Kitabı oku: «Clever Betsy», sayfa 2

CHAPTER III
IRVING BRUCE

Mrs. Bruce had retired from her labors, but a vigorous cleansing process was still going on in the cottage, when a man’s footsteps again sounded on the garden-path. Some one set a suit-case down on the porch, and then appeared in the doorway for a moment of inspection.

Betsy started at sight of the tall, gray-clad apparition.

“Mr. Irving!” she ejaculated, and the transfiguring expression which crossed her face gave the key at once to her loyalty. “Go ’way from here, we ain’t a bit ready for you!” she said severely.

He strode forward and gently shook the speaker’s angular shoulders instead of her busy hands.

“Great that I could get here so soon,” he returned, continuing to rest his hands on her shoulders, while she looked up into the eyes set generously apart under level brows.

“He ain’t any job lot,” she thought for the hundredth time, “he’s a masterpiece.” But all the time she was trying to frown.

“We ain’t ready for you,” she repeated. “The cook hasn’t come.”

“Bully!” ejaculated the unwelcome one. “It’s the aim of my existence to catch you where there isn’t any cook. Are the mackerel running?”

“You’ll have to ask Cap’n Salter or some other lazy coot about that. Mackerel running! Humph! My own running has been all I could attend to the last two days. Mrs. Pogram’s supposed to look after the cottage – air it and so on; but she always was slower’n molasses and I s’pose she don’t get any younger nor spryer as the years go on. I’ve found mildew, yes, I have, mildew, in a number o’ places.”

The young man smiled, dropped his hands, and sauntered to a window overlooking the tumbling blue.

“She has what’s-her-name there, that girl she adopted,” he responded carelessly. “Why doesn’t she shift such duties upon her?”

“Oh, you remember Rosalie, do you?” asked Betsy dryly, as she resumed her work.

“To be sure. That was her name. Pretty name. Pretty girl. A real village beauty.”

“Yes,” said Betsy. “You very likely remember Mrs. Bruce took a lot of interest in her. Had her here to speak poetry one day.”

“Oh, I remember her very well,” returned the young man. “I don’t recall the poetry though. So that was her forte. Apt to interfere with opening up and airing out other people’s cottages, I suppose.”

“Yes, if it’s encouraged. Hers was encouraged.”

Betsy’s lips snapped together and her tone caused her companion to glance around at her over his shoulder.

“Mildew sort of got on your nerves, Betsy?” he asked, amused. “Don’t worry. There’s a free-for-all chemistry here that will fix it up in no time. Drop that duster and come and look at the ocean. It will steady you.”

“Steady me!” Betsy gave a derisive grunt. “Tell that to the marines. I’ve had experience of its steadiness the last month, haven’t I?”

Irving laughed at certain memories of his companion’s walnut profile, with lips pursed in the throes of endurance.

“You aren’t a star sailor, are you?” he returned.

“I learned the meanin’ o’ one phrase o’ Scripture; learned it for life. ‘Unstable as water.’ It fits some folks just splendid and you couldn’t say anything worse about ’em. My! will I ever forget tryin’ to wait on Mrs. Bruce and fix my hair in that stateroom! Never got my arms up that there didn’t come a lurch and knock my elbow against the woodwork fit to break the skin.”

“You ought to be better upholstered, Betsy,” said Irving.

“And varnish!” she continued, with reminiscent loathing. “Shall I ever be able to use varnish again!”

“Joy!” exclaimed Irving. “Then I’m not in any danger of being shellacked! I never felt certain in childhood’s happy hour that keeping me surgically clean would wholly satisfy you.”

“No, sir,” said Betsy warmly, “the ocean won’t get me to look at it this summer. All diamonds, and blue sparkles, and white feathers, just as if butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth; then when it gets you in its clutches, bangs you around from pillar to post and nearly blows the hair off your head. I know its tricks now. It’ll never deceive me again.”

Irving smiled out at the maligned billows. “Looks pretty good to me,” he returned. “Wonder what I shall do about a boat. Has Mrs. Bruce said any more about the Yellowstone?”

“Yes, spoke of it this mornin’ to Cap’n Salter.”

