Chapter V: Part 5

“It’s this way, Jim,” said Nancy slowly, as if choosing her words very carefully. “I’m going to be perfectly frank. I—I care a lot for you, and just now I’m sure I’d never want to marry anyone else. But it seems to me that we would be foolish to tie ourselves up with an engagement just now, when we both have a whole year more at college. The senior year is a very important one, and we’ve got to be deciding what we want to do after we finish, and make preparations for work of some kind.”

“We could do all that just the same even if we were engaged,” protested Jim.

“Yes, but suppose this last year you should meet some other girl you care a lot for——”

“I won’t,” said Jim decidedly.

“You can’t be absolutely _sure_, Jim; and while I think there is no danger of my meeting anyone who could take your place, such a thing _is_, after all, a possibility, if not a probability. Just think! A month ago we had never even seen each other! We have known each other such a short time, and under such unusual conditions, don’t you really, way down in your heart, think that it would be wiser, safer, for both of us to go back to our old normal familiar lives for this one year, unfettered?”

“I see what you mean, even if I can’t enthuse over it very much.”

“Don’t misunderstand me—dear,” faltered Nancy, for Jim’s tone was rather hurt. “It’s frightfully hard for me to take this stand; but I feel that it is the right one, and—” her voice broke pathetically.

“Please—Nan,” begged Jim, “don’t. Fix things up to suit yourself, and I’ll do whatever you wish.”

“We can write regularly, that is, if you want to.”

Jim gave her such a disgusted look that Nancy smiled in spite of her earnestness.

“And probably,” she added, “we’ll be able to see each other once or twice during the year. Then, if next June we both feel the same way as we do now, you may ask me again. Though, as a matter of fact, you haven’t yet asked me _once_.”

“Why Nancy, I did; I’m sure I did,” protested Jim so earnestly that she laughed.

“Why, Jim, you didn’t; I’m sure you didn’t,” she retorted. “You asked me to wait until you were making enough to take care of me.”

“Well, anyhow, you knew what I meant. But to make sure, if you must have it in so many words, Nancy, will you marry me?”

“Ask me that question on Commencement Day, and I’ll answer it.”

“Promise me one thing, Nan,” begged Jim very seriously; “that you won’t become engaged to anyone else until I have had my chance, again in June.”

“Of course, I’ll promise that; and—and Jim.”

“Yes?”

“If you find some other girl, and feel that you don’t want to ask me again, just mail to me the little spray of wild roses that Janie gave us on the Harbor ride that day—what ages ago it seems!—and I’ll understand.”

Jim laughed gayly.

“Fat chance of that!” he declared.

“But you’ll promise?” persisted Nancy.

“Oh, yes; to please you I’ll promise,” he agreed indulgently.

“My goodness!” exclaimed Nancy, looking at her watch after a long silence, during which the swan, disgusted at the lack of attention from the two human beings, sailed off down the lake, “do you know that it’s after five o’clock? Martha went off somewhere with Mr. Pierce; Jeanette was going through some of the shops; and Miss Ashton suggested that we all be back about five thirty. We had rather a ‘picked up’ lunch, as she called it; and to-night we’re going out to dine.”

“I know it.”

“You do? How?”

“Because I invited you all to go to dinner with me.”

“You did! When?”

“I asked Miss Ashton this morning, and she accepted for the crowd.”

“How very nice! And she never said a word about it.”

“She’s an awfully good scout,” said Jim fervently, if a bit irrelevantly.

“To-morrow,” he went on, “I hope to have you meet Mother and Dad. I told them all about you when I ran out home for lunch, and they want you, and the others too, of course, to come out for afternoon tea to-morrow.”

“I shall love seeing them, and your home, Jim.”

“They’ll love you, too. I’m going to have Griff there. I guess I’ll ask him for to-night too; and Pierce, if I can get hold of him.”

“Jim, you’re extravagant, taking such a big party out to dinner; though of course it would be loads of fun.”

“I have my whole summer’s pay, and we must celebrate some way.”

“Celebrate what?” asked Nancy quickly; but Jim only looked at her and laughed.

At six o’clock he was back at the apartment, bringing Griff with him. After introductions were over, they sat in the little living room waiting for John Pierce. Griff, a tall, blond youth, proved to be as lively and unconventional as Jim was serious and reserved. He roamed restlessly about, taking up ornaments and books and setting them down again, stumbling over footstools (whether accidentally of intentionally, it was difficult to tell), and getting into people’s way generally.

“Excuse it, please,” he said, as he bumped into Martha who was just turning away from the window for the third time.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked bluntly, as she watched him continue his ramble about the room.

“Me? Oh, I’m nervous.”

“Over what?”

“Meeting so many charming girls all at one time. It’s quite a strain on a fellow’s nerves. Didn’t you know that?”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said Jim smiling. “He’s quite harmless.”

“Indeed. And when you get really to know me,” added Griff, “you’ll like me a lot. Folks always do.”

Jeanette did not know quite what to make of him, and sat watching him, half fascinated, half disapproving. He noticed her gaze, interpreted it correctly, and, being a born tease, decided to bother her.

“Little blond girl,” he said, going over to her and taking her hand, “I feel that you are the only one here who really understands me. Come over on the window seat and talk to me, and I’ll sit as still as a mouse. Oh, have a heart,” he added, as she hesitated.

