The Automobile Girls at Newport Part 12

"Open my bag, Mollie," said Miss Sallie, decidedly, "and you, Grace, look under the seat for my other hat. We shall probably arrive in Newport at five o'clock, the hour for the fashionable parade. I, at least, shall do what I can to give our car an appearance of gentility. I advise you children to do the same."

"Would you like a little cold cream, Miss Sallie, to wipe off your face?" Mollie spoke timidly, remembering how Barbara had laughed at her.

"Certainly I should, my child, and very intelligent of you to have brought it along."

"Well," said Ruth, "if you must 'fix up,' and I am to take a party of belles and beauties into Newport, instead of true lovers of sport, there are lots of new veils under my seat. Bab, take them out and pa.s.s them around. Only the chauffeur shall be dusty and dilapidated enough to look the part."

Behold their dream had come true! The automobile girls were at last in Newport, watching the summer parade!

Ruth, at the expected hour, turned her car, with a great flourish, into Bellevue Avenue, Newport's most fashionable thoroughfare. For a few minutes the girls beheld a long procession of carriages and automobiles; a little later, they swung round a corner and stopped in front of a beautiful old Colonial house, with a wide veranda running around three sides of it, and a hospitably open front door.

Miss Sallie descended first, to be greeted by Ralph's mother, who was expecting them.

"I don't like her. She's not a bit like Ralph," thought Barbara. Then she gave herself an inward shake. "There, Barbara, you know what mother would say to you about your sudden prejudices!"

Mrs. Ewing, who had been a great beauty in her day, looked as though life had disagreed with her.

Barbara had wondered how a private home could accommodate so many people, never having seen a handsome old New England house, but their three rooms occupied only half of one side of the long hall on the second floor. "And they think they are poor!" smiled Bab, to herself, as she looked admiringly at the handsome furniture. "I wonder what they would think of our little five-room cottage."

"I want some clean clothes before anything else," sighed dainty Mollie, standing before a mirror, gazing with disdain at her own appearance. "I believe I have one clean shirtwaist left, but I must still wear this dusty old skirt."

But Ruth was staggering into the room under an immense box.

"Fifteen dollars express charges, mum; not a cent less! Them's my orders. And extry for carrying the box upstairs. It ain't my business.

I'm too accommodating I am! Where shall I put it down, mum?"

Ruth dropped the heavy bundle on the bed; she couldn't carry it a moment longer.

"Why, Ruth Stuart!" said Mollie, dancing with glee. "It's some clothes for us! How did mother get them here in such a hurry? Oh, joy! oh, rapture! I was just fussing about having to wear this old suit to-night."

Bab was tugging at the heavy cords.

"Foolish Bab!" scoffed Ruth. "You'll never get it open that way," and she cut the cord in a business-like fashion with a little knife she always carried.

"Now I'll run away and leave you," Ruth continued. "Grace is calling that it is time for my bath. Your turn next. I'll see the pretty things when I come back."

Ruth would like to have stayed to see the girls open the box, but she had an instinctive feeling that they would prefer to be alone.

"Here's a letter from mother. Let's read that first," said Bab.

Inside the letter lay two crisp ten-dollar bills!

"I have had a windfall, children," the letter read, "through the kindness of Mr. Stuart. He told me that some of my old stock that I thought of no value was paying a dividend again. Curiously, your Uncle Ralph had not mentioned it to me; but, when I wrote and told him of Mr.

Stuart's advice, he sent it to me at once. So here's a little spending money. And oh, my darlings, I hope you will like your new clothes! Mr.

Stuart is so kind to me, I am not lonely," the letter ended, "so have the best time you possibly can. I shall send your trunk to-morrow with your summer muslins and underwear."

"Mollie mine, don't tear the paper in that fashion," remonstrated Barbara. "Let me open the box. Behold and see!" She held up two dainty organdie frocks, delicate and airy. Mollie's gown was white, with little b.u.t.terfly medallions of embroidery and lace sprinkled over it.

