“NOW COME AND LABEL HER DRESSES”

BETTY WALES, B. A.

A STORY FOR GIRLS

BY MARGARET
WARDE

Author of “Betty Wales, Freshman”
“Betty Wales, Sophomore”
“Betty Wales, Junior”
“Betty Wales, Senior”

Illustrated by

EVA M. NAGEL

The Penn Publishing Company
PHILADELPHIA MCMVIII

COPYRIGHT
1908 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY

Introduction

When I first knew Betty Wales she was a freshman at Harding College, with a sedate, comical roommate named Helen Chase Adams, and a host of good friends, who stood by her and one another all through the four years of their college course. Mary Brooks—afterward Mrs. Hinsdale—was a sophomore when Betty entered college, but the others, the three B’s, Roberta Lewis, Eleanor Watson, Rachel Morrison, and Katherine Kittredge,—all belonged to the “finest class” of 19—. So did Madeline Ayres, though she was a year late in joining it and felt obliged to make up for lost time by being a particularly lively and loyal Hardingite during her abbreviated course there. Georgia Ames first appeared in 19—’s junior year, and joined “The Merry Hearts,” a society that Betty and her friends had organized. But Georgia the first, as Madeline used to call her, was only a figment of Madeline’s imagination; it was a delightful coincidence when, at the end of the year, a real Georgia Ames appeared to step into the place left vacant by her departed namesake, whose short but strenuous career at Harding had made them both famous.

All these things and many others may be found in the four books entitled respectively “Betty Wales, Freshman,” “Betty Wales, Sophomore,” “Betty Wales, Junior,” and “Betty Wales, Senior.” This story was written because some of Betty’s friends were not satisfied to leave her at the end of her senior year, but wished to hear what she did next. If any of them still want to know what happened to her after she came back from her trip abroad, why, perhaps some day they may.

Margaret Warde.

Contents

Illustrations

Betty Wales, B. A.

Betty Wales, B. A.

CHAPTER I
AN IMPROMPTU WEDDING—AND OTHER IMPROMPTUS

“Well,” announced Betty Wales to the family breakfast table, a week after 19—’s commencement, “I’m beginning to feel quite at home again. I’ve got my room fixed——”

“So it looks as much like a Harding room as you can make it,” laughed Nan.

“And you spend most of your time describing the lost glories of Harding to anybody who will listen,” added Will.

“And the rest in writing long letters to the other ‘Merry Hearts,’” put in mother slyly.

“And she plans what I’ll do when I go to college,” declared the Smallest Sister, who had just had her first “teens birthday” and did not propose to be excluded from any family council.

“In short,” said Mr. Wales, appearing solemnly from behind the morning paper, “being ‘quite at home’ means wishing you were back at college. Is that about the size of it, Miss Betty Wales?”

“Never, daddy,” cried Betty, leaning across the corner of the table to give him a hug. “I’m just as glad as I can be to be really and truly at home again with my family. Of course I shall miss the girls dreadfully, but—oh, there the postman’s ring! I wonder if he’s got anything for me.” And Betty danced off to the door, answering Nan’s and Will’s chorused “I told you so!” with a laughing “I don’t care.” As Will had once said, “The nicest thing about Betty is that she can’t possibly be teased.”

She was back in a minute with a handful of letters for the family and four for herself.

“All from late lamented Hardingites?” inquired Will, who never wrote letters and therefore seldom got any to read over his morning coffee.

Betty was tearing open the second envelope. “That one isn’t. It’s just congratulations on graduating, from Aunt Maria. But this is from Madeline Ayres—why, how funny! It’s dated Monday, in New York, and she was going to sail last Saturday. Oh, dear, I don’t understand at all! She says”—Betty frowned despairingly over Madeline’s dainty, unreadable hieroglyphics—“she says, ‘You have heard all about it by this time, I suppose, and isn’t it just—just——’ Oh, I wish Madeline could write plainly.”

“Too bad about these college graduates who can neither read nor write,” said Will loftily. “Try the next one. Perhaps they’ll explain each other. Isn’t that scrawly one in the blue envelope from Katherine Kittredge?”

Betty nodded absently and tore open the blue envelope. “Why how funny!” she cried. “K. begins just the very same way. ‘Of course you’ve heard about it by this time, and isn’t it the nicest ever? Are you and Roberta going to wear your commencement dresses too? Wasn’t it exciting the way they caught Madeline on the wharf? By the way, both the straps of my telescope broke on the way home, and so I’ve bought a gorgeous leather bag to carry on this trip, without waiting for my first salary. Dick lent me the money—you know he’s been working this winter, so that I could stay at Harding, and they never told me a word about it. We’re planning for his college course now, father and I, and I couldn’t have gone a step to the wedding if dear old Mary hadn’t sent the ticket.’ Gracious!” interpolated Betty excitedly, “what is she talking about? Dick’s her brother. That hasn’t anything to do with the rest of the letter.” She glanced at the last envelope. “Oh, this is from Mary Brooks. I hope it won’t be puzzle number three.”

It wasn’t. Betty read it all through to herself—four closely written pages—while the Wales family, who had all become interested by this time, watched her cheeks growing pinker and her eyes brighter and bigger with excitement, as she read. At the end she gave a rapturous little sigh. “Oh, it’s just perfectly lovely!” she declared.

“What?” demanded Will.

“Oh, everything,” answered Betty vaguely. “Mary’s going to be married a week from to-day, and we’re all coming,—every single one of us. She caught Madeline before she went abroad, and Eleanor before she left for Denver, and she’s sent tickets to K. and Rachel and Helen, instead of giving us all bridesmaids’ presents. Oh, father dear, may I go?”

Mr. Wales smiled into his daughter’s flushed, happy face. “Betty,” he said, “your enthusiasm is delightful. We shall miss it while you are gone, but if Mary—whoever she may be—is going to be married and can’t have it done properly without you, why we shall have to drift along for another week in our accustomed state of staid and placid calm.”

And Betty was so excited and so busy explaining to her father which one of all the girls he met at Harding was Mary Brooks, and which one of the faculty was Dr. Hinsdale, that she never noticed the letter from Babbie Hildreth, in her father’s mail, or the dainty, scented note, also postmarked Pelham Manor, which her mother read and covertly passed to Nan and then to Mr. Wales. And after breakfast she flew straight up-stairs to answer her letters, never dreaming that the long talk father and mother and Nan were having on the piazza just underneath her windows was all about her—Betty Wales—and the reasons why she should or should not go on the most glorious summer trip that a girl ever took.

“Well, I’ll see,” father called back from the gate, as he hurried off to his office at last, and Betty smiled to herself and wondered whether Nan wanted a set of new books or the Smallest Sister a bicycle. “Father always says that when he thinks you’re getting pretty extravagant in your tastes, but still he’s going to let you have it all the same,” reflected Betty, and started for the third time to reread Mary’s letter.