“Yes, Janie,” urged Martha; “do take pity on the rest of us, and keep that Perpetual Motion quiet for a few minutes. It would be an act of charity.”

Thus impelled, figuratively and literally, Jeanette, blushing to the roots of her hair, rose to comply with the request. Bowing low, Griff took her hand and led her ceremoniously across the room to the window seat, where he began to talk nonsense to her in a low tone.

“You other people will have to amuse yourselves,” he paused long enough to say. “We are too busy to bother about you.”

“Thank Heaven!” ejaculated Martha fervently.

After talking nonsense for a few minutes, Griff led the conversation to the subject of books and plays; and Jeanette found him a really delightful companion.

“I like to see the first impression Griff makes on strangers,” observed Jim to Nancy. “Martha is evidently going to fight with him all the time.”

“Yes, and poor Janie is fussed to death. She doesn’t know what to make of him. But,” she added in a lower tone, “they seem to be enjoying each other’s company now.”

“She’ll like him after a while. Girls always do.”

“Sorry to be so late,” said John Pierce, coming in at that moment; “but it couldn’t be helped.”

Jim introduced him to Griff, and the party went down in the elevator. A taxi soon whirled them through the streets to the Copley-Plaza Hotel.

“Oh, I’ve always heard so much about this, and wished to see it,” whispered Nancy to Jim as they entered.

A table for seven had been reserved for them at one side of the circular dining room, and they were soon making up for their “skimpy luncheon.” They had so many things to talk about, that they spent a long time over dinner.

“Now, what should you like to do?” asked Jim, when they finally rose from the table. “A movie?”

“I don’t know, Jim,” said Miss Ashton with some hesitation. “I should not like to be considered a spoil-sport, but it is half-past nine now, and we have had a most strenuous day. I think the girls had better forego the joys of the screen for the benefit of a little rest.”

She had been looking at her party while they were at dinner, and saw how tired and excited they all were; and she didn’t want to send the girls home looking like that. So after a stroll through the hotel, they returned to the apartment.

“I’m not going to ask you boys to come up,” said Miss Ashton, as they got out of the taxi. “But, let me see. To-morrow we’re going out to your house, Jim, for afternoon tea. In the morning we hope to go to church. Monday, these girls are going home. Suppose to-morrow night you all come here for a farewell supper. We’ll be crowded, but I know you won’t mind.”

The exclamations of delight with which her invitation was received fully repaid her for any work which it would entail.

Packing themselves away for the night in Miss Ashton’s tiny apartment was a problem, and they had so much fun over it that all inclination for sleep was destroyed.

The living room had what Martha persisted in calling a “wall bed.”

“Mart, it’s a _Murphy_ bed!” protested Jeanette, whenever it was mentioned.

“That may be its official name,” retorted Martha; “but it comes out of the wall, just the same.”

“Suppose you and Jeanette sleep here, Nancy,” suggested Miss Ashton, pulling it out. “Martha can take the davenport. We’ll push it over to the other side of the room.”

“And what about you?” inquired Nancy. “I have a cot which I can set up in the dressing room.”

“But you won’t be comfortable,” objected the girls. “Let one of us take the cot.”

“Indeed I won’t. I’m used to sleeping anywhere. Wait until I get it fixed and you’ll see how cozy it really is.”

It was. The cot fitted in between the wall and the dressing table in the tiny room which connected the living room with the bathroom; and plenty of air came in from the living room windows directly opposite, if the door between were left open.

“This is heaps of fun,” declared Martha, when they were at last in bed, and the lights had been extinguished. “Who’d ever think that this time last night we were on the ocean, and to be shipwrecked before morning, and not knowing anything about it.”

“If they could have known about it ahead of time, Mart,” laughed Nancy, “I suppose it might have been avoided.”

“I said _we_, not _they_!” retorted Martha, as she turned over with a flop. She was soon fast asleep, as was also Miss Ashton.

“Janie, are you sleepy?” whispered Nancy after a while.

“Not very. Are you?”

“No. Janie——”

“Yes, Nan?”

“I suppose you noticed that Jim has been—has been—sort of nice to me.”

“Yes.”

“Well—he—he asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, Nancy darling, I’m so glad!”

Jeanette caught her friend in her arms, and squeezed her until she could hardly breathe. “I think he’s just fine, and I hope you’ll be just awfully, awfully happy.”

“Not so fast! Not so fast!” protested Nancy. “I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet.”

“You haven’t? Why Nan, don’t you care too? I thought you did.”

“I do; but I must be positive. It is too eternal, too serious a thing to decide in a hurry. I’m not even engaged yet.”

She went on to tell Jeanette the substance of Jim’s and her conversation on the subject; adding, as she finished, “Of course you know without my telling you that this is just between you and me. I suppose Miss Ashton suspects; and Jim has told his father and mother. I’ll tell Mother and Dad, and Uncle John, but I don’t want anyone else even to suspect it.”

“But Martha?” said Jeanette.

“Oh, she’s so wrapped up in Mr. Pierce that she probably hasn’t even noticed us,” giggled Nancy softly.

“Don’t deceive yourself,” said Jeanette, smiling to herself in the darkness over Nan’s naivete, “Martha is more observing than you give her credit for being. She hides a lot under that rather abrupt way of hers.”