"Mollie, Mollie! How could mother have guessed your new name was 'the b.u.t.terfly girl'? Isn't it too lovely!" Bab almost forgot to look at her own frock, so enraptured was she with her sister's.

But Barbara's frock was just as charming, and as well suited to her. A circle of pink wild roses outlined the hem and encircled the yoke, which was of delicate pink tulle.

Mollie was rummaging with impatient fingers. "Party capes, I do declare-the very newest style! I never reached the point of expecting capes even in my wildest dreams. See, yours is all white, and mine has a pale blue lining with a dear little 'blue riding hood cap.' Oh, won't I be charming?" murmured Mollie, putting the cape over her shoulders and pirouetting before the mirror. "Surely no sensible wolf would want to eat me up!"

Two light flannel suits, one of cream color for Bab, and a pin-stripe of blue and white for Mollie, completed the glories of the box.

"Now," said Bab, "what more can we want, for tennis, for rowing, for yachting, for driving? Are there any more entertainments that the rich enjoy, Mollie? Because, if there are, I should like to mention them."

Oh, the girls will all declare, When they see me on the square- Here comes a millionaire, Mollie darling!

"What do you think of that for poetry made while you wait? You don't half appreciate my talents, Miss Mollie Thurston," ended Bab, with a final hug.

"Hurry, children," called Miss Sallie, appearing at their door. "You know we are to meet Mrs. Cartwright at the Casino to-night. She wants to introduce us to the place where a large part of Newport's gayety occurs."

"What is the 'Casino'?" whispered Mollie, when Miss Sallie had disappeared.

"Oh, it's only a big club, where you play tennis and have dances, and any sort of entertainments. Nearly all the nicest people in Newport belong to it. Mrs. Cartwright says we'll have most of our fun over there."

Bab put her arm round her sister, as they walked downstairs.

"Mollie," she said, "I have the queerest feeling. I am so happy, it frightens me. I never had such a good time before. I wonder how it will all turn out?"

Barbara could not guess that there were to be tears for her, as well as joys, at Newport. It was as well she did not know, or her pleasure would have been marred.

The girls finished dinner as quickly as possible.

"There's time for a stroll on the cliffs, isn't there, before eight?"

inquired Ruth. "Do you feel equal to exercise, Aunt Sallie? Everyone takes the cliff walk the first thing after arrival in Newport."

"Certainly," Miss Sallie agreed. "I suppose I can manage it, though I have ridden so far that I may have lost the use of my limbs. However, I can sit down if I grow tired, and you children can go on without me.

It's perfectly safe, isn't it, Mrs. Ewing?"

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Ewing replied; "though it looks fairly dangerous, the cliffs are so high, the highest on the Atlantic Coast from Cape Ann to Yucatan. But very few accidents have occurred there-so far."

Ruth and Barbara led the way. They could hear the sea booming and pounding below them. From the edge of the cliff they looked down a hundred feet at the sea, washing in on the level stretch of beach.

Ruth shivered and turned pale. "Oh," she shuddered, "it makes me horribly nervous! I am ashamed of it, so I don't often mention it, but I simply can't look down from great heights. It even makes me a little sick to look out of a high window, and I'm a miserable climber, I get so dizzy. Let us go back. Do you mind, Bab?"

"No, Ruth," Bab answered. "I suppose I am a tomboy; I used to play hare and hounds with the boys at school, and I learned to climb like a goat over the rocks at Kingsbridge; but these Newport cliffs are a different matter."

Barbara's powers were to be tested, but neither she nor Ruth thought anything more of their talk. Miss Sallie and the other two girls had joined them, and they made their way along the narrow, winding path that dipped in hollows and curves, and stretched for two miles ahead of them.

"How hard it is," said Miss Sallie, "to tell which view is the more beautiful!"

On the inland side of the cliffs, beautiful, shaded lawns, luxuriant with flowers, ran down to the edge of the path. Set in their midst were the marble palaces of Newport's millionaires. Toward the sea, great points of land jutted out into the harbor, where the water was violet with the shadows of the closing day.

"Miss Stuart! Miss Stuart!" Aunt Sallie heard a gay voice calling her.