"Tomorrow, I hope. I want to fit Dodo up in some decent gowns before I take her to such a fine place as Osgood Hall."
"When do you leave, Mr. Ashby?" asked Dodo.
"I expect to take Ruth and my wife down to my cousin"s, at Brighton, this afternoon. Then I have to go to different towns, you know, to collect things for my customers in the States."
"And you, Polly?" Dodo turned to the girl she liked best of those she had met that summer.
"We are going to remain in London for a few days more, and see the Museums and galleries, then go on to Paris."
"I wish I was going with you," said Dodo. "Maybe we can meet in Paris, soon, and I can go on with you-all to learn more of antiques and decorating."
"That must be as your father and mother say, Dodo," Mr. Fabian now remarked.
"I always said Dodo could do as she liked," quickly said Mr. Alexander.
"But my daughter will be with me down at Osgood Hall, so you won"t be likely to cross each other"s path again, in Europe," declared Mrs.
Alexander, smilingly, although her tone expressed her determination.
The Ashbys left that afternoon, and Mrs. Alexander took Dodo shopping for more clothes. Then, in the morning, the car was brought to the hotel, and the girls went with Dodo to see her off.
"I sure feel as if I want to cry," whimpered Dodo, pretending to dab her eyes.
"We-all will miss you awfully, Dodo. You"re a good pal and we had _such_ good times with you!" sighed Polly.
"Let"s hope we _will_ meet soon, in spite of Ma"s sayin" our paths wouldn"t cross each other again," grinned Mr. Alexander.
"Ebeneezer, do get started, won"t you? Here we are sitting and holding up everyone else!" snapped Mrs. Alexander.
So the car drove off, with Dodo waving her hand as long as she could see her friends.
The Fabians and Polly and Eleanor visited the Victoria and Albert Museum that day, finding many wonderful pieces to admire. Among bronzes, ivories, tapestries and other art objects, Mr. Fabian pointed out various bits of costly and famous work.
There was a reading-desk of the 15th century; several Florentine coffers with fine carved panels; a beautiful cabinet decorated with Marquetry of the South German type, that hailed back to the 16th century. And in the Pavilion, Polly found a lovely dressing-table of satin-wood from the 18th century that reminded her of the piece she had bought down in Suss.e.x.
The second day at the Museum-for it took several days to do it thoroughly-they visited the rooms where all kinds of furniture are exhibited, from stately William and Mary chairs down to the tiniest of foot-stools and ottomans.
They were pa.s.sing an odd group of chairs when Eleanor laughingly drew their attention to two. "Just look at that fat old roistering chair conversing with the thin straight-laced prig of a side-chair, next to him."
Her description was so true of the two chairs, that her companions laughed.
"Yes," said Mr. Fabian, "the stiff-backed puritanical chair is telling the fat old rascal what a coa.r.s.e bourgeois manner he shows in such good company."
"Daddy, how could such a clumsy chair ever get into this famous museum?"
asked Nancy.
"Because it can claim antiquity," replied her father. "In early English times, when Squires and over-lords ruled the land, they spent most of their time in drinking and gambling. This chair is a type of them, is it not?"
"It certainly is," agreed the girls.
"So you will find almost every period of furniture. They tell, truer than one thinks at the time, of the type of people that makes and uses them. You will find effeminate pieces in the reign of the Louis", and hard-looking furniture in German history. Our own American furniture tells, better than all else, of the mixing of nations in the "melting-pot." Our furniture has no type, or style, individually its own.
"The so-called sales advertised in department stores are symbolic of what Americans are satisfied with: hodge-podge ready-made factory pieces, quickly glued together, and badly finished. As long as it is showy, and can demand a high price, the average American is satisfied.
And that is the great error we interior decorators have to correct-we have to educate the people away from confusion and into art and beauty."
Having seen the best examples of old furniture on exhibition in the Museum, Mr. Fabian prepared to go. As they walked quietly through the corridor to the main entrance, he said impressively: "I consider you girls have seen some of the best products to be found in the world today. The results of many ideals and hard work.
