Mary Louise At Dorfield

The Bluebird Books

Mary Louise At Dorfield

“A pretty snug place,” said Felix.

Mary Louise
At Dorfield

By
Edith Van Dyne

Author of
“Mary Louise,” “Mary Louise in the Country,” “Mary
Louise Solves a Mystery,” “Mary Louise and
the Liberty Girls,” “Mary Louise
Adopts a Soldier.”

Frontispiece by
Maude Martin Evers

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

Copyright, 1920
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.

All Rights Reserved

Made in U. S. A.

Mary Louise at Dorfield

CONTENTS

Mary Louise At Dorfield

CHAPTER I
THE SEWING BEE

Dorfield was trying to settle down into its prewar quiet, but no matter how conservative and sleepy a town has been, when once it is shaken up with war activities it finds it difficult to go to sleep again. It may pull the bedclothes over its head and bury its ears in the downy pillows of memories of what it used to be but the echoes of marching troops, shouting crowds, martial music, newsboys crying extras, powder mills and so forth will reach it no matter how soft the pillows or thick the bedclothes.

The girls of Dorfield found it more difficult to settle down than anybody else. Fathers had always been busy, so had mothers. The returning soldiers had dropped into their old places and were at work almost as though there had been no amazing interlude of A. E. F. Only the girls seemed to be left out of the scheme of things. Many of them kept on working, although before the war the idea of making a living had been undreamed. The girls who, for purely patriotic reasons, had taken positions left empty by enlisted men, were loath to go back to the old state of dependence now that the men had returned.

“I am tired of being an unproductive consumer and I don’t intend to stand it any longer,” declared Elizabeth Wright.

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Lucile Neal.

“Do! I’m going to get a good job and hold it. I did the work in the bank just as well as Price Middleton, although I got only about half as much pay for it. I can type better than he can and write a business letter all around him. When he came back from the war, I stepped out as gracefully as you please and gave up my job. Nobody seems to be much worried about my future, that is, nobody but me, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what is going to become of me, not only because of money but because I am simply bored to death at the prospect of having no regular occupation.”

“I feel that way too,” said Laura Hilton. “I do wish Dorfield wasn’t so poky about its girls. Father says young women ought to stay at home and preserve fruit, unless it is necessary for the family finances that they should go out and work.”

“Always for the good of the family where the girl is concerned!” exclaimed Elizabeth, “and never the good of the girl! Suppose there isn’t any fruit! Suppose there is no sugar to preserve with! Suppose the beloved family is not fond of jam! Suppose there are more girls in the household than there are paring knives! Suppose one’s mother is so capable and industrious that there is no work left for the girls to do! Suppose a million things!”

The group of girls gathered on Colonel Hathaway’s porch laughed at the vehemence of Elizabeth Wright’s harangue. Elizabeth had always been different from the rest of her family, who were old-fashioned and conservative in their ideas. She was one of five sisters. The other four were quite content to live the life of “unproductive consumers” on the not very large income which was derived from an estate inherited by their father. Mr. Wright’s sole occupation consisted in writing letters demanding catalogues of rare books. These he pored over from morning until night. Sometimes, enticed by the extreme rarity and desirability of a book, he would decide he must have it in his fine collection but he usually took so long to decide and put off so long writing his order that, in nine cases out of ten, the desired book was sold before he sent for it.

Mrs. Wright was one of those thoroughly practical souls who glory in their activity and efficiency. She did everything so easily that she had never seen the necessity of teaching her daughters to do anything.

“They will learn soon enough!” she always declared. “Nobody taught me! They will marry and then they will learn.”

Elizabeth always winced when her mother announced so confidently that her daughters would marry. Perhaps they would but, on the other hand, perhaps they wouldn’t. She for one was sure she would not. Certainly it was not her aim in life as it seemed to be of her sisters. Marriage was all right if it was built on true love, as she was sure this marriage of Mary Louise’s was to be. In her heart of hearts Elizabeth wanted to write but she thought she had not lived long enough to have anything to write about.

Dear Mary Louise Burrows! How happy she looked with her friends gathered around her on her grandfather’s piazza! That piazza was a favorite place for the girls to assemble and now that Mary Louise was so soon to marry Danny Dexter it was almost a daily occurrence for them to meet there. Irene MacFarlane was there in her wheel chair, her countenance as calm and peaceful as ever, while her busy fingers embroidered a wonderfully dainty bit of lingerie for her friend’s trousseau. Alora Jones was there, not looking much happier than she had formerly, although her three millions had been almost doubled in the last few years, thanks to the war activities that wealth had indulged in. Poor Alora found it difficult to let herself go. Her wealth made her suspicious. Because she had been imposed upon once, she was ever looking out for similar experiences. She was happier with this band of friends, tried and true, than with anybody else in the world. Certainly they wanted nothing from her but friendship and that her shy heart was eager to give. Her artist father encouraged her in seeking out these wholesome, normal girls, hoping through them his daughter would begin to value life for what it was worth.

“We are cursed with money, Alora,” he would say, “but for Heaven’s sake, let’s forget it. In the meantime we must give and give!”

Pretty Laura Hilton was there, as small and bird-like as ever. By her sat Lucile Neal, who had inherited an executive ability from her father, the owner of the Neal Automobile Factory, and whose clear judgment was ever in demand when Mary Louise and her friends had any project on foot. Edna Barlow, the only poor girl in the group, was in the hammock with Jane Donovan, the daughter of Dorfield’s mayor.

All of the girls were sewing on Mary Louise’s trousseau. It was Irene’s idea that they should meet together in this way and busy themselves with this labor of love.

“To return to jobs,” said Elizabeth. “I’m going to find out what pays best and learn how to do it and then bust loose from my family. If they don’t like it, they can lump it. I want a latchkey and a bank account of my own. As it is, if I’m not in the house at a certain time, there is a hue and cry and father begins on what young ladies did in his day and Gertrude and Annabel look shocked and Pauline and Margaret say they would never be guilty of such unladylike behavior and they all agree that men don’t like independent girls and I’ll never get a suspicion of a beau if I don’t mend my ways—as though I wanted one if I’d have to make myself over to get him!”

