When Robert learned that Nan was gone and that he had no way of communicating with her, he felt that again a great loss had come into his life.
Several years have passed since that day in California when Nan Barrington and Robert Widdemere had parted so sadly and neither had heard ought of the other in all that time.
Nan, in a home-like girls’ school near Boston, The Pine Crest Seminary, had blossomed into as charming a young lady as even Miss Ursula could desire, and that proud woman, who had changed little with the years, often gazed at the beautiful dark girl, silently wondering if it might be possible that Nan was not a real gypsy after all.
True to her promise to the dear Miss Dahlia, Nan had worn quiet colors like the other gorigo maidens, and, during the three and a half years that she had been at the school, nothing had occurred that would even suggest the roving life of her childhood, but unfortunately an hour was approaching when that suspicion would be aroused.
The Miss Barringtons remained during the winter months in Boston, but they frequently visited the school, and, during the summer, they took Nan with them to their cabin on the rocky and picturesque coast of Maine.
One Saturday afternoon Miss Dahlia was seated in the little reception room at the school and a maid had gone in search of the girl. First she referred to a chart in the corridor, which told where each of the forty pupils should be at that hour, and then, going to the music room, she tapped on the door. The sweet strains of a harp drifted out to her, and she tapped again.
“Come in,” a singing voice called, and the door opened.
“Miss Nan, it’s your aunt, Miss Barrington, who is waiting to see you.”
“Oh, I thank you, Marie!” the happy girl exclaimed, then, springing up from the seat by her beautiful golden instrument, she said happily to the friend who was standing near: “Phyllis do come with me and meet my Aunt. I am always telling her about you, but you have been so occupied with one task or another that I have never had the opportunity to have you two meet each other.”
Then as she covered her harp, she continued: “My Aunt Dahlia believes you to be as beautiful as a nymph and as joyous as a lark.” Then whirling and catching both hands of her friend, Nan cried, “And when Aunt Dahlia really sees you, what do you suppose she will think?”
“That I’m a frumpy old grumpy, I suppose,” Phyllis laughingly replied.
“Indeed not!” Nan declared. “You’re the most beautiful creature that Nature ever fashioned with sunshine for hair, bits of June sky for eyes, the grace of a lily and—”
“Nan, do stop! I’ll think that you are making fun of me, and all this time your Aunt Dahlia waits above. Come let us go. I am eager to meet her.” These two girls had been room-mates and most intimate friends since Phyllis came to the school at the beginning of the year.
No two girls could be more unlike as Nan had said. She was like October night, and her friend was like a glad June day.
“Aunt Dahlia, dearie,” Nan exclaimed a few moments later, as she embraced the older lady, “here at last is my room-mate, Phyllis. You are the two whom I most love, and I have so wanted you to know each other.”
“And you look just exactly as I knew you would from all our Nan has told me about you. Just as sweet and pretty.”
Miss Dahlia’s kind face did not reveal that she was even a day older than she had been that Thanksgiving nearly four years before.
Nan asked about Miss Barrington, the elder and was told, that, as usual, she was busy with clubs of many kinds. “We are very unlike, my sister, and I,” the little lady explained to Phyllis, “I like a quiet home life, Ursula is never happier than when she is addressing a large audience of women, and it does not in the least fluster her if there are men among them, on weighty questions of the day. Yes, we are very unlike.”
“I am glad that you are.” Nan nestled lovingly close to the little old lady. “Not but that I greatly admire and truly do care for Aunt Ursula. She has been very kind to me since she began to like me.” Nan laughed, then stopped as though she had been about to say something she ought not, as indeed she had been. She had nearly said that her Aunt Ursula had started to really like her when she felt that the girl had been properly civilized and Christianized, for, ever since the talk she had had with Robert Widdemere, Nan had really tried in every way to accept the religion of the gorigo.
“Aunt Dahlia,” she suddenly exclaimed, “what do you suppose is going to happen? The music master has offered a medal of gold to the one of us whose rendering of a certain piece, which he has selected, shall please him the most at our coming recital. Phyllis is trying for it on the violin; Muriel Metcalf and I on the harp, and Esther Willis on the piano. I do hope you and Aunt Ursula will be able to come.”