“I wonder if I had better tell her, then, and caution her not to mention it.”

“Of course, Nan, it isn’t necessary to tell her; but perhaps it would be as well if you did. She will appreciate your confiding in her, and will, of course, say nothing about it. And I think, Nan, that you have been very wise in your decision, hard as it must now seem to you and Jim.”

“I felt that it was the only thing to do, Janie. I really want to finish college, and be prepared to earn my living in some way if it is ever necessary. So many girls think that if they can only get hold of a man, they need never lift a finger again.”

“I know; and one can never be sure what will happen at some time in the future. It is foolish not to find out what one thing we can do well, and then fit ourselves to do it. Then, in an emergency, there is something to depend upon.”

The girls talked for some time. They had missed their intimate companionship in the excitement and confusion of the past few days, and it gave both of them much pleasure to get together and talk things over in the old intimate way.

“Well, now that we’ve talked it all over, and aired our ideas,” said Nan, “perhaps we’d better try to go to sleep. To-morrow is going to be a full day too, and we don’t want to be tired out.”

“I’m glad to be going home to see the folks,” she went on, “for it seems ages since we left. I am a bit disappointed, though, at seeing nothing of Boston; aren’t you? I did hope to _do_ the town while we were here.”

“Yes; I’m disappointed too, Nan. It is such an interesting city—so different from other large cities.”

“There is only one Boston, and I’ve wanted, ever since I studied history, to explore not only the city itself but also its surroundings.”

“And Cape Cod, that Joseph Lincoln writes about,” added Jeanette.

“Well, perhaps some time we shall be able to come back again,” said Nancy, yawning.

“I am quite sure,” said Jeanette, squeezing her friend’s hand, “that at least _you_ will.”

*CHAPTER XV*

*PARTIES*

As a result of the late hours which they had kept, in spite of Miss Ashton’s resolutions, and also of the excitement and over-fatigue, it was eleven o’clock the next morning before any of the girls stirred.

A stray sunbeam, coming through a tiny hole in the shade, shone directly in Nancy’s eyes, and awakened her. For a moment she did not know where she was; then the events of the preceding day rushed through her mind. She lay still for a while, listening to hear if anyone else was awake. Not hearing a sound, she drew her watch from under her pillow. Her involuntary exclamation roused Jeanette.

“What’s the matter, Nan?” she inquired, sleepily.

“Guess what time it is!”

“Oh, about seven o’clock, I suppose. But please tell me it’s only five.”

“Add four to your seven.”

“Nan, you don’t mean it!”

Nancy held the watch before Jeanette’s eyes. “Imagine! And I don’t think I stirred all night.”

“I’m sure I didn’t. I never slept so late in all my life.”

“Oh, did we disturb you?” Nancy asked, as Miss Ashton appeared in the doorway.

“Disturb me!” she repeated. “It’s time somebody did. Do you two know the hour?”

“Just discovered it. I’m afraid we won’t get to church to-day,” said Nancy, regretfully. Martha slept peacefully on.

“It seems a shame to disturb her,” said Miss Ashton; “but we’ll be eating lunch before we have breakfast, if we put it off much longer.”

“Mart,” said Nancy, shaking her.

“What?”

“Time to get up.”

“Can’t be.” And Martha turned over and settled herself for another nap.

“But it’s a quarter after eleven!”

“You’re crazy!”

She was now fully aroused.

“I’ll start breakfast,” said Miss Ashton, going into the kitchen. “Come out as soon as you’re ready.”

“Why don’t we have breakfast and lunch in one?” called Nancy. “Then, since we’re going to have afternoon tea, we won’t need any noon meal.”.

“Not a bad idea,” replied Miss Ashton. “We’ll do that.”

Soon they were gathered about the built-in table in the breakfast nook. The sun was streaming in through the double window, and Jip, the canary, flew merrily about his cage above their heads.

“Can’t we do something to help you get ready for to-night?” asked Jeanette, as they were washing the dishes.

“Indeed you can,” replied Miss Ashton promptly. “Lots of things.”

“Good! Give us directions, and we’ll follow them to the letter,” said Nancy gayly.

“We’ll try to, you mean,” amended Martha. “Remember; we’re amateurs.”

“What are we going to have?” inquired Nancy.

“The menu is on top of that cabinet,” said Miss Ashton.

“Fruit cup,” read Nancy. “Um! I love it. Cream of pea soup, with croutons; celery, radishes and olives; breaded veal cutlet, with scalloped potatoes, and asparagus; tomato and lettuce salad with cheese wafers; vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce; cakes, and coffee. How lovely!”

“Oh, it makes me hungry just to listen to it,” cried Martha.

“Mart! And you’ve just finished your breakfast,” laughed Jeanette.

“And not a _petit déjeuner_ either,” said Nancy.

“I didn’t eat any more than you did,” retorted Martha. “You had three muffins, an egg, and a heap of bacon, besides peaches and cream.”

“Don’t let’s stop to quarrel over what we ate,” said Jeanette. “We must get right to work. You allot our tasks, Miss Ashton, and we’ll do our best to perform them.”

It was two o’clock before everything that could be prepared ahead of time was finished.

“What are you going to wear this afternoon?” asked Martha, as they left the kitchenette.

