Kitabı oku: «Patsy Carroll Under Southern Skies», sayfa 2
CHAPTER IV
GLORIOUS NEWS
Beatrice’s prediction that the night’s disaster would hasten by several days the beginning of a prolonged Easter vacation proved accurate. The day following the fire was a busy one for all who had suffered from the dire calamity. At a meeting held in the chapel at two o’clock on the following afternoon, Miss Osgood announced that a six weeks’ leave of absence would be granted the pupils of Yardley. Those who were sufficiently provided with clothing and funds to go to their homes at once were requested to repair to her office immediately after the meeting. Those who were not were requested to meet her there at four o’clock to discuss ways and means.
As it happened, the Wayfarers were not only ready to go home, but wildly impatient to go. Early that morning they had driven to Alden in Patsy’s car to purchase the few things needful for the journey. Luckily for them they had been fully dressed when the fire alarm had sounded. Beatrice, Mabel and Eleanor had wisely donned hats and coats before leaving their rooms. Patsy had put on her fur coat when she had gone out to mail a letter. She was therefore minus a hat only. An hour’s shopping in the village provided the four girls with handkerchiefs, gloves and the few other articles which they required.
Four o’clock that afternoon saw them at the railway station at Alden, waiting for the four-thirty west-bound train which would land them in Morton shortly after ten o’clock that evening. Patsy had already sent her aunt a lengthy telegram, informing Miss Carroll of the fire and that the four girls would arrive in Morton that night.
Though the journey home was not a long one, it seemed interminable to the travelers. Patsy was burning to impart the glorious news to her aunt. She was very sure that Aunt Martha would reconsider her decision not to go to Palm Beach as soon as she had been informed of the new turn in the girls’ affairs.
“Morton at last!” sighed Mabel thankfully, when at five minutes to ten that evening the scattered lights of the city’s suburbs began to spring up in the darkness. “Our train is exactly on time.”
“I hope Auntie will meet us,” Patsy said. “Maybe your mother will be there, too, Perry children; and yours, Bee. I told Auntie in my telegram to send them word. I guess they’ll be there, all right enough.”
“It seems queer not to have any luggage, doesn’t it?” remarked Eleanor.
The four girls had now begun putting on their coats, preparatory to leaving the train, which was gradually slowing down as it neared the station.
“We’re lucky to be here ourselves,” returned Bee seriously. “If that fire had started at dead of night it would have been a good deal worse for us.”
When the train pulled into the station, however, the Wayfarers were doomed to disappointment. No friendly faces greeted their sight as they stepped from the train.
“Auntie didn’t get my telegram! I just know she didn’t!” Patsy cried out disappointedly. “If she’s read about the fire in the evening papers, I can imagine how worried she must be by this time. It’s probably the fault of the operator at Alden. He looked like a sleepy old stupid. We’d better take a taxi, children. The sooner we get home the better it will be for our worried folks.”
Hailing a taxicab the Wayfarers were soon driving through the quiet streets of the little city toward the beautiful suburb in which they lived. Beatrice was the first to alight in front of the Forbes’ unpretentious home. Promising to run over to see Patsy the first thing the next morning, she said “good night” and hurried up the walk.
“Coming in, girls?” asked Patsy as the taxicab finally stopped in front of the high, ornamental iron fence which enclosed the beautiful grounds of the Carroll estate.
“Not to-night. We must hustle into our own house and surprise Mother,” returned Eleanor.
“Good-night, then. See you in the morning. I’ll pay the driver.”
Patsy hopped nimbly out of the taxicab, handed the driver his fare with an additional coin for good measure, then swung open the big gate and raced up the driveway to the house.
Three sharp, successive rings of the electric bell had a potent effect upon a stately, white-haired matron who sat in the living room, making a half-hearted attempt to read. Miss Martha Carroll sprang to her feet as the sound fell upon her ears and started for the hall at a most undignified pace. There was but one person who rang the Carrolls’ bell in that fashion.
Long before the maid had time to reach the door Miss Martha had opened it and thrown her arms about the merry-faced, auburn-haired girl on the threshold.
“Patsy Carroll, you bad child!” she exclaimed as she gathered her niece closer to her. “Why didn’t you telegraph me that you were all right and coming home?”
“But I did, Auntie,” protested Patsy, as she energetically hugged her relieved relative. “I telegraphed this morning. I knew you hadn’t received the telegram the minute I got into the station. In it I asked you to meet me.”
