The girls' eyes were large and dark with wonder and excitement as they lowered their glasses and looked at each other.

"Yes, you are awake," said Mrs. Payton, with a laugh, interpreting the look.

"Jessie looks as though she had just seen a ghost," said Phil.

A few minutes later the great liner was warped securely alongside the great landing stage, while the whistle shrieked a noisy greeting. Passengers hurried from one group to another, shaking hands in a final farewell with shipboard acquaintances whom they had come to know so well in so short a time. Porters hurried past, laden with luggage, and groups of eager passengers formed about the entrance to the gangways.

"I feel as though my hand had been shaken off," said Evelyn, regarding that very necessary appendage ruefully.

"Oh, there's Mrs. Applegate and Puss," said Lucile, and darted off through the crowd so suddenly that the girls could only follow her with their eyes.

"Lucile," cried Mrs. Payton, and then, as her voice would not carry above all the noise, "Go after her, Phil," she said. "If she gets separated from us now, we will have a hard time finding her."

Phil hurried off and was soon lost to sight in the swaying crowd.

"Oh, what did she do that for?" wailed Jessie. "If Lucy goes and gets lost now in all this crowd——"

"Don't worry; Phil will have her back in a jiffy," said Mr. Payton, soothingly, but the frown on his forehead betrayed his own anxiety.

The gangplanks were lowered, and the people had already begun to surge forward, and still no sign of either Lucile or Phil.

They eagerly searched the faces of the passers-by, nodding to some, yet scarcely seeing them, while Mr. Payton began to mutter something about "tying a string to that cyclonic young flyaway" when he got her back again.

Five minutes passed. The deck was beginning to be emptied of people, and they had begun to make their way slowly toward the gangplank, when Phil came rushing up to them, very red and very much out of breath.

"Well?" they cried together, and Mr. Payton took him by the shoulder, demanding, sternly, "Where is she?"

"Wouldn't it make you sick?" panted Phil, disgustedly. "Here I rush all over the boat trying to locate her, and get everybody scared to death, thinking she's fallen overboard or something, and then I find her down on the float there, talking to the——"

"What?" interrupted Mr. Payton, incredulously.

"Yes. Isn't it the limit?" said Phil, fanning himself with his hat. "Said she couldn't find her way back to you, so thought she'd wait with the Applegates at the foot of the gangplank; said she knew you would find her there."

The girls laughed hysterically, and even Mr. Payton's stern face relaxed; the action was so truly "Lucilian."

"Well, I suppose all we can do is to follow," said Mr. Payton, and Mrs. Payton added, pathetically, "I do wish Lucile would be a trifle less impulsive now and then; it might save us a good deal of trouble."

Mr. Payton had felt inclined to read his "cyclonic" young daughter a lecture, but the sight of her bright young face completely disarmed him, and he could only breathe a prayer of thankfulness that she was safe.

They said good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Applegate and their very diminutive daughter—whom somebody had fondly nicknamed "Puss"—and turned to follow the crowd. A short time later they set foot for the first time on the soil of the Old World.

"Where are we going, Dad, now that we're here?" asked Phil.

"To London, as fast as we can, by the train that connects with our steamer," said his father. "Stick together, everybody—here we are," and he hustled them before him into the long coach—for in England, you must remember, trains are not made up of cars, but of "coaches."

By this time it was getting late, and after vainly trying to distinguish objects through streaked and misty glass, the girls gave up and leaned back with a sigh of tired but absolute content.

"Well, we're here, and still going," said Lucile, happily, feeling for her friend's hands.

"We jolly well know that, my de-ar," came in sweet, falsetto tones from Phil. "We ought to have no end of sport, you know; rippin', what-what!"

"Bally goose!" murmured Jessie.

The reproof that rose to Mrs. Payton's lips was drowned in a shout of laughter.



CHAPTER XVI

THE RED-LETTER DAY

"Hang the luck!" ejaculated Phil, flinging aside his book in disgust. "Here it is, our first day over, and look at it!" And, drawing aside the light chintz curtains, he disclosed a view that was, to say the least, very discouraging.

The rain came down in torrents, rebounding from the shining pavement and the no less shining umbrellas of passing pedestrians, with vicious little pops and hisses that sounded more like a storm of tiny daggers than of raindrops. As time went on, instead of lightening, the sky had grown murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes one rail at fate and long for the blessing of the sun and a clear day.

Such was Phil's enviable state of mind as he dropped the curtain and slumped back into his chair with an impatient grunt.

"'Tis rather mean, isn't it?" drawled Jessie, dropping her book and looking at the disconsolate Phil lazily. "You don't happen to have any more of those candies around you anywhere, do you, Evelyn?" she queried.

"Hardly. How long do you think they last when you're around?" answered Evelyn, without raising her eyes from the magazine she was reading.

With a quick movement, Jessie reached over and pulled the candy box toward her before Evelyn could interfere.

"A-ha, I thought so!" she cried. "I was sure they couldn't all have vanished so quickly, you unscrupulous—"

"Beg pardon!" interrupted Evelyn, blandly.

"Well, you are, anyway," Jessie maintained. "What do you mean, no more left? Here are half a dozen at least."

"Well, you know you've eaten half a box already, Jessie," Evelyn was beginning, severely, when Jessie interrupted.

"But, Evelyn, what else is there to do on a day like this?" she pleaded plaintively. "We can't make any noise, for fear that we'll annoy the other people, and we can't go out——"

This was more than Phil could stand.

"Eat all the candy you want, Jessie, and when you've finished what you have, I'll buy you some more," and he sauntered out, hands in pocket, despite all his mother's training, and whistling mournfully.

"Seems to me you have him very well tamed, Jessie," gibed Evelyn. "Just the same, I'm going to pray for clear weather."

"Why the sudden fervor?" asked Jessie, munching away happily.

"Because if you take Phil's advice and eat all the chocolates that you want to while it rains, and it doesn't clear up soon—well, all I have to say is——"

Jessie laughed, but added, more seriously, "I guess maybe you're right, after all. There was a time when I'd nearly given up the habit, but now I'm just about as bad as ever. I'm afraid our guardian might not like it."

"Of course she wouldn't," said Evelyn, seizing upon the opportunity eagerly. "Do you know, Jessie, there's been so much going on and so much excitement that we have—well, rather lost sight of the camp-fire idea, don't you think?"

"I was thinking just that very thing the other day," replied Jessie, slowly, putting down a half-finished candy. "It ought to mean just as much to us now, and more, for that matter, than it ever did before——"

"Girls, girls, girls!" sang out Lucile, bursting in upon them, with cheeks like two red roses, and waving something white aloft in the air. "We've got some letters, some beautiful, thick, booky letters, and you'll never guess whom they're from."

The girls ran to the sofa, where Lucile had flung herself with a pile of letters in her lap, and hung over the back of it excitedly.

"Oh, go on, Lucy; show them to us!" cried Evelyn, as Lucile put both her hands teasingly over the letters, inviting them to "guess."

"If you don't hand over my property before I count five," threatened Jessie, "I shall be compelled to use force."

"Well, in that case," laughed the threatened one, "I suppose I'll have to——"

"Oh, Lucy, you know you always were my favorite che-ild," begged Evelyn, melodramatically. "I'll destroy the old will and make a new one, leaving everything——"

"To me," finished Jessie, at the same time making a lunge at the tempting little pile of paper.

"Oh, go on!" cried Lucile, and, dodging out-stretched arms, made a dash for the door, only to be captured and brought back by two indignant and protesting girls to the sofa.

"Oh, we will be put out of the hotel," gasped Lucile, between laughs. "We're making no end of noise. Now, if you two girls will only sit down and behave like sensible—"

"Huh!" broke in Evelyn. "We were only demanding our just rights."

"You would better hasten, Lucile Payton," said Jessie, with her best heavy-villain scowl. "My patience is dangerously near an end."

"All right," Lucile capitulated, patting the sofa on either side of her invitingly. "Sit down here and I'll hand them out just as they come."

"And we'll read each one aloud before we open the next one," Jessie suggested, eagerly.

"That's right," assented Evelyn. "Whom is the first one from, Lucy?"

"The first one," drawled Lucile, turning it up with aggravating deliberation, "is for Evelyn, from——"

"Miss—er—our guardian," cried Evelyn, snatching the envelope unceremoniously. "Oh, oh, oh! Got a letter opener, Lucy? Oh, all right; anything. Hairpin? Thanks! Oh, girls, what has she got to say?"

"I might suggest that the best way to find out is to read it," said Jessie, and immediately became the recipient of a withering stare from Evelyn, who was opening the letter with trembling, clumsy fingers.

"My dear little girl," she read and then stopped and looked from one to the other pleadingly. "I can't do it; I can't read it out loud——"

"Don't try," said Lucile, putting an arm around her. "I know exactly how you feel. We would better read them first and compare notes afterward."

"That's right," agreed Jessie. "I didn't think how hard it would be to read them out loud when I suggested it. Better give them all out together, Lucy."

