Edith K. Dunton

“ With such strenuous practice it was certainly no wonder, as Madeline had pointed out, that Betty’s progress was rapid.
Saint Malo is a tiny, sleepy town, shut in by a great wall. Its narrow, crooked streets are lined with tall stone houses, there is a lovely old church towering over everything, and on all sides, when the tide is high, is the sea. At low tide there are great stretches of ugly yellow sand flats, where it is not safe to walk because of treacherous quicksands, and over which the incoming sea rushes “faster than a horse can gallop,” so the natives tell you proudly. ”

“ Babe’s tone was as unconcerned as if she had not solemnly promised to furnish John with a dated itinerary of their trip, and to write him the very minute they changed their plans.
“Dwight thinks we ought to stay on here till he’s finished coaching me,” John had told her mournfully; “because there are so few distractions to take a fellow’s mind from his work. But it will be deadly dull after you’ve gone.” ”

“ Madeline laughed at the avalanche of questions. “All good Bohemians are artists,” she explained, “but not necessarily in paint. You can be an artist in tea-rooms, too, you know. I suppose I shall try to write more or less, since my family seem to expect it of me, but until I’ve made my everlasting reputation as a short-story writer I should like to have a steady source of income, which is a thing that most Bohemians don’t have. Besides, think what fun it would be buying the china.”
“It would be great,” declared Babbie solemnly. “Don’t you want a partner, Madeline?” ”

“ The garden was certainly an ideal one for promoting a romance. John was always down early for breakfast. Mr. Dwight considerately came very late. Betty and Madeline, when they were ready, peeped surreptitiously out between the magnolia branches, and if John hadn’t come or was still alone they went down, ate hastily, and found it absolutely necessary to go up-stairs again at once. If Babe had joined him—of course Babe never, never peeped nowadays—they loitered in Babbie’s room until the two in the garden had had ample time for a leisurely tête-à-tête. ”

“ Betty laughed and her eyes danced mischievously as she looked from Babe to John. “Never mind the race,” she began impulsively. If she told, she certainly had a right to choose her own time. “We’ve got something to tell you that will make you forget there is a race. Whether or not the Harvard crew wins, the Harvard man you are most interested in has won the biggest kind of a race—no, not a race exactly,”—Betty stumbled over her metaphors,—“but, well, the thing he wanted.” ”

“ Mademoiselle was certainly charming, if her front door—or front gate—was not. Smiling and chatting, she led the way across the court to the old stone mansion and helped her two little maids show the party up-stairs and settle each one’s baggage in the room she chose. [Pg 261] Madeline, Babe and Betty had single rooms, all looking out on still another court. This one was shut in on three sides by ivy-covered stone walls, and shaded by a great magnolia tree; and enticing little green tables, like those in the cafés at Saint Malo, stood about here and there. ”

“ Hildreth and Betty come home at night with all your fascinating packages from Liberty’s and the Irish lace stores, why then I wish I’d shopped.”
“You can’t have everything,” said Madeline sagely. “That’s been my motto for years, and it’s never so useful as when I’m traveling. You don’t enjoy anything unless you make up your mind not to worry about the things you’ve got to miss. I’m going shopping myself to-morrow.” ”

“ Never as long as I live shall I forget the lovely, thrilly, creepy feeling that came over me when I saw my very own ghost walking out of the beech-wood in the moonlight.”
“I say, that was rather fine, wasn’t it?” said John. “You girls are certainly keeping out of the rut of ordinary European travel.”
“That’s because we have dominant interests,” explained Madeline. “Mine is tea-rooms, Babbie’s is evidently ghosts, and Babe’s is—let me see—chimney-pots.” ”

“ So great was their disappointment, when the train stopped at Ayr, to find themselves in a busy, prosperous, specklessly clean town, with a paved square just back of the station, where one was expected to sit and wait for the tram that ran out to the birthplace of Robert Burns once in ten minutes.
“There’s nothing to do but take their old tram, I suppose,” sighed Babe disconsolately. “It’s no fun walking along a car-track. [Pg 79] Fancy this smug, bustling factory-town being Ayr! Is all Europe fixed up like this, Madeline?” ”

“ Betty and Babbie, who had been too busy enjoying Harding to bother about costumes, were the only guests who were not wearing some sort of fantastic disguise. Bob had bought a box of paints and made her own mask, modeling it and her drapery of brown denim after the imp that the “B. A.’s Abroad” had given her. Eugenia Ford was a gryphon,—or at least Mary Brooks said so,—with the most beautiful pair of wings that had ever appeared at a Harding party. Polly Eastman was the elephant that sits on the tower of Notre Dame. ”

“ If they’ve gone to the other entrance and don’t find us there, they can come here. It’s their place to find us, not ours to hunt for them.”
“I think it’s silly to stick here, just the same,” said Babe. “Why don’t Madeline and I walk through to the other entrance and see if they’re there?”
“Because they ought to do the walking,” persisted Babbie. “They asked us to come and meet them, and anyhow it’s always the man’s place to do the hunting. I’m not going to have you chase up Billy Benson to tell him whether or not he’s going to take me to a dance to-night.” ”

