[CHAPTER VII—MRS. HARTWELL-JONES SEES PART OF THE CIRCUS]
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had limped painfully down-stairs from her bright, chintz-hung bedroom at Sunnycrest, to be in readiness for the two o’clock dinner. She seated herself in one of the comfortable armchairs on the veranda to await the return of Mr. Baker and the twins.
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had found these days of her unexpected visit at Sunnycrest very happy ones. She was often lonely, in spite of having her brain so full of people. Book friends, even when you make them up yourself, are not the same as real, living, loving people. If it were not that she felt a little in the way, because of her helplessness, she would have wished to stay longer. Her solitary two rooms in the village did not appear very inviting when compared to the busy farm with its constant movement of life and industry, its cheerful master and mistress and above all, the sound of children’s voices in the house.
When Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was much younger, many years before the beginning of this story, a very great sorrow had come into her life; her husband and dear baby were taken from her by a dreadful accident, and ever since her life had been sad and lonely, given up to trying to make others happy and in learning to bear her grief bravely and patiently. Since she no longer had a child of her own to care for, she set herself the task of making other children happy by writing stories for them. She was so successful in this that her readers were always begging for more, and some of Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s most precious possessions were the letters written to her by little children, to thank her for her stories.
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was thinking of all these things as she sat on the vine-covered veranda in the soft summer air, and perhaps was planning another story, when she happened to look down the road. She looked hard for a moment, then she got up suddenly and walking to the door as quickly as her lame foot would allow, called to grandmother to come and look, too.
A peculiar procession was turning in at the gate. First came grandfather, driving alone in the phaeton. Following was a man on horseback leading three other horses, splendid, strong looking animals; and last of all a girl in a pink cotton dress driving a pair of Shetland ponies harnessed to a tiny, low, old-fashioned basket-phaeton. Beside her on the seat sat Jane like an exalted mouse, while behind, perched on a miniature rumble, Christopher gyrated and squirmed ecstatically.
“It looks as if they had hired the circus to parade out here,” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones to grandmother, in great astonishment.
The cavalcade drew up at the front steps and grandfather handed the reins to Joshua, who had seen the procession from the stable and had come on a run, wondering if Mr. Baker had bought the whole circus.
“Now, children, ‘I choose to tell,’ as you say,” said grandfather as Jane and Christopher began to babble in duet. “I thought it wiser, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, to have you see the ponies for yourself before buying them and also to have Joshua examine them to be sure they are sound.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones from the top of the steps, and looked more closely at the ponies.