The Motor