“Dearest Betty,” it began, “I’ve left you till the last to write to because you aren’t going to the ends of the earth within the week, and you don’t take ages to make up your mind to things. In short, my child, I know that this impromptu wedding idea will appeal to you and that you will keep your promise to help Roberta do the bridesmaid act just as nicely as if I’d told you six weeks ahead instead of one, and then sent you a neatly engraved invitation at the proper hour and minute. We want to be married next Thursday at three, because—oh, dear, here comes George Garrison Hinsdale this minute, and I promised to be ready to take him to call on my minister. I’ll tell you why we changed our minds when I see you. You and Roberta and Laurie are to stay with me, and the others are invited to Tilly Root’s, just across the street. There’s a dinner Wednesday night, before the rehearsal. Oh, about clothes,—just wear your graduating dress or anything else that you and Roberta agree upon. Let me know your train. Oh, and you won’t draw a present, because I wanted all the girls to come, so I sent tickets to K. and Rachel and Helen. I hope they won’t feel hurt, and that you won’t mind not having diamond sunbursts to remember the occasion by. You see I couldn’t give diamond sunbursts to some and railroad tickets to others. It would have spoiled the scheme of decoration.

“I wanted to tell you how I caught Madeline’s coat-tails just as she was going on board her boat, but George Garrison Hinsdale refuses to wait another second. I foresee that I have drawn a tyrannical husband. And the moral of that is,—I’m too happy to care.

“Yours ever,
“Mary.”

Before she wrote to Mary, Betty puzzled out most of Madeline’s letter, which gave an amusing account of her sudden change of plans. “Eleanor came to see me off,” she wrote, “and Dick Blake was there with his arms full of flowers for me and his eyes fastened tight to Eleanor, and all the good Bohemians were saying fond farewells and sending messages to daddy and telling when they’d probably turn up in Sorrento, when up dashed Mary Brooks and her professor. And in five minutes Dick had sold my cabin to a man he knew who had come down on the chance of getting one and that boat had sailed without me and my flowers and my steamer trunk and my ‘carry-all-and-more-too’; and my weeping chaperon that I had not yet wasted time in hunting up is probably sending wireless messages of condolence to my family this minute. But Dr. Hinsdale cabled, and then Dick took the whole crowd to a roof-garden to cool off, and after that he and I went down the Bowery giving away that armful of roses to the smallest, raggedest children we could find. So it was a very nice party, and of course I can go to Italy any time.Mad.”

And this is how it happened that just two weeks after they had parted, bravely trying not to show that they cared, “The Merry Hearts,”—or at least the Chapin House division of them, with the B’s thrown in for full measure,—met, one sultry July afternoon, on Mary’s big, vine-shaded piazza and, chattering like magpies, drank inordinate quantities of lemonade and iced tea and heard from the bride-to-be all the whys and wherefores of her impromptu wedding.

“Haven’t I told any of you why we changed?” asked Mary. “No, Babe, it wasn’t because we hadn’t the strength of mind to wait till August. It was because my Uncle Marcellus gave us a desert island up on the Maine Coast for a wedding present. Roberta, pass the cookies to yourself, please.”

“Query,” propounded K. gaily. “When given a desert island for a wedding present is it obligatory to take possession instantly or forever after keep away?”

“Don’t be foolish,” said Mary severely. “It was this way, don’t you see. The island has a gorgeous camp on it, and of course we want to go there for our honeymoon, and why shouldn’t we start early and stay all summer? If we had waited until the middle of August, as we planned, that desert island would have gone to waste for one whole month.”

“Which would ill become the desert island of a psychology professor,” declared Madeline. “Who says that the college girl doesn’t bring intellect to bear on the practical affairs of life?”

“Hear, hear!” cried Bob, waving her lemonade glass. “Here’s to the college bride, who lets no desert island waste its sweetness on the empty air! Here’s to the impromptu wedding! Here’s to the first ‘Merry Heart’ reunion! Here’s——”

“Hush, Bob,” Babbie protested. “You’re disgracing the bridal party in the eyes of the neighborhood. Take us up to see the trousseau, Mary, please.”

“I’ll bet there’s nothing very impromptu about that,” declared Babe.

“Oh, girls, I hope you’ll like it,” began Mary anxiously, leading the way indoors. “I’ve positively worn myself out trying to have it right—right for a Harding professor’s wife, I mean.”

“Picture Mary looking twenty in pink chiffon, being a patroness at the junior prom,” cried K., picking up the small bride and standing her in a piazza chair.

“Picture Mary behind an armful of violets, sitting on the stage at the big game, trying to remember that she’s Mrs. Professor Hinsdale and mustn’t shriek for the purple,” added Rachel.

“Picture Mary in a velvet suit and a picture hat, making her first calls on the faculty,” jeered Bob.

“When she’s fairly pining to go snow-shoeing with her little friends in the senior class,” added Babe convincingly.

“Stop teasing her,” commanded Betty, helping Mary down from her lofty perch. “She’ll be the nicest professor’s wife that ever was—see if she isn’t! Now come and label her dresses for the proper occasions.”

It was most absorbing—deciding what Mary should wear to faculty parties, to college lectures, to the president’s dinners—“Just to think of being invited to dinner at Prexie’s!” said little Helen Adams in awed tones—“to house plays, to senior dramatics, and to all the other important functions of the college year.” It took a long time, too, because of course such delicate questions couldn’t be decided without seeing Mary in each dress, and getting “the exact combination of youth, beauty, and dignity that resulted,” as K., who explained that she was practising “school-ma’am English,” put it.

And then there were so many digressions. It was only two weeks since they had separated at Harding, but in the meanwhile a great deal seemed to have happened. Helen had accepted a position to teach English in her home high school. Eleanor was to join her family after the wedding for a hastily planned trip through the Canadian Rockies. Most exciting of all, Bob had actually established her fresh-air colony.

“It’s great,” she declared. “When I asked father if I might have some slum children out for two weeks he thought I was joking, so he said yes, and when those six dirty little ragamuffins suddenly dawned upon his vision last Saturday night he was furious. But I coaxed a little, and I got him to give the boys a Fourth of July oration, and when Jimmie Scheverin hopped up and solemnly thanked him for his unique and inspiring address, he gave in. He’s staying at home now to look after things while I’m gone. He said he guessed Wall Street could get along without him.”

“But if they’re only going to stay two weeks, Bob,” began Babe hastily, “I don’t see why——” She stopped in sudden confusion.

“Why what?” demanded Katherine curiously.

“Oh, why I’ve talked such a lot about it, she means,” explained Bob calmly. “When these leave there are others coming, Babe. There’s an unlimited supply of fresh-air children,—millions of them. That’s why we can’t keep Jimmie Scheverin more than two weeks, in spite of his enthusiasm for father’s oratory and father’s enthusiasm for Jimmie. So it’s no use trying to persuade me to go off on frivolous trips with you.”

“Where are you going, Babe?” asked Betty idly.

“Oh, I don’t know that I’m going anywhere,” said Babe, with a conscious little giggle. “Where are you?”

Betty explained that they were going to have a cottage for a month or two at some seaside place near New York—it hadn’t been decided when she left home, but father was going to write her. This information the B’s and Madeline received with solicitous and solemn interest. Indeed they asked Betty so many questions, that Mary finally declared her wedding was being shamefully neglected.

“I don’t know about the wedding,” said Mrs. Brooks, appearing at that minute, “but the groom is on the piazza, and six presents have come——”

In the rush down-stairs that followed Babbie pulled Babe into a corner. “You’ll let the cat out of the bag if you’re not more careful,” she declared reproachfully.