“Nothing but illness could keep me away,” Miss Dahlia said as she rose to go.
The two girls with arms about each other stood on the front veranda watching as Miss Dahlia was being driven along the circling drive. Nan knew that she would turn and wave at the gate. A moment later she saw the fluttering of a small white handkerchief. The girls waved their hands, then turned indoors and climbed the wide, softly carpeted stairway and entered the room which they shared together.
It was a strange room for each girl had decked her half of it as best suited her taste. On one side the birds’ eye maple furniture was made even daintier with blue and white ruffled coverings. There was a crinkly blue and white bedspread with pillow shams to match, while on the dresser there was an array of dainty ivory and blue toilet articles, two ivory frames containing the photographs of Phyllis’ father and mother, and a small book bound in blue leather in which she wrote the events of every day. There were a few forget-me-nots in a slender, silver glass vase, and indeed, everything on that side of the room suggested the dainty little maid who occupied it.
But very unlike was the side occupied by the gypsy girl. Boughs of pine with the cones on were banked in one corner. Her toilet set was ebony showing off startlingly on the bureau cover which was a glowing red.
There were photographs of Aunt Dahlia and Aunt Ursula in silver band frames, gifts to her from the aunts themselves, but on the walls there were pictures of wild canon places, long grey roads that seemed to lure one to follow, pools in quiet meadowy places, and a printed poem beginning—
“Oh, to be free as the wind is free!The vagabond life is the life for me.”
“Oh, to be free as the wind is free!
The vagabond life is the life for me.”
But the crowning touch was the gorgeous crimson and gold shawl with its long fringe mingled with black threads that was spread over her bed. Every girl who came into their room admired it, many asked questions about how it came into Nan’s possession, but to one and all the gypsy girl gave some laughing reply, and as each and every explanation was different, they knew that she was inventing stories to amuse them. Indeed, Nan was often called upon, when storms kept the girls within doors, to invent tales for their entertainment as they sat about the great stone fireplace in the recreation hall, and the more thrilling the tales were, the more pleased her audience. Sometimes Nan recalled another group, to whom she had, in the long ago, so often told stories. Little dark, fox-like creatures with their unkempt hair hanging about their faces. How eagerly they had followed Nan’s every word. Poor little neglected things! Nan often longed to be able to do something for them all, to give them a chance to make something of themselves as she had been given a chance.
But would they want it? Had she not rebelled at first when Miss Ursula tried to civilize and Christianize her?
Having entered their room, the gypsy girl went at once to the wide window and looked out across the school grounds where the trees and shrubs were still leafless. “Dearie,” she said, “Spring is in the air and calling us to come out. I don’t want to practice now. Suppose we climb to the top of Little Pine Hill that looks down on the highway.”
“But I ought to study my French verbs.” Phyllis hesitated—
“French verbs on Saturday?” Nan protested, “When a merry breeze waits to run us a race!”
The fair maiden laughingly donned her wraps and a few moments later these two were tramping across the fields, and then more slowly they began climbing the path that led over the little hill.
There they stood side by side gazing down at the winding highway which, a short distance beyond, was entirely hidden by a bend and a massing of great old pines.
“Aren’t bends in the road interesting?” Nan said. “One never knows what may appear next. Let’s guess what it will be, and see who is nearest right.”
“Very well,” Phyllis replied, “I’ll guess that it’s the little Wharton girl out horse-back riding with her escort. She passes almost every afternoon at about this hour.”
“And I’ll guess that it will be a motoring party from Boston in a handsome limousine,” Nan replied. Then hand in hand these two girls stood intently watching the bend in the road.
Several moments passed and Nan’s attention had been attracted skyward by the flight of a bird, when she heard Phyllis’ astonished exclamation: “We were both wrong, Nan! Will you look? I never saw such a queer equipage as the one which is coming. A covered wagon drawn by black horses and there is another following it and still another. How very curious! Did you ever see anything like it?”
Phyllis was so intently watching the approaching wagons that she did not notice the almost frightened expression that had appeared in the dark eyes of the girl she so loved, but after a moment Nan was able to say quite calmly, “Why, yes, Joy, I have seen a gypsy caravan before. In California where it is always summer, they often pass the Barrington home in San Seritos.”
