"Not--not exactly. But it would be almost sure to be one of them."
Ted shouted. But there was nothing funny in what I said. Boys are so silly.
"Anyway, I am sorry you didn"t tell him," I said.
"Well, I"m not," declared papa.
The rest of the day fairly flew. The last night came, and the baby was put to bed. I undressed him, which he regarded as such a joke that he worked himself into a fever of excitement. He loves to scrub like Josie, the cook. I had bought him a little red pail, and I gave it to him that night when he was partly undressed, and he was so enchanted with it that he scampered around hugging it, and saying, "Pile!
pile!" like a little c.o.c.kney. He gave such squeals of ecstasy that everybody came into the nursery to find him scrubbing his crib with a nail-brush and little red pail.
"Who gave you the pretty pail, Billy?" asked Aunt Lida, who was sitting by the crib.
"Tattah," said Billy, in a whisper. He always whispers my name.
"Then go and kiss dear auntie. She is going away on the big boat to stay such a long time."
Billy"s face sobered. Then he dropped his precious pail, and came and licked my face like a little dog, which is his way of kissing.
I squeezed him until he yelled.
"Don"t let him forget me," I wailed. "Talk to him about me every day.
And buy him a toy out of my money often, and tell him Tattah sent it to him. Oh, oh, he"ll be grown up when I come home!"
"Don"t cry, dearie," said Aunt Lida, handing me her handkerchief.
"I"ll see that your grave is kept green."
My sister appeared at the door. She was all ready to start. She even had her veil on.
"What do you mean by exciting Billy so at this time of night?" she said. "Go out, all of you. We"ll lose the train. Hush, somebody"s at the telephone. Papa"s talking to that same man again." I jumped up and ran out.
"Let me answer it, papa dear! Yes, yes, yes, certainly. To-night on the Pennsylvania. You"re quite welcome. Not at all." I hung up the telephone.
I could hear papa in the nursery:
"She actually told him--after all I said this morning! I never heard of anything like it."
Two or three voices were raised in my defence. Ted slipped out into the hall.
"Bully for you," he whispered. "You"ll get the flowers all right at the train. Who do you s"pose they"re from? Another box just came for you. Say, couldn"t you leave that smallest box of violets in the silver box? I want to give them to a girl, and you"ve got such loads of others."
"Don"t ask her for those," answered my dear sister, "they are the most precious of all!"
"I can"t give you any of mine," I said, "but I"ll buy you a box for her--a small box," I added hastily.
"The carriages have come, dears," quavered grandmamma, coming out of the nursery, followed by the family, one after the other.
"Get her satchels, Teddy. Her hat is upstairs. Her flowers are in the hall. She left her ulster on my bed, and her books are on the window-sill," said mamma. She wouldn"t look at me. "Remember, dearie, your medicines are all labelled, and I put needles in your work-box all threaded. Don"t sit in draughts and don"t read in a dim light.
Have a good time and study hard and come back soon. Good--bye, my girlie. G.o.d bless you!"
By this time no handkerchief would have sufficed for my tears. I reached out blindly, and Ted handed me a towel.
"I"ve got a sheet when you"ve sopped that," he said. Boys are such brutes.
Aunt Lida said, "Good-bye, my dearest. You are my favorite niece. You know I love you the best."
I giggled, for she tells my sister the same thing always.
"n.o.body seems to care much that I am going," said Bee, mournfully.
"But you are coming back so soon, and she is going to stay so long,"
exclaimed grandmamma, patting Bee.
"I"ll bet she doesn"t stay a year," cried Ted.
"I"ll expect her home by Christmas," said papa.
"I"ll bet she is here to eat Thanksgiving dinner," cried my brother-in-law.
"No, she is sure to stay as long as she has said she would," said mamma.
Mothers are the brace of the universe. The family trailed down to the front door. Everybody was carrying something. There were two carriages, for they were all going to the station with us.
"For all the world like a funeral, with loads of flowers and everybody crying," said my brother, cheerfully.
I never shall forget that drive to the station; nor the last few moments, when Bee and I stood on the car-steps and talked to those who were on the platform of the station. Can anybody else remember how she felt at going to Europe for the first time and leaving everybody she loved at home? Bee grieved because there were no flowers at the train after all. But the next morning they appeared, a tremendous box, arranged as a surprise.
Telegrams came popping in at all the big stations along the way, enlivening our gloom, and at the steamer there were such loads of things that we might almost have set up as a florist, or fruiterer, or bookseller. Such a lapful of steamer letters and telegrams! I read a few each morning, and some of them I read every morning!
I don"t like ocean travel. They sent grapefruit and confections to my state-room, which I tossed out of the port-hole. You know there are some people who think you don"t know what you want. I travelled horizontally most of the way, and now people roar when I say I wasn"t ill. Well, I wasn"t, you know. We--well, Teddy would not like me to be more explicit. I own to a horrible headache which never left me. I deny everything else. Let them laugh. I was there, and I know.
The steamer I went on allows men to smoke on all the decks, and they all smoked in my face. It did not help me. I must say that I was unspeakably thankful to get my foot on dry ground once more. When we got to the dock a special train of toy cars took us through the greenest of green landscapes, and suddenly, almost before we knew it, we were at Waterloo Station, and knew that London was at our door.
II
LONDON
People said to me, "What are you going to London for?" I said, "To get an English point of view." "Very well," said one of the knowing ones, who has lived abroad the larger part of his life, "then you must go to "The Insular," in Piccadilly. That is not only the smartest hotel in London, but it is the most typically British. The rooms are let from season to season to the best country families. There you will find yourself plunged headlong into English life with not an American environment to bless yourself with, and you will soon get your English point of view."
"Ah-h," responded the simpleton who goes by my name, "that is what we want. We will go to "The Insular.""
We wrote at once for rooms, and then telegraphed for them from Southampton.
The steamer did not land her pa.s.sengers until the morning of the ninth day, which shows the vast superiority of going on a fast boat, which gets you in fully as much as fifteen or twenty minutes ahead of the slow ones.
Our luggage would not go on even a four-wheeler, so we took a dear little private bus and proceeded to put our mountainous American trunks on it. We filled the top of this bus as full as it would hold, and put everything else inside. After stowing ourselves in there would not have been room even for another umbrella.