“Thank you for suggesting so much happiness for my boy,” said Mrs. Grahame, earnestly. “You make me want to go to see you immediately.”
Just as Hester’s lively imagination was picturing all sorts of calamities which might have overtaken her sister, that individual came hurriedly in with a bottle of salad oil in her hand.
“Well, where on earth have you been?” cried Hester; “I thought you must have dropped dead or been kidnaped or something fearful.”
“Was I so long? I am sorry, dear, but you see I made a call en route.”
“A call! who ever heard of such a thing! Where is Peter Snooks?” suddenly missing him.
“He is finishing the visit for me.” Julie laughed with a provokingly mysterious air.
Hester, who had been working on alone and diving her head into a hot oven every five minutes to anxiously watch the evolution of bothersome little dabs of thin dough into small puffy cakes, was feeling decidedly cross and resented her sister’s apparent indifference to the business at hand.
“Well, I’m glad ifyouhave time to gad about,” she said, witheringly. “Ithoughtwe were going to take a lesson in making mayonnaise.”
“You goose!” exclaimed Julie, pushing her away from the hot oven and herself kneeling down to peer in. “I’ll watch these cakes—you sit down and draw a breath and the cork of the oil at the same time, while I tell you what happened.”
Somewhat mollified, Hester obeyed, and even deigned to show interest when Julie graphically described their neighbors.
“Wasn’t it odd, Hester, just walking right into the midst of things like that? And the boy was so pathetic, and his mother was so quaint, with such a sweet face and pretty, wavy hair, and I only stayed a moment, dear, really, for all the time I knew you’d be wondering what had become of me.”
“Well, all I’ve got to say is,” remarked Hester, with decided emphasis, “that if you were willing to leave Peter Snooks with them, they must be very remarkable people indeed.”
The weeks passed rapidly to the young workers, who found each day full of experiments, sometimes developing into satisfactory results and again filled with bitter discouragement. There were days when the battle for existence threatened to overweigh and submerge them; days when from morning till night their work seemed possessed by evil demons, and everything went wrong; days when despair tugged at their hearts, and the old happy life forced itself in upon their thoughts with clamorous persistence. And ah! how they felt the sorrow of their father’s helplessness, the loss of his companionship causing an ache that nothing could assuage! But through it all they fought their way, upheld by the longing to show a spirit worthy of their father’s daughters, sustained by the consciousness that by their own endeavor they were “making a home for Dad.” This was the dominant note of the new life—like a bugle-call stirring them to action!
Julie, who had been reading aloud to her father one day, suddenly went into the nextroom to find Hester, and exclaimed, “Thackeray says, ‘I would not curse my fortune—I’d make it!’ I think that’s great, Hester! We’ll take it for a motto.” And by that motto ever after they abided.
Mr. Dale had not awakened to any definite consciousness of his condition, as Dr. Ware had anticipated, but remained in a passive, tranquil state, taking little heed and no part in any conversation, though his face brightened perceptibly whenever any one entered the room. Much of the day he slept, but during his waking hours one of the girls was constantly with him, hovering about with a tender protective air.
Dr. Ware, who devoted all his spare time to his old friend, was a frequent and most welcome visitor. He was a man of distinguished presence, tall and well-knit, with the military bearing of a soldier and some ten years younger than Mr. Dale, although they had served in the War of the Rebellion together. Streaks of gray showed plentifully in his hair and pointed beard, throwing into greater contrast his black brows and blue-black eyes, while his face was marked with strong lines indicative of character. It was an interesting face and one that inspired immediate confidence, and in addition there was about him an indefinable charm which made itself felt both professionally and socially, so that there was nota more popular man in Radnor. This was perhaps an unusual position for a man of strong convictions, expressed fearlessly and freely on all subjects. To be thoroughly popular commonly requires an adaptable temperament not compatible with strong individuality.
He watched over “his girls” as he called them, with affectionate solicitude mingled with an admiration and respect which knew no bounds. “They are going to succeed,” he would frequently say to himself after leaving them, “every failure only makes them more determined—it’s fine to watch the growth of such spirit.” And then he would drive off on his round of visits with a preoccupied air and vague longings would steal in upon him, softening the lines about his mouth and eyes and lingering deliciously in his mind even after he had roused himself impatiently from such day-dreams.
The girls’ experiments in making mayonnaise resulted in Julie’s screwing up her courage one day and going to the leading grocery of Radnor. She asked for the proprietor and laid before him her scheme, at the same time showing him a sample of the mayonnaise. Poor Julie, who did not know what it meant to cry her wares in open market, felt very uncomfortable and flushed quite red as she talked; but she struggled to overcome her timidity and succeeded in interesting theman, who told her to leave her sample for him to try at home and gave her some valuable information about putting up such an article in the regulation form, suggesting that she follow his directions and bring in the mayonnaise again, bottled and labeled for his inspection.
Busy days those were indeed in “The Hustle,” for in addition to trying varieties of cake, the mayonnaise suggested making salads and one thing led to another with surprising rapidity.
It gradually began to be recognized in Radnor that if one wanted any delicacy in the way of fancy cooking, one should order it from “those Dale girls,” and this recognition was in no small part due to Mrs. Lennox, the President oftheSewing Class. It was she who had sent them their first order and shown a marked interest in their work which was not without its immediate effect, for people occupied in their relation to Mrs. Lennox a position similar to that of “Mary’s little lamb.” Mrs. Lennox was a beautiful woman and in the fashionable world her word was law; but society amused rather than interested her, and her keen intellect and strong individuality led her into devious paths. Above all she was a philanthropist in that broad and humanitarian sense which sees promise in all gradations of men and women.
She followed her first order to the girls with asecond by mail; then a little correspondence ensued, in which she suggested their sending her any new thing they might be trying. A few weeks later she “blew over,” as she expressed it, and said in her charming way to Julie, as if she had known her intimately for years:
“My dear, are you busy enough?”
“No indeed, Mrs. Lennox, we never could be busy enough—we want to do so much.”
“So I thought.” She threw back her furs and unclasping a big bunch of violets tossed them into the girl’s lap. “You like them, don’t you? So do I. I adore violets. I am raising white ones now and I will send you over some if I may.”
“Oh, how good of you! Daddy loves them too. We always used to have flowers wherever we were and we do miss them so. I don’t see how you suspected it, Mrs. Lennox.”
“I am rather keen about human nature, my dear, and it occurs to me that even though you do cook, you may have a love and longing for the beautiful.”