“Oh, has she been out with Hiram already?”

“No, he was lally-gaggin’ around here for a while.”

“How is old Hiram?” The question was affectionate.

Betsy pushed an upturned rug under a table-leg.

“Oh, about as usual, I guess. Gets more like himself every year, same as we all do.”

“Well, he couldn’t do better. He’s a good sort.” Irving smiled at some memory. “I must have made that man’s life a burden. What a lot of patience he had! But when the end was reached, I can feel that hand of his come down on me, big as a ham, and toss me away as if I’d been a cunner he was throwing back. Mrs. Salter, too. Talk about salt of the earth! I suppose that must have been a stock Fairport pun during her life. Many a time she begged me off. The gentle Annie! I should think so. Let’s see. How long has she been gone?”

“Five years.”

“And the captain has never taken notice since, has he?”

“Don’t ask me,” was the curt response; and a table was whisked completely around with a celerity which must have given it vertigo.

“Betsy! Betsy!” It was a cautious call which came quietly from the invisible.

Betsy straightened herself and moved toward it, and the silent moment was followed by the swift entrance of Mrs. Bruce.

“My dear boy!” she exclaimed, aggrieved. “I thought I heard a man’s voice. How long have you been here? Betsy, why didn’t you tell me!”

The young man’s eyes were kind as he turned and came to meet the speaker, and his manner seemed very quiet in contrast to her alert, fussy personality and the froufrou of her taffetas.

“Good-morning, Madama,” he said, returning her nervous embrace lightly. “I’ve asked Betsy so many questions since I broke in here, that she couldn’t in civility leave me.”

Betsy returned to her labors, deaf to her mistress’s remarks. She knew that Mrs. Bruce had a chronic objection to her having a tête-à-tête, however short, with Irving. It was as if the widow were jealous of the twelve years’ advantage which her maid had over her; and notwithstanding Betsy’s humble position, her mistress constantly imagined that they referred, when together, to events which she had not shared, and spoke on subjects which would be dropped upon her appearance.

The newcomer slipped her hand through the young man’s arm, and moved with him as he returned to the window.

“Why didn’t you telegraph? How did you happen to come so soon?”

“Oh, I just saw that the bank was run by a lot of egoists who supposed that they could manage it without me, just as they have for thirty years, so I thought I would make the most of this last summer of their self-satisfaction, and take all that was coming to me, before I get into the harness.”

“Very wise; and I hope when you do get into harness you’ll never make such a slave of yourself as your dear father did.”

“You never can tell. I rather dread my own proclivities. If I should ever work as hard as I’ve played, the business world is going to be jarred when I leap into it.”

Mrs. Bruce hung fondly on his arm, rejoicing in the hard muscle she felt through his light sleeve.

“Well,” she said, “I’m glad you could come. There is such a wonderful feeling of freedom in this restful spot. Sometimes,” pensively, “I think the greatest blessing we have in life is personal freedom. I suffocate without it, and it is astonishing how difficult it is to get, in the ordinary affairs of life.” Then, with sudden attention, “What makes you wear that tie with that suit? I don’t like it at all, anyway. That isn’t one that I gave you.”

The young man’s hand mechanically sought his throat. “No, Madama,” he admitted, still looking absently from the window.

“I should think, Irving, as many neckties as I pick out for you, you might wear one of them when you’re going to be with me.”

“But I can’t bear to wear your neckties,” he returned gently, “they’re so decorative in my room. To tie them all up and bury them under a collar and vest would be a shame. I hang them on my tie-rack, where they can be admired morning, noon, and night. You know I keep trying to curb your extravagance in that line. You’ll impoverish yourself so that you can’t wear silk stockings if you go on like this. Every few days a new tie to go on the rack.”

“Nonsense,” returned Mrs. Bruce curtly. “If I didn’t have such good taste, of course I shouldn’t venture to buy ties for a man; but even as a girl I was considered to have the most perfect taste. I was famous for it, and I’m sure, Irving, I’ve tried to instill it into you.”