"Well, here's one to you from your mother, I guess, Jessie, and another from your father, and one for you from your mother, Evelyn, and one for me——"

"From whom?" interrupted Jessie.

"Our guardian," answered Lucile, touching it lovingly. "And here is yours, Jessie," she added, handing her a letter in the well-known and well-loved handwriting. "Isn't she dear to remember each one of us like that? And oh, here are whole stacks of letters from the girls—one from Margaret—here, Jess——" And so on until each had a little pile of her own.

"And whom is that from, Lucy?" asked Evelyn, as Lucile picked up the last letter, looked at the unfamiliar handwriting curiously, then looked again more closely, while the tips of her ears became very pink.

"I—I don't know," she stammered. "It's for me, and—oh, well, I'll open it later on," and she tucked it among the others, just to gain time, as she explained it to herself.

"No, you don't! No, you don't!" cried Evelyn. "We have stumbled upon a deep, dark mystery and it must be cleared up at once, at once. Come on, Lucy; who wrote that letter?"

"I tell you I don't know myself, so how can I tell you?" cried Lucile, angry at herself for being so confused.

"If you don't know whom it's from, why do you get all red and snappy and try to hide it?" asked Evelyn, triumphantly. "'Fess up, Lucy. You might as well, first as last, for you can't fool us."

"Methinks," began Jessie, in deep, stentorian tones, "that this writing seems strangely familiar. Where can I have seen it before? Ah, I have it!" Then, suddenly throwing her arms about Lucile in a strangling hug, she cried, "Oh, I knew it, I knew it! I knew he would just go crazy about you, like all the rest of us. He couldn't help himself! And you never, never would believe anything could happen the way it does in novels—oh—oh——"

"Oh, I see it all! I see it all!" shouted Evelyn, suddenly springing up and whirling about the room, using her letters as a tambourine. "It's Jessie's cousin! He's gone—he's gone——"

"Girls, you are crazy, both of you!" cried Lucile, extricating herself with difficulty from Jessie's strangle hold and smoothing back the hair that was tumbling down in the most becoming disorder—or so her two friends would have told you—while her laughing eyes tried hard to look severe. "Probably it isn't from him at all, and if it is, why—why—well, it is," she ended, desperately.

"Why, of course it is," soothed Jessie; "but I don't think you need worry about it not being from him——"

"Aren't you going to read it over now?" broke in Evelyn. "Then you can tell us——"

"I wouldn't tell you a thing," said Lucile, driven to her last entrenchment; "and what's more, I'm not going to read it till I get good and ready, and not then if I don't want to," and she slipped her letter into her pocketbook, which she closed with a defiant little snap. "Now, what are you going to do about it?" she challenged, gaily.

"We might use force," mused Jessie, meditatively.

"But you're not going to, because you can't," Lucile declared, raising a round little arm not yet wholly free from last summer's tan, for inspection. "Just look at that muscle," she invited.

"Terrific!" cried Evelyn, in mock terror. "Guess we'd better think twice before we tackle that, Jessie."

"Mere nothing!" sniffed Jessie, scornfully. "Now, if you want to see real muscle——"

"Oh, yes; we know all about that," said Lucile, and, throwing an arm about each of the girls, she dragged them over to the settee, saying gaily, "What's the use of having all this fuss about one old letter, when we have all the really good ones to read?"

The girls exchanged significant glances, but, never-the-less, followed Lucile's example, opening one letter after another amid a shower of exclamations, comments, questions and quotations from this or that letter, till the other disturbing document was all but forgotten—except by Lucile.

After half an hour of delightful reveling in the news from Burleigh, which seemed so terribly far away, and in tender little messages from mothers and fathers and friends, Lucile looked up from her guardian's letter, which she had just read for the third time.

"Girls," she said, seriously, "I'm glad the letters came just as they did this morning. I've been thinking——"

"So were we," broke in Evelyn, "just before you came in——"

"Wonderful!" murmured Jessie. "A red-letter day!"

The girls laughed, but Lucile went on:

"Just because we're over here, so far away from home, is no reason for our forgetting or neglecting the least little bit the rules of our camp-fire. In fact, I don't think we deserve any credit for being good where Mrs. Wescott is; you simply can't help yourself when our guardian is around."

"That's true enough," agreed Jessie, and for a few minutes they sat silent, while the dreary, sodden, steaming streets of London, as, in their short experience, they had already begun to think of them, faded before the magic power of memory and they were once more back in camp—eating, swimming, walking, canoeing—subject always to the slightest word or wish of their lovely, smiling, cheery guardian, who always knew just what to do and just the time to do it.

"That's all right for me," began Jessie, heroically. "I've been eating candies and drinking sodas and reading so much that my eyes are nearly out of my head, but I don't know what under the light of the sun you two have done."

"Well, in the first place, I've become horribly rude," confessed Lucile.

"We haven't noticed it," said Jessie.

"Well, I have," she went on. "This morning an old lady dropped her handkerchief under my very eyes and I was in such a hurry to get to you that I didn't stop to pick it up. And all my clothes need mending. That good waist is all ripped where you yanked the button off, Evelyn——"

"Oh, I did not," began Evelyn, hotly.

"All right. I don't care who did it; the fact remains that it is torn and I haven't mended it, and I haven't written half as much as I ought to, and—well, if I told you everything, I wouldn't get through to-day."

"And I use slang from morning to night, and I chewed a piece of gum that Phil gave me right out in the street, too," began Evelyn, miserably.

"Oh, Phil!" said Jessie, disdainfully. "He would ruin anybody's manners."

"All the more credit, then, in being good while he's around," laughed Lucile. "But, seriously, girls, don't you think it would be a good plan to make up our minds to act just the same all the time as though our guardian were in the next room?"

"Let's" said the girls. And so, with no more form or ceremony, the simple little compact was made, but it had taken firm and solid root, nevertheless, in the girls' hearts.

"Hooray, people; here comes the sun!" cried Phil, bursting in upon them with a box of candy and a radiant smile. "I just waylaid Dad and asked him what was up if it cleared this afternoon, and he said, 'Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, a look at the Thames, an auto ride.' Hooray!"

The girls ran to the window, and, sure enough, the sun was beginning to shine, feebly and mistily, to be sure, but yet unmistakably.

They hugged each other joyfully and began to gather up their scattered belongings.

"It must be nearly lunch time," sang Lucile. "We'll go up and see what we look like and change our dresses and——"

"Then for the fun," finished Evelyn.

"I say, Jessie, here's the candy I promised you," Phil called after her.

Jessie turned at the door and eyed the tempting box longingly.

"I'd love to, Phil," she said, "but I can't. Thanks just as much. I would spoil my lunch," she added, lamely, making a hasty retreat.

"Well, of all the——" began Phil, at a loss to understand such insanity. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he voiced the eternal and oft-repeated masculine query:

"Aren't girls the limit?"



CHAPTER XVII

THE GLORY OF THE PAST

With light hearts and lighter feet the girls danced from the dark hotel to the sun-flooded street. Umbrellas had been down for half an hour and in some places the sidewalks were already partly dry. Smiles and friendly nods had once more become the fashion where before had been only grumbling discontent, with now and then a muttered, "Beastly rotten day, what?"

"Oh, what a dif-fer-ence!" cried Lucile, surveying the scene with delight. "I'd begun to be rather disgusted with London this morning, everything looked so dreary and forlorn. I wonder what can be keeping Dad and Mother," she added, turning to the hotel entrance, while her foot tapped impatiently. "They said they'd be with us right away—oh, here they are! Speaking of angels——"

"And they're sure to turn up," said Phil, producing himself with startling suddenness from nowhere. "Bet you can't guess where I've been."

"Why work when you don't have to?" philosophized Jessie. "If we don't care where you've been, why bother to guess?"

"All right; I won't let you in on the secret now, but when you do find out about it, you'll wish you had been more civil," Phil prophesied, darkly.

"Here is the car; come down, all of you," commanded Mr. Payton; and, all else forgotten, they very willingly obeyed.

The machine was a big touring car, hired especially for the occasion, and the girls thrilled at the thought of seeing London in this fashion. In they tumbled joyfully, the big tonneau just accommodating five, while Mr. Payton took his place beside the driver.

"Where to, sir?" asked the latter.

"Oh, all around," said Mr. Payton, with a wave of his hand. "You know the points of interest better than I do. Only, of course, the young folks must stop for a long look at Westminster Abbey on the way back."

"All right, sir," said the man, with an understanding grin, and added, "For the whole afternoon?"

"Yes," said Mr. Payton.

With that the chauffeur threw in the clutch and the big machine whizzed away through the crowded traffic bearing a very happy cargo.

The girls never forgot that afternoon. Impressions crowded so thick and fast upon them they had all they could do to gather them in, and Lucile more than once exclaimed, "Oh, I must come here some day when I have lots of time and just stand and look and look and look!"

The last time she had made this remark was when they were proceeding slowly through the crowded traffic of London Bridge.

