CHAPTER X.

THEIR FIRST QUARREL.

Yes, Cousin Kitty has arrived. She has been looked for at any time from the first chapter of this narrative, and here she is at last, arrived in its tenth. "Better late than never," however, at least so far as Cousin Kitty's arrival is concerned, as Dolly herself would have told you, who fell in love at first sight with this new and foreign cousin.

Cousin Kitty has come from a region far away, if distance is to be measured by the time required to make it--and that would seem to be the fair way to measure space. She has come from England in a packet-ship, and has had a tempestuous passage, a seven-weeks' tossing on the boisterous Atlantic.

She is Uncle Harry's niece and Ned's cousin. She is not a cousin of Dolly's, but being Ned's cousin, Dolly claims a relationship, and Cousin Kitty gladly and graciously admits the claim.

Cousin Kitty is a young woman of twenty or thereabouts, and she went to live in England when she was six, and has, therefore, very vague ideas concerning her native land. Her father is a well-known London banker. She will stay in America two years, and expects to learn a great deal about it and its people during that time. She stopped in Boston five days before taking the stage for Byfield.

"When I was in Boston I saw Scollay Square, and Bunker Hill, and the Common, and Daniel Webster," she was saying one day at dinner, soon after her arrival. "But I did not see the famous beauty, Emily Otis. I don't know but I wanted to see her more than the other things, but she was out of town."

"You'll have a chance to see her before you go back, without doubt, and she's probably as well worth seeing as anything you name, unless its Webster," replied Mrs. Park.

"Oh yes, we've heard about her in London. N. P. Willis went into raptures over her, and couldn't say enough about her beauty, and her graciousness, and her endless charms of mind and person," laughed Cousin Kitty.

"And for once, certainly, he could not have gone far beyond the truth," was Mrs. Park's reply.

"And is she so _very_ beautiful?" asked Cousin Kitty. "Have you ever seen her?"

"Oh, I have!" put in Dolly, eagerly, "ever and ever so many times; and oh, Cousin Kitty, she _is_ so beautiful!"

"Where have you seen her, Dot?" asked Cousin Kitty, who had bestowed a new pet name on Dolly.

"Why, at her own home, don't you know? I and her sister Marianne are very, _very_ intimate friends."

"Then you are the very one to tell me about her," said Cousin Kitty, turning with great animation to Dolly. "You can't be envious of her because she is so much older than you, and you can tell me the exact truth. What is the color of her eyes?"

"A lovely dark, almost black."

"And is she tall?"

"Yes, tall like mamma."

"And her hair?"

"That is dark, too; a dark brown, and it gleams in the light like--"

"Oh!" interrupted Cousin Kitty, "_did_ you ever see her dressed--really dressed--for a party, I mean?"

"Oh yes, many, many times; that is one of our treats, Marianne's and mine."

"Tell me about it; tell me how she was dressed."

"Well," replied Dolly, thinking a moment, "I remember one time especially, because Marianne and I were so impatient to see her, and kept running to her room--her maid was dressing her, you know--but she wouldn't let us in. She was going that night to a reception at Gardiner Greene's, on Pemberton Square--"

"Yes, I saw that place. There's a lovely green lawn in front of it," interrupted Cousin Kitty.

"And we kept teasing, an' by-an'-by she said, 'Now, girls, if you will only stay in the nursery till quarter before nine you shall come then and look at me to your heart's content.' And we did look at her just as long as we liked, and she was like a picture, only lovelier than any picture could possibly be, I think."

"Ah, Dotty, you might be her lover," laughed Cousin Kitty.

"And I do love her dearly," was the earnest reply.

"Tell me how her hair was dressed that night."

"It was dressed high up on her head, and she wore a big shell comb like one mamma has, and her front hair in little puffs, with curls behind her ears, fastened with side combs. But I don't think it was her hair, nor her shining eyes, nor her smiling mouth that made her look so beautiful, but something shining through."

"Dolly speaks better than she knows," said Mrs. Park. "Emily's lovely character gives the finishing grace to her marvellous personal beauty."

"Ah! how you excite my desire to see her, you and Dolly," said Cousin Kitty. "But you haven't told me how she was dressed. What jewels did she wear--pearls or diamonds?"

"She wore a white lawn gown with low neck and short sleeves," said Dolly.

"No jewels! Not a bracelet nor a necklace! Are you sure, Dolly?"

"_Very_ sure."

"You must know, Kitty, that we in Byfield feel a special pride in her beauty; we claim a sort of ownership in her, in fact, as her mother is a native of this town."

"No, I did not know that."

