A SUCCESSFUL VENTURE

BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND AUTHOR OF “MALVERN,” “OAKLEIGH,” ETC.

“Jog on, jog on the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a. A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.” SHAKESPEARE

ILLUSTRATED BY ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

BOSTON

W. A. WILDE & COMPANY

25 Bromfield Street

p. 4Copyright, 1897, BY W. A. Wilde & Company. All rights reserved.

A SUCCESSFUL VENTURE.

p. 5CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

PAGE

I.

Mrs. Wentworth Ward visits Glen Arden

9

II.

The Starrs hold a Family Council

26

III.

A Declaration of Independence

44

IV.

Katherine as a Financier

61

V.

Peter seeks Information

81

VI.

Peter’s New Acquaintances

99

VII.

Victoria goes in Search of Funds

117

VIII.

Unexpected Generosity

134

IX.

Sophy has an Adventure

153

X.

The New Neighbors on the Hill

171

XI.

Victoria decides to keep it Secret

188

XII.

Roger Madison tells a Story

206

XIII.

Peter meets with a Serious Accident

224

XIV.

Sophy waylays Roger Madison

242

XV.

Victoria meets with Difficulties

261

XVI.

Midnight Marauders

281

XVII.

On the River

301

XVIII.

Mrs. Wentworth Ward changes her Opinion

320

p. 7ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

“‘I always keep my engagements’”

F’piece

“The girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the hall below”

79

“‘It is a gem’”

136

“There, beneath one of the old trees, she found a rustic bench”

188

“She found her eldest sister sitting on a rustic bench, under the trees, with her work in her hands”

269

p. 9CHAPTER I. MRS. WENTWORTH WARD VISITS GLEN ARDEN.

It was raining heavily, and a strong wind from the northeast blew the drops with relentless force against the dining-room windows. The few leaves that remained upon the trees were fast dropping, falling in sodden unloveliness upon the drenched lawn. It was a day for all those who could do so to remain within doors.

The four girls were in the dining-room. It was the most cheerful place in which to sit on a rainy day, and the fire that burned on the hearth lighted up the room, and gave it an aspect of cosiness that was very pleasant.

Honor Starr, the eldest of the family, was lying upon the sofa, which had been drawn forward from its usual corner and placed within reach of the warmth. She had a book in her hand, p. 10although she was not reading at the moment. She also held a bottle of camphor, which she applied frequently to her nose.

Sophy, the youngest sister, who was only eight years old, sat at a table near the side window, brandishing first a large pair of shears, and then a paint or a paste brush, while sheets of tissue paper, of every hue known to a maker of paper dolls, lay about her on the floor, and were mingled with the contents of an overflowing waste-basket which had just been upset.

Katherine, who was eighteen, and who came next in age to Honor, had been showing to her sisters a very handsome silver-backed handglass, which she had bought the day before in Boston, and apparently there had been some argument on the subject, for Katherine’s pretty face wore a perturbed expression, and she glanced somewhat resentfully at Honor, who was then devoting herself to the camphor bottle with conspicuous attention.

Victoria, the third sister, a girl of fifteen, knelt before the fire, to which she energetically applied the poker. Victoria was apt to use energy in the smallest affairs of life. The girls were all dressed p. 11in black, which perhaps added to the effect of dreariness caused by the weather.

“Surely, she won’t come to-day!” said Katherine, laying down the mirror and going to the window, whence a view of the drive was to be had. The house was set low, and was at some distance from the main road. The avenue leading to the house wound in and out among the trees, but there was one portion of it which was open, and could be seen easily from the windows. This open space Katherine was watching with scrupulous care.

“A dog wouldn’t put his nose out of doors to-day, if he could help it,” she continued.

“Aunt Sophia is no dog,” observed Victoria, coming behind her and peering over her shoulder; “she is a Woman, spelt with a capital W; therefore wind and weather will never keep her at home. I heard the whistle of the train, ages ago. And—yes, there she is!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the four sisters together, as a depot carriage came rapidly into sight and was then lost again among the trees.

“Sophy, do straighten up that table! Your chips are everywhere! And pick up the p. 12waste-basket!” cried Katherine, turning hastily from the window. “Why did you choose to-day of all others to make paper-doll dresses?”

