A borrowed sister

Lois Page, who had been an only child all her life, was to have a borrowed sister for the space of a year or more, and the prospect filled her with keen delight. If she had searched the wide world over she could not have found a more congenial sister than Jessie Matthews. Lois was equally fond of Ellen Morgan, and Ellen was a more stimulating friend, but Ellen had an uncertain temper, which would make living with her a torment, as well as a joy, while Jessie was as serene as a summer morning.

There was only one person who was not wholly satisfied with the arrangement, and this was Ellen. She sat on the edge of one of the beds in Lois’s room, and criticised her arrangements in an aggravating way, while Lois was clearing out two drawers in her bureau.

“I should think you would rather have Jessie in the spare room,” said Ellen finally. “It is dreadful to have so little room for one’s things.”

Lois, with a pile of petticoats in her arms, looked up in surprise.

“Why, that’s the joy of it all, Ellen. That’s the best part. Always having somebody to talk to when you go to bed, and when you wake up in the morning. You’ve always had a sister, and so you don’t understand how lonely it is to be all by yourself. It is the loveliest thing that ever happened to me,” she added, with strong emphasis.

Ellen had borne as much as she could. “I think it is perfectly horrid,” said she.

Lois was pulling open the lower drawer in the bureau and crowding in the petticoats. She looked up in bewildered surprise.

“I thought you loved Jessie,” she said.

“I like her well enough,” returned Ellen, who was in truth very fond of Jessie, “but I think it is perfectly horrid for you to have her living with you. You’ll have such a good time every single minute that you won’t care any more about me.”

Lois came over and sat down on the edge of the bed and put her arms around Ellen. “Why, Ellen, you dear thing!” she exclaimed. Lois loved her friends so intensely that it never seemed possible they could care equally for her, and this admission from the self-reliant Ellen, who was such a favorite, filled her with an amazed joy.

“I shall care just as much for you,” Lois said. “It will be the same as it is with you and Anne. And there will be four of us to do things together.”

“I shall expect to play with you every single day,” said Ellen.

“Why, of course.”

“And I don’t want you to like Jessie any better than you like me; I couldn’t stand that. I know she’s ever so much nicer, and I don’t see how you can help it.”

“I love you both dearly,” said Lois.

After this the atmosphere was cleared, and Ellen began to take an interest in the preparation of Lois’s closet.

“Do you think she’ll like the right-hand side or the left-hand side best?” asked Lois, who always needed a great deal of advice from her friends.

“The right-hand side is lots more convenient, because it is over next the shelves.”

“But the left-hand side has that extra row of hooks across the end, and she has so many more dresses than I have.”

Lois paused irresolutely, with a pink frock in one hand and a brown one in the other.

“I don’t see how you ever get anything done, it takes you so long to decide,” said Ellen impatiently.

“It does take me a good while,” Lois admitted apologetically.

Her tone softened Ellen, and she helped Lois move her dresses, deciding that Jessie should have rather more than half of the right-hand side of the closet.

Lois and Ellen wanted to do all they could to make Jessie’s arrival a cheerful one.

“I am going to the greenhouse to buy some flowers for Jessie,” Ellen said. “She loves flowers. Won’t you come with me?”

The two children went out into the world that was beginning to be made over new by a gentle April shower. Lois reflected, as she closed the door, that it was almost a year from the first time that she and Ellen had met. Lois remembered how lonely she had been because Daisy, her best friend, had gone away forever, and then almost as soon as the door closed to shut Daisy out, it opened to let Ellen in. Lois felt very thankful and happy, as they went along the village street. They stopped at Ellen’s house and unlocked a battered bank that she had owned for many years. She had refused to have Lois go shares with her in the matter of the flowers, and so Lois quietly dropped in a ten-cent piece through the slit in the top while Ellen was taking out two ten-cent pieces from the door at the back.

“Lois Page!” she protested. “I wanted it to be all my present.”

“It is,” said Lois. “But I guess I’ve a right to put my money in a savings’ bank, if I like. It is a good safe bank.”

Ellen had so little money that Lois could not bear to have her squander twenty cents so recklessly.

Ellen’s formidable brothers were coming in at the gate as the two little girls were going out. In the winter, when Lois had stayed under the Morgans’ hospitable roof, she had grown to be good friends with these boys, but now that she had not seen them for some time her old shyness returned.

“Hullo,” said Amyas and Reuben.

“Hullo,” said Lois in a faint voice. She dropped her eyes and did not look at them as she and Ellen passed through the gate.

When the children reached the greenhouse they were speechless at first in their admiration, for there was such a brilliant array of flowers.

“What are you going to get for Jessie?” Lois inquired.

“Pink roses,” said Ellen, who generally had her mind made up. She glanced at a jar full of them as she spoke. “How much are they a dozen?” she asked.

“Two dollars,” replied the black-haired girl behind the counter.

“Two dollars!” Ellen’s face fell. “Then six would be a dollar,” she added after a moment’s hesitation.

“Yes.”

“And for twenty cents”--the calculation was too intricate. Ellen looked up with a puzzled frown. “How many could I have for twenty cents?”

“One. They are twenty cents apiece.”