Ten Eyck Hall, with its high-peaked roofs, its rambling wings and innumerable dormer windows, seemed to the four girls the very home of romance.
It was an enormous house built of brick, turned a faded pink, now, from age, which made a delicate background for the heavy vines that shaded the piazzas and balconies and clambered up to the roof itself.
The handsome old master of this charming house leaped to the ground as lightly as one ofhis nephews, the moment the automobile drew up at the front door. Lifting his hat he made a low, old-fashioned bow.
“Dear ladies,” he said, “you are as welcome to my home as the flowers in spring!” Giving his arm to Miss Stuart, he conducted her up the front steps. The great double doors flew open as if by magic, and the party filed into the vast center hall, on each side of which stood the servants of the household, headed by the butler and his wife, the housekeeper.
“Dear me,” exclaimed Miss Sallie, “I feel as if I were entering a baronial castle. Why did you never tell me years ago you owned such a fine place, John Ten Eyck?”
“Because I didn’t in those days, Sallie,” answered the major. “There were several heirs ahead of me then. But I always wanted you to come and see it. Don’t you remember my mother wrote and asked you to make us a visit? But you were going abroad, that summer, and couldn’t come.”
“Well, I was a very foolish girl,” replied Miss Sallie. “But better late than never, John, and it will be a pleasure to see the young people enjoy themselves in this beautiful house.”
Some of the young people were already plainly showing their delight and pleasure in the visit. The major made a smiling gesture toward thefour young girls, who, with arms around each other’s waists, were strolling up the great hall toward the fireplace at the far end, pausing here and there to look at the fine old portraits and curious carved cabinets and settees. Many of the latter had been collected by the major during his travels abroad.
“I feel like a princess in a castle, Major,” called Ruth.
“And here comes one of the princes, my dear,” answered the major, glancing up at the broad staircase which occupied one side of the hall. All eyes followed the direction of his gaze, and an exclamation of surprise escaped the lips of the automobilists. For there, on the landing of the staircase, looking down at the little group of people below as calmly as a real prince might regard his subjects, was the motor cyclist.
“Why, it’s Mr. Martinez!” exclaimed Miss Sallie. “How are you?” she said graciously, as he descended the broad staircase. “We had no idea you were a friend of the major’s, too.”
“Nor had I, Madam,” replied the young man, as he bowed low over Miss Stuart’s hand and acknowledged the greetings of the girls. “I did not know who Major Ten Eyck was when he was stopping at the hotel, or I should have presented my letter there. It was a surprise tofind in him the same gentleman I had come down to meet, and it is, indeed, a great pleasure and surprise to meet you and the young ladies so soon again.”
“Martinez is the son of an old friend of mine, José Martinez of Madrid,” broke in the major. “But how did you happen to meet him?”
Miss Stuart explained that he was the brave young man who had saved them from the attack of the drunken tramp.
“My dear José,” exclaimed the major, grasping him cordially by the hand, “you were brave. It was an act worthy of your father, and I can say no more for you than that.”
The young man flushed, and for the first time in their acquaintance showed signs of real embarrassment.
“It was nothing,” he said. “The man was drunk and drunken men are easy to manage.”
“But he was not easy to manage,” exclaimed Ruth. “He was a giant in size and strength.”
The young foreigner shrugged his shoulders and the flush deepened on his face.
“Well, well,” laughed Major Ten Eyck, “we won’t embarrass you any more by insisting on your being a hero whether you will or no. Here comes Mary to show you to your rooms, ladies. You look as fresh as the morning, but after a night spent in a Gypsy camp perhaps you wouldlike to spruce up a bit before luncheon. Come along, José, and let me show you my library. I am very proud of my collection of Spanish books. I want your opinion of them.”
The major waved his hand gallantly to the five women who were following the housekeeper up the carved oak staircase to the regions above.
“Am I awake, or asleep?” asked Mollie. “This whole morning has seemed like a dream, and now this lovely old house——”
“And the lovely old major, in the lovely old house,” added Ruth.
“Isn’t he a dear!” pursued Mollie. “I wonder if Miss Sallie is sorry now,” she continued to herself. “If he were as gentle and charming when he was young as he is now, I don’t think I could have been cross with him, ever.”
Meanwhile, Barbara was saying to Miss Stuart:
“No; we never told Mr. Martinez where we were going, or mentioned the major’s name, so of course he had no way of knowing that we were coming here. It is curious, though,” she went on thoughtfully, “our meeting him here. I wonder when he arrived?”
“Yesterday, I suppose,” replied Miss Sallie. “Or it may have been this morning. However, it doesn’t make any difference. I am glad, atleast, that a friend of ours can show him some hospitality in return for his courageous act.”
By this time they had reached the top of the stairs and had a glimpse of another hall corresponding to the one below, at one end of which was a great casement window with a broad cushioned window-seat under it. The other end, where the stairs turned, was lighted by an enormous stained glass window.
Little exclamations of rapture escaped the girls as they tripped over the softly carpeted floors to their rooms, which were on the left side of the hall. Opposite were the major’s rooms, so Mary explained, while the young men were all quartered in the right wing except Mr. Martinez, who had a room at the end of the hall on the same side as the major’s suite.
“I could live and die in a house like this, and never want to leave it,” cried Bab, her eyes sparkling with pleasure as Mary opened the door leading to the room that had been assigned to Ruth and her.
They could have a room apiece, if they wished it, the housekeeper said, but when it was discovered that this would necessitate two of the girls taking rooms in the right wing, many passages and corridors away from the others, all said they would rather share the rooms on the main hall. Mary looked somewhat relieved at this. It wasevident she was not in favor of the right wing for the girls, either; although she did not explain her reasons.
In the large old-fashioned bedrooms, hung with chintz curtains and furnished with mahogany that would have been the joy of the antique dealers, were already placed the boxes and satchels of the automobilists. Two neat housemaids were engaged in unpacking their things and placing them in the drawers of the massive highboys and wardrobes.
“Bab,” exclaimed Ruth, giving her friend an affectionate little shake, “this is worth two highwaymen and a night in a Gypsy camp. I feel as if I were in an English country house. I feel we are going to have a perfectly wonderful time. And, somehow, the young Spaniard adds muchly to the whole thing. He seems to belong in the midst of carved oak and Persian rugs, doesn’t he, Barbara, dear? As he stood on those steps he looked like an old Spanish portrait. All he needed was a velvet cape, a sword and a plumed hat.”