"Do you remember what Mark Twain said about people in olden times being born on the bridge, living on it all their lives, and finally dying on it, without having been in any other part of the world?" said Phil, looking about him with lively interest.

"Well, I don't blame them much," Jessie answered; "it is fascinating."

"Yes; only they don't have the heads of Dukes and things on spikes the way they used to," Evelyn complained.

"Goodness, Evelyn, you can't expect everything! Besides, you wouldn't actually like to see those things," cried Lucile, horrified.

"Well, maybe I wouldn't like to look at them," Evelyn retracted, embarrassed by so many laughing eyes upon her. "But if they were there, I just couldn't help looking, could I?" she finished, lamely.

There was a shout, and Jessie exclaimed, "I do believe you'd enjoy being a cannibal, Evelyn. You and the black-skins certainly have a great many views in common."

At last they had left the bridge behind and were once more speeding through the historic streets of London.

"The Abbey now, Dad?" Phil questioned, eagerly. "That's what I came to Europe to see, you know."

"Seems to me you're getting mighty familiar," commented Jessie. "Why don't you call it by its full name?"

"Are we, Dad?" said Phil, ignoring the interruption.

"We are," said Mr. Payton. "I've been wanting to see it, along with other things, all my life, Phil. You see, I wasn't so lucky as you. However, I expect to make up for lost time."

"Well, it's a treat just to ride along the streets," said Evelyn. "It's so very different from anything I ever saw before."

"Yes; you could imagine you were reading Dickens," said Lucile, her eyes bright with the idea. "Why, that little shop might almost be the same one where——"

"Uncle Sol and Cap'n Cuttle hung out," said Phil.

"Yes," Jessie added, excitedly. "And you can almost see little Florence Dombey——"

"And her black-eyed maid, Susan," said Evelyn, eagerly, and they all laughed delightedly at the picture.

"Gee, it does seem to make his books lots more real," Phil chuckled. "Dear old Cap'n Cuttle and Uncle Sol's nevvy, Wal'r—you remember him, don't you?"

Of course they did. So on they went, most of the time in gales of merriment, as some house or modest little shop suggested some character or happening in the books of the great writer and humorist.

So happy were they in their imagining that they were almost sorry to find themselves at their destination.

"Oh, so soon?" cried Lucile, trying vainly to straighten the corners of her laughing mouth into some semblance of the sobriety that befitted so great an occasion. "Oh, I never get enough of anything!" This last a protest against fate.

"Greedy child!" whispered Evelyn, lovingly, as the chauffeur opened the door. "It is a great deal better than having too much of everything," she added, philosophically.

Phil was standing a little apart from the rest and was gazing with rapturous awe at this object of his boyhood adoration.

"Gee, Lucy, look at it!" he murmured, as his sister tucked her arm in his in mute understanding. "Think of the architect that could plan that magnificent structure!"

"It is wonderful," Lucile agreed, softly, sobered by the beauty, the indefinite repose and dignity of the old, historic pile. "Phil, can you really imagine we are standing here in London, actually looking at Westminster Abbey? I can't."

"It sure does seem impossible, little sister," Phil answered, understandingly. "But so it is. I guess Dad wants us now; he seems to be ready," he added, as Mr. Payton beckoned to them.

"Yes," began Evelyn, the irrepressible. "I want to see all the aesoph—sarcophaguses—gae——" she floundered hopeless and looked to the others for relief.

"Perhaps you mean sarcophagi," Jessie suggested, loftily, while the others laughed at her discomfiture.

"Well, whatever it is, I want to see it," she persisted, doggedly.

"Don't worry; you shall," Lucile promised. "If I know anything about it, you will have plenty of time to see everything, for I'm not going home till I have to."

A moment more and they had stepped within the great, silent, shadow-filled cathedral. The lights and sunshine of the out-of-doors made the contrast more impressive and in the wonder of the moment the girls drew closer together. Gone was all their levity now, buried deep beneath an overwhelming reverence for this great architectural masterpiece—exalted resting place of England's noblest men.

The mellow, softly-tinted light from a hundred lofty windows bathed the clustering pillars, the magnificent nave and choir in a soft, roseate glow. To the girls it seemed that all the glory, all the romance, all the pomp and splendid grandeur of the ages lay embodied there.

Lucile's hand was cold as it rested on her father's. "Dad," she breathed, "it almost makes you feel the wonderful scenes it has witnessed."

"Do you wish to be shown about the Abbey?" The calm voice startled them and they turned sharply.

"Why, yes," said Mr. Payton to the tall, thin, aesthetic-looking young man who stood regarding them blandly. "We will be glad to have you act as guide."

This the young man did, and to such good effect that the girls and Phil were soon hanging on every word.

The magnificent choir held for them especial interest, for it was there had taken place the gorgeous coronations of the kings of England from the time of Harold.

"It seems like a fairy tale, anyway," said Jessie, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked. "Why, to think of all the great monarchs of England—Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth—actually being crowned on this spot! Why, it is the next best thing to seeing the coronation itself!"

From there the party passed into the north transept, where lay, for the most part, the great statesmen and warriors of England.

But it was in the south transept, in the poets' corner, where were erected memorials of the great English writers, that our party was most interested. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Thackeray, Dickens—magic names, names to conjure with!

Their English guide grew more eloquent and his face flushed with pride as he went into eulogies of these great men who had made England famous in the literary world.

They lingered longer over Dickens' tomb, visioning the man who, by the far-reaching genius of his pen, could sway multitudes to laughter or tears at will.

"And it is to Dickens, largely, that we owe the marvelous improvement in social conditions among the lower classes," the young man finished. "If it had not been for the boldness of his pen, we might still be going blithely along, blind to the miserable, unjust conditions that so prevailed among the poor of his time."

And so the afternoon wore blissfully on, till Mr. Payton drew out his watch and four pairs of eager young eyes followed the action fearfully.

"It can't be late, Dad," from Lucile.

"After six," said Mr. Payton, and they groaned in unison. "I'm as sorry as you young folks to tear myself away, but I'm afraid we've seen all we can for to-day."

Slowly, and each step a protest against a necessity that demanded their return so soon, the girls made their reluctant way to the door of the cathedral.

Before they stepped into the waiting machine, our party turned for one more look at the Abbey.

"Oh, Dad, did you ever see anything like it?" breathed Lucile.

"There is nothing like it," her father answered, slowly. "It is testimony in stone, a silent epitome of the glorious, stately, romance-filled history of England!"



CHAPTER XVIII

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

"And to think that the Applegates own a motor boat!" It was Lucile who spoke.

The girls were walking down the quaint, narrow street at the side of the hotel. Although it was very early, scarcely seven o'clock, the girls had been up and dressed for nearly an hour. There was so much to be seen and thought about and talked about that an ordinary day, begun at, say, eight o'clock, seemed to these young people wholly inadequate. So it was they happened to be taking a walk while other guests of the hotel were just beginning to wake up, talking over the events of the day before and beginning to feel a most inordinate longing for breakfast.

"I'm awfully glad," Jessie was saying, in answer to Lucile's remark. "We ought to have a great old time to-day. Oh, girls, I'm so hungry!"

"That's the tenth time you've said that very same thing within the last ten minutes, Jessie," said Evelyn, teasingly. "That suit is awfully becoming, Lucy," she approved.

"What do you mean?" queried Lucile of Jessie, while she thanked Evelyn with a bright smile.

"Oh, you don't pay any attention to me at all, and nobody throws any compliments in my direction," and Jessie contrived to look very injured and forlorn.

"Why, we were listening with all our ears," declaimed Lucile; then added, naively, "What did you say?"

"Humph!" grunted Jessie. "I just said I was hungry."

"So are we all of us," sang Lucile, cheerily. "And if my nose does not deceive me, there issueth from the regions of various kitchens a blithe and savory odor—as of fresh muffins, golden-yellow eggs, just fried to a turn, and luscious, juicy, crisp——"

"Oh, Lucy, don't! I can't bear it!" shrieked Jessie, covering her ears with her hands. "Eggs and bacon and—oh—oh——"

"No; bacon and eggs," corrected Evelyn, soberly; "and cereal, with lots and oodles of rich cream—and maybe some marmalade——"

"Is this a conspiracy?" cried Jessie, glowering belligerently at the two mischievous faces. "Girls, if you only had an idea how hungry I am, you wouldn't joke; it's too serious."

"My goodness, don't you think we're hungry, too?" cried Lucile. "Why, I'm so hungry a piece of dried bread would taste like—like——" She hunted desperately for a comparison.

"Ambrosia and nectar," began Evelyn.

"And a pinch of angels' food mixed in," finished Lucile, laughing. "Why, I'd steal, murder, anything, for it!"

"My, you must be worse off than I am," said Jessie, regarding her friend with awe. "I wouldn't do all that for anything less than chicken."

Then they all laughed, just because they couldn't help it—the world was such a wonderful place to live in.

