Part 2 (1/2)
Ruth was in a brown study. She was very tired. It was no joke playing chauffeur for more than a hundred miles in one day.
”Bab,” whispered Mollie, awed by the lovely vistas of river and valley, ”do you think the Vale of Cashmere could be more exquisite than this? Or the Rhine, or Lake Como, or any other wonderful place we have never seen?”
”Isn't it marvelous, little sister? It's like an enchanted country, and it is full of legends and history, too. During the Revolution the two armies were encamped all through here.”
”Oh, yes,” interrupted Ruth. ”If I were not too tired, I might tell you a lot of things about this historical spot, but we must take another spin down here later and see it all again. This village we are now entering is Irvington, the home of Was.h.i.+ngton Irving. His house is no longer open to the public, however. Tarrytown is only a little distance down the river. We shall soon be there.”
It was not long before a tired, sleepy party of automobilists drew up in front of an old hotel shaded with immense elms.
”Wake up, Aunt Sallie, dear,” cried Ruth, giving her sleeping relative a gentle shake. ”Bestir yourselves, sweet ladies, for food and rest are at hand and the hostelry is open to us.”
Supper was, indeed, ready, and rooms, too. For Mr. Stuart had notified the hotel proprietor to expect an automobile containing five women to descend upon him about sundown.
The five travelers mounted the steps to the supper room, and refreshed themselves with beefsteak and hot biscuits; then mounted more steps to their bedrooms, where they soon fell into five untroubled slumbers.
CHAPTER III-ROCKING CHAIR ADVENTURES
”Well, girls,” exclaimed Ruth, next morning at the breakfast table, ”here we are ready for adventures. But they will have to be early morning or late evening ones. It's already too hot to breathe.”
”For my part,” observed Miss Sallie, ”the only adventure I am seeking is to sit on the shady side of the piazza, in a wicker chair, and read the morning paper.”
”But, Miss Sallie, even that might turn into something,” said romantic Mollie.
”Yes, indeed,” pursued Ruth, ”you know the way mamma met papa was by staying at home instead of going to a ball.”
”Why, Ruth!” cried Miss Sallie.
”But it's quite true, dear Aunt Sallie. Mamma was visiting at a house party in the South, somewhere, and she had a headache and stayed home from a ball, and was sitting in the library. Papa came a-calling on one of the others, and was ushered into the library, by mistake, and introduced himself to mamma-and she forgot her headache and he forgot he was due to catch a train to New York at nine o'clock. It was simply a case of love at first sight.”
”My dear, I am not looking for any such romantic adventures,” said Miss Sallie, bridling. ”Your father was an intimate friend of the family at whose house your mother was stopping. It was perfectly natural they should have met, if not that evening, at least another one. I always said your mother showed extreme good sense in staying away from a party and nursing her headache. Not many others would have done the same.”
Miss Stuart gave her niece a meaning look, while the four girls suppressed their smiles and exchanged telegraphic glances of amus.e.m.e.nt.
Not long before Ruth had ”doctored” herself up with headache medicine, and had gone to a dance against her aunt's advice. As a result she had been obliged to leave before the evening was over, more on account of the medicine than the headache, Miss Sallie had believed.
”Dearest little auntie, you have a touch of sun this morning, haven't you?” asked Ruth, leaning over and patting her aunt's soft cheek; while Miss Stuart, who was indeed feeling the general oppressiveness of the weather, melted at once into a good humor and smiled at her niece tenderly.
Two persons were rather curiously watching this little scene from behind the shelter of the morning papers. One of them, a very handsome elderly man, seated at a table by the window, had started perceptibly when the party entered the room; and from that moment, he had hardly eaten a bite of breakfast. He was occupied in examining not the fair young girls but Miss Sallie herself, who was entirely unconscious of being the object of such scouting.
The other individual was quite different in appearance. He was dressed in black leather from head to foot, and a motor cap and gla.s.ses lay beside him on the table. His evident interest in the conversation of the girls was impersonal, perhaps the curiosity of a foreigner in a strange country. There was some admiration in his eyes as they rested on pretty Mollie's golden curls and fresh smiling face; but his manner was perfectly respectful and he was careful to conceal his glances by the newspaper.
”That man is rather good-looking in a foreign sort of way,” whispered Mollie.
”Too much blacky face and s.h.i.+ny eye, to suit my taste,” replied Bab. ”He looks like a pirate, or a smuggler, in that black leather suit.”
”Dear me, you are severe, Bab,” observed Ruth. ”If he were not so young, I should take him for an opera singer on a vacation. He would do nicely dressed as a cavalier.”
”Be careful, my dears; you are talking much too loudly,” admonished Miss Sallie, for the young foreigner had evidently overheard the conversation, and had turned his face away to conceal an expression of amus.e.m.e.nt.