Five Little Peppers Grown Up

"Dear me, Phronsie," cried the old gentleman, whirling around in his big chair to look at her, "why, they aren't all in, child," glancing down the aisle where Jasper as chief us...

Mrs. Higby looked as if she were about to throw her apron over her head again. "You blessed child!" she exclaimed, half-crying and allowing her hands to rest on the rim of the d...

A roaring sound close to her ear made Polly start, and open her eyes. Johnny's fat arms were clutched around her neck so tightly she could scarcely breathe, while he was screami...

"Well, then, if Polly says so, it must have been left at home," said the old gentleman, "and there's no use in my going to look over the luggage," he groaned.

"She'll be no end of bother to you, I know," said Jasper. "And you must take her everywhere, Polly, and look out for her. What was father thinking of?" He could not conceal his...

"So I do love my work," cried Jasper in a glow, "but, Polly," and he sprang to his feet and walked away so that she couldn't see his face, "I thought that you were going to say...

"Now remember, girls," cried Alexia, rushing at the toilet table to bestow frantic twitches at the fluffy waves of hair over her forehead, "that we must applaud the very minute...

"Yes. Now this is good to see you!" exclaimed Jasper, joyfully leaping from his chair to seize Pickering's hand. "Well, what brought you? There's nothing wrong?" he asked, anxio...

"Ah--King-Fisher, how is that? Do you want a Christmas Tree?" Jasper dropped to all-fours by the side of the white bundle in the center of the library rug, as he propounded the...

"Dear me!" exclaimed Polly, turning off in dismay, "it seems so--so unfair to Mr. Bayley. Mightn't it be just as if he hadn't spoken, Mamsie?" She came back now to her mother's...

"You see it is just this way," Amy twisted her fingers together, drew her breath hard, and rushed on nervously; "Jack--he's my brother, you know--promised me--I never told you--...

"Dobbs heads it, as he did the first one," said Percy; "they've changed their tactics, and will get at Joe on their way home from that confounded meeting. Dave, can't you keep h...

"Halloo, King, Mr. Marlowe wants you." Jasper, his hands full of papers, hurried down the long warehouse, through the piles of books, fresh from the bindery, stacked closely to...

"Everything is beautiful, King dear," she would say on such little flying visits to the nursery. "Grandpapa and Polly, I do think, will be home pretty soon; and Helen is going t...

"I am glad I sent Jasper ahead to the hotel; I much rather pop in on the boys by myself," soliloquized the old gentleman in great satisfaction. "Ah, here it is," beginning to mo...

"You here?" cried Joel, whirling in surprise. "Come out of your hole, Dave," peering into the niche between the book-shelves and the bed. "What are you prowling in there for?"

"Father," begged Jasper in a low voice, and putting his hand on the old gentleman's arm, such a world of entreaty in his face, that his father turned in spite of himself.

"Pickering will like these," she said to herself in great satisfaction, and surveying her torn frock with composure, "for they are the very first, Mrs. Higby," addressing that i...

Mr. Whitney tapped his knee with a letter he had just placed within its envelope, then threw it on the table. "It's the best job I ever did," he cried jubilantly, "to get Jasper...

"It's perfectly dreadful," cried Alexia Rhys, wrinkling her brows, "to try to get up anything with Polly away. If we only had Joel to help us, that would be something"--

"Well, I want to tell you something," began Polly radiantly, thinking it better to cheer him up a bit with her news before getting at the root of his trouble. "Do you know that...

Jack Loughead marched into his uncle's room. "Well--well--well," exclaimed the old gentleman with a prolonged look, and sitting straight in his chair. "So this really is you, Ja...

"It's Polly Pepper!" ejaculated Mr. Cabot. Then a light broke over his face, and he laughed aloud, he was so pleased. "You mean, you are in love with Polly Pepper?"

"I do believe something is in the room with Charlotte," she said, as Polly came running up the stairs. Then she sat down on the top step and clasped her hands. "I heard it ragin...