"Just the same, I've never eaten anything since that tasted like the food we cooked in camp," sighed Lucile.

"You must guard against giving wrong impressions, Lucy," Jessie admonished, gravely. "Anybody, hearing you, might actually imagine you could cook."

"When I made that remark I had you in mind, Jessie, dear," purred Lucile.

"In that case, of course——"

"I wonder what the girls are doing this minute," Evelyn interrupted, dreamily. "I'd give the world to get just one little glimpse of them and our guardian and Jim and Jeddie——"

"Don't! You make me homesick," pleaded Lucile. "It seems strange to think there's a whole ocean between us. I wonder if we'll be able to tell our guardian, when we do see her, that we have tried faithfully to live up to the camp-fire laws—even when we were so far away."

"Well, there are two of them that we surely haven't broken," said Evelyn soberly, "and they are—hold on to health, and be happy."

"Yes; and we've pursued knowledge so hungrily that I haven't begun to get the facts all straightened out yet," said Jessie, in funny bewilderment.

"I guess we're all in the same boat there," Lucile comforted. "There is one thing I'm learning pretty well, though, and that is to count in shillings and pence. I can figure in English money almost as well as in United States now."

"So can I, and I haven't eaten more than two candies in a week, and they were little ones," Jessie confided, virtuously.

"And I haven't used slang for, oh, I don't know how long," cried Evelyn. "And I wasn't rude even to that old man who stepped on my foot and then looked cross—"

Lucile laughed infectiously. "Goodness, we're in a fair way to become three little angels," she laughed.

"Aren't you girls coming in to breakfast?" said Phil, appearing for a minute at the door as they passed. "If you are, follow me"—and they needed no second invitation.

In response to Mrs. Applegate's very cordial invitation, Mrs. Payton and the girls had made their visit the day before. It was then that they had learned, to their surprise, that the former owned a beautiful motor boat, anchored farther up the Thames. What was their great delight when Mrs. Applegate voiced her hope that they had made no special plans for the morrow, as she had arranged a little party and was counting on them to make it complete. Of course, they had assured her that no plans could be so important as to stand in the way of so tempting an invitation; so it had been settled to the satisfaction of every one.

It was just nine o'clock when they climbed into the automobile and Mr. Payton started to give the chauffeur his directions. He was to drive through Hyde Park, entering it through the beautiful gate at Hyde Park Corner and ending with the magnificent Marble Arch. From there they would drive straight to Henley, where they were to meet the Applegates.

"It's good we started early; now we can see lots before we meet the other people," said Jessie, contentedly.

"Can't we get out, Dad," begged Lucile, "and get a little closer look at Kensington Gardens—I love to say it; it sounds so very English, don't you know—just for a little while? Can't we, Mother? It looks so pretty!"

"No; we'll have just time to ride through the park," Mrs. Payton answered, and Lucile must needs be satisfied.

"I read somewhere that they took several hundred acres from the park to enlarge the gardens," Phil volunteered. "Is that so, Dad?"

"Yes; three hundred, I think it was," his father answered. "And now here we are, before the famous Hyde Park itself!"

As they entered the park through a most imposing gateway the girls uttered a little cry of admiration.

"The lawns are like velvet!" cried Lucile. "And those exquisite flowering shrubs! What do you call them, Mother?"

"I think they are hawthorne bushes," Mrs. Payton answered, absently.

"And the flowers! Did you ever see such gorgeous tints?" said Jessie. "And the splendid old trees! Why, they look as if they might be a million years old!"

"I bet some of them could tell many a tale of duels fought beneath their shade in the time when such things were the fashion," remarked Phil, and Evelyn turned to him with shining eyes.

"You mean real duels, where they both fight till one of them gets killed? Oh!"

"It's plain to see you were born a century too late, Evelyn," Jessie remarked, mournfully.

"I don't care; it must have been fun," she maintained.

"Lots," Lucile agreed, gravely. "I can't imagine anything funnier than having a couple of silked and satined gentlemen sticking spears into each other for my sweet sake."

The description did not coincide in the least with that of authors and historians who love to dwell on those chivalrous days, but it accomplished its purpose, nevertheless; it sent our girls into gales of laughter.

"You're jealous, that's all," Evelyn remarked, when she could make herself heard.

The beauty and grandeur of the great Marble Arch sobered them a trifle and they were enthusiastic in their admiration. Then, when they could look no longer, they continued toward their rendezvous, leaving the beautiful, historic park behind and speeding along the Thames embankment toward Henley.

As they advanced further out of the city and deeper into the country, they were dazzled by the beauty of the scenery. The sun struck hot and bright upon the road, while the shrubs and foliage on the outskirts of the woodland seemed outlined in molten gold against the softer background of shadowy green. The river shone and sparkled in the brilliant sun like some great, glistening jewel turned to liquid sunshine. The world was bathed in gold.

"If our guardian were only here!" Lucile murmured. "And little Margaret!"

Jessie turned to her, surprised. "How did you know what I was thinking about?" she demanded.

"I didn't," said Lucile; "only, when I see the woods and the water, it makes me think of the camp-fire and our guardian and little Margaret——"

"Isn't this where we stop, Dad?" Phil interrupted; and they had no time for further conversation.

As they alighted, a man came up to them and, touching his hat, said that he was from the "Vigil" and was looking for a party bound there.

Upon Mr. Payton's assuring the man that his was the party in question, they stepped into the trim little launch that was to bear them to their destination.

"Say, wouldn't it be great to have a little motor boat like this down at the river?" said Lucile, trailing her hand in the warm water. "Just think of the races we could have with it—although nothing could be much more exciting than the one we had," she added, loyally.

"Of course it couldn't," Jessie agreed. "I'd rather paddle any time."

"You must admit you can't go quite as fast," teased Phil. "Almost, of course, but not quite."

"We never admit anything," Lucile retorted. "Besides, I dare say we could go a good deal faster than some motor boats."

"Sure," said Phil, encouragingly. "I've seen lots of old tubs, minus the motor, that I'm sure you could run rings around."

"Phil, if you don't stop talking about things you don't understand," began Jessie.

"Is there anything?" asked Phil, with interest.

"We'll dump you out and make you walk ashore," she added, treating his remark with the haughty disdain it deserved.

"It's a long way to shore," said Phil, with a rueful glance over his shoulder. "Give me one more chance, fair damsel, and I will promise never to offend again."

"Oh, if I could only believe him!" said Jessie, prayerfully.

Lucile laughed and flipped a salt drop toward the offending Phil. "You mustn't be too hard on him, Jessie," she remonstrated. "You know, he really might be worse."

"Thanks, sweet sister," said Phil, gratefully.

By this time the little launch had noisily chug-chugged its way among the various craft, small and large, and had finally come to a standstill beside a beautiful boat, upon whose bow and stern was engraved the name "Vigil."

The Applegates, proud owners of the "Vigil," crowded eagerly to the rail to welcome their guests.

"Oh, I'm so glad you could come," cried Mrs. Applegate, as Phil and Mr. Payton climbed the short ladder preparatory to helping the women folk on board. "The Dickensons and Archie Blackstone—we came over with them, you know—are on board."

There was an enthusiastic meeting between the fellow-voyagers, for they had formed a sort of mutual-admiration society while on board the "Mauretania" and were only too glad to come together again.

While their fathers and mothers were talking, the young folks had seized upon the opportunity to look about them. They were just at the height of this delightful process when Mrs. Applegate hailed them.

"Don't you girls want to come down in the cabin and take your wraps off?" she called.

"Surely; we're coming right away," Lucile answered for them.

"Why do you have to fix up any?" protested Archie. "You look just fine just as you are. What's the use of wasting an hour?"

"We're not going to fix up," denied Lucile; then added, "It won't take us an hour, anyway. We'll be back in five minutes."

"Oh, how I'd like to believe you!" said Archie, as they disappeared down the companionway.

"Get out your watch," challenged Lucile. "I'll wager a pound of my home-made fudge against a pound of Huyler's that we'll be back before the five minutes are up."

"If I were you, Arch," said Phil, loudly, for the benefit of his sister, "I'd rather lose than win," which was treated with a laugh of merry derision.



CHAPTER XIX

THE BREATH OF THE WAR GOD

The girls proved as good as their word and five minutes later tumbled breathlessly on deck, cheeks flushed and eyes shining with triumph.

"Where's that pound of Huyler's?" Lucile demanded, with an "I told you so" look at Archie.

"I'll pay it as soon as we get to shore," he promised. "It's worth ten boxes of candies to see you so soon," he added, gallantly, and, catching Lucile about the waist, he fox-trotted up the deck to the accompaniment of his own merry whistle.

"Oh, we can do that, too," said Phil, not to be outdone in anything, and soon they were all at it with a swing and a go that made their fond parents, who had come up in the meantime and were watching them, marvel.

"I can give you something better than that to dance to," said Mrs. Applegate, when they had stopped from sheer lack of breath. "There is a phonograph below, and if you boys don't mind the trouble, you might bring it on deck and start it going. Then you can dance to your hearts' content."