“My flowered chiffon, I think,” replied Nancy; “and I’m going to keep it on for the evening, too. In fact, it is the only thing I have that is at all suitable.”

“What about you, Janie?”

“Would the powder blue georgette be too dressy, do you think?”

“Not a bit, and you look so lovely in it,” replied Nancy. “And why don’t you wear your green and white figured georgette, Mart?”

“I guess I will.”

All three girls had white coats and white felt hats, and Miss Ashton thought they looked very nice as they sat waiting for the taxi.

“This is called the Longfellow bridge,” said Miss Ashton, as they were crossing that lengthy span over the Charles River into Cambridge.

“Oh, is this where he was when he wrote—‘I stood on the bridge at midnight’?” cried Martha.

“This is the bridge he was referring to when he wrote that line,” laughed Miss Ashton. “He was inspired to write it, while standing on this bridge.”

“Yes, Mart,” said the irrepressible Nancy, who was overflowing with fun to-day, “but he probably waited until he got home to write the poem. There wouldn’t be much light here on the bridge at midnight, you know; especially in Longfellow’s time.”

Martha refused to say another word until they were going up the brick walk toward an old colonial house set well back on a shrub-dotted lawn, with several great elm trees spreading protecting branches over all.

“Some house,” she whispered, inelegantly, to Jeanette.

There was no chance to reply; for Jim stood at the top of the steps ready to welcome them. In the doorway was a beautiful white-haired woman, and in the dimness of the hall, just back of her, hovered a big, genial-looking man.

“Come right in here,” said their hostess, after introductions were over, and Jim had taken their coats; and she led them into the library on the left of the long hall, which ran through the center of the house.

“It’s really not cool enough for a hearth fire to-day,” she went on; “but I think it looks so cozy that I just couldn’t resist the temptation to have one started.”

As they chatted of various matters, Mrs. Jackson’s keen, though kindly, eyes were taking careful stock of these new friends of her son.

Mr. Pierce soon arrived, and shortly afterwards Griff burst in. Then all attempts at serious conversation ceased for a time. At five o’clock a maid brought in the tea service, and they all gathered about the table which Mrs. Jackson had placed near the hearth.

Mr. Jackson, who had that fondness for young girls, which one so often finds in a man who has no daughters, busied himself waiting on the girls, and trying to make them comfortable.

“Mother, Miss Scott’s cup is empty,” he would say, taking it away from Martha and carrying it to the tea table where his wife sat.

“Do have a sandwich, Miss Pembroke! They are so small it takes a dozen to make one.”

“Now you must see our garden,” said Mrs. Jackson, rising, when they had finished tea. “It is not very large, but we are quite proud, and very fond, of it.”

While they strolled about among the flower beds and borders, and went on behind a tall hedge which separated the vegetable garden from the rest of the grounds, Mrs. Jackson managed to have a word or two alone with Nancy.

“I do not find a vegetable garden and orchard so very interesting,” she said, taking the young girl by the arm. “Do you? Shall we sit down here beside the pool and watch the goldfish until the others came back?”

“I should be glad to,” replied Nancy shyly.

Jim turned around to see what had become of them; but at a look from his mother, he followed the others.

“I want to say, dear, while I have a chance, that Jim has told me all about you; and I can quite understand why he has so completely lost his head, as well as his heart.”

“You are very kind,” murmured Nancy.

“I also want to commend you, my dear, on your very excellent sense. Now! That sounds funny, doesn’t it? As if I meant in choosing my Jim. But really, I mean your decision to wait a year to see how your sudden friendship wears.”

“It was the only sensible thing to do, I thought,” said Nancy.

“And you were quite right. You and Jim need to get better acquainted before choosing a life together. Naturally too, his father and I want to know you real well, if you will let us.”

“I’ll be glad to.”

“Then too, your parents will want to get acquainted with my boy. It is a pity we live so far apart; but there are ways of surmounting that difficulty, I think. We must do some planning together. You and Jim will have two or three short vacations during the college year, and we must make the most of them.”

“It is good of you,” said Nancy impulsively, “to be so interested in me, when a month ago you had never heard of me; and to be so willing for Jim to be friends with me.”

“I judged a great deal by what Jim told me about you yesterday, and I have added to my information by the impressions gained this afternoon,” replied Mrs. Jackson, smiling. “I always expected that sometime my boy would find the girl he wanted to marry; but I confess I was surprised that he found her so soon. I do not realize—mothers never do—that he is grown up. As you have doubtless discovered, Jim is quite diffident, and though he has gone about with the girls considerably, it was mostly in crowds, or with first one and then another. He has never gone with any one steadily; and that, coupled with the fact that he had no sisters, makes him in many ways quite unused to the ways of girls in particular.”

The others came back to them at that moment, and all opportunity for further personal conversation was over.

They all walked back to the house again. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson and Miss Ashton sat down before the fireplace; for the air was growing chilly, and they had spent some time in the garden. The young people went into the living room on the opposite side of the hall, and turned on the radio. The band music which immediately filled the room was an excellent cover for private conversation.

Mr. Pierce and Martha drifted to a big davenport in an alcove formed by four small windows built out at one side of the room. Griff persuaded Jeanette to occupy the radio bench with him; for he loved to operate it, and could talk nonsense just as well while his fingers were busy with the dial. Jim coaxed Nancy into the sun parlor, which opened from the end of the room.

