her brows, and a tired, troubled tear stole softly between her lashes. When the children, tiptoeing about and whispering, came to peek in at the door and see whether she was asleep, they discovered her expression at once, and, drawing near, sighted the tear. Then they went down upon their knees beside her couch, and noisily demanded the cause thereof.
Little by little they drew her fears from her.
“Why, Cloudy, dear! We’ll do what you want. We’ll let all the old cats in the community walk over you if that will make you happy,” declared Leslie, patting her face.
“No, we won’t!” put in Allison; “we’ll keep ’em away from her, but we won’t let ’em know how we despise ’em. Won’t that do, Cloudy? And as for all those other things you are afraid about, why couldn’t you just wait till we come to them? We’re anything but angels, I admit, but we’re going to try to do what you want us to if it busts the eye-teeth out of us, because we want you. And you always have been such a good scout. As for the church dope and all that, why, it’s like that guy in the Bible you used to tell us about when we were children––or was she a lady? It’s a case of ‘Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,’ or words to that effect. If we don’t agree on our own account, we’ll do it because you want it. Isn’t that about the idea? Wouldn’t that fill the bill?”
“You dear children!” said Julia Cloud, her eyes full of smiles and tears now as she gathered them both into a loving embrace. “I don’t know how anybody could promise more than that. I wasn’t afraid of you; it was myself. You know I’m not at all wise, and it’s pretty late in life for me to begin to bring up children.”
“Well, you’re all right, anyhow, Cloudy; and you’re the only person in the world we’ll let bring us up; so it’s up to you to do it the best you can, or it won’t get done. Come on now; we’ve got lunch ready. There’s cold chicken and bread and milk and pie and cake, and I’ve got the teakettle boiling like a house afire, so if you want any tea or anything you can have it.”
So they had a merry meal, and Julia Cloud ate and laughed with them, and thought she never had been so happy since she was a little girl. Then, mindful of her prying neighbor and her imminent sister, she insisted on putting the house in order to the last bed and dish before she was ready for the afternoon.
“And now we’re going to call on Aunt Ellen!” announced Allison as Julia Cloud hung up the clean dish-towels steaming from their scalding bath, and washed her hands at the sink.
“Why, she’s coming here!” said his aunt, whirling around with a troubled look. “And, as she’s left word she was coming, I suppose we’ll have to wait for her. It’s too bad, for she won’t be here till three, and it’s only a quarter of two. I’m sorry, because you wanted to go out in the car, didn’t you?”
“We’re going!” said Allison, again with a commanding twinkle in his eye. “We can’t waste all that time; and, besides, don’t you see if she comes here, she’ll likely stay all the afternoon and argue? If we go there, we can come away when we like; and she’ll feel we’re more polite to come to her, anyhow, won’t she, Cloudy?”
Julia Cloud looked into the boy’s convincing eyes, and her trouble cleared away. Perhaps he was right. Anyhow, why should they spoil a whole day to conciliate Ellen? Ellen would be disagreeable about it, however they did; and they might as well rise above it, and just be pleasant, and let it go at that.
It was the first time in her long life of self-sacrifice that Julia Cloud had been able to rise above her anxiety about her sister’s tantrums and go calmly on her way. It is scarcely likely that she would have managed it now if it hadn’t been that she felt that Allison and Leslie ought not to be sacrificed.
She never did anything just for herself. It was not in her.
“All right,” she said briskly, glancing at the clock; “then we must go at once, or we shall miss her. I’ll be ready in five minutes. How about you, Leslie?”
“Oh, I’m ready now,” said the girl, patting her curly hair into shape before the old mahogany-framed mirror in the hall.
In five minutes more they were stowed away in the big blue car again, speeding down the road, with Mrs. Perkins indignantly and openly watching them from her front porch.
“We put one over on Mrs. Pry, didn’t we, Cloudy?” said Allison, turning around to wink a naughty eye back toward the Perkins house. “She thinks you’ve dared to run away after she gave you orders to stay at home.”
Julia Cloud could not suppress a smile of enjoyment, and wondered whether she was getting childish that she should be so happy with these children.
CHAPTER V
The air was fine; the sky was clear without a cloud; and the spice of autumn flavored everything. Along the roadside blackberry vines were turning scarlet, and here and there in the distance a flaming branch proclaimed the approach of a frosty wooing. One could not ask anything better on such a day than to be speeding along this white velvet road in the great blue car with two beloved children.
But all too soon Herbert Robinson’s ornate house loomed up, stark and green, with very white trimmings, and regular flower-beds each side of the gravel walk. It was the home of a prosperous man, and as such asserted itself. There had never been anything attractive about it to Julia Cloud. She preferred the ugly old house in which she had always lived, with its scaling gray paint and no pretensions to fineness. At least it was softened by age, and had a look of experience which saved its ugliness from being crude, and gave it the dignity of time.
And now Julia Cloud’s heart began to beat rapidly. All at once she felt that she had done a most foolish thing in allowing the children to overrule her and bring her here. Ellen would not be dressed up nor have the children ready for inspection, and she would be angry at her sister for not having given warning of their coming. She leaned forward breathlessly to suggest turning back; but Allison, perhaps anticipating her feeling, said:
“Now don’t you get cold feet, Cloudy Jewel. If Aunt Ellen is sore, just you talk up to her, and smile a lot, and we’ll back you up. Remember everything’s, going fine, and the whole thing’s settled. It’s too late to change it now. Is this the place? We’ll turn right in, shall we?” And with the words he swept up under the elaborate wooden porte-cochère, and, swinging down, flung the door open for Julia Cloud to alight.
Leslie gave a quick, disdainful glance about, fluttered out beside her aunt, and, catching the look of apprehension on her face, tripped up the steps and rang the bell, poising bird-like on the threshold and calling in a sweet, flute-like voice:
“Aunt Ellen! O Aunt Ellen! Where are you? Don’t you know you’ve got company all the way from California?”
It was just like taking the bull by the horns, and Julia Cloud paused on the upper step in wonder. How winning a child she was! and how she had known by intuition just how to mollify her unpleasant relative!
What would Ellen say? How would she take it?
Ellen Robinson bustled frowning into the hall, whetting her sharp tongue for an encounter. She had seen the big blue car turn in at the gate, and knew from Mrs. Perkins’s description who it must be. Julia Cloud had well judged her state of mind, for her four children could not have been caught in a worse plight