“I will be more careful,” Babe promised. “But why doesn’t her father hurry up and decide? I shall burst if I can’t talk about it pretty soon.”

“The loveliest old brass samovar,” cried Eleanor.

“From Miss Ferris!” added Betty. “That makes it all the nicer.”

“And a silver dish from Prexie and Mrs. Prexie.”

“That’s what you get for marrying a faculty.”

“Isn’t it distinguished?” said Babbie, rushing after the others. “I don’t see how you can think of anything else, Babe.”

“Well, I don’t go abroad every summer the way you do,” explained Babe breathlessly. “The most distinguished wedding that ever happened couldn’t make me forget that I’m going to see Paris and London and all the rest of Europe.”

“Not quite all, I hope,” laughed Babbie, hurrying to shake hands with Dr. Hinsdale and Marion Lawrence, who was going to be Mary’s maid of honor.

Everybody agreed that Mary’s impromptu wedding was a decided improvement upon the usual cut-and-dried variety. There was certainly nothing cut and dried about it. When the sun had gone below the tops of the tall elm trees on the lawn and the shadows fell, long and cool, on the velvety grass, Mary appeared on the piazza, wearing a soft white dress—“that didn’t look a bit like a wedding,” as little Helen Adams announced with her customary frankness. First she kissed her mother and patted her father’s shoulder lovingly, just as she did every morning before breakfast, and then she shook hands with everybody else, as unconcernedly as if it was no day in particular and all her dearest friends had merely happened to drop in for afternoon tea. But all at once, before anybody except the people concerned had noticed it, there was a cleared space in one corner, with a screen of ferns and white sweet peas for a background. Laurie and Roberta and Betty were close behind Mary, her father and Dr. Hinsdale were beside her, the “near-bridesmaids” and “near-ushers,” as K. had flippantly dubbed the rest of the bridal party, made a half circle around the others, and Mary Brooks, with one great white rose in her hand and a half-frightened, half-happy little smile on her lips, was being married to George Garrison Hinsdale.

When it was over, everybody went indoors and had all sorts of cooling things to eat and drink. Meanwhile the bridesmaids, and “near-brides” had slipped away to put on some Roumanian peasant costumes, and “the next number on the program”—according to Katherine—was some curious wedding dances that Roberta had learned and taught to the others. Some were graceful and some were amusing, and the music was so gay that it made everybody feel like dancing too. And that was what they did, by the soft light of Japanese lanterns, until it was time to fill one’s hands with confetti and old slippers and speed the wedding-pair on their way to the desert island that would not be deserted any more that summer.

As the girls sat on the piazza talking it all over with Mrs. Brooks, who declared she simply couldn’t realize that “little Mary” was old enough to be getting married, Dr. Brooks came out, bringing a letter for Betty.

“Don’t ask me how long I’ve had it in my pocket, Miss Betty,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “It beats everything how a wedding does upset me.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” laughed Betty, “as long as you’ve remembered it in time for me to know where I’m going to-morrow. It’s from father, telling me which cottage they’ve taken. Will you excuse me if I read it right now, Mrs. Brooks?”

The next minute Betty gave a little shriek of delight, dropped her letter, and seizing Babbie’s hands whirled her madly down the length of the piazza. Finally she dropped breathlessly down on the broad railing, pulling Babbie to a seat beside her.

“Isn’t it just too elegant for anything!” she sighed. “And to think how near Babe came to telling, and I never guessed a thing.”

CHAPTER II
A GOING-AWAY PARTY—HARDING STYLE

For a while everybody who didn’t know what the excitement was about asked questions at once, and everybody who did, which meant the B’s and Madeline, answered at once,—a process resulting in that delightful confusion that is the very nicest part about telling a secret. Finally things quieted down a little, and Babbie was called upon to “tell us all about it.”

“Why, it’s just this way,” she explained. “Mother’s doctor ordered her to Europe. She isn’t strong, you know, and the change is good for her. But he said she mustn’t motor this time because it’s too wearing; but must travel quietly, and rest a lot, and so on. Well, mother isn’t much for quiet herself, so she was afraid I might be bored, just with her and Marie, and no car to run while she takes naps. So she told me to ask Bob and Babe to join us—this all came up after commencement, you understand. And Babe would, but Bob wouldn’t, because of her fresh-air kids; so then I asked Betty. Not that she’s second choice one bit,” added Babbie hastily, “only of course the B’s——”

“You needn’t apologize,” Betty interrupted her. “Of course the B’s ask each other first! As for me, I’m too overjoyed to be going to think of anything else.”

“But I don’t see why you didn’t tell her that you’d asked her,” said little Helen Adams, the practical minded.

“Oh, that was mother’s idea,” Babbie went on. “She wanted you to come, Betty, just as much as I did; but she said that she didn’t know your father and mother, and she didn’t know how they would feel about trusting their daughter for a whole summer to a perfect stranger. And she thought it would be easier for them to refuse, for that or any other reason, if you didn’t know. Oh, I’ve just been aching to have you get that letter,” sighed Babbie rapturously.

“But suppose it had said the wrong thing,” suggested Babe.

“Then we could have talked about it all the same,” put in Madeline. “I like the way you leave me out of all your explanations, Babbie Hildreth.”

“Well, I can’t think of everything at once,” Babbie defended herself. “Besides, you just dropped in.”

“Yes, I’m only the impromptu feature,” said Madeline sadly. “I always am. As I have often explained before, I was born that way.”

“But I thought you were in a terrible rush to get to Sorrento,” said Rachel.

“I was,” admitted Madeline. “But after all why should I be in a rush? Why shouldn’t I go to Sorrento via some fun just as well as by any other route? Sorrento will keep.”

“Where is your party going, Babbie?” inquired Mrs. Brooks, who had been much entertained by all the excitement.

“Well, we’re going to sail to Glasgow, because we couldn’t get passage to any other port on such short notice. And then the doctor thinks mother ought to have some cool, bracing air to begin with. After that we don’t know. Mother says that we girls may choose, and of course Babe and I didn’t want to discuss it without Betty. And now Madeline says that it’s more fun just deciding as you go along. Mother thought it would be dull without a car,” Babbie went on eagerly, “but do you know I think it’s going to be more exciting without one, because when you have it you feel as if you ought to use it, and you have to keep to good roads. I always thought that when James didn’t want to go to a place, or Marie didn’t, James said the road was bad. Marie hates little villages, and I just love them. And Madeline will think up all sorts of queer, fascinating things to do.”

“The principal feature, though impromptu,” murmured Madeline. “Are you going away back home again for the week before we sail, Betty?”

Betty shook her head. “Nan has packed the things she thinks I’ll want, and I’m to join her at Shelter Island and help get the cottage ready for the rest of the family. They’ll all be here in time to see me off.”

“Why don’t you ask us all down there to spend the day?” suggested Madeline. “Then perhaps our stay-at-home friends would take the hint and give a going-away party for us.”

“But we shan’t be here,” chorused Helen, Roberta, Rachel, Eleanor, and Katherine.

“And I couldn’t possibly come down for all day. Daddy won’t desert Wall Street so soon again,” added Bob sadly.

“It’s a shame not to have the party. We could think of lots of lovely things to do,” sighed Roberta.