“And what does your mother say?” laughed Mary Louise.

“Oh, Mother doesn’t say anything. She is always so busy she doesn’t even know I’m not there. With two servants in the house Mother still manages never to be idle one moment in the day. She is always baking and brewing, sewing and dusting, cleaning out closets or bureau drawers, airing beds, rubbing furniture, cleaning silver, doing a million and one things that the maids could do just as well as she. The truth of the matter is Mother should have had a profession outside of being a wife and mother. She has too much energy and efficiency to waste on a mere home.”

“But a mere home is the greatest thing in the world,” said Mary Louise, softly.

“Oh, yes, it is a good enough place, but it can be pretty uncomfortable with somebody always making you move to sweep under you. Why, my mother could run a big hotel and still have time to spare to keep the church sewing circle going.”

“She must be very unselfish,” said Laura Hilton, whose own mother was noted for being the best dressed and most frivolous woman in Dorfield, though very charming and kind-hearted withal.

“Oh, I don’t know about that!” answered Elizabeth. “She is never so happy as when she is bustling around doing for people. She would let all of us girls sleep all day and then cook breakfast herself and bring it up to us and have the time of her life doing it. I think it would be a great deal more unselfish if she would let us help and expend some of her energy on making us be a little more efficient instead of being so perfect herself.”

“Have you decided yet, Mary Louise, where and when you will be married?” asked Irene, gently changing the subject. Irene had the faculty of turning the conversation into smoother channels when she saw breakers ahead. Criticism of one’s mother and home was not conducive to smooth sailing for the ship of conversation.

“About decided,” blushed Mary Louise. “Danny and I think it would be nice to be married right here at home with only our intimate friends present. We haven’t any relations to speak of, neither one of us. Danny has his Uncle Jim O’Hara and I have Grandpa Jim—a Jim apiece and that is all. We have lots of intimate friends, though, when we begin to count up. Of course Danny wants to ask every man in his regiment besides all the friends he has made at the Neal Automobile Factory.”

“Father and the boys say he is the most popular man in the works in the short time he has been with them,” said Lucile.

Mary Louise blushed again. She was frankly delighted at the praise bestowed upon her fiancé. Danny’s popularity was very delightful to the girl and indeed it spoke very well for Danny Dexter that Dorfield was receiving him with open arms. He had come to the town unknown, poor, friendless except for the men in his regiment who one and all pronounced him a trump. All of his worldly possessions he could get in his army kit. But on his battle scarred face was a smile that was worth more than silver and gold and when he had won, right under the noses of a host of admirers, the love of the prettiest and most attractive girl in town, the rejected and dejected suitors of Mary Louise Burrows bore him no grudge but were willing to come dance at his wedding.

“Here comes Mrs. Markle!” exclaimed Mary Louise. “She has been so kind to me and Mr. Markle is perfectly dear to Danny. Both of them are so charming that we appreciate their seeing anything in us worth knowing.”

“Pooh!” cried Elizabeth Wright. “Everybody thinks you and Danny are worth knowing. The Markles aren’t so much of a muchness.”

“Oh, but they are lovely! Don’t you think so, Irene?” asked Mary Louise.

“I don’t know them very well,” responded Irene. “If you like them so much they must be worth knowing, however.”

Mary Louise looked at her friend, astonishment expressed in her countenance. That did not sound like Irene MacFarlane. What faint praise she gave the Markles! And her voice sounded so cold. What could be the matter? Could she be jealous of these new friends? Hardly that! Of course, Irene had been her first and only friend when Mary Louise came to Dorfield and stayed with Irene’s uncle, Mr. Peter Conant and his wife, dear Aunt Hannah. But since then she, Mary Louise, had made acquaintance with almost everybody in town and it would take all her fingers and toes to count her intimate girl friends. Irene had never shown jealousy before but had been as eager to enlarge her acquaintance as Mary Louise herself. Poor Irene was lame and had spent the whole of her life either on her back or in the wheel chair. She had an intense interest in humanity in general and girls in particular. Her friendship with Mary Louise had opened up a new life for the poor girl, bringing her more and more in touch with the outside world. But why this coldness where the Markles were concerned?

Nobody could deny that the Markles were a delightful couple. Mrs. Markle was a woman of about thirty, while her husband was nearer fifty but he seemed to be as fond of young people as his wife. They were strangers in Dorfield, having settled there since the war, but already they had taken a place in the society of the town and were looked upon as agreeable additions to the four hundred of Dorfield. Mr. Markle was engaged in the real estate business, which seemed to be thriving. To be sure, they lived in a small apartment, but it was in one of the best houses in town and, while they were not classed with the reckless spenders, they entertained frequently and in lavish style. The soft Persian rugs and exquisite paintings and etchings filled their apartment with harmony and beauty. There were cabinets of rare and wonderful curios, bookcases of first editions and carved furniture that looked as though it belonged in museums, so wonderful was it in design and finish.

CHAPTER II
A ROSE AND A SONG

As Mrs. Markle tripped up the steps of Colonel Hathaway’s porch, where the girls were holding their sewing bee, one could but wonder why Irene MacFarlane should have been chary of her praise of anyone so altogether charming. She was perfect from the tips of her tiny grey suede shoes to the hat which shaded the piquant face at just the right angle. Nature had not only endowed Hortense Markle with a rare and glowing beauty but hers also was the gift of knowing exactly how to clothe that beauty. Every portion of her costume was as carefully thought out and planned by the little artist as had been the rarest of her rugs by some Hindu weaver or the most choice of her pictures by some famous painter. She delighted in soft greys and pastel shades which set off to perfection her rich, almost oriental, beauty.

“She knows perfectly well if she wore brilliant colors they would be becoming but would coarsen her,” Irene said to herself as she watched the charming little lady mount the steps, her arm around Mary Louise, who had hurried down the walk to meet her new friend.

“Oh, why didn’t you girls let me know you were here sewing? I have been so lonely sitting up in my stuffy little apartment all alone. Only think, I might have been here all morning having such a pleasant time with all of you! I believe you think I am too old for you.”

