Ladybird had bounded down from the piano-stool, and with her eyes flashing, and her voice rising to a higher pitch at each word, she flew out of the room, and was heard stamping up the stairs.
“Something must be done, Clops!” she said, shaking her dog almost viciously as she reached her own room. “Something must be done, and it must be done right away! Right here and now, and we’re the ones to do it, Cloppy-dog!”
Apparently the thing to be done was to write a letter, for Ladybird, with the force and flutter of a small cyclone, flew to her desk and began to write. She blotted and tore up many sheets of paper. She made Cloppy’s existence an exceedingly uncomfortable one. She reduced her small pocket-handkerchief to a damp string; but she finally achieved a result which seemed to her successful, and this was it:
To my Grandmother Lovell,
My dear Grandmother:
I am Ladybird Lovell, the daughter of your son Jack’s second wife. Perhaps you think I’m a nice child, but I am not, and this letter is to warn you. I am very, very bad; in fact, I am a turmigant of all the vices. Only to-day my Aunt Dorinda, who is sweetness itself, said I was the naughtiest child she ever saw. I think she has never seen any other, except Lavinia Lovell, my lovely and amiable half-sister and your beloved granddaughter. Which is the reason I am writing this to say I am quite sure you would prefer the gentle, charming, and delicious Lavinia, to the bad, naughty, and altogether disreputable Me.
And I am, my dear madam, Your disobedient servant, Ladybird Lovell.
P. S. Lavinia wants to go back to you just fearfully; she’s crying about it.
CHAPTER XXI
AN ORCHARD WEDDING
After Ladybird’s letter was safely on its way to her grandmother, the child told the Flint ladies what she had done, and Miss Priscilla decided to await the outcome of Ladybird’s communication before sending one of her own to Mrs. Lovell.
Matters went on quietly enough at Primrose Hall. The two children got on amiably, though by nature as far apart as the poles.
Chester came down often, and Stella had decided that her wedding should take place the following spring.
About the middle of September the letter for which Ladybird had been looking came. It was addressed to Miss Priscilla Flint, and was a most businesslike proposition, to the effect that Mrs. Lovell very much preferred her grandchild named Lavinia to the one called Ladybird, and if the Misses Flint were willing to renounce legally all claim to Lavinia, Mrs. Lovell would be only too glad to adopt the child and leave the Misses Flint in undisputed possession of her other grandchild, called Ladybird. A condition attached to this arrangement, however, was that, since the will of the child’s grandfather Flint entailed to her the title of the Primrose estate, the Misses Flint should pay to the estate of Lavinia Lovell such a sum of money as should represent her lawful inheritance of Primrose Hall, or such other Flint property as the Misses Flint might possess.
All of this arrangement found great favor in the eyes of those most concerned, except the clause relating to the inheritance; for the Flint ladies, although possessed of Primrose Hall and Farm, had no more money than was sufficient to maintain their home in such manner as they deemed appropriate.