The youngest girl, Katherine, our friend Tommy, was thin and wiry in build, somewhat short for her years, with small black twinkling eyes, and a little head running over with golden curls. Her chief characteristic so far was an endless capacity for getting into scrapes. A demon of mischief always seemed lurking in the twinkling depths of her merry eyes. Just now they danced with excitement, as she said: "Well, of all the cool customers you must be the coolest, Mary, to stand there waiting, and never to change a hair, or look over the paper in Elizabeth's hand, or anything. Oh dear! Oh dear! what can you be made of? Dear old Uncle Ben is coming home, coming home, coming home!" and catching Mary by the waist, she sang, "Waltz me round, Mary, waltz me round," and twirled her sister round and round until she was completely out of breath.
"Do make her stop it, Bess," besought Mary gaspingly.
"Tommy darling, do try to be a bit sensible," said Elizabeth, with a smile.
"Not I!" said Tommy, "why should be sensible?" as she gave Mary's pigtail a tug.
Elizabeth, recognizing Tommy's mood, and fearing there would be "ructions" presently, tactfully put her arm about her gay-hearted, mischievous small sister, and led the way indoors.
This was not the first time by any means that Elizabeth had acted as peacemaker in the Westmacott family. When she was quite a child, and Tommy a mere baby, she had often been called by Mrs. Pratt, the housekeeper, to see if she could induce "that plaguy young limb" to behave herself. Later on, Elizabeth had, times without number, pleaded with her father not to be so angry, or quite so severe, with his youngest girl, however trying the child might be; and Mr. Westmacott, seeing that Elizabeth thoroughly understood "the imp of mischief," as he called her the day he had been obliged to summon all hands on the farm to rescue her and her pony from a bog, left her more and more to his eldest daughter's care. Then when Tommy was old enough to accompany her sisters to "lessons" at the Vicarage, again Elizabeth had to pour oil on troubled waters, for the vicar, an old friend of her father's, who had undertaken the education of the three girls, and whose word had hitherto been taken as law, often became very irritable when Tommy would argue instead of accepting facts. As Tommy increased in stature, she became, under Elizabeth's wise guidance, more and more amenable to reason, but she never lost her absolute fearlessness and independence.