“Why didn’t you tell us how beautiful she was?” Josie asked Irene after the partners had looked Ursula Ellett over, approved of her and engaged her on the spot.

“I did not like to because I did not know whether you would think her as beautiful as I do.”

“Thought you had a corner on taste, eh?” laughed Josie.

“Not that. But you know tastes differ so. Uncle doesn’t think she is beautiful, merely sweet looking and Aunt Hannah says if it wasn’t for her eyes she would call her positively homely. They say she has no figure.”

“No figure! With that willowy slenderness!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “Why she looks like a wood nymph!”

Ursula Ellett was not as old as Irene had thought, in fact she had just reached her majority. But the cares that had fallen on her young shoulders had added to her years and the troubles and anxieties had given a gravity to her countenance that was pitiable to behold. Her eyes were violet with dark pansy markings, her lashes long and thick with brows delicately bowed, her nose of patrician perfection. Her mouth needed only smiles to make it beautiful, but it was too sad at the present, with the corners drooping and making lines of discontent that were fast becoming permanent. Her hair was dark, almost black, but with a coppery hue.

It meant much to Ursula to be taken in by the Higgledy Piggledies, and it meant much to the partners to have a capable person to take hold of their tea room and run it with the order necessary for its success.

“Where did you learn to do things so well?” Josie asked their new manager, as she moved quickly around the tea room getting everything to rights in preparation for the afternoon. It was the custom for many of the young people of Dorfield to drop in at the Higgledy Piggledy, which had established a reputation for cinnamon toast and waffles baked on an electric iron.

“Training servants,” answered Ursula. “I have had dozens to break in at my home in Louisville. My stepfather was very difficult to please and my endeavor was to give him no just cause of complaint. I had to learn to do all kinds of things about the house well so that I could teach others. Mr. Cheatham was constantly dismissing the servants and then my work was all to be done over. I like this kind of work very much and do hope I can give satisfaction.” Ursula’s lip trembled as she spoke.

“Give satisfaction! Why, my dear girl, we think we have found a treasure in you. We only hope we can be the ones to give satisfaction. Please feel that we are your friends. In the first place, in our shop what Irene says goes. She doesn’t often make suggestions, being one of the most modest of human beings, but when she does we all of us agree with her. I have never known Irene to make a mistake in people. She has put me right on several persons.”

Josie then recounted to Ursula the tale of the Markles, a perfidious couple who had almost gotten away with all of Mary Louise’s wedding presents, and she gave Irene the credit for being the first one of all of the friends of the little bride to realize there was something shady about Felix and Hortense Markle.

“She always knows when people are the right sort, too,” added Josie, “and she gave you a mighty good name.”

“I am very happy at that,” said Ursula, a smile flashing for a moment over her sad countenance. “My little brothers are quite in love with Miss MacFarlane.”

“Oh, none of that, please!” interrupted Josie. “Don’t ‘Miss’ any of us. We are Irene and Elizabeth and Josie and you are Ursula.”

“All right!” blushed Ursula, “but I did not want to be too familiar. Anyhow the boys are very fond of Irene. Mrs. Conant is kind to them too and has asked them to make themselves at home in her yard. Now that school is over it is quite a problem to keep the little fellows happy.”

“How old are they?”

“Ben is ten and Philip, six.”

“Why, they are old enough to help around the shop. Let them come here and they can be our delivery boys. We are always needing a boy to run errands.”

“That would be wonderful, but they are such little fellows that I am afraid they would be in the way.”

“Children are never in my way, and you know how Irene feels about them. Elizabeth is fine to boys. She doesn’t take much stock in girls, having been brought up in a house full of them. Let me talk it over with my partners first, though.”

The partners were more than willing and the next day when Ursula came to work she came hand in hand with her two brothers. Ben and Philip were delighted with the idea of holding jobs, but more than anything were they pleased at the thought of being near “The Lady in the Chair,” which was the name they had given Irene.

“I’m the chief office boy an’ Phil is my clerk,” announced Ben. “I’m gonter do all the work an’ he’s gonter trot along an’ watch me. He’s just six an’ I’m in my ’leventh year. I’m gonter grow up an’ take care of Sister an’ buy her a ring an’ some beads an’ a Stutz racer. I’m gonter send Phil to college too, an’ buy him some long pants.”

“An’ I’m gonter save up my money that I make watchin’ you work an’ buy The Lady in the Chair a all-day sucker,” announced Philip.

There could be no two opinions concerning those Ellett boys. They were beautiful children—their loveliness almost unearthly. Ben was fair and sturdy, large for his years, with the wide blue eyes and yellow hair of a Viking child. Philip was more like his sister Ursula, slender and patrician, with dusky hair and eyes like dark pools in a forest where the blue sky is reflected unexpectedly. The boys adored first their sister, whom they considered the most wonderful person in the world, and then each other, Ben ever protecting his little brother and Philip ever looking up to Ben as a superior being.

They were natural, normal boys and for that reason not at all saintly. Ursula felt she could trust them as far as honesty was concerned but was always very anxious about them when she had to be away from them in the pursuit of a livelihood. This arrangement with the Higgledy Piggledies was an ideal one. There she could have an eye ever on her charges and she was sure the boys would be as good as boys could be, which of course is not perfect.

Faithfully they delivered parcels for the Higgledy Piggledy shop, Viking Ben carrying the burdens and Phil walking just two steps behind his brother, admiring his prowess with loving eyes. Faithfully they brought back money from the customers carefully pinned in Ben’s pocket and painfully counted out by that future business man.

