"Yes?" called two voices at once and two girls turned and faced each other.
"I beg your pardon," they both began at the same moment and paused laughing.
"My name is Elinor," began one.
"So is mine," finished the other.
Then they laughed again, politely and pleasantly.
"Do you know. I think we look very much alike," began the strange girl.
Her voice was English. "I am older than you, many years, I should imagine, but still we have the same profile."
The two girls sat down on the window sill and began to talk.
"Are you visiting in San Francisco?" began Elinor Butler.
"No, not visiting, only-well, we have been traveling-we have been to a great many ranches through the West--"
Our Elinor gave the new Elinor a long, careful scrutiny.
"Her name is Elinor. She looks like you--" a voice said in her mind.
"Are you not looking for a friend?" she asked presently.
"But, how did you guess?" exclaimed the other girl, clasping her hands with great agitation.
"And his name is Algernon de Willoughby Blackstone Winston?"
"Yes, yes," cried the English Elinor. "How did you know?"
"I know because I reminded him of you," answered Elinor Butler, "and because my name is Elinor."
Then she gave the English girl the address of Steptoe Lodge.
"It is in answer to my prayers-my meeting you," cried the older girl.
"Only it has taken such a long time. If only one has the patience to wait; but it has been very hard. Once we heard of his being in Canada, but when we went to fetch him, his father and I, he had gone and left no trace whatever. We were told that there are a great many young Englishmen on ranches in the Western States and we have been to-Oh, hundreds of places. Lord Blackstone has had detectives looking for him.
But you see he changed his name and we have had no success."
"You will be certain to find him this time," said Elinor, "only when you go to fetch him, don"t tell him beforehand. Take him by surprise."
The two girls looked into each other"s eyes, and smiled and pressed hands and-kissed.
"With all my heart I thank you a thousand times," said the English Elinor.
"I hope you will be very, very happy," said the American Elinor.
Once more they kissed, as dear friends about to be separated for a long time, and Elinor Butler hurried to join her friends at the elevator. On the way, she caught a glimpse through an open door of a splendid looking old man leaning on a cane. He was very tall with the slight stoop of an old soldier, and as he glanced in her face, she saw that his eyes were the same as those of the cowboy"s who had sat out a dance with her one night in the courtyard of Steptoe Lodge.
At last the story is done. The journey across the continent has not been an unprofitable one. Through the kindly efforts of Miss Helen Campbell and the Motor Maids, lovers long separated have been reunited; hearts of stone melted into flesh and blood, and bad men transformed into good.
Before they left San Francisco, our young girls on a lark one day consulted a crystal gazer. She was only a common fortune teller but sometimes these wandering Gipsy souls make correct guesses.
"In the crystal," she said, "I see a great stretch of water. There is a ship on it. The waves are rough. I see foreign countries. You will take a long journey across the ocean. I see a flash of red like a shooting star--"
"The Comet," laughed Billie.
Perhaps, like the Motor Maids, you will be skeptical of the crystal gazer"s predictions concerning their future. But she spoke the truth as you will find for yourself if you read the next volume of this series.
In the new book the Motor Maids will wander in their Comet through the British Isles and there many interesting and delightful adventures await them.
As the story ends, we find them gathered together in Miss Campbell"s sitting room at the Hotel St. Francis. On the next day they are to take the train for home. Mr. Stone is with them, and they are listening silently to a song Elinor is singing at the piano. It is a Gipsy song, and very appropriate. Our four girls after their summer wanderings have turned into Gipsy la.s.ses, brown skinned clear-eyed daughters of the Zingari.
As they listen to the thrum of the accompaniment, the walls of the little parlor fade away and once more they find themselves around the camp fire under the stars on the plains.
Here is the song Elinor sang to her friends.
""The white moth to the closing vine, The bee to the open clover, And the Gipsy blood to the Gipsy blood Ever the wide world over.
""Ever the wide world over, la.s.s, Ever the trail held true, Over the world and under the world And back at the last to you.
""Out of the dark of the gorgio camp, Out of the grime and the gray, (Morning waits at the end of the world), Gipsy, come away.
""The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky, The deer to the wholesome wold, And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old.
""The heart of a man to the heart of a maid-Light of my tents, be fleet!
Morning waits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet!""
THE END