“Why, Kathie, you know I always play paper dolls on Saturday, especially if it is a rainy one!” exclaimed Sophy, with reproachful emphasis; “and you told me yourself—”

“Children, don’t waste the time in useless arguments,” interrupted Victoria. “Aunt Sophia is here, and we ought to have been ready for her, for we might have known she would come. Honor, it will give her fifty fits on the spot if she finds you on the sofa reading a novel at this hour. Do get up and look brisk, even if you don’t feel so!”

Victoria was flying about the room, as she spoke, moving a chair here, and straightening a rug there, beating up a down pillow which still bore the indentation left by the last person who had leaned against it, and whisking out of the way the large box which was standing open upon the table.

“Here is your bargain of a silver handglass, Katherine. I advise you to keep that well out of Aunt Sophia’s sight,” she said; and then steps p. 13were heard upon the piazza, the front door was opened, and there came in at the same time and with equal force, Mrs. Wentworth Ward of Boston and a strong gust of wind from the northeast.

“Why, Aunt Sophia!” exclaimed Honor, rising slowly from her sofa, which was in full view of the hall. “Is it really you?”

“It is really I,” replied her aunt; “and who else should it be, or why should it not be I? How do you all do? Honor, what is the matter that you are lying down at this hour of the day? Victoria, take my waterproof to the kitchen to be dried, if you please. Katherine, your hand, while I take off my overshoes! Sophia, come here, child, and give me a kiss! You smell of flour paste and are very sticky. What have you been doing? There, now I am ready to sit down.”

She walked into the dining-room and placed herself in a large chair at a discreet distance from the fire. She was a tall woman—all the Starrs were tall—and of proportionate width. Her forehead was broad and high, and above it the gray hair was parted and brushed smoothly back on p. 14either side of her face. Her nose was rather large and was perfectly straight, her teeth were exceptionally good, and her complexion might have been called “high colored.” She was president, or vice-president, or at least director, of no one knows how many charitable, literary, and musical societies in Boston, and she was noted for her rare executive ability. Among the other things which she tried to manage were her nieces the Starrs, and she found them by no means the least difficult.

“You are brave to come to the country on such a day as this,” murmured Honor, sinking again upon the sofa, but not actually lying down. She was conscious that she was inviting censure both by speech and action.

“I always keep my engagements,” replied Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “If women did not keep their engagements, what would become of mankind? Ten days ago I wrote on my memorandum calendar for November third, ‘Glen Arden, 9 A.M. train.’ A woman should be as exact as a railroad time-table, whatever the weather. It is the only way to accomplish anything in this world. The 9 A.M. train has arrived, and so have I.”

p. 15She paused, but no one spoke. It was apparent that she intended to enforce a lesson, and she gave her nieces a moment in which to digest it. In the meantime Victoria returned from her expedition to the kitchen with her aunt’s waterproof, and as she entered the room she glanced hastily about.

Victoria, though only fifteen, was keenly sensitive, and it seemed to her that the intellectual atmosphere was surcharged with a high explosive, ready to go off with a loud report should a match be applied to it. She was quite sure that her aunt held the match and had come to Glen Arden this rainy day for the express purpose of striking it.

“And now to business,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward—she preferred that the two names should be mentioned in conjunction. “As you may suppose, I had an especial purpose in coming out here to-day. I have come to the conclusion, and I think your guardian will fully agree with me, that you cannot live here any longer.”

Yes, it was just as Victoria had suspected. Aunt Sophia had struck her match, and an explosion had promptly followed.

p. 16“And why not, may I ask?” demanded Honor, sitting upright upon the sofa.

“How perfectly absurd!” exclaimed Katherine, with a vehemence that was scarcely respectful.

“Oh, Aunt Sophia, you are trying to frighten us!” remarked Victoria, assuming an air of gaiety that appeared forced.

“But we don’t want to live anywhere else,” added Sophy, as if that reason were conclusive. Sophy, being only eight, had not yet fully realized the aunt for whom she was named.

Mrs. Wentworth Ward looked from one to the other of her four nieces. She appeared to be quite unmoved by their excitement. There can be no surprise for the one who strikes the match on occasions of this kind, and Mrs. Wentworth Ward prided herself always upon being equal to an occasion.