“Well, that seems a good deal to complete the picture, considering he was wearing an ordinary pepper and salt suit,” observed Barbara.
“I don’t believe you like Senor José Martinez,” said Ruth.
“Oh, yes I do,” replied the other. “I likehim and I don’t like him. His eyes are just a bit too close together, and still he is very handsome. But give me time, give me time. I don’t enjoy having my likes hurried along like this. If he can play tennis, ride horseback and dance as well as he can knock down a tramp, he will be a perfect paragon among men. Look here, Ruth,” she continued, exploring the various closets, “do you know we have a bathroom all to ourselves? Did you say that Major Ten Eyck was poor when Miss Sallie threw him over?”
“Well, he wasn’t rich at that time,” replied Ruth; “that is, not according to Aunt Sallie’s ideas, but since then, she tells me, an uncle has left him lots of money.”
“Now, for a bath!” cried Barbara, as she turned the water on in the tub.
“Don’t use too much of it,” called Ruth. “I never saw a country house where the water didn’t run short, no matter how grand a place it was. Remember the drought, Bab, and leave a little for your fainting friend.”
The girls had barely time to bathe and dress, when a deep gong sounded in the hall. The five automobilists, refreshed by their belated baths, and dainty in crisp ducks and muslins, filed down the great staircase at the sound. Miss Stuart, in a lavender organdie, her white hair piled on top of her head, led the procession.
The major, waiting for them at the foot of the steps, smiled rather sadly as he watched the charming picture. The five young men grouped together at the end of the hall, came forward at sight of the ladies. Three of them at least were rather shy in their greetings, especially the English boy, Alfred Marsdale, who was only seventeen and still afraid of American girls. Stephen and Martin Ten Eyck, boys of sixteen and seventeen, were also rather green in the society of girls. They had no sisters and their vacations had been spent either at Ten Eyck Hall or out West on their father’s ranch. And an avalanche of four pretty, vivacious young women, advancing upon them in this way, was enough to make them tongue-tied for the moment. Jimmie Butler, who was nineteen and had seen a deal of life all over the world with his mother, a well-to-do widow, was proof against embarrassment, and the young Spaniard also seemed perfectly at his ease.
“Come along, young people,” said the major, giving his arm to Miss Sallie and leading the way to the dining room.
Soon they were all gayly chatting at an immense, round table of black oak, so highly polished that it reflected the silver and china and the faces of the guests in its shining board.
“Miss Barbara,” said the major, “suppose you let us have a history of the attempt at robbery? Since it was your courage and presence of mind that drove the robber away you ought to be the one to give the most connected account. Miss Stuart tells me that he was a giant with a deep bass voice, but that the sight of a pistol made him cut and run like a rabbit. You have not heard, José,” continued the major, turning to Martinez, “that our ladies were in danger of being robbed last night and would have been but for Miss Barbara, who drove off the robber with a pistol?”
“Is it possible?” replied José, looking at Barbara with admiration. “But there must be a great many robbers in this country. Almost as numerous as in the mountains of my own country. And what was the appearance of the robber, may I ask, Miss Thurston? Was he again a tramp?”
“He was not a giant,” answered Barbara. “He struck me as being rather short and very slender, so slender that it made him appear taller than he was. His voice was curious. I could not describe it, and I think really it was disguised. He spoke only a few times. He wore a mask that completely covered his face, and a slouch hat, so there was no telling what his hair was like; but he gave me the impression of being dark.I think he was a coward, because he ran so fast when I pointed the pistol at him.”
“Do you suppose he’s hiding in the woods now, Major?” asked Mollie. “We were walking there all morning, but we had nothing to be robbed of.”
“Oh, he is probably running still,” replied the major. “But what is quite plain to me is that it was somebody who knew you expected to make the trip. This robber had evidently prepared beforehand for the attack. He had chopped holes in the bridge, painted the sign, fastened the ropes across, and had arranged the whole thing during the morning. But he had not reckoned on your little pistol, Miss Barbara, had he? Ah, you are a brave girl, my dear, and they tell me that this is only one among many acts of heroism of yours.”
Barbara blushed.
“I am sure any of the others would have done the same thing, Major, if Mr. Stuart had given them the pistol.”
“Do the ladies in America carry firearms?” asked Alfred Marsdale, looking from one to another in a hesitating, embarrassed way.
“Why, certainly, Alfred, my boy,” replied Jimmie Butler. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous, in this country, for a woman to walk on the streets unarmed unless she is dressed likea suffragette? And then she doesn’t need a pistol to make people run from her.”
“Now, you’re joking, Jimmie,” said Alfred.
At which everybody laughed until they all felt that they had known each other much longer than just a few hours.
“While I think of it,” observed the major, “I have only one request to make of my guests, and that may seem like a very inhospitable one, but you will all understand, I know. Don’t be too lavish with the water.”
Ruth and Barbara looked at each other and smiled.
“I mean,” continued the major, “don’t fill the tubs to the brim. A hand’s depth is the allowance; or we shall be high and dry without any water and no prospect of any unless a rain comes. This interminable drought has dried up every brook on the place and the cisterns are lower than they have ever been before. We keep one cistern always full—not so much in case of drought as in case of fire; it might be needed some day.”
They all promised to bathe in what Jimmie Butler called “two-fingers of water.”
“If the water gives out,” said Jimmie, “we’ll beautify our complexions by bathing in milk. I think I need a lotion for a delicate skin, anyhow.” Jimmie’s nose was a mass of freckles.
“You would have to have your face peeled, Jimmie,” said Stephen, “before you could call it delicate.”
“Excuse me,” replied Jimmie, “my indelicate skin then.”
“I have not made any plans for your entertainment this afternoon, young ladies,” the major was saying. “Miss Stuart is determined that you must lie down and sleep off the effects of the Gypsy camp. But to-morrow we shall have a picnic to make up for it, and Miss Ruth may take her tea basket, since we have none in this household.”
“I’m not a bit tired now,” said Ruth.
“Neither are we,” echoed the other girls as they rose from the table.
“Well, suppose we make a compromise,” said the major, “by showing you over the house? After that sleep must be your portion, eh, Sallie?”
“It must, indeed,” replied that lady firmly, and all adjourned to the library.
The library of Ten Eyck Hall was, to Bab, the most beautiful of all the rooms. The walls were literally lined with books from floor to ceiling, and there were little galleries halfway up for the convenience of getting books that were too high to reach from the floor. Big leather chairs and couches were scattered about and heavy curtains seemed to conceal entrances to mysterious doors and passages leading off somewhere into the depths of the old house.