“ Slowly, silently the white figure came forward, trailing its robe over the short grass, one hand held aloft, its gaze fastened on what the hand held—a bright bit of cloth, it seemed to be. When it had reached the centre of the lawn, the figure paused and throwing back its head, so that the moonlight fell full on its face—the sweet, sad face of a young girl—it began [Pg 141] the uncanny moaning that had sent Babe flying to find her friends.
“Gaelic,” whispered Madeline under her breath. “I heard the words for love and grief.” ”

“ Why, I saved a lot while we were staying in Oban. Besides I wouldn’t take that way to get it,—I’d ask right out, as I generally do. It’s so maddening to have him always assume as a matter of course that a fellow’s in the wrong.”
“Is he that way about everything?”
John nodded. “I told you how he hated this vacation that he’s taking. He enjoys grumbling over things as much as you or I enjoy laughing about them.”
“Just like the funny old gentleman we met in Grasmere,” said Babe. “Why, John, is your father’s name Jasper J. Morton?”
John nodded. “Just suits him, too.” ”

“ Babe looked longingly at the sparkling yellow stone. “Do you take back what you said about girls’ memories?”
“Well, perhaps I don’t know much about the general run of girls,” John qualified. “Babbie Hildreth remembers her promises all right, and I’m sure you do.”
“You’re the one that’s likely not to be able to keep this particular promise,” said Babe, pinning the cairngorm into her blue tie, which showed it off to perfection. “You mustn’t come, you know, unless you’ve finished your work. College boys are such dreadful idlers.” ”

“ Betty half rose, hesitated, and then something in the rather wistful smile that the old gentleman gave her from under his bushy eyebrows made her decide to stay.
“I’m afraid I am too tired to enjoy seeing anything more, even if it’s interesting,” she told the girls. “So if you’re sure you won’t mind waiting, sir—it’s rather lonely here to stay alone.”
“I assure you it will be only a pleasure to wait with you,” declared the old gentleman with fine, old-fashioned courtesy. “Solitary walks are a dull sort of amusement.” ”

“ But no sooner had Betty pushed safely through than the old black cow turned [Pg 92] her head, discovered what had happened, and charged as fiercely as before.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Babe, from her perch on the fence, “she wouldn’t really hurt us, I’m sure of it. She’s just curious about us. Cows are awfully curious animals.”
“She shows her curiosity in a very peculiar way,” declared Babbie. “She doesn’t want us in her pasture—that’s very evident.”
“Being a loyal Scotch cow, she objects to an American invasion,” laughed Madeline. “See her eating away as calmly as if we didn’t exist. ”

“ Babbie considered, frowning. “No, I don’t, and it isn’t nice of you to pick flaws in my castle, John.”
“I’m not picking flaws,” retorted John. “I’m just calling your attention to any little defects I’ve noticed, so that you won’t accept your castle in ignorance and live to repent your rash act later. Can’t any of you guess what I mean?”
“I can,” said Madeline promptly. “It ought to have a ghost. No castle is complete without one. But are you perfectly sure this hasn’t any?”
“I’m afraid it hasn’t,” said John solemnly. “We’ve been here three nights now, and no ghost has walked so far. ”

“ Babe declared, giving her a loving little squeeze.
“That was just fun,” Betty reminded her for the hundredth time at least.
“But if fun counts, it counts,” declared Roberta. “Just ask Madeline Ayres if it doesn’t. If you can make fun out of hard work, then, according to Madeline, you really know how to live.”
“But we’re not the working contingent,” objected Babbie. “K. and Rachel and Helen are the workers.”
“They are!” breathed Bob indignantly. “Just try taking care of certain fresh-air youngsters for two weeks.” ”

“ But Madeline and Babbie were still wide awake. They sat on the edge of poor Babe’s bed for an hour longer inventing “real adventures” that should materialize in Paris.
“The thing we need is an adventurer,” complained Madeline sadly, “that is, unless Mr. Trevelyan will ‘oblige with the part,’ as they say at actors’ benefits. We’ll ask Edmond about the haunts of adventurers. Perhaps he’ll be able to put us on the track of a king in exile looking for an American wife, or a prime minister watching for a lady to drop her handkerchief as a signal that she is his fellow conspirator. ”

“ Besides, why shouldn’t we be frivolous now and then? Nobody can accuse us of not seeing what’s to be seen, and think how industriously we’ve read up on Flora Macdonald.”
“For fun,” objected Babe.
“If you can make play out of work you’ve learned the art of true happiness,” declared Madeline. “Isn’t that the gospel of Bohemia and of Harding, as I’ve been expounding it for four long and weary years? By the way, Mr. Dwight said he might be up this afternoon, so I suppose I’d better not go out until later.”
“You and Mr. Dwight are getting awfully chummy,” said Babe. ”