Julie smiled. It was so comfortable to talk with some one who understood them. “Miss Ware would not agree with you,” she said. “She considers us lost to the finer things, beyond redemption. She dislikes us, you know, and we never go there; but she comes here sometimesand asks us all sorts of questions and wants to know about our recipes and things as if we could not comprehend any other subject. Hester calls it ‘talking shop’ and we hate it—not the work but the being excluded from other things.”
“I understand perfectly. Miss Ware is a bit, well, narrow, like most Radnor people. So you are not busy enough?” eyeing her curiously; “well then, I have a suggestion. If you want to cater for the town, send out cards.”
Julie gasped. “Business cards, you mean, soliciting orders?”
“Exactly. You do a variety of things already—think up and experiment with more until you get an imposing little list, have cards printed and send them about—at least five hundred, I should say. Radnor is a large place and cliquey—there must be numbers of persons unknown to me who have never heard of you girls, yet would be likely to give you their custom. If my name on the cards by way of indorsement would be of any advantage, you are more than welcome to use it.”
“Oh! thank you, of course it would be a great advantage, Mrs. Lennox, for no one knows us at all, you see. I’m—I’m dazed by your idea—it seems so pretentious—so bold to advertise ourselves. I don’t believe we should ever have thought of it, but itisthe thing to do.”
“Decidedly. I know something about business and you have one of the most necessary qualifications for success—indefatigable zeal—and I want to push you along. But you must not overtax your strength. I suppose you have heard that before, eh, Miss Dale?” She laughed musically. “No doubt kindly disposed persons come here to leave orders and tell you not to work too hard.”
“Yes, they do,” Julie earnestly replied. “I wish they would not. Just as if we did not have to work with all our might and main, and it is not easy—always.”
“Easy! I should think not!” Mrs. Lennox rose and smiled into Julie’s grave eyes as she held out her hand to say good-by. “I am going now, but I want to come again and meet your sister too. May I? I should so like to know you and be your friend.”
Julie impulsively kissed her. “It is so good to find some one who wants to know us—in spite of everything,” she faltered.
“It is because of everything, my dear,” giving the girl an impetuous little hug. Which demonstration would greatly have astonished the smart set of Radnor to whom this side of their leader was unknown and unsuspected.
It was about this time that the girls got the mayonnaise put up to their satisfaction, for innumerableperplexities had arisen in the matter of suitable bottles, corks and labels. When finally Julie had submitted the result to the grocer and that all-powerful man had ordered a dozen bottles to sell on commission, the girls felt that they were working to some purpose, and a glow akin to honest pride surged in their hearts. But the sensation swelled to overwhelming proportions when late one afternoon Julie, passing the store, spied in the great show-window a group of their bottles standing boldly alongside the firm’s best fancy articles. She gasped, scarcely daring to look at them, and rushed home to tell Hester.
But when she got home she did not tell Hester. Instead she said: “Put on your things and come out before it grows dark—the air will do you good.”
“Can’t,” said Hester, deep in a book, “I’m too tired to move.”
“I want to show you something.”
“Where?” reading on.
“In a shop window.”
“Julie Dale, what’s the matter?” she exclaimed, dropping her book. “I’m sure you’ve got a crazy look about you—your hat’s on crooked!”
“I don’t care, I think you would want to throwyourhat in the air if you had seen it!”
“Seen what? A shop window? I hatethem—they’re just full of tantalizing things one wants and can’t have!”
“Well, this isn’t—or perhaps it is—I am sure I don’t know, but I came way back after you and oh! do come.”
“You are responsible for great expectations,” said Hester, reluctantly getting up from the bed. “I call it a most unchristian act to rout me out like this.”
But she took another view of it when she found herself out in the brisk wintry air, and she caught some of the exhilaration of her sister’s gay spirits as they went along, Peter Snooks racing wildly about them.
When they approached the window of the grocery Julie’s heart beat rapidly in anticipation of Hester’s surprise. As they reached it she suddenly pulled her arm and led her close to the window. “Look!” she said excitedly but in a low voice, for many persons were passing and some few stood near them.
There it was, the mayonnaise into which they had put their best endeavor, standing in so conspicuous a place that it could not fail to attract the attention of the passers-by.
“New thing, that mayonnaise, isn’t it?” they heard a man say to his companion, “well put up—let’s go in and look at it.”
Hester gazed speechless into the window, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.
“Would you ever have believed it!” whispered Julie, poking her. “Let’s wait,” as she saw a clerk lean into the window and take down a bottle, “let’s wait and see if those people buy it.”
“No we won’t,” said Hester, finding her voice at last. She clutched her sister’s arm convulsively. “We’ll go straight home before I scream with joy right here on the corner.”
“You don’t like shop windows, do you?” said Julie with a happy laugh.
In the exuberance of their spirits and with a desire to impart the good news to their neighbors, whom they now counted as friends, the girls stopped at the Grahame’s on their way upstairs.
“Jack,” exclaimed Hester the impetuous, “Jack, what do you suppose has happened?”
“By the look of you I should say you’d inherited a fortune.”
“Pouf!” disdainfully, “that is commonplace.” She clapped her hands together while her eyes danced merrily. “Try again, Jack.”
“May I have a guess, Miss Dale?” said a voice that made the girl start, while a long, lazy form emerged from the corner.
Hester’s manner changed instantly, and hereyes sought Jack’s questioningly, as if she were asking some explanation. Then she turned to the man who stood quietly watching her.
“How do you do, Mr. Landor?” she said with a stiff little formality that was unlike Hester, “I did not know you and Jack were friends.”
“May I be presented?” asked Julie, coming forward; “I seem to be quite out of it.”
Jack from his chair in his capacity of host performed the introduction.
“Willyoulet me guess?” said the man, addressing Julie as if there had been no interruption. “Your sister refuses to answer me.”
“You certainly will not let him guess,” promptly replied Hester. “Curiosity is a shockingly reprehensible trait and besides,” with a little toss of her head, “our affairs cannot possibly be of interest to Mr. Landor.”
The man flushed and picked up his hat. “I am off, old fellow,” he said to Jack. “I’ll be in again before a great while.”
“Oh, don’t let us drive you away, please, Mr. Landor,” protested Julie, who was secretly marveling over that cool little sarcastic voice which she had scarcely recognized as Hester’s. “We had only a moment to stop and we can come down again any time; we know what a great pleasure it is to Jack to have visitors, don’t we, Hester?”
Julie had her hand on the door.
“MAY I HAVE A GUESS, MISS DALE?”“MAY I HAVE A GUESS, MISS DALE?”