“Well, Nan?” he asked, smiling at her as they sat down in big willow chairs facing the garden.

“Oh Jim, your mother and father are lovely. I’m going to like them a lot, I know. Your mother and I had such a nice talk, and she was very, very nice to me.”

Jim looked pleased.

“I’m glad,” he said simply. “They like you too. I could tell by the way they acted. But who could help it?” he added.

“I hope they will,” replied Nancy seriously, ignoring his last remark. “I certainly want them to like me.”

“And you have a lovely home, Jim,” she added after a few minutes’ silence.

“I like the old place, and I hope you will like it too. Dad said right away, when I told them about you, that this house was plenty big enough to add one small girl to it.”

“That was nice of him——”

“But?”

Nancy only laughed, a bit embarrassed.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I feel the same way—that we’d be better off by ourselves, even if we had only a very small establishment to start with.”

“I’m glad that you feel that way too. But, how funny we are?” and Nancy stopped to laugh.

“Why?”

“We decided yesterday to be only friends, until June.”

“Well, we’re just thinking what we’ll do when we’re more than friends.”

“When?” repeated Nancy. “If, you mean.”

“_When_, I said,” replied Jim decidedly.

“Mother will want you to come here and make us a visit sometime before summer,” he continued.

“Yes; she hinted at that, and spoke of our having several short vacations before that time.”

“I hate to think of your going home to-morrow,” he said regretfully.

“Yes, I’m sorry too; but Miss Ashton goes on a case this week, and poor Madelon won’t be able to get back for a while. Besides, my mother and Janie’s mother are anxious for us to get back. They have had no real chance to visit with us this summer; for Emma was there the first part of the vacation, and then we spent all our time getting ready for this trip. It won’t be long now, before college opens; and we really feel that we should give our people some attention.”

Jim had been considering asking his mother to keep the girls a few days longer; but Nancy’s words made him reluctantly put aside the idea. After all, it would be better for her to come alone, say during the Easter vacation. Or perhaps at Christmas time. _That_ would be sooner.

Miss Ashton appeared in the doorway.

“I think we had better go now, young folks,” she said.

They followed her out to put on their wraps, but they moved reluctantly.

“I tried to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Jackson to join us to-night,” said Miss Ashton, as they stood for a moment in the hall before the final good-bys.

“It is very nice of you,” replied their hostess; “but unfortunately we have made other plans for this evening. I shall hope to see you all again, though, before too long a time has passed.”

After various expressions of pleasure over the afternoon’s visit, they all walked slowly down the steps and along the brick path to the street where Mr. Jackson had his car ready to take them home.

“Good-by, my dear,” said Mrs. Jackson, kissing Nancy, who was the last one, except Jim, to get into the machine. “I hope you will be able to come again, and very soon.”

“I’m not going to say good-by,” said Mr. Jackson, when they got out of the car at Miss Ashton’s apartment. “I hate the word, anyway; so I’ll just say ‘good night and see you in the morning.’”

“What did he mean?” asked Nancy, as she and Jim walked up the steps together.

“I don’t know exactly,” replied Jim. “Dad is a bit soft-hearted, though you’d never guess it to judge by his size and appearance; and, as he said, he never likes to bid people good-by.”

“Soft-hearted,” thought Nancy. “Like father, like son. That is where Jim gets his big heart from. His mother is charming, but much more practical. I like both of them, but I fancy his father and I will be more especially chummy.”

The supper party was a hilarious affair. Everybody felt very gay, and Griff quite outdid even himself. He insisted upon setting the table, but Jeanette had to follow him around, correcting his errors of omission and commission. The table had built-in benches on either side of it, instead of chairs, and the space between was very narrow. On one of his trips around the table, he slipped and fell, scattering a handful of silver in all directions. He could not, or pretended he could not, extricate himself; and the other two boys had to go to his rescue. With much laughter and difficulty they succeeded in getting him out, and gathering up the silverware.

“Now,” said Martha firmly, taking him by the arm and leading him to a chair in the living room, “just come right in here and sit down. And don’t you _dare_ stir until you are called.”

She left him sobbing noisily, his face buried in his handkerchief.

When the other two boys had finished setting the table, and supper was ready to serve, they went to call Griff; and they found him, spread out in the big chair, sound asleep.

“Let’s leave him there,” suggested the hard-hearted Martha.

“His fall must have tired him out,” remarked John Pierce, grinning.

“Come on, Griff,” called Jim. “Eats!”

“Where?” he cried, jumping up. “Oh, I remember.” He sighed deeply, sinking back and covering his face with his hands.

“Oh, cut the comedy, and come on!” directed John Pierce, dragging him to his feet.

Throughout the meal, he assumed the most exaggerated shyness, speaking only in a whisper, and hardly raising his eyes from his plate. No amount of razzing on the part of the others could make him change his manner; and it was only when they began to clear up and wash the dishes, that his real self reappeared.

“Which is worse than the other,” declared Martha.

The girls had managed to get their kodak pictures finished, and the rest of the evening was spent in going over them, and recalling amusing bits of their Nova Scotia tour.

