Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/266

244 “They” did “all guess it.” There was the silence that is the truest applause for an instant, then the garden rang with shouts of: “Ophelia! Ophelia!” to the accompaniment of clapping hands.

Mary had urged that Joel Bell be bidden to bring his children to see the festival which he had, indirectly, suggested. The three little Bells were small, in varying degrees of smallness, down to the baby, who, Joel had said: “Was ’most two.” They ranged from her up past another girl of four, to the boy, who was six. Tucked away in a safe vantage corner for seeing, unseen, the three small Bells had bewilderedly watched many things and people which they could by no means understand, had enjoyed the music, but had finally settled down to adoration of the lanterns swaying in the breeze, as the crown and glory, the wonder and beauty, beyond all the other beautiful wonders which enveloped their awe-struck minds. The baby was too young for her awe to strike lastingly deep. Several times she escaped her sister’s and brother’s competent vigilance and sallied forth from their post, only to be caught and brought back, her protests muffled, not soothed, by firm little hands clapped over her wide-open mouth.