“You have, Madama,” he returned soothingly, “and I think I’m a credit to you. Now come, I’m prepared to maintain that I’ve caught the infection, and that my taste is perfect, too.” He stifled a yawn. “To prove it, I’ll throw down the bone of contention, collar and all, and get into a sweater. I’m going to hunt up Hiram before lunch and swap lies for a spell.”

So speaking the young man stepped out on the porch, picked up his suit-case, and walked through the spreading cottage until he came to his room, where Betsy was whisking things into readiness for his occupancy.

“There! Do you smell?” she asked, sniffing disapprovingly; “just like a cellar?”

“No,” he returned plaintively, “I don’t think I do.”

“I didn’t say do you; I say, don’t it,” snapped Betsy, in no mood for badinage. “If you hadn’t come so soon, I’d have had it aired out. I’d like to shake Mrs. Pogram till her teeth chatter.”

Irving set down his suit-case.

“As I remember, Mrs. Pogram’s teeth aren’t calculated to chatter. They don’t – what is the technical term now?”

Betsy grunted. “I do feel ashamed to have you come into such a comfortless place, Mr. Irving.”

“I’d rather be here, Betsy, even if I have to wear a clothes-pin on my nose while unmaking my toilet. I can sleep on the porch, you know. You think – eh, Betsy, you think there’s no use trying to side-step the Yellowstone?”

“We’re as good as there,” returned Betsy sententiously. “Mrs. Bruce says that when once you get into that bank, she might as well count on the wind that blows as you taking a vacation at any stated time; and you know it’s got to be a stated time for the Yellowstone.”

Irving sighed.

“I hope we know our place, Betsy,” he returned.

CHAPTER IV
MRS. POGRAM CONFIDES

Half an hour afterward Mrs. Pogram, unconscious of Miss Foster’s yearning to administer to her portly person a vigorous movement cure, walked leisurely up the village street. From one hand depended a long slender package which she held away from her black shawl by a string loop around her forefinger.

A merry whistling attracted her, and she perceived coming along the walk, at a swinging gait, a bareheaded young man in a sweater. In a few days the streets of the village would be largely populated by girls and men, all with an aversion to hats and sleeves. Mrs. Pogram was familiar with the type, and noted that this care-free person was an advance guard proving that the summer was here.

She eyed him, however, with lack-lustre eyes until he stopped suddenly before her.

“You don’t know me,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets.

The corners of Mrs. Pogram’s lips drew down and her chin drew in.

“Why, Irvin’ Bruce, it’s you!” she declared. “We haven’t seen you in these parts for so long I didn’t know but you’d given up Fairport.”

“Couldn’t do that, Mrs. Pogram. You know how a man always returns to the scene of his crimes.”

Mrs. Pogram again drew down the corners of her mouth and gave her gingerly-held package a shake.

“This pesky fish never will be done drippin’,” she remarked.

“Been fishing?” asked her companion.

“Yes. I go fishin’ on the wharf. It’s cheaper than to the market and the walk does me good.”

“You look well.”

“I ain’t well. It’s kind o’ hard for me to get around, and I miss Rosalie. She’s gone off.” Mrs. Pogram’s voice took a whining note, and she indulged in a sniff of self-pity. “I donno as you ever saw Rosalie?”

“Oh yes, I’ve seen her.”

“The way I come to take her, I was gettin’ along in years and she was left alone in the world. She wanted a home and I wanted young hands and feet, so we’d ’a’ got along real comfortable if it hadn’t been for Loomis; and I’ve been more like a mother than a sister to Loomis, bein’ so much older, and I do think he might have let me have a little comfort without naggin’ me all the time.”

“Has he left Portland and come here to live with you?”

“Oh no, he’s still in Chatham’s store, but he can run down over Sunday any time, you know, and ever since Rosalie came he’s done so a great deal.”

“What could you expect?” returned Irving. “I remember her.”

“Hey? Oh, yes, Loomis was awful pleased with her at first, but she didn’t seem to take much of a fancy to him. Kinder laughed at him. Loomis is sort o’ fussy. Anyway, she made him mad one day, and from that on he didn’t give me any peace.”