Then she added, “I’m going back to the school now.”
Her friend looked at her anxiously, “Why dear,” she said, “do you feel faint or ill?”
Nan shook her head and remarked lightly, with an attempt at gaiety: “Maybe my conscience is troubling me because I’m keeping you from the French verbs.”
They returned to the school, and although Phyllis said nothing, she was convinced that the sight of the gypsy caravan had in some way affected Nan.
The truth was that the gypsy girl’s emotions had been varied and conflicting. Her first impulse had been to run and hide, as though she feared that she might be discovered and claimed, but, a second thought assured her that this could not be the caravan of Queen Mizella and her cruel son Anselo Spico, for had she not left them in far-away California?
And yet, as she gazed intently at the wagon in the lead, again came the chilling thought that it was strangely familiar, and then she recalled a memoried picture of one evening around the camp fire when Anselo had expressed a desire to some day return to Rumania, and, to do so, they would have to come to the Eastern States.
Then another emotion rushed to the heart of the watching girl. She remembered with tenderness the long years of loving devotion that Manna Lou had given her. She wondered if that kind gypsy woman had missed her when she ran away. Tears rushed to her eyes as she thought how selfish she had been. She should have tried long ago to let Manna Lou know that all was well with her.
Then it was that Nan decided to go close to the highway, and, from a hiding place watch the caravan as it passed, but she wanted to go alone. If it should be the band of Queen Mizella, then Nan would try in some way to communicate with Manna Lou.
With this determination in her heart, she had suggested to return to school. Phyllis who was really glad to have an opportunity to study her French verbs, went back willingly, but she glanced often at the dark face of the friend she so loved. She could not understand why Nan had suddenly lost her merry mood and had become so quiet and thoughtful.
Luckily for the gypsy girl’s plan, the French teacher, Madame Reznor, delayed Phyllis in the lower corridor, and Nan, leaving them, hurried to her room. Taking from the closet a long, dark cloak with a hood-cape, she slipped it on, and looking cautiously about the upper corridor to be sure that she was unobserved, she tripped lightly down the back stairs and out at the basement door.
She heard a gong ringing in the school, and she was glad, for it was calling all the pupils to the study hall, and there would be no one to spy upon her actions. But she was mistaken, for two of the girls who had been for a cross-country hike were returning, and one of them, Muriel Metcalf, chanced to glance in that direction just as Nan crouched behind the hedge that bordered the school grounds on the highway.
“Daisy Wells,” Muriel exclaimed, “how queerly Nan Barrington is acting. Let’s watch her and see what she is going to do.”
This they did, standing behind a spreading pine tree.
Several moments Nan Barrington waited crouching behind the hedge, but the caravan did not come, nor did she hear the rattle and rumble of approaching wagons. Perhaps after all they had passed while she was indoors. Disappointed, the girl arose, and was about to return to the school when she heard voices that seemed to come from a small grove beyond the seminary grounds. Hurrying along in the shelter of the hedge, Nan reached a small side gate, and, hidden, she looked up the highway.
She saw that the gypsies had drawn to one side of the road and were preparing to make camp for the night. They were so near that she could plainly hear what they were saying and see the faces that were strange to her.
Muriel Metcalf and Daisy Wells were more puzzled than before.
“What do you suppose it is that Nan sees?” Muriel whispered. “She surely is much excited about something. Come, let’s run to the tree that’s nearest the hedge and then we will know.”
This they did, watching Nan intently, to be sure that they were not observed, but the gypsy girl looked only at the camp wondering what she should do. At last, assured that she had nothing to fear, and longing, if possible, to hear some word of Manna Lou, who had mothered her through the first fourteen years of her life, she drew her cloak more closely about her, and, opening the gate, she went over to the camp fire.
How familiar it all seemed. There were the same little fox-like children scampering about gathering wood, and tears rushed to Nan’s eyes as she remembered, how in the long ago, those other children had always run to meet her with arms outstretched when she returned to camp on her Binnie, but these children paid her little heed, for often fine young ladies come to have their fortunes told.
A kindly-faced gypsy woman, who was bending over the fire, looked up as she said, “Ah, pretty leicheen, have you come to cross my palm with silver? A wonderful future awaits you, dearie. I can tell that from your eyes.”
