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QUICKSILVER SUE

  [Illustration: READING CLARICE'S LETTER.]


QUICKSILVER SUE

by

LAURA E. RICHARDS

Author of "Captain January," etc.

Illustrated by W. D. Stevens







New York
The Century Co.
1901




CONTENTS


     CHAPTER                                      PAGE

        I  SOMETHING EXCITING                        1

       II  THE NEW-COMER                            16

      III  MARY'S VIEW                              34

       IV  EARLY IN THE MORNING                     50

        V  THE PICNIC                               67

       VI  AT THE HOTEL                             89

      VII  THE MYSTERY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT        105

     VIII  THE CIRCUS                              122

       IX  THE LONELY ROAD                         140

        X  ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL               158




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


     READING CLARICE'S LETTER           _Frontispiece_

                                                  PAGE

     MISS CLARICE PACKARD RUSTLED INTO HER
       FATHER'S PEW                                 27

     ON THE WAY TO THE PICNIC                       63

     EACH CAME FORWARD AND SHOOK CLARICE'S
       GLOVED HAND SOLEMNLY                         79

     "MARY AND I HAVE PARTED--PARTED FOREVER"      113

     AT THE CIRCUS                                 137

     MARY STATIONED HERSELF AT THE WINDOW          145




QUICKSILVER SUE




CHAPTER I

SOMETHING EXCITING


"Mother! Mother! he has a daughter! Isn't that perfectly fine?"

Mrs. Penrose looked up wearily; her head ached, and Sue was so noisy!

"Who has a daughter?" she asked. "Can't you speak a little lower, Sue?
Your voice goes through my head like a needle. Who is it that has a
daughter?"

Sue's bright face fell for an instant, and she swung her sunbonnet
impatiently; but the next moment she started again at full speed.

"The new agent for the Pashmet Mills, Mother. Everybody is talking
about it. They are going to live at the hotel. They have taken the
best rooms, and Mr. Binns has had them all painted and papered,--the
rooms, I mean, of course,--and new curtains, and everything. Her name
is Clarice, and she is fifteen, and very pretty; and he is real
rich--"

"_Very_ rich," corrected her mother, with a little frown of pain.

"Very rich," Sue went on; "and her clothes are simply fine;
and--and--oh, Mother, isn't it elegant?"

"Sue, where have you been?" asked her mother, rousing herself. (Bad
English was one of the few things that did rouse Mrs. Penrose.) "Whom
have you been talking with, child? I am sure you never hear Mary Hart
say 'isn't it elegant'!"

"Oh! Mary is a schoolma'am, Mother. But I never did say it before, and
I won't again--truly I won't. Annie Rooney told me, and she said it,
and so I didn't think. Annie is going to be waitress at the hotel, you
know, and she's just as excited as I am about it."

"Annie Rooney is not a suitable companion for you, my daughter, and I
am not interested in hotel gossip. Besides, my head aches too much to
talk any more."

"I'll go and tell Mary!" said Sue.

"Will you hand me my medicine before you go, Sue?"

But Sue was already gone. The door banged, and the mother sank back
with a weary, fretful sigh. Why was Sue so impetuous, so unguided? Why
was she not thoughtful and considerate, like Mary Hart?

Sue whirled upstairs like a breeze, and rushed into her own room. The
room, a pleasant, sunny one, looked as if a breeze were blowing in it
all day long. A jacket was tossed on one chair, a dress on another.
The dressing-table was a cheerful litter of ribbons, photographs,
books, papers, and hats. (This made it hard to find one's brush and
comb sometimes; but then, it was convenient to have the other things
where one could get at them.) There was a writing-table, but the
squirrel lived on that; it was the best place to put the cage, because
he liked the sun. (Sue never would have thought of moving the table
somewhere else and leaving the space for the cage.) And the closet
was entirely full and running over. The walls were covered with
pictures of every variety, from the Sistine Madonna down to a splendid
four-in-hand cut out of the "Graphic." Most of them had something
hanging on the frame--a bird's nest, or a branch of barberries, or a
tangle of gray moss. Sometimes the picture could still be seen; again,
it could not, except when the wind blew the adornment aside.
Altogether, the room looked as if some one had a good time in it, and
as if that some one were always in a hurry; and this was the case.

"Shall I telephone," said Sue, "or shall I send a pigeon? Oh, I can't
stop to go out to the dove-cote; I'll telephone."

She ran to the window, where there was a curious arrangement of wires
running across the street to the opposite house. She rang a bell and
pulled a wire, and another bell jingled in the distance. Then she took
up an object which looked like (and indeed was) the half of a pair of
opera-glasses with the glass taken out. Holding this to her mouth, she
roared softly: "Hallo, Central! Hallo!"

There was a pause; then a voice across the street replied in muffled
tones: "Hallo! What number?"

"Number five hundred and seven. Miss Mary Hart."

Immediately a girl appeared at the opposite window, holding the other
barrel of the opera-glass to her lips.

"Hallo!" she shouted. "What do you want?"

"Oh, Mary, have you heard?"

"No. What?"

"Why, there's a girl coming to live at the hotel--coming to stay all
summer! Her father is agent of the Pashmet Mills. She is two years
older than we are. Isn't that perfectly fine, Mary? I'm just as
excited as I can be about it. I can't stand still a minute."

"So I see," said Mary Hart, who had a round, rosy, sensible face, and
quiet blue eyes. "But do try to stand still, Sue! People don't jump up
and down when they are telephoning, you know."

"Oh! I can't help it, Mary. My feet just seem to go of themselves.
Isn't it perfectly splendid, Mary? You don't seem to care one bit. I'm
sorry I told you, Mary Hart."

"Oh, no, you're not!" said Mary, good-naturedly. "But how can I tell
whether it is splendid or not, Sue, before I have seen the girl? What
is her name?"

"Oh! didn't I tell you? Clarice Packard. Isn't that a perfectly lovely
name? Oh, Mary, I just can't wait to see her; can you? It's so
exciting! I thought there was never going to be anything exciting
again, and now just see! Don't you hope she will know how to act, and
dress up, and things? I do."

"Suppose you come over and tell me more about it," Mary suggested. "I
must shell the peas now, and I'll bring them out on the door-step;
then we can sit and shell them together while you tell me."

"All right; I'll come right over."

Sue turned quickly, prepared to dash out of the room as she had dashed
into it, but caught her foot in a loop of the wire that she had
forgotten to hang up, and fell headlong over a chair. The chair and
Sue came heavily against the squirrel's cage, sending the door, which
was insecurely fastened, flying open. Before Sue could pick herself
up, Mister Cracker was out, frisking about on the dressing-table, and
dangerously near the open window.

"Oh! what shall I do?" cried Sue. "That horrid old wire! Cracker, now
be good,