“I felt so at the time that your father died,” she continued, “but I said nothing. There was no one who could come here then to live with you, and it was not convenient for me to ask you to live with me; but in the three months which have elapsed since then, I have reached a decision. It is my way, as you know, to think over my plans carefully before making them known to others. p. 17I have thought them over, and now I tell you. It is neither seemly nor proper—and there are other reasons, too, which make it impossible—that my nieces and nephew should continue to live here alone. By the way, where is Peter?”

Peter’s sisters did not seem inclined to reply, until Victoria, fearing lest the silence should exasperate her aunt, volunteered the information that he was down at the barn.

“He went an hour ago to attend to his rabbits,” she said. “I suppose he is there still.”

“Did he not know that I was coming?” asked her aunt. “Why rabbits when I am expected? But, after all, that is neither here nor there. You are all to come and live with me. In other words, my house shall be your home henceforth. Honor shall act as my secretary. Honor, you have the ability, and there is no reason why you should not turn it to account, instead of spending your time on a sofa. Indeed, I have not yet been told why you are on the sofa. Are you ill?”

“I have a cold. But, Aunt Sophia, suppose I don’t care to be your secretary?”

“I cannot suppose anything so impossible,” returned Mrs. Wentworth Ward, imperturbably; “for p. 18of course you will be only too glad to do something for me in return for the many advantages which life in town will give you. Katherine can perfect herself in music, at the same time taking charge of the bric-á-brac. That shall be her duty. I have decided it all.”

“So it appears,” observed Katherine. “I invariably break bric-á-brac when I handle it. I should advise you to make a different arrangement.”

“Victoria shall continue to go to school,” continued her aunt, ignoring this suggestion. “In fact, she and Sophy and Peter are to go to boarding-school. I have already written and made the necessary arrangements. They can spend their holidays with me on Beacon Street. I shall take you into society, when our period of mourning is over. Next winter you can begin to go out a little. In fact, you can go to concerts this winter, and to lectures. It will be quite proper. I intend that your minds shall be improved. Honor, what is that book which I see peeping from beneath your pillow?”

The awkward pause which followed was broken by Victoria, who hastened to divert her aunt’s mind.

“Poor Honor has such a cold,” said she. “I p. 19gave her some of your remedy, Aunt Sophia, and it has worked wonders. Did you tell us to take it every three or every four hours?”

“Every three hours, until the cold begins to mend, and after that, every four. You did quite right, Victoria. There is nothing like it. I cured your uncle once in less than a day and a half. And what did you say was the name of the book, Honor?”

“I doubt if you have ever heard of it, Aunt Sophia,” said Honor, as she drew it forth from its hiding-place. “The name of it—”

“Oh, please don’t stop to discuss books!” cried Katherine. “There is something else far more important to be talked about. We don’t want to go to Boston to live, Aunt Sophia. We don’t want to be your secretary and dust your bric-á-brac. We don’t want to go to boarding-school.”

Mrs. Wentworth Ward looked at her calmly.

“My dear, that makes no particular difference,” said she. “We cannot always do what we wish. I am your father’s sister, and it is proper that you should live with me. It was very much like your father to omit making me p. 20your legal guardian. Why he should have appointed Dickinson Abbott instead of me, I cannot imagine, but he did, and what is done cannot be undone. However, that is neither here nor there. I offer you a home with me. You are too young to live here alone, and there are other reasons against it also. It is quite out of the question.”

A profound silence followed this speech. The plan proposed by their aunt was so appalling that the girls were unable to collect their ideas sufficiently to reply. Mrs. Wentworth Ward took out her watch.

“I must return in the next train,” said she. “I have a charity association meeting at half after eleven. I preferred to see you all together and tell you this, rather than send for one of you to come to me, or rather than write to you. This room looks rather disorderly, I think. Honor, that is a wretched waitress of yours. When you come to Beacon Street, I will give you lessons in housekeeping. This place had better be rented; you cannot keep it up otherwise. Katherine, what have you been buying?”

The lady had risen and had been walking p. 21about the room on a tour of inspection, while she thus criticised. She was standing now in a little recess formed by the window curtain. On a table within it was the silversmith’s box, the lid half off, and in the paper which had wrapped it, the address “Miss Katherine Starr” being in full view. The tissue papers which covered the contents were ruthlessly drawn aside by Mrs. Wentworth Ward, and the silver mirror exposed to view.