Phil gave a whoop of joy and nearly fell down the companionway in his eagerness to find the machine, and the other two boys followed closely on his heels.

"There seems to be no lack of enthusiasm," remarked Mrs. Applegate, as the ladies made themselves comfortable in the big chairs placed against the rail. "They can't seem to get tired. I never knew there was so much bottled-up energy."

The boys soon returned with the phonograph and they were having the time of their lives teaching each other the newest steps when they were interrupted by the arrival of some people from the boat club, who had been invited to meet them.

There were three girls and three boys somewhere about their own age and four of the club's most popular members and their wives.

"There sure is going to be a crowd," said Archie, as the newcomers began to pour over the side, all talking at once. "I wish we could have finished that dance," he added, regretfully.

"Oh, there will be plenty more," said Lucile, smiling roguishly in a way that made him wish all these intruders—for so he regarded them—were at least as far away as the North Pole.

Soon the introductions were over and the girls found themselves liking the gay young strangers immensely. Their English accent and the way they said, "Bah Jove!" and "Beastly hot weather, what?" fascinated the uninitiated girls, and they were soon imitating their new-found friends with surprising success.

"You were dancing when we arrived, weren't you?" asked Anita Derby, a dashing, fair-haired girl, who made almost as many enemies as friends with a rather sharp, unbridled tongue. "I thought I heard a phonograph. What was it you were playing?"

"'Good-bye, Girls,' from 'Chin Chin,'" said Lucile. "It's a splendid fox trot."

"Never heard of it," said Anita. "Peculiar name—'Chin Chin'—what?"

Lucile was about to reply when Mr. Applegate interrupted.

"There's a stiff breeze on the way," he said, casting his weather eye aloft. "And, from the looks of things, it's more than possible that we may run into a storm somewhere up the river. However, we'll have to take a chance on that."

"Oh, I wonder if we will," cried Lucile.

"Don't worry," said Gordon Ridgley, whose gaze had not wandered from Lucile's bright face, with its dancing eyes and mischievous mouth, always quirked in a smile and showing the dimples in the corners of it—he wondered how many dimples she had, anyway—since he had come on board. "If you will come with me forward," he added, "I'll show you the prettiest view of the river there is. B' Jove, it's incomparable!"

Lucile consented rather hesitatingly. To tell the truth, she would much rather have stayed where she was. Nevertheless, they went off around the corner of the cabin, while Archie watched them with a gloomy frown on his face.

"Nervy beggar!" he muttered.

Evelyn squeezed Jessie's hand and whispered, delightedly. "Did you see the look Archie gave that 'bally Henglishman'? There will be a regular duel in Hyde Park yet."

"Shouldn't wonder. I don't know how Lucy ever does it."

Meanwhile, Lucile's cavalier, Gordon Ridgley, had helped her carefully along the deck and established her in a corner from which he had declared the view "incomparable."

"This is rippin' luck," he cried, seizing a couple of handy chairs and dragging them to the rail. "The bally things knew we were coming!"

Lucile laughed happily. She liked being taken care of; it made her think of Jack. Meanwhile, the breeze, which had been steadily rising, had grown perceptibly stronger.

"Oh, this is wonderful!" breathed Lucile, leaning forward and drinking in the beautiful scene. "I've wanted a chance to sail in a real motor boat all my life."

"Well, does it meet with your expectations?"

"It's beginning to. You know, I was crazy about the river yesterday—it was all so different from anything I had ever seen and a thousand times more interesting; but now I can see that I had only begun to appreciate it."

"Oh, it's not such a bad old river," he said, letting his gaze wander out over the water. "I suppose it appeals more to strangers than it does to us natives. For instance, I would much rather see your Hudson River than this."

"I suppose so," said Lucile, dreamily, and then added, almost as though speaking to herself, "But the Hudson, though, of course, it is beautiful and much larger than this, is in a new country, while the Thames—why, the very name makes you think of those old times when there were noble knights and beautiful ladies and jousts and all sorts of interesting things. In those days the knights seemed to go around with a chip on their shoulders all the time. If you happened to step on their foot or any other little thing, they'd flare up, throw a glove or something in your face—I should think it must have hurt sometimes, too—and command you to joust for the honor of knight or lady——" She broke off with a little laugh and added, demurely, "I don't know what you must think of me—I'm not always like this, you know."

"I think you're——" he began, but just what he thought was never expressed, for Mr. Payton and a friend, coming upon them unexpectedly, uttered a surprised exclamation.

"Oh, here you are!" he said, amusement in the glance he gave them. "The young folks are about to start the Victrola; don't you want to join them?"

As if to give proof to his words, a merry one-step reached them from the after deck and Lucile sprang to her feet, looking toward her escort invitingly.

"We can't miss this," she said, with conviction.

Young Ridgely looked as if he could miss it with great pleasure, but he followed her to the after deck, nevertheless.

"Will you go back again after the dance?" he pleaded, as they joined the others. "We were having such a good talk."

"Perhaps," she half promised, with a tantalizing little laugh, and a moment after was swept off into the dance by Archie, who had been seriously considering organizing a search party.

"You were away a mighty long time," he reproached her. "What were you doing all the time with that Ridgely guy?"

"I shouldn't call him a guy; he's a very nice fellow," said Lucile, demurely. "Besides, we were only admiring the view."

"Huh!" grunted Archie, unconvinced. "I dare say he found the view very interesting," he added, meaningly.

"Doubtless he did, since he wants to go back and look at it all over again," she said, wickedly; then, to change the subject, "Doesn't Jessie dance wonderfully? I never saw such an improvement in any one."

"Yes, she dances well, but she can't touch you; nobody can."

So the morning wore merrily on, the young folks stopping only long enough to get their breath between dances. Then came the ever-welcome call to lunch and they tumbled down to the roomy cabin, followed more sedately by their elders, who had enjoyed the morning as much as their offspring, though less riotously. It was a delicious luncheon and, with the added flavor of romantic surroundings and congenial company, was altogether a memorable affair.

When they reached the deck again, they were surprised to find that the sun, which had been shining so brightly before, had gone under a cloud, while the smooth surface of the water was stirred into ripples and eddies by an ever-increasing wind.

"Looks mighty threatening," said Phil, anxiously. "I hope we don't have a downpour."

The others viewed the sudden change with equal trepidation.

"Look at that bank of clouds over there, Lucile," said Archie, pointing to a gigantic cloud formation, black and threatening, and moving swiftly in their direction. "By the way, I take back all I said about your prophecies this morning; it sure looks as if we were in for it now. Wonder what Mr. Applegate thinks of it."

What Mr. Applegate thought of it proved to be certain confirmation of their fears. He stood regarding the threatening sky-line with an anxious frown on his forehead. A moment later a sudden gust of wind struck the boat, heeling it so far to one side that they had to grip the rail and each other to keep from falling, while the vivid flash of lightning, followed by a low, ominous roll of thunder, made them draw closer together.

The captain was roused to sudden action. Turning to his guests, he said, "If you folks don't want to get wet, you had better make your way down below. The storm is due to break any minute now."

Obediently, but reluctantly, they followed directions, descending into the now almost twilight gloom of the cabin.

"Goodness! Whoever would have thought it would get dark so quickly?" said Anita Derby, fearfully. "If there is one thing I detest it is a thunderstorm."

"I think it's kind of exciting," said Lucile, snuggling into a corner of the great leather-cushioned settee that ran around three sides of the cabin and pushing aside a curtain that obstructed her view. "I've always wanted to be on the water in a storm. Oh, look at that flash! Did you ever see anything so vivid?" But her voice was drowned in the great crash of thunder that followed it.

It struck the earth with terrific force; then retired, grumbling and muttering like some tremendous monster robbed of its prey. Then the rain began, pouring down in torrents, dashing itself upon the cabin roof and windows with such violence it seemed solid wood and glass must give way before it. It raged; it danced in frenzy; it hurled itself in stinging dagger points upon the deck, while the wind shrieked a weirdly wild accompaniment.

"It's a hurricane!" shouted Jessie above the wind, and some way in the semi-darkness she found her way to Lucile's side, where Evelyn had come before her. It was strange how the three friends clung together instinctively.

"Oh, Lucy, do you suppose we could possibly be swamped?"

"Of course not," said Lucile, trying with difficulty to be reassuring, as a sudden lurch of the boat sent her back against the cushions. "Didn't you hear the captain say we were perfectly safe?"

"How's this for a storm, eh?" yelled Phil, balancing with difficulty. "If it wasn't for Mother, I'd go on deck and watch."

"And get struck by lightning," said Lucile. "Oh-h!" as another flash rent the darkness, followed by a terrific crash of thunder. "This can't last long."

"Don't be alarmed, any one." It was Mr. Applegate's voice, and though they couldn't locate him in the gloom, it was a comfort just to hear him speak. "It's only a hard shower and an unusually strong wind. It will blow itself out in ten minutes."