“What’s the matter with doing them to-morrow?” proposed Dr. Brooks. “You can’t leave Mrs. Brooks and me too suddenly, you know. We’ve got to get used to missing Mary gradually. Now I’ll take you all to town in the morning and give you lunch at my club. By the time we get back, the house will be in order again and we’ll have that going-away party to amuse us during the evening.”

There was a little objection at first, for all the girls had expected to leave the next day; but Dr. Brooks speedily overruled their arguments. They had come to the wedding, he declared, and cheering up the bereft parents was part of the ceremony—everybody knew that; whereas one day at the other end of the trip wouldn’t matter at all. So Babe nominated Bob and Roberta as committee on arrangements for the going-away party and, according to “Merry Heart” procedure, unceremoniously declared them elected, after which Dr. Brooks carried them off to his study to make plans for the next day’s campaign.

The going-away party was a distinctly collegiate function, marked by all the originality and joyous abandon that belong by right to every Harding festivity. Contrary to social precedent it began with toasts. That was Eleanor’s fault, Bob explained. She had made a mistake and put ice in the lemonade too soon, and so it had to be drunk immediately. So Katherine grew eloquent on “the Sorrows of Parting for the Second Time in Two Weeks, when you have exhausted all your pretty speeches on the first round.” Bob described “Europe As I Shall Not See It,” and Babe “Europe As I Hope to See It if not Prevented by the Frivolity of my Friends.” Madeline was really witty in her account of “the Impromptu Elements in Foreign Travel—myself, the English climate, and others.” Rachel toasted “the Desert Island Honeymooners, absent but not forgotten,” and Dr. Brooks explained “the Uses of Near-Bridesmaids,” to the infinite amusement of his guests. After that Roberta said she was sorry about there not being time for the other toasts, but they were all written down on the program and if everybody would tell Babbie that hers was too cute for anything and Eleanor that she could certainly make the best speeches, they would pass on to the “stunts.”

These consisted of examinations to test the fitness of the European party for its trip. Betty was the first victim. She was required to tie on a chiffon veil “so you will look too sweet for anything and all the men on board the boat will be crazy about you,”—though Rachel pointed out that it wasn’t much of a test, because Betty always looked that way. Next Madeline was requested to prove that she knew how to be seasick on the proper occasions. Babe, whose French accent had been a college joke, was made to “parler-vous” an order for lunch, though she protested hotly that Babbie and Madeline were going to do that part—she had made her family promise solemnly that she shouldn’t be bothered with learning anything ever any more, till she wanted to. And Babbie, who had announced in one breath that she was going to travel with just one little steamer trunk this time, and in the next that she should buy four dresses at least in Paris, was invited to demonstrate how she meant to carry the clothes she needed for the trip and the four dresses all in “one little trunk.”

“Not to mention the things you are going to bring home to us,” Bob reminded her.

“Oh, but I shall have Marie pack the dresses in one of mother’s trunks,” Babbie explained easily.

“Crawl!” declared K. “As a forfeit you are condemned to do ‘Mary had a little lamb’ in your best style.”

“And Roberta ought to do the jabber-wock for us,” suggested Eleanor.

“And Madeline ought to sing a French song,” added Betty.

So all the “Merry Heart” stunts, that had amused them at Harding for four long years, and were just as funny now as they had ever been, were merrily gone through with.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” declaimed Bob at last, “we have at last arrived at the real business of this farewell party, which is the presentation of a few slight tokens of our affection, and the delicate intimation of the objects of art——”

“Or wearing apparel,” put in K.

“That we should most like to get in return,” concluded Bob pompously, with a withering glance in K.’s direction. “I may say in passing that the aforesaid intimation is strictly by request.”

The stay-at-homes and Dr. Brooks disappeared for a few minutes and came back in a laughing, bundle-laden procession, with Dr. Brooks at its head.

“I heartily approve of your resolution to travel with as little baggage as possible,” said the doctor solemnly, “so I’ve put up these prescriptions for seasickness in as concentrated a form as possible.” And he presented Betty and Babbie each with a half-gallon bottle, and Babe and Madeline with huge wooden boxes marked “Pills.” A tag on Babe’s read, “To be exchanged for fruit on day of sailing.” Madeline’s tag said, “Good for the same size at Huyler’s,” while Betty’s specified salted almonds, and Babbie’s preserved ginger.

“I’ll see that the goods are delivered at your boat,” the doctor assured them, “and if the ship’s physician doesn’t get some practice out of you it certainly won’t be my fault.”

“But you haven’t told us what you want us to bring you,” said Betty.

“Yourselves safe and sound,” said Dr. Brooks gallantly.

The girls were not so modest. Helen, who had stayed at home from the city to print the travelers’ names in indelible ink on three dozen laundry markers apiece, confessed shyly that she had always wanted a good photograph of the Mona Lisa.

“To think that you’re going to see the real one!” she said. “I’m going to begin right away to save my money for a trip abroad.”

“So am I,” echoed Rachel.

“And I,” from K.

European travel was evidently the “Merry Hearts’” latest enthusiasm.

“In the meantime,” laughed Eleanor, “here are some baggage tags for the ones who are really going. They say you have to mark all your bags and trunks over there, because they don’t have checks, and you just have to pick your things out of the big pile on the station platforms.”

“What elegance,” cried Betty, holding her shining silver marker out at arm’s length for inspection. “And what shall we bring you, Eleanor, dear?”

“A duke, if you don’t mind,” said Eleanor solemnly, and Betty solemnly wrote it down on the slip of paper on which she was recording all the girls’ wishes.

Roberta gave them each a tiny book of travel sketches not too big to slip into a shopping-bag—one was about English cathedrals, another about English inns, and the third and fourth described some Scotch and English castles.

“They look rather interesting,” said Roberta modestly, “and I remembered that none of you was specially fond of history.”

“Don’t throw it in my face that I once got a low-grade,” Babe reproached her. “Say over again the thing that you wanted, Roberta.”

“A gargoyle,” repeated Roberta.

Betty looked at her despairingly. “Please spell it, Roberta. I suppose Babbie and Madeline know just what it is.”

Babbie looked mystified. “Why should I know anything like that, Betty?”

“Because you’ve been to Paris six separate times,” declared Madeline, “and motored all through France besides. You evidently don’t go in hard for architecture, Babbie.”

“Oh, it’s architecture, is it?” said Babbie in relieved tones. “Then I don’t see how we can bring it home.”

“Only a picture of one,” Roberta expostulated.

“It’s not exactly architecture, Babbie,” teased Madeline. “It’s an animal, generally. Wouldn’t you like a real one better than a picture, Roberta? They have them in the Rue Bonaparte for two francs each.”

By this time everybody was excited on the subject of gargoyles and ready to listen while Roberta explained that gargoyles are the grotesque figures, usually in the shape of animals, that ornament Gothic cathedrals, especially the French ones.

“They’re waterspouts as well as ornaments,” protested Madeline. “Babbie Hildreth, you don’t half know your Paris. Prepare to walk down to Notre Dame in the rain with me and see the gargoyles work.”

“They sound perfectly fascinating,” said Rachel. “Here’s a picture of one in this book on architecture that I’ve brought for you. I believe I’d rather have one than a pair of gloves. Is two francs a lot of money, Madeline?”

“If it isn’t, I want a gargoyle too,” declared K. “Is there more than one kind?”

