Part 4 (2/2)

”Dear me!” exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior being to a.s.sist at the childish amus.e.m.e.nt of his contemporaries, ”would anybody ever suppose that was our Billy?”

”I should, my dear sister,” said I, with proud satisfaction; ”but you remember I always was just to Billy.”

Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel, I found his door locked and a light s.h.i.+ning through the keyhole, as Billy had stated. I made no attempt to enter by knocking, but, going to my room and opening the window next his, leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash with my cane, and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method of communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush.

When he saw me he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me enter by the normal mode.

”Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean? Are you sick?” ”Uncle Edward, I am not sick--and this means that I am a fool.

Even a little boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the very dust. I wish I'd been a missionary and got ma.s.sacred by savages.

Oh, that I'd been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or that my mother hadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't wrong to take my life into my own hands, I'd open that window, and-- and--sit in a draft this very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter!

Oh, oh, oh!”

And he paced the floor with strides of frenzy.

”Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly a minute. What brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough the first ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight long enough to speak to the Rumbullion party, who had just come in, and when I turned around you were gone. Now you are in this fearful condition. What is there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such a bender of bashfulness as this which I here behold?”

”Rumbullion indeed!” said Daniel. ”A hundred Rumbullions could not make me feel as I do. But _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her little finger; and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!”

”What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?”

”Miss Pilgrim!”

I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would bring up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling them that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me downstairs. The dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable impression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was little tremor in his knees when he descended the stairs. Well-a-day! So Daniel and Billy were rivals!

The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase.

”Oh, there you are, Daniel!” he said cheerily. ”I was just going to look after you and Uncle Teddy. We've wanted you for the dances.

We've had the lancers twice, and three round dances; and I danced the second lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games--to amuse the children, you know,” he added loftily, with the adult gesture of pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. ”Lottie's going to play, too; so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim--let me introduce him to you. I'm sure you'll like him.

There's nothing he don't know.”

Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel-post of the staircase and, when she looked into Daniel's face, blushed like the red, red rose, losing her self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel.

The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the opposite party's falls, and Daniel made out to say in a firm tone that it was long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss Pilgrim.

”Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think,” replied Miss Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale.

”Oho! so you don't want any introduction!” exclaimed Master Billy. ”I didn't know you knew each other, Lottie?”

”I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join the plays?”

”To be sure we shall!” cried Billy. ”You needn't mind--all the grown people are going, too.”

On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of jolly little Miss Bloomingal, sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be young again and romp with the rompiest. We played blindman's buff till we were tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's delight, coming out splendidly as blindman, and evincing such ”cheek” in the style he hunted down and caught the ladies as satisfied me that nothing but his eyesight stood in the way of his making an audacious figure in the world. Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed ”doorkeeper”--a suggestion accepted with great _eclat_ by all the children, several grown people a.s.senting.

To Billy--quite as much on account of his s.h.i.+ning prominence in the executive faculties as of his character as host--was committed the duty of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There were so many of us that ”Aina maina mona mike” would not go quite round; but, with that promptness of expedient which belongs to genius, Billy instantly added on, ”Intery-mintery-cutery-corn,” and the last word of the cabalistic formula fell upon me--Edward Balbus.

I disappeared into the entry amidst peals of happy laughter from both old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me whom I wanted, for the pretty lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After giving me a coquettish little chirrup of a kiss and telling me my beard scratched, she bade me on my return, send out to her ”Mithter Billy Lovegrove.” I obeyed her; my youngest nephew retired; and after a couple of seconds, during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy being a great favorite with the little girls, she came back, pouting and blus.h.i.+ng, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. That young lady showed no mock-modesty, but arose at once and laughingly went out to her youthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and told her he loved her better than any girl in the world. As he turned to go back she told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile cousins, Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthful Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most terrible pa.s.sion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing practical jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy marched into the room, and, having shut the door behind him, paralyzed the crowded parlor by an announcement that Mr. Daniel Lovegrove was wanted.

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