The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires Part 19

"That's awfully jolly of you, Miss Stuart!" declared Dorothy Morton, who was the younger and more informal of the English girls. She turned to Ruth.

"Won't you come in and have a game of archery with us to-morrow afternoon? Father and mother will both be at home. We can tell you all of our plans for next week."

"We'll be happy to come," laughed Ruth, "but none of us know how to use the bow. That is an English game, isn't it? We shall be delighted to look on."

"Oh, archery is all the rage at Lenox," little Mr. h.e.l.ler explained.

"Perhaps you will let me show your friends how to shoot."

Ruth shook her head. "We shall have plenty to learn if we are to take part in your queer races next week. If my friend, Miss Carter, is better to-morrow you may expect us."

Grace came out on the porch. "I am well, already!" she apologized. "At least I decided that, headache or no headache, I couldn't miss all the fun this afternoon. So here I am!"

"Now, we must positively say good-bye, Miss Stuart," declared Mr. Latham, extending his hand. "I want to take you and your girls for a drive to Lake Queechy. Then you must see the place where the Hawthorne's 'little red house' formerly stood. The house burned down some years ago, but the site is interesting, for Hawthorne lived in the Berks.h.i.+res a number of years and wrote 'The House of Seven Gables' here. We have plenty of literary a.s.sociations, Miss Stuart. My people have lived here so long that I take a deep interest in the history of the place."

"Lake Queechy," Miss Sallie exclaimed sentimentally, "is the lake named for Susan Warner, the author of 'Queechy' and 'The Wide, Wide World.'

Dear me, I shed quant.i.ties of tears over those books in my day. But girls don't care for such weepy books nowadays, do they? They want more fire and adventure. I am sure I should be ashamed of my 'Automobile Girls' if they fell to crying in the face of an obstacle. They prefer to overcome it. We shall be delighted to drive with you. Good-bye!"

"Curious, Reginald!" declared Mr. Winthrop Latham, when the two men had walked several yards from the hotel in silence. "That is a very remarkable story that your friends tell of the discovery of an unknown Indian child. Did they call her Eunice? That is strangest of all! You have been up on the hill with these girls a number of times. Have you seen this girl?"

Reginald mumbled something. It was not audible. But his uncle understood he had not seen the girl.

"Oh, well, the old woman is probably a gypsy tramp," Mr. Latham concluded, "but I will look up the child, some day, for my own satisfaction. Reg, boy, the rudder of our airs.h.i.+p will be repaired in the next few days. Do you feel equal to another aerial flight?"

"Most a.s.suredly I do," the nephew replied. The two men walked on. But, for once, they were not thinking of their favorite hobby. The mind of each man dwelt upon Mollie's story of a poor little Indian girl. What connection could she have with these two men of wealth and position?

Reginald Latham's suspicions were growing. The Indian girl might be an obstacle in his path.

"I must tell mother all I have heard and guessed," he reflected. "Under no circ.u.mstances must uncle be allowed to see this child. Mother will know how to manage. We may have to spirit the girl away, if she is the child I fear she is. But we must make sure."

Reginald Latham was not a pleasant man, but he was clever. If he had reason to fear little Eunice he would work quietly. What chance had the child and her ignorant, uncivilized grandmother against him?

Mr. Winthrop Latham's thoughts were of a different kind. "The young Indian girl," he a.s.sured himself, "can have no further possible interest for me."

CHAPTER XVI

AT THE AMBa.s.sADOR'S

"Shall we walk down to the postoffice, Ruth?" Barbara asked. "I am awfully anxious for a letter from mother."

"Let's all go!" urged Grace. "We have just time enough before dressing for our call at the Amba.s.sador's. I am told that everyone goes for his own letters in Lenox. We shall see all the social lights. They say t.i.tled foreigners line up in front of the Lenox postoffice to look for heiresses. Ruth, you are our only heiress. Here's a chance for you!"

teased Grace.

Ruth looked provoked. "I won't be called horrid names, Grace Carter!" she a.s.serted, indignantly. "Heiress or no heiress, when my turn comes for a husband I won't look at any old foreigner. A good American citizen will be a fine enough husband for me!"

"Hear! hear!" laughed Mollie, putting on her hat. "Don't let us quarrel over Ruth's prospective husband just at present. It reminds me of the old maid who shed tears before the pot of boiling fat. When her neighbor inquired what troubled her, the spinster said she was thinking that if she had ever been married her child might have played in the kitchen, and might have fallen into the pot of boiling oil! Come on, 'old maid Ruth,'

let's be off."

The girls walked briskly through the bracing mountain air.

"I expect you will have a letter from Hugh or Ralph, Ruth," Barbara suggested. "They told you they would write you if they could come to Lenox for the week of games."

Ruth went into the postoffice to inquire for their mail. The other girls waited on the outside. A tall young woman swept by them, leading a beautiful English deerhound on a long silver chain. She had very blond hair and light blue eyes. Her glance rested on Barbara for the s.p.a.ce of half a second.