"You must know, that a good ideal thought plans a perfect chair or table; and that thought eventually expresses itself in the object it sees in mind. If the object is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, it elevates the whole world just that much. If it falls short of the artist"s ideals and hopes, he must do it over again, sooner or later, to reach the perfect model in mind. Thus he expresses G.o.d (good) in his ideals. If he refuses to try again to perfect his work, he knows he has failed utterly and he has nothing but the result of lowering his ideal-failure and deformity."
As he ceased speaking, Mr. Fabian found the girls were intensely interested in his little lecture, and he smiled as Polly cried: "Oh, tell us some more along that line, please!"
"Well, I wish to impress upon you that in your work you _must_ express the highest ideal or be a failure. Now G.o.d, Good, is Mind, and this Mind must be expressed in countless manifestations to be seen by us.
_Unexpressed_ it is a non-ent.i.ty, and does not exist. Art and beauty are forms of ideal manifestation, and this manifestation objectifies itself in divan, lamp, rug or ornament, for you.
"To be a perfect thing, it must have G.o.d, or Mind, as its Creator, but this G.o.d uses you, His child, as the channel through which He works. If you obey that idealistic desire and work the best you know how, G.o.d sends added understanding and a.s.sistance to help you perfect the object, thus it becomes good and true. Now evil works, too, but just in the opposite directions; hence, if you give in to greed, avarice, dishonesty, envy, or the mult.i.tude of weapons evil always has on hand to tempt you with, you inevitably must produce an inharmonious result, and the repelling effects that go to cause criticism and dissatisfaction with all who thereafter look at the object.
"That is why that roistering armchair displeases a true and idealistic artist. It was not produced by a true and high-minded individual who hoped to bring forth a model of line and color, but who had only in mind, at the time, the production of a stout piece of furniture that would withstand the tests and offer a seat to the drunkards of that time; and would also resist the fierce quarrels and fights so common between gamblers who frequented the taverns of that day."
"I wish to goodness I knew as much as you do about all these interesting things, Mr. Fabian!" declared Polly, yearningly.
"That is the sweetest praise a man can have, Polly dear; to wish to stand in my shoes in experience," smiled Mr. Fabian. "But the very desire when truly entertained, will bring about the thing you so earnestly desire. For you know, "Desire is prayer.""
Mrs. Fabian smiling at her husband, now said, "Why not add a benediction to this little sermonette, dear?" Then turning to the girls, she quoted: ""Give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one G.o.d (Good), One Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.""
That evening, the clerk at the hotel office handed Mr. Fabian a card.
"Why, how strange!" remarked he, glancing again, at the pasteboard in his hand.
"What is it?" asked Nancy, trying to look over his shoulder.
"The Alexanders were here. As we were out they left a card saying that they were going on to Paris, at once, and would see us at the hotel where we said we would stop."
"How very strange!" exclaimed Mrs. Fabian, while the girls wondered what had happened to so suddenly change the minds of their friends.
"I never heard of anything like that. One day Mrs. Alexander was crazy to visit the Osgoods, and now they run away and are as crazy to reach Paris," said Eleanor.
"I"m glad for Dodo"s sake. The poor girl didn"t want to go to Osgood Hall, at all, and I know how she felt about Jimmy," said Polly.
"Maybe that"s what caused all the fuss. Dodo put down her foot and refused him outright, and that made his folks too angry to forgive her,"
said Eleanor, romancing.
"Well, now she can go along with us, can"t she Daddy, and get all the information she wants, from visiting the places we go to."
"With her parents" consent, I should like to help Dodo to a higher plane for herself," returned Mr. Fabian.
As they started again for their rooms, Polly laughed at a sudden memory.
"Oh, maybe Ebeneezer"s poisonous black pipe played such havoc at the first dinner at Osgood Hall, that the guests couldn"t stand it, and he was sent away with his friend."
Everyone laughed merrily at Polly"s picture of Mr. Alexander and his old friend pipe.