The captain was right, and in less time than he allowed the storm began to abate; the flashes of lightning became less frequent, the thunder less and less fierce, and the gloom began to lighten so they could distinguish each other. Slowly and reluctantly the wind died away until only the rolling of the boat remained to testify to its violence.

As soon as Mr. Applegate thought it wise to venture on deck the whole party very willingly repaired there. The sky was still a dull, leaden color, but around the spot where the sun was hiding behind the banked-up clouds shone a misty radiance, sure prophecy of brightness to come.

They were still finding it rather hard to recover their former hilarious spirits when, fifteen minutes later the sky opened as if by magic, letting forth a burst of golden sunshine that flooded the river and danced on the water so gladly and joyously that the girls and boys shouted with delight.

"You wonderful old sun!" cried Lucile. "Why, it makes the world a different place to live in!"

"It is all the difference between night and day," said Major Ridgely, Gordon's father, a tall, well-built man with a mass of iron-gray hair framing a strong-featured face—the face of a scholar and a gentleman. "And it's like the difference," he continued, slowly and with emphasis, "it's like the difference between peace and—war."

There was silence for a full moment while the young folks regarded him with astonishment and interest, for they sensed a deeper meaning behind his words.

"You mean," it was Mr. Payton that spoke, "you mean, Major, that you think there is any immediate danger of—war?"

"War—is—imminent." The Major spoke slowly, pronouncing each word with exaggerated distinctness. "I am no prophet, sir, but, unless I am very much mistaken, the month of August will see part of this continent plunged in the bloodiest war the world has ever known."

"War! War!" The word ran from one to the other, as the Major continued:

"It has been coming for years. For years the interests and ambitions of at least two great nations—Germany and Russia—have been antagonistic. For years the countries of Europe have been looking forward to the time when the slender strand of national amity would be snapped like a thread and the nations plunged into deadly conflict. And now, it seems to me, the time is ripe!"

The young folks had been drinking in the conversation eagerly. War! Why, they had read of war, of course, in their history books; but war, in their time, in their generation, under their very noses, as it were! Why, it was impossible!

But the Major was speaking again. "For years the sole aim and goal of the German house of Hohenzollern has been the perfection to a marvelous degree of her policy of militarism. Why, there is not a man in the whole German Empire, who, at the command of his country, could not take his place, a trained soldier, in the tremendous, perfected military machine that is the German army."

"Why, Dad, does that mean that we may have to fight?" fairly shouted Phil, who could not restrain himself a moment longer. "Now, right away——"

"We won't son," said his father, kindly. "Thank Heaven, we will have the broad Atlantic between us and the horrors of war!"

"War? Who talks of war?" cried little Mrs. Applegate, coming breezily up to them from the depths, where she had probably been giving some very important instructions for dinner. "I won't have the ugly word spoken on board my ship. Why, everybody looks as if they had seen a ghost. What have you been talking about?"

"Why, you heard, my dear," said her husband, kindly. "We were simply discussing the possibility of——"

"Stop!" shrieked the little woman, clapping her hands to her ears. "I won't have it! Somebody start the phonograph—do!"

Gordon laughingly obeyed and soon they were all dancing merrily as if the great cloud of war were not hanging over all Europe. When the young folks were tired of dancing they settled themselves comfortably on the deck, talking, laughing, singing college songs, and otherwise enjoying themselves.

It was not till evening, when they had bidden their hosts good-night, after thanking them heartily for "the most glorious day they had ever spent," that the topic of the afternoon was again referred to.

"Do you think there is really any possibility of war?" Lucile asked of Archie, as they were nearing the hotel.

"There's no telling," he answered, seriously. "It looks rather like it now. You and I needn't worry, anyhow; we won't get any of it. Unless," he added, whimsically, "unless you should decide to go as a Red Cross nurse. Then I might even desert the Red, White and Blue and volunteer my services in the war."

And so they parted, with an almost imperceptible cloud shadowing their gayety. Little did Archie think, when he declared so confidently that "they wouldn't get any of it," that before the summer was over, they would experience to some infinitesimal extent the cruel, relentless, crushing power of that tremendous grinding machine men term—WAR!



CHAPTER XX

CROSSING THE CHANNEL

Two days later our party started for France by way of Dover. They parted regretfully from their friends, who were obliged to remain in London a few days longer, and it is safe to say the others, the boys at least, were even more sorry to part from them. They had not expected any one to see them off, and so it was a complete surprise when they found, not only the Dickensons and Archie, but all the rest of the jolly yachting party, waiting to say good-by to them and speed them on their way.

Our girls were showered with good wishes and pleadings from the boys not to "forget them altogether in the gay and riotous life of Paris." They promised laughingly, thankful to their friends for making the parting a so much easier one than they had anticipated.

The little packet steamed away from the dock and the girls waved to the group on the wharf and the group on the wharf waved to them until they were out of sight.

"Wasn't that lovely of them?" fairly beamed Lucile, as she turned from the last wave at the little dots that had been people. "I think they are the jolliest crowd I've ever met. Jessie, your bow is crooked; hold still a minute. There, it's all right now. Oh, girls, I'm so happy that, if some one doesn't hold me down, I'll go up in the air like a balloon and sit on that fluffy white cloud. No, that one over there, the one that looks like a canary bird."

"Goodness! She's quite romantic!" said Jessie, squinting up at the cloud in question. "It looks more like an elephant to me."

"To come down from the discussion of clouds and elephants," began Evelyn, "to every-day matters, I wonder if that Frenchman we met on the steamer—what was his name? Oh, yes, I remember; Monsieur Charloix—I wonder if he's found that girl yet."

"And the fortune," added Lucile. "Don't forget to mention the most important part. I've——"

"Lucy, how very mercenary!" reproved Jessie.

"Don't you call my sister names," said Phil, who was always pretending surprise at Jessie's long words.

"I've been wondering about that myself," said Lucile, ignoring Phil's remark. "Now that we're going to France, perhaps we will hear something about him."

"France is supposed to be a respectable-sized town," said Phil, with what was meant to be biting sarcasm. "It's not like Burleigh, where Angela Peabody can tell you the history of everybody in town, and then some. We might be in Paris a year and never hear a word about him."

"I realize that quite as well as you do, brother, dear," said Lucile, sweetly. "However, you must admit that there is more chance of our finding out something about the gentleman in France than there was in London."

"Or in Egypt," Phil agreed, and Lucile gave up with a little shrug of her shoulders.

"Well, it doesn't matter, anyway; only I would like to know the end. It's like starting to read an interesting serial story in a magazine, and just when you get to the most exciting part, you come up against a 'To be continued in our next.' Look!" she added, irrelevantly, clutching Jessie's wrist and pointing upward. "Now the cloud has changed shape again. It's the image of old Jim's dog, Bull."

Phil turned away in utter disgust. "You don't have to go to Bronx Park to see the zoo," he muttered.

"Not when we have you with us," Jessie retorted, at which Phil retreated in undignified haste.

The girls turned laughingly to each other.

"What do you say if we have an old-fashioned talk?" suggested Evelyn. "There's has been such a crowd around all the time that we haven't had a minute to talk things over."

"Let's not sit in any regular, ordinary old place to-day, said Lucile. Let's find some snug little corner in the stern, where we can do just as we please and make believe we are back in camp. Oh, for one little sight of our guardian!"

"If she were only here, our happiness would be complete," said Jessie, as they made their way back. "I wonder how Marjorie and Eleanor and Dot and Ruth and the whole bunch of them are, anyway. I'm crazy to see them all."

"And we haven't heard from them in so long! I do wish it didn't take mail so long to travel across the——Oh, here's the very place we are looking for, girls," she interrupted herself. "It's just big enough for three of us, and I don't believe anybody ever comes this way."

So saying, she pulled a chair into the corner and made herself comfortable, while Jessie and Evelyn followed her example.

"You're a wonder at thinking things, Lucy," said Evelyn, as she comfortably settled herself with her head resting against the cabin. "This is ever so much better than sitting where everybody can look at us."

"Of course it is," agreed Lucile. Then, after a moment, she added, dreamily, "Girls, do I look any different than I did when we started? Somehow, I feel awfully different."

Jessie regarded her through lazy, half-closed eyes. "No," she drawled, "I don't see that you've changed so much. Your nose and eyes and mouth are all the same and your hair still curls. You have tanned, though, and there's a little rim of white right up close to your hair, where the curls keep the sun off, and ever since a certain morning"—here Jessie and Evelyn, companions in crime, exchanged glances, and Lucile began to burn a deeper red under the tan—"and ever since a certain morning I have noticed a very marked tendency toward dreaming, and several times when you should have answered 'no' to a question you have answered 'yes,' and we knew you hadn't heard a single word. Aside from that, you haven't changed at all, except that you're a million times dearer and sweeter than you ever were," she finished, with a sudden outburst of affection.

Lucile hugged her gratefully, but her cheeks were still unduly red when she answered, "I didn't know I was being so rude, and it must have sounded frightfully foolish when I answered 'yes' instead of 'no'; but I'll try to reform."

