Lucile Triumphant Part 9

"When you haven't called me that for two years," said Dorothy, graciously, "I'll begin to think you're improving."

"That's right, Dot," cried one of the girls, with a merry laugh. "Never refuse a helping hand to the wicked!"

"Encourage them once in a while and some time, soon or late, you will be rewarded," chanted Marjorie in a solemn tone that brought a laugh from every one.

"Lucy was right, just the same," said Margaret, with apparent irrelevance, and the girls turned inquiring eyes on the speaker as she sat, chin in hand, gazing into the fire.

Somehow the girls' faces always sobered when they looked at Margaret, and when they spoke to her their voices softened to an undernote of tenderness never used among themselves. She had won her way steadily to every girl's heart. They had marveled at her invariable sweetness of temper; they had laughed at her quaint, naive sayings, and, most of all, they had loved her for the warm, grateful heart that found room and to spare for them all.

So now Evelyn, merry, irresponsible Evelyn, said, with a gentleness that caused Mrs. Wescott to look at her in surprise:

"What do you mean, Margaret? Pictures in the fire again?"

"No; I was just thinking of what Lucy said when she first came in, before Dorothy jumped all over her," said Margaret, with a twinkle in her eye that had only found its way there of late.

"Jumped all over her? What kind of language do you call that, Margaret Pratt Stillman?" reproved Marjorie, with her best grandmother air. "If you are not careful, the habit of using slang will grow upon you."

"Oh, do keep still, Marj, for half a minute, can't you?" cried Jessie. "I suppose you can't," she added, "but you might try, anyway. A great many impossible things come with time."

"Speak with yourself, Johnette," retorted Marjorie.

"Why the Johnette?" inquired Lucile, with interest.

"Feminine for John, of course," Marjorie explained, patiently.

Jessie broke in upon the laugh that followed. "But we haven't come to the point yet," she complained. "Speak up, Margaret, before some other rude person interrupts."

"That's right," said Lucile, ignoring the irony in her tone. "Now is your chance, Peggy."

"Why, you said that our guardian was a vision," said Margaret, dreamily.

"I quite agree with you."

"Come, come, I can't allow this," cried the vision, gaily, as the girls turned adoring eyes upon her. "I've been thinking sundry little thoughts on my own account since I've seen my girls again."

"Oh, doesn't it seem great to be back?" cried Dorothy. "I know I should be terribly homesick if I stayed away six weeks, let alone six months."

"Indeed it did. Just the same, New York is fascinating, with its great buildings, its busy, absorbed throng of people, each intent on getting ahead of the next one. There is something about it all that draws one irresistibly. The very air seems charged with electricity, and just to walk down Broadway gave me more real excitement and enjoyment than the most thrilling play could have done." Helen Wescott's face flushed and her eyes sparkled as she talked.

"Go on," cried Evelyn breathlessly. "Do tell us all about it. Oh, I can't even imagine it!"

"I don't believe I could tell you everything if I should talk for a month," she went on. "But I do remember a conversation Jack and I had soon after our arrival. We were walking up Fifth Avenue one exceptionally busy day--I don't know why I should say that, for every day over there seems busier than the last--when Jack asked why I was so quiet. 'Because everything else is making so much noise,' I answered. Which, indeed, was almost reason enough. But when he insisted, I said what had been in my thoughts for the past two days:

"'I've been wondering, as I looked at all these people rushing along as if their lives depended on their getting to a certain place on a certain second--these people with set faces and eyes that seem to see a long way off--I've just been wondering what they all find to do.'

"'My dear,' said Jack, and he laughed in a way I could not understand, 'It's easy to see you have lived a long way from little old New York, and I'm mighty glad you have. I'd rather you would face all these people for the first time with me along.'

"'But you haven't answered my question,' I insisted, for I was still filled with wonder at the great throng surging past us, whose purpose never seemed to change or falter.

"'You asked what they were all doing,' said Jack. 'Well, for the most part, they are busily and congenially engaged in doing to the best advantage the next poor victim that comes to their net.'

