"Of course not," cried Jack, "but she wanted me to think so. Say! She said she was saying a charm, and when I asked her what it was, she wouldn't tell me. She said it would spoil the charm to tell it. She looked funny sitting up there on the top rail, and staring at the crows till her eyes watered. She didn't look like a 'charmer.' She looked ever so much more like a scarecrow!"
"Oh, Jack, it's horrid to say that!" cried Nancy, at the same time trying not to let him see how near she was to laughing.
"Well, she did!" Jack insisted, "and you're almost laughing now, Nancy Ferris, and you'd have screamed if you'd seen her roosting there, and calling herself a charmer! Why, that old crow just flopped down there for fun, and when he saw the queer-looking girl, he cawed as if it made him mad, and I didn't blame him. Say! She had a shoe on one foot, and a slipper on the other. Her apron was put on back-side-to, and she had a hen's feather in each hand, and she waved them up and down while she mumbled some kind of a verse. She said her clothes were put on that way to help the charm. Isn't she a ninny?"
Just at that moment, before Nancy could reply, Mrs. Tiverton called Jack, and Nancy ran to tell the story of Arabella's latest freak to Dorothy.
One afternoon, a number of little girls were sitting on the piazza at the Cleverton, and their merry voices attracted Jack Tiverton, who glanced up from the book that he was reading, and then, because he was curious to know what so interested them, crossed the piazza, and joined the group.
Dorothy and Nancy, in the big hammock, held the book of fairy tales, Flossie Barnet sat near them, while the others, all little guests at the hotel, sat upon the railing, or in the large rockers that stood near.
Jack joined the row perched upon the railing.
"Tell a fellow what you are all talking about, will you? Will you, please, I mean?" he asked.
"Dorothy Dainty has been reading us a lovely story," said a little girl, whose merry eyes showed that she had enjoyed it.