This she said so gaily, giving such a ringing laugh at the thought of anybody’s thinking she was too old, that all the girls joined in, even Irene. Irene had wondered at herself as much as Mary Louise had. For the life of her she could not account for a feeling of antipathy that she felt for both Mr. and Mrs. Markle. It was not like her to take unaccountable dislikes, or even accountable ones. Her theory of life was to live and let live and her sympathy embraced all mankind, good and bad alike. Why could she not find room in her heart for this charming, beautiful young woman whose manner to her had always been gracious and kind?

“It is just a case of Dr. Fell,” Irene said to herself.

“‘I do not like thee, Dr. Fell—

The reason why I cannot tell;

But one thing ’tis, I know full well:

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.’”

She determined, however, to keep her unreasonable sentiments to herself and at least to be as cordial and polite to Mary Louise’s guest as she could manage to be.

“We sew here almost every morning,” said Irene. “We are helping to make Mary Louise’s trousseau.”

“How charming! Please let me help. Sewing is my one accomplishment.”

A thimble was found to fit the tapering finger and Mrs. Markle was soon as busy as the others in their task of love.

“I wish I could sew better,” exclaimed Elizabeth Wright. “I am going to have to pick out this foolish little flower that I have been trying so hard to make look as though it were growing on Mary Louise’s camisole. There now! I’ve cut a hole in it! Oh, what a stupid I am! Right in the middle of the garment and this crepe de chine costs ’steen dollars a yard! Oh me, oh my! I told you girls I ought to go into business and not try to be so girlie.”

“Let me see if I can’t set you right,” said Mrs. Markle. “I am past mistress at patching.” She took the garment from the unresisting hands of Elizabeth, quickly ripped out the crooked flower that poor Elizabeth had been vainly endeavoring to embroider on it and then, with deft sure fingers and a needle so fine one could hardly see it, she inserted an invisible patch where the cruel scissors had slipped. This needle she took from the lining of her velvet hand bag. It was much smaller than any found in the work boxes of the girls. Irene remarked on it.

“I never can get such tiny needles as that,” she said. “Perhaps if I could manage to shop for myself I might find one.”

“Oh, I’ll be delighted to give you some!” cried the older woman. “I am like you: I simply cannot sew with a spike.”

“That will be very kind of you,” said Irene, wishing she could be as pleasant to Mrs. Markle as Mrs. Markle was to her and hoping that her sentiments were not voiced in her words. She was trying hard to get over her feeling of dislike and distrust for the beautiful little lady but, even though she should give her a thousand fairy needles, she knew that she could not like her. She watched the process of putting in the invisible patch. It was the most perfect piece of needlework she had ever seen and Irene herself did all but perfect work.

“How on earth do you do it?” she exclaimed. “Why, one cannot tell where the patch is!”

The girls crowded around to see the little patch. If Irene did not know how to do it it must be wonderful indeed.

“It is quite easy when once you learn,” laughed Mrs. Markle. “I learned at the convent in Paris. First be sure and match the warp and woof of your material. It takes sharp eyes, but one thread out of place is fatal. Then use a bit of raveled crepe de chine for your thread and the rest is all plain sailing. Practice makes perfect. Now shall I embroider a rose over the place?”

“Oh, do!” cried Elizabeth, “and please somebody give me some plain basting to do on gingham aprons if the bride is to have such things.”

“Don’t you have to have a pattern for your rose?” asked Irene, reaching for her workbag. “I have some patterns here, very pretty ones, and some tracing paper.”

“No, thank you! I just make up as I go along—”

“Like the wonderful rug weavers of India,” cried Alora. “Do you sing a song as you go and weave the music into your work as they do, Mrs. Markle?”

“Why, yes, sometimes! But please don’t call me Mrs. Markle. I’m not so terribly old and you don’t know how I long to have someone call me by my own name, Hortense.”

“Doesn’t Mr. Markle?”

“He calls me Pet. Awfully silly, but he always has. I think it would be so pleasant if all of you girls would just call me Hortense. Won’t you?” She smiled so brightly on the ring of girls grouped around her that they succumbed to her charms. Even Irene melted a bit and decided that perhaps she did like the little lady a tiny bit after all. Anyone who could put in an invisible patch must be a desirable acquaintance.

“You see it has been many years since I have been with my own people and so few ever call me anything but Mrs. Markle. It is very lonesome to have persons so formal.”

As she talked she had been deftly outlining a rose on the front of the camisole, drawing it with needle and thread with strokes as sure as those of a great flower painter. Then choosing her silk from Irene’s basket she began to embroider. Irene was spellbound in her attention. The first petal took form under the flying fingers as though by magic.

And then the woman sang. It seemed hardly fair that anyone so beautiful and clever as Hortense Markle should also have a voice, but voice she did have of a rich depth that thrilled her audience.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a flying:

And the same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious land of heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.”

“Lovely! Lovely!” cried the girls.

“I don’t know that tune,” said Laura Hilton, who had a sweet little voice of her own with a bird-like note and was ever in search of songs that would fit it. “I know the words, Herrick’s, aren’t they? But the tune is different from any I have ever heard.”

“It has a kind of teasing quality,” said Alora.

“The tune is my own,” declared the singer.

“Then you can write music too!” cried Irene. This was surely a remarkable person for her to take an unreasonable dislike to.

“Not write it—just sing it. I don’t know one note from the other except by ear,” answered Mrs. Markle still busily embroidering.

“I think the tune was fine,” put in Elizabeth, “but I can’t hand a thing to the words. Always hammering on girls to get married! It sounds too like home to me. I bet anything old Herrick was as withered and dried up as a salt herring. Losing his own prime was nothing. He, as a man, was perfectly sure that he was still attractive, married or unmarried—but the poor girls—it makes me more and more determined to get me a job.”

They all laughed heartily at Elizabeth’s taking the song personally and Mrs. Markle was much interested in what the girl expected to do and how soon she intended to begin doing it.