“This is just the place for a secret door or a staircase in the wall,” exclaimed Grace.
“There is a secret door, I believe, in this very room,” replied the major; “but it is really a secret, for the location was lost long ago and nobody has ever been able to find it since.”
“How interesting!” said Ruth. “Can’t you thump the walls and locate it by a hollow sound?”
“But, even if you discovered a hollow sound, you wouldn’t know how to open the door,” said Martin.
“Press a panel, my boy. That is all that isnecessary,” replied Jimmie. “With a wild shriek Lady Gwendolyn rushed through the portals of the lofty chamber. With trembling hands she pressed a panel in the wainscot. Instantly it flew back and disclosed a secret passage. Another instant and she had disappeared. The panel was restored to its place and Sir Marmanduke and her pursuers were foiled.”
All this, the irrepressible Jimmie had acted out with wild gesticulations.
They all laughed except Alfred Marsdale, who stood looking at Jimmie in a dazed sort of way.
“Wake up, Al, old man! What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh, nothing,” replied Alfred, “I was only wondering where I had read that before.”
There was another laugh, and the major led the way to the red drawing room. It had been the ball room in the old days.
“It’s a long time,” observed the major, “since anyone has danced on these floors.”
The room took its name, evidently, from the red damask hangings and upholstering of the furniture. The walls were paneled in white and gold and there was a grand piano at one end.
“We’ll have to take turn about playing,” said Ruth. “Grace and I each play a little.”
“Oh, Jimmie can play,” replied Martin. “Is there anything Jimmie can’t do?”
“Jimmie, you’re a brick,” said Alfred.
Back of the red drawing room was another smaller room which, the major said, had always been called a morning parlor, but it had been a favorite room of the family when he was a young man, and had been used as a gathering place in the evening as well as after breakfast.
“This is the prettiest room of all, I think,” observed Mollie.
And it was certainly the most cheerful, with its brightly flowered chintz curtains and shining mahogany chairs and tables.
After that came a billiard room, a small den used as a smoking room, and a breakfast room.
“Who wants to see the attic?” said Martin.
“We all do?” came in a chorus from the young people.
“Now, girls,” protested Miss Sallie, “remember you were to take your rest this afternoon.”
“Oh, we shan’t be up there long,” said Martin. “We promise you to bring them back in time for the beauty sleep.”
“Very well,” answered Miss Sallie; “go along with you. It’s very hard to be strict, Major. Don’t you find it so!”
“I never even tried the experiment, Sallie,” replied the gentle old soldier, “because I always found it harder on me than on the boys. It’s really a certain sort of selfishness on my part,I suppose. Cut along now, boys, and don’t keep the girls from their rest too long.”
The pilgrimage started up the great front staircase, led by Martin and his older brother, who together had made many excursions to the attic and knew the way by heart.
On the second floor the explorers followed a passage that led to another flight of stairs, and this in turn to another passage, and finally to one last narrow flight of steps with a mysterious door at the top.
“This reminds me of the House of Usher,” said Jimmie, “only it goes up instead of down. Can’t you imagine all these doors opening and closing, and the sound of footsteps on the stairs, down, down?”
Just then Martin opened the door and a gust of wind blew in their faces. Something flashed past that almost made the whole party fall backwards down the steps.
Mollie gave a little shriek.
“Don’t be frightened,” said José, who was standing just behind her. “It is only a bird.”
“Somebody must have left the window open,” exclaimed Stephen in surprise. “I wonder who it was? The servants are afraid to come up here. They believe it is haunted. Lights have been seen at midnight, shining through some of these windows, and the only persons who arenot afraid are the housekeeper and the butler, who come twice a year, and clean out the dust.”
The young people found themselves in a vast attic whose edges were hidden by dense shadows. The center was lighted by dormer windows, here and there, that gleamed like so many eyes from the high sloping roof. Scattered about were all sorts of odds and ends of antiquated furniture, chests of drawers, hair trunks, carved boxes and spinning wheels.
“Isn’t this great!” cried Jimmie Butler. “Just the place for handsprings,” and he began to turn somersaults like a professional, while the girls looked on delighted.
“Stop that, Jim,” protested Stephen. “You’ll get yourself filthy and break your neck into the bargain. You are much too old for such child’s play. You’ll have rush of blood to the head and strain a nerve, and heaven knows you’ve got enough to strain.”
“‘In my youth, Father William replied to his son,I feared it would injure the brain,But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none;Why, I do it again and again!’”
sang Jimmie as he wheeled over the floor toward a partition wall which cut off one end of the great room. Over and over he circled, without looking where he was going, until suddenly, bang, his heels hit against the wall.
There was a curious grating noise, a creaking of rafters, and before their amazed eyes the wall slid along and disclosed another attic as large as the first.
Jimmie was so bewildered he forgot to pull himself up from the dusty floor, and lay with his head propped against an old trunk looking across the enormous space.
Then everybody began talking at once.
“This looks to me like smugglers,” cried Alfred. “I was in an old house in England, where there was the same sort of wall, only not so large.”
“And look,” called Bab, “there are footsteps in the dust. Who could have been here lately, to have left those marks. Do you see? They come from over there in the right hand corner.”
“Yes, is it not curious,” replied José, “that they are going away from the wall and not approaching it? He must have walked out of the wall. Perhaps there is a secret door there, too.”
They rushed across pell mell, and began thumping the walls, but nothing happened.
“I say, Stephen,” said Martin, “do you suppose we had smugglers in our family?”
“I don’t know,” answered Stephen. “They managed to keep it secret if they had.”
“I’d like to be a smuggler,” cried Martin. “There would be some excitement in life then.But how did you manage to do it, Jimmie? You are always having things happen to you.”
“I don’t know,” replied Jimmie. “I must have kicked the panel that worked the spring. Let’s see if we can move it back again. Here’s the place in the floor,” and bending over he pressed on a sliding board in the floor. Instantly the wall began slipping back in place. The others leaped back into the first attic, and in a moment the partition had fitted itself as snugly as if it never had been moved.
“All is as if it never had been,” exclaimed Jimmie. “Now let’s find the place I kicked.”
But try as they would, no one could locate the spot again.
“Well, of all that’s curious and mysterious!” said Stephen. “Jimmie, go and turn a few more wheels and see if it happens again.”
