CHAPTER I.

O
h, Laura, I want you to come home with me to-morrow after school and dine, and stay the evening. We shall be alone together, for mamma and papa are going out to a dinner-party. You'll come, won't you? Mamma told me to ask you."

"If it was any other evening."

"Now, Laura, you are not going to say you can't come!"

"I must, Kitty. I have promised to take tea with Esther Bodn."

"Esther Bodn!"

"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I fixed Thursday,—to-morrow."

"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,—that mamma and papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"

"I don't want to do that, Kitty."

"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"

"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."

"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,—that you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,—and Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."

"But that was different, Kitty."

"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."

"Oh, Kitty, you know ."

"But I don't know."

Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation she said: "Esther is—is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,—quite poor, Kitty."

"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately responded Kitty.

"Now, Kitty, you do see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't visit the people that we do."

"She doesn't visit anybody , so far as I know."

"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when she and her mother have made preparations for company—even one person—it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to do it."

"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?" asked Kitty, sarcastically.

Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way, but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."

"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor, like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in a wondering tone.

"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with decision.

"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should be sent to Miss Milwood's school. I shouldn't think they could afford it," went on Kitty; "why, the place for her is a public school."

"But, Kitty, don't you know that Esther assists Miss Milwood,—that it is Esther who looks over all the French and German exercises, and makes the first corrections before mademoiselle takes them?"

"Esther Bodn?"

"Yes,—why, Esther, you must have noticed, is very proficient in French and German. She and her mother have lived abroad and here, in French and German families, to prepare her for being a teacher. She has a great natural aptitude, too, for languages."

"How in the world did you find all this out, Laura?"

"I didn't find it out , as you call it,—there is no secret about it,—Esther would no doubt have told you as much, if you had got as well acquainted with her as I have."

"I don't see how you came to get so well acquainted with her. She's nice enough, but I could always see that she wasn't like the rest of us,—of our set."

"Like the rest of us! She's just as good as the rest of us, and better than some of us."

"Oh, I dare say," said Kitty, in a patronizing tone.

"She may not be of our set, as you say, Kitty; but when I think of how Maud and Florence Aplin talk sometimes, I don't feel very proud of belonging to 'our set.'"

"Yes, I know, Maud and Flo do brag awfully now and then; but they are nice girls, and it is a nice family, mamma says."

"Every one seems to say that about them, and I've often wondered what they meant. I'm sure Mr. Aplin isn't very nice. He has no end of money, I know, but he can be so rude, and Mrs. Aplin is so patronizing. Now, why should they be called such 'nice people'?"

Kitty straightened herself up, put on a very knowing look, and repeated parrot-like what she had heard older persons say,—

"Mrs. Aplin was a Windlow."

"What in the world is a Windlow?" asked Laura, rather sarcastically.

Kitty was a worldly young woman, but she was also full of fun; and this question of Laura's amused her mightily, and with a suppressed giggle she answered demurely: "I think it has something to do with windows. The Windlows were English, and I believe their business was to open and shut the windows in the king's palaces,—perhaps to wash them. This all began ages ago, and it was considered a great honor, a tip-top thing to do, especially when the windows were high up. The honor has descended from generation to generation, and the name with it, I believe. They had some very ordinary name at the start."

The giggle, that had been suppressed up to this point, now burst forth in a shout of laughter, wherein Laura herself joined, exclaiming, as she did so, "Oh, Kitty, you are so ridiculous!"

"Why don't you make a rhyme and say, 'Oh, Kitty, you're so witty'? But, Laura, it is you who are odd and ridiculous, to pretend that you don't know that Windlow is one of the oldest names of one of the oldest families who came over to America in the Mayflower,—regular old aristocrats."

"Now, Kitty, I'm up in my history, if I'm not on this society stuff, and just let me tell you that those first settlers of America who came over in the Mayflower were not aristocrats."

"Oh, Laura, when everybody who can, brags of a Mayflower ancestor! I heard Mrs. Arkwright say to mamma, the other day that the Aplins were of the real old Mayflower blue blood."

"Then Mrs. Arkwright, with the 'everybody' you tell of, doesn't know what history says."

"Why, I'm sure I thought that was history."