“Surely you have not been buying this!” she exclaimed, holding it up and looking first at her own countenance reflected in the one side and then at the large monogram of “K. R. S.” engraved upon the frosted surface of the other.

“Why yes, Aunt Sophia! Why not?” returned her niece.

“How much did you give for it?”

“That is an awfully odd question, Aunt Sophia, but fortunately I don’t mind telling you. It was only fifteen dollars. It is a gem, isn’t it, for the price? And it matches the rest of my silver beautifully.”

“But where did you get the money to buy such a thing as this with?”

p. 22“Aunt Sophia! My own money, of course.”

“Your own money! Then let me tell you, Katherine, that there is very little money for you to call your own, and none to throw away on silver handglasses. I really don’t know what you are thinking of, nor Dickinson Abbott, either! When you come to live with me I shall teach you economy.”

“When we do!” murmured Katherine, as she replaced the glass in its wrappings and put it back in the box. Fortunately the rustle of the paper rendered her remark inaudible.

“Honor, it is absurd!” continued Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “What do you mean by allowing Katherine to spend money in this way? You are simply a parcel of children, and it is more than time that there was some one to keep you in order.”

“Katherine has a perfect right to spend her money as she pleases, Aunt Sophia,” said Honor. She had been remonstrating sharply with her sister upon this very subject before the arrival of their aunt, but now she warmly espoused her cause in the presence of their common enemy. “It is her money. I have nothing to say about it.”

p. 23And she again removed the stopper of the camphor bottle.

“Nonsense! you are the eldest of the family, and the responsibility lies with you. That eternal application of camphor is bad for you, Honor. It does not really cure you, either. The relief is only temporary.”

“It may be temporary, but is very pleasant,” said Honor; “as pleasant as anything can be when one has a bad cold.”

“You will come to me the first of December,” continued Mrs. Ward, paying no further attention to these matters of minor importance, but reverting to her chief topic. “Peter and the younger girls will go next week to school, as the term has begun, and no time should be lost. It will be just as well to have them out of the way when you are closing up here.”

“But, Aunt Sophia,” cried Honor, “you can’t really mean all this! Why should we do it? Why should we leave our home? Why can’t we stay on here as our dear father intended we should? I am twenty-one, and quite capable of looking after the others, and the children are well placed at school. You are very kind to make all p. 24these arrangements for us, but though we thank you very much, we don’t want to accept them. We prefer to stay as we are.”

“Victoria, kindly see if the carriage has come back for me. I told the man to be here without fail,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward, snapping the lid of her watch as she spoke. “Katherine, help me with my cloak, if you please. Is it dry? Ah, yes, Honor, when you see Dickinson Abbott, you will be made to understand why these arrangements have become necessary. It is easy to talk of living on here, but it requires money to do that—money, and you have scarcely a cent. The carriage has come, Victoria? Very well, then, good-bye! Tell Peter he should have come in to see me. You will hear from me again next week. In the meantime you had better begin your packing. I will come out and help you to put the house in order to let. I am sorry I have not time to stay longer, but after all, further discussion is unnecessary.”

And again the front door was opened, again the northeast wind blew in, and Mrs. Wentworth Ward of Boston went out.

The door had scarcely closed behind her when p. 25that leading from the back of the house to the hall was carefully opened, and a boy’s face appeared at the crack.

“Has she gone?” inquired the owner of the face in a loud whisper. “I say, Vic, has she gone?”

But Victoria did not reply. She had hastened to rejoin her sisters in the dining-room after bidding her aunt good-bye, and they were now looking at one another in consternation. What did Aunt Sophia mean?

Peter, seeing for himself that the coast was clear, sauntered into the room.

p. 26CHAPTER II. THE STARRS HOLD A FAMILY COUNCIL.

Peter Starr was the only boy among four sisters. Had he been questioned closely upon the subject, he probably would have replied, “Yes, and there are four too many!” This is what he would have said, perhaps, but it is doubtful if such a reply would have been altogether truthful. Peter’s sisters were very useful to him, at times, although there were occasions when it would have been pleasant to do exactly that which he, and he alone, wished to do, instead of being dragged in four different directions by the conflicting opinions of his four sisters.