Jimmie did as he was bade, and kicked the wall vociferously from one end to the other but it never budged an inch.
In the meantime, Martin and the girls were diving into some old trunks and carved chests which were filled with clothes of another date, old-fashioned silks and dimities that had been worn by the major’s grandmother and aunts.
“There is a trunkful of men’s things, too,” called Stephen, leaving the sliding partition, to join in the rummage.
“I say, girls,” cried Jimmie, “wouldn’t it be fun to give a fancy dress party some day, and surprise the major and Miss Stuart?”
“How delightful!” exclaimed the girls in one voice.
“Oh, pshaw!” said Martin, disgusted.
“Oh, I say now, Jimmie, what a beastly idea!” exclaimed Alfred, equally disgusted.
“Come on, fellows; don’t throw cold water on the scheme if the girls like it,” put in Stephen.
And so the party was arranged.
All this time José had never left the partition, but had kept up a continuous thumping to find the sliding panel.
“Everybody take a hand, and we will carry down everything we can find, and then we won’t have to make another trip,” called Stephen. “Come, José, we’re going to dress up. You’ll have to be a pirate. Here’s a red sash and a three cornered hat that will just suit your style.”
So saying, the cavalcade departed from the dark old attic, laden with spoils.
“If this is to be a surprise on uncle and Miss Stuart, we had better hide the things, hadn’t we?” observed Martin, who was very cautious and always thought ahead, once he had decided to do a thing.
“Very well. We’ll let Mary take charge ofthem and divide them later,” replied Stephen. “You had better go take your naps now, girls,” he added in a whisper, “or we’ll have the old lady and gentleman on our necks.”
The young people separated, the boys taking a corridor leading to the left wing, the girls following the main hall. Bab left the others and started downstairs.
“I’ll be right back,” she called. “I left my handkerchief in the library.”
She confessed to herself, as she descended the stairs, that she was rather tired. The excitement of the two past days, her uncomfortable bed made of a steamer rug spread on the ground, the night before, and finally the close, dusty air of the attic had combined to give her a headache and a feeling of extreme weariness.
When she reached the cool, darkened library, she sat down for a moment in one of the big chairs and closed her eyes. It was very restful in there. The sun had left that side of the house in the shade and the room with its heavy hangings, its dark leather furniture and rich rugs was full of shadows.
She was almost asleep, a slender little figure in a great armchair of carved black oak. Her head dropped to one side and her eyes closed, when she was awakened with a start by a draught of cold air. One of the curtains nextthe book shelves bulged out for a moment and Barbara’s eyes were fastened on a long, white hand that drew them aside. Then a face she had seen in the wood looked from around the curtain. The eyes met hers, and again that strange, childlike look of sorrow and amazement filled them.
A dizziness came over Barbara. She closed her eyes for a moment, and, when she opened them again, the face, or phantom, or whatever it was, had gone.
Holding her breath to keep from crying out, Barbara ran from the room as fast as her trembling knees could carry her. In the hall she met José. He looked at her curiously.
“Mademoiselle, have you seen a ghost?” he asked as he stood aside to let her pass.
She was afraid to answer, for fear of bursting into tears.
“I am sorry,” he continued. “Has anything really happened?”
But still she refused to speak, and ran up the stairs.
He turned and went into the library, closing the door after him.
There was a queer little smile on his face. Perhaps he, too, had seen the old man and understood her look of terror.
By the time she reached her room, Bab hadregained her self-composure, and had again determined to say nothing about the adventure. It would only frighten the girls and take away from the pleasure of the visit.
“I like them all, the pretty girls,I like them all whether dark or fair,But above the rest, I like the bestThe girl with the golden hair!”
rang out the charming tenor voice of José, while he thrummed a delightful accompaniment on the piano.
Dinner was over, and the major, and his guests were sitting in the moonlight on the broad piazza. Windows and doors were stretched as wide as possible; the curtains in the red drawing room were drawn back and José was entertaining the company.
“I sing it translated,” he called, as he finished the song, “that it may be understood.”
Whereupon Jimmie winked at Stephen, and looked at Mollie; the major smiled indulgently, and the others were all more or less conscious that Spaniards always liked blond girls because they were so rare in Spain.
Mollie herself, however, was unconscious that she was being sung about. She was looking out across the moonlit stretches of lawn and meadows, her little hands folded placidly in her lap.
“Do you dance as well as sing, Mr. Martinez?” she asked in her high, sweet voice.
“I can dance, yes,” replied José, “but I like best dancing with another. I do not like to dance alone.”
“But there is no one else here who dances Spanish fancy dances, is there?” demanded Miss Sallie.
There was a silence.
“Don’t all speak at once,” cried Jimmie. “I will play for you, José, if you will try dancing alone,” he added. “I am afraid we can’t help you in any of your Spanish dances.”
“Very well,” replied José. “I will, then, try a dance of the Basque country, if Madamoiselle Mollie will be so kind as to lend me her scarf. I must have a hat also.”
He disappeared through the window and returned in a moment with a broad-brimmed felt hat he had found in the hall. Mollie handed him her pink scarf with a border of wild roses, and walking composedly up to the end of the long piazza he stood perfectly still, waiting for the music to begin. Jimmie struck up a Spanishdance with the sound of castanets in the bass.
“How’s that for a tune?” he called out.
“Very good, very good,” answered José. Then he started the strange dance while the others watched spellbound.
The boys, who had been rather scornful of a man’s dancing fancy dances, confessed afterwards that there was nothing effeminate in José’s dancing, no pirouetting and twisting on one toe like Jimmie Butler’s one accomplishment in ballet-dancing. They gathered that it was a sort of bullbaiting dance. It began with a series of advances and retreats, with a springy step always in time to the throb of the music.
The young Spaniard was very graceful and lithe. He seemed to have forgotten that he was on the piazza of foreigners in a strange country. The dance grew quicker and quicker. Suddenly he drew a long curved dagger from his belt and made a lunge at some imaginary obstacle, probably the bull he was baiting.
Bab, who was nearest the dancer, rose to her feet quickly, and then sat down rather limply.
“The knife, the knife!” she said to herself. “It is the highwayman’s knife!”
And now the handsome dancer was kneeling at Mollie’s feet offering her the scarf.
He had risen and was bowing to the company, when whir-r-r! something had whizzed past his head, just scratched his forehead and then planted itself in the wooden frame of the window behind him.