"Yes, she lived in that old Revolutionary house I showed you yesterday. She was married young, and I remember her coming from Boston soon after, and how lovely she looked to my young eyes in a riding-habit of deep blue. She was an exceedingly handsome and graceful woman, but not so beautiful as her daughter Emily."

"I think nobody could be so beautiful as she," said Dolly.

"Percival has written a poem about her, beginning,

"'_Maid of the laughing lip and frolic eye!_'"

said Aunt Anna; "and when she was married, N. P. Willis wrote an absurd thing. It was a rainy day, and he said Nature was in tears because Emily Marshall had ceased to be a society woman and become a wife."

"Oh, when she was married--" began Dolly.

"_Did_ you see her married?" eagerly interrupted Cousin Kitty.

"No," replied Dolly, "but I marked a pocket-handkerchief for her, and it was a part of her wedding-dress. She asked me to, but I couldn't find any black silk fine enough, so I begged some of mamma's hair, which is black, you know, and I marked it with that, and she liked it. And then next day I helped cut the wedding-cake, and we children had great fun eating goodies and laughing; and in the midst of it she came in, and oh, Cousin Kitty, wasn't she lovely!" and Dolly drew a long sigh, as a lassie might after looking long at one of Fra Angelico's angels.

"Oh, you lucky child, you!" said Cousin Kitty. "I believe I should be almost willing to take to the nursery again to see her as you have."

"I know a woman in London," she continued, "who saw the beautiful Recamier in her prime, and she talks about her just as you talk of Emily Marshall."

"They were alike in one respect," said Mrs. Park. "They fascinated everybody, young and old, men and women, alike."

"Yes; and I am told the little ragamuffins of Boston followed Emily Marshall about and admired her, just as the little Savoyards of Paris did Madame Recamier," said Cousin Kitty.

"Oh, I do hope you will see her, Cousin Kitty," said Dolly, fervently, taking up her spoon and returning to the business of the hour--the eating of custard pudding; for time had flown while they had been talking, and it was already school-time.

And now let me tell you, just here, lest you may think Dolly's admiration of her lovely friend exaggerated, what Josiah Quincy, who was himself a young man when Emily Marshall was in the pride of her beauty, says of her in his recent book, "Figures of the Past:"

"Centuries are likely to come and go before society will again gaze spellbound upon a woman so richly endowed with beauty as was Miss Emily Marshall.... She was simply perfect in face and figure, and perfectly charming in manners."

And I must also tell you what Dolly did not tell Cousin Kitty, that the handkerchief she marked was of a fabric so fine that it took a long time to do it; and said handkerchief was three-quarters of a yard square, and carried in the bride's hand, as was the fashion of the day.

In the mean time, Ned, not as yet especially interested in feminine beauty, had betaken himself to the kitchen, and Dolly not forthcoming at the proper time, he had gone off to school.

Dolly finished her pudding, spent some time looking for Ned, and when Thankful answered the look of inquiry she sent through the half-open kitchen door by saying, "He's be'n gone t' school this half-hour," it was then a good half-hour after school-time.

So she hurried into her "things," spending another five minutes searching for her mislaid scarf, and as she hurried she grew unreasonable.

"Why couldn't Ned have told me when he was going?" she said, impatiently, forgetting that it was as much her business as his to look after the time. And as she trudged along alone over the half mile between the tavern and the school-house, she waxed crosser and more unreasonable, and when, as she opened the school-room door, she heard the last line of "John Gilpin," her vexation was complete.

Twice every week some member of the first class in reading was permitted to make a selection for the reading-lesson of the day, and almost invariably the choice fell on "The Diverting History of John Gilpin," by William Cowper. There were two good reasons for this. In the first place, "John Gilpin" was considered exquisitely funny; and, secondly, somebody had discovered that it could be sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne;" and Mr. Emerson, indulgent, as we have seen, in certain directions, permitted them so to sing the last verse. So, after the preceding sixty-two verses had been read "in turn," the whole school broke simultaneously into--

"_Now let us sing, Long live the king, And Gilpin, long live he; And when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see,_"

singing with great vim and utter recklessness as to time and tune, but with the utmost enjoyment. It was always a "jolly lark," and to have missed it added the final straw to Dolly's displeasure and to her estimate of Ned's shortcomings. She took her seat without once looking at him, as she would ordinarily have done; and Ned, waiting to give her a friendly nod, wondered, but concluded that she was in such a hurry, her geography lesson coming next, that she didn't think of him. But as the afternoon passed, and Dolly persisted in looking everywhere but in his direction, and, when school closed, hurried off with Priscilla Martin without stopping to speak to him, he began to wonder what was the matter.

