onel said, little thinking with what
strides the shock was hastening on, or through what channel it was to
come.

CHAPTER XV

AT THE RUMMAGE

The rooms were ready at last, and twenty tired ladies went through them
to see that every thing was in its proper place, and then went home with
high anticipations of the morrow and what it would bring. It opened most
propitiously and was one of those soft, balmy September days, more like
early June than autumn. There were brisk sales and crowds of people all
day, with the probability of greater crowds and brisker sales in the
evening. Jack Harcourt was in and out, watching the sale of what his
sister had sent, drinking cups of chocolate every time a pretty girl
asked him to do so, and buying toys and picture books and candy, and
distributing them among the children gathered around the door and
windows. He thought he had looked at everything on sale, but had failed
to find the white apron. Where was it? he wondered. He would not ask
Ruby Ann or Mrs. Biggs, as that would be giving himself away. It would
certainly be there in the evening when he was to bring Eloise in her
chair. He had settled that with Tim, who gave up rather unwillingly, but
was consoled by being hired as errand boy,--an office he could not have
filled had he been hampered with a wheel chair.

The night was glorious, with a moon near its full, and a little before
seven Jack presented himself at Mrs. Biggs's, finding Eloise ready and
alone. Tim was at the rooms, running hither and thither at everybody's
beck and call, and his mother was there, running the whole
thing,--judging from her manner as she moved among the crowd filling the
rooms nearly to suffocation. Eloise had more than once changed her mind
about going, as she sat waiting for Jack. She was shy with strangers,
and there would be so many there, and she would be so conspicuous in her
chair, with Mr. Harcourt in attendance, that she began to doubt the
propriety of going.

"If it were Tim who was to take me, I believe I should feel
differently," she was thinking, when Jack came in, breezy and
excited,--full of the Rummage and anxious to be off.

"You are ready, I see," he said. "That's right. We have no time to lose.
And there's no end of fun. I've been there half the day, and drank
chocolate, and eaten cake and candy till I never want to see any more.
But you will."

He was adjusting her dress and getting the chair in motion as he talked,