“Enough kinds to suit all tastes,” laughed Madeline. “It will be great fun picking out appropriate gargoyles for the three of you. What have you in that bundle, K.?”

K. tossed the fat parcel at the travelers, who found inside a pillow covered with brown linen, with a 19— banner fastened across it by way of ornament. “I hope you won’t all feel like sleeping in your steamer chairs at the same time,” she said. “I couldn’t afford but one pillow, and I hadn’t time to make any more banners.”

Bob’s gift was four little towels, just the right size to slip into a traveling bag for use on trains or in railway stations, a fat little pincushion with a bow to hang it up by on shipboard, and a little silk bag fitted with needles, bodkins, thread, darning cotton, buttons, hooks, a tiny pair of scissors, and everything else that one could need in a mending outfit.

“A cousin of mine gave it to me for a graduating present,” explained Bob, when the bag had been duly admired, “but it makes me sort of tired to look at it and think how many things it would mend, and as the cousin is safe in California, and I knew Betty would take to it, I’m passing it on.”

“We shall all take to it, I guess, as often as our clothes come to pieces,” declared Babe. “What shall we bring you, Bob?”

“Oh, I don’t know—something queer and out-of-the-way, that I can put on my dear old Harding desk or hang up on the wall above it. I don’t mean a picture, but any queer old thing that you would know came from abroad the minute you set eyes on it from afar.”

“Won’t that be fun to hunt up,” murmured Betty ecstatically, adding Bob’s choice to the others. “Now, Mrs. Brooks, what shall we bring you?”

“Oh, I know what she’d rather have,” cried Babbie, leaning over to whisper something in Betty’s ear and Betty laughed and wrote a few words on her paper. “It’s something that we know you admire,” explained Babbie, “because Mary had one nearly the same and you said you wished you were a bride, so people would give you such things. But perhaps you’d rather choose for yourself.”

But Mrs. Brooks professed herself quite willing to abide by Babbie’s choice. She had already told the girls that her going-away present to them was to be flowers, so “the real business of the meeting,” as Bob had expressed it, was now over; and as everybody was leaving early the next morning, it seemed best to adjourn.

There was nothing dismal about the good-byes next day. Bob was the only one who would be at the steamer to wave the travelers a farewell, but the rest promised to write steamer letters, and as Roberta said, “something will turn up before long to bring us together again. Things happen so fast in the wide, wide world.”

“It doesn’t look as if a September reunion would amount to much,” said K., “with three school-ma’ams and a foreign resident in the crowd.”

“Somebody must get married,” announced Babe. “People can always manage to come to weddings. You’re all going to be married sooner or later, except me and Bob—we’re the man-haters’ union, you know—and you might just as well be accommodating and hurry up about it.”

“You’re going to bring me a duke from abroad,” Eleanor reminded her laughingly. “If you pick out a nice one, I may decide to use him for a husband.”

“Of course we’ll pick out a nice one. Won’t it be fun assisting at the nuptials of a duke, girls? Grander even than the wedding of a Harding professor.”

“I hereby prophesy that Babe’s wedding is next on the list,” cried K. gaily.

“Why, Katherine Kittredge,” retorted Babe indignantly, “haven’t I always said——”

“That’s the point,” K. interrupted her. “Professed man-haters always marry young. There was Jane Westover and—there’s my train. Besides, you owe it to the crowd to be accommodating and abandon man-hating in the interests of matrimony and reunions.”

“My wedding next on the list, indeed!” murmured Babe angrily, as she waved her handkerchief at the departing train. “We’re going to be bachelor maids, aren’t we, Bob? with saddle-horses and Scotch collies instead of cats and canaries——”

“And fresh-air children in the summers,” added Bob absently. “I wonder what daddy’s doing to keep Jimmie Scheverin out of mischief. Here’s our train to town, girls.”

CHAPTER III
OFF TO BONNIE SCOTLAND

“I can’t believe yet that I’m really going!” Betty Wales stood on the promenade deck of the Glasgow boat, her arms full of Mrs. Brooks’s roses and Dr. Brooks’s salted almonds. Will’s arms were full of flowers too, and the Smallest Sister felt very important indeed because she had been entrusted with a fat package of steamer letters from Betty’s Cleveland friends.

“Beginning to feel a little homesick already?” teased Will.

Betty winked hard, and mother told Will that he wasn’t playing fair, and suggested that they should find the girls’ stateroom and leave some of their bundles in it.

“Miss Ayres is having a hunt for her trunk,” said Nan, joining them. “It isn’t in your stateroom, and it doesn’t seem to be on the wharf.”

“Why, she said she marked it to be put in the hold,” said Betty. “Has she asked if it’s there?” And Will was hurried off to find Madeline and inquire.

It wasn’t easy finding anybody or anything on that dock. The edges were crowded with people, the centre was filled with a confused mass of struggling truck horses and shouting drivers who were all terribly anxious to get somewhere, and didn’t seem to make the least progress in spite of all their noise. Deck-hands were busy with trunks and boxes, which they fastened to a pulley and swung out over the heads of the people, and then up and down again, into the hold. Once in a while a hansom wriggled its way through the drays to let out an excited passenger, who always acted as if he had expected to find the boat gone without him.

That was the way Bob acted, as she jumped out of her hansom and ran up the gangplank, holding a small boy tight by each hand and not paying the least attention to Babe and Betty, who shrieked frantically at her from their lookout on the upper deck.

“I had to bring these,” she explained breathlessly, when the Smallest Sister had intercepted her and conducted her to her friends. “The housekeeper took two off my hands for the day and the coachman took two, but nobody would take Jimmie or Joe.”

“A guy on de dock’s tryin’ to spiel wid ye,” announced Jimmie, who had lost no time in climbing up on the ship’s railing; and there, sure enough, was Mr. Richard Blake, with a fresh supply of flowers, making a megaphone of his hands and trying to ask where he should find Madeline.

“Somewhere down there,” shrieked back Betty. “But you’d better come up here and wait. Babbie and Mrs. Hildreth haven’t even come yet,” she added to the others. “What if they should be too late?”

“Seasoned travelers never come on board till the last minute,” said Nan. “It shows that you’re new to the business to be standing around like this.”

“Oh, but it’s such fun to watch everything,” objected Babe. “I don’t mind people’s knowing that it’s my first trip. It is, you see. What’s that bell ringing for?”

Mr. Wales looked at his watch. “It means that in five minutes more they’re going to put us fellows off.”

At that Babe got into a corner with her mother and father, and Betty into another with her family, leaving Bob to entertain Mr. Blake until Madeline sauntered up with the cheerful news that her trunk seemed to be lost “for keeps.”

“Just send it along if you happen to run into it anywhere, Dickie,” she said, and Mr. Blake promised to find it if it was anywhere in “little old New York.”

When the second bell had rung and the boat began to empty of its visitors the girls remembered Babbie again and began to be really alarmed. But just as Betty was frantically trying to ask her father, who had established his party on the edge of the dock, what in the world they should do if the Hildreths didn’t come, Babbie appeared, cool and serene in the prettiest of silk traveling suits. “Oh, I thought you knew we’d come on board,” she apologized. “Mother’s lying down and Marie is with her, and I——” Babbie blushed prettily. “Jack is awfully shy, and he just hates to meet a lot of people, so we stayed down below. I’m so sorry.” Babbie caught sight of a tall youth shouldering his way to the edge of the wharf, and waved a big bunch of violets at him.