Then to the amazement of all within hearing, Nan replied in the Romany language. The gypsy woman held out her arms with evident joy as she said in her own tongue, “So, pretty leicheen, you are one of us! Tell me, dearie, how did it happen? Was your mother a gypsy and your father, perhaps a gorigo?”
“My mother was a gypsy,” the girl replied, “but she has long been dead and I have been adopted by a kind gorigo lady, two of them, and I am attending this school.”
Other gypsy women gathered about and they urged Nan to remain with them for the evening meal, but she said that she would be missed from the school if she were not there for dinner.
“But there is much that I want to ask you,” the girl said, “and if I possibly can, I will return after dark.”
“Come, come, dearie leicheen,” the gypsy women urged, “We will be glad to have you.”
Then, as it was late, Nan hurried away. The twilight was deepening and though she passed close to their hiding place, she did not see the two girls who had been spying upon her.
When she was gone, Muriel exclaimed, “Daisy Wells, did you hear her? She spoke the gypsy language.”
“Yes,” her friend replied. “I have always thought that there was something strange about Nan Barrington and now I know what it is. She is a gypsy.”
“If that is true, one of us will leave this school,” Muriel said haughtily, “for my mother would not permit me to associate with a common gypsy.”
During the dinner hour Phyllis glanced often at her dearest friend wondering, almost troubled, at the change that had so recently come over her. Across the wide refectory, two other pairs of eyes were also watching Nan and in the proud face of Muriel Metcalf there was a sneering expression.
“How guilty Nan Barrington acts,” she said softly to the girl at her side.
“She dreads having the truth found out, I suppose,” Daisy Wells replied, “but probably we are the only ones who know it and of course we would not tell.”
Muriel’s pale blue eyes turned toward her friend and her brows were lifted questioningly, as she inquired:—“Indeed? Who said that we would not tell?”
“I will not,” Daisy replied quietly. “My mother has told me to ask myself two questions before repeating something that might hurt another. First, is it kind; second, is it necessary? So, Muriel, why tell, since it is neither kind nor necessary?”
Daisy’s natural impulses were always good, but she often seemed to be easily led by her less conscientious friend, Muriel Metcalf.
“Oh well, you may side with her if you prefer,” the other said with a shrug of her shoulders, “but I shall watch her closely tonight and see what she does. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she went back to the gypsy camp, and, as for telling, I shall do as I think best about that.”
To herself Muriel added, “If Nan Barrington wins the gold medal at the recital contest next Saturday, it shall be known all over the school before night that she is only a gypsy.” Wisely, she said nothing of this to Daisy Wells, whose sense of justice, she knew, would scorn such an act of jealousy.
Nan was planning, as soon as she left the dining hall, to go at once to the office of Mrs. Dorsey and ask permission to go out of grounds, and, since she was an honor student, she knew the request would be granted without question. As the girls were sauntering through the corridors after dinner in groups of two and three, Phyllis exclaimed:—
“Well, Nan dear, the wonderful night has arrived at last,” and then when her friend’s dark eyes were turned toward her questioningly, she added merrily, “Nan Barrington, do you mean to tell me that you have forgotten what we are to do tonight? Why only this morning you said how glad you were that the day had at last arrived.”
Then it was that Nan recalled the long-planned and much-anticipated theatre party. Madame Reznor was to chaperone her class in dramatics that they might see a noted actor in a Shakespearian play which they were studying.
Since the appearance of the gypsy caravan, she had forgotten all else.
What should she do? Nan, who had never told a lie, could not say that she was ill or that she did not want to go.
“Come, dear,” Phyllis was saying, “I will help you dress as we are to start in half an hour. The rest of us dressed before dinner, but though I hunted everywhere, I could not find you.”
Nan permitted herself to be led to their room and mechanically she let down her long dark hair. Suddenly the thought came to her that she would awaken at dawn and slip out to the camp and then she could ask her gypsy friends if they knew aught of her Manna Lou.
Half an hour later, trying to assume a spirit of merriment that she might not mar the joyousness of the others, Nan climbed into the waiting car that was to take them to the city. Muriel watched her go, then turning to Daisy Wells, she said, “Now, you and I are going down to the gypsy camp and find out what it was that Nan Barrington said when she was talking in that queer language.”
