Cicely nodded brightly. “Yes, of course that is so,” she admitted, “but on the other hand, fancy how splendid it would be if Priscilla played with other children and caught happiness and health from them, and generosity and kindness and sympathy. Good things are catching as well as bad, don’t you think they are, Aunt Laura?”
This time Uncle Arthur did not cry “Hear! Hear!” but he came straight over to where Cicely sat and took her hand in his.
“Cissy, my dear,” he said, quite seriously, “let me congratulate you. You are the wisest member of the family, by all odds and,” with a twinkle in his eye, “for your sake I am glad I married your Aunt Laura. If Priscilla turns out as well as you have done the Duers will have no cause to be ashamed of their two representatives—even though they are ‘only girls.’”
But just here Priscilla’s mother spoke up:
“I wonder what your plan is, Cissy, dear,” she said. “We are anxious, of course, to do whatever is for Priscilla’s good and I can see that she may be lonely, living so entirely with older people, but—— Do you think a kindergarten——”
“No, dear Aunt Edith, that is not at all what I mean,” Cicely broke in quickly. “What I mean is, that Priscilla ought to have a playmate—a child—to live right here in the house with her; one who would rouse her up and keep her from growing moody and oversensitive. A little girl who would share her good things with her and to whom Priscilla would have to give up and give in once in a while. Each would learn from the other and I’m sure you would see that Priscilla would improve directly, in health and in every other way. Please, please, Aunt Edith, try my plan. I assure you it would work like a charm, if we got the right child and gave the experiment time.”
“We will!”
It was Priscilla’s father who spoke and, of course, his word settled the matter at once. But now the question arose where was “the right child” to be found? It came over Cicely with a sudden shock, that nothing less than a little cherub right out of the sky would suit all these extremely particular people, for no mere human child could possibly fulfil all their requirements.
Aunt Louise would insist upon her never, by any chance, being sick. Aunt Laura would demand that she always be perfectly quiet and faultlessly well-behaved. Aunt Edith would wish her to be older than Priscilla so Priscilla could rely upon her, and grandmamma desired her to be younger than Priscilla so Priscilla could learn to be self-reliant: and so it went on.
“As far as I can see, Cicely,” spoke up Uncle Arthur, teasingly, “this scheme of yours is first-rate! Quite as good, for instance, as the well-known recipe for cooking a hare, which begins ‘first catch your hare.’ In this case it is: first catch your child. It is clearly your place to produce the prodigy. Now then, my dear, let’s see what sort of a marvel you can discover. It will have to be a superfine article to be fit to associate with the great and only Hope (but one, that’s you) of the Duer family.”