“I wish we could start now,” said Madeline. “This shouting last speeches indefinitely isn’t all that it might be. Dick looks bored to death.”

“They’re taking up the gangplank,” announced Babe excitedly, tossing a rose to Will.

Just then a hansom drew up with a jerk, a distinguished-looking gentleman tumbled out; Jimmie Scheverin wriggled away from Bob’s firm grasp and jumped to the horse’s head, and the driver called to the crowd in general to “lend him a hand” with the trunk.

“No use hurrying now. They’ve given you up,” called somebody, and the crowd roared with laughter.

“Oh, I say, give de guy anudder chanst,” cried Jimmie shrilly, and even the dignified gentleman laughed at that. He could afford to, for they were letting down the gangplank again.

“He’s a prominent senator,” Babe whispered eagerly. “I heard a man say so. Think of having a boat wait for you! Well, we’re off at last. Dear mummy! Goodness, father waved so hard that he almost fell into the water! Betty Wales, are you crying too?”

The wharf was backing away from them; the crowd of excited people, shouting and waving flags and handkerchiefs, was only a great blur of color now.

“Well, that’s over,” said Madeline gaily. “I hate good-byes. Babe, cheer up. It’s only for three months, and you’re going to have the time of your life. Come and get bath hours and places for our steamer chairs, and then we can explore the boat a little before it’s time to eat our first and possibly our last meal afloat.”

“And we must look at the mail,” added Babbie, “and give most of our flowers to the stewardess to put on our table in the dining-room.”

“Aren’t you glad we’ve got some experienced travelers in the party?” laughed Babe, wiping away the tears, and taking Betty’s arm she marched her off after the others. “Now how did they know that was the deck steward? I should be afraid of mixing him up with the captain.”

Three days later Babe smiled loftily at the recollection of such pitiful ignorance. She had explored the ship from stem to stern, had stood on the bridge with the captain, danced with the ship’s doctor, exchanged views on the weather with the senator who had kept the boat waiting, played deck golf and shuffle-board, and made friends with all the children on the ship. All this she had done the first day out. The other two she had spent forlornly in her berth, with the stewardess to wait on her, Babbie and Madeline to amuse her, when she felt equal to being amused, and Betty to keep her company.

“Betty’s getting ready to come up here too,” she announced on the third afternoon, tucking herself into the chair beside Babbie. “Now we can decide where we’re going.”

“Oh, there’s time enough for that,” objected Madeline lazily. “Let’s enjoy the luxurious idleness of shipboard while we can.”

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 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.”

“And there aren’t any possibilities in it, somehow,” added Babe. “Of course you may meet some interesting people, but you can’t do anything but just talk to them a little and pass on.”

“Like ‘ships that pass in the night,’” quoted Babbie solemnly. “I always associate the people I’ve met on shipboard with too much to eat and no place to put your clothes.”

“And seasickish headaches,” added Babe. “Isn’t it almost time for bouillon? The doctor told me to keep eating and I’d be all right.”

“There’s the bugle for it this minute,” said Madeline, “and after that I propose a stunt. Let’s all go off separately and see what excitement we can unearth,—who can unearth the most, I mean. I don’t agree with you about the possibilities of shipboard. A town of seven hundred people certainly has possibilities, and that’s what we are,—a floating town. In order to make the contest more exciting, let’s give the winner a chance to say where we shall go first from Glasgow.”

“Goodie!” cried Babbie. “That’s something like. I knew you’d think up things to do, Madeline. Do you two invalids feel equal to so much exertion?”

The invalids declared that after they had had their mid-afternoon repast they should feel equal to anything, and five minutes later the four chairs were deserted.

“Time limit, two hours,” called Madeline, as she disappeared around the corner. “Meet in our chairs, of course.”

Betty lingered a little. Madeline’s plan sounded very amusing, but she hadn’t much idea how to carry out her part of it. She sauntered slowly down the deck, past the row of steamer chairs, many of whose occupants smiled and nodded at her as she passed. They might be very exciting people, Betty reflected, but she should never find it out. Madeline could do that sort of thing, not she. At the end of the deck Betty stopped and leaning over the railing looked off out to sea, wondering what Will and Nan and the Smallest Sister were doing just then. Presently her glance fell to the deck below. It was full of the queerest people. They were having a mid-afternoon lunch too,—drinking it with gusto out of big tin cups. Most of them were men, but near the cabin-door sprawled several children, and a few women, with bright-colored shawls over their heads, sunned themselves by the railing.

“Oh, that must be the steerage!” thought Betty, and didn’t know she had said it out loud until somebody answered her.

“Yes, that’s the steerage,” said a deep voice close to her elbow. “Should you like to go down and see what the steerage is like?”

Betty looked around and recognized the senator who had kept the boat waiting.

“Why—yes,” she began, blushing at the idea of talking to such a great man. “I should like to see it, only—isn’t it dreadfully dirty?”

The senator laughed. “I hope not. If it is, we needn’t stay long. You see—it’s a profound secret from the ship’s officials—but I’m going over on purpose to investigate steerages. I’m seriously thinking of coming back in one from Liverpool.”

“You are!” Betty’s eyes opened wide in amazement. “Without letting any one know who you are?”

The senator nodded. “Exactly. And by the same token I’m making this little visit to-day quite impromptu. Want to come? You can talk to the women and find out if they’re being made comfortable.”

“If this isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is,” Betty reflected, following the senator down the steps to the lower deck and past the guard,—who looked very threatening at first, but bowed profoundly when he saw the senator’s card,—into the network of low-ceiled passages beyond the tiny square of open deck. It was dirty, or at least it was unpleasantly smelly. But by the time Betty had satisfied her curiosity and would much rather have turned and gone straight back to her comfortable steamer chair, the senator had forgotten all about her, and surrounded by a group of eager men was deep in his investigation.

“I can’t interrupt, and I can’t very well skip off without saying anything,” thought Betty sadly, “because he might remember me after a while and try to find me.”

Judging by their conversation with the senator, most of the steerage passengers seemed to be men—Scotch or Irish, going back to the “Ould Country” for a visit to the “ould folks.” Betty listened a few minutes, and then went on to the end of the passage, which opened out into a room that seemed to be salon and dining-hall combined. Though this room was nearly empty, the air was close and stifling and Betty was going back to the deck to wait there for the senator, when her attention was attracted by a group of women gathered in one corner. They were standing around a little figure that sat huddled in a forlorn heap on the wooden bench along the wall. The woman—or the child, for she looked hardly more than that—hugged a baby tight in her arms, and rocked it back and forward, moaning pitifully to herself all the time.

Betty hesitated for an instant, and then went timidly up to the group. “What’s the matter?” she asked softly of one of the bystanders, a fat Irishwoman. “Can’t we do something to stop her crying like that?”

“Ah, it’s sore thruble she’s in, the pore young crayther,” explained the woman eagerly. “Her fayther and her mither and her two brothers died in the same week av the dipthery, and she’s takin’ her baby sister home to the ould folks. An’ she’s lost the money for her ticket to County Cork.”

“You mean she hasn’t any money at all?” asked Betty in amazement.