He shouted after her, "Ho, Dolly! wait for me!" but she neither turned nor spoke. And he had such a jolly story to tell her, too, about 'Liphalet Taft! 'Liphalet was always furnishing jolly stories for their amusement; his blunders were so irresistibly funny! He lived in Turkey Swamp, with two old aunts, far from any other habitation. He first came out into the world when he was eight years old, and was stricken with terror at the sight of the town pump. A spring supplied the old aunts with water, and he had never imagined anything so dreadful as this creature, with its long arm and gaping spout. Would it eat him? and he utterly refused to go by it.

He was now twelve, and could barely read. Mr. Emerson had called him up, directly after the opening of the afternoon session, for a five minutes' lesson in geography. He had been trying for several days to infuse into his dull brain some idea of the tropics.

"Name _one_ tropical fruit," he said at last, in despair.

"_Flapjacks!_" promptly answered 'Liphalet; which answer brought down the school in a burst of laughter, in which Mr. Emerson joined. 'Liphalet evidently had caught the idea that tropical fruits were the product of a warm place, and so said "flapjacks" at a venture. And Ned did so want to tell Dolly this story.

But Dolly did not make her appearance at the tavern till supper-time, when she greeted Cousin Kitty with effusion, and then fell to eating her bread-and-milk without looking at Ned. Mrs. Park saw that something was wrong, but, with a wisdom that it is a pity could not be more generally practised, said nothing. She shook her head slightly at Cousin Kitty, who seemed about to speak, and then they two went on talking about mutual acquaintances in Boston and elsewhere, and no notice was taken of the silent pair.

There was no twilight conference in mother's room that night. Ned went off to the barn, where 'Zekle was husking, and looked in only to say "Good-night" when it was time to go to bed. Dolly read "Robin's Journal," or pretended to, but Aunt Anna's observant eyes noted that the pages were very slowly turned, and the narrative did not seem to possess its usual absorbing interest. She went off to bed earlier than usual, and cried herself to sleep.

Foolish Dolly! _why_ didn't she make up? Why, indeed. Why don't we always make up at once when we quarrel with those we love? Why do we keep on making their hearts ache and our own too? Why do we ever begin a quarrel, for that matter? It was a little thing that began this quarrel, but then, as a general thing, quarrels always do begin in little things. Give up? No, _never_! Let us stick it out, though it half kills us and the one we love too!

So Dolly, despite the tears and heartache, came down to breakfast the next morning resolved to keep up her cool behavior till Ned should do--what? Well, I don't think Dolly could have told exactly what she did expect Ned to do; but of one thing she was sure--she was going to make him feel as badly as she could.

And Ned, now thoroughly exasperated by Dolly's behavior, had resolved, on his part, to make no more advances. (He had passed the bread to her at supper the night before, meaning the act as a friendly overture, and she had taken a piece without looking at him or thanking him.) He guessed he could stand it as long as Dolly could.

So the two met in the breakfast-room with a cold "good-morning," for neither liked, in the presence of the family, to be guilty of the discourtesy of not speaking at all at this first meeting of the day. The breakfast went off very like the supper of the night before, the rest keeping up an animated conversation, while Dolly and Ned ate in absolute silence.

Ned went off to school alone, and Dolly called for Priscilla Martin, and she and Priscilla got up the most surprising intimacy, promenading to and from school with their arms about each other's waists, and whispering together apart in the most confidential manner at recess. Now, Dolly had never liked Priscilla; and as to Ned, he "couldn't bear her," and never called her anything but "Pris;" and I am afraid that was one reason why Dolly made such a parade of their sudden intimacy.

At night the twilight talk was once more omitted, and Aunt Anna's heart ached for the two wayward creatures, who were evidently as unhappy as they could be; but she still kept her neutral position, and cautioned Cousin Kitty, who was inclined to try to persuade them to make up.

"No," said Aunt Anna, "it is better they should find their way out of this alone. They are both thoroughly miserable, and I want it to be a lesson they will not soon forget. I have questioned Thankful, and I do not think there is any really serious grievance at the bottom."

The next morning Dolly's resolution was somewhat shaken. She had passed a miserable night. She had been restless and wakeful, and when she had slept had dreamed of Ned. In one dream he was far up some steep height where she could not reach him. In another he was sailing away in a boat, leaving her on the shore. In still another she was seeking him through a wild, tangled wood. She looked rather piteously at him when he came in to breakfast, and if he had shown the least sign of relenting, the quarrel would have probably ended then and there, for they were alone. But Ned only said "Good-morning," just as he might have said it to "Pris" Martin or anybody else that he hated, and walked up and began drumming on the window-pane, and Aunt Anna and Cousin Kitty coming in directly, the opportunity for making up at that time was lost.

