Aunt Jane's Nieces
The two girls became rather uneasy during the days their cousin spent
in the society of Aunt Jane. Even the dreadful accounts they received
from Phibbs failed wholly to reassure them, and Louise redoubled her
solicitious attentions to her aunt in order to offset the influence
Patricia seemed to be gaining over her.
Louise had also become, by this time, the managing housekeeper of
the establishment, and it was certain that Aunt Jane looked upon her
eldest and most competent niece with much favor.
Beth, with all her friends to sing her praises, seemed to make less
headway with her aunt than either of the others, and gradually she
sank into a state of real despondency.
"I've done the best I could," she wrote her mother, "but I'm not as
clever as Louise nor as amusing as Patricia; so Aunt Jane pays little
attention to me. She's a dreadful old woman, and I can't bring myself
to appear to like her. That probably accounts for my failure; but I
may as well stay on here until something happens."
In a fortnight more Patricia abandoned her chair and took to crutches,
on which she hobbled everywhere as actively as the others walked. She
affected her cousins' society more, from this time, and Aunt Jane's
society less, for she had come to be fond of the two girls who had
nursed her so tenderly, and it was natural that a young girl would
prefer to be with those of her own age rather than a crabbed old woman
like Aunt Jane.
Kenneth also now became Patsy's faithful companion, for the boy had
lost his former bashfulness and fear of girls, and had grown to feel
at ease even in the society of Beth and Louise. The four had many
excursions and picnics into the country together; but Kenneth and
Patsy were recognized as especial chums, and the other girls did not
interfere in their friendship except to tease them, occasionally, in a
good natured way.
The boy's old acquaintances could hardly recognize him as the same
person they had known before Patricia's adventure on the plank. His
fits of gloomy abstraction and violent bursts of temper had alike
vanished, or only prevailed at brief intervals.
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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