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Page 9
"My dear lady, no! I am charmed to see you. Bell has had such
pleasure in making friends with your daughter. Miss Grahame, I am
delighted to see you!" and Mrs. Merryweather held out what she
thought was her hand, but Hildegarde shook instead a small morocco
volume, and was well content when she saw that it was the "Golden
Treasury."
"Bell has had such pleasure that I have been most anxious to share
it, and to know you and your daughter. Shall we be neighbourly? I
am the most unceremonious person in the world. Dear me! isn't
there a chair without books on it? Here, my dear Mrs. Grahame, sit
down here, pray! It is Dr. Johnson himself who makes room for you,
and you must excuse the great man for being slow in his
movements."
With a merry smile, she offered the chair from which she had just
removed a huge folio dictionary. Hildegarde found an ottoman which
she could easily share with a volume of Punch, and Mrs.
Merryweather beamed at them over her spectacles, and said again
that she was delighted to see them.
"We are getting the books to rights gradually," she said, "but it
takes time, as you see. I have to do this myself, with Bell's
help. She will be down in a moment, my dear. We have established
an overflow bookcase in a cupboard upstairs, and she has just gone
up with a load. Ah! here she is. Bell, my dear, Mrs. and Miss
Grahame. So kind of them to come and see us!"
Bell shook hands warmly, her frank, pleasant face shining with
good-will. "I am so glad to see you!" she cried, sitting down by
Hildegarde on a pile of Punches. "I hoped you would come to-day,
even if the books are not in order yet. They are so dear, the
books; they are part of the family, and we want to be sure that
they have places they like. I suppose Punch ought by rights to go
with people of his own sort--if there is anybody!--but one wants
him close at hand, don't you think so? where one can take him up
any time,--when it rains, or when things bother one. Do you
remember that Leech picture?" and they babbled of Punch, their
beloved, for ten minutes, and liked each other better at every one
of the ten.
"Bell, I want Mrs. and Miss Grahame to see our other children,"
said Mrs. Merryweather, presently. "Where is Toots, and where are
the boys?"
"Toots is upstairs, poor lamb!" Bell replied. "When Mary came to
tell me of our visitors' arrival I was just putting away Sibbes's
'Soul's Conflict,' and various other dreadful persons whom you
would not let me burn; so I dumped them in Toots's arms, and ran
off and left her. Being a ''bedient old soul,' she is probably
standing just where I left her. I will go--"
But at this moment Toots appeared,--a girl of fifteen, tall, shy
and blushing, and was introduced as "my daughter Gertrude." She
confessed, on interrogation, that she had dropped Sibbes's "Soul's
Conflict" out of the window, and was on her way to pick it up.
"Why didn't you drop it down the well?" asked her sister. "It is
so dry, I am sure a wetting would do it good!"
"Sit down, my dear!" said Mrs. Merryweather, comfortably. "One of
the boys is sure to be about, and will bring in the book. Sibbes
IS a little dry, Bell, but very sound writing, much sounder than a
good deal of the controversial writing of--bless me! what's that?"
Something resembling a human wheel had revolved swiftly past the
window, emitting unearthly cries.
Hildegarde blushed and hesitated. "I--I think it was your brother
Obadiah," she said to Bell.
The latter stared, open-eyed. "My brother Obadiah?" she repeated.
"How did you know--I beg your pardon! but why do you say Obadiah?"
Hildegarde glanced at her mother, who was laughing openly. "You
will have to make full confession, Hilda," she said. "I do not
think Mrs. Merryweather will be very severe with you."
"It is a dreadful thing to confess," said Hildegarde, laughing and
blushing. "I--to tell the truth, I happened to be walking in our
garden, on the other side of the tall hedge, just when you drove
up, the other day; and--there is a most convenient little peep-
hole, and I wanted to see our new neighbours, and--and--I peeped!
Are you much shocked, Mrs. Merryweather? I heard several names,--
Bell, and Toots, and--I--I heard the handsome red-haired boy
called Obadiah."
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