Mrs. Pogram sniffed again and gave her lachrymose package another shake so that its tears bedewed the walk as if she were weeping vicariously.

“He made you send the girl away?” asked Irving quickly, a line coming in his forehead at the remembrance of the mincing young clerk who had been the natural victim of many a prank of his own boyhood.

“Not made me, exactly,” returned Mrs. Pogram, “but Rosalie got so she wouldn’t stand it any longer. You see,” her complaining tone altering to one of some complacence, “though I ain’t any millionairess, my estate ain’t exactly to be sneezed at. The old Pogram mahogany and the silver that was my mother’s are worth considerable; and Loomis was on pins for fear I’d give some of ’em to Rosalie. I give her a spoon once – it was real thin, Irvin’, not worth much of anything in money, but it was a time when Rosalie’d taken care of me through a fever and I felt to give her somethin’; and law, from the way Loomis took on you’d ’a’ thought I’d made him a poor man for the rest of his life. Honestly I was ashamed of him; and I kep’ his actions away from Rosalie as much as I could; but she’s smart, and she saw she’d gained Loomis’s enmity by laughin’ at him, and saw that he was gettin’ kinder jealous of her about the things; and if she would only have been quiet, and spoken him fair, and we both kept our own counsel, I could have slipped many a little thing to her and he’d never ’a’ known the difference. Things weren’t ever the same after your mother gave her that winter at Lambeth. She never laughed at Loomis till after that, and then came my sickness and I gave her the spoon, and from that time there wa’n’t ever any peace.”

The line in Irving’s forehead came again. “Then you don’t think Mrs. Bruce’s gift to Rosalie was an advantage.”

“Well, I was willin’ to spare her for her own good, for I could see what her longings were, and felt I hadn’t ought to stand in her way. Loomis favored it because I think ’twas his idea then that he and Rosalie would both come into the Brown-Pogram estate one o’ these days.”

Irving lifted a hand to conceal some ebullition which escaped him at the thought of the ramshackle ancestral halls of the Pograms.

“As I say,” continued Mrs. Pogram, “if Rosalie could have worked with me we’d ha’ kep’ Loomis smoothed down; but after the spoon trouble that young one acted like all possessed. Every time Loomis came she’d throw out remarks to scare him. ‘Oh, Auntie Pogram,’ she’d say, ‘just look how exactly the right height this work-table is for me to set by. It’s the real stuff this wood is;’ and then she’d gaze at it kinder thoughtful. ‘If this was polished up, that grain would come out beautiful.’ Then there is a silver slop-bowl and creamer that was my mother’s. ‘Oh, Auntie Pogram,’ she’d say, and just clasp her hands and gaze at ’em like they was magnets and she a needle. ‘How easy it is, after all, to tell the real antiquities from the made-up ones,’ she’d say. ‘How I do love that colonial pattern!’ And all the time Loomis would fidget and run his fingers through his hair and get red in the face. After he’d go I’d talk to her, but she wouldn’t do a thing but laugh till the tears come in her eyes.” Mrs. Pogram nodded significantly. “But the day came when there was more tears and not so much laugh. Loomis got so he come down every Saturday night. He made a list of all the silver and he’d count ’em out, forks and spoons, every time he came. One Sunday night he said something real downright mean to Rosalie about beggars not bein’ choosers. I spoke up for the girl then and there. I said Rosalie had earned everything she’d had from me and earned it fully. I can see her now standin’ there, and the way her nostrils opened when she breathed. I don’t think I ever saw her as good-lookin’ as she was that minute. Her light hair was just fluffin’ out like a cloud, and her blue eyes turned nearly black, and her lips was bit in between her teeth till she scared me the way she looked at Loomis. Then she went out o’ the room without a word. The next mornin’ she didn’t get up at half-past four to get Loomis’s breakfast, the way she had to when he stayed Sunday nights. I hadn’t thought she would, and I got up in my double-gown and found him drinkin’ some cold milk, and growlin’. Loomis likes his coffee. I told him ’twas his own fault, and he told me to go to bed and stay there, – ’twas all I was fit for.” Mrs. Pogram sniffed again and shook the fish mechanically.