“I don’t blame you at all for wanting to do something. I often feel myself I should like to but Felix is so opposed. He is away so much I could easily carry on some occupation besides home making. What are you thinking of doing?”

“I don’t know. I can type but I don’t want to be a stenographer, at least I don’t want to be a man’s stenographer. Somebody might think it was up to me to marry the creature. I’d like to have a shop—a kind of literary work-shop—where one could get manuscript typed; where budding authors could have their spelling corrected and their punctuation put to rights. I’m a queen bee on spelling and punctuation. I might even write obituaries and valedictories for the going and coming. I might combine a kind of clipping bureau with it for folks who like to see their names in print. Of course I’d have to have a partner.”

“The very thing!” cried Mary Louise. “A friend of mine, Josie O’Gorman, wants to come to Dorfield to settle and she could go in with you. Josie is financially independent, but she says she simply must do something. You know her father was the great detective. He died last month,” she explained to Mrs. Markle.

“See, I have finished the rose!” Hortense interrupted and held it up for their inspection. It was so natural that one almost expected a fragrance to arise from it.

“But look! What is that on the edge of this petal?” cried Irene, who was bending over the embroidery entranced by its perfectness. “It looks like a tiny faded place.”

“So it is! That is where the tune got woven into my picture.

‘The same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.’”

“Oh!” was all Irene could say, but she began all over to hate Hortense Markle for suggesting fading flowers where Mary Louise’s trousseau was concerned. “It wasn’t kind! It wasn’t kind!” she kept on saying to herself.

CHAPTER III
MATRON OF HONOR

“We were speaking of Mary Louise’s wedding when you came in,” Alora said to Mrs. Markle.

“And Danny’s!” put in Mary Louise.

“Oh, of course, Danny’s! Danny may be a wonder but he doesn’t count much on his own wedding day. That day is the bride’s,” laughed Alora.

“You are to have a church wedding, I fancy,” said Mrs. Markle.

“No, we are to be married here at home. Grandpa Jim much prefers it and so do Danny and I.”

“Oh, then of course it must be at home. Your house is large but the rooms do not open into each other for the best effect for a wedding. Why don’t you be married out of doors?” suggested Mrs. Markle. “It would be lovely. The guests could stand all along these terraces or anywhere they chose and the bridal party could approach through the opening in that wonderful old yew hedge. It would be a beautiful picture. I can see it now!” and she waved her hand towards the fine old sunken garden which was the pride of Colonel Hathaway and his granddaughter.

“The very thing!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “Don’t you think so, Irene?”

“It would be lovely.”

“Grandpa Jim would like it a lot, I am sure,” said Mary Louise.

“You are to have bridesmaids, of course,” continued Mrs. Markle. “Let them dress in pastel shades of palest and softest hue and carry sweet peas.”

“That will be great if we have different colors,” put in Elizabeth. “I am crazy about being a bridesmaid, but I must say I am not crazy about going around with about seven twins for the rest of the summer.”

“You are to have eight bridesmaids, then?” asked Mrs. Markle as she and her hostess went down to the garden to plan.

“Yes, eight besides my maid of honor,” explained Mary Louise. “You see, I couldn’t bear to leave out any of the girls.”

“And who is the maid of honor?”

“Irene MacFarlane! She is the very best friend I have in the whole world.”

“But how can she be a maid of honor in a chair?”

“I don’t know, but she must be. In the house she can roll around quite easily. I am not sure about it out of doors but, if she can’t, we will abandon the idea of having it out in the garden.” Mary Louise spoke quite decidedly.

“That would be a pity.”

“Yes, but I must have Irene.”

Mary Louise had always said if she ever married she would have her dear friend as maid of honor and Irene had felt a fierce pride in the fact that she was chosen. She realized the moment the plan was suggested of having the ceremony out of doors that this honor was not to be hers. She could run her chair with great skill on smooth floors but she felt it would be awkward indeed to try to do it in the garden and then she felt that in some way she would mar the picture. She too could close her eyes and see the effect of the outdoor wedding with the old yew hedge as a background and the beds of old-fashioned flowers adding to the beauty of the scene; the bride in white and the eight bridesmaids in the pastel shades suggested by Hortense Markle.

“It will be beautiful and I must quietly get out of the picture,” Irene said to herself. It hurt her to think of it. The girl was sure she would never marry herself, nobody would ever want to marry such a poor little deformed person. She had settled that long ago, but it would have been pleasant to be the next one to the bride. Even that pleasure must be taken from her and she herself must be the one to put it away. She looked sadly after the girls as they trooped into the garden to join Mary Louise and Mrs. Markle.

“If she only had not suggested the outdoor wedding!” she sighed. “But I must not harbor resentment against Mrs. Markle. She is charming and so clever. Instead I must try to like her. I wish I could sew as well as she can.”

She picked up the dainty camisole whereon Hortense had embroidered the exquisite rose and examined it closely. She took from her basket a little magnifying glass she occasionally made use of in doing very fine embroidery. Through the glass she could see where the patch had been inserted.

“I must not look at people through a magnifying glass,” she mused. “If it magnified their perfections it would be all right, but it seems only to show up their faults. I have shown a poor spirit myself this morning, and if I turned the magnifying glass on my own soul, it would disclose many ugly patches and gashes.” She put her hand over her eyes and offered a silent prayer for a just and contrite spirit.

When the girls came back from the garden, they found Irene with a smile on her sensitive face and on her lips a gay little tune she was humming.

“I do hope you have decided to have the wedding out of doors,” she cried. “If it is out of doors, I can see it too, as I will be a spectator. From my chair I can see the procession as it comes through the yew hedge and follows the garden walk.”

“But, Irene—” began Mary Louise.

“Don’t but Irene me,” laughed the girl. “As for bridesmaids: they are like the purple cow to me, ‘I’d rather see than be one.’ Let me be a kind of vestal virgin, stationed near the altar.”

“But I have always said that I would have no maid of honor but you,” declared Mary Louise, “and I won’t.”

“You shall have to swallow your words then, my dear,” insisted Irene.

“If not a maid, you might have a matron,” suggested Hortense.

“Certainly,” agreed Irene.

