shrank unspeakably from seeing Ellen. She could not get away from the feeling that Ellen would dispel it all; that someway, somehow, she would succeed in breaking up all the bright plans and scattering them like soap-bubbles in the wind.
Nevertheless, it was a very beautiful illusion, if illusion it was; and one to be prolonged as late as possible.
She was horrified when at last she heard the rebuking strokes of the town clock, ten! eleven! twelve!
She started to her feet ashamed.
And even then they would not let her go to bed at once. She must turn out the lights, and sit in the hall between their rooms as she did long ago, and tell the story of “The Little Rid Hin” just as she had told it night after night when they were children.
It was characteristic of the unfailing youth of the woman that she entered into the play with zest. Attired in a long kimono, with her beautiful white hair in two long silver braids down over her shoulders, she sat in the dark and told the story with the same vivid language; and then she stole on tiptoe first to the sister’s bedside, to tuck her in and kiss her softly, and then to the brother’s; and at each bedside a young, strong arm reached out and drew her face down, whispering “Good-night” with a kiss and “I love you, Cloudy Jewel,” in tender, thrilling tones.
The two big children were asleep at last, and Julia Cloud stole to her own bed to lie in a tumult of wonder and joy, and finally sink into a light slumber, wherein she dreamed that she had fallen heir to a rose-garden, and all the roses were alive and could talk; until Ellen came driving up in her Ford and ran right over them, crushing them down and cutting their heads off with a long, sharp whip she carried that somehow turned out to be made of words strung together with biting sarcasm.
She awoke in the broad morning sunlight to find both children done up in bath-robes and slippers, sitting one each side of her on the bed, laughing at her and tickling her chin with a feather from the seam of the pillow.
“Now, Cloudy Jewel, you’ve just got to begin to make plans!” announced Leslie, curling up in a ball at her feet and looking very business-like with her fluffy curls around her face like a golden fleece. “There isn’t much time, and Guardy Lud will be down upon us by to-morrow or the next day at least.”
“Guardy Lud!” exclaimed Julia Cloud bewildered. “Who is that?”
“That’s our pet name for Mr. Luddington,” explained Leslie, wrinkling up her nose in a grin of merriment. “Isn’t it cute? Wait till you see him, and you’ll see how it fits. He’s round and bald with a shiny red nose, and spectacles; and he doesn’t mind our kidding at all. He’d have made a lovely father if he wasn’t married, but he has a horrid wife. We don’t like her at all. She’s like a frilly piece of French china with too much decoration; and she’s always sick and nervous; and she jumps, and says ‘Oh, mercy!’ every time we do the least little thing. She doesn’t like us any better than we like her. Her name is Alida, and Allison says we’re always trying to ‘elude’ her. The only good thing she ever did was to advise Guardy Lud to let us come East to college. She wanted to get us as far away from her as possible. And it certainly was mutual.”
“There, now, Leslie, you’re chattering again,” broke in Allison, looking very tall and efficient in his blue bath-robe. “You said you would talk business, and not bleat.”
“Well, so I am,” pouted Leslie. “I guess Cloudy has got to understand about our family.”
“Well, now let’s get down to business,” said her brother. “Cloudy, what have you got to do before you leave? You know it isn’t very long before the colleges open, and we’ve got to start out and hunt a home right away. Do you have to pack up here or anything?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” gasped Julia Cloud, looking around half frightened. “I suppose I ought to ask Ellen. She will be very much opposed to anything I do, but I suppose she ought to be told first.”
Allison frowned.
“Gee whiz! I don’t see why Aunt Ellen has to butt into our affairs. She’s got her own home and family, and she never did like us very much. I remember hearing her tell Grandma that we were a regular nuisance, and she would be glad when we were gone back to California.”
“That was because you hid behind the sofa when Uncle Herbert was courting her, and kidded them,” giggled Leslie.
A stray little twinkle of a dimple peeped out by the corner of Julia Cloud’s mouth. It hadn’t been out for a number of years, and she knew she ought not to laugh at such pranks now; but it was so funny to think of Herbert Robinson being kidded in the midst of his courting!
The dimple started the lights dancing in Leslie’s eyes.
“There! now you dear old Jewel, you know you don’t want to talk to Aunt Ellen about us. She’ll just mess things all up. Let’s just do things, and get ’em all fixed up, and then tell her when it’s too late for her to make a fuss,” gurgled Leslie down close to Julia’s ear, finishing up with a delicious bear-hug.
“I suppose she’ll be mortally offended,” murmured Julia Cloud in troubled hesitancy.
“Well, suppose she is; she’ll get over it, won’t she?” growled Allison. “And anyhow you’re old enough to manage your own affairs, Cloudy Jewel. I guess you’re older than she is, aren’t you? I guess you’ve got a right to do as you please, haven’t you? And you do want to go with us, don’t you?” His voice was anxious.
“I certainly do, dear boy,” said Julia Cloud eagerly; “but you know your guardian may not approve at all when he sees what a foolish ‘young’ aunt I am, allowing you to sit up late and talk fairy stories all the time.”
They smothered her in kisses, compliments, and assurances; and it was some time before the conversation swung around again to the important subject of the morning.
“You don’t have to do anything to the house but just shut it up, do you?” asked Allison, looking anxiously about in a helpless, mannish way. “Because, if you do, we ought to be getting to work.”
“There’s a man over at Harmony Village that wanted to rent a house here,” said Julia Cloud thoughtfully. “I might write a letter to him. I don’t know whether he’s found anything or not. He’s the new superintendent of the high school. But it’s time we got dressed and had breakfast.”
“Write to him nothing!” said Allison eagerly. “I’ll get the car, and we’ll drive over to Harmony in no time, and get the thing fixed up. Hustle there, Leslie, and get yourself togged up. We don’t need to wait for breakfast; we can eat cookies. Hurry everybody!” And he slammed over to his own room and began to stir about noisily.
Julia Cloud arose and made a hasty toilet, with a bright spot of excitement on each cheek; but she had no time to think what Ellen would say, for she meant that these children should have a real old-time breakfast before they began the day; and now that she was up her little round black clock on the bureau told her that it was high time the day had begun. She looked fearfully out of the window, half expecting to see Ellen’s Ford bobbing down the hill already, and then hurried down to the kitchen. Allison soon came down, calling out to her to be ready when he came back with the car; but the delicious odors that had already begun to float out from the old kitchen made him lenient toward the idea of breakfast; and, when he came back with the full cut-out roaring the announcement of his arrival to the Perkinses, he was quite ready to wait a few minutes and eat some of Julia Cloud’s flapjacks and sausages