The other girl looked up from the problem that she was trying to solve, as she replied, “No Muriel, I am not going. I promised little Janet that I would help her with her sums tonight. She has been ill and is eager to catch up with her class, and, moreover, I have no desire to spy upon actions of a schoolmate.”
“Oh, indeed!” Muriel said with a toss of her head and then she added sarcastically, “Aren’t you afraid that you will soon be sprouting wings? It seems to me that you have become a saint very suddenly.”
Daisy had arisen and was gathering up her books and papers as she quietly replied, “No, Muriel, I am not pretending to be better than anyone else, but I like Nan Barrington, no one could help liking her, she is so kind and generous, and I do not in the least care what her ancestry may be. Yes, Janet dear, I’m coming right away,” she added to the frail little girl who had appeared in the doorway.
Muriel, left alone, put on a long cloak, and, winding a scarf about her head, she went out. Well she knew that it was against the rules to go beyond the seminary grounds at night, but she did not care. Something was all wrong in the heart of Muriel Metcalf, and that something was jealousy which was rapidly becoming hatred. She had so wanted to win the medal of gold, but she knew that Nan Barrington had practiced far more conscientiously. Vaguely Muriel thought that, perhaps, if she could find out something against Nan, she might have her barred from the coming contest.
Having reached the gate in the hedge, Muriel peered through, and saw, in the light of the camp fire, the gypsies sitting close about it, for the night was cold. When the girl approached, one of the gypsy women rose and called in greeting, “Ha, pretty leicheen, I feared you were not coming.” Then, as the firelight fell on the face of the girl, she added truly disappointed, “but you are not the same. Could she not come, the other little girl?”
“No,” Muriel replied. “She wished me to say that she had to go into the city.” Then eager to obtain the information for which she had come, she added hurriedly, “Nan Barrington tells me that she too, is a gypsy.”
“Yes, the pretty leicheen is one of us.” Then, in a wheedling voice, the gypsy woman said, “Let me tell your fortune, dearie. Cross my palm with silver. I see much happiness for you, but it is far off. First there is trouble. You are trying to harm someone who is your friend, someone who is to do much to help you. You should not do this.”
Muriel’s eyes flashed as she said haughtily. “I did not come here to have my fortune told. Thanks to you I have learned what I wished to know.” Then, without another word, she walked rapidly toward the side gate, but her heart was indeed troubled; she could not understand why, or would not, and it was late before she fell asleep. Too, it was late when Phyllis and Nan Barrington returned to their room and Nan’s last conscious thought was that she wanted to waken before daybreak that she might visit the gypsy camp.
In spite of her resolve to waken before dawn, Nan did not open her eyes until the sunlight was flooding in at the wide bow window. Springing up, she began at once to dress quietly, and then, with a last glance at Phyllis who seemed to be sleeping she left the room, but her friend had opened her eyes in time to see Nan stealing out so silently.
However, this was not unusual, for the gypsy girl, who in her childhood had always been up to greet the dawn, often went to the top of Little Pine Hill to watch the sunrise and to remember many things, and so since it was still too early to dress, Phyllis nestled back for another few moments of slumber.
Meanwhile Nan, with the dark cloak wrapped snugly about her, for the morning air was tinglingly cold, hurried across the wide grounds and down to the hedge near the highway, but she paused at the gate and gazed, not at the caravan as she had hoped, but at the charred remains of the camp fire.
Her gypsy friends were gone! Truly disappointed, she was about to return when she saw something white pinned to a great pine tree, and wondering what it could be, she slipped through the gate and looked at it more closely. It was a piece of folded wrapping paper addressed to “The Pretty Leicheen.” She was sure that it was intended for her. The kind gypsy woman had left some message. Opening it, she read: “We could not wait, dearie. We must be in the next town by noon. A girl from the school came to us last night. She tries to harm you. If you are not happy, come to us. We will be there until tomorrow, Queen Luella.”