“Nobody could take the place of Irene,” objected Mary Louise.

“But, honey, a place in a wedding procession is not a place in your heart,” whispered Irene, drawing her friend close to her.

“I have heard brides say that, unless they have an attendant, the thing is hard to go through with,” said Hortense. “Of course you might go on your grandfather’s arm, but it is not quite so picturesque as having all girls. Black coats, when all is told, are ugly affairs.”

“Grandpa Jim would rather not be too much in evidence, I think. The truth of the matter is he is afraid he might get stage fright. He says it is hard enough on him to have to give me away. Will you be my matron of honor, Hortense?”

“But, my dear, you must have closer and dearer friends than I am among the young married people. Nobody who loves you more, but—”

“Please,” begged Mary Louise.

“Why, of course! I feel more flattered than I can say.”

And so it was settled.

“We must plan the dresses, making each color the one the wearer prefers. I must wear pale grey, as I am merely the bride’s shadow. I must not show much.”

“And I want pink!” cried one.

“And I blue!” said another. And so on until all the colors in the rainbow and some others were appropriated either by the girls present for themselves or for the absent members.

“Suppose it rains!” suggested Elizabeth.

“But it couldn’t and it wouldn’t!” cried Lucile. “Not on Mary Louise’s wedding day.”

Irene was quietly gathering up her sewing things preparatory to her departure. As the girls discussed their bridesmaids’ dresses, she glanced at Hortense and could not help noting a kind of triumph in her bearing.

CHAPTER IV
JOSIE O’GORMAN

Detective O’Gorman’s death while he was abroad on United States Secret Service brought sadness to the hearts of many, even to some of the criminals whom his almost uncanny powers had been instrumental in bringing to justice.

“A good thief has some respect for a good detective,” one noted cracksman, who was serving his term in the penitentiary, was heard to say when the news came that his one-time enemy was no more. “There is pleasure in trying to circumvent a man like O’Gorman, but most of these so-called detectives have gone into the business because they have failed as life insurance agents. It is no fun trying to get ahead of them. They are too easy.”

Little Josie O’Gorman mourned keenly the loss of her father. He had been everything to her and it was hard to feel that he was gone and she was never to see his dear, homely face again. Not that Josie thought his face was homely. She considered his funny fat nose more classic than the one worn by the sculptured Adonis and much more fitting to follow a scent; and his round eyes that could narrow down to slits when he got on the right track in a big case were to the daughter more expressive than Wallace Reid’s or any other movie hero’s.

Crushed at first by the blow of his sudden death, Josie had felt that never again could she go about the business of living; but the girl came of sturdy stock and she knew too well that her father would have been disappointed in her if she had given up to the grief that was well nigh overwhelming her.

“I must do as he would wish me to do. He would never sit and mope,” she declared to herself and immediately wrote to Mary Louise that she was thinking of coming to settle in Dorfield, as Washington was too sad for her right then.

“I am not going to stay with you, though, honey,” she wrote. “But must have a place of my own. I’ll engage in some business because I don’t know how to be idle. I must hunt a partner and perhaps I might get a flat and go to housekeeping.”

When Elizabeth Wright told Mary Louise of her unrest and determination to leave the ranks of unproductive consumers, Mary Louise immediately thought of Josie and how well the two girls might hit it off together.

Josie came, a sad little figure.

“Sadder than she would be if she had on mourning,” Mary Louise said to herself as she embraced her friend at the station.

“I guess you expected to see me in mourning,” Josie said as they took their seats in Mary Louise’s car. “Somehow I’d like to have it on, but Father hated it so that I decided not to wear it. He used to say that people in dripping black simply exuded gloom and had no right to impose their sorrows an all around them. I must do what he wanted.”

“That’s a brave girl!” cried Mary Louise, holding her close for a moment before she started the car. “I think the war has changed people’s ideas concerning mourning. But you should have a gold star. Your father certainly was serving Uncle Sam just as much as a soldier.”

“That is what I think and so I have a gold star, but I wear it where it can’t be seen. It is just as much satisfaction to me and I can feel it shining on my heart. But tell me about yourself! When are you and Danny going to begin to trot in double harness?”

“In six weeks! This is the fifteenth of April and we have set the first of June. I am so sorry you won’t be a bridesmaid.”

“Well, I will be one in spirit, but just now I can’t quite make up my mind to go through with it in the flesh. When you wrote asking me, I was just as happy as could be that you wanted me, but I felt that I must not try. The fact that you did ask me though is shining on my heart just like the gold star.”

“And now I believe I have a partner for you. I don’t know just what you mean to do and neither does your partner, but she means to do something.”

“Well so do I, and that makes a good beginning towards congeniality,” laughed Josie.

“Have you any ideas?”

“A few!”

“So has Elizabeth Wright.”

“Is that my partner’s name? I know I shall like her. I always do like Elizabeths. I’m awfully funny about names. Some names I simply can’t stand. Persons who have those names have to prove themselves to be worthy before I accept them, while the ones who have the names I like have a hard time proving themselves unworthy. I try to have an open mind where names are concerned, realizing that it is no fault of the namee but of the parents.”

“Did I have to prove myself worthy before you accepted me?” asked Mary Louise, amused as usual by her friend’s whimsical way of looking at things.

“Not at all! Your name was one of my strongest reasons for coming to your rescue, hiring myself to Mrs. Conant as a servant so that I might guard your interests and prove your grandfather’s innocence. I felt in my heart that the grandfather of a Mary Louise must be good.”

“Well, your instincts were right that time. I believe really and truly that Grandpa Jim is the best man in the world.”

“Now that my father is gone, I think maybe he is,” said Josie earnestly.

The girls were silent for a while as they sped through the streets of Dorfield. Finally, Mary Louise spoke:

“What are your ideas for an occupation?”

“Of course, my work in life is unraveling mysteries and I mean to be as clever a detective as my father’s daughter should be, but I have an idea that the best way to succeed is to keep it dark. Now this is my plan: I want to have a shop of some sort where all kinds of persons will come, where I can get in touch with all conditions of folk and they will think I am just the shopkeeper and have no idea of my real calling.”