“You will do what she asks, I am sure, Mr. Landor,” said Hester. It did not escape him that she shifted the responsibility to her sister. “Julie always arranges things perfectly. We really should be at home this very minute.” And waving her hand at the astonished Jack, she followed in the wake of her sister.
“Hester,” exclaimed Julie, in the seclusion of their own apartment, “what made you so rude to Mr. Landor? I never heard you speak like that to any one before.”
“Oh! Julie,” cried the younger girl, flinging herself down in a chair, “I’ve the most disgusting, beastly temper!”
“You’ve nothing of the sort!” denied her sister indignantly.
“I have. You don’t know anything about it, it’s—it’s just developing. I get all hot inside; sometimes it breaks out the way it did at Miss Ware’s and to-day it made me nasty and sarcastic. I’ve always hated sarcastic people!”
“What has Mr. Landor done, dear, to make you dislike him so? I thought he seemed most charming and agreeable.”
“Did you?” indifferently, leaning back in her chair. Suddenly she sat bolt upright and exclaimed vehemently, “Julie Dale, if you dare to take to singing his praises as Dr. Ware does I’ll—I’ll—well, I don’t know what I’ll do! Ihate him, with his smiling, masterful air and his prying into affairs which are none of his business.” (This seemed rather strong language, but Julie did not interrupt her.) “He is an idle society man and we are hard-working girls. He has nothing in common with us whatever. We’ve no use for men, anyway—they don’t belong to the sort of life we live, they—they don’t fit into our scheme of things. Rather neat, that last phrase, eh, Julie? Read it in a book.” As usual, Hester’s outburst ended in a laugh.
“Are you twenty years old,” said Julie stooping down to kiss the flushed face, “or two hundred, Hester?”
“I’m an end-of-the-century idiot, that’s what I am!” she replied, pulling Julie over to give her a suffocating hug. Then in that irrelevant fashion so characteristic of her she threw back her head and sniffed the air suspiciously.
“Julie!”
But Julie had slipped away.
Hester chased her into the little dining-room. “Julie Dale! do I smell steak?” Hester’s nostrils fairly quivered.
“You do. I plunged into that wild extravagance on the strength of the mayonnaise, and I don’t care what you say!”
“Say!” gasped Hester as Bridget brought in this unheard of luxury, “I only want to eat!”
“I’m sorry, old fellow.”
“Sorry for what, Mr. Landor?”
“To have driven your little friends away. They evidently had some good news to tell you.”
“Oh! that’s all right,” said Jack cheerily, “it will keep, you know, and they were in a hurry—they said they could only stop a moment.” Jack was puzzling his young brain over their abrupt departure, but his loyalty to all three friends made him wish to hide from Landor the fact that he was apparently the cause. “I’m so sorry theywerein a hurry,” he continued, “for I’m always wishing you knew one another—you’d get on like a house afire.”
“Should we, Jack? I don’t know. Recent events don’t seem to prove it, do they?” laughing good-naturedly.
“Oh! that doesn’t count. You just wait until some day when they have more time—I don’t know when that’ll be, though, for they’re regular hustlers. What do you suppose?” confidentially. “They call their flat ‘The Hustle’—isn’t that great?”
“I should say so—it sounds enterprising.”
“They named it after the private car they used to live in—they’ve told me all about it. Gee! wouldn’t I like to get aboard of her once! She must have been a beauty!”
“What became of the car? Did you ever happen to hear, Jack?”
“It’s out west somewhere—some railroad’s got it, I think, but I’m not sure. They never spoke of it but once—I could see it went kind of hard talking about it, though Miss Hester laughed and joked about its being they who did the hustling now, instead of the car. It must be fine to be rich and travel all around,” exclaimed the boy, “but I’d hate to have had it and then have to give it all up the way they have. Say, Mr. Landor, shall I tell you something?” He clasped the arms of the reclining chair with his thin hands and drew himself up to a sitting posture.
Landor nodded and drew his seat closer. He encouraged the boy in his confidences.
“I slumped the other night—clean went all to pieces. I’m fourteen, you know, but if I’d been four I couldn’t have acted more kiddish. Mother was out and I’d been thinking how I wanted to go to college and couldn’t, because mother can’t afford it, and how I wanted to travel around and couldn’t, and how I even wanted to walk andcouldn’t—not for a long time yet—and I just lay here and thought there wasn’t much sense in getting any better anyway—I’d just have to go back and be nothing better than an office boy where I was before I got hurt and—”
“And you succeeded in working yourself up into a fine frenzy of discontent, didn’t you, Jack? I understand, my boy. We all have our rebellious moments.”
“I was crying like a baby when Miss Julie came in.”
“Poor old Jack,” patting his hand sympathetically.
“Poor nothing!” exclaimed the boy in a tone of infinite disgust, “it makes me hot all over to think about it and that wasn’t the worst! Ikept oncrying.” Jack’s honest nature was abasing itself before his friend. “I kept on crying till she shamed me out of it.”
Landor did not speak, feeling silence at that moment would better harmonize with the boy’s mood. Jack and he understood each other, and the boy feeling his sympathetic interest drew a long breath and went on again.
“She made me tell her all about it and I felt so cut up and blue that I said a lot of things I didn’t mean and I told her it was easy enough for her to be brave—she didn’t know what it was to lie still and perhaps be crippled all yourlife—the doctor can’t tell.Think of my telling her that!” The boy shuddered. “I believe if I’d struck her, Mr. Landor, I couldn’t have hurt her more, for there’s her father, you see, a million times worse off than I am, and I’d forgotten all about him.”
Landor pushed back his chair and as if he found action of some kind necessary paced the room quietly while the boy talked on.
“Her face got so white and her eyes got so dark that it frightened me, but do you know what she did? I was lying on the couch and she came over and knelt down beside me and talked to me a long time about her father.” Jack’s voice was awed and Landor’s hands went deeper down into his pockets—a way he had when he was moved.
“She called him ‘Daddy’ and you could see just the way she said it that she worshiped him, and she told me that when you loved a person very much it was harder to see him stricken down than if you were ill and helpless yourself. I hadn’t thought of that, but it must be so, mustn’t it, Mr. Landor?”
“Yes, Jack, it must be so.” No cloud had ever darkened Kenneth Landor’s pleasure-loving, pleasure-giving life.
“Then she told me that she wasn’t brave really. That many a night she cried herself tosleep because she was heart-broken about her father and discouraged about their work and tired. I think she just told me that so I wouldn’t feel as if I were a coward because I cried too. I’d stopped by that time, I can tell you! And then she said she wanted me to help her and her sister be bright and jolly by being bright and jolly, too. That made me laugh—to think I could help them! We both laughed and I felt better. After that she talked a long time about trouble and how it came to some people very young and how it was a sort of test—did you ever think of that, Mr. Landor?” gazing earnestly into the man’s face.