“I didn’t hear any sound in Rosalie’s room when Loomis slammed the front door; so after a spell I went in to find her and try to make peace, but – ” the speaker shook her head – “there wa’n’t any Rosalie. Her bed was made up neat and there was a note on her table. ‘I love you, dear Auntie Pogram, but I can’t stand it any longer. Don’t worry about me. If I’m in any trouble I promise to write to you.’”

Here, the fish not seeming equal to the occasion, Mrs. Pogram dabbed some tears from her own eyes.

“How long ago was this?” asked Irving.

“Only a few weeks, and I haven’t heard another word.”

“Your brother is satisfied, I suppose?”

“Well, he ain’t real comfortable, ’cause he knows I don’t mean to live and work all alone. I ain’t fit to; and he’s afraid now I’ll pay wages that’ll be a tax on the estate.”

Irving muttered something under his breath.

“Hey?” inquired his companion plaintively.

“I’m sorry for all this, Mrs. Pogram. You must tell Betsy about it. Her head is full of sensible ideas. Perhaps she can help you.”

“I’d like to see her,” returned the other mournfully. “How are you all?”

“All well.”

“You’ve been to Europe. Now I s’pose you’ll settle down a spell.”

“Alas, Mrs. Bruce decrees otherwise. We’re off for the Yellowstone as soon as we can unpack and pack again.”

“I hear it’s real sightly out there,” returned Mrs. Pogram, without enthusiasm. “I’ll have to tell Betsy to get some one else to look after the cottage, though; I ain’t fit to hist mattresses.” Another sniff. “Good-mornin’, Irvin’, I’m real glad I met you. Remember me to the folks.”

CHAPTER V
ROSALIE VINCENT

A throng of pilgrims to the Yellowstone was emptying out of the cars upon the platform at Gardiner. The spectacular six-horse coaches were in waiting, and the customary competition and struggle for the outside seats began. Mrs. Bruce was wild-eyed in her determination to sit near the driver, and Irving turned to Betsy, who spoke promptly: —

“Never mind me, Mr. Irving. Just go up top with Mrs. Bruce. I’ll go inside.”

Which plan was accordingly carried out; and Mrs. Bruce was ensconced to her satisfaction where she could ask questions alternately of the driver and her son.

The jingling, gay teams started, and wound up the ascending road under a vast sky above the encircling hills and mountains. As they passed the Eagle’s Nest Mrs. Bruce had her first qualm as to Betsy. Upon being told that the high-placed bundle of sticks perched on a cliff was indeed the domicile of the king of birds, she exclaimed: —

“Oh, Irving, couldn’t you stoop over and call down to Betsy to put her head out? That is such a purely American sight, and Betsy is so American!”

But Irving, objecting to this contortion, diverted his companion’s attention.

As for Betsy, she preferred the seclusion from the sight of the six horses so dexterously tooled along the road, and felt that she saw all the scenery she cared for despite the roof of the stage. Miss Foster must have had an excellent conscience; she always accepted with such contentment her own society.

There was a chatter of voices in her ears from the other occupants of the stage, but her eyes rested absently on hillside and waterfall while she thought of Fairport and the deserted cottage whose condition was still far from satisfying her. Her thoughts roved, too, as they often did, to Rosalie Vincent. What was the girl doing, out in the world unprotected?

It seemed but a short time to Betsy before the coach swung around the circle in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, and the passengers poured from the vehicle, watched by other crowds on the hotel piazza, who half resented the arrival of newcomers, for at this season food and beds were at a premium.

Irving had looked out for the comfort of his party, and Mrs. Bruce’s room satisfied her. They spent the day in the customary visits to beautiful terraces of heavenly tints built by boiling-hot scanty waterfalls, and at night laid them down to slumber well contented.

In a remote room of the hotel a young girl, after her evening’s experience of standing upon her feet long hours, waiting upon hungry hordes of sightseers, was hastening to get ready for her night’s rest, when the handle of her door was turned, and then as if some one outside was impatient of its resistance, it was shaken with energy.

The half-disrobed occupant of the room ran to hold the door.

“Who’s there?” she demanded.

