“Butit isn’t like you to mope, Gloria,” reasoned Trixy, with a suspicion of reproof.
“I know, Trix, but I just feel I am—country!”
“If you mean natural, I’ll agree. The city has a knack of artifice. But why you should let a word from that feather brain, Jean, so affect you?”
“It wasn’t that alone. I’ve felt ever since I came that Hazel had branded me as the poor relation, the little orphan Annie——”
“Oh, Hazel isn’t really mean——”
“No, but she’s so high and mighty that her very compliments sting,” argued the miserable Gloria. “Truly, Trix, I don’t care a rap for myself, but I’ve been selfish about you. They didn’t ask you to ride yesterday, I noticed.”
“I had a glorious canter before their old horses were out of the stalls,” flung back Trixy. “Ihate riding in a crowd. It’s like travelling with a party. Every move is subject to the schedule, prearranged. Besides, I made a discovery while out on my run, and if you are a good girl I’ll disclose it to you.”
“Be a lamb and tell me the glad tidings,” coaxed Gloria. “I’m just dying for something new. Don’t you hate the rules and regulations that put us asleep, wake us up, feed us, think for us——”
“Gloria Doane! You little wild oriole, with your black head and new sweater!” laughed Trixy. “I’m afraid you really do need the Altmount discipline. You have been such a free little creature all your life.” Trixy looked absently out the window over the wavering trees, some already leafless, others gorgeously colorful. She was remembering Gloria Doane at her seaside, Barbend home, and again recalling the heroic Gloria, who a few months ago, had fought her way out of a flooded house, where with the little boy, Marty, she had become imprisoned. This was the great adventure related in “Gloria” and comparing the girl of such adventures with the one Trixy now confronted, it was not unreasonable indeed to find her rebelling, straining at thesilken cords of Altmount’s restrictions. But Trixy’s life had been very different. The child of wealth is born to responsibilities, and they scarcely ever include escapes from flooded cellars, or the rescue of frightened children surrounding helplessly sick mothers.
“You know, Gloria,” spoke Trixy again, “there really is a lot to learn here. We couldn’t expect to find everything rosy, that would mean deadly monotony.”
“Oh, I know I’m horrid to grumble,” promptly admitted Gloria, “but I do like to do things. There seems so little to do here except follow rules.”
“Why don’t you put on the charmed necklace? That might precipitate an adventure,” suggested Trixy.
“Put it on! No, indeedy. I’m glad it’s on your side of the curtain,” declared Gloria, “for I do get strange fancies concerning the thing. The more I try to solve the mystery of the original owner, the further I get from it. Do you suppose there is some one here not really a pupil——”
“Maggie?” mocked Trixy.
“No. Of course not Maggie. But there arerather queer folks sauntering around. There’s the official mender, for instance. That one who wears a wig to hide her shaved head, according to Pat. Now, she might really own a trunk, and those home-made beads look rather like her. Just imagine me wearing a gift from her.”
Trixy laughed uproariously at the possibility, and she finally decided with Gloria, that the necklace had better be kept in seclusion.
“But I had an adventure this morning,” again promised Trixy.
“Tell me about it,” begged Gloria. “Was there a nice woozy old tramp in it or, mayhap, a plumed knight?”
“Neither. But let’s take our constitutional. These walls—might have ears,” cautioned Trixy.
“So secret as that! Goody!” Gloria executed a little skip over to the curtained closet, snatched her cap off a hook and clapped it on her head. “Every one seems late this morning,” she remarked. “We can have the birch lane all to ourselves. Hurry and give me the thrill. I’m famished for it.”
But as they tried to slip out, more than one hail from peekers in doorways demanded to know whence and why, and evading the rebound of Pat,who dashed into the “lav” and intended to dash out again, was not altogether a simple matter. In fact, the tower stairs were finally used as a means of escape.
“Hurry!” whispered Trixy. “The side door is open.”
“Tell me!” begged Gloria. “I’m fairly quivering with expectancy.”
“It’s about Jack,” began Trixy, catching her breath.
“Is she back?”
“She must be. I saw her before breakfast.”
“Where?”
“That’s my story, but you’re spoiling it all with your unromantic questions. Please, as the witnesses say, let me tell it in my own way.”
“Proceed,” ordered Gloria, with a flourish of her free arm.
“You know I went out very early——”
“I do.”
“But I didn’t waken you. I heard you breathing awake long before.”
“Yes, I was awake. Really, Trix, I’m afraid I was a bit homesick. But never mind me. Can’t you feel me tr-r-r-em-bell, awaiting your story?”
“Walking at this pace is an absorbing occupation,” objected Trixy. “Let’s sit down and talk like civilized folks.”
A squat on the big rustic bench under the Twin Oaks didn’t look very civilized, but it was better for confidence than was racing.