“No, Jack, there are many things I have never thought of!”
“You would if you knew them, you couldn’t help it. She wasn’t a bit preachy—I hate that—but she said the way we took things showed the kind of characters we had and when we got discouraged we must just remember we were soldiers—Christ’s soldiers—that’s what she said.” The boy’s voice sank to a whisper. “And that no soldier amounted to shucks till he was knocked about and disciplined and taught to obey his superiors.”
“That is the truth, my boy.” In his heart Landor was marveling at what he heard.
“And do you know what, Mr. Landor? I’mgoing to march in the ranks too—a double-quick step to try to catch up with them and if ever I do catch up and can march alongside of them, won’t I be proud, just!” Julie’s little sermon had sunk deep into his receptive mind and kindled his imagination to deeds of valor like some knight of old. He leaned back on his cushions exhausted by this unusual talk, his frail body in pitiful contrast to the strength of the spirit that had awakened within him and glowed in his face with a transfiguring light.
Landor came over to his chair and took his hand in a grip that hurt. “I am going to enter the ranks too, old fellow,” said he, carrying out the illusion partly to please the boy’s fancy and partly because he had never before been so in earnest in his life.
“You!” said the boy, to whom Landor was a hero, “you don’t have to fight—why you can kill buffaloes and Indians and everything!”
Landor smiled. “Perhaps I have more dangerous foes nearer at hand, Jack. Who knows? Well, I must be going. Shall I lift you onto the couch first?”
Jack always enjoyed the feeling of Landor’s strong arms about him and gave the man a grateful look as he was laid gently down. The couch was in reality Jack’s bed and the change to the reclining chair had been brought about byLandor, who sent the chair to him in the early days of their acquaintance, but laughingly denied any previous knowledge of it when Jack endeavored to thank him.
“You seem to have a lot of paper about,” commented Landor, picking up some sheets from the floor. “What are you up to these days?”
Jack blushed.
“Out with it, old fellow; you look guilty.”
“I’m—I’m trying to write out the stories I make about the people I see out of my window. You know I like to imagine things about them.Shesaid if I’d write them down the way I tell them they’d entertain her father very much, but I’ve gotten sort of disgusted—it seems such awful rot when it’s down on paper.”
Landor ran his eye over the sheets Jack indicated.
“They are not rot, Jack, they are pretty good. I am not much of a literary chap, but I know when a thing is interesting. When you have taken this way of introducing the neighborhood to Mr. Dale why don’t you send him a weekly bulletin—a regularly gotten up paper with all the neighborhood news? When there isn’t news you can invent it, you know,” smiling; “that is allowable in the newspaper trade.”
“Say, that’s great!” cried Jack. “I’ll call it the—‘In the Ranks’ and make a great big heading formy first column ‘News from the Front’ (that means front window) and I know, that’ll please Mr. Dale, for mother told me he was a distinguished officer in the Civil War and Miss Julie says they were brought up on military principles.” Jack snatched paper and pencil eager to begin.
“Keep on with your stories first, Jack. Why, we shall be setting up a printing-press here next,” and with this delightfully suggestive remark Landor departed.
He did not go on to the club, as was his wont at that hour, but lighted a cigar and walked out of the little court and down through Crana Street to the river, where on the bridge he paused and gazed across to the city with a rapt, preoccupied air. Then, as if the noise of the ever-whirring electric cars disturbed him, he retraced his steps and took a road in the opposite direction which brought him into the quiet and seclusion of the park. The air was keen and crisp and blew in his face in gusty whiffs as he strode on, while all about him in their winter nakedness the trees cast spectral shadows. Usually, from long training and association with western plains and mountain trails, he took note of everything as he passed, but to-night he gazed far on ahead, engrossed in thought. To his annoyance, twice his cigar went out—which was in itself significant.Finally he threw it away and lighted a little bull-dog pipe, his solace and companion in many a solitary stroll.
So those were the Dale girls, he was thinking, of whom Dr. Ware had said so much but of whom, all unconsciously, Jack had revealed more than years of intercourse with them might tell. He thought of Julie as he had seen her, quiet and fair-haired, with that gracious little plea that he should not let them drive him away, to prevent which they had themselves made a hasty exit from the room. And then there was another Julie as Jack had pictured her, turning her heart out for a boy that he might be comforted! He thought of her with reverence. A profound solemnity possessed him, giving him a strangely subdued sensation as of a man emerging from a sanctuary. What was he to whom life was an idle pastime, that he should draw the same breath with her!
Then from out this solemn train of thought danced another picture—two baffling eyes mocking him. Who was she, this will-o’-the-wisp, that she should hold him at arm’s length in that imperious fashion! He stopped and half closed his lids as if the better to conjure up a vision of her, then shook himself and went on—were not those eyes enough and that light ironical voice in his ears? Why had she snubbed him so—him,who was surely unoffending? And she was a soldier too, marching in the ranks. That pretty, piquant, fascinating sprite had shouldered her knapsack and was fighting a battle royal. Dr. Ware had told him so long ago, but somehow he only now began to realize it since Jack had expressed it in Julie’s simple way. Jove! the very simplicity of it was impressive! Thoughts like these carried Landor out into the country and brought him back to the club two hours later in an unusually quiet frame of mind. The men with whom he habitually fraternized found him dull and unresponsive and to his inexpressible relief they left him to finish the evening alone.
Mrs. Lennox was giving one of those little dinners for which she was justly famous. To-night it was in honor of Monsieur Jules Grémond, the young African explorer who was paying a flying visit to the States. To meet him were Miss Davis, a débutante whose prettiness could always be counted on to make a picture; Miss Marston, whose cleverness it was thought would interest him; and Kenneth Landor, whose attentions to Miss Davis had been rather pronounced during the season. Opposite his wife across the round table sat Mr. Lennox, than whom there was no more delightful host.
They had not been long gathered about the table before Mrs. Lennox was conscious that her guests were lacking in that subtle attraction toward one another which is absolutely indispensable to the success of a small dinner. Monsieur Grémond, between her and Miss Marston, appeared to be listening in a most politely conventional manner to the girl who was making commonplace conversation with frequent pauses during which he turned to Mrs. Lennox, withwhom he immediately fell into interesting talk. Kenneth Landor was singularly distrait. At first he had appropriated Miss Davis with his usual devoted air, but after a bit this languished and he, too, turned so often to Mrs. Lennox, next whom he sat, that Miss Davis first pouted and then in a fit of pique plunged into a violent flirtation with Mr. Lennox, much to that person’s amusement. Mrs. Lennox found it necessary to throw herself into the breach here, there and everywhere, but under her skillful manipulation the talk at last became general and animated.