Was Barbara dreaming; or had she lost her senses?
The knife in the wall was the same, or exactly like the knife José had been using in the dance.
In a moment everything was in wild confusion.
“Go into the house, ladies!” commanded the major.
The four boys leaped from the piazza, to run down the assassin, so they thought, but the figure vaguely outlined for an instant in the shadows of the trees, was as completely hidden as if the earth had opened and swallowed it up.
José, in a big chair in the drawing room, was being ministered to by Miss Sallie and the girls, while the major, with a glass of water, was standing over him on one side and the housekeeper, on the other, was binding his head with a linen handkerchief.
Whir-r-r! Something Whizzed Past His Head.Whir-r-r! Something Whizzed Past His Head.
“Major,” Miss Sallie was saying, “this country is full of assassins and robbers. I believe we shall all be murdered in our beds. I am really terribly frightened. We have had nothing but attacks since we left New York. And, now, this poor young man is in danger. Who could it have been, do you suppose, and what good did it do to hurl a knife into the midst of a perfectly harmless company like that!”
“The country is a little wild, Sallie,” replied the major apologetically, “but I have never heard of anything like this happening before. Of course, there are highwaymen everywhere. There are those Gypsies in the forest. Perhaps it was one of them.”
Just then the boys returned, and the attention of the others was distracted from José, who still sat quietly, his lips pressed together.
Barbara, who had been standing a little way off, turned to him quickly.
“The knife?” she asked, but stopped without finishing, for José had fixed her glance with a look of such appeal that she could say no more.
“By the way,” observed Jimmie Butler, “where is the knife?”
“Sticking in the wall of course,” replied Stephen.
The two boys ran out on the piazza, but returned empty-handed.
“Mystery of mysteries!” cried Jimmie, “the knife is gone!”
“It is impossible,” exclaimed the major. “We have not left this room. We could see anyone who came upon the piazza.”
“Well, it’s gone,” said Jimmie. “While you were nursing José, somebody must have crept up and got it.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Miss Sallie. “Do you mean to say that the murderer has been that close to us again? Do close those windows and draw the curtains.”
“Yes, do so,” said the major. “Mary,” he continued to the housekeeper, who was entering at that moment with a basin of water, “I wish you would have all the men on the place sent to me. Some of them may be asleep, but wake them up. We shall scour every part of the estate to-night. If there’s anybody hiding around here we shall rout him out.”
Mary hurried off to deliver her orders, while the boys ran to their rooms to get on tennis shoes and collect various weapons.
“I am sorry José was scratched,” Martin confided to Alfred, “but—well, this is pretty good sport, old man. Don’t you think so?”
“By Jove, it is,” replied Alfred with enthusiasm. “If that assassin should leap at us in the dark I should like to give him a nip with this shillalah. What a beastly coward he was to attack a man when his back was turned!”
And with that, he waved a big knotted club, one of Stephen’s possessions, around his head, and glared ferociously.
“Come on, boys,” called Stephen. “We haven’t a moment to lose. The man will be well away if we don’t hurry. We are going to ride in twos and divide the place in sections.”
In another ten minutes a company of horsemen rode off in the moonlight, two by two, while the frightened maid-servants locked and barred the house doors and windows.
José had begged to be allowed to go along, but the major had silenced him by saying that Miss Sallie and the girls needed a protector, and that under the circumstances it was better for him to stay at home and look after them. Even the old major was rather enjoying the zest of a man-hunt, and his eyes flashed with a new fire under his grizzled eyebrows.
But nothing happened and the assassin remained at large. The hunters scoured the country, searched the forest on the outskirts of the Ten Eyck estate, and woke the sleeping Gypsies to demand what they knew. The Gypsies knew nothing, and at midnight the horsemen returned.
The house was silent. Everyone had gone to bed except José, who sat in the library listening for every sound that creaked through the old place. He met Major Ten Eyck and the boys at the front door, holding a candle high and peeringanxiously into the dark to see what quarry they had brought home.
And, when he saw they had no prisoner bound to the horse with the ropes that the major had ordered his man to take along, a look of strange relief came into the Spaniard’s face. He breathed a deep sigh, smiled as he thanked them, said good-night and went up the broad stairway with the same smile still clinging to his lips.
In the meantime Bab was stretched out beside the sleeping Ruth, wide awake, going over the events of that tumultuous day.
She felt that these events had no connection with each other, and yet deep down in her inner consciousness she was searching for the link that bound all the strange happenings together. She was not quite sure now whether she had seen the face in the library or not. She had been so tired and hot. It might, after all, have been a dream. But the footsteps in the dust on the attic floor, coming from the wall, what of them?
And last, though most strange and mysterious of all, the two daggers? José had been saved just in time from the stigma of suspicion by the appearance of the other dagger, for, in the moment she had seen the two, Bab had realized they were absolutely alike.
She could not believe José was a highwayman, and yet there were certain things thatlooked very black. It was true he had not known where they were going, but she imagined he could have found it out.
Was it his figure she had seen behind the curtain that morning, listening? Whoever it was heard the exact route of their trip, with explicit directions from the major. Undoubtedly, Bab believed, the eavesdropper was the highwayman.
Furthermore, what did they know about José? It is true he had come bearing credentials, but such things were easily fixed up by experts, and the major was a simple old fellow who never doubted anybody until he had to.
On the other hand, José had every appearance of being a gentleman. He had proved himself to be brave by knocking down the tramp twice his size at Sleepy Hollow. There was an air of sincerity about him which she could not fail to recognize. He was graceful and charming. Everybody liked him, even those who had been inclined to feel prejudiced at first.
Would the Spaniard have dared to use the same dagger in the dance that he had used to slash their tires with? It was assuredly amazingly reckless, and yet he might have trusted to the darkness and risked it.
But the look he gave her when she started to speak of the twin daggers! What could thathave meant? Was he trying to shield his own enemy?
Should she speak to the major or should she say nothing?
On the whole, Barbara thought it would be better to keep quiet for a day or two. It might be that Miss Sallie would insist on taking them away after this last attack; but she believed Ruth’s and the major’s prayers would prevail, and that they would all stay through the visit.
They had planned so many delightful parties it seemed a shame to break up on the very first day of their visit. And, after all, Miss Sallie had a great tenderness for the major, a tenderness lasting through thirty years.
Then Barbara dropped off to sleep, and in the old house only one other soul was still awake as the clock in the hall chimed the hour of two.