“I never received it. Of course it will be delivered to-morrow,” emphasized Miss Martha disgustedly. “I sent one to you directly after I read the account of the fire in the evening paper. My nerves have been keyed up to a high pitch, waiting for a reply to it.”
“Poor, dear Auntie,” cooed Patsy. “It’s a shame. Never mind. I’m home now, so everything’s lovely again. Let’s go into the living room and I’ll tell you all about the fire and how I happened to come home to-night. Bee and Mab and Nellie came home with me. They’ll be over to see you in the morning.”
“Are you hungry, Patsy?” was her aunt’s solicitous question as the two walked slowly into the living room, arms twined about each other’s waists.
“No, Auntie. We had dinner on the train. I’m just crazy to talk. I’ve some glorious news to tell you. Let’s sit on the davenport and have a grand old talking bee.”
“To know you are safe is sufficiently good news,” tenderly rejoiced Miss Martha. “Really, Patricia, I am still trembling from the shock I received when I opened the newspaper and saw the headline, ‘Fire Sweeps Away Dormitory at Yardley.’”
“Well, it didn’t sweep me away,” laughed Patsy, snuggling into the circle of her aunt’s arm. The two had now seated themselves on the big leather davenport. “Part of the dormitory is still there. We lost all our stuff except the clothing we were wearing when the fire broke out.”
“What started it?” questioned Miss Martha rather severely. “The paper didn’t state the cause. A dormitory like the one at Yardley ought to be fireproof. I am sorry that I did not visit Yardley before allowing you to enter the school. I should certainly never countenance your living in a place that in any way looked like a fire-trap.”
“The fire started in the basement. The regular janitor was sick and a new one took his place. They say it was through his carelessness that it started. He was seen to go into the basement smoking a pipe. Something he’d been forbidden to do. Of course, no one can be really sure that it was his fault, though. I was the one who gave the alarm.”
Patsy went on to recount the incidents of the eventful night.
“Not a single girl acted scared or panicky,” she proudly boasted. “We’d had fire drill so often that we knew just what to do when the fire really came. But I haven’t told you the glorious news yet. We’re going to have six weeks’ vacation. Just think of it, Aunt Martha! Isn’t that perfectly gorgeous? Now we can go to Palm Beach, can’t we?”
“So that is the glorious news,” commented Miss Carroll.
For an instant she silently surveyed Patsy, a half-smile touching her firm lips.
“What is it, Auntie?”
Patsy was not slow to read peculiar significance in both tone and smile. Something unusual was in the wind.
“Would you care very much if we didn’t go to Palm Beach?” was Miss Martha’s enigmatic question.
“Of course I should,” Patsy cried out, her bright face clouding over. “You’re not going to say that we can’t! You mustn’t! I’ve set my heart on the Florida trip. All the way home I’ve been planning for it.”
“I received a letter from your father this morning,” pursued Miss Carroll, ignoring Patsy’s protest. “I also received another from Miss Osgood in which she refused my request for the extra week of vacation. I had written your father several days ago regarding the making of arrangements for us to go to Palm Beach. You can read for yourself what he has to say.”
Rising, Miss Martha went over to a small mahogany writing desk. Opening it she took a letter from one of the pigeon holes.
“Here is Robert’s letter,” she said. Handing it to her niece she reseated herself beside the latter.
Very eagerly Patsy took it from its envelope and read:
“Dear Martha:
“Your letter came to me this morning and I would be quick to reserve rooms for yourself and the girls at one of the Palm Beach hotels, except that I have a better plan. How would you like to spend three weeks in a real southern mansion? There is such a house on the estate I recently bought.
“It is a curiously beautiful house, built after the Spanish style of architecture, with an inner court and many balconies. The agent from whom I purchased it informs me that it was formerly the property of an elderly Spaniard, Manuel de Fereda. After his death, several months ago, the property descended to his granddaughter, who was anxious to sell it.
“It is completely furnished, much in the fashion of houses I saw when in Mexico. The girls will rave over it and I am very anxious that they shall spend their holiday in it. It is not many miles from Palm Beach and I have found a good Indian guide who will take us on the Everglades expedition which Patsy has set her mind on making.
“Of course, if you prefer Palm Beach for the girls, then so be it. If you come to Las Golondrinas (The Swallows), that is the name of the old house, you will not need to bring so many trunks, as you will see very little of society, except when you make an occasional trip to the Beach. I can secure a good car for your use while here which Patsy can drive to her heart’s content.