“Like Dad,” said Jim, when the boys prepared to leave, “we won’t say good-by; for I’m sure some of us, I won’t say for sure how many, will be at the station in the morning. What time did you say your train goes?”

“Nine something, I think. What is the exact time, Janie?” asked Nancy.

“Nine fifty,” prompted Jeanette.

“Then we’ll say, au revoir,” said Mr. Pierce.

“Say au revoir, but not good-by,” caroled Griff in a lyric tenor.

“Be quiet! Other folks in this house are probably asleep,” ordered Jim; and he and John Pierce pushed Griff rapidly along the hall in the direction of the elevator.

“It was a lovely, party,” sighed Nancy, as they prepared the rooms for the night; “and it was most awfully nice of you, Miss Ashton, to have it.”

“I was indeed glad to be able to,” replied their hostess; “and I think I enjoyed it almost, if not quite, as well as you young folks.”

*CHAPTER XVI*

*A STRANGE ENCOUNTER*

The next morning was a confusion of breakfast, packing, and hurrying off to the station.

“I can never tell you, Miss Ashton,” said Nancy before they left the apartment, “how very much I have enjoyed the trip, and how much I appreciate all you have done to make things pleasant for us.”

“And how glad we are that you asked us to go in the first place,” added Jeanette. “I too certainly had a wonderful time.”

“I never had so much fun in my life,” said Martha. “You have all got me spoiled by this trip, for a summer at home or for an excursion with anyone else. I’m wedded to you for life, vacationally speaking.”

“It is a real pleasure to take you girls anywhere,” said Miss Ashton, in reply; “not only because you so thoroughly appreciate what one does, and enjoy it, but because you are good company. It is not often that a chaperon can boast of a wholly congenial party of girls who keep sweet-tempered, pleased with what they see, and who have such consideration for her. I hope we shall be able to go somewhere again, sometime.”

“And so do we,” was the echo.

“And the lovely picture that you girls gave me will serve to remind me constantly of the land of Evangeline, and our good times there.”

The big South Station was filled with hurrying people when they entered, but Jim and the other two boys who had been watching for them were at their side almost at once.

“The train is made up here,” said Jim, giving Nancy’s bags to a redcap; “so you can get on immediately.”

It was a very long train; and they walked some distance along the platform before they reached their car. The boys settled the party in their chairs, and presented magazines, fruit, boxes of candy, and books; then sat down to visit until it was time to get off.

“My goodness,” cried Martha, looking at the offerings, “you boys must have thought we were going to be a week on the train.”

“Oh, no,” replied Griff quickly. “We gave them so you wouldn’t be weak.”

“Terrible! Terrible!” groaned John Pierce. “Don’t give us any more like that.”

They remained on the train until the very last minute; so the final good-bys consisted of hasty handclasps and promises to write.

Their last glimpse of the Boston station from the car window showed the three boys and Miss Ashton waving to them as the train pulled out. The girls were very quiet for a long time.

“Well,” sighed Jeanette, after the train had passed Worchester, “it’s over.”

“The actual trip itself,” replied Martha; “but perhaps there might be a sequel to it. Who knows?”

“Was it all you expected, Jane?” asked Nancy, rousing from a reverie.

“Yes, it was; and more than I anticipated, in some respects. What about you, Nan?”

“Oh, I loved it! Yet how soon even such a pleasant trip falls into the background. Nova Scotia seems to be so very far away already.”

“It is,” said the materialistic Martha. “Miles and miles.”

“It always seems a pity,” said Jeanette, “that we can’t enjoy the present more while we still have it, on trips especially. We are always looking forward to getting to the next place, or doing the next thing, and so lose the full joy of what we are doing at the time. As our friend Horace says, ‘_Carpe diem._’”

“There was a lot of good sense in his poems, if he was a bit gloomy,” said Martha, as if she were announcing some hitherto unknown truth; and she wondered why the girls laughed.

“But it’s true, as you say, Janie,” said Nancy, “and then afterwards, when we think it over, we realize what we have missed, and wish we had enjoyed it more intensely while we had it.”

“Next time, I’m going to try to do that,” resolved Jeanette.

“This vacation was rather unreal, anyhow,” said Nancy, after another long silence.

“What do you mean?” inquired Martha.

“Didn’t Nova Scotia seem to you a kind of unreal, visionary country?”

“I think I see,” said Jeanette slowly. “It was a sort of phantom land.”

“Exactly.”

“You two are too poetical,” observed Martha. “It seemed real enough to me.”

“Martha,” said Nancy, upon their return from the dining car, after lunch, “can you keep a secret?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Because I want to tell you one.”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s—about Jim—and me——”

“Oh, that! I don’t need to be told about that. I don’t think _that_ was a secret to anyone.”

Nancy laughed, a bit embarrassed.

“I didn’t think you noticed.”

“Couldn’t help noticing something that even a blind man could see.”

“But nothing at all is to be settled until after Commencement, Mart; and besides our parents, Miss Ashton, and Janie and you, I don’t want anyone to know or even suspect.”

“Why, if I may ask?”

After Nancy finished her explanation, which she found it much harder to make to Martha than to Jeanette, Martha replied, “I see. I guess maybe you’re right. Anyway, of course you can count on me to keep it quiet.”

“Thanks a lot, Mart.”

