CHAPTER V.

THE INVASION OF THE AMAZONS.

MARGERY arose from her night of terror armed with the courage of desperation. There were two letters in the post that morning addressed in her stiff little handwriting to Lady Catharine Seyton and Mrs. Peace Plenty. They were precisely alike, except in the address, and ran thus:

"The Lady Griselda of the Castle of the Lonely Lake requests you to meet her at the elm at the corner of the convent grounds after school to do something for the public safety."

Margery herself carried them to school and gave them to their owners, for it was her first day as postmistress.

"They were marked 'Immediate,' so I delivered them," she said to Trix and Amy, in the character of postmistress, with fine assumption of ignorance as to their contents.

Amy found her waiting with Trix when she appeared at the trysting-place a trifle late.

"Now she's come; what is it, Margery?" demanded Trix, who never could endure waiting, and had been fuming because Margery would not speak until Amy had arrived.

"It means that I can't stand this another moment," Margery burst out, glad to express her feelings. "I wouldn't be so scared every night as I was last night for anything. I want you to go with me to the Dismals, and see if that man's as bad as Katie says."

"I wouldn't go for the world," declared Amy, blanching at the thought.

"Nor I," echoed daring Trix. "You're such a scared cat, Margery, I don't see what you want to go for."

"It's because I am a scared cat," said Margery. "I'm afraid not to go. I should think you'd dare what I dare, Trix Lane, when you're always talking about being a boy."

"I suppose Jack would think we were brave," remarked Trix slowly.

She and Jack were engaged in a sort of perpetual "stump" as to which should outdo the other.

Margery saw an advantage here.

"Of course he would," she said. "He'd never dare say again that girls were cowards."

"But I am," said Amy candidly, "and I couldn't say I wasn't. Still, if you go, Margery, I'll go with you."

"You dear thing," cried Margery, giving her an enthusiastic hug.

"I'll go; I'd like to," said Trix hastily, trying to retrieve her reputation.

"Then we'll start right now," Margery declared. "Don't you see that I'm afraid to go, but I'm more afraid to stay away, because we _must_ know what's there? If I had to lie awake nights thinking about the hump-backed witch and the evil eye without seeing them I'd be a raving lumanic."

Margery meant lunatic or maniac, it is not clear which.

The desperate band of amazons started valiantly down the street. As they neared the Evergreens their pace slackened, but they did not halt. Margery, the coward, went steadily on, and the others were ashamed not to follow. They entered "the Dismals" by a less frequented way than the gate--in fact, they crawled through an opening in the fence, and concealed themselves not far from the back door, in the long grass that had not been cut for many summers.

"My heart beats so I know he'll think some one's knocking," whispered poor Amy, and to Margery's additional alarm Trix giggled hysterically.

"Oh, keep quiet, and just pray," she whispered.

Presently an old woman appeared, and the agonized trio noted that she carried a broom. But she certainly was not hunchbacked, but a slender, tiny old woman, with a smiling face, and she began using the broom in a most un-witchlike manner to clear off the back stoop.

In spite of themselves the children felt a little reassured, but their fear returned when they saw a man come around the corner. He walked slowly, and they soon saw that this was because he read as he walked. A spaniel ran ahead of him, and came back, barking wildly.

"Why, Sheila, I'm ashamed of you," said the man, closing his book, with one finger inside, and shaking the little volume at the excited dog. "How often must I tell you that I will never help you to catch birds, and much less in June, when they have families to look after?"

His voice sounded kindly, and even sweet; his eyes were brown, and looked affectionately at the little dog. As Amy said afterward, "Neither looked like an evil eye." Comfort began to come to the three palpitating little hearts in the grass, and though they dared not whisper it to each other, the conviction struck them that there must have been a mistake. Just then Sheila, the spaniel, ran towards them, barking in quite a different tone, and so sharply that her master turned to follow her.

"That does not sound like birds, Sheila," he said. "What have you found?"

In an agony no words could represent the three valiant amazons lay quaking till they saw that the little dog had really scented them, and was leading her master straight to them. Breaking cover like three startled quails they precipitately took to their heels, to the surprise of both dog and man.

"Stop!" shouted the stranger. "Don't run, children; Sheila won't hurt you."

"But you might," thought the children, and fled faster, all their fear returning in their flight. Margery and Amy cleared the hole in the fence in rapid succession, but Trix, not liking to wait her turn to go through, tried to climb over, and stuck fast on a paling.

"If you leave me I'll die!" she shrieked to the other two, who were making off at a great rate. They turned and saw her face purple with fright, while the old woman, the man, and the little dog on the other side saw her long legs kicking so wildly that they looked several pairs instead of one. With heroism, genuine, if unnecessary, Margery and Amy stopped and turned back to their imprisoned comrade. They reached her head just as a hand touched her back. With a scream that made them sure that she had at least been stabbed, Trix made one last, desperate effort to get away, and was still.

"Let me help you," said the man gently. "Pray, don't be so frightened. Indeed, my little dog would never hurt you, and as soon as I can get you off she shall apologize for frightening you so badly."

