A Colony of Girls Part 14

"Yes," she murmured, with a quick indrawing of her breath.

"I wish----" he began impetuously.

"Mr. Farr," she interposed with gentle decision, "will you please help me over."

He gave her his hand, and gravely a.s.sisted her to the ground on the other side.

They were nearing the porch, and already the sounds of gay voices reached them through the stillness of the summer night, when Jean turned abruptly to the man at her side.

"By the way, Mr. Farr, we are to have a visitor shortly, and I hope you men will help us to make it pleasant for her."

He uttered some polite commonplace, and Jean went on:

"Perhaps you know Helen's friend, a Miss Stuart of New York."

A sudden recollection flashed through Farr's mind.

"Not one chance in a thousand that it should be the same," he thought, as he answered indifferently, "I think not."

"I thought possibly you might have met," she said carelessly. "She seems to know almost everyone."

He half turned to put a question to her, but already they were at the vine-covered porch, and Nan's jolly greeting lost him the opportunity.

CHAPTER VIII.

NAN REBELS.

Into the days that followed were crowded more gay doings than the quiet village of Hetherford had ever seen before. Old Dr. Birdsall shook his head disapprovingly over all this unseemly frivolity, but Aunt Helen's gentle voice championed the young folks, and persuaded him to allow Nan to join in the good times. The naval officers were in constant demand whenever they were not on duty, and at the end of the week the other men came out from town, and their advent was the signal for a series of rides, drives, walks, tennis matches, and amus.e.m.e.nts of every description.

Emily p.r.o.nounced herself perfectly satisfied, and when Nan and Mollie grumbled over a few of the changes that had followed in the train of all these merry-makings, she declared them heretics and disdainfully turned her back upon them.

It was after a day on the _Vortex_ that Eleanor, Nan, and Mollie sat together in Eleanor's box of a room in the inn, and held a council of war.

They had had a beautiful sail. There was a "smoky sou'wester" blowing, and Uncle Sam's schooner, decked in holiday attire, had flown before the wind like a bird. Captain Dodd proved a genial, pleasant host, and Mrs. Dodd's heart had been quite won by Helen's notice of her three-year-old boy, a jolly little chap, whose tow-colored hair showed in strange contrast to his sunburned face. No stone had been left unturned to make the day successful, and as the girls were all good sailors, the stiff breeze and careening of the boat only added zest to their enjoyment.

However, nothing in this world is quite perfect. Nan and Mollie scowled at the general tendency to wander off in pairs. Mollie termed it bad form, while Nan sniffed, and called it utterly ridiculous.

Finally Nan was roused to action. She called to Jean, who, with Farr at her side, was leaning against the rail well up forward, and demanded a recitation. Jean complied somewhat reluctantly. She stood in the midst of the little group, one hand holding fast to the companion-way to steady herself, the other tucked away down into the pocket of her reefer. She hesitated a moment, searching about in her mind. Her choice at length fell upon one, dearly loved by all the girls, called "Sister Felicite."

The beautiful lines were spoken with the greatest simplicity, but there was a depth of pathos in the girl's low voice that went straight to the hearts of her hearers. The short silence that followed her last words was more flattering in its import than would have been the loudest applause. There was a slight pallor in the girl's face when she had finished, and during the rest of the afternoon she was very subdued; and Farr, who had been deeply impressed by her rendering of this sad and beautiful poem, seemed to share her mood.

Nan, and Mollie, who were both a little rebellious at the turn affairs were taking, noticed this incident, and so the council of war had been called. Nan's conscience was quite clear, and she plunged bluntly into the conversation.

"Now that Jean has turned sentimental and emotional, I think it is high time for us to take matters in hand. Em always has been a backslider from the compact, but when Jean begins that sort of thing it is going a little too far."

"Punning is sadly out of place, Nan, on such a serious subject,"

laughed Eleanor, not sorry for an excuse to interrupt the discussion.

Nan was thoroughly in earnest, and beyond a chuckle at her own discomfiture, she took no notice of Eleanor's frivolity.

"I don't think love affairs are much fun, anyway," sighed Mollie.

"Surely Helen's was miserable, and only resulted in making everybody unhappy and uncomfortable."

"That strikes me as a trifle pessimistic, Moll," said Eleanor. "Happy marriages may be rare, but it can't be denied that they exist."

"Oh! dearie me," groaned Nan, "when you talk like that you make me feel as if the world were turning upside down. I never dreamed of it being a question of love affairs, and marriages."

"I was not referring to anyone in particular," Eleanor protested hastily, "we were merely arguing in an abstract way. Weren't we, Moll?"

"All I meant was," Nan went on in a dolorous voice, "that we have lost our originality when we begin to act just like other girls--flirting, and all that sort of rot. We used to have fun in the good old days when we all staid together. There were never any discussions as to how we should walk or drive for everybody was willing to go with everybody else. _Tete-a-tetes_ were unheard of, and n.o.body was ever silly."

Mollie's sentiments chimed in with Nan, but Eleanor's a.s.sent was somewhat slower in coming.

"I suppose it is only a question of time," she said, "for the _Vortex_ can't be here much longer, and Mr. Churchill always takes the _Sylph_ back to town in September. Then we can settle down, and have a good old-fas.h.i.+oned time during 'the autumn.'"

"When will Cliff go?" Nan asked, with a sly laugh.

Eleanor turned her head away to hide the tell-tale color that rose in her face.

"Oh! come, Nancy, your imagination is running away with you. Nothing will satisfy you short of the banishment of the s.e.x."

"Qui s'excuse, s'accuse," quoted Mollie in an undertone.

Eleanor laughed in spite of herself. She pushed back her chair, and crossed to the open window. Along the dusty highroad Cliff came sauntering. When he was just in front of the inn he looked up, and caught sight of Eleanor. He raised his hat, and called out to her to come down, and go for a stroll before supper. She gave him a curt refusal, and turned back into the room.

"You shouldn't punish Cliff for my impertinence," reproved Nan. "It was not his fault."

Eleanor frowned and spoke impatiently:

"Cliff is only a boy, and a rather foolish one at that. But to continue. All this nonsense, as you call it, Nan, will be of brief duration, and my advice is to make the best of it."

"There is a worse time coming," Mollie declared. "The _Vortex_ has wrought changes enough, but I don't suppose we will recognize the old place at all when the magnificent Miss Stuart arrives."

"Sufficient unto the day," said Nan. "Well, good-by, girls I must be off."

When the door had closed upon her two friends, Eleanor went back to the window, and leaning against the cas.e.m.e.nt, looked abstractedly out.

She thought of Cliff, and the disappointed look his face had worn when she spoke to him so rudely. Certainly Cliff had come under the spell that was over them all this eventful summer. She had striven to deter him, but in spite of her best efforts, he had found a moment in which to tell her of his love. To this she had lent the coldest ear, holding out to him no hope whatever. Cliff had listened very patiently, but there was something in his quiet refusal to accept this answer as final that had made Eleanor, woman of the world as she was, feel singularly helpless. They had taken up life again just where they had left it before Cliff spoke, and since then no reference had been made to the matter.

The smile had quite died out of Eleanor's face. She went over to her writing table and picked up a little note which Cliff had written her on some trifling matter. She looked at it for a moment, then half raised it to her lips. With a shame-faced laugh she dropped it back among the letters on her table and turned impatiently away.

One sultry morning toward the end of July, as Helen sat sewing on the upper balcony, a maid came out through the French window with a small tray in her hand, on which lay a yellow envelope. Helen leaned forward and picked up the telegram.

"Thank you, Susie. Is the boy waiting?"