The interest of the table naturally centered on Grémond, who managed adroitly to keep the conversation off himself, thereby winning the admiration of his hostess—she rather enjoyed a lion who did not roar. Finally, with the arrival of the savory which followed the dessert—for Mrs. Lennox had adopted this English custom, she had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Marston and her husband deep in talk, Miss Davis and Kenneth “frivoling” as was their wont and was herself free to enjoy a tête-à-tête with her guest of honor.
“Your country is a source of endless interest to me, Madame,” the Frenchman was saying, “but it is as nothing to your women. They rival ours—even surpass them.”
“I am afraid we are in danger of being told that too often,” laughed his hostess, gaily.
“Some things bear repetition, Madame.”
“Have you known many of us, Monsieur?” she asked, interested. “I think you said you had been over here before.”
“Yes, nearly two years ago, before I started off to Africa. It was indeed the cause of my immediate start for Africa,” he said with a retrospective air. “Then, too, Madame, America became very dear to me through my friendship with Sidney Renshawe—we were like brothers together in Paris.”
“Ah, yes, I know, he speaks of you with great affection. He will be up from Virginia in a day or two, will he not?”
“Not before I am off. I go to New Orleans on important business and from there to California, but I shall stay with him here on my return. Ah! you cannot dream what he has been to me,” he cried with Gallic enthusiasm, “he—and one other.”
“Will you come and tell me about it later, Monsieur, when you have finished your cigars?” she said softly, picking up her gloves and giving the signal to rise.
“Madame is very good,” he murmured, bowing low as he stood aside for her to pass.
Left together, the three men drew near and by a common interest caused Grémond to talk of his explorations for fully half an hour, whichtime was all too short to his listeners, who were greatly interested in the man as well as in what he had done. Though they had just met him within the week he was well known to them through Renshawe, a warm friend of Kenneth and the Lennoxes and the half hour over their cigars would unquestionably have lengthened out indefinitely had the women not been waiting for them in the drawing-room.
The party had expected to go to the opera together, but when the men rejoined the women they found a change of plan, Miss Marston having secretly confided to Mrs. Lennox that she had been “on the go” so steadily for weeks that it would be bliss to keep still, and “Couldn’t we all spend the evening here instead?” Pretty, disdainful Miss Davis, seeing in this suggestion possibilities of a prolonged tête-à-tête with Kenneth Landor, was enthusiastic in seconding it; while Mrs. Lennox acquiesced gladly—she had put in an exhausting day at various charitable organizations and was more tired than she cared to admit. As for the men, they were loud in their acclamations of delight over what Mr. Lennox called “the joy of a home evening.” Accordingly they left the formal drawing-room and repaired to Mrs. Lennox’s sanctum, a unique room finished in ebony, the dark wood relieved from somberness by a deep frieze of Pompeiian figures donein red, while bits of this vivid color were everywhere conspicuous in the furnishing. In all its appointments it showed the touch of a strong individuality and expressed in its way the æsthetic side of Mrs. Lennox’s nature. It had also what in a woman’s room made it distinctive—space. Mrs. Lennox was a person who liked free scope for her body as well as her mind.
The guests, therefore, distributed themselves about comfortably and Miss Davis found herself exercising her fascinations upon the distinguished foreigner, who encouraged her by undisguised admiration, which indeed he had given her throughout dinner by glances meant to convey what the distance of the table between them made it impossible to say. But the paying of excessive compliments to a girl like Miss Davis, who cares only for that sort of thing from the masculine sex, sometimes palls and Grémond was just thinking a bit longingly of his charming hostess when that individual approached them.
“Miss Davis,” she said, “Mr. Landor has been proposing a game of billiards. He wants you to help him beat Miss Marston and my husband—they have already begun to play, I believe. Will you join them?”
“Do Miss Davis, will you?” urged Kenneth, who always enjoyed the game.
Miss Davis looked at him and rose by way ofanswer. She had long ago discovered that her eyes did considerable execution. Then with a glance at Grémond which said that he too might follow her, she went with Kenneth across the hall into the billiard room.
Mrs. Lennox sank into a curiously carved old ebony chair, against which her bare arms and shoulders gleamed white. She was gowned in black, unrelieved except for the rope of pearls wound twice around her throat and hanging in a loose chain to her waist; but the severity of outline was exceedingly becoming to her slender figure and the absence of color emphasized the beauty of her skin, which was as fair and soft as if she were twenty instead of forty. She sighed a little as she leaned back in her chair, and Grémond reaching for some cushions from a divan near by tucked them in behind her comfortably.
“Madame is tired to-night,” he said.
“Monsieur Grémond,” turning her head the better to see him, “I feel as if I should offer you a thousand apologies. I had planned a gay evening for you and instead you are becoming initiated into intimate home life. We are already treating you like one of the family. Fancy!”
“A privilege not accorded to many; is it not so, Madame? I feel flattered beyond all telling.”
It pleased her that he was quick to recognizethis as unusual treatment of the stranger within her gates and she said cordially, “I felt when I saw you that we should not make the usual beginning. It is a little peculiarity of mine that I steal into people’s lives in the middle—when I like them. I have never analyzed it, but I trust to my instincts and I am not often mistaken. Now you,” she said, leaning languidly back on her cushions, “you interest me and I’ve sent them all off to play billiards that we may have a quiet little talk together. I want to hear more of what you were telling me at dinner, if I may.”
“Madame is very good,” he said again. “We were speaking of Sidney Renshawe, were we not?”
“Of him—‘and one other,’” she quoted, watching his eloquent face.
His black eyes softened and he leaned forward a little, using his hands in frequent gesticulation as he began to talk. “I am reminded, Madame, of a certain witty English author who said that Columbus discovered America but America discovered him. To paraphrase him, I should say that two Americans discovered me—dear old Renshawe and the most charming little girl I ever knew.”
“Yes?” she said.
“But for those two, Madame, I might have been—anything!” He shrugged his shouldersexpressively. “The one had faith in me, the other taught me to have faith in myself. She was my inspiration.” It seemed as natural to him to confide in this charming woman as if he had known her all his life, and in this he was not unlike the majority of people in whom Mrs. Lennox showed an interest, for she had that divine gift which for lack of an English word we call “simpatica”—an open sesame to all hearts.
