming to Heatherford for years, and were all deeply attached to the place. Molly's handsome, scatterbrained brother Dick had set the seal of his approval on their choice of a summer resort, and thenceforth Molly would have deemed it nothing short of
heresy to call the place stupid. To be sure, Dick rarely turned up off another once a week, but then her cousin Clifford Archer, nicknamed the Fatal Beauty, was wont to put in an appearance for a few days, frequently with his great chum Wendell Churchill, whose yacht was quite a familiar object in Heatherford Harbour.
This perfectly absurd of Emily, Molly would end with a toss of her head. Emily always looked scornful, and Nan Birdsell, happy-go-lucky Nan, who rarely went away from Heatherford, would laugh gleefully. "'Hoy, um," she exclaimed one evening after one of her cousin's tirades, "'you're a man crazy. Never mind, dear, you wait. I know a
thing or two and by and by when my ship comes in.' Looking round at the girls with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "'you will be surprised. Perhaps you will have more men here than we are bargained for.' "'What do you mean, Nan?' they cried in chorus, but not a bit of satisfaction would Nan give them. The parsonage adjoined, the manor,
and an opening in the hedge made intercourse between the two families an easy matter. Just across the road was the inn, where all the summer visitors stayed, and a quaint a retreat could not be imagined. They formed only a small circle of people, but many were the happy times they had together.' End of chapter one