Josie got a knapsack in which small parcels could be securely strapped, as often the articles to be delivered were quite valuable such as old lace mended by Irene or rare linen laundered by Josie or manuscript corrected or copied by Elizabeth. The boys were instructed to return immediately and report at the shop after making a delivery. This they did with a promptness surprising in such youngsters.

“It isn’t when they are busy that I feel anxious about them,” sighed Ursula, “but when they are idle. Please hunt up more duties for them.”

“Poor dears! Don’t they eat up all the cold waffles? What more could we demand?” laughed Josie. “Don’t you remember how sorry we always felt about the cold waffles, girls?”

“Yes indeed, the Higgledy Piggledy garbage pail always mortified me,” said Elizabeth. “No matter how carefully one plans there are always cold waffles to be disposed of. Even my mother, who is an excellent manager, I can tell you, has never mastered the cold waffle problem.”

“Well, it is no problem here,” smiled Ursula. “In fact there is nothing left over since you dear girls insisted upon my giving my boys their supper here. I wish I could tell you what it means to me, having this place and being able to see Ben and Philip all the time.”

“Well I wish you knew what it means to us to have our tea room run like a smart New York shop, with never a hitch and more and more persons praising it and bringing their friends here to treat them—to say nothing of the empty garbage pail. If things don’t stop prospering so we are going to have to get new quarters, girls. Do you realize that?” queried Josie.

“Oh, but please don’t let’s leave the dear old shop,” begged Elizabeth. “These have been the happiest months of my whole life, I truly believe. If we have to expand, let’s expand upward or downward. Why not see about the rooms above or the rickety old store below?”

“Turn out the cleaners and dyers below, who certainly smell most vilely and increase our insurance rates one hundred per cent and make a kind of lunch club down there! Great scheme!” exclaimed Josie. “What does our sage Irene think?”

“I think it is a fine idea but it would need a good deal of capital to start such an undertaking,” said Irene thoughtfully. “Let’s go slowly until we find someone with capital to invest.”

“I wish I could command my own little fortune,” blushed Ursula. “I haven’t much—at least I don’t think I have, but what I own I have no more power over than if it wasn’t mine. My stepfather, Mr. Cheatham, has entire control of everything connected with my father’s estate.”

“Can’t you go to law about it?” asked Elizabeth.

“I—I—am helpless with him. He holds it over me that if I make any trouble he will claim my boys. He says he has the right to keep them from me. There is some quirk in the law that he quotes. I am sure I don’t understand it but I am afraid to test it. I’d give up all the money in the world rather than have my Ben and Philip under the influence of such a man.”

“Haven’t you any relations?” asked Josie.

“Only Uncle Ben Benson, my mother’s brother, and I don’t know where he is. He was very much put out with my poor little mother when she married Mr. Cheatham. He left Louisville and we have never heard anything from him. I loved Uncle Ben and he loved me. I felt he was hard on Mother and told him so, although Heaven knows it almost killed me for her to marry such a man. But she was young when my father died, young and so beautiful. Mr. Cheatham evidently had some influence over her that we could not understand.”

“What is his standing in the community?” asked Josie.

“He is not trusted or respected but he is so plausible that he has a certain following. He makes an excellent impression on strangers and Louisville is growing so, with such a large number of new people settling there every year, that it is quite a simple matter for Mr. Cheatham to worm himself into the good graces of the new and wealthy people. He is clever and has an engaging manner until you know him. Then you hate his manner as you hate him.” “Does he know where you are?”

“I think not, but I am not sure. He always finds out everything he wants to know. He doesn’t care where I am, just so I let him alone. The thing that determined my leaving home was not only his threatening to bring this woman, this Miss Fitchet, to the house, but an awful scene we had with him when he tried to whip my Ben. It was because of some trifling bit of naughtiness. Ben turned on the hydrant to which the hose was attached and could not get it turned off.”

“All boys like to play in water,” laughed Josie. “I like it myself.”

“He began to beat him unmercifully and little Philip rushed in and bit him on the leg and I—I’m not ashamed to tell you that I took a hand in the fight myself, although it was in the front yard of our home on one of the principal old residential streets of Louisville. I turned the hose on the wretch and he got it full in the face. I am sure we looked like a movie comedy; but he left off beating Ben.”

“Good for you!” laughed Josie.

“We left then and I have never seen him again. I took the boys to a hotel and got a lawyer to go see him and try and get an allowance from him but he refused any financial help. He said we would be taken care of as long as we would stay under his roof and no longer. I could not stand the thought of ever having to see him again and so I left Louisville. He thought we would live with some old friends who are at Peewee Valley, near Louisville, but I came to Dorfield, and oh, how glad I am I chose this peaceful spot!”

Ursula beamed happily on her employers. Already the girl had a different expression. The corners of her mouth were lifting and the pained look in her pansy eyes had given place to one of peace and trust.

“How about Uncle Ben Benson? Don’t you fancy he’ll come rolling in one day with his coat lined with thousand dollar bills and a potato sack full of gold nuggets?” asked Elizabeth. “Uncles in the manuscripts I correct always come home rich and generous.”

“I wouldn’t care much about the nuggets and coat lining, if he would only come home or write to me and let me know he is alive and well and no longer bears a grudge against me for standing up for my poor little mother. I tried to let him know when she died but my letter came back to me after having followed him around to all kinds of out-of-the-way places. Sometimes I am afraid he is dead.”

“I’ll be bound he is not. Probably he is working away at some sort of business that is going to bring in oodles of money,” insisted Elizabeth.

“Perhaps,” mused Ursula, “but in the meantime I had better get the waffle batter mixed and the cinnamon toast under way, because the hungry patrons will be pouring in soon.”