She was listening very quietly, but the look on her face was one of absorbed attention as Grémond went on.
“For several years, Madame, I had been formulating my African plans, but I lacked distinct purpose until I knew her. She had the American idea that a man must accomplish something in the world. She thought I should prove myself capable of the great things I talked about.”
“She can scarcely have reason to find fault with you now,” the woman said.
“I hope not, Madame, when she knows what I have tried to do and how much more I shall do when I return.”
“Are you going to tell her—soon?”
“Soon?” with a quick indrawing of his breath, “as soon as I can get to California, but alas! that will not be for many weeks. I am not sure that she will want to listen to me, Madame, but I shall make her; I must.”
“You met her in Europe, I fancy?”
“On the contrary, I met her in Southern California in one of the big hotels where I was stopping. She was living there and we were thrown together constantly, laughing, dancing, riding—a gay life. Now and then when we touched on serious subjects I was amazed and moved by her great comprehension and high ideals.”
“Does she not know what a powerful factor she has been in your life?” she asked.
“Not yet, Madame. I went away with my heart full of her, but said no word. I felt I had not the right on so short an acquaintance and before I had really accomplished anything.”
“Perhaps not, my friend, but I am not sure that I altogether agree with you. I feel that she liked you, with possibly more than the ordinary liking, and a girl wants some sign.”
“I wrote her once, asking her to hold me in remembrance; was that a sign, Madame? It was all I dared to make. It seemed to me it was deeds and not words that were wanted.”
“It was both, Monsieur, if you will allow me to say so, for without words how could a girl know that deeds were done for her sake alone?”
“I thought she would know it all because I loved her so,” he faltered.
“Oh, you men, you men!” Mrs. Lennox cried impatiently, “how you do expect a woman to take things for granted! Forgive me, Monsieur Grémond”—leaning forward and touching his arm—“but sometimes I get very cross over it.”
“Oh Madame, Madame!” he exclaimed impetuously, “you cannot think, you cannot mean I have made a mistake?”
“Indeed, no,” she replied reassuringly, seeing how his confident manner had changed to despair, “but I do mean that the ways of women are not more enigmatical than those of men—somemen,” she qualified.
He laughed, glad to have the tension of the past moment broken by her light tone. For a moment neither spoke. Across the hall came the faint clicking of the billiard-balls.
“We must join the others, Monsieur,” the woman said at last.
“May I thank you for the pleasantest hour I have spent since my arrival?” he said earnestly as he rose.
“The pleasantest—as yet. Eh, Monsieur?” with a charming smile.
“As yet, Madame,” bowing gravely over her hand which he had taken in his.
“Then will you come to me again, when youreturn and tell meallabout it?” with a faint pressure of her fingers in his.
“May I, Madame? Ah, that will be a privilege indeed!” and stooping he kissed her hand.
A moment later they had joined the others.
“Those Dale girls are certainly remarkable!”
“I have always maintained that, Mary.”
“Remarkably surprising, I mean,” corrected Miss Ware, fingering the coffee-cups noisily in rather an irritating manner as it seemed to her brother, who was running over his voluminous morning mail.
“What have they done now?” he asked looking up at her over his glasses.
“To my mind a most unlady-like, vulgar thing. Here it is if you want to see.” A second look at a card in her hand before passing it over caused her to exclaim, “No! Is it possible! Mrs. Lennox has taken them up! Her name is actually printed on the card—it is the most astonishing thing I ever heard of!”
“If you mean their business cards, Mary, I was consulted and saw the original draft and recommended the printer. Um,” examining the card critically, “he has turned out an excellent piece of work, artistic and quiet in tone. I thought he could be relied upon.”
“Philip, you are too exasperating! I believe if those girls sold papers on the street corner you would think it the finest thing ever done!”
“I probably should,” he rejoined imperturbably. “As for these cards, they are something to be proud of! ‘Salads, croquettes, fancy sandwiches, jellies, salted nuts, etc., etc.,’” he went on, running his eye down the list. “Gad! how they have pushed ahead! They mailed five hundred of these yesterday,” looking over at his sister, “and I fancy Radnor people will not be slow in responding.”
“Oh! Mrs. Lennox’s name will be an alluring bait,” she said. “People will patronize them because she does, for a time, but they make a great mistake in relying upon her; this is just one of her fads.”
“I can’t understand, Mary, how you take such delight in imputing disagreeable motives to people. Mrs. Lennox is not patronizing the girls—she has great respect for them. Neither are they relying on her in the least. They rely only on their own skill and ability to do their work to the satisfaction of their customers. Mrs. Lennox has kindly allowed them to add her name by way of reference or indorsement for those people who know nothing about them. It places them before the public in an unassailable position.”
“Are they going to open a shop?” asked Miss Ware, a little superciliously, interested in spite of herself.
“No, they mean to keep right on as they are, making things only to order. They will have no stock on hand. It is the best they can do under the circumstances, for it is impossible to branch out to any considerable extent while their father needs them close at hand.”
“Good gracious, Philip! you wouldn’t advise a shop?” She made a wry face over her coffee, in which, in the excitement of the discussion, she had neglected to put any sugar.
“I don’t know,” the Doctor replied, stroking his beard thoughtfully, “I am not sure. Being conducted in their home, a business such as theirs must of necessity be limited, and the profits small. One must do things in large quantities to make money. I have thought a good deal about a little shop—it may come to that eventually, but I am not sure that I want it to. They are not going to hold out forever; as it is they are living on their nerves,—they have been too delicately reared to stand such work.” He pushed his plate away and folding his arms on the table leaned forward confidentially. “Mary,” he said, “I wish I could get you to care for those girls—to love all that is so sweet and lovable in them.”
“Perhaps I’d care more for them, Philip, if you did not care so much.”
“What!” in astonishment, “why you aren’t—you can’t be jealous of them, Mary?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, looking away from him, “women are queer, even we old ones—perhaps we’re queerest of all!”
“Why, Mary, what nonsense to be jealous of two little girls who regard me in the light of a venerable uncle.”
“I should not call a fine-looking man in the prime of life ‘venerable,’” said his sister resentfully, for she was immensely proud of her distinguished brother. “I am sure it would be very odd if they did not admire you for more reasons than one!”
“It is not a question of their admiring me, Mary, but of my admiring them. And I am not the only one. People are beginning to talk about them aside from Mrs. Lennox. Mary, I want them to marry!”
“Marry!” she exclaimed. “No eligible man would marry girls who cook and deliver boxes at people’s doors and do goodness knows what besides.”
