Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 8

"'Now, don't fail to keep in touch with me, Grace. I want to know at every step how your plans are progressing.

"'My love, "'Mother.'"

"Isn't--that----just------grand!" Bess was the first to speak after the letter was finished. "Oh, Grace, your mother and dad are so good to us.

Think of it, Nan, we will be able to take some drives over the lovely English countryside in the spring of the year."

"I am," Nan answered quietly, though inside she was really more excited than Bess. She liked Walter's car and had already had some pleasant drives in it. Now, she could see herself in imagination skimming over the English roads. "By the way," she turned to Grace, "when is it Walter will be crossing?"

"Oh, not until several weeks after we do," Grace answered. "Dad's going to be busy until well into April. But we'll all be together for the coronation, I am sure. Did I tell you this? Mother says someplace at the beginning of her letter that a business acquaintance of Dad's has written that we may watch the procession go by from his offices. It seems he is right down in Piccadilly and has an ideal location. The King and Queen and all of them will pa.s.s right by there on their way to Westminster from Buckingham Palace to be crowned. Then, they will pa.s.s by, too, on their way back. Why, dad says that if we bought such seats, we would have to pay at least a hundred dollars apiece!"

"Oh, Grace, what would we do without you!" Nan exclaimed. "That's the biggest piece of news yet! Dr. Prescott has been having trouble getting good seats for us, I know, for we put in our bid so late. I wrote to the solicitors in Edinburgh who handled mother's inheritance just the other day to find out whether anything could be done. It will be almost a month before I can possibly hear, and I was so afraid that it would be too late! Now, you have settled the problem entirely."

Grace blushed. She adored Nan. Praise from her sent her spirits skyward.

Now she returned to her original question. "Will you stop in Chicago at the beginning or the end of the vacation," she persisted.

"Oh, at the end," Nan capitulated. "I couldn't possibly stop at the beginning, I am that anxious to get home and see Momsey! There are at least a million questions I want to ask her about all of this. I wish the Easter vacation was twice as long as it is and that it was going to begin tomorrow. Then I wish that we were leaving the day after vacation ends. Oh, girls, I sometimes feel I'm going to burst!

"If you only knew how much I've wanted to see all those places Momsey and Papa wrote about when they were over in Scotland a year or so ago!

They tell me that the old castle that belonged to the ancient Lairds of Emberon is a queer spooky old place. Most of it is not in use anymore, but there are a few rooms that have never been closed. These are the ones that are to be ours for the time we stay there. Sounds thrilling, doesn't it?"

"Thrilling!" Bess took up the word. "Why, there's nothing like this trip ever happened to us before!"

"What are you people cooking up now?" It was Laura's voice that broke in on them. "I declare, sometimes I think I'd better move my trunk and belongings right into this room. Then I'd be on the spot when things happened."

"My sentiments exactly," Rhoda chimed in as she entered.

"Late as usual," Laura observed as Amelia also came in. "Now tell us what we've been missing."

"Oh, we're all to stop at Grace's in Chicago before we come back to school. Her mother has a whole list of things that can best be done from there." Bess couldn't wait for Grace to extend the invitation.

"Yes, that's the truth," Nan verified Bess' statement. "Now you'd all better clear out of here," she laughed. "I love every hair of your funny heads, but I can't accomplish a thing when you're around. Do you realize that after all, we're at school, and that trip or no trip, we've got to get through with exams before we leave?"

The girls sobered up at once.

"Ooh Nan, don't bring them up," Laura begged. "I just remembered that I faithfully promised the French Prof that I'd prepare my lesson for tomorrow. She declared today that she was utterly disgusted with the a.s.signments I had been handing in. Poor thing! I have been trying her patience."

"And I and I and I," they all chorused.

"Now, get out!" Nan laughed, but never-the-less achieved firmness.

"Well, guess we'd better take the hint." Laura started for the door and the others followed. "Bet I get a better French grade than any of you, tomorrow," she challenged, just before the door was closed behind them with an air of finality.

"Such people!" Nan laughed to Bess when they were once more alone.

"There's one thing I'm sure of--"

"And that?" Bess looked up.

"Mrs. Cupp is going to be so happy when the bus drives away from the entrance of this school carrying all of us and our baggage, that, if she were human at all, she'd dance a little jig of joy."

Bess giggled. "If I thought she'd do that I'd almost be willing to stay, for that would be something worth seeing."

"Bess, there are so many things worth seeing," Nan took up the end of the sentence seriously, "that I wish I were quintuplets so that I could be in at least five places at once."

"You and me, too," Bess agreed, "but just now the one me that is here is going to buckle down to work. Those exams are no joke."

So the two girls took out their books, and before long there was no sound to be heard in the room but the ticking of the clock and the occasional turning of a page. They studied until the signal came, "Lights out!"

CHAPTER VIII

OLD FRIENDS AND AN ENEMY

"Welcome to our city!" It was Walter's hearty voice greeting Nan and Bess as their train pulled into the busy Chicago station.

Nan caught her breath. How nice he looked! How much older he seemed. She smiled up at him.

"You seem to have a habit of meeting us at stations," she remarked. They all laughed, remembering Nan and Bess' first entrance into Freeling, their first ride with Walter and Linda Riggs' consequent anger.

"And you seem to have a habit of going places," Walter returned as he smiled back at them. How pretty they looked! How much older they seemed!

How pink Nan's cheeks were! Could it be that she was embarra.s.sed? The very same thoughts that were running through Nan's mind were running through his. They both felt easier when Grace, Amelia, Laura, and Rhoda descended on them.

"Come on, you old pokes," Grace said. "We've got things to do."

"Yes," Amelia contributed her bit, "and we're late already." With this she looked meaningly at her latest acquisition--a new wrist.w.a.tch.

"What, another?" Laura appeared to be stunned at the information.

"Yes, funny," Amelia wrinkled up her nose at her friend. "It was a going away present from my dad. Don't you like it?"

The girls all crowded round to see. It was a pretty little thing, small and oblong and tailored looking and it went quite perfectly with the pretty tailored suit that Amelia was wearing. She turned it so they could see her initials on the back and the date, all engraved in Old English style.

Now as they crowded into the Mason town car and were whisked away to the big Mason home, they compared notes on their visits. Nan and Bess had been to four--no less than four--bon voyage parties, and they were laden with all sorts of gifts from their friends and former cla.s.s-mates at Tillbury High School. Rhoda was the proud possessor of new luggage, the gift of cowboys on her Dad's ranch. Amelia had her watch, Grace a sizable check to do with as she pleased on her trip. And Laura had the greatest surprise of all.

She had had her bright red hair curled so that it was like a soft halo all around her pert little face! "Turn around," the girls commanded when she took her hat off.

"It looks just darling, Laura," Bess said.

"Perfectly lovely," Nan agreed. "You'll be the belle of the boat."

"Do you really like it?" Laura sounded just a little worried as she looked at them. "Do you think that Dr. Prescott will approve?" she asked Nan anxiously.

"Of course she will," Nan answered confidently. "Why Laura," she said, turning her friend's head around so that she could get a side view again, "you've changed from an ugly duckling to a pretty young lady. I don't see how Dr. Prescott could possibly object."

Laura grinned roguishly. "Do you know, when I look into the mirror, I hardly recognize myself, but then when I open my mouth and hear what comes out, I'm perfectly sure that I haven't changed a bit. Then I feel utterly discouraged." She looked as woeful as possible, when she finished the sentence, but nothing could disguise the fact that Laura and the whole crowd of Lakeview Hall students were on top of the world.

It was a merry bunch that tumbled out of the car and into the Mason home.