“Let me know at once what you think of my plan. If you decide immediately to take it up, wire me and I will be on the lookout for you. I believe you will enjoy this little adventure as much as I shall. I know now what Patsy will say. As the girls are to have only three weeks’ vacation, better arrange to start as soon as possible.
“Affectionately,“Robert.”
“Aunt Martha, the Wayfarers are the luckiest girls in the whole world,” was Patsy’s solemn assertion as she looked up from the letter. “First they go through a fire and come out as safely as can be. Next they get six weeks’ vacation. After that, Daddy plays good fairy, and finds them a wonderful palace in the land of flowers. All they have to do is to hurry up and take possession. When are we going to start for Florida?”
“As soon as we can make ready,” was the prompt reply. “Since your father seems very anxious for us to take this trip, I feel that we ought not disappoint him. I dare say we may find this old house he describes somewhat interesting.”
This calm statement filled Patsy with inward amusement. She knew it to be an indirect admission that her aunt was as anxious as she to carry out the plan her father had made for them.
“We won’t need a lot of new gowns,” argued Patsy. “We all have evening frocks and plenty of wash dresses from last summer. We can wear our corduroy suits and high boots to tramp around in. We ought to have some of those Palm Beach hats the stores are showing, and new white shoes, and a few other things. It isn’t as if we were going to stay at a large hotel. We’ll be away from society and living outdoors most of the time. This is Friday. I think we ought to start south not later than next Wednesday morning. We can’t afford to use up more than one of our precious weeks in getting ready and going down to Las – Las – What’s the name of our new home?”
Patsy hastily consulted her father’s letter.
“Las Gol-on-drinas,” she pronounced slowly. “I suppose that’s not the way to pronounce it. I’ll have to ask Mab about it. She’s taking Spanish this year. It’s very necessary to know how to say the name of our new southern home,” she added with a chuckle. “Won’t the girls be surprised when they hear about this splendid plan of Father’s? Have you spoken to Mrs. Perry about it yet, Auntie?”
“No, my dear. You must remember that I received Miss Osgood’s letter, refusing my request at the same time that I received your father’s letter. They arrived in the first mail this morning. I intended writing Robert this evening, explaining that it would be impossible for us to go to Florida. Then I read about the fire in the paper and it completely upset my nerves. I will call on the Perrys to-morrow morning to talk things over. We must also call on Mrs. Forbes.”
“Bee isn’t sure that her mother will let her accept another trip from us,” confided Patsy. “That’s the only thing I worried about after I knew we were to have the six weeks’ vacation. She said she was sure her mother wouldn’t feel right about letting us pay her expenses at a fashionable resort like Palm Beach. But it’s all different now. Mrs. Forbes can’t very well refuse to let Bee accept an invitation to a house party, can she? You must make her see it in that light, Aunt Martha, or she won’t let Bee go with us. She’s awfully proud, you know. We simply must have Bee along. I wouldn’t care much about the trip if she had to stay at home.”
“Beatrice will go with us,” assured Miss Martha in a tone that indicated the intention to have her own way in the matter. Patsy knew from long experience that her dignified aunt was a person not to be easily overruled, and rejoiced accordingly.
“I told Bee that I knew you could fix things beautifully with her mother,” she declared happily. “We’re going to have a wonderful time in that quaint old house. Wouldn’t it be great if it were haunted, or had some kind of a mystery about it? I’ve read lots of queer stories about those old southern mansions.”
“Now, Patsy,” Miss Martha made an attempt at looking extremely severe, “once and for all you may put such foolish notions out of your head. That affair of the missing will at Wilderness Lodge was, of course, quite remarkable. Nevertheless, it was very annoying in many respects.”
Miss Martha had not forgotten her enforced hike over hill and dale on the memorable afternoon when John, the rascally chauffeur, had set her down in an unfamiliar territory and left her to return to the Lodge as best she might.
“We are going down South for recreation. Bear that in mind,” she continued. “The majority of these tales about haunted houses down there originate with the negroes, who are very ignorant and superstitious. There is no such thing as a haunted house. I have never yet met a person who had actually seen a ghost. Undoubtedly we shall hear a number of such silly tales while we are in Florida. I am told that the natives are very fond of relating such yarns. You girls may listen to them if you like, but you must not take them seriously. You are not apt ever again to run into another mystery like that of Wilderness Lodge.”
