"We'll just have to send Cloudy away awhile, or put her to bed and pretend she is sick every time he comes, or something!" said Leslie one night, after his departure had made them free to express their feelings. "We've tried everything else. He just won't take a hint! What do you say, Cloudy; will you play sick?"
"My dear!" said Julia Cloud aghast, "he doesn't come to see me! What on earth put that in your head?" Her face was flaming scarlet, and distress showed in every feature.
The children fairly shouted.
"You dear, old, blind Cloudy, of course he does! Who on earth else would he come to see?"
"But," said Julia Cloud, tears coming into her eyes, "he mustn't. I don't want to see him! Mercy!"
"That's all right, Cloudy; you should worry! I'll go tell him so if you want me to."
"Allison! You wouldn't!" said Julia Cloud, aghast.
"No, of course not, Cloudy, but we'll find a way to get rid of the old pill if we have to move away for a while."
Nevertheless, the old pill continued to come early and often, and there seemed no escape; for he was continually stealing in on their privacy at the most unexpected times and acting as if he were sure of a welcome. The children froze him, and were rude, and Julia Cloud withdrew farther and farther; but nothing seemed to faze him.
"It's too bad to have so much sweetness wasted," mocked Leslie one night at the supper-table when their unwelcome visitor had been a subject of discussion. "Miss Detliff is eating her heart out for him. She's always noseying round in the hall when his class is out, and it's about time for hers to begin, just to get a word with him. She kept us waiting for our papers ten whole minutes the other day while she discussed better classroom ventilation with him. 'O Doctah, don't you think we might do something about this mattah of ventilation?'" she mimicked, convulsing Allison with her likeness to her English teacher.
"That's an idea!" said Allison suddenly. "No, don't ask me what it is. It would spoil things. Cloudy, may I bring a guest to dinner to-morrow night?"
"Certainly, anybody you please," replied Julia Cloud innocently; and the incorrigible Allison appeared the next afternoon with Miss Detliff, smiling and pleased, sitting up in the back seat of the car. Julia Cloud received her graciously, and never so much as suspected anything special was going on until later in the evening, when Dr. Bowman arrived and was ushered in to find his colaborer there before him. He did not look especially pleased, and Julia Cloud caught a glance of intelligence passing between Leslie and Allison, with a sudden revelation of a plot behind it all. During the entire evening she sat quietly, saying little, but her eyes dancing with the fun of it. What children they were, and how she loved them! yes, and what a child she was herself! for she couldn't help loving their pranks as well as they did.