A sharp girlish voice replied imperatively, “It’s me! Open the door quick!”

“You’ve made a mistake in the room,” returned the girl inside. “This is mine.”

“Is it, indeed!” shrilly. “Well, I guess if you don’t open this door pretty quick, I’ll have you sent flying!”

At which threat in the sharp voice, the girl inside opened the door and viewed in astonishment the stormy-eyed young person who entered, beginning to pull out hairpins from her lofty pompadour as she came. “What did you think you were? A lay-over?” she demanded scornfully.

The other girl, her fair hair falling in ripples about her bare neck and arms, closed the door and regarded the newcomer with wide eyes.

“Is it your room, too?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” snapped the other, “and I hope it won’t be any more disagreeable for you than it is for me.”

“Oh – oh – of course not,” returned the fair one. “I only thought it was so small – and the bed is so narrow – and I didn’t know – ”

“Well,” returned the other, somewhat mollified, and with a yawn, “I saw down in the dining-room to-night that you were a green-horn. We’re mighty lucky not to be in a bigger room with half-a-dozen girls. My name’s Miss Hickey. What’s yours?”

“Rosalie Vincent,” responded the fair one, still standing rooted to her place while Miss Hickey removed a mammoth rat from her hair, and eclipsed with it one side of the wash-stand, which was dresser as well.

“Better get to bed, Miss Vincent. You’ll have plenty of chances to stare at me, and you look as tired as I feel. I stayed down to help the pearl-divers awhile to-night.”

“Pearl-divers?” echoed Rosalie.

“Yes. Dish-washers, Greenie. I’m a heaver like yourself; but we all have to turn in and help each other, once in a while. This is my third season. My first I waited on the sagebrushers.”

“Who are they?” asked Rosalie, overawed by so much sophistication.

“Campers; but I like the hotels best. The dudes are more my style.”

“What did you call me a few minutes ago? A lay-over?” asked Rosalie.

“Yes, those are the swells that stay more than one night. They’re the princes of the Yellowstone and they have to pay like princes, too. All their dishes washed separately, separate food, separate everything. I thought you must think you were one to have a room all to yourself.”

Miss Hickey here completed her hasty night-toilet and jumped into bed. “Come along, child. I’ll make myself small against the wall.”

“Indeed, I’m not a lay-over,” said Rosalie, now hastening to follow the other’s example. “I’m to be sent on with the crowd to-morrow.”

“So am I,” returned the other, with nasal sleepiness; “and I’m darned sorry, too. I like the swatties here better than at any post.”

“Swatties?” echoed Rosalie helplessly.

“Soldiers, Greenie,” drawled Miss Hickey. “You’ll see a lot more of ’em before you see less. Now I ain’t goin’ to say another word to-night.”

And Miss Hickey kept her word. Her sleep was as energetic as her waking; and Rosalie listened to her heavy breathing and stared wide-eyed into the darkness.

She had recognized the Bruce party at the evening meal. She had not been obliged to wait on them, and knew herself unobserved. But the discovery had excited her very much. Mrs. Bruce had been right when she said that Rosalie’s was the artistic temperament. The independence, caution, and reserve of the New Englander were not her characteristics. She longed for companionship and some one with whom to sympathize in the present predicament; for predicament she felt it to be. How extraordinary that this should be the summer chosen by the Bruces for their visit to the National Park.

She thought of the irreverent punctuation which made a well-known quotation read: “There is a divinity which shapes our ends rough, hew them as we may.”

She had believed Mrs. Bruce to be in Europe, and though that lady’s natural preoccupation there explained the ignoring of her protégée’s painstaking letters, it did not excuse it, or leave Rosalie the slightest hope that her benefactress continued to feel an interest in her. The fact was a hurt to the grateful girl, and the ever-present consciousness of it gave her a reason for desiring to leave Fairport, where the Bruces would return. This sensitiveness would not have induced her to leave Mrs. Pogram, had the latter’s brother not made her stay unendurable, but it was a secret reason for being glad to escape.