In his room, by the light of a flickering candle, José sat examining the dagger that had so baffled Bab’s curiosity. On his face was an expression of sorrow and bitterness that would certainly have aroused her pity had she seen him that moment. At last he shook his head hopelessly, muttered something in Spanish, and blew out the candle.
But before getting into bed he picked up the dagger again.
“Even in America,” he said in English,“even in this far country it is the same. But I will not endure it,” he muttered. “It is too much!”
Putting his dagger under the pillow, he crept to bed.
The household was late in pulling itself together next morning. At half-past nine, Mary and her husband, John, had carried trays of coffee and rolls to the rooms of the guests, informing them, at the same time, that luncheon would be served at half-past twelve.
Mollie and Grace, in dressing gowns and slippers, had carried their trays into the room shared by Ruth and Barbara. Miss Sallie had followed, looking so charming in her lavender silk wrapper, elaborately trimmed with lace and ribbons that all the girls had exclaimed with admiration; which put the lady in a very good humor at the outset. Who does not like to be complimented, especially in the early morning when one is not apt to feel at one’s best?
To add to the gayety of the company there was a knock on the door, which, when opened,disclosed John bearing a large tray of flowers, a small nosegay for each of the girls and a large bunch of dewy sweet peas for Miss Sallie, all with the major’s compliments.
“What a man he is!” she cried. “He disarms me with his bunches of flowers just as I was about to tell him something very disagreeable. I really don’t see how I can do it.”
“Oh, please don’t, auntie, dear!” exclaimed Ruth. “I know what it is. We all do. But if we broke up the party, and went trailing off home, now that the worst is over, it wouldn’t do anybody much good, and think of what a beautiful time we would be missing. To tell you the truth, auntie, we are just dying to stay. In spite of everything we are. Aren’t we, girls?”
“Yes, indeed,” came in a chorus from the other three girls, a little faintly from Bab perhaps, but very eagerly from Mollie and Grace.
“Well, we’ll see,” replied Miss Sallie. “But it does seem to me that this trip has started off very badly. Three attacks in as many days.”
“That’s true,” said Ruth. “Yet by the magic Rule of Three we should have no more. We have finished now and the curse is lifted.”
“When Mollie’s old Gypsy comes over we must ask her to tell a few things,” observed Grace. “I believe she really can predict the future. That night when you and Bab hadgone with the Gypsies to get the automobile I asked her if she told fortunes, and all she said was: ‘I can tell when there is blood on the moon.’”
“What a horrible idea!” exclaimed Miss Sallie. “Weren’t you frightened?”
“No, I wasn’t frightened, because she seemed to have forgotten me entirely. I really thought, at the time, she must be talking about her own affairs. She looked so black and fierce.”
“Perhaps she meant José’s blood,” remarked Mollie from behind her nosegay of honeysuckle and mignonette.
“Well, there wasn’t much of it,” replied Bab, “because José received only a scratch, and lost scarcely any blood. It was a close shave, though. Just half an inch nearer and it would have gone straight through his head.”
“He seems to be a very remarkable young man,” said Miss Sallie. “Did you notice he never said one word? Just sat there as quietly as if nothing had happened.”
“He was thinking,” answered Barbara. “But of course most people would have been too frightened to think. Did you notice the knife?” she ventured.
But nobody had, evidently. They had all been too excited and horror-struck at the time to have noticed anything.
“I saw it was a knife, and that was all,” said Ruth.
“I never saw a man dance before,” observed Mollie, as if following aloud a train of thoughts she had been pursuing while the others talked. “I was almost sorry he said he would, but when I saw what kind of dancing it was I was glad. It was really and truly a man’s dance. I think it must have been a toreador’s dance, don’t you?”
“Something like this,” said Ruth, using a towel for a scarf and a comb for a dagger. “And, by the way,” she continued, pausing as she pranced around the room, “how did he happen to have a dagger so handy!”
“That’s because he is a Spaniard, my dear,” remarked Miss Sallie. “These foreigners carry anything from dynamite bombs to carving knives. They are always murdering and slashing one another.”
“Perhaps,” cried Mollie, excitedly, “it was the Black Hand that tried to kill him.”
The others all laughed.
“Really, Mollie,” cried Miss Sallie, “don’t add any more horrors to the situation. We are already surrounded by Gypsies, and tramps and assassins.”
“But protected, Aunt Sallie, dear,” protested Ruth, “protected by five ‘gintlemin frinds,’ as Irish Nora used to say.”
“Well, dress yourselves now,” said Miss Stuart, making for the door with her silken draperies trailing after her. “And remember, Ruth, dear, if your father scolds us for staying I shall lay all the blame on you.”
“Oh, I will manage Dad,” replied Ruth.
When the two girls were left alone they did not speak for a little while. Barbara, who was sitting on the floor near the window with her head propped against a pillow, closed her eyes, and for a moment Ruth thought she was asleep. A breeze laden with the perfume of the honeysuckle vines stirred the curtain. Barbara took in a deep breath, opened her eyes and sat up.
“Ruth,” she said, “do you know, the smell of the honeysuckles gives me the queerest sensation? I feel as if I had been here before, once long ago, ever so long. I can’t remember when, and of course I haven’t been, but isn’t it curious? These old rooms are as familiar to me as if I had lived in them. I believe I could find my way blindfolded around the house.”
“I should like to see you try it,” replied Ruth, “especially when you struck one of those back passages that lead off into nowhere in particular. But you are tired, Bab, dear,” continued her friend, leaning over and patting her on the cheek. “Come along, now, and get dressed. Itold Stephen and Alfred we would play them a game of tennis some time this morning.”
The girls found the two boys waiting in the hall to keep their appointment. Alfred was fast losing his shyness in the presence of these two wholesome and unaffected girls who could play tennis almost as well as he could, ride horseback, run a motor car, repel a highwayman with a pistol and not lose their heads when they needed to keep them most. But, what was more to the purpose, they were not in the least shy or afraid to speak out. They were full of high spirits and knew how to have a good time without appealing constantly to some everlasting governess who was always tagging after them, or asking mamma’s permission. In fact, Alfred had suffered a change of heart. When he had heard the house party was to be increased by a number of girls he had bitterly repented ever having left England. By this time, however, he could not imagine a house party without girls, especially American girls.
“I say, you know,” he said to Ruth as they strolled toward the beautiful tennis court that was shaded, at one side, by a row of tall elm trees, “must I call you Ruth? I notice the other fellows do?”