Neither had much appetite for breakfast, and Dolly looked so pale and unhappy, Aunt Anna began to think she might be obliged, after all, to abandon her neutrality. Ned stopped at his third buckwheat, and asking to be excused, left the room, remarking casually, just as he closed the door, that he was going to look after his traps.

_His traps!_ This was the way, then, he was going to pay her off! Dolly fairly choked as she tried to drink her mug of milk, but she made a brave and successful effort not to give way to tears. But wasn't it _cruel_ in Ned to say that, when he knew how much she wanted to go! He was a cruel, cruel boy, and she hated him! And for a brief interval the spirit of evil took possession of Dolly.

Those traps he had set were not steel-traps, that might catch some little creature by the leg and tear it frightfully; they were big box-traps, that would hold their prisoners firmly but tenderly, and Ned was hoping to catch a white rabbit for Dolly's own. Dolly knew just where that rabbit-trap was set, under a laurel-bush by the side of the brook.

It was only Thursday morning, and this was Saturday, that she went with Ned to set those very traps. How far away it seemed, and how happy they were that morning! How sweet the breath of the pine woods! how merry the flocks of chickadees in the oaks! What a pretty woodland carpet the trailing partridge-vine, with its scarlet berries, made in the sunny openings! And the feathery princess-pine and the trailing ground-pine, what loads of them they brought home! and together they hung them about the Little Madam's room. How good Ned was that day! (At this thought the spirit of evil spread its wings and made ready for flight.) How he helped her to climb up to the crow's nest in the tall pine! How good he was, anyway! Ah! Ned's goodness was a dangerous subject to contemplate in Dolly's then state of mind, and she quickly turned her attention to the apple-fritters which Thankful was heaping on her plate sympathizingly.

Dear, grim, crusty, tender-hearted Thankful! She couldn't bear, as she said afterwards, to see "them child'en makin' themselves miser'ble f'r nothin'. 'F they only waited a spell they'd have plenty o' misery 'thout makin' it."

Ned got back from his traps a little before noon. He came back much subdued. He had not had a happy time. He had found nothing in his traps, and every step of the way he had seen something that made him think of Dolly. Here was where he fixed the stones for her to cross the brook. There were the white birches from the tops of which they had swung, climbing up to the very tip-top of the tree, then clutching it with both hands and swinging clear, while the supple tree bent till their feet almost touched the ground. How fearlessly Dolly had swung off!--she wasn't one bit afraid.

There, too, was the big pine they had climbed together, while he told her how once he went up that same tree for crows' eggs, and came down bringing one in his mouth because he had to use both hands in climbing, and when he jumped from the last branch the jar broke it, and it was addled--faugh! and how merrily Dolly laughed! She was a jolly girl, anyhow, and he liked her better than any girl he knew; and he wished she hadn't gone round with that hateful "Pris" Martin, and--"I'll go home an' ask her what's the matter, anyway, an' we'll make up, I guess."

And now I must tell you how they did make up their quarrel, and how droll it was that Skatta should have been the one, after all, to help make it up.

They were standing each by a window of the sitting-room. Aunt Anna, wise Aunt Anna, had gone out and left them together. Each was wanting to speak, and each was hoping the other would say something to break the ice.

Skatta was in the side-yard, where 'Zekle had turned her for exercise. She was prancing up and down, tossing her head, kicking up her heels, and investigating everything within reach of her nose. At last she espied the clothes-pin basket hanging high, with the Little Madam's blue-eyed cat curled comfortably therein, on top of the clothes-pins. That clothes-pin basket was a favorite resort of the blue-eyed cat. Skatta trotted up to it and put up her nose in a friendly way, but kitty resented the familiarity and returned Skatta's gentle touch with a vicious scratch. Skatta turned instantly, and lifting her heels, sent kitty and basket and clothes-pins spinning high into the air, and then trotted off with a satisfied whinny, while kitty landed upon the wood-shed roof, spitting furiously.

Then Ned and Dolly laughed outright, the ice was broken, and Ned, crossing over to Dolly's window, put his hand on her shoulder and said, "I say, Dolly, let's go this afternoon and look at those traps again." And Dolly replied, with somewhat "tearfu' een," "How good you are, Ned!"

And so ended their first and last real quarrel; and on the way to the traps Ned told her the "flapjack" story.