"Well, it isn't. Last year I went with my father to Plymouth, and he took me to the famous rock where the Mayflower pilgrims landed, and afterward he gave me a lovely book called 'The Olden Time,' by Edmund Sears, that told me all about the pilgrims,—who they were, and why they came over, and everything, and I remember it said in this book that the Plymouth pilgrims were constantly confounded—those were the very words—with the Puritans who came over nine years later to Massachusetts."

"But Plymouth is in Massachusetts."

"Yes, I know, but it wasn't in that day. It was simply Plymouth Colony. The Mayflower sailed by Cape Cod into Plymouth Bay. They named the bay Plymouth, as they named the town Plymouth, for the old Plymouth in England."

"Did they name Cape Cod too?"

"No; that name was given years before by Captain Gosnold, an early voyager."

"Oh, I know, he caught such a lot of codfish there. I wish he'd never discovered the place; I hate codfish. But go on with your history lesson, Miss Brooks. I haven't any Mayflower ancestors, and so I'm more than resigned to have them taken down from their aristocratic peg."

"But they were lovely people,—lovely; kind and good to everybody, whether they believed as they did or not, for they had been persecuted themselves in the old country they had left for their opinions, and they meant that every one in the new country should worship as they pleased. They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says, 'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of 'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."

Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, " What is such larks?"

Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only—what does your history book say? Oh, I have it—'from the middle and humbler walks of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors—can't you see that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"

"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"

"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought, and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,—that if it wasn't for that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now—and now, Brooksie, I shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact, even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"

"I haven't neglected you."

"Well, snubbed me, then."

"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther; that's all."

"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura—Esther Bodn—Bodn?"

"I don't think it's horrid at all. I like it."

"B-o-d-n—Bodn—it sounds awfully common."

"Why, Kitty, it's spelled B-o-w-d-o-i-n, the same as our Bowdoin Street, and pronounced Bod'n, as that is!"

"Is it, really? I didn't know that."

"I'm sure Bowdoin Street sounds well enough."

"Well, yes, I've always rather liked the sound of it; but then, you know, I always saw and felt the spelling, when I saw it. What in the world was the pronunciation ever snipped off like that for? It ought to be pronounced just as it is spelled. I've a good mind to pronounce it so the next time I speak to Esther."

"No, I wouldn't do that; but you might think of her as Miss Bowdoin," answered Laura, dryly.

"Oh, Laura, what a head full of wisdom you've got! I don't see how I ever lived without you. But—see here, tell me what street Miss Bowdoin lives in."

Laura hesitated a moment; then answered, "McVane Street."

"Where is McVane Street, for pity's sake? I never heard of it,—one of those horrid South End streets, I suppose?"

"No, it is at the West End, beyond Cambridge Street, down by the Massachusetts Hospital."

"No, no, Laura Brooks, you don't mean that she lives down there by the wharves?"

"It isn't by the wharves," cried Laura, indignantly.

"Well, it isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets, given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going to take tea with a girl who lives in that frowsy, dirty place!"

"It isn't frowsy and dirty. It's only an old, unfashionable street, but not frowsy or dirty. It's quite clean and quiet, and has shade-trees and little grass plots to some of the houses. Why, it used to be the court end of the town years ago."

"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,—Russian Jews, and every other kind of a foreigner,—and look here!" suddenly interrupting herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this Esther Bodn is a foreigner,—an emigrant herself of some sort."

"Kitty!"

"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,—eight-buttoned ones,—and I don't believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe they—her mother and she—spell it that way to suit themselves . I believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I—"

"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,—it's slander."

Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little undertone,—

"Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief
Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."

Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,—

"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't—"

"Laura, how did it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?" interrupted Kitty.

"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books, and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'

"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a mistake,—that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,—she felt sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder—"

"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.

"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I felt,—that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there, and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second, as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,—that they were very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for—"

"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty, laughing.

"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but she is a very interesting girl,—my mother thinks she is too."

"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"

"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see the pictures,—she's very fond of pictures,—and mamma asked her to stay to luncheon, but she couldn't."

"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"

"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was calling after her mischievously,—

"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street!" TaLXAr6K9RmDKBFikP0NKpf4QOKPj3bvHtv+vfmGTOl4PVUWMoBJKgKWIsFwuq9U