“ Well, he deserved to get some fun out of it. Sight-seeing with me probably bored him awfully, if he wasn’t as new to London as he pretended to be, and all his clever little contrivances must have kept him working overtime. Lots of honest men earn two hundred a month without taking half the trouble.”
“I’m confirmed in my belief that he was French,” declared Madeline. “He certainly must have plenty of friends in Paris. He probably was in hiding in Australia while one of his bold, bad adventures was being forgotten over here.” ”

“ Madeline’s cousin Edmond, who was motoring about Brittany with a friend, took the girls to the quaint old shrine of Mount St. Michel and promised them other expeditions equally delightful if they would only stay on for a few days longer at Saint Malo or Dinard. But Mrs. Hildreth felt anxious to get to Paris, which was really the goal of all her trips abroad, and Babbie had her own reason—the countess’s ball,—for not wanting their arrival delayed beyond the appointed day. Babe couldn’t have explained even to herself why she wanted to be in Paris, but she did. ”

“ You see he’s been sent over here by his doctor for a long vacation, and he’s raging around Europe in his automobile, getting madder and madder every minute, because he’s on strict orders to do nothing but loaf, and he doesn’t dare to disobey instructions.”
“He’ll like it when he gets started,” suggested Babe, soothingly.
“Never,” laughed John. “You don’t know my father. The very mention of a vacation affects him just the way Miss Wales’s red cap did that old Scotch cow. You ought to see the letters he writes me. They get fiercer and fiercer each time.” ”

“ It was great fun walking on the sheep-trails close by the edge of the sea, with the gorse and heather that they had always read about under their very feet, and the expectation of seeing the castle as they rounded each headland. ”

“ And after supper, which was also Harding style, the stay-at-homes promised to be quiet and give the travelers a chance to tell their adventures, and Dr. Hinsdale considerately retired to his study so that the talk also might be strictly Harding style.
When she had listened breathlessly to the details of the “real adventure,” and to snatches of all the others, Mary smiled her “beamish smile” around the circle. “Well,” she said, “you’ve all lived up to your Harding reputations, as far as I can see—Babbie the Butterfly, Madeline the Bohemian, Betty a Benevolent Adventurer.” ”

“ John said, and repeated Billy’s lively account of the crew’s practice records. “But if we don’t win,” he added tentatively, “we can celebrate something else.”
Jasper J. Morton sniffed scornfully. “The Harvard spirit and a good race and all that? No sir, a defeat is a defeat. If we lose, there’ll be nothing whatever to celebrate. Don’t let me hear you talking any nonsense of that sort. A man who means to succeed in business mustn’t get himself muddled about success and failure. ”

“ The way it cries is certainly spooky,” added John, with a forced laugh.
Madeline exchanged swift glances with Mr. Dwight. “‘A trailing white robe and a sob in the night’—that was what the old crone said, wasn’t it? And there was nothing there when you came up, Babe?”
“Oh, I saw it,” said Babe with careful unconcern, “but of course it can’t be a ghost—nobody believes in ghosts nowadays. I thought it was one of you girls trying to frighten me.”
“Maybe it’s a white cow,” suggested Babbie. “They make queer noises sometimes. Don’t you remember that the fierce black one did?” ”

“ Who knows about the history of Dunstaffnage? Wasn’t anybody ever murdered here, or didn’t some beautiful lady pine away for love? Those are the most likely kinds of ghosts, aren’t they, Madeline?”
Madeline nodded. “When we get back to Oban, we’ll try to find a history of the castle and perhaps we can unearth a ghost for you.”
“Oh, Mr. Dwight!” Betty and Mr. Dwight held a whispered conference, then she turned to Babbie.
“We’ve thought of a ghost for you. Her name is Flora Macdonald. ”

“ It was fun. The Hammersmith shops were crowded with all sorts of interesting old [Pg 171] odds-and-ends, the like of which Betty had never seen before. She admired the glib way in which Madeline chatted with the shop-keepers about strange things like black Wedgwood, Chippendale chairs, and Flemish inlay. But when they inquired for Staffordshire figures no one seemed to have any, or at least not any that could pass for a duke. ”

“ If you look so glum the girls will think all I’ve said about your being such a jolly lot is a fairy-tale. I caught a glimpse of you in Glasgow, you know, and I wanted to climb down from the top of a two-story tram to rush back and speak to you. But the tram started just then and I couldn’t.”
John laughed. “Wanting to climb down from the top of a tram to see a fellow is certainly a proof of true friendship. We’ll have our quarrel out some other day.”
“All right,” Babbie agreed, leading the way back to the others. “But you’d better settle your score with Babe and Madeline right away.” ”

“ Babbie yawned. “I don’t enjoy it. A day or so is all right, but eight!”
“Specially if you’re inclined to be seasick,” put in Babe with feeling.
Betty appeared just then, and she agreed [Pg 51] with the B’s. “It’s all right if you’re an invalid or tired, but as for me, I don’t see why people talk so much about the joys of the trip across. Being cooped up so long is stupid, and makes everybody else act stupid, and it’s just dreadfully dull.” ”