The beautiful Berkshires had slipped away somewhere behind the train, and they were rapidly approaching Albany, when Martha said hesitatingly:

“Since confidences are in order, I suppose I should do my part.”

“Martha! What?” demanded Nancy, excitedly.

“Oh, don’t get your hopes up like that. My news is not nearly so interesting as yours. But you remember, you wondered in Yarmouth when I had bought my amethyst ring?”

“Yes,” said Nancy, “because I thought it odd that you had not mentioned it before.”

“I felt rather queer about it, to tell the truth. The day we sailed, Mr. Pierce and I were strolling about, window shopping, and I foolishly pointed out the ring and said how crazy I was over it. He immediately went into the shop and bought it for me. I absolutely refused to accept such a gift, for I knew that you and Jeanette disapprove of girls taking gifts of any value from men——”

“But Mart,” interrupted Nancy, “what have our opinions got to do with it?”

“Haven’t you been my mentors ever since we started out together in Eastport?” demanded Martha.

“Why, yes, I suppose so; but you certainly must have some ideas of your own on such subjects.”

“Well, I know most girls take anything a man gives them, and seem not to give it a thought.”

“I know they do; and they laugh at us for having what they call such old-fashioned notions; but I don’t care. In this, I think the custom of my mother’s day, of accepting only flowers, books, or something like that, is the nicer one; and therefore I adopted it for mine, and shall stick to it,” decreed Nancy decidedly.

“But what could I do?” wailed Martha, “when he just forced it upon me? He said it was just a little souvenir of the country; that he had been intending to get me something to take home, and it was better for the thing to be some article I liked a lot than just some trinket or other that he might pick out.”

“In such a case I really don’t know what you could have done, Mart,” said Jeanette, thoughtfully. “After all, those rings were not so awfully expensive. If he had taken you to the theater a couple of times in a city like New York, and to dinner afterwards, the expense would have been more than the cost of the ring.”

“Yes, that’s true,” agreed Nancy. “I think I just wouldn’t worry about it, Mart. You did your best; so wear the ring, and enjoy it, and forget about the rest of it.”

“Anything else you’d like to tell us?” suggested Nancy shyly, after a pause.

“Nothing much,” replied Martha. “He asked me if he might come to see me, if he could get away for a few days sometime, and I said he might.”

“At college?” asked Jeanette.

“I don’t know. There would be no objections. Would there?”

“None at all. Many of the Juniors and Seniors, you know, have visitors over the week-end, or go off to dances or house parties, though the girls of our own crowd have not done much in that line.”

“You like Mr. Pierce, don’t you, Mart?” asked Nancy.

“Yes, I do sometimes——”

“And other times?” prompted Jeanette.

“I don’t like him a bit! He’s awfully stern, and so dictatorial when he wants to be; and——”

“You’re not used to it,” concluded Nancy, laughing.

“No; and I’m not sure I could ever get used to it, either; or that I want to.”

“_Albany!_” called the porter. “Stop of forty minutes.”

“Let’s get off,” proposed Martha. “It will be a long wait on the train.”

“If we can keep Nan right between us all the time, I will,” said Jeanette; “but I refuse to let her out of my sight.”

“I want a soda,” decided Martha, as they strolled along the platform with the other passengers. “There’s plenty of time.”

So they hurried on through the crowd of trainmen, redcaps, travelers, dodged between baggage trucks, around piles of freight, and down the stairs to the station proper.

“We were lots farther out than I thought,” observed Jeanette, as they perched on stools before the soda fountain.

While they were waiting for their orders to be filled, Nancy’s eyes fell upon a man who was lounging on one of the near-by benches. His clothes had once been good, but were now very shabby, and he looked as if he might be slightly the worse for liquor.

“His face looks familiar,” she thought. “I wonder where I have seen him before.”

She puzzled over the likeness for a few minutes, and then gave it up. After all, there were so many similar types. One was always saying, “That person looks so much like so-and-so.”

While the girls were enjoying their sodas, the man, whose attention had been attracted to them when they first approached the counter, eyed them attentively. As they paid the check and turned away, he got up, and moving across the short space between them, stood directly in their way. They were about to walk around him, when he spoke.

“Say,” he demanded, in a low tone, “what did you do with my sister?”

“Your sister?” repeated Nancy, in astonishment.

“Come on! Don’t notice him,” whispered Jeanette, trying to urge them on their way.

“Now just you wait a minute,” he persisted. “Don’t try to get away from me. There’s something I want to find out and you’ve got to tell me.”

Jeanette looked wildly around to see if she could see a policeman, but there were none in sight.

“We know nothing about any of your affairs,” said Nancy firmly.

The man laughed unpleasantly.

“Maybe you don’t know me, but I know you; and your friends too. You’ve done me a couple of ill turns, and now to pay up a little you can tell me where Georgia is.”

Now Nancy knew where she had seen him before. The peculiar acting man in front of them in the theater that day so long ago; Georgia in tears in the lobby; the girls taking her to tea, and making up enough to send her home; the meeting with Georgia in the store at Christmas time; her months of boarding at Janie’s house. All this flashed through her mind, followed immediately by the picture of a man bending over her dresser one night at college; his capture by means of her flashlight; the room filled with girls; Tim’s entrance to take the man into custody.

“Georgia!” gasped Jeanette.