“Niver a cint,” the sympathetic Irishwoman assured her. “Shure, ’twas lost or stolen the first day out. Anyhow ’tis gone.”

“An’ we’ve none of us ony over to be lendin’ her,” another woman put in. “The times is that bad, an’ all.”

“How much does it cost to go to County Cork?”

“A pound an’ six from Derry.”

“How much is that, and how do you get to ‘Derry’?” asked Betty in bewilderment.

“Oh, the boat lets you off at Derry, if you’re for the ould country,” explained her interlocutress, “and a pound an’ six is $6.50 in the States money, miss. But she’d need a bite an’ a sup on the way for her an’ the babe.”

The girl had apparently paid no attention at all to this colloquy. But now she lifted her tear-stained face to Betty’s and held out the baby. “It’s only for her I’m carin’,” she said. “I had ten dollars saved over my passage back an’ the train ticket, an’ that goes a long way in Ireland. The old folks are poor, too, but I thought they’d take her in for that, and what I could be sendin’ them later. I couldn’t tend her an’ work, too, but whatever shall I do over here? There’s no work at all in Ireland.”

“IT’S ONLY FOR HER I’M CARIN’”

“What a darling baby!” cried Betty, as the blue eyes opened and the little red face crumpled itself into a tremendous yawn. “Why, I never saw such big blue eyes!” The little mother smiled faintly at this praise, and Betty wanted to add that big blue eyes evidently ran in the family. Instead she said, “Please don’t feel so unhappy. I’ll see that you have the money for the ticket to your friends, and perhaps——” Betty stopped, not wishing to promise anything for the others, though she was sure that if Babbie saw the baby’s eyes she would reduce the number of dresses she meant to buy in Paris to three without a murmur.

“An’ she ain’t the worst off, ayther, ma’am,” put in Betty’s voluble informant. “There’s an English gyrul that’s sick, pore dear, in her bunk, wid an awful rackin’ cough and a face as pale as death, an’ it’s tin cints she do be havin’ to take her home to her mither that’s a coster-woman in London town, an’ wants to see her daughter before she dies.”

“But why did she start if she didn’t have enough money?” demanded Betty.

“Wudn’t you, dearie, if you was dyin’ and knew it?”

“Ah, here you are. Are you ready to go back?” The senator had pumped his audience dry, and remembered Betty. “Well, how is it? Do they complain of the service?” he asked, as they went back to the upper deck.

“The service—oh, I’m so sorry! I hadn’t gotten around to ask them,” said Betty meekly, and then burst out with the stories she had heard.

The senator listened intently, and his keen eyes grew soft, as he fumbled for his pocketbook. “That’s the point, my dear young lady,” he said soberly. “After all, what are two weeks’ comfort or discomfort to people as poor as most of those? I saw a miserable fellow, too,—sick and discouraged, taking his motherless children back home before he dies. But your girl is worse off. Give her this. It will help a little.”

Betty gasped at the size of the bill, but the senator murmured something about wanting to smoke and hurried off, and there was nothing to do but go back to the others. She was the last of the quartette to reach the rendezvous.

“Two minutes late,” called Madeline as she appeared.

“That’s lucky,” laughed Betty, tucking her rug in, “because I couldn’t possibly decide where to go from Glasgow—I don’t know enough about the geography of Scotland—and my story is perfectly sure to take the prize.”

“H’m!” said Babe doubtfully. “I saw you. You needn’t be puffed up because you leaned over the railing and talked to a live senator. I’ve been talking to a live actress—there’s a whole company of them on board, Madeline, and you’ve never discovered them.”

“Which is she?” asked Babbie. “The stunning woman with the blue velvet suit?”

“No, the little mouse-like one with gray furs, and she’s played with——”

“Wait,” commanded Madeline. “You’ve told enough for the first time round. The stunning woman in blue velvet, if you care to know, is the maid of the mouse-like actress. I’ve talked to her. Now, Babbie.”

“Oh, I’m out of it,” explained Babbie. “Marie has a sore throat, and mother wanted to be read aloud to.”

“Well, the senator is only one of the people I’ve talked to,” put in Betty eagerly. “I’ve been in the steerage——”

“Oh, you lucky girl,” cried Madeline. “I tried to go yesterday and got turned down. How did you get past the guard? Do tell us all about it.”

So Betty “told,” saving the senator’s bill for a climax. At the end of the story Babbie declared that she simply must see the blue-eyed Irish baby, and Babe winked back the tears over the lonely English girl. While they were talking, some Harding girls of an older generation came up and made Madeline’s Dramatic Club pin an excuse for introducing themselves. Of course they heard about Betty’s visit to the steerage, and they were so interested that Madeline had an idea.

“All the passengers would like to help those poor people, I’m sure. Couldn’t we give an entertainment of some sort? There’s the captain, Babe. Go ask him if he’s willing.”

The captain assured Babe that “any show she wanted went on his boat,” the little gray-gowned actress, who had refused to appear at the ship’s concert, promised that she and her leading man would act a farce, the senator volunteered to canvass the steerage for somebody to dance an Irish jig, Babbie designed some dainty souvenir programs, and the other crowd of Harding girls arranged a “stunt number” that proved to be the star feature of the evening. Betty printed the tickets, and the senator sold them all at twenty-five cents “or over,” with astonishing financial results.

“That’s all right,” he said as he passed the money over to Betty. “There are three hundred first class passengers on this boat, but six of them are judges—they pay double—and five are colonels—it takes three tickets to get in a colonel.”

“And how many to get in a senator?” laughed Betty.

“Twenty,” said the senator solemnly, taking them out of his pocket.

So there was enough money to get the English girl to London, and the Irish girl to County Cork and then back to the States to work for her blue-eyed baby sister, and something over to pay the baby’s board with the “ould folks,” and to help out the poor man with the big family of children.

“And the best of it is, it’s given us something to do,” said Babe the last afternoon on board. “I don’t believe I should have been seasick if we’d thought of this sooner.”

“Easy to say that when land is in sight,” said Madeline loftily, squinting at the horizon line.

And sure enough land was in sight and presently it turned out to be the loveliest, greenest land that the girls had ever seen.

“What is it?” demanded Babe excitedly. “An island or a country?”

None of the girls knew, but a friendly passenger explained that it was both an island and a country, for it was Ireland.

“Why, of course,” cried Babe. “That’s why it’s so green. Is it really greener than other places, or does it only look greener because we haven’t seen any other places for eight days?”

Madeline and Betty thought it was really greener, while the B’s inclined to the opinion that it couldn’t be—that it was the atmosphere, perhaps.

“It’s certainly a queer atmosphere,” said Babe, as they hurried up on deck after dinner, to see the tender full of passengers off for “Derry.” “It’s eight o’clock this minute, and the sunset hasn’t finished up.”

“See that lovely white farmhouse up on that hill,” said Betty, pointing toward land. “Doesn’t it look as if there were fairies in those fields, girls?”

“I don’t know about the fairies,” said Babe, “but I love the way the white foam breaks on the green moss. Let’s go to Ireland.”

“Why, we haven’t decided”—chanted four voices together.

“Where we’ll go from Glasgow,” finished Babbie alone. “Well, it doesn’t matter, because mother will have to rest a day or two before we go anywhere. Just think! The poor thing hasn’t been up on deck yet.”