"Dear me!" Barbara laughed. "How very young and insignificant that intensely superior person makes me feel! Maybe she is one of the heiresses Grace told us about."

"Here is a letter for you, Grace!" said Ruth, returning to her friends.

"The one addressed to you, Bab, is probably for you and Mollie together.

It is from your mother. Then I have two letters for myself and two for Aunt Sallie. It is all right; Hugh and Ralph will be here the first thing next week," announced Ruth, tearing open one of her notes.

"What would Aunt Sallie say if she could see us opening our mail on the street?" queried Barbara, as she promptly followed Ruth's bad example.

"But this is such a quiet spot, under these old elms, that I must have a peep at mother's letter. Mother is having a beautiful time in St. Paul with Cousin Betty, Molliekins," continued Bab. "And what do you think?

Our queer old cousin is sending us another present. What has come over her? First she sends the beautiful silk dresses and now--but mother doesn't tell what this last gift is. She says it is to be a surprise for us when we come back from Lenox."

"What fun!" cried Mollie. "Our crabbed cousin is having a slight change of heart. She has always been dreadfully bored with Bab and me," Mollie explained to Ruth and Grace, "but she is devoted to mother, and used to want her to live with her. But she never could make up her mind to endure us girls. Tell me some more news, Bab."

"Well," Barbara read on, "mother has had a letter from Mr. Stuart; but Ruth's letter will give her this news. He writes that his new gold mine is a perfect wonder. I am so glad for you, Ruth, dear!" Barbara ended.

"Oh!" Ruth exclaimed. "Father is so lucky! But we really don't need any more money. Just think, father only has Aunt Sallie and poor me to spend it all on. If he only had a big family it would be worth while to grow richer and richer. I wish you were really my sisters. Then you would let me share some of all this money with you, Bab dear," whispered Ruth in her best friend's ear, as the two girls dropped behind Mollie and Grace.

Barbara shook her head. Yet the tears started to her eyes in spite of the fact that she was out on the street. "You generous darling!" she replied.

"If you aren't sharing your money with us by giving us all these good times, what are you doing? But, of course, we couldn't take your money in any other way. Mollie and I are used to being poor. We don't mind it so very much. Let's hurry. Aunt Sallie will want us to put on our best clothes for our call at the Amba.s.sador's. Thank goodness for Cousin Betty's present to Mollie and me of the silk suits. We have never had such fine clothes before in our lives."

"Miss Sallie," inquired Barbara, an hour later, "will Mollie and I do for the call at the Amba.s.sador's? You know this is the great event in our lives. Who knows but the Amba.s.sador may even shake hands with humble me!

Do Amba.s.sadors shake hands, Aunt Sallie? Why, 'The Automobile Girls' may meet the President some day, we are getting so high in the world."

"Who knows indeed, Barbara?" responded Miss Stuart complacently. "Far more unlikely things have often happened. You and Mollie look very well, dear. Indeed, I never saw you in more becoming frocks. They are very dainty and stylish."

"Aunt Sallie," confessed Mollie, "I never had a silk dress before in all my life. Bab had one made over from an old one of mother's, but this is positively my first appearance 'in silk attire.'"

Bab's costume was of apricot rajah silk, made with a plaited skirt and a long coat, which fastened across her chest with a single gilt ornament.

With it she wore a delicate lace blouse over silk of the same shade as her suit. Her hat was a large black chip with one long curling feather.

Mollie's dress was like Bab's, except that it was a delicate shade of robin's-egg blue, while her hat was of soft white felt, trimmed with a long blue feather.

"Let us look at ourselves in the mirror, Bab, until Miss Sallie is ready," whispered Mollie. "I want to try to get used to my appearance.

Maybe you think this wealthy-looking person you now behold is some relative of yours--possibly your sister! But just understand that, as I look at myself in that mirror, nothing can make me believe I am poor little Mollie Thurston, of Kingsbridge, New Jersey! Why, I am now about to call on the English Amba.s.sador, younger brother to an earl. But I am a brave girl. I shall put on as bold a front as possible, and I shall try not to disgrace Aunt Sallie by making any breaks."

"You goose you!" laughed Bab. "But to tell you the truth, sweet Mistress Mollie, I feel pretty much as you do. There is Ruth calling us. They are ready to start."

"Come on, children!" cried Ruth. "The automobile is waiting. My goodness!" she exclaimed, as Mollie and Bab appeared before her. "How very elegant you look! Don't tell me fine feathers don't make fine-looking birds! Aunt Sallie, I am not magnificent enough to a.s.sociate with these two persons." Ruth had on a beautiful white serge suit and Grace a long tan coat over a light silk dress; but, for the first time, Mollie and Barbara were the most elegantly dressed of the four girls.

"People will be taking _you_ for the heiress, and marrying you to some horrid t.i.tled foreigner!" teased Ruth, pinching Mollie's pretty cheek.

Miss Stuart and her girls found the English Amba.s.sador and his wife in the stately drawing room of their summer place in Lenox. The room was sixty feet in length and hung with beautiful paintings. The walls and furniture were upholstered in rose-colored brocade. Flowers were arranged in every possible place.