“Yes, Georgia,” repeated the man. “You tried to coax her away from me, by getting her to live at your house; but I fixed that! You didn’t want her any more after you found out about the brooch. Did you?”

The girls were so surprised and shocked by the man’s words that they were absolutely speechless.

“She came back with me for a while after that,” he continued, “and then gave me the slip again. Now what I want to know is, where is she? Where have you hidden her?”

“We know nothing at all about Georgia’s whereabouts,” said Nancy, finding her voice at last. “We only wish we did. We too have been looking for her for a long time.”

“Is that the truth?” demanded the man, looking sharply at her.

“It certainly is. Now let us pass at once.”

Seeing a policeman crossing the station, the man slunk off, and was soon lost in the crowd; and the girls hurried out, and up the stairs toward the train.

“My goodness!” panted Martha, as they almost ran along the platform. “I was scared.”

“I wasn’t scared; for there were too many people all around us; but I was almost stunned by the unexpectedness of the encounter,” said Nancy.

“Poor, poor Georgia,” commented Jeanette, “to have such a brother! What do you——”

“Our car!” cried Martha. “It’s gone.”

“It can’t be,” protested Nancy. “That is our engine.”

“Well, you can see for yourself that the car ‘Elaine’ isn’t anywhere around here,” persisted Martha, excitedly.

“They are switching,” said Jeanette, after a careful survey of the scene. “‘Elaine’ is probably farther out in the yards. We’ll walk on a ways.”

“She’s gone. She’s certainly gone,” repeated Martha, after they had proceeded for some distance, and still saw no signs of the runaway car.

“There it is!” cried Nancy, pointing across several tracks, where, far ahead, almost at the bridge over the Hudson River, stood “Elaine.”

“How in the name of fortune can we get to her?” demanded Martha.

“The answer to that,” said Jeanette, smiling, “is that you can’t, at present.”

“Unless you want to climb over those two trains,” added Nancy. “They’ll probably switch again, and bring her farther in.”

They stood watching, and Martha breathed more freely when an engine soon picked up the lost “Elaine” and brought her in near the platform where the girls were waiting. Soon they were able to get on board again.

“Now that the excitement is over,” said Nancy, as they settled down in their chairs for the rest of the trip, “let’s discuss our strange encounter. Mart did so much dancing around out on the platform that we had no chance to talk about it.”

“Well, I didn’t want to get left,” protested Martha.

“Of course we _did_,” laughed Nancy.

“Can you figure out the mystery at all. Nan?” asked Jeanette.

“No, Janie, I really can’t, that is in detail. We know now that this man whom we first saw that day in the theater is Georgia’s brother; and that he is a—a—” she hesitated, not liking to say the word.

“A thief!” prompted Martha, who had no such scruples. “And what did he mean by saying that you had done him a couple of ill turns?”

“First, in befriending Georgia, I suppose,” replied Nancy slowly, “since that took her away from him. And second, for turning him over to Tim that night at college——”

“Oh,” squealed Martha, “was _he_ the burglar that you captured with the flashlight?”

“Yes.”

“You realize, Nan, judging by what he just said, that he was responsible for the brooch being found in Georgia’s pocket?” asked Jeanette.

“Do you suppose he was lying? I don’t see how he could have worked it.”

“Nor I, but he doubtless has ways and means of which we know nothing; and I’m just as sure as sure—and always have been—that Georgia was not guilty.”

“So am I; and I wish more than ever, now, that we could find her,” replied Nancy.

“Perhaps if we advertised?” suggested Jeanette.

“You might. But don’t expect any results; for there are so many papers, and so many cities. She might not even be in this country now.”

“What about the brooch story!” asked Martha. “I never heard that!”

“No, we never told it, and never intended to; but since you have accidentally heard part of it, you may as well learn the rest,” replied Jeanette.

Jeanette went on to tell her briefly how, after Georgia had been living with them for some months, and had been left alone for the week-end, a valuable brooch of Mrs. Grant’s had been found in Georgia’s pocket under very puzzling circumstances, and that, immediately after, Georgia had mysteriously disappeared.

“How very uncomfortable for all of you,” was Martha’s comment, when Jeanette had finished her explanation. “Why don’t you tell everybody you know,” she proposed, after a moment’s thought, “that you want to find Georgia! Just give them a description of her, and tell them to be on the lookout for such a person. You needn’t tell them why you want her.”

The girls smiled skeptically over her suggestion.

“I’ll ask John—Mr. Pierce anyhow,” she persisted. “He meets such a lot of people.”

“First call for dinner. Dining car forward,” called a waiter, passing through the car.

“Let’s go in right away,” proposed Martha, rising promptly. “If we don’t, we’ll be standing in line later. We had a very light lunch, you know,” she added, as Jeanette smiled. “And I’ll have to be leaving you in about an hour.”

So they went in to the dining car, and lingered over their last meal together on the trip; talking over the happenings in detail, as perhaps only a trio of college girls can.

When Martha’s station was reached, they bade her good-by until the opening of college; and by that time they were so tired and sleepy, that they dozed until their own station was called.

“Just think,” observed Nancy, as they walked along the platform, “the next time we come here we’ll be starting out for our last year at Roxford. Our senior year, Janie. It doesn’t seem possible; does it?”

THE END