“And while she’s resting,” put in Madeline, “we can explore Glasgow and then, if she’s willing, go down to Ayr. That’s a nice little day trip.”

“Let me see,” said Babe reflectively. “Ayr—Ayr—I ought to know about it, but I don’t.”

“Robert Burns’ country,” explained Madeline briefly. “Why, that tender is really starting. Wave your handkerchiefs to the baby’s sister, Betty. She’s almost dropping the poor infant in her efforts to make you see her.”

“I looked at the map before dinner,” announced Babe proudly. “I know just where we are, and the real name of ‘Derry’ is Londonderry.”

“I found that out too,” declared Betty. “Maps are quite interesting when you’re on one, aren’t they? I used to hate geography in school, but from now on I shall adore it, I’m sure.”

“I must go and help Marie pack,” said Babbie with a last glance at the green hills, that were turning a beautiful misty gray in the twilight.

“We’ve got to pack too.”

“And go to bed early, because we’ve got to get up early.”

“So as to land in Europe,” finished Babe. “Doesn’t that sound too—sweet—elegant—grand for anything. Come on and get busy, girls.”

CHAPTER IV
A DISILLUSIONMENT MADE GOOD

The next morning the rising bell rang uncomfortably early, and everybody dressed and breakfasted in nervous haste, pursued by the fear of not being ready to get off the boat at the critical moment. And then there was nothing to do for an hour or so but “just wait and wait and wait,” as Babe complained dolefully. Babe was dreadfully impatient to “land in Europe,” and found it simply tantalizing to have to hang over the railing and look at the shores of Scotland, with the little gray town of Greenock hardly a stone’s throw off. Betty, on the other hand, was willing to wait because she thought Greenock so pretty, with its curving bay, edged by a stone promenade, and its gray stone houses, all very much alike, standing in a neat row encircling the shore.

“It’s a summer resort,” she announced, having consulted her Baedeker, which she had brought up on deck to see just where they were on the map of Scotland. “I wish we could stay there for awhile. It looks so quiet and quaint.”

“It doesn’t look very exciting to me,” objected Babe. “The idea of building summer cottages of stone!”

“They aren’t cottages,” explained Babbie, “they’re villas. Don’t you know how people in English novels always go and take lodgings in a villa by the sea?”

“Oh, do let’s do that,” cried Betty eagerly. “It sounds so perfectly English.”

“I’ve been looking over some Scotch addresses that Mary Brooks gave me,” said Madeline, “and I think we ought to go to Oban. She and Marion Lawrence both said it was the most fascinating spot they’d ever seen. It’s a seaside resort too, Betty, and the address they gave me is villa something or other, so it answers all your requirements.”

“Why, that’s the place mother’s doctor spoke about,” put in Babbie. “I told him I wanted to go to little out-of-the-way villages, and he mentioned that one. How do you get there, Madeline?”

“Why, by boat, I think Mary said. Let me take your Baedeker, Betty.”

“Oh, I’m so glad she can make out trains and things,” said Babbie, with a sigh of relief. “Mother can’t and I can’t, and it’s such a bother always to have to ask the hotel people.”

Presently Madeline announced that she knew just how to go to Oban by boat, and how to come back by train, and then Marie appeared with a message from Mrs. Hildreth that it was time for the girls to come down-stairs and get their hand-baggage together.

“But we’re not within ten miles of Glasgow yet,” objected Babe, proud of her newly-acquired knowledge of the geography of the region.

“Oh, we go there from Greenock on a boat-train,” Babbie told her. “And here comes a tender or a ferry, or whatever they call it, to take us ashore.”

So there was only time to say good-bye to the funny old Scotch stewardess, who had told them to “Come awa’” to their baths every morning, to the other Harding girls, and to the senator, who gave Betty his card and made her promise to let him know when she came to Washington; and then they were chug-chugging over to the Greenock station, where Madeline instructed the novices in the art of getting one’s trunks through the customs, while Babbie established her mother comfortably on the train. Madeline had quite given up finding her trunk and was congratulating herself on having put so many things into her “carry-all,” when she heard the senator protesting volubly that his name wasn’t Ayres and that he hadn’t brought a trunk anyway, whereupon she pounced joyously on her property and refused to let it out of her sight again until it had been put aboard the Glasgow train.

Betty and Babe found the train very amusing. Instead of long cars with rows of seats on either side of the aisle, there were funny little compartments, each holding eight or ten people, half of whom were obliged to ride backward whether they liked it or not. But as this train wasn’t crowded, Mrs. Hildreth’s party had a compartment all to themselves, and Betty and Babe were free to exclaim as much as they liked over the delightful queerness of European travel. Foxgloves and chimney-pots were the two objects of greatest interest en route. Babbie discovered the foxgloves growing in a pretty little grove close by the railroad track; the chimney-pots jostled one another on the roof of every cottage they passed, and as they came into Glasgow made such an impression on Babe that she could think of nothing else and almost fell out the window in her efforts to count the most imposing clusters.

“It’s queer,” she said, leaning back wearily as the train swept into a tunnel, “how nobody ever tells you about the things you notice most. Now I’ve talked to quantities of people who’ve traveled in Europe, and not one of them ever so much as mentioned chimney-pots.”

“Well, now you can make yourself famous for your originality by mentioning them to everybody,” said Babbie consolingly. “Here we are in Glasgow. Who’s going to see about the trunks?”

“Oh, let me,” volunteered Betty. “Somebody will have to show me how the first time, but I want to learn.”

So Madeline and Betty went off to find the trunks and have them sent to the station hotel, where Mrs. Hildreth had decided to stay while they were in Glasgow.

“It was too comical for anything,” Betty told Babe afterward. “They just dumped all the trunks and bags in a heap on the platform, and each person picked out whatever ones he pleased, and said they were his, and got a porter to carry them away for him. The English people must be very honest. Imagine doing that way in America!”

“We’ve been ‘booked’ for rooms at the hotel,” said Babe, laughing over the queer word. “And that’s luggage that you’re carrying,—not baggage any more, please remember. So come along and have lunch and then we can go out and see the sights.”

Mrs. Hildreth was quite willing that the girls should explore Glasgow without her, and spend the next day in Ayr, if they pleased.

“I don’t need to worry about you,” she told them, “for I’m sure you are all too sensible to do any foolish or foolhardy things. On the continent you may have to be a little more particular, but here and in England you can do about as you like.”

“I wish you could come too, Mrs. Hildreth,” said Betty, when they were ready to start.

Mrs. Hildreth smiled at her. “So do I, my dear. Just as soon as I’m a little rested, I shall be delighted to go with you whenever you’ll take me. I quite look forward to seeing Europe in such good company.”

“Poor little mother!” said Babbie, as they went off. “She never had a chance to do as she liked when she was a girl. She always had nurses and governesses trailing around after her, and then she went to a fashionable school in Boston, where you take walks two and two and never stir without a chaperon. After that she had to ‘come out’ in society, though she hated it as much as Bob does, and wanted to study art in Paris. But her mother thought that was all nonsense for a girl who had plenty of money. So when I wanted to go to college mother let me, and she often says she’s awfully glad that my best friends are girls who can go ahead and have a good time anywhere—not the helpless society kind.”

“I say, where are we aiming for?” Babe demanded suddenly.