CHAPTER XXII
“DING DONG BELL.”
THE week passed so quickly, with our hay-making and our getting over our hay-making and our pleasant walks—we did not attempt to drive out again behind “th’ ould scut”,—and the attractive meals that Minerva cooked and the pleasant music that Cherry found within the piano, that when Friday came, and Cherry asked me if I had found a team to carry her down, Ethel said,
“It’s all nonsense, your thinking of going back. Philip, she says that she hasn’t made any plans at all, beyond thinking of going to Bar Harbor in September to visit her aunt.”
“Well, then, Cherry, it will be downright unkind in you to ask me to hunt up a team yet awhile. Just stay on until the haying season is over, and we can go down behind a real horse.”
“Well, of course I’m having a perfectly delicious time,” said Cherry, putting her arms around Ethel’s shoulders affectionately, “and I’d much rather stay than go, but it seems like—”
“It doesn’t seem like anything at all,” said Ethel, “except that we want you to stay. And, besides, we want you to meet Ellery Sibthorp.”
“Ellery Sibthorp,” said Cherry with a laugh. “Is that his real name?”
“That’s his real name, the one he writes under, and Philip asked me to ask him up. He’s all alone in the world and is struggling to make a name for himself.”
“Mercy, I should think he had one ready made. Ellery Sibthorp. It’s as valuable as Rudyard Kipling.”
“Wait till you see him,” said I. “He’s poor as a church mouse and as clean as a whistle, and as good as gold.”