Perhaps Mrs. Bruce and her son would not remember her at all; but she could not expect to escape Betsy Foster’s recognition. So she lay there awake; at one moment longing for Mrs. Pogram’s kindly, invertebrate protection, and wishing that Mrs. Bruce had never opened to her another world; and again feeling the fire of ambition to repay that lady every cent she had ever spent upon her. Rosalie’s color pressed high as she imagined Mrs. Bruce’s amazed scorn that the talents in which she had at least for a time believed, had carried their possessor no higher as yet than to be a waitress – a heaver, according to Miss Hickey – in the Yellowstone.

The girl must at last have dozed; for she shortly experienced a vigorous shaking from her companion.

“Here, here, hustle!” exclaimed Miss Hickey, not unkindly. Rosalie opened her eyes with such bewilderment that her companion laughed.

“Come on, blue eyes. You look like a baby. Get into your duds. We’re off for Norris Basin, worse luck.”

The sight of Miss Hickey’s readjusted pompadour gave Rosalie a realizing sense of the situation.

“Oh, Miss Hickey,” she exclaimed, as she hurried to the washstand, “are many people lay-overs?”

“Oh, you’ve got them on the brain, have you?” asked the other, proceeding with her own toilet. “Not many, ’cause it costs too much.”

“I saw some people here last night who have lots of money – oh, lots and lots! Shouldn’t you think they’d stay?”

“H’m. I only hope they will,” rejoined Miss Hickey, “as long as we’re going. The crowds are fierce.”

“I do hope they will!” Rosalie’s echo was fervent. She almost summoned courage to tell her aggressive companion the situation; but one glance at the young woman’s coiffure, which was now receiving the addition of a bunch of curls, arrested her.

Miss Hickey regarded her companion sharply.

“You ain’t a heaver all the year,” she remarked tentatively, “or else you wouldn’t be afraid o’ those rich folks. There’s the tips, you know.”

Rosalie was silent.

“Perhaps you was their waitress and ran off to see the world without giving notice.”

“No, I wasn’t that; but I – I know them, and – ”

The speech drifted into silence.

“You know rich folks, do you? Lucky you.”

“Not exactly. They – she – ” stammered Rosalie, “they helped – educate me.”

“Oh, you’re educated, are you?” retorted Miss Hickey, giving her coiffure a satisfied lift. “Well, so am I. I’m a typewriter in Chicago, winters.”

“Does – does it pay well?” asked Rosalie, with such serious wistfulness that Miss Hickey forgave her her rich acquaintances.

She grimaced. “Not so you’d notice it. I ain’t goin’ back this fall. You know the Yellowstone Company’ll land you just as many miles from the Park as they brought you, and in any direction you say. Me for Los Angeles. I ain’t afraid I can’t make my living, and I’m sick o’ bein’ snowed on, winters, without any furs.”

Rosalie looked enviously at the other’s snapping black eyes.

“Wonder what savage we’ll go over with,” pursued Miss Hickey, stuffing her nightgown into a bag, and nonchalantly running her comb and toothbrush into her stocking.

“Over? Over?”

“Yes, over to Norris in the stage.”

“Do you mean that savages drive them?” asked Rosalie, her eyes dilating.

Miss Hickey laughed. “Oh, you’re more fun than a barrel o’ monkeys,” she observed. “The drivers certainly are savages. You can ask anybody in the Park.”

Rosalie smiled faintly as she began twisting up her hair. “Oh, that’s some more Park English, is it?” she asked.

“I hope it’ll be Jasper,” said Miss Hickey, “but we won’t get to sit by him, anyway. The dudes all fight for the driver’s seat. I’m going down now. Hurry up, Baby, or you’ll catch it.”

Rosalie obeyed in a panic, and was soon ready to follow. She dreaded the ordeal of the breakfast-room, and prayed that she might be delivered from the Bruces’ table. Her heart came up in her throat when she saw them enter the door; but she was not obliged to wait upon them. As it happened, Miss Hickey had that station, and Rosalie devoted herself assiduously to a deaf gentleman who was traveling with his wife and a young woman at sight of whom Rosalie colored. “Oh, how small this big world is!” she thought; “but she won’t remember me. We seldom met!”