that don’t count, you know. What really s’prises me is that you think Gran’pa Eliot’s shack is finer than our beautiful old home. I guess that as soon as Noah’s flood faded away Gran’pa Eliot’s house was built, it’s so blamed old.”
“Dear me!” said Doris, in seeming distress, “I wish you wouldn’t speak disrespectfully of Bible history.”
“What’s Bible history?” asked the astonished Becky.
“The flood God sent to punish a wicked world.”
“Oh, that;” with much relief. “I thought you were in earnest, at first.”
“My sister,” explained Allerton Randolph, with dignity, “is very religiously inclined.”
“Are you?” asked Becky, curiously.
“Yes, dear. I am trying to live my daily life in conformance with the highest religious principles. So it hurts me to hear sacred things spoken of lightly.”
Becky regarded this prim young lady with a sudden access of shyness. She felt that a gulf had opened between them that never could be bridged. Allerton, studying her face, saw the effect of his sister’s announcement and said in his serious way:
“Doris takes her religious ideas from our mother, who is interested in charities and foreign missions. She has exhausted her strength and undermined her health in this unselfish work, and that is why we have come to the country to live. Neither father nor I have much religious inclination.”
“Oh, Allerton!”
“It’s true, Doris. Father detests it with all his heart, and says our mother has ruined his home for a lot of naked niggers in Africa; but I’m more – more – ”
“Tolerant, I suppose you mean. But you must not convey a wrong impression of our father to Miss Daring. He merely regrets our mother’s excessive devotion to the cause. He does not hate religion, in the abstract.”
Becky had never been so astonished in her life. Here was a boy of Don’s age and a girl of about her own years discussing religion with the utmost gravity, and using such “nifty” language that it positively shocked her. Again she realized that there could be nothing in common between the youthful Randolphs and the tribe of Daring; but, she had determined to be gracious to these strangers and so she stifled a sigh of regret and said:
“If you like, I’ll show you over the stables, and where we played circus back of the harness room, and Phil’s rabbit warren, and how to climb the pear-tree in the garden without breaking your neck, and – ”
“Thank you very much,” interrupted Doris; “but, we are not interested in vulgar romps of that character; are we, Allerton?”
“They – they sound rather interesting,” he submitted, eyeing Becky a little wistfully.
“Perhaps, for village children,” returned the girl, haughtily. “But although we are now living in the country we should remember our breeding and try to instill some of our native culture into these primitive surroundings, rather than sink our refinement to the level of the community.”
“L-a-w – zee!” cried Becky, again. Then, in spite of her effort to be “good” she laughed in Doris’ face, bobbing her frouzled red head up and down as peal after peal of genuine merriment burst from her slim throat.
Allerton frowned and Doris looked grieved and sad. Positively, this country girl was laughing at their expense.
“I – I can’t help it!” chuckled Becky, trying to control herself. “It’s – it’s too good to keep. I must go an’ tell the kids before I – I bust with it all! Bye-bye, Doris. See you again soon. ‘Or river,’ Allerton! Guess I’ll call you Al. Come over an’ get acquainted.”
She had backed away one step at a time, still bubbling with hysterical laughter that she could not control, and at the final words turned and dashed across the street like mad, her thin legs twinkling beneath her short skirts.
“Well,” said Don, as Becky threw herself down upon the porch and shook with an abandon of glee; “tell us the joke, Beck. What’s happened?”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” was all the reply.
“Are they nice?” inquired Sue, squatting in a rustic chair and swinging her legs, as she calmly surveyed her sister.
“Nice? Sue, they’re the funniest kids you ever heard of,” gasped Becky, her eagerness to talk stifling the spasms of merriment. “They ain’t New Yorkers – not a bit – they’re Bostoners! Think of that. It would kill you to hear ’em talk. They’re as full of culture as an egg is of meat; an’ langwidge!– say, folks, it’s something awful.”
“I guessed as much,” said Don, with a grin. “But, I’m glad they’re not our kind. I wouldn’t care to go over to our old house and play with the usurpers. Let’s shut ’em out, for good and all.”
“Oh, they’ll shut us out, I s’pect,” remarked Becky, wiping her eyes on her gingham sleeve. “You ought to have seen ’em stick up their noses at me till they found out I was a Daring. Then they put on so many airs it was disgust’n’.”
“Seems to me,” said Sue, shaking away her troublesome curls and looking thoughtfully at her sprawling, ungainly sister, “they’re ’zactly the sort we ought to ’sociate with. If you could rub a little culture off’n ’em, dear, it wouldn’t hurt you a bit.”
“Nor you, either, Sue,” laughed Don. “If you pronounced English that way in Boston, they’d jail you.”
“Now who’s a snob, Don?” asked Sue, indignantly. “No one’s s’posed to pernounce ev’ry measley letter the dicsh’naries chuck into a word, is they?”
“Oh, Sue!” said Becky; “your grammar is as bad as your pernunciation. I mus’ look afteh your education, myself. Those Randolph kids are a revelation to me; and, honest injun, I’m somewhat ashamed of myself. We’re going wrong, all of us, since mother died,” with a sigh and a catch in her voice, “an’ need to be jerked into line.”
She said this in sober earnestness, remembering the sweet, gentle mother who had labored so hard to keep her flock from straying, and whose loss had permitted them to wander as their natural, untamed instincts dictated.
“Mother,” said Don in tender accents, “was a lady to her finger tips, and wanted her girls and boys to grow up to be ladies and gentlemen. I try to do as she’d like to have me, whenever I think of it; but, that isn’t very often.”
“You’re a cross-patch,” asserted Sue; “and I’ve heard teacher say that you’re the worst scholar in the school. You don’t mind Phœbe any more’n a fly minds sugar.”
“Phœbe isn’t my boss,” retorted Don, resentfully. But, the next moment his frown softened, and he added: “Anyhow, I try to be decent, and that’s more than some of the family do.”
“Meanin’ me?” asked Becky, defiantly.
“You’re fourteen, and almost a woman; yet you act like a kindergarten kid. I’ll leave it to anyone if I’m not more dignified ’n’ respectable than you are; and I won’t be thirteen ’til next month.”
“You’re old for your years,