“Oh, Josie, you are so clever!”

“Not a bit of it! Don’t begin flattering me or I’ll approach my work in the wrong spirit. Father always said one must have a humble and contrite heart or the fine points would slip by.”

“What kind of shop were you contemplating?”

“Something quite different from any shop Dorfield now boasts. But you tell me what this Elizabeth was thinking of so she can get the credit if she deserves it. We may have had the same plans in mind. Ideas seem to be in the air like flocks of birds and the same ones or ones of the same family light on several persons at the same time.”

“Elizabeth wants a literary work-shop, where one could get manuscript typed and corrected. She thought she might combine a clipping bureau with it and even write articles for persons who had not the brains to do their own work. She says she could do obituaries and valedictories and club papers for aspiring females, also speeches for politicians. Elizabeth is very clever but comes of the stuffiest, most conservative family. The mother is one of those women who are work crazy but never want their daughters to raise their hands and the father is living about fifty years too late. Mrs. Wright would have been a wonder if she had had the outlook to go into business instead of wasting all her energies on cleaning and cooking and getting husbands for her daughters. Elizabeth is dead tired of being what she calls ‘an unproductive consumer.’ The taste she had of being at work and drawing a salary during the war has ruined her as far as taking her place in the family of daughters, all of them striving towards the matrimonial goal. Elizabeth is determined to break the bonds.”

“Bully for Elizabeth! She sounds fine to me. I like the idea of the literary work-shop and clipping bureau. Does she know short-hand as well as typewriting?”

“I believe she knows it but has no speed, having just picked it up by herself.”

“Better and better! She is the kind that picks things up by herself. When can I see my partner?”

“She will come to see you this morning. Elizabeth always wants to get what she is interested in going immediately. She is like her mother in some ways but a much more comfortable person to be with.”

They found Elizabeth Wright awaiting them when they arrived at Colonel Hathaway’s residence.

“Please excuse me if I have come too soon, but I couldn’t wait,” she cried as she came forward to embrace Mary Louise and shake hands with her future partner.

“You couldn’t come too soon for me, but Josie may be tired after her long trip,” suggested Mary Louise.

“Not at all! I never let a trip tire me. My father used to say that it was nonsense for persons to get tired on a trip. ‘Just let the engine do the work and sit back and read and think and mix with your fellow passengers and you won’t get tired. The persons who let a journey make them tired are usually the ones who feel somehow that they must help pull the cars.’”

Elizabeth laughed. Already she was liking this funny little friend of Mary Louise. What an amusing looking person she was! Her features were not plain, although certainly not beautiful. Her hair was decidedly red, her face freckled but with a healthy color which kept the freckles from being too apparent. Her eyes were her best points, although at times she could make those eyes as stolid and dim as a half-wit’s. Her teeth were excellent, but as she usually laughed with her eyes one seldom saw her teeth. Elizabeth thought her face was interesting.

Josie O’Gorman was older than Mary Louise and her other friends, but there was something very youthful about her little figure and as she always dressed in misses’ sizes and cuts she could easily have passed for seventeen, although she was at least twenty-two. She said she bought juvenile clothes because they fitted her small figure and because they were especially designed for boarding school girls who were late for breakfast and had no time to fool with hooks and eyes. Her favorite style of dress was a one-piece affair that slipped over her head like a middy blouse. It hung in straight pleats from yoke to hem, confined loosely at the waist by a low hanging leather belt. Her headgear was always a straight brimmed sailor and her shoes of a broad-toed, low-heeled, sensible style. In the winter she wore blue serge in the morning, white serge in the evening and heavy white rajah silk for dress-up. In the summer, it was blue linen in the morning, white linen in the evening and linen lawn or crepe de chine for dress-up. Josie always looked fresh and well dressed, if not in the latest fashion, and she had to take no thought whatsoever concerning her apparel, not even as much as a man, since she had no collar button with which to contend and no stiff collars to be frayed out by heartless laundries. She could carry everything she possessed in a small wardrobe trunk with its convenient compartments for different garments. She always kept her clothes in her trunk whether she was at home or on a visit and a neat handbag ready packed with a change of linen and toilet articles in case of a sudden journey being sprung upon her. That was the result of her father’s training.

Detective O’Gorman used to say: “If we are to track criminals we must be as ready as criminals and I am sure no thief or murderer worthy of the name would have to stop and pack a grip to go on an enforced trip whether he knew he was hounded or not.”

Josie desired above all things to be as much like her father as a young girl could be like a middle-aged man and she was bidding fair to succeed.

She constantly quoted her father, who had been full of wise saws. Sometimes Josie gave him credit for sayings that were well known to have belonged either to Solomon or Good Richard, but the devoted daughter was sure they had originated with Detective O’Gorman and those other two less brilliant gentlemen had plagiarized his wisdom.

“Now tell us, Josie, what are your plans for a shop?” suggested Mary Louise after Elizabeth and Josie had finished sizing each other up. “I have told Josie what you are contemplating, Elizabeth.”

“My idea is a kind of higgledy-piggledy place, a place where one can get anything under heaven that is needed, because, if we happen not to be carrying it in stock, we will take orders for it if there is time to wait for an order or we will go out and shop for it if the thing can be bought in Dorfield. We will bargain to furnish anything from strawberries in January to information concerning the identity of the doorkeeper in Congress who dropped dead when news came of Cornwallis’ surrender. I know of a shop called ‘The Serendipity Shop.’ That, I believe, is the name Leigh Hunt gave to a place where one could go in and find out anything. But that has too erudite and obscure a meaning for us, who mean to be quite plain and simple. I think Higgledy-Piggledy Shop would be a grand name for us. Don’t you?”

“Splendid!” was the verdict of both her listeners.

“I have perhaps the most complete collection of encyclopedias and dictionaries outside of the Congressional Library. Father was daffy about exact information and had systematically collected all books that professed to contain such information from ‘Inquire Within, 3,700 Facts for the People,’ to the latest and most down-to-date dictionary of war slang. These books will be invaluable.”