Nan folded the paper again and placed it in her pocket. Then she stood looking down the highway, shining in the sun, and there were many emotions in her heart, but she was most conscious of a loneliness, for once more she had lost a possible opportunity of hearing about her dear Manna Lou. If only she had Binnie, she could gallop after the caravan and soon overtake it, but the pony, that had been her comrade in those other days, was still at San Seritos. Then, with a sigh, she turned back and slowly crossed the school grounds.
Happening to slip her hand into the pocket of her coat, she touched the folded paper and then she remembered the message that it contained. What could Queen Luella have meant? She, Nan Barrington, had an enemy? Nan wished harm to no one and she always tried to be kind, then why should there be someone wishing to harm her?
“Well, early bird,” Phyllis sang out as Nan entered their room, “what did you capture this morning? Wet feet, for one thing.”
“Right you are,” the gypsy girl gaily replied as she threw off the long wrap and sat on a low stool to change her shoes. The cloak fell over a chair and from the pocket a paper fluttered to the floor near Phyllis.
Nan hurriedly reached for it and tearing it into small bits, she tossed the pieces into a waste basket. Her friend was indeed puzzled. It was so unlike her room-mate to have secrets. What could it all mean? She wondered as she gazed into the mirror and brushed her long, sunlit hair.
Phyllis felt a desire to go to her friend and put her arms about her and beg to be allowed to help if anything had gone wrong, but she did not for she well knew that Nan would tell her if it were something that she wished to share.
The gypsy girl said suddenly after several moments of deep thought, “do you think that I have an enemy in this school?”
“An enemy?You, Nan? No indeed! Everyone loves you! How could they help it? You are always doing nice things for the girls and I never heard you say an unkind word about anyone, so how could you have an enemy?” Phyllis was amazed at the suggestion.
Nan rose and laughingly embraced her friend. “Well,” she merrily declared, “it is quite evident that you, at least, are not that enemy. Don’t think anything more about it. I was sure that I did not have one. Good! There’s the breakfast bell.” But, try as she might to forget, she could not, and during the morning meal, Nan’s glance roamed from one face to another as she wondered who among the pupils of Pine Crest Seminary had, the night before, visited the gypsy camp.
The next afternoon at four, Nan went down to the music room as it was her hour to practice on the harp, Muriel Metcalf having been there the hour preceding. Before opening the door, Nan listened to be sure that the other young harpist had finished, and, as she heard no sound within, she decided that Muriel had gone, but, upon opening the door, she saw the other girl seated by a table, her head on her arms and her shoulders shaken with sobs.
Muriel sprang up when she heard the door close and in her pale blue eyes there was an expression of hatred when she saw who had entered the room.
“Dear, what has happened?” Nan Barrington exclaimed with her ever-ready sympathy. Then, putting a loving arm about the girl, she added: “Is there something that I can do to help?”
“No, there isn’t!” Muriel flung out. “You’ll probably be glad when you hear what has happened. That horrid old Professor Bentz told me that if I did not have this week’s lesson perfect, he would no longer teach me on the harp. I suppose I am stupid, but I just can’t, can’t get it, and tomorrow is the day that he comes. I wouldn’t care for myself, but my father will be heart-broken. He had a little sister, who played on the harp, and she died. Dad just idolized her, the way he does me. He kept the harp and he is so eager to have me play upon it. I just can’t bear to disappoint him.” For the moment Muriel seemed to have forgotten to whom she was talking.
“Nor shall you,” Nan said quietly. “Is this your free hour, Muriel?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “Why?”
“I thought perhaps you would like to stay while I practice. Our lesson is hard this week, but I might be able to help you. Would you like to stay?”
Muriel hardly knew how to reply. Judging others by her own selfish standard, she had supposed that Nan would be glad if she were barred from the coming recital, but instead, the gypsy girl was offering to help her master that part which had seemed to her most difficult.
“Thank you, I will stay,” she heard herself saying, and then she sat quietly near while Nan played the lesson through from beginning to the end. “Now, Muriel,” the harpist said, with her friendly smile, “will you play it for me, and then I can better tell which part is your stumbling block?”
Patiently Nan showed the other girl how to correct her mistakes, until, at length, a gong rang in the corridor calling them to the study hall.