“You are very much mistaken, and while you cling to your absurd opinions I don’t think it is desirable to continue the conversation.” He rose with dignity and passed into his office.
Miss Ware followed him. “Philip,” she queried with feminine curiosity, “had you any one special in mind?”
The Doctor was lost in the depths of the morning paper.
“Philip, I—I dare say I expressed myself rather strongly;” (this from Miss Ware was a great concession). “Wasthere any one special in your mind?”
“And what if there was, Mary?” answered the Doctor, slightly appeased but not wholly mollified, “would you really care to know?”
“Yes, I should. It is so unusual for you to be developing match-making proclivities.”
“That is true. I seldom think of such matters and, mind you, I do not by any means think that girls should marry just for the sake of marrying—that it is the end and aim of their existence—but in the case of the Dales my heart is set upon it.”
“I thought you approved of women who were self-supporting,” remarked his sister, considerably surprised at the view he presented.
“So I do, when circumstances require it or their temperaments demand independence and they are properly trained to stand shoulder to shoulder with men in business or professional life. But these little girls are wrestling with the bare problems of existence, working with the nervoustension of a high-bred race-horse, using up their vitality over pots and kettles and pans and smiling, smiling all the time as if they liked it!”
“Why, I thought they did like it!” Verily this was a morning of surprises.
“Like it!” cried the Doctor, trying to keep down the anger in his voice, “would you like it to be taken out of a life of keen enjoyment—a life crowded with incidents and continuous change of scene such as the Dales lived and be put down in a comparatively strange place, unrecognized socially, without young companionship and, worse still, to see a father whom they adore perfectly helpless and dependent on them for every mouthful of bread! It is a wonder to me the spirit is not crushed out of them!”
“I never quite thought of it like that, Philip.”
“Of course you didn’t, Mary. You thought they were rebellious, head-strong young things who liked being cramped up in a kitchen all day, beating their arms off over batches of dough and stirring mayonnaise until they are ready to fall into the bowl from sheer exhaustion! But I want you to look at it differently, I do indeed, and I want you to help me put a new interest in their lives.”
“I will, Philip, there is my hand on it.”
The Doctor clasped it warmly. “What do you think of Landor?” he said.
“Kenneth Landor? Does he know them?”
“He met Hester here one day and was immensely taken with her. Afterward he ran across them in my house in the apartment below them. There is an invalid boy there whom Kenneth heard of—you know he is always finding out-of-the-way people and going to see them. He told me he only saw the girls there a moment, but he’s taken a violent fancy to the boy, who talks about Julie and Hester by the hour together. Landor wants to meet the girls again—he has asked me to ask him here to meet them, but I have always put him off on one pretext or another, knowing it was useless to try to do anything while you felt as you did, but now you will arrange something, won’t you, Mary? You have such a talent for little parties.”
“The girls won’t come. Have you heard them speak of Kenneth?”
“Only casually, most casually. Hester always gets the talk off on something else when I mention him.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“A good sign!” said the Doctor, much puzzled, “I thought it was a bad one.”
“Oh! you men,” laughed Miss Ware, “you don’t know anything. When a girl does not discuss a man it is usually because he interests her. Do you think,” she said seriously, “thegirls, if they knew, would like your disposing of one of them in this calm fashion?”
“Mary, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to dispose of them. Kenneth may not fall in love with either of them, though I don’t see how he can help it” (this under his breath), “and neither of them may care in the least for him, but it would gladden my heart if the thing could be. He is an admirable fellow in every way, and during the past month he has gone into business with his father. Did you know that? There is no doubt that he could make a comfortable home for them all. Even if nothing comes of it I want him to know them—he’ll be a better man all his life for knowing them—and I want them to have a little diversion, a little outside interest to take them out of the rut. I’ll leave it all to you, Mary,” he ended, with a comfortable feeling of security.
“I suppose, you know,” she said as she was leaving, “that both the girls have had several offers of marriage.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Mr. Dale mentioned it when he was discussing the question of my chaperoning them this winter. He said he wanted me to understand that the girls were in some ways much older than their years and that having been, through their constant companionship with him, thrownmuch into the society of men, it was natural they should have had that experience. He also said that neither girl had the slightest desire to marry for the present or had ever shown any preference for one man above another. I fancied from what he said that their manner toward men was frank, rather a sort of ‘camaraderie’ than the silly sentimental attitude some girls affect.”
“You are perfectly right, Mary, they have a most engaging frankness of manner.”
“May I ask you one thing, Philip?”
“Certainly,” suddenly apprehensive of the question coming.
“How do you know they are beating their arms off over batches of dough”—the phrase seemed to have stuck in her mind—“I mean how did you realize it? Did they tell you?”
“Not they;” secretly relieved, “I hear it from Bridget. She worries her faithful old heart out about them and vows me to secrecy when she confides in me, for she says they would never forgive her if they knew she took it so hard.”
“Good old Bridget,” he said to himself, for his sister had vanished without another word, “how my little girls would scold her!”
Good old Bridget indeed, who told much, but was far too loyal to tell all she knew!
“Hester, ‘we have arrived,’ as they say in France. This has been a momentous month. We’ve sent out our cards and bought our first groceries at wholesale.” Julie leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and gazed with a rapt meditative air at their first barrel of sugar.
Bridget stood in the doorway openly admiring. “It’s like old times, Miss Julie dear, to be seein’ things come in quantities agen.” She had secretly harbored a grudge against the miserable little paper bags.
Peter Snooks sniffed at the unfamiliar barrel and then sat down beside it with a comical air of importance, but Hester did not leave him long undisturbed, for in wild exuberance of spirits she executed a war-dance in which he joined, at the end of which she mounted the barrel and with arms extended made a speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen (the gentlemen’syou, Snooks);
“This is the proudest moment of my life!”
Having delivered herself of this burst of eloquenceshe paused a moment dramatically, then plunged into such a torrent of nonsense that Bridget buried her head in her apron to stifle her laughter, Peter Snooks barked frantically in a fit of delight and Julie pulled the young orator down ignominiously.
“Come into the other room,” she said. “Daddy is asleep and I don’t want you to wake him.”
Instantly subdued, Hester tip-toed down the hall, following her sister.
“Are we going to discuss affairs of state?” she whispered.
“No, but we must come to some decision about Mrs. Lennox’s invitation for Thursday night. I think we ought to go.”
“Well, I don’t. I object to being patronized.”
“Oh! my dear, don’t look at it like that; it is not kind of you. You regard Mrs. Lennox as a friend, do you not?”