“I was just turning in with ‘Whirlwind’ (he’s a lovely little horse,) when I saw or rather heard a party trotting along from the Sound Road,” began Trixy. “They were on a regular trot and coming like the wind. I pulled to one side to let them pass, and that put me behind the line of low cedars. They couldn’t see me but I faced them——”
“Who?”
“I only recognized one. Jack. You should have seen her! She looked like a poster girl.”
“Jack!”
“Yes. Her hair was loose, it must have fallen from under her hat, a brown felt, and her habit! It wasn’t a habit at all, but shirt and trousers like a regular little Broncho Billy!”
“Our Jack——”
“Yes, indeed. I might not have believed my eyes if my ears hadn’t helped. Just as her horse swung into the lane she called to him. It wascertainly Jack’s voice,” declared Trixy, still mildly excited over the unusual encounter.
“And who was with her? You said others——” prompted Gloria, foreseeing an interesting escapade in Jack’s assuming the rôle of a Broncho Billy.
“Yes, there was a woman and she also was an expert rider, besides—now get a good long breath, Glo, you’ll need it,” warned Trixy. “The other member of the wild rider’stroupewas a perfectly stunning looking young fellow.”
“Oh, how delightful! Oh, how exciting,” sighed Gloria. “How ever has Jack kept such a plot all to herself?”
“Perhaps she hasn’t. You forget we are comparative strangers.”
“And out of the confidence club,” a hint of yesterday’s bitterness flashed through that remark.
“But what particularly struck me,” resumed Trixy, ignoring the cynicism, “was the wonderful mounts, the absolute expertness of those three riders. They certainly are professionals,” she insisted.
“Oh, I have it!” exclaimed Gloria. “My trunk mystery! Jack belongs to—to a troupe!”
“A troupe!” For a moment Trixy was mystified.
“You know,” insisted Gloria, “the strange trunk I opened? And all the—glittering stuff?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. You—we have never solved that mystery——”
“And Jack is always so sort of spectacular! Oh Trix, do you really think she might belong to a circus?”
“A circus! How ever could a circus performer get into Altmount?”
“That’s so. This is rather an exclusive place. I recall that your mother had to vouch for me.”
“Gloria Doane! You are a perfect little simpleton! No one had tovouchfor you. Your own mother attended one of the Alton schools and her name was an excellent voucher. All my mater had to do was to——”
“Say she knew me, and my dad, and all the rest of the family!” Scorn mocked the words.
Trixy tossed her head back impatiently. Gloria’s humility was plainly far from genuine, but she swung quickly to her friend’s side and threw an affectionate arm around her.
“Darling Trix,” she whispered. “I am getting to be a horrid prig, I know it. Just plainvanity, of course. But for mercy sakes, tell me about Jack’s chariot race. We’ll have to go indoors directly and I haven’t heard half.”
“There really isn’t any more to tell,” replied Trixy. She smiled forgiveness into Gloria’s eyes, however. “They had ridden a long distance, that was evident, and I just wish you could have seen what a raving beauty Jack looked.”
“War paint.”
“Strange I never thought of that, I do believe she might have had some queer color on her face——”
“What fun!” cried Gloria, springing to her feet and threatening to dance. “Do you suppose we’ll see her in all her togs? Which way did she go? Didn’t you even shout at her?”
“No, to your last question but I couldn’t keep track of the others. I was so surprised when I recognized her I couldn’t even shout. Besides, all three seemed very serious. I would not have dared break in on them. Who, do you suppose, the woman was?”
“Her Steppy, of course, stepmother, you know. It is she, according to friend Pat, who drags Jack away in the night. Perhaps she does, too, if she’s atrouper,” reasoned Gloria.
“Well, at any rate, Glo, I guess we have discovered something. I know you’ve been aching for it, and I feel, somehow, a chunk, a good sized chunk of your special brand of excitement has actually arrived.”
“You don’t mean that Jack will come out and declare herself!” exclaimed Gloria. “Perhaps we won’t see or hear another word about it.” That possibility brought gloom.
“But others saw her,” reasoned Trixy. They were now retracing their steps and about to meet a group of girls also returning from their early morning exercise.
“Who saw her?” asked Gloria.
“I don’t know just who it was, but certainly some very slim girl dodged me, as I walked back from the stables. It looked a bit like Mary.”
“Oh, we’ll ask her,” declared Gloria. “At any rate Mary’s getting so friendly it would be nice to sort of take her in our confidence. Don’t you think so?”
“Well——” Trixy paused. Then continued: “Suppose we don’t say anything for a while and just see what happens. I wouldn’t want her to start anything sensational, you know.”
“Oh, of course. There, you see, I would haveblurted out the whole fantastic story and perhaps made a mortal enemy of the picturesque Jack. After all, Trixy, I am country and green, don’t you think so?”
“Have it your own way,” replied Trixy with a light laugh. “I don’t intend to go on forever telling you what a darling you are.”
But she looked as if she might go on doing so for quite a while longer.