Springing up, the gypsy girl exclaimed: “You did splendidly, Muriel! If I could help you just once more before your lesson, I think that Professor Bentz would have no fault to find with you.” Then she added kindly, “You really have talent, dear, but you haven’t practiced very faithfully of late. If you wish, I will come with you to the music room this evening during our recreation hour and we can go over it once again.”
“Thank you! I would like to come,” Muriel replied, but oh, what a strangely troubled feeling there was in her heart as she remembered the words of the gypsy woman: “You are trying to harm someone, who will do much to help you.”
That evening at 7 o’clock the two girls were again in the music room and Muriel played the piece through so well that Nan exclaimed with real enthusiasm, “Dearie, you did that beautifully, especially the part where it seems as though a restless spirit is yearning to be forgiven for something. Really, Muriel, the tears came into my eyes, for you played it with true feeling.”
Then to the gypsy girl’s surprise the little harpist began to sob.
“Oh, Nan, I do want to be forgiven for something. You’ve been so kind to help me and I’ve been so horrid and mean to you.”
“Why, Muriel, you have never been horrid or mean to me.”
“Oh, yes, I have. Only yesterday I was planning to do something that I thought would turn the girls all against you. I was jealous, I suppose, because Professor Bentz always holds you up as a model. Then I overheard you talking to the gypsies and that night I visited their camp and found out that you were one of them, and so I decided that if you won the gold medal I would tell every one in the school about it. There now, don’t you call that being mean and horrid?”
Nan’s joyous laugh rang out, and she gaily exclaimed:—“Oho, so you are the enemy I have been looking for?” Then she added, with sudden seriousness: “My dear Muriel, I am not ashamed because I am a gypsy, and I would gladly have proclaimed it from the top of Little Pine Hill if I had not promised Miss Barrington that I would not.”
“And you’re going to forgive me?” Muriel asked, although she knew the answer before it was spoken.
“There is nothing to forgive. Hark! Someone is coming. Who do you suppose that it is?”
There was a merry rapping on the door, and then it was opened, revealing two maidens. There was an expression of surprise on the pretty face of the younger girl, but it was Phyllis who exclaimed, “Well, Nan, here you are. I have hunted for you high and low. I just met Daisy in the corridor and she was searching for Muriel.” Then, glancing from one expressive face to the other, she added: “What has happened? You girls look as though you had a secret.”
“So we have,” Nan laughingly replied. “I was just going to tell Muriel a story and if you girls will come in and be seated, you too, may hear it.”
Phyllis, wondering what it all might mean, listened with increasing interest as Nan told about the caravan of Queen Mizella and about the loving kindness of Manna Lou to the little crippled boy, Tirol, and to the little orphan girl whose mother had died so long ago.
“I didn’t know that there were such good, unselfish women among the gypsies,” Phyllis declared, “but, Nan, why are you telling us this story?”
“Because I am the orphaned girl,” was the quiet reply.
“You!” Phyllis exclaimed. “Now I know why you are so wonderful and why you seem to understand the songs of the birds and feel such a comradeship for the trees and sky and all out-of-doors.”
“Then you don’t love me any the less?” the question was asked in half seriousness.
“Nan, what do I care who your ancestors are?” Phyllis declared. “It is you whom I love.”
“Hark!” the gypsy girl said with lifted finger. “The chapel bell is calling us to evening prayer.” And then, as she and Muriel were the last to leave the room, she kissed the younger girl as she whispered, “Good night, dear little friend.”
The day of the contest dawned gloriously. During the night pink and golden crocuses had blossomed on the seminary grounds and each bush and tree was a haze of silvery green.
In the mid-afternoon two girls stood at an open library window. They were Muriel and Nan and they were waiting their turn at the recital. In the study hall beyond many parents and friends were gathered and with the teachers and pupils of the seminary, they were listening with pride and pleasure to the rendering of solos on violin and piano, while at one side of the platform, a golden harp stood waiting.
“Daisy Wells is playing now,” Muriel said, “Are you nervous Nan?”
“No dearie.” Then the older girl exclaimed joyfully, “Do look in the lilac bush! The first robin has come, and now he is going to sing for us. He surely would win the medal if he were to enter the contest.”
Muriel looked up at the other maiden and slipping an arm about her, she said impulsively, “I love you.”