"Don't you do it," said Evelyn. "You don't know how interesting you are this way, especially to Jessie. She says it's better than reading a story any day, and she can enjoy herself without breaking any of the camp-fire rules."

Lucile shot a reproachful glance at her friend, who laughed shamelessly, "I don't care, Lucy; you'd enjoy it just as much as I do if you were in my place. You used to make such fun of my McCutcheon books and everything——"

"Yes; but don't forget I took it all back that day in camp when we saw—well, you know what——"

"Yes, I know," said Jessie, star-eyed at the memory. "Was there ever such a summer anyway?"

"You haven't told us yet what Jack said in his letter," Evelyn interrupted, irrelevantly. "Be good to us, Lucy, and throw us some more small scraps of information to satisfy our curiosity."

"Well, I can't tell you everything he said," Lucile began.

"We hardly expect that," murmured Jessie, and Lucile threw her a suspicious glance.

"Well," she continued, after an ominous silence, during which Jessie intently studied the sky-line, "I can tell you the part that would interest you most. He says if he can persuade his uncle that he is desperately in need of a change, he may see us in Paris."

"What?" cried Jessie, regarding Lucile with laughing eyes. "You mean that Jack says he may actually come to Europe? That means he will, because he can wind that wealthy old uncle of his around his little finger. Good for dear old Jack!"

And so they talked on and on, reviewing past and prophesying future delights, until the position of the sun reminded them that it was time to seek the rest of the party.

"So here you are," said Mrs. Payton, as they approached her from around a corner of the cabin. "We were beginning to think you had jumped overboard. Your father has just gone around the other way to look for you."

"I'm sorry we didn't come back before; I can see it must be about time to land by Phil's face. He never looks sad unless he's hungry."

"You're wrong this time," said Phil. "I'm looking sad because I haven't seen Jessie for two long hours."

"Don't tell me that," said Jessie, the unconvincible. "You might try that with some one else, but not with me; I know you too well."

"But suppose I don't want to try it with any one else," Phil objected, managing to fall behind the rest and lowering his voice to a whisper. "Suppose I wasn't fooling; suppose I really meant what I said?"

Jessie turned quickly and said, in a tone in which laughter and despair were equally blended, "Oh, Phil, you're not going to begin anything like that—please——"

"Why not?" said Phil, doggedly. "If you don't mind, I think I shall."

Jessie regarded Phil's serious face out of the corner of her eye and gave a little hysterical gurgle.

"It's no use," she thought, as Phil placed a chair for her with more than usual care; "it must be in the air. When Lucy knows——"



CHAPTER XXI

THE OLD CHATEAU

Lucile had been awake for some time. She lay with both hands beneath her curly head, staring straight up at the ceiling and thinking, thinking, very hard.

They were on the outskirts of Paris. Her father had heard from the Applegates of this wonderful little inn, where one might be as comfortable as in one's own home. This had appealed strongly to them all, for the girls were eager for a sight of the country, especially since the gratifying of their desire would not entail the loss of city delights in the least—a machine could whirl them into the heart of Paris in half an hour.

Such was the pleasant trend of Lucile's thoughts as she turned her eyes toward the bright patch of window and beheld a world bathed in golden sunshine. "How pretty it all was!" she mused. "Take the clouds, for instance. How feathery and soft and fleecy and silvery-lined they looked, floating on that vast sea of brilliant turquoise; and somewhere, somewhere there was a bird singing, more exquisitely, she was sure, than bird had ever sung before. Oh, if she could only get one little peek at him!" With this in view, she stole silently from the bed and over to the window.

"Time to get up?" yawned a sleepy voice from the bed.

"Oh, he's stopped!" wailed Lucile. "He stopped the minute you began to talk. Oh, Jessie, why did you have to wake up just then?"

Jessie gazed at her friend as at one gone suddenly and violently insane. "If it will do you any good, I will go to sleep again," said she, with much dignity. "But I should like to know what or whom it was I stopped and—"

"Oh, hush!" begged Lucile, with her finger on her lips. "There he is now; listen, please!"

And Jessie listened while the little songster poured out his joy in liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air like dancing sunbeams turned to music—so light, so rippling, so joyously alive, that the girls' hearts thrilled in answer.

"Oh, the darling!" cried Jessie, springing out of bed and joining Lucile at the window. "I wonder what he is; we never heard anything like that in Burleigh. Now he's stopped again——"

"He won't sing when you talk, of course," said Evelyn, who had been quietly watching them.

"Of course not," said Jessie, calmly. "He knows there is no use in trying to compete with the music of my voice."

"Time to get up," exclaimed Evelyn, in a loud voice, and began a show of dressing in a great hurry, while Lucile gave a little despairing laugh.

"I don't know what you two would do if you didn't have me to act the part of peacemaker all the time. I'm afraid they would have one or the other of you up for murder before the end of the week."

"Well, we couldn't get along without you, anyway," said Jessie, affectionately. "What's the use of thinking of such awful calamities ahead of time?"

"All right; we won't, if you say so," said Lucile, and, snatching a pillow from the bed, she hurled it at the unsuspecting and suddenly pensive Evelyn. The aim was good and Evelyn tumbled over on the bed, while a couple of feet waved frantically in the air.

"Oh," she cried, half smothered by the pillow, "I'll get even for this, Lucile Payton! You just wait!" And, being a young person of her word, Lucile just ducked in time to escape an answering shot.

Then would have ensued an old-fashioned pillow fight, had not Lucile suddenly bethought her that this was not their own home.

"Girls!" she cried, half choked with laughter. "Girls, we'll have somebody in here, sure as fate, if we don't stop. They'll think there's a fire or something."

"Or worse," Jessie laughed, good-naturedly, and after that they gradually quieted down.

As usual, they were dressed and ready on the same instant. Lucile opened the door quietly and they stepped into the corridor.

"Guess we must have roused the hotel, after all," said Evelyn, ruefully, as they heard unmistakable sounds of awakening in the neighboring rooms. "They'll be notifying us that our patronage is no longer desirable if we don't look out."

"I wonder how you say that in French," said Lucile, her eyes merry. "If they did try to put us out, we could just pretend we didn't understand."

"Yes, we could follow the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our ashes," laughed Evelyn. "Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our shoulders. 'Me no speck Ang-lish.'"

The girls laughed appreciatively, and Jessie added, "Nevertheless, your comparisons are odious. Joe, the ash-man, is not what you might call—in our class."

"I could understand French a good deal better than I can some of Jessie's United States," said Evelyn, plaintively, and so they laughed their way out onto the broad, picturesque porch of the rambling old inn and stood gazing curiously about them.

The road wound in front of the house, over a small hill, and was lost to view on the other side. The woodland, being so near the city, was not dense, but the girls thought they had never seen foliage so vividly green nor grass so soft and luxuriant. The beckoning shadows of the trees, the fragrance of the dew-drenched flowers, the trilling music of a thousand carefree, joyous little songsters, all combined in one irresistible appeal to the girls.

With common and unspoken consent they ran down the steps of the porch and to the other side of the road. They plucked beautiful, long-stemmed flowers from their hiding-place and excitedly called each other's attention to the brightly colored birds, that balanced on swaying twigs, regarding them with saucy inquiry.

"To see us now, anybody might think the country was new to us," exclaimed Lucile, with sparkling eyes and cheeks like twin roses. "Oh, girls, there's my bird again," she added, and stood, finger on lips, while the clear note, starting soft and sweet, swelled to a height of trilling ecstasy and abandon, when all the welled-up joy of summer poured liquidly golden from a bursting little heart; then slowly, hesitatingly, with soft, intermittent trillings and gurgles, died and faded into silence.

"Oh, ah!" Jessie whispered, as though afraid to break the spell. "Did you ever hear such bird music in all your life? What can he be?"

"I wish I'd paid a little more attention to my natural history now," said Lucile, smiling ruefully. "But even that wouldn't help much until we'd seen the bird, anyway. Let's see if we can get a glimpse of him."

They were following eagerly, when Jessie exclaimed, "Oh, bother! There's Phil on the porch beckoning to us. What do you suppose he wants?"

"I don't know; breakfast, maybe," Lucile answered. "Suppose you girls run over and tell him I'll come right away. I do want to locate that bird."

"All right; only don't be long," Jessie advised, as they started, arm in arm, toward the inn. "We'll have some time after breakfast to do the locating."

Lucile retorted laughingly, and was off in the direction from which the sweet notes had seemed to come.

"Of course, he wouldn't sing now that I want him to in a hurry," she communed with herself. "Any one of these birds might be the one as far as looks are concerned."

She was just about to despair, and had almost made up her mind to turn back, when the golden note rose again and she stopped, entranced. There, over her head and not five feet away, swaying perilously on a slender twig, balanced the little songster, pouring out his joy to a responsive world.