“Oh, well,” replied Ruth, “we are none of us actually grown yet and what is the use of somuch formality before it is really necessary? What do you do in England?”
“In England,” replied Alfred, “we don’t call them anything. We don’t see them except in the holidays, and then they are only sisters and cousins.”
“Isn’t there any fun in sisters and cousins?” asked Ruth.
“Well, they’re not very jolly,” replied the candid youth; “not as jolly as you, that is.”
Ruth laughed. By this time they had reached the court and were selecting racquets and tossing for sides.
“Stephen, Ruth and I will play against you and Barbara,” said Alfred rather testily. “What is the use of tossing when it was arranged beforehand?”
“You seem rather eager, Alfred, my boy,” replied Stephen. “I’m sure we have no objections, have we, Barbara?”
“None,” said Barbara, “At least I haven’t. You may, however, when you hear that Ruth won the championship at Newport last summer.”
“You look to me like a pretty good player, too,” said Stephen.
Just then Jimmie Butler appeared, bearing a hammock and a book.
“You can get in the next set, Jimmie,” calledStephen. “We are just starting in on this one.”
“I don’t care for the game,” replied Jimmie. “I prefer a book ’neath the bough, especially as this house party seems to go in companies of twos. Every laddie has a lassie but me, so I’ve taken to literature.”
He waved his hand toward the garden, and then toward the walk leading from the house.
In the old-fashioned flower garden, a stone’s throw from the court, could be seen Miss Sallie and the major strolling along the paths, stopping occasionally to examine the late roses and smell the honeysuckle trained over wicker arches.
In the direction of the house appeared Mollie and Grace, followed by Martin and José. The sound of their laughter floated over to Jimmie as he swung in his hammock.
“Keep away, all,” he called as he spread himself comfortably among the cushions and opened his book. “I intend to enter a monastery and take the vow of silence, and this is a good time to begin. It’s easy because I have nobody to talk to.”
“What are you grumbling about, Jimmie?” asked the major, who came up just then with Miss Sallie.
“Oh, nothing at all, Major,” replied Jimmie. “I was only saying how delightful it was to seeall you young people walking around this sylvan place in couples. It reminds me of my lost youth.”
“Jimmie’s lonesome,” exclaimed Martin. “We’ll have to get up some more excitement if we want to keep him happy.”
“Very well,” replied the major. “We will. The most exciting thing I can think of, just now, is to take a long ride in the automobiles, or go driving, whichever the ladies prefer, and wind up at the forest pool for tea. How does that strike you, Jimmie?”
“It sounds fine,” said Jimmie, “if you mean the haunted pool. It is a beautiful spot, and it has a new haunt since last you saw it, Major. It’s haunted by water nymphs now.”
“Only nymphs in wading,” cried Mollie, blushing. “Jimmie caught us in the act yesterday morning.”
“Oho!” exclaimed the major. “You really are little girls, after all, are you?”
“Think of going in wading in that lonesome spot,” said Grace, “and actually meeting somebody as casually as if you were walking up Fifth Avenue?”
“You’re likely to meet Jimmie anywhere,” said Martin. “He’s a regular Johnnie-on-the-spot. He is the first person to get up and the last one to go to bed. Excitements have a realattraction for him. Haven’t they, Jimsy?” and Martin gave the hammock such an affectionate shake that Jimmie nearly fell out on his face.
The luncheon gong rang out in the summer stillness, and they started toward the house, leaving the players to finish the game.
“José,” asked the major, putting his arm through the young Spaniard’s, “have you any theories about last night?”
“Yes,” replied José. “I do not think it will do any good to hunt for the one who threw the knife. I have, in my country, an enemy. I believe it was he.”
“What?” cried the major. “He has followed you all the way to America, and your life is constantly in danger?”
“I do not think he will come again,” answered José. “At any rate, I am not afraid,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “and I can do nothing.”
“You could have him arrested,” said Miss Sallie.
“Yes, Madam, I could. But it would not be easy to catch him.”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Miss Sallie. “What a dangerous country Spain must be to live in!”
“No more dangerous than America, Madam, I find,” replied José.
“True enough,” assented Miss Sallie, “since this is America and not Spain, and we find ourselvesin a perfect hotbed of criminals. My dear John, I think we shall need a body-guard if we go out in the open this afternoon.”
“Well, Sallie,” answered the courteous old man, “you shall have one in me and my nephews and their friends—a devoted body-guard, I assure you.”
At luncheon the feeling of good will which comes to friends who have just found each other, so to speak, had spread itself. Enjoyment was in the air and there were no discordant elements. All their troubles were of the past, and Bab determined to cast aside her suspicions and regard José in the light of a mysterious but otherwise exceedingly attractive foreigner. When she looked across the table into his clear, brown eyes, which regarded her sadly but without a single guilty quiver of the lids, she could not but believe that there had been some bitter mistake somewhere. He was lonely and strange, and there was something about him that aroused her pity. Everybody liked him; even Miss Sallie was attracted by his graceful and gentle manners.
Luncheon over, everyone made ready for the auto trip, and it was not long before the two autos carrying a merry party, had set forth.
After a long ride through the country, skirting the edge of the forest in which the highwayman had lurked, and where the smoke from the Gypsies’ camp fire could be seen curling up in the distance, the two automobiles took to the river road.
Ruth was steering her own car with Alfred beside her; behind them on the small seat sat José and Mollie, and on the back seat were Bab and Stephen. As they skimmed over the bridge, which had been repaired by the major’s men, Mollie said to José:
“Was the bridge all right, Mr. Martinez, when you came over it the other day?”
The Spaniard flushed and his eye caught Bab’s, who was gazing at him curiously.
“Yes, no—or rather, I do not know,” he stammered. “I did not come by the bridge but through the forest.”
“But how did you find the way?” asked Mollie, wondering a little at his embarrassment.
“I asked it,” he replied, “of a Gypsy.”
“Oh, really?” cried Mollie. “And did she tell you?”
“It was not a woman,” went on José. “It was a man.”
“And did he know the way? Because they told us they did not, perhaps because they didn’t want to be disturbed so late in the evening.”
“Perhaps,” said José, and changed the subject by asking Stephen whose was the large estate they were now approaching. It was that of a famous millionaire, and their attention was for the moment distracted. José seemed to breath a sigh of relief and engaged Mollie in conversation for the rest of the ride, telling her about his own country, the bull fights and carnivals and a hundred other things of interest until the little girl had quite forgotten his confusion at the mention of the damaged bridge.
