The Little Colonel's House Party Part 9

"Oh, that's nothing," answered Eugenia, loftily. "Plenty more where that came from."

On the way to the house, Joyce met Mrs. Sherman driving toward her in a dog-cart. "Do you want to drive down to the post-office with me?" she asked. "There is room for one more."

Joyce shook her head and walked on, singing gaily, over her shoulder, "Other fish to fry, so it can't be I. Thank you kindly, ma'am!"

"Eugenia, Elizabeth, do either of you want to go?" Mrs. Sherman asked, stopping the dog-cart beside the hammock.

"No, I believe not, thank you," said Eugenia, languidly. "It's so hot this morning."

Betty's mouth and eyes both opened in astonishment at the excuse Eugenia gave, and her G.o.dmother smiled at the sight.

"Well, Elizabeth," she said, playfully, "I see that you are not going to leave me in the lurch. I knew that I wouldn't have to go begging far for company."

"Oh, I'd love to go, G.o.dmother," cried Betty, "if it was only any other time. But I've just been invited to ride over to the gypsy camp with the girls."

"To the gypsy camp!" echoed Mrs. Sherman, in surprise. "Why are you going there?"

"To have our fortunes told," answered the unsuspicious child, adding, gratefully, "Isn't it good of Eugenia? She is going to pay for all of us."

A smothered exclamation broke from Eugenia's lips, and she darted an angry look at Betty. There was a shadow of annoyance on Mrs. Sherman's face as she saw it.

"But you mustn't go there," she said. "I am sorry to have to disappoint you, but I couldn't think for a moment of allowing Lloyd to go there.

They are a rough, low set of people,--gamblers and horse thieves. It wouldn't be proper for you little girls to go near them. I intended to mention the matter to Lloyd when I first heard that they had camped in the Valley, and tell her to avoid taking you on any of the roads leading to the camp. But I forgot it until you had ridden away. It would have worried me all the time you were out had I not known that Lloyd is a discreet child for her age, and she heard so much said about them when they were here last summer. I have never thought to mention it since that first day."

"I'm _so_ sorry," said Eugenia; "I had set my heart on having my fortune told."

Mrs. Sherman tapped the wheel of the dog-cart with the lash of her whip, and sat considering. Presently she said, "Of course there isn't any truth in the fortunes they tell. One person knows just as much about the future as another. But I am sorry for your disappointment, for I know at your age such things are entertaining. How would it do for me to call at Miss Allison MacIntyre's while I am out, and ask her to come up to dinner to-night? She is a great friend of mine and knows enough about palmistry to tell some very interesting fortunes. She can amuse young people better than any one I ever knew. Her two nephews, Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre, came out from Louisville for a short visit yesterday, and I'll invite them, too. They are jolly boys, and I'm sure you will find them far more entertaining than any of the gypsies. What do you say to that plan? Will it make up for the disappointment?"

"Yes, indeed!" answered Betty, and Eugenia smiled her approval, for she had heard Lloyd talk about the MacIntyre boys, and had been hoping to see them. But when Mrs. Sherman had driven on, she turned to Betty with an angry face.

"Tattletale," she said, in a sneering tone. "Why did you go and spoil everything? If you had kept still we could have gone and n.o.body would have been the wiser. Now it will be no end of trouble to get there without her finding it out."

"You don't mean that you are going after all that G.o.dmother has said?"

cried Betty, with a look of horror in her big brown eyes. "Why, a wild Arab wouldn't treat his host with such disrespect as that after he'd eaten his salt."

Eugenia's black eyes flashed dangerously. "Yes, Miss Prunes and Prisms, I am going, I don't care what you say. I have made up my mind to have my fortune told by the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, that was born on the banks of the Nile, and all the king's horses and all the king's men can't make me change it again. It is foolish of Cousin Elizabeth to be so particular, and I am going to do as I please. I always do at home, no matter what papa says. I've never had to mind anybody all my life, and I'll certainly not begin it now that I am in my teens. It is all nonsense about it not being proper for us to go to the camp. Cousin Elizabeth is mighty nice and sweet, but she's an old fogy to talk that way. And she needn't think she has stopped me. I may not get there to-day, but I'll go to that camp before I go back to New York if it's the last thing I do."

She sprang out of the hammock and walked haughtily down the path, her head held high, and her pink ruffles switching angrily from side to side. Betty followed at a safe distance, reaching the house in time to see Joyce and Lloyd come down, ready for their ride. She would have made some excuse to stay at home if she thought that Eugenia intended to carry out her plans at once; but thinking she would surely not attempt it until a later day, she mounted with the others and started down the avenue.

At the gate, as they turned into the public road, they spied a noisy little cavalcade racing down the pike toward them. Rob Moore led the charge, and two strangers were following hard behind.