“Will you let our customers—clients—patients—whatever we will call them, have access to these books?” asked Elizabeth.

“Not on your life! No more than doctors let us read their books for fear we might cure ourselves and they would be minus fees.”

CHAPTER V
THE WRIGHT FAMILY

The Wright family was up in arms over Elizabeth’s decision “to go into trade.” That was the way they expressed the fact that their daughter and sister was going to open up the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with the unstylish girl from Washington.

“What will people say?” questioned Gertrude.

“I haven’t a doubt it will simply ruin her chances for ever having a proposal,” said Annabel. “Elizabeth is pretty enough, but she is so peculiar. Men don’t like peculiar girls.”

“She is so selfish to be doing such a silly thing,” complained Pauline. “I just know people will get mixed and think Margaret and I are the ones.”

“Well, it is too bad,” put in Mrs. Wright, as she bustled in. “I am sure I have done my best to make all of you girls have a good time and, now the war is over, I hoped Elizabeth would be contented to make her debut in society. Of course, I could put my foot down and say she shouldn’t, but I hate to take issue with her—”

“Yes, and if you do she will simply go off and live with that funny little Miss O’Gorman, who never had a beau in her life, I could wager anything. What does Father say?” yawned Margaret, who was busily engaged in putting an extra polish on her already highly glazed finger nails.

“Say about what?” asked Mr. Wright as he entered the room, his arms laden with pamphlets with which he was planning to spend a happy morning.

“Say about Elizabeth’s crazy plan to open up a foolish shop,” explained Margaret.

“Well, it seems strange to me that one of my blood should engage in mercantile pursuits. There has never been a member of the family that I know of, in trade. What is the nature of her undertaking?”

Mr. Wright always used the longest words he could think of. The strange thing was he did not often seem to have to think of them but had them on his tongue’s end.

“As far as we can make out they are going to sell everything from pins to pianos,” said Gertrude.

“She will have to stop when the warm weather sets in, because I have taken the lake cottage for two months, July and August, and expect to close up the house in town,” declared Mrs. Wright briskly.

“Why don’t you get it a month earlier and force Elizabeth to come in June?” suggested Pauline.

“Good idea! I could get it quite cheaply for June, they may even let me have it for almost nothing, as June is an off month for the lake and it is better for property to have a tenant than not, especially where one takes such good care of a place as I am sure I try to do. I shall have to ask you girls to go in the parlor or dining room this morning, I am going to have this room thoroughly cleaned. The books must be dusted and the walls wiped down. The windows were washed last week, but it would not hurt them to be washed again. I may have the rug beaten too.”

“Oh, Mother, for pity’s sake, the library is clean enough!” complained Annabel. “Why don’t you let us stay put?”

“Not at all! I work my fingers to the bone trying to make a comfortable home for your father and you girls and all I ask of you is to move to another room.”

Mr. Wright had settled himself on the sofa with his catalogues and was loath to move, but move he must, as a sullen colored maid came in with broom and rags and ladder and pail.

“I ain’t never wucked fur no lady possessed with sech a clean devil befo’,” she grumbled as she began to dismantle the room. “Th’ ain’t no wonder th’ ain’t no nap lef on this here cyarpet. It done had all the nap breshed off’n it. It’s a wonder the winders don’t come inter holes with all the washin’ they gits. Yo’ maw don’t let the dus’ git laid befo’ she’s a stirrin’ it up again,” she said to the girls as they reluctantly trailed from the room.

The abused creatures had hardly settled themselves in the parlor when Mrs. Wright called from upstairs:

“Girls, come on up here! Miss Pinkie and I are ready to try on those shirt waists. All of you come, as we are ready for all of you.”

Miss Pinkie was the sewing woman engaged spring and fall for a month at the time to get the family in order. Mrs. Wright sewed with her and occasionally one of the daughters condescended to make buttonholes or put a little finishing handwork on the garments. Miss Pinkie was a good sempstress but undervalued her acquirements so that she was willing to work for very little money. Mrs. Wright with her usual efficiency did all the cutting and fitting, although Miss Pinkie was quite capable of doing it herself.

“Heavens! Mother won’t let us sit still a minute,” complained Pauline.

“Sometimes I think Elizabeth shows her sense to get out of it all,” whispered Margaret to Gertrude, but Gertrude looked so shocked at her younger sister that Margaret declared she was just fooling. It did not seem very hard lines to have to go upstairs and stand to have shirt waists fitted on one, but the idle Wright girls felt it to be. How much happier they would have been if their mother had seen fit to have them make their own clothes, but that lady thought she was doing everything in her power to make her children contented in working for them from morning until night. It was much easier to sew for them than to teach them how to sew.

“I need more buttons,” said Mrs. Wright briskly as the daughters entered the sewing room. “Are you going out this morning, any of you girls?”

“We had not planned to go. We aren’t dressed for the street,” drawled Gertrude. “We were up late last night at the dance.”

“Well, never mind, then! I can get them myself. I am afraid you would not get the right size anyhow,” was the mother’s cheerful acceptance of her daughter’s selfishness. “It won’t take me a minute to get dressed and I can market for to-morrow while I am down town. I think I’ll step in and see how that foolish Elizabeth is getting on while I am near the building.” Her curiosity was as strong as her disapproval.

“Oh, let’s all of us go!” exclaimed Pauline. And so the four who were too weary to change their dresses to go buy buttons went gayly off to prepare themselves to visit their foolish sister in what they considered her degrading stronghold.

“I’ll see the agent and engage the cottage at the lake for June, while I am down town,” said Mrs. Wright as she bustled into her street clothes after having fitted the shirt waists and given Miss Pinkie minute directions as to how to sew them up.

Mrs. Wright and her daughters made a handsome group as together they walked down the street. The mother had been a very pretty girl and still was a good looking woman, although she had no time to give to her own appearance. She spent all the money and time that could be spared on beautifying her daughters. Her object in life was to marry them well and it was said by the knowing ones of Dorfield that she kept a list of the eligible young men of the town and carefully cultivated them in degree according to their eligibility.

