“Indeed I won’t!” asserted the princess stoutly as she threw up her arms. There was a mutual hug and then Nathalie was off, for she had to get dinner and it would take her at least ten minutes to walk home.
A week later Nathalie was flying out of the gate of the big gray house with something tightly clasped in her hand. It had been a week of hard work, for O dear, she had grown tired of talking, and then too, she had spent some little time in the library hunting up pioneer women. She had been overjoyed that morning when Mrs. Van Vorst, who had been secretly acquainted with the scheme of telling about these women founders of the nation presented her with a new book from a New York publisher that gave a number of interesting details about these dames of early times. She and Nita had spent the two hours that morning reading about the New Amsterdam vrouws. She laughed slyly as she hurried along to think how adroitly she had managed in such a short time to tell her pupil not only about the Pilgrim and Puritan dames, but other interesting historical events of those early days.
As the girl ran swiftly up on the porch and spied her mother reading a few feet away, she burst out with, “Oh, Mother, what do you think Mrs. Van Vorst gave me for teach—talking, rather, to Nita for the week? And I’m to have the same every week. Oh, Mumsie, just guess!”
Mrs. Page’s eyes smiled into Nathalie’s joyous ones as she said, “I’m not a good guesser, I’m afraid, Daughter, but I’ll venture—five dollars?”
“Five dollars!” repeated the girl disdainfully. “Oh, Mother, guess again, it’s more than that,” she added encouragingly.
“Well, I’ll have to give it up,” replied her mother after a short pause, with a regretful shake of her head. “I told you I was not a good guesser.”
“Ten dollars!” burst from happy Nathalie. “Just think, a dollar an hour, two dollars a day, and ten dollars for the week! And, Mother, it’s all to be put away for Dick!”
The night of the entertainment arrived, and promised to be a howling success, as Grace declared, who, with Nathalie, had been detailed to act as an usher. They had been kept pretty busy seating the guests, who had appeared in multicolored gowns, and gay flowered hats, with here and there a dress coat of masculine gender which gave quite an air of festivity to the occasion.
The program was opened by Lillie Bell. Attired in a very quaint colonial gown, she tripped along the platform, and with well-simulated blushes and much demureness of manner made an old-time curtsy. After being greeted with an ovation from her many friends, she bashfully sidled up to a rather puzzling-looking instrument on the platform, on which many eyes had been focussed ever since the raising of the curtain, and seated herself before it.
Upon this old-time spinet she played such ravishing strains of melody that the hearts of her audience were captivated, and she was encored again and again. Louise Gaynor, a dear little colonial dame, now appeared, and in her tru-al-lee voice—as the girls often called it—sang some old English ballads, “Annie Laurie,” “Robin Adair” and several of similar character, whose celebrity had grown with the years.