"It's the MacIntyre boys," exclaimed the Little Colonel, shading her eyes with her hand and then half turning in her saddle to explain to the girls. "It's Malcolm and Keith. You'll like them. They stayed out heah with their grandmothah one whole wintah, and they used to come up to ou'

house lots. You remembah I told you 'bout them. They bought that pet beah from a tramp and neahly frightened me to death at their valentine pahty. I went into a dahk room, where it was tied up, and didn't know it was theah till it stood up on its hind feet and came at me. I neahly lost my mind, I was so sca'd."

"Oh, yes," cried Joyce. "I saw their pictures, all dressed up like little knights when they were in the tableaux." She surveyed them with great interest as the cloud of dust they were raising rapidly drew nearer.

"Which one was it ran away with you in a hand-car, and nearly let the locomotive run over you?" asked Betty.

"That was Keith, the youngest one. He is on the black hawse."

"And which one gave you the silver arrow?" asked Eugenia.

"Malcolm," answered the Little Colonel, putting up her hand to feel the little pin that fastened her sailor collar.

"Oh, she's got it on now!" exclaimed Eugenia, turning to laugh over her shoulder at the other girls. "See how red her face is. I believe he is her sweet-heart."

"It's no such a thing!" cried the Little Colonel, angrily. "Eugenia Forbes, you are the biggest goose I evah saw! Mothah says it's silly for children to talk about havin' sweethea'ts. We are just good friends."

"It isn't silly!" insisted Eugenia. "I have two sweethearts who send me flowers and candy, and write me notes, and they are just as jealous of each other as they can be."

"Then I'd be ashamed to brag of it," cried the Little Colonel, angry that her mother's opinion had been so flatly contradicted. But there was no time for a quarrel. The boys had come up with them, and Lloyd had to make the necessary introductions. Eugenia thought she had never seen two handsomer boys, or any one with more courtly manners, and as Malcolm rode along beside her, she wished that Mollie and Fay and Kell could see her knightly escort.

Joyce and Keith followed, and Betty and Rob brought up the rear. The Little Colonel led the way. At the station she turned, saying, "Which way do you all want to go?"

"Have you ever been down by the gypsy camp?" asked Malcolm. "We boys pa.s.sed that way a little while ago, and they were playing on banjos and dancing, and having a fine old time. It's quite a sight."

"Oh, yes, let's go!" cried Eugenia. "I'm wild to see it and have my fortune told. Joyce and I were talking about it a little while before we started. You want to go, don't you, Joyce?" she called back over her shoulder.

"What's that?" she answered. "To the gypsy camp? Of course. I thought that that was where we had decided to go when we started."

She had been in the house when Mrs. Sherman had discussed the matter with Eugenia and Betty, and was wholly unconscious that there was any objection to their going.

"I'm afraid mothah might not want us to go," said Lloyd. "Maybe it would be bettah to wait until anothah day and ask her."

Rob and Betty had fallen a little behind the others, having spied a bunch of four-leafed clovers, and Rob had dismounted to pick them, so they did not hear the discussion that followed. Lloyd was not willing to go without her mother's permission, remembering what had been said about the camp the previous summer, but Eugenia had her way as she usually did. Her influence over Lloyd was growing stronger every day.

Busily talking with Rob, as they followed along, Betty did not notice where they were going, until the strumming of a banjo and loud singing drew her attention to the fact that they were almost upon the gypsy camp.

"Oh, we mustn't go in here!" she called, in alarm, seeing that the other girls were dismounting, and the boys were hitching their ponies along the fence.

"Why?" asked Joyce, pausing in the act of springing from the saddle.

"G.o.dmother said we mustn't. Not an hour ago, she said it wasn't a proper place for us, and that she wouldn't think for a moment of allowing Lloyd to come. When she saw that we were disappointed, she planned an entertainment for us to-night, and we agreed to it, both of us, Eugenia and I. Eugenia knows she did."

There were some very curious glances exchanged in the little group, and the boys drew to one side, leaving the girls to settle the matter between them. Eugenia darted a glance at Betty that would have withered her if it could.

"For goodness' sake don't make such an everlasting fuss about nothing,"

she exclaimed. "Come on; it will be all right."

"But Eugenia," interrupted Lloyd, "if mothah said I couldn't go that settles it."

"She didn't tell you, did she?" asked Eugenia.

"No, but if she told you, it is just the same."

"But she didn't tell me," persisted Eugenia, grown desperate to carry out her own wishes, and not stopping at the truth. "I'll tell you how it was."

Putting an arm around Lloyd, she drew her aside. "It is all Elizabeth's imagination," she protested, in a low tone. "I never saw such a little silly for making mountains out of mole-hills. She is such a fraid-cat that she wouldn't look behind her if a fly buzzed. Now you know, Lloyd, that, as particular as I am, I wouldn't think of going anywhere that wasn't proper, any more than your mother would. I'll take the responsibility. I'm sure I am old enough, and it's all right for us to go when three big boys are with us."