"Oh, you darling!" cried Lucile, impulsively. "I wish I could take you home with me, which you would not like at all. I must ask Dad what you are; he would probably know."

So, triumphant, she started happily along the path, anxious to tell the girls of her luck. It was a great temptation to linger along the way; it would be nice to take back with her a bunch of wild flowers. She would give them to a waiter, and see that they were put upon their table.

With this in view, she hastened along, not noticing that the sun had gone under a cloud and that the path to the road was very long.

Therefore, she was surprised, when she emerged from the woodland, to find the sky, formerly all blue and fleecy clouds, changed to a threatening, lowering gray.

"But where is the inn?" she stammered, looking about her, bewildered. Then, as the appalling truth struck home, she grew pale with consternation.

"How could I do such a thing?" she wailed. "I must have taken the wrong path, and now I am goodness knows where. And even the sun has disappeared. Now I am in a nice fix," and she gazed about her helplessly and vexedly, not knowing which way to turn.

"Well, there's no use standing here; that never did anybody any good," she said, at last. "If my weather eye does not deceive me, I am in for a good wetting, if I can't find shelter anywhere. Oh, the folks will be wild!"

With these and other disquieting thoughts, she started to push her way along the deserted road, with the forgotten wild flowers clutched tightly in her hand.

She had walked for over half an hour, and the first drops of rain had begun to splash upon her bare head, when, to her great delight, she saw the white front of a house among the trees.

With a joyful cry she broke into a run and, a moment later, came upon a pebbled drive that led up to a low, picturesque structure, built on the top of a gentle slope.

Lucile had that strange sensation which we all have experienced some time in our lives, a distinct impression she was not looking upon the chateau for the first time. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, and it was on the tip of her tongue to put her thoughts into words when she dismissed the idea as absurd. Why, she had spent all of her life, up to the last month at least, in Burleigh, so it was plainly ridiculous even to imagine she knew the place. Many and many a time she had read descriptions of French chateaux—ah, that was it! She must have read about just such a place. But, in spite of all reasoning, the illusion clung with startling persistency. In fact, the nearer she came to the house, the more and more was she impressed with its familiarity.

She ran up to the porch just as the storm broke.

"Pretty good time," she smiled, as she lifted the old-fashioned knocker on the big door and let it fall with a bang.

"Now, if I can't make whoever comes understand my French, and I haven't very high hopes, then am I lost indeed."

But she had no time for further thought. The door opened quietly and a soft voice inquired:

"Que voulez vous, Mam'selle?"



CHAPTER XXII

THE HEART OF THE MYSTERY

Lucile regarded the speaker soberly for a moment. She was a dainty, pretty, bright-eyed little person, with a repose of manner that seemed, somehow, out of keeping with her obvious youth. Lucile had understood the softly spoken French question, but when she answered it was in the native tongue.

"I do not understand French," she said, slowly. "I am an American."

"Ah, I, too, can speak the English," said the other, with a delightful accent. "What is it I can do for you, Mam'selle?"

Lucile could have hugged her, so great was her joy at hearing her own language spoken so unexpectedly.

"If you will just be good enough to let me stay here till the storm is over," she said, "and tell me how to get to my friends, I will be very much obliged."

"Ah, Mam'selle has lost her way," said the little French girl, nodding her head quickly several times. "I know the country well and so will give you the aid you require." She spoke with painstaking correctness. "Enter, Mam'selle!"

Lucile was very glad to avail herself of the invitation, for she was tired from the long walk and her damp clothing clung to her limbs uncomfortably.

Her diminutive hostess led her into a large, low-ceiled, home-like room, whose broad window sills were abloom with fresh-cut flowers. Lucile thought that only the sun was needed to make it the cheeriest room in the world.

"If Ma'm'selle will explain to me from where she comes," the girl invited, "I will the better know how to make swift her return, since she wishes it."

"Thank you!" said Lucile, gratefully. "I wouldn't care so much for myself, but I'm afraid my folks will be terribly worried." Then she went on to describe the inn and her adventure of the morning.

When she had finished, her hostess nodded thoughtfully. "I know the place of which you speak," she said, "and I would most gladly take you there immediately, but my servant has gone to the village with the only carriage of which we are the owner and has not yet returned. I fear he may have waited for the storm to abate," and she glanced out the window, where the rain was still pouring down in torrents.

Lucile's heart sank. "Then I can't hope to get back to the folks or send word to them till the rain stops," she said.

The girl nodded confirmation. "I fear that is so, Ma'm'selle," she said; then, as though realizing her duty as hostess, she rose to her feet, saying, hurriedly, "But I forget myself. You must have hunger, Ma'm'selle. I will return at once." Then, checking herself again, she added, "But I have not yet told you my name. It is Jeanette Renard."

"And mine is Lucile Payton."

"Now are we acquainted," said Jeanette, gaily.

Lucile, left to herself, felt again, only to a greater extent, that strange sense of familiarity with her surroundings. Then, in a flash, the solution came to her. Why, how stupid she was not to have realized it before! The chateau corresponded, word for word, with M. Charloix's description. In Lucile's own words, it was it!

And her name was Jeanette! Why, of course! How absurdly simple the whole thing was! Why, this was the very scene of M. Charloix's amazing story. But that she, Lucile, should stumble into the very midst of all this mystery——

At this point in her meditations Jeanette re-entered the room, smiling and serene. Lucile decided she was older than she looked.

"I will send a servant with a message to your people after you have finished your repast," she said.

"But the rain?" Lucile began.

"Ah, that is nothing," said the girl, shrugging her shoulders, as if dismissing the subject. "She is well used to it."

Although Lucile's excitement and curiosity were fast reaching fever heat, she tried to control herself and to answer Jeanette calmly and sanely.

A few moments later a delicious meal was spread before her, to which she did full justice, feeling by this time on the verge of starvation.

When she had finished, Lucile expressed her curiosity and admiration for the old place and Jeanette suggested that they look about—provided her guest was not too tired. Lucile replied that she felt as if the word "tired" had never been in her vocabulary—which was literally true.

At the end of a fascinating tour of inspection, during which Lucile had started many times to put pointed questions to Jeanette and stopped just in time, Jeanette paused at the foot of a winding staircase.

She ascended a step or two; then, looking down upon her guest, said, wistfully, "I am so glad you came! I have so little company and seeing you has been like—ah, like a cup of water to one dying of thirst," and underneath the little laugh that followed Lucile fancied she detected an infinite sadness.

Her warm young heart went out to the other girl, as she said, heartily, "Then I'm very glad I mistook the path this morning, since it has given me a chance to know you. But why don't you ever see anybody?" she added. "Aren't there any girls around here?"

"Oh, yes, there are some—but it is so long a story, I would not bore you with it. Come, we will go upstairs!" And, though Lucile was dying to hear more, she wisely forbore to press the point.

While they were looking about them happily there was the sound of wheels on the drive and Jeanette, rushing to the window, exclaimed, "There's Pierre at this minute. Mam'selle will pardon if I speak with him a moment?" and for the second time that day Lucile was left alone in this house of romance and mystery.

"She won't mind if I look around by myself," and so she began to explore in earnest. She was tremendously excited.

"They say these old chateaux are full of secret passages, but I'd never have the luck to find any. Oh, I'm afraid the girls won't believe me when I tell them about it—and I won't blame them much if they don't; I'd have to see it to believe it myself."

The attic was large and many cornered, with a sharply slanted roof, shading tiny, many-paned dormer windows. There were the regulation cobwebs, that hung in attractive festoons from the rafters. These, with the quantities of discarded but beautiful old furniture, scattered about in picturesque confusion, formed an effective background for Lucile's detective work.

She groped her way over every inch of the wall, sometimes getting down on her knees, trying to persuade herself she really hoped to find a spring that would release something hidden—she didn't care much what it was, but it must be hidden. However, after she had convinced herself that there was not a square inch of space she had not investigated, she rose to her feet reluctantly, feeling as though she had been cheated.

"Horrid old thing!" she murmured, dusting the cobwebs from her hands. "You look so nice and interesting and mysterious just on purpose to discourage promising young sleuths like me. I wish I hadn't given you the satisfaction of bothering with you," and she leaned against the wall in utter disgust.

Thus does fortune, in the very hour of our despair, place in our hands the thing for which we have been so hopelessly searching. Even as her elbow touched the panel behind her there came a sharp click and before Lucile's startled gaze a small, square door opened slowly and deliberately, trembled, seemed to hesitate, and then came to a full stop, leaving its shallow interior exposed to view.

It was not till then, when she stood, open-mouthed and open-eyed, staring dumbly at this apparition, that she realized how little she had really expected it to happen.

"Well, I'm not dreaming, that's one sure thing," she murmured, approaching the little opening with extreme caution, while chills of alternate fear and excitement coursed all over her. "It seems so weird and ghostly to see that thing open all by itself, with nothing to help it along! Ghosts or not, I'm going to see what's there," and, strengthened by this resolve, she started to place her hand in the opening, but drew it back quickly with a frightened gasp.