On the way back the automobiles turned into the wooded road, but before they reached the Gypsy camp they turned again into another road pointed out by Martin in the first car. The road led directly through the forest to the haunted pool, where the automobiles drew up. The pool, in the late afternoon sunlight, was more enchanting than ever.
“This is a famous spot in the neighborhood,” observed the major. “When I was a boy it was the scene of many a picnic and frolic. People in these parts were more neighborly in those days. The girls and boys used to meet and ridein wagons or on horseback over here. We ate our luncheons on this mossy bank; then strolled about in couples until dark and drove home by moonlight.”
“The Gypsy girl told us it was really haunted, Major,” said Ruth. “She even said she had seen the ghost.”
“Indeed,” replied the major, looking up a little startled, “and what sort of ghost was it?”
“Just a figure sitting here on the bank,” answered Ruth.
“Oh!” he exclaimed in a tone of evident relief.
“Why, Major,” cried Miss Sallie, “one would think you believed in ghosts.”
“And so I do, Sallie, my dear,” declared the gentle old major, “but only in the ghosts of my lost youth, which seem to appear to me to-day in the forms of all these delightful young people. What about tea, Miss Ruth Stuart?” he demanded, turning to Ruth.
The chauffeur brought out the elaborate tea basket which had served them so well at the Gypsy camp and Ruth and Barbara proceeded to make the tea while the other girls unpacked boxes of delicious sandwiches and tea cakes.
“This is a very beautiful spot,” observed José. “If it were perpetual summer I could live and die on this mossy bank and never tireof it!” Walking a little apart from the others he stretched himself out at full length on the ground, staring up into the branches overhead.
Then the other boys, who had been strolling about under the trees, returned, but they were not alone. They had espied Zerlina in the depths of the woods, with her guitar slung over her shoulder, and persuaded her to go back with them to the pool.
“You see we’ve brought a wandering minstrel with us,” cried Jimmie. “She has promised to sing us a song of the Romany Rye, haven’t you, Zerlina?”
The girls greeted Zerlina cordially. She was presented to the major, but José, as she approached, had turned over on his side and flung his arm over his head, as if he were asleep.
“Leave him alone. He’s dreaming,” said Jimmie. “Give Zerlina some tea and cake, and then we’ll have a song.”
Zerlina ate the cake greedily and drank her tea in silence. She examined the fresh summer dresses of “The Automobile Girls,” and a look of envy came into her eyes as she cast them down on her cotton skirt full of tatters from the briars and faded from red into a soft old pink shade. But she was very pretty, even in her ragged dress, which was turned in at the collar showing her full, rounded throat and shapelyneck. She was lithe and graceful, and as she thrummed on the guitar with her slender, brown fingers her ragged dress and rough shoes faded into insignificance. The group of people sitting on the bank saw only a beautiful, dark-haired girl with a glowing face and eyes that shone with a smouldering fire. After a few preliminary chords she began to sing in a rich contralto voice. The song again was in the Romany tongue. It seemed to convey to the listeners a note of sadness and loneliness.
The kind old major was much impressed by the performance.
“Zerlina,” he said, “you have a very beautiful voice, much too beautiful to be wasted. You must ask your grandmother to bring you over to Ten Eyck Hall. I should like to hear you sing again.”
“Zerlina will be a great opera singer, one of these days,” predicted Jimmie. “She will be singing Carmen, yet, at the Manhattan Opera House. How would you like that, Zerlina?”
The Gypsy girl made no reply. Her eyes were fastened on José, who still lay as if asleep, his back turned to the circle.
“She can dance, too,” cried Ruth. “She told me she could. This would be a pretty place to dance, Zerlina, where the fairies dance by moonlight.”
“I have no music,” objected Zerlina.
“Oh, I can make the music all right,” said the irrepressible Jimmie, seizing the guitar and tuning it up. Then he began to whistle. The tone was clear and flute-like and the tune the same Spanish dance he had played for José. Zerlina pricked up her ears when she heard the music and the rhythm of the guitar. It is said that no Gypsy can ever resist the sound of music. Now the body of the girl began swaying to the beat of the accompaniment. Presently she began to dance, a real Spanish dance full of gestures and movement. They half guessed the story woven in, a lover repelled and called back, coquetted with and threatened; threatened with a knife which she drew from the blouse of her dress and then restored to its hiding place; for the dance ended quickly without disaster, imaginary or otherwise. Miss Sallie had given a little cry at sight of another murderous weapon. But the knife! Had no one seen it, no one recognized the chased silver handle and the slightly curved blade? Bab sat as if rooted to the spot, waiting for somebody to speak, to cry out that the knife was the same that had whizzed past José’s head the other night. After all, nobody had really seen it but herself. She had learned by a former experience to keep her own counsel, and she decided towait, and not to tell until matters took a more definite turn.
Was it possible this beautiful Gypsy girl could be a murderess, or one at heart? But, on the other hand, would she have dared to display the mysterious dagger in the presence of the same company? Bab was puzzled and worried. Was Zerlina a robber also, or was José, after all, the robber? Perhaps there was some connection between them. There must be, since they had exchanged knives on several occasions.
Her reflections were interrupted by a general movement toward the automobiles. Zerlina was evidently pleased at the praises she had received, for her cheeks were flushed with pride.
“Won’t you let us see your dagger, Zerlina?” asked Bab.
“Oh, yes, do!” begged Mollie. “It will be the third dagger we have seen this week; but this is the first chance we have had to take a good look at any of them.”
Zerlina looked at them darkly. Her lips drew themselves together in a stubborn line.
“I cannot, now,” she said. “Perhaps, another time. Good-bye.” She slipped off into the woods as quietly as one of the spirits which were said to haunt the place.
“Gypsies are so tiresome,” exclaimed Miss Sallie. “Why shouldn’t she show her dagger,I’d like to know? And who cares whether she does or not, anyhow?”
“If you had ever read any books on Gypsies, Sallie,” replied the major, “you would know that their lives are full of things they must keep secret if they want to keep out of jail. However, these Gypsies seem peaceable enough,” he added, his kindly spirit never liking to condemn anything until it was necessary. “But what a beautiful girl she is!” he continued. “If she were properly dressed she would be as noble and elegant looking as”—he paused for a comparison—“as our own young ladies here. I wonder if her grandmother would ever consent to her being educated and taught singing?”