“Who was that young man who bowed to you just now?” she asked Pauline sharply. “I never saw him before.”

“He’s a friend of Danny Dexter’s. I met him last night at the dance. He’s on a newspaper, I believe.”

“What newspaper?”

“The Recorder. He dances divinely.”

“You did not tell me his name.”

“I don’t know it.”

“Weren’t you introduced?” she asked, shocked.

“Oh, yes, but I didn’t catch his name. It was kind of Frenchified in sound.”

“Well you had better find out. He looks quite nice. We might ask him to call and then have him down to the lake for a week end. We must not go to the lake before Mary Louise Burrows’s wedding. I would not have you girls miss it.”

“I don’t believe for an instant she intends to ask any of us but Elizabeth, who has to be asked as she is bridesmaid,” said Gertrude.

“Not ask you! Absurd! You can just leave that to me. Of course, I know she is supposed to have only her intimate friends and all that, but Danny Dexter knows every man in Dorfield and they are sure to be there.” Quite cheerfully the Wright girls were willing to leave it to her, for they felt sure it would come out all right with such a major general maneuvering for them.

The buttons were bought; the next day’s marketing done; the real estate agent interviewed and the cottage at the lake engaged for June at a bargain; and then the cavalcade started for the old building where Josie and Elizabeth had rented a room which they were rapidly converting into a Higgledy-Piggledy Shop.

“It all seems so vulgar,” commented Pauline, as with raised skirts she tripped up the far from clean stairs.

“Not even an elevator,” from Gertrude.

“I’d like to come down here and scrub this place!” exclaimed Mrs. Wright.

“Well, for Heaven’s sake don’t!” cried Annabel. “It is bad enough to have one’s sister keeping a shop without having one’s mother scrubbing one.”

They all of them laughed at Annabel’s rueful countenance and, without knocking, opened the door and walked into the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop.

CHAPTER VI
THE HIGGLEDY-PIGGLEDY SHOP

It was well named! If higgledy-piggledy meant topsy-turvy I am sure there was no place on the globe so suited to that name. Our young would-be shopkeepers were busily engaged trying to get order out of chaos when the Wright family came bursting in on them.

“Heavens, what a mess!” cried Gertrude.

“Yes, but we are not ready for callers,” said Elizabeth rudely. It was a great irritation to her that her family should have turned up at that particular moment. Why couldn’t they let her alone? After everything should be in order, she hoped they would come to see how clever their arrangements were, but just now it was too much to have them come poking in her place of business.

“We are very glad to have callers at any time,” declared Josie, who had been literally standing on her head in a packing box from which she had been unearthing the last of the encyclopedias. The astute Josie had no idea of going into business with the ill will of anyone it was possible to avoid. She well understood how the Wrights looked upon this seemingly mad venture of Elizabeth’s and she was anxious to do all she could to make things easier for her youthful partner.

“Our things have just come and we are trying to get them placed. Wouldn’t you like me to show you how nicely we are to be fixed up?” she asked Mrs. Wright, in whose energetic countenance she saw some hope of interest.

“Why, yes, I should,” answered that lady, looking at Josie earnestly. She rather liked what she saw in Josie O’Gorman’s countenance and certainly she could not help being interested in the girls’ plans.

They had rented a long narrow room that covered the entire second floor of the shabby old building which was squeezed in between two sky-scrapers so tightly that it seemed to be gasping for breath. It had been spared destruction and improvement because of some hitch in the title and nobody had been willing to put money in a piece of property with an unfortunate name for getting its owner into trouble. The consequence was that tenants were difficult to obtain and impossible to hold. Even real estate agents did not like to handle it. It was now in the hands of Mr. Markle and it was from him that Josie and Elizabeth had rented it. On the ground floor was a cleaning and dyeing establishment and the third floor was cut up into several rooms in which various small industries were carried on.

“It isn’t exactly what we wanted, but it was cheap and we can make it attractive, I believe,” Josie explained. “Thank goodness it has a fire place, not that that makes much difference right now but when next winter comes we will be glad of its cheeriness. We are planning to branch out in so many directions and this huge room will give us plenty of space in which to expand. In front we are to have our reception room and shop where we will display our wares. In the back I am to live and have kitchen, bedroom and bath. The middle part is to be our store room.”

“Are you to draw chalk marks to show which is which?” asked Mr. Wright, who was becoming more and more interested in her eager little hostess.

“I am to have partitions made in the back, not to go all the way to the ceiling but just high enough to give me some privacy, and we are to have a huge portiere to divide the front shop from the store room and a smaller one cutting off our information bureau. The carpenters are going to work to-day on our partitions and the plumbers also are to install our bath tub, kitchen sink, gas stove, etc. My furniture is here and I intend to set up housekeeping immediately.”

“Not in all this confusion?”

“But all this confusion will be worse confounded in a few hours. Mary Louise is coming in a few minutes and is bringing her own housemaid to help clean up and Danny Dexter is coming later in the afternoon with some of his friends to help.”

Mrs. Wright began to feel sorry that she had not put off their visit until afternoon. Her ruling passion of having her daughters receive attention from young men was uppermost. She had not thought of this absurd shop as a place where desirable young men might come. At any rate, she intended to wait until Mary Louise should arrive and set the matter at rest in regard to all of her daughters being invited to the wedding.

While Mrs. Wright’s ruling passion was the desire to have her daughters popular and married, another passion was almost as strong in her bosom and that was, cleaning up. What a field here presented itself! She was sure she could take hold of the disorder and get things cleaned and into place much better than could Mary Louise’s maid. This Josie O’Gorman might be able to scrub and clean, but she was pretty sure her daughter Elizabeth could not; at least she had never seen her do more than dust the parlor at home.

“Here, child, give me that hammer! You don’t know how to open a box,” she said to Elizabeth, who was drawing nails from the top of a huge box of books.

“But I can,” insisted Elizabeth; “at least I can learn.”

“Pooh! Just let me do it.” She grasped the hammer, but Elizabeth refused to release her hold.

“I am going to open the box,” she announced firmly and proceeded to carry out the statement in spite of her mother’s protests.