“Will she be in school?” asked Kate.
“Only a little while each day. She is too young for lessons, but I want her to be among you as much as possible, for she has always lived with grown people, and the contact with young life will be very healthful and delightful for her.”
“I wish we might have her all the time!” exclaimed Lily. “O, do, Mrs. Abbott, let us take turns taking care of the darling! Say, baby, wont you be Lily’s little sister for a week, and be with her all the time and sleep in her bed?”
“I am every body’s little sister, grandpa says,” said Ethel, holding up her chin with a sort of baby dignity that made her very bewitching; “but I’d rather sleep with Mammy Candace.”
“And I am afraid that playing nurse would interfere seriously with lessons and rules,” said Mrs. Abbott. “But I am glad to have you fond of Ethel. She has grown very dear to me through this long vacation, while we have been off in the Catskills and at the sea-side seeking for health and strength for us both.”
“Ethel looks better for the change,” said Delia.
“She is much better,” said Mrs. Abbott; “I saw the color come to her cheeks before we had been in the hills a week. I wish Mr. Bellamy could see how plump and rosy she has grown.”
Candace, who was never far from her charge, put her head in at the door with Ethel’s broad hat in her hand, and the child sprang to her and started for a walk. Lily would have proposed going too, but Mrs. Abbott detained her.
“I came in to speak particularly to you,” she said. “Since I mentioned at school closing that four new scholars were expected this term I have arranged to take a fifth. She has just arrived and is in my room now. According to the usual custom I have selected one of the oldest scholars to be her friend and initiate her kindly into the ways of the school and help her over some of the difficulties, which you will all remember, from your own experiences, seem rather formidable to a stranger. I expect you, Lily, to be the friend in need in this instance, and if you are ready I will take you directly to my room and introduce you to Miss Stubbs.”
Lily turned to give the girls one look of comical despair as she followed Mrs. Abbott to her own sitting-room, where the only occupant was a girl of fourteen, sitting stiffly upon an ottoman. Her hair, which was certainly thick and long, was all drawn away from her round red face and put up in a big braided knot at the back. She had pleasant dark eyes and teeth which showed white as pearls as she parted her lips in a smile as Mrs. Abbott came in. But her hands! they were awful, thought Lily, taking the stranger in with a quick glance—big red, rough things, with neither ruffle nor cuff to soften them as they lay clasped tightly together upon a coarse, stiffly starched white apron which enhanced their redness. Hardly more attractive than the hands were the awkwardly crossed feet, made more clumsy by common, thick, new shoes. Lily had never, except on bargain-counters in the door-way of cheap stores, seen any material like the red, purple, and green plaid of which Miss Stubbs’s dress was made.