So saying he extricated Trix's dress, and set her on her feet. His touch was so careful that Trix plucked up heart to look at him. He was not old, he was not ugly. Trix felt sure that if she had met him elsewhere and otherwise she should have liked him.

"Weren't there more little girls?" he asked, laughing. "It seemed to me a dozen started up from the grass when Sheila barked."

"Two, sir," Trix murmured faintly. "They are on the other side."

He came closer, and looked over.

"Please come back a moment, and let Sheila apologize," he said, and Margery and Amy dared not refuse.

They crawled back, and the man turned to the dog.

"Sit up, Sheila; say you're very sorry," he commanded.

Sheila sat up at once and whined.

"Now go shake hands all round," said her master.

Sheila rose on her hind feet and walked to each in turn, offering her little brown right paw, which they accepted, almost forgetting their fears.

"Now won't you come back and rest?" asked the man.

"Oh! no, thank you," the three little girls said in chorus, as if they had been rehearsing it, turning at once towards the opening in the fence.

"Then good-by," said the man. "Sheila and I are a bit lonely here, and we should be very glad to have you come again--when you can stay longer," he added, with such a merry twinkle of the eye that Trix could not help responding with a laugh, and all replied, "Thank you," in much better spirits, and went away quite enchanted with the mysterious tenant.

The more they thought over their adventure, the more they found their new acquaintance delightful, and the faster they hurried to look up Jack to vaunt their courage to him, and tell him the facts about their bugaboo. Great was Jack's amazement as he listened, and his admiration for their pluck was satisfactory even to Trix.

But the next day Jack had a piece of news for them that restored the balance of importance among them, and re-established Jack's self-esteem, which had been a little lowered by the brave deed of the girls.

"Well, what do you suppose I know?" he asked, coming down the orchard where the girls were putting the post-office to rights, the day after the invasion of "the Dismals."

"That wouldn't take long to tell," replied Trix saucily.

"You may have seen the man at the Dismals, but I know who he is," Jack continued, ignoring Trix.

"Who?" cried each of the girls.

"Guess," said Jack.

"An escaped bandit," exclaimed Trix.

"An officer of the society that takes care of animals," said Amy, who had been much impressed by the stranger's goodness to Sheila.

"An exiled prince," cried Margery, returning to her first idea.

"All wrong!" shouted Jack triumphantly. "Not even warm. I'll tell you what happened last night. I was reading in the library, and papa and mamma were there, and pretty soon I went to sleep. And after a while I woke up enough to hear them talking, and papa said: 'Well, it must be that he has some motive for coming back here, for no one would choose to live in such a dreary place as the Evergreens without reason.' That woke me up, and I pricked up my ears to listen. 'You know it was his grandfather's place,' mamma said; and papa said: 'But, my dear, people rarely live alone in a tumble-down house for their grandfather's sake.' Mamma said: 'No, I think as you do, it must be something to do with Isabel that brought him back here. Then papa said: 'It would be queer if they were to marry, and be happy after all this time, like story-book people.' And mamma said she loved Miss Isabel so much, and she was so good and sweet, that she should be more glad of happiness for her than for almost anything else in the world. And she said she thought Mr. Robert Dean was a good man. And then my old book tumbled down, and mamma said low: 'Don't let Jack hear anything of this;' and she said to me: 'Jack, dear, don't you think you'd better go to bed?' And I didn't think so, but I had to go. And now, do you know who that man is?"

"No," said Amy, bewildered.

"Why, is he Mr. Robert Dean?" asked Trix, immediately adding: "I don't know who Mr. Dean is, though."

But Margery looked greatly excited.

"Is he the one Miss Isabel was going to marry, ever so long ago, when she was going to live in that house near yours, Jack?" she asked.

"Right you are, Peggy," said Jack. "He's come back to take Miss Isabel away, I'll bet you, and so he is a robber, and we were right in the first place."

Trix assented cordially.

"He'd better not try to take Miss Isabel off!" she said fiercely.

Amy and Margery took another view.

"May be she likes him, and would be glad to see him again," said Amy. "Maybe she'd rather have him come back."

And Margery said firmly: "I don't want any one to take Miss Isabel away, but if she would be happier, we must not say one word."

"Much he'd care what we said," muttered Jack wrathfully.

"Yes," said Margery, "but we mustn't say it anyway. We'll go to see him, for he asked us to, and we'll see if he is nice, and then we won't care if he does marry Miss Isabel. We'll be glad because she's glad, and we won't let her know once how we feel about it."

Margery's voice had been growing more and more quavering, and as she ceased speaking she sat down on the grass and cried as though her heart would break. The others looked at her in silence.

They could not make up their minds to give up Miss Isabel, even for her happiness; but, on the other hand, they could not cry so tempestuously at the thought of losing her.

"Never mind, Margery; you'll have us," said Amy, sitting down by her and putting her arm around her.

"Yes; but you're none of you Miss Isabel. But I'll be glad, very glad," said Margery, with a fresh burst of tears.