Then, before the gypsy girl could reply, the younger harpist was called. “Oh Nan,” she said in a sudden panic of fear.
“Think of your father, dearie and just play for him.” How calming that suggestion had been, and, while she played, Muriel was thinking of the twilight hours when her father had lifted her to his knee, and, holding her close, had told her of that other little girl whom he had so loved, and how lonely his boyhood had been when that little sister had died, and, how like her, Muriel was. “It will be a happy day for me, little daughter, when I hear you play as she did on the harp,” he had often said.
When the last sweet notes were stilled, there were tears in many eyes, for Muriel, forgetting all others, had played alone for her father.
Professor Bentz was amazed and delighted. “I knew she had talent,” he said to Mrs. Dorsey, the principal of the school, “but I did not know that she could play like that.”
When the recital was over, it was to Muriel that the medal of gold was awarded.
“Oh Nan, I ought not to take it. You have done it all!”
There was a happy light in the eyes of the gypsy girl as she stooped and kissed her little friend. “You played wonderfully dearie!” she said.
Just at that moment a maid appeared in the library door, where the performers had gathered. “Miss Muriel,” she called, “there is a gentleman here to see you.”
“It’s father!” the little girl cried with eyes aglow. “I do believe that he came for the recital.”
And she was right. Mr. Metcalf was standing in the small reception room and he caught his little daughter in his arms and held her close for a moment without speaking.
He said in a choking voice: “My dream is fulfilled. You play the harp, Muriel, as my sister did.”
Then he told her that he had long planned to visit her at the school and had timed that visit so that he might be present at the recital without her knowing it.
“I think I must have known it, somehow,” the happy little girl said, “for I was playing only for you.”
And Nan Barrington, who had done so much to help Muriel, felt that the winning of the love of her little “enemy” was far more to be desired than the winning of the medal of gold.
A month had passed and the orchard back of the school was a bower of pink and white blooms, while oriole, robin and meadow lark made the fragrant sunlit air joyous with song.
Gypsy Nan stood at the open window of their room gazing out over the treetops to the highway, and how she yearned for her pony Binnie. She longed to gallop away, away—where, she cared little. Then she thought of the happy ride she and Robert Widdemere had taken three years before, and, sitting down on the window seat, with her chin resting on one hand, she fell to musing of those other days. Again she was a little girl, clad in a cherry red dress and seated in the boughs of the far-away pepper tree which stood on the edge of the Barrington estate in San Seritos. She recalled the sad, pale invalid boy in the wheeled chair, and she smiled as she remembered his surprise when a cluster of pepper berries had dropped on his listlessly folded hands. What splendid friends those two became the weeks that followed, and then there had been that last morning on the mountain top when he had promised that he would always be her friend, come what might. Little had they dreamed that years would pass, and that neither would know what had become of the other.
How she would like to see Robert Widdemere. He would be taller and broader, with a dignity of carriage which he surely would have acquired after three years’ training in a military academy. How good looking he had been that long ago Thanksgiving morning when he had worn the gypsy costume!
At this point Nan’s revery was interrupted by Phyllis, who fairly danced into the room. She held an open letter and she gaily exclaimed:
“Nan darling, you never could guess what you and I are going to do.”
“It must be a happy something, by the way you are shining.”
“Oh, it is the most exciting thing that ever happened in all my life,” the other girl exclaimed joyously as she sat on the window seat facing her friend. “It’s an invitation that came in this letter, and Mrs. Dorsey has granted us both permission to accept.”
Nan’s dark eyes were wide with wonder. “Am I invited to go somewhere?” she asked. “Please don’t keep me guessing about it any longer. Do tell me where.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to begin at the beginning. You have often heard me speak of my cousins the Dorchesters.” Nan nodded. “They have been in Florida all winter,” she continued, “but now they have returned and have opened up their city home and the tenth of May will be Peggy’s birthday and we are invited to her party. It will be on Saturday night, but Mrs. Dorsey said that we need not return to Pine Crest until the following day—and oh, I forgot to tell you! It’s a masquerade and we must begin at once to think what costumes we will wear. I have the sweetest May Queen dress! I might wear that with a wreath of apple blossoms in my hair.”
“Joy, that would just suit you, but pray what shall I wear?”