"Somehow, that little remark put a different aspect on everything and Fifth Avenue didn't hold quite the same charm for me that it had. Just the same," she added, brightly, "I like New York mighty well. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it didn't hold my girls, and I did miss you all so much!"

"Oh, I don't see how you would ever find time to miss anybody with all those wonderful new sights and sounds around you all the time," said Evelyn, naively.

Marjorie sniffed. "Of course, we know you wouldn't," she said.

"I wouldn't," said Evelyn, unabashed. "I'd be too awfully excited all the time."

"Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn!" said Lucile, laughing. "Won't you ever learn to cover up your faults?"

"I'll have to get some first," she retorted, impishly; and the girls, who were in a mood when everything strikes them funny, began to laugh. The more they laughed, the more they tried to stop, the more impossible it became, until the whole house rang with merriment. Lucile was the first to recover herself.

"That's quite enough for some time to come, Evelyn," she cried, choking back her laughter. "We all know you are wonderful, but please remember that no human being is perfect."

Gradually they quieted down, with only an occasional explosion, and Lucile returned to her guardian again.

"I suppose you have gone to all the theaters and restaurants and things in the city," she asked. "Are they just as wonderful as people make them out to be?"

"More," said Mrs. Wescott, emphatically, dimpling happily at her memories. Indeed, she was very young and very enthusiastic, and the girls, looking at her, thought they had never seen her so entrancingly lovely.

"It is almost impossible to describe," she went on. "At first you have only a confused impression that the world is on fire with electric lights. To ride through the crowded theater district at night, with the great electric signs blinking at you from all sides--with the honking of the motor horns making a very Babel--with the crowds on the sidewalk, still hurrying, but for such a different reason--men and women in evening dress, all bound for one or other of the gay restaurants or theaters close by. And then the theater itself! To walk from the street to the gaily lighted lobby, its walls paneled from floor to ceiling with great mirrors that reflect lovely women and distinguished men. Then in the theater where the rich carpet deadens every footfall and you feel rather than hear the murmur of many voices speaking softly--the subtle rustle of a crowded place--the lights--the music--oh, girls, it was wonderful, wonderful! I can't describe it!"

"Oh, but you have described it--beautifully!" cried Lucile. "I feel as if I had been there!"

"Oh, just to go there once!" breathed Jessie, rapturously. "If I could only see those things once, I think I'd be willing to die!"

The girls raised laughing protests, and Lucile cried, "For goodness'

sake, don't speak of dying yet awhile, Jessie. I'm going to see lots before my end comes. Oh, if we could only go back with you, Miss How--I mean Mrs. Wescott," she stammered, blushing furiously at her mistake.

The lovely guardian of the fire looked down upon Lucile, a quizzical smile curling the corners of her mouth.

"I don't wonder you make that mistake once in a while," she said. "It took me a long while to get used to it."

"I should think it would seem strange just at first," ventured Margaret, amazed at her own temerity and looking up at her guardian shyly. "I mean not being Miss Howland any longer."

The girls laughed and Margaret flushed confusedly.

"You shouldn't say such things, Margaret; it ill befits your age," said Jessie patronizingly.

There followed another burst of laughter, out of which Margaret's voice rose defiantly. "I don't care," she cried. "It seemed mighty funny to me to call our guardian Mrs. Wescott, and if it seemed strange to me, what must it have seemed to her? I was almost afraid----" her voice trailed off into silence, and Mrs. Wescott prompted, gently, "Afraid of what, dear?"

"Oh, just afraid that you might be--different."

It was the vague, half-formed fear that all the girls had felt, yet none had dared express, and the silence that followed was pregnant with meaning.

"Different, Margaret?" their guardian's voice was low and tremulous.

"Never! Happier, oh, so very much happier, girls; but never changed in my love for you except as it grows stronger. Do I seem different?" she asked, turning swimming eyes upon them.

"Oh, no--except that you are twice as dear," cried Lucile, and the cry found an echo in each girl's heart.