“A business friend, yes; the kindest and best we have, but that is not knowing her socially.”
“No, dear, but she wants to know us socially or she would not have invited us to her house. Don’t you see that is what it means, Hester? It is not patronizing us, but placing us on an equal footing—”
“Where we belong,” interrupted Hester, “though I don’t think we need feel overwhelmedby Radnor’s recognition of the fact.” She spoke bitterly in a tone that cut her sister.
“Hester dear, it does hurt to be utterly ignored by the people who used to know us when we were children, but there are enough outside of Radnor who have stood by us loyally and we will make headway here eventually when people get a little more used to us.”
“Do you suppose I care a snap of my finger about these Radnor girls,” said Hester savagely. “They’re a narrow snobbish lot and I’m glad I’ve escaped knowing them! Just yesterday, as I was delivering that great box of sandwiches at Mrs. Crane’s I met Jessie Davis on the steps—she’d been calling there. Don’t you remember how we always played together when we were little tots at school? Well, of course I knew her immediately—she hasn’t changed a bit, and she knew me, but it was surprising how absorbed she suddenly became in looking for her carriage which was standing right under her nose! Think how disgraced she would have been before her footman if I—nothing better than a parcel-delivery girl—had spoken to her! She needn’t have been afraid,” scornfully, giving full vent to her smothered wrath, “I wouldn’t have spoken to her to have saved her life!”
“She is not worth getting angry about, dear. You ought to pity her for not knowing any better.”
“She knows better, well enough,” said the irate Hester, who rather liked to nurse her wrath. “She’s a nasty little snob!”
“Well, she is,” agreed Julie, “but I can’t help pitying her for all she has missed in not knowing you.”
Hester smiled. “It is wicked of me to spit out at you, Julie dear. You did not make snobs and you have to encounter them just as much as I do. I dare say if we go to Mrs. Lennox’s we shall run up against some, but a party does sound pleasant, doesn’t it?”
“I think, dear,” said Julie with that quiet little matronly air she unconsciously assumed when she was trying to win over her sister, “I think that even though parties are not at all in our line these days, we should go. It is not a party, really, only an informal little musicale. It will freshen us up tremendously to get into a different atmosphere and it will please Mrs. Lennox, who has gone out of her way to be kind.” She looked at her sister entreatingly.
“Julie, you are a saint! Sometimes you talk just like Daddy!”
Julie’s eyes moistened. “I am not a saint,” she protested. “Think what Miss Ware will say when she hears of it?”
Hester’s eyes gleamed. “That settles it—Iam going, and if you want to know my honest opinion, I love Mrs. Lennox for asking us.”
There were many orders that week and their working capacity was taxed to its utmost to meet the demand. Had it not been for their systematic arrangement of everything it would have been impossible to accomplish so much. They had learned that the early hours of the morning are the best and got to work by six, continuing on through the day as long as there was anything to do. They had laid down stringent rules for work hours and strenuously endeavored to live by them.
By Thursday they were absorbed in the largest order they had yet received, embracing as it did croquettes, patties and other elaborate things which in an unguarded moment they had agreed to send hot to some club-rooms in the neighborhood. Hester thought they could do this by packing the things in a big steamer they had recently purchased. The steamer was a large tin affair built in sections of trays and would pack to great advantage, besides holding a considerable amount of boiling water at the bottom whereby the things could be kept hot. They had engaged an expressman to deliver this promptly at quarter past eight and it was with anxious hearts and nervous fingers they made the final preparationsfor packing. The cooking of all these elaborate things had been in itself no light achievement, but even that was as nothing to their fear lest the steamer should not reach its destination safely. They had been at work since five that morning and wrapped and boxed and packed securely was the last thing when the clock struck eight that evening. Five minutes past eight and no expressman! Quarter after, and two excited girls stared at each other across the steamer! Then Hester fled to the basement. The janitor was out but she pounced upon the engineer and got him upstairs before he realized what it was all about. “You’re to go on an errand,” was all she had vouchsafed him, leaving Julie to explain the rest.
The man when he reached their kitchen eyed the big steamer curiously and said he could carry it. Whereupon Julie wanted to fall upon his neck with joy, but showed him the address tied to the cover instead.
“Be’gorra miss,” he said in evident embarrassment, “I ain’t been in the city a week. Not the name of a street am I after knowin’ entirely.”
Here was a dilemma.
“I’ll go with him,” said Bridget.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Julie, “you have been half dead with rheumatism for two days and it is pouring in torrents. We’llgo, Hester and I—we can get there in fifteen minutes. Hustle, Hester!”
It was an incongruous little procession that went out into the storm, the girls leading, the man keeping close to his guides, who encouraged him by a word now and then. He walked firmly and with head erect, not because this was his habitual gait, but because he had been warned that any undue motion of his body would bring showers of scalding water down his back. An admonition like this was not to be disregarded and he picked his way gingerly to the basement door of the club where the girls rang the bell and the supper was safely left in the hands of the housekeeper. Then having lavishly rewarded their cavalier two light-hearted girls rushed home through the night to Bridget.
She welcomed them as if they had returned from some great peril, petted and scolded them because of their wet things and fussed about like a hen whose goslings have swam safely back to shore.
“I’ve made you a pot of coffee to warm your blessed selves,” she said. “It’s a wonder you don’t kill yourselves entirely.”
“You Bridget!” said Julie affectionately as she kicked off her wet shoes, “won’t you put me to bed just as if I were a little bit of a girl?” With those tired eyes and that pathetic droop to hermouth she did not look much of anything else as she said it.
“Julie Dale! are you crazy! Mrs. Lennox’s carriage is coming at nine o’clock to take us to the musicale! You’ve ten minutes to dress!” Hester made this announcement with a high tragedy air.
Julie jumped as if she had been shot. “I had completely forgotten it, Hester. Oh! my dear, I am so dead tired I don’t feel as if I could move.”
“Well, you’ve got to,” remarked Hester, who, having made up her mind to do a thing, was not easily turned from her purpose; “you got me into this thing and we’ll go if it kills us! I know I just about struck it when I called this place ‘The Hustle’” she ruminated. “I am sure I don’t feel as if I’d drawn a long breath since we came here!”
“What shall we wear?” asked Julie who scrambled after her sister, shedding her wet things as she went.
“I got out your light silks, dearie,” came from Bridget.
“Do you suppose we ought to wear hats?” This from Hester, who was wishing they had planned their costumes the night before.
“Perhaps we ought,” ruefully. “Good gracious! I haven’t any—not a small one, Hester.”