Three Pretty Maids

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?”

Then the door burst open and Persis Holmes appeared.

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?” Mrs. Holmes asked. “At the rate at which you are travelling I think you will go straight through the wall. Where are the others?”

Persis laughed. “I am going at something of a gait,” she replied. “I always do that way. I can’t be stately to save me. Where are the others? Let me see. Lisa was too dignified to run home, and Mellicent is so daft about Audrey Vane that she must walk home with her every day, consequently I,—only I,—the unqueenly, the unsentimental, am here, as you see, to get the kiss you have all fresh for me.” And Persis gave her mother a vigorous hug.

“I’m not sure but that you have more real sentiment than your sisters,” replied Mrs. Holmes, as she disengaged herself from the close hold of her daughter’s arms.

“I?” exclaimed Persis, opening her eyes very wide. “Why, mamma, I am the most practical child you have. Don’t I fly into the kitchen when Prue is out, and with real housewifely mind make gingerbread and ‘other country messes,’ like the neat-handed Phyllis in L’Allegro? And doesn’t papa always send me to pay bills when he cannot go himself? And—why, mamma, I’m not queenly like Lisa, nor seraphic like Mellicent. I am just plain me, the least good-looking of your trio. I am the mortal, Lisa the queen, Mellicent the fairy. But a mortal can love you just as hard; can’t she, mamma?”

“Very hard,” laughed her mother, as a kindling glance of Persis’s eye showed signs of a second energetic attack.

“I spare you, mamma! I spare you,” began Persis. “Here comes Lisa. I must go and hunt up something to eat. I am half starved. Heigho, Miss Dignity! I beat you home, didn’t I?”

“I should hope so, if it depended upon my making a tom-boy of myself in order to get here first,” replied Lisa, lifting her hat from off her well-set little head. “Mamma, you have no idea what a terror Persis is. She romps home like a great hulk of a peasant girl.”

“Lisa was so mad because I tagged her ‘last,’” laughed Persis. “Lady Dignity was covered with confusion to that extent that you could scarcely see her.”

“Mamma, do make her behave properly,” entreated Lisa. “I shall choose some one else with whom to walk if this continues,” she said, imperiously, to her sister, who made a little grimace and escaped from the room.

“Persis is perfectly incorrigible,” continued Lisa, giving a gentle pat to the curling locks about her temples as she glanced toward the mirror.

“Oh, never mind her, dear,” advised her mother; “she is full of life and as spontaneous as the flowers that grow. I don’t believe in too much self-repression. How is Mellicent’s headache?”

“Headache! She trumped it up. I don’t believe she had any to speak of. It wasn’t so bad but what she could traipse all the way home in the sun with Audrey Vane.”

“My dear, you are in a very fault-finding humor, it seems to me,” gently reproved Mrs. Holmes. “You have been working too hard and are hungry. I think you will feel better when you are rested and have taken a bit of something to eat.”

“It is such a bother to go and get it. I hate fussing with food and that sort of thing,” grumbled Lisa, throwing herself on the lounge.

“Well, lady fine, you don’t have to fuss,” said Persis, who had just entered the room with a tray in her hand. “Will your majesty deign to trifle with this humble fare which your cringing slave has brought you?” And Persis set the tray on a chair by her sister’s side.

“Oh, that looks good,” exclaimed Lisa, raising herself on her elbow. “What kind of preserves, Perse? Strawberry? That will be fine with biscuits and that glass of milk.” And she looked with appreciation at the dainty way in which Persis had prepared the modest luncheon. “Persis is a born housekeeper,” she said, graciously. “She has the most domestic turn of mind, mamma. I wonder that she has so good a record at school,” with a little air of superiority.

Persis’s eyes danced, and it was evident that a sharp rejoinder was on the tip of her tongue; but at a warning glance from her mother she refrained from answering Lisa, and turned to greet Mellicent, who now entered the room. She was the youngest of the three daughters, and many persons thought her the prettiest. Her delicate complexion, large blue eyes, and golden hair truly gave her a spirituelle appearance, upon which the little girl quite prided herself, and of which she was apt to make capital. She had been rather delicate as a small child, and never quite outgrew the idea that, in consequence, she must always be considered.

Lisa, the eldest, on her part, demanded with great exactness what she called “her rights.” She was a tall, handsome girl, with brilliant complexion, brown eyes, and soft curling chestnut hair. Her girl friends pronounced her “so stylish,” and envied her fine presence.

Persis was quite aware of the superior claims of her two sisters, and when quite a little girl she was discovered by her grandmother looking very thoughtful and serious before her mirror. Grandmother Estabrook was a dear old lady, rather given to old-fashioned ideas of what was meet and proper for children to do, and on this occasion she spoke with decision.