CHAPTER V
THE LAND OF FLOWERS
“No wonder the Spaniards named this beautiful land ‘Florida’!” rapturously exclaimed Beatrice Forbes. “I never dreamed it could be quite so wonderful as this.”
“I suppose when first they saw it, they must have felt about it as we do now,” returned Eleanor. “According to history they landed here on Easter Sunday. We’re seeing Florida at about the same time of year as they first saw it. It’s almost as wonderful to us as it was to them. Not quite, of course, because they underwent all sorts of hardships before they landed here. So they must have thought it like Heaven.”
Exactly one week had elapsed since the Wayfarers had arrived in Morton with the pleasing prospect ahead of them of a six weeks’ vacation. Three days of hurried preparation had followed. Then had come the long, rather tiresome railway journey to Florida. They had arrived at Palm Beach late in the afternoon of the sixth day, had been met by Mr. Carroll and had spent the night at one of Palm Beach’s most fashionable hotels.
Weary from the long railway trip, the travelers had resisted the lure of a water fête, to be given that evening on Lake Worth, and retired early.
“I can secure a boat, if you girls are anxious to take in the fête,” Mr. Carroll had informed his flock at dinner that evening. “This fête will be nothing very remarkable, however. Later on, I understand, a big Venetian fête is to be given. Why not wait and go to that? We can easily run up to the Beach in the car from Las Golondrinas. I would suggest going to bed in good season to-night. Then we can make an early start in the morning for our new home.”
This program being approved by all, the Wayfarers had dutifully settled down early for the night. It was now a little after ten o’clock on the following morning and the big touring car, driven by Mr. Carroll, was bowling due south over a palm-lined country road, toward its objective, Las Golondrinas.
It was a particularly balmy morning, even for southern Florida, where a perpetual state of fine weather may be expected to hold sway during the winter months. Southward under tall palms, past villa after villa, embowered in gorgeously colored, flowering vines, the touring car glided with its load of enthusiastic beauty-worshippers.
Seated between Miss Martha and Eleanor in the tonneau of the machine, Beatrice was perhaps the most ardent worshipper of them all. Love of Nature was almost a religion with her. She was a true child of the great outdoors.
“It’s so beautiful it makes me feel almost like crying,” she confided to her companions as she drew in a deep breath of the exquisitely scented morning air. “It’s so different from the Adirondacks. Up there I felt exhilarated; as though I’d like to stand up and sing an anthem to the mountains. But all this fragrance and color and sunlight and warm, sweet air makes me feel – well – sentimental,” finished Bee rather timidly.
“It seems more like an enchanted land out of a fairy-tale than a real one,” mused Eleanor. “No wonder the birds begin to fly south the minute it grows chilly up north. They know what’s waiting for them down here.”
“That’s more than we know,” smiled Beatrice, her brown eyes dreamy. “We’re explorers, once more, setting foot in a strange, new country. Something perfectly amazing may be waiting for us just around the corner.”
“I hope it won’t be a horrid big snake,” shuddered practical Mabel, who sat opposite the trio on one of the small seats. “There are plenty of poisonous snakes down here, you know. Moccasins and diamond-back rattlers, coral snakes and a good many other varieties that aren’t poisonous, but horrible, just the same.”
“Why break the spell by mentioning anything so disagreeable as snakes, Mab?” asked Eleanor reproachfully. “I’d forgotten that there were such hateful, wriggly things. How do you happen to be so well up on the snakology of Florida?”
“There’s no such word as snakology,” retorted Mabel. “You mean herpetology.”
“Snakology’s a fine word, even if old Noah Webster did forget to put it in the dictionary,” laughed Eleanor. “Isn’t it, Miss Martha?”
“I can’t say that I specially admire any word pertaining to snakes,” dryly answered Miss Carroll. “While we are on the subject, however, I may as well say that nothing can induce me to go on any wild expeditions into these swamps down here. I daresay these jungles are full of poisonous snakes. I greatly doubt the advisability of allowing you girls to trail around in such dangerous places.”
“Oh, we’ll be all right with a real Indian guide to show us the way,” declared Beatrice confidently. “White Heron is the name of our Indian guide. Mr. Carroll was telling me about him last night. He is a Seminole and a great hunter.”
“I have no confidence in Indians,” disparaged Miss Martha. “I sincerely hope Robert is not mistaken in this one. I shall have to see him for myself in order to judge whether he is a fit person to act as guide on this foolhardy expedition that Patsy is so set on making.”
This dampening assertion warned the trio of girls that it was high time to discuss something else. They remembered Patsy’s difficulties of the previous summer in wringing a reluctant permission from Miss Martha to go camping in the mountains. Now it seemed she had again posted herself on the wrong side of the fence. It therefore behooved them to drop the subject where it stood, leaving the winning over of Miss Martha to wily Patsy and her father.
Seated beside her father, who, knowing the road to Las Golondrinas, was driving the car, Patsy was keeping up a running fire of delighted exclamation over the tropical beauty of the country through which they were passing.
“I’m so glad you bought this splendid place, Dad,” she rattled along in her quick, eager fashion. “After I’m through college maybe we can come down to Florida and spend a whole winter.”
“I had that idea in mind when I bought it,” returned her father. “It will take considerable time to put Las Golondrinas in good condition again. Old Fereda let it run down. There are some fine orange groves on the estate, but they need attention. The house is in good condition. It’s one of those old-timers and solidly built. The grounds were in bad shape, though. I’ve had a gang of darkies working on them ever since I bought the place. They’re a lazy lot. Still they’ve done quite a little toward getting the lawns smooth again and thinning the trees and shrubs.”
“Who was this Manuel de Fereda, anyway?” questioned Patsy curiously. “I know he was Spanish and died, and that’s all.”
“I know very little about him, my dear. Mr. Haynes, the agent who sold me the property, had never seen him. In fact, had never heard of him until Fereda’s granddaughter put the place in his hands for sale. She told Haynes that her grandfather was crazy. Haynes said she seemed very anxious to get rid of the property and get away from it.”
“There’s just enough about the whole thing to arouse one’s curiosity,” sighed Patsy. “I’d love to know more about this queer, crazy old Spaniard. Maybe we’ll meet some people living near the estate who will be able to tell us more about him.”
“Oh, you’ll probably run across someone who knows the history of the Feredas,” lightly assured her father. “Neither the old mammy I engaged as cook, nor the two maids can help you out, though. They come from Miami and know no one in the vicinity. I’m still hunting for a good, trustworthy man for general work. We shall need one while we’re here, to run errands, see to the horses and make himself useful.”
“You must have worked awfully hard to get things ready for us, Dad.”
Patsy slipped an affectionately grateful hand into her father’s arm.
“I could have done better if I had known from the start that you were really coming,” he returned. “I had to hustle around considerably. At least you’re here now and your aunt can be depended upon to do the rest. I hope she will get along nicely with her darkie help. They’re usually as hard to manage as a lot of unruly children.”
“Oh, she will,” predicted Patsy. “She always makes everybody except Patsy do as she says. Patsy likes to have her own way, you know.”
“So I’ve understood,” smiled Mr. Carroll. “Patsy usually gets it, too, I’m sorry to say.”
“You’re not a bit sorry and you know it,” flatly contradicted Patsy. “You’d hate to have me for a daughter if I were a meek, quiet Patsy who never had an opinion of her own.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing,” laughed her father. “I’m so used to being bullied by a certain self-willed young person that I rather like it.”
“You’re a dear,” gaily approved Patsy. “I don’t ever really bully you, you know. I just tell you what you have to do and then you go and do it. That’s not bullying, is it?”
“Not in our family,” satirically assured Mr. Carroll.
Whereupon they both laughed.
Meanwhile, as they continued to talk in the half-jesting, intimate fashion of two persons who thoroughly understand each other, the big black car ate up the miles that lay between Palm Beach and Las Golondrinas. As the party drew nearer their destination the highly ornamental villas which had lined both sides of the road began to grow fewer and farther apart. They saw less of color and riotous bloom and more of the vivid but monotonous green of the tropics.
They turned at last from the main highway and due east into a white sandy road which ran through a natural park of stately green pines. Under the shadow of the pines the car continued for a mile or so, then broke out into the open and the sunlight again.
“Oh, look!”
Half rising in the seat, Patsy pointed. Ahead of them and dazzlingly blue in the morning sunshine lay the sea.
“How near is our new home to the ocean, Dad?” she asked eagerly.
“There it is yonder.”
Taking a hand briefly from the wheel, Mr. Carroll indicated a point some distance ahead and to the right where the red-tiled roof of a house showed in patches among the wealth of surrounding greenery.
“Why, it’s only a little way from the sea!” Patsy cried out. “Not more than half a mile, I should judge.”
“About three quarters,” corrected her father. “The bathing beach is excellent and there’s an old boathouse, too.”
“Are there any boats?” was the quick question.
“A couple of dinghys. Both leaky. I gave them to one of my black fellows. Old Fereda was evidently not a sea dog. The boathouse was full of odds and ends of rubbish. I had it cleared up and repainted inside and out. It will make you a good bath house. It’s a trim looking little shack now.”
Presently rounding a curve in the white, ribbon-like road, the travelers found themselves again riding southward. To their left, picturesque masses of jungle sloped down to the ocean below.
Soon to their right, however, a high iron fence appeared, running parallel with the road. It formed the eastern boundary of Las Golondrinas. Behind it lay the estate itself, stretching levelly toward the red-roofed house in the distance. Long neglected by its former owner, the once carefully kept lawns and hedges had put forth rank, jungle-like growth. Broad-fronded palms and palmettos drooped graceful leaves over seemingly impenetrable thickets of tangled green. Bush and hedge, once carefully pruned, now flung forth riotous untamed masses of gorgeous bloom.
“It looks more like a wilderness than a private estate,” was Patsy’s opinion as her quick eyes roved from point to point in passing.
“It looked a good deal more like a jungle a few weeks ago,” returned Mr. Carroll. “Wait until you pass the gates; then you’ll begin to notice a difference. The improvements my black boys have made don’t show from the road.”
For a distance of half a mile, the car continued on the sandy highway. At last Mr. Carroll brought it to a stop before the tall, wrought-iron gates of the main entrance to the estate. Springing from the automobile, he went forward to open them.
“Every man his own gate-opener,” he called out jovially. “Drive ahead, Patsy girl.”
Patsy had already slipped into the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel. Immediately her father called out, she drove the machine slowly forward and through the now wide-open gateway.
“Do let me drive the rest of the way, Dad,” she implored as Mr. Carroll regained the car.
“All right. Follow this trail wherever it goes and you’ll finally bring up at the house,” was the good-humored injunction.
By “trail” Mr. Carroll meant the drive, which, flanked by hedges of perfumed oleander, wound through the grounds, describing a sweeping curve as it approached the quaint, grayish-white building that had for generations sheltered the Feredas. A little beyond the house and to its rear, they glimpsed rank upon rank of orange trees, on which golden fruit and creamy blossoms hung together amongst the glossy green of foliage.
A light land breeze, freighted with the fragrance of many flowers, blew softly upon the Wayfarers. Its scented sweetness filled them with fresh delight and appreciation of their new home.
Patsy brought the car to a stop on the drive, directly in front of an arched doorway, situated at the center of the facade. Before the travelers had time to step out of the automobile the massive double doors were swung open by a stout, turbaned mammy, the true southern type of negro, fast vanishing from the latter day, modernized South. Her fat, black face radiant with good will, she showed two rows of strong white teeth in a broad smile. Beside her stood two young colored girls who stared rather shyly at the newcomers.
“I done see yoh comin’, Massa Carroll!” she exclaimed. “I see yoh way down de road. So I done tell Celia an’ Em’ly here, y’all come along now, right smart, an’ show Massa Carroll’s folks yoh got some manners.’”
“Thank you, Mammy Luce,” gallantly responded Mr. Carroll, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement. Whereupon he gravely presented the gratified old servant to his “folks.” A courtesy which she acknowledged with an even greater display of teeth and many bobbing bows.
Headed by Mr. Carroll, the travelers stepped over the threshold of Las Golondrinas and into the coolness of a short stone passageway which ended in the patio or square stone court, common to houses of Spanish architecture.
In the center of the court a fountain sent up graceful sprays of water, which fell sparkling into the ancient stone bowl built to receive the silvery deluge. Above the court on three sides ranged the inevitable balconies. Looking far upward one glimpsed, through the square opening, a patch of blue sunlit sky.
“Welcome to Las Golondrinas, girls! It’s rather different from anything you’ve ever seen before, now isn’t it?”
Mr. Carroll addressed the question to his flock in general, who had stopped in the center of the court to take stock of their new environment.
“It’s positively romantic!” declared Patsy fervently. “I feel as though I’d stepped into the middle of an old Spanish tale. I’m sure Las Golondrinas must have a wonderful history of its own. When you stop to remember how many different Feredas have lived here, you can’t help feeling that a lot of interesting, perhaps tragic things may have happened to them. I only wish I knew more about them.”
