"WE ALL WORKED LIKE BEAVERS."
That was the first set-back, and the next one was ten times worse. Just as papa was being helped down the steps to the carriage, what should come but a telegram for Miss Marston from her aunt in Canada, asking her to come right on. Well, that just upset our going in the country! Phil and Felix told papa they could manage things, and get us safely to the Cottage,—and I'm sure they'd have done it as well as ever Miss Marston could, for she's awfully fussy and afraid of things happening; but no, papa wouldn't hear of it, though Max declared he thought 'twould be all right. Felix took it quietly, but Phil got kind of huffy, and said papa must think he was about two years old, from the way he treated him. I tell you, for a little while there Nannie had her hands full,—what with trying to smooth him down, and to keep papa from getting nervous and worked up over the matter.
Well, after a lot of talking, and papa losing one train, it was arranged that we should remain in the city with nurse until we heard from Miss Marston, and knew how long she'd be likely to stay in Canada. If only a short time,—say ten days,—we were to wait for her return and go under her care to the Cottage; but if she'd be gone several weeks, then Phil, Felix, and nurse would take us to the country. As soon as this was settled, papa, Nannie, and Max went off, and a little later Miss Marston started for her train.
Besides being worried about her aunt, Miss Marston felt real sorry at leaving us so hurriedly, and she gave no end of directions to Nora and Betty, to say nothing of nurse. Nora didn't seem to mind this, but nurse sniffed—she always does that when she doesn't like what people are telling her—and Betty got impatient; you see Nannie'd been drilling Betty, too,—telling her to be nice to Nora, and to help with the little ones, and all that,—and I guess she'd got tired of being told things.
"I know just how Phil feels about papa's snubbing," she said to me. "Some people never seem to realise that we're growing up. Why, if papa and Miss Marston should live until we were eighty and ninety years old, I do believe, Jack, that they'd still treat us as if we were infants,—like the story Max told us of the man a hundred and ten years old, who whipped his eighty-year-old son and set him in a corner because he'd been 'naughty'! It's too provoking! And as to being 'nice' to Nora, I feel it in my bones that she and I will have a falling out the very first thing; she'll put on such airs that I'll not be able to stand her!"
But as it turned out, there was something else in store for Betty; that same evening over came Mr. Erveng and Hilliard with an invitation from Mrs. Erveng for Betty to go to their country home, near Boston, and spend a month with them. Mr. Erveng had met papa in the railroad station that day, and got his consent for Betty to accept the invitation. So all she had to do was to pack a trunk and be ready to leave with them the next morning,—they would call for her.
I felt awfully sorry Betty was going: though there are so many of us, you've no idea what a gap it makes in the family when even one is away; and, with all her roughness and tormenting ways, Betty is real nice, too. I didn't actually know what I'd do with both Nannie and her away. I couldn't help wishing that the Ervengs had asked Nora instead of Betty, and I know Betty wished so, too, for you never saw a madder person than she was when she came upstairs to help nurse pack her trunk: you see she didn't dare make any objections, as long as papa had given his consent, but she didn't want to go one step, and she just let us know it. "I'll have to be on my company manners the whole livelong time, and I simply loathe that," she fumed. "Mrs. Erveng won't let me play with Hilliard, I'm sure she won't, 'that's so unladylike!'"—mimicking Mrs. Erveng's slow, gentle voice,—"and I never know what to talk to her about. I suppose I'll have to sit up and twirl my thumbs, like a regular Miss Prim, from morning to night. Why didn't they ask you?" wheeling round on Nora. "You and Mrs. Erveng seem to be such fine friends, and you suit her better than I do. I always feel as if she looked upon me as a clumsy, overgrown hoiden, an uncouth sort of animal."
"I couldn't very well be spared from home just now," answered Nora, calmly, with her little superior air; "and any way, I presume Mrs. Erveng asked the one she wanted,—people generally claim that privilege." So far was all right; but she must needs go on, and, as Phil says, "put her foot in it." "I really hope you'll behave yourself nicely, Betty," she continued, "for only the other day I heard Mrs. Erveng say that she thought you had improved wonderfully lately; do keep up to that reputation."
Betty was furious! "No, really? How very kind of her!" she burst out scornfully. "The idea of her criticising me,—and to you! You ought to be ashamed not to stand up for your own sister to strangers! Indeed, I'll do just as I please; I'm not afraid of Mrs. Erveng! I'll slide down every banister, if I feel like it, and swing on the doors, too, and make the most horrible faces; you see if I don't come home before the month is out!"
"Leave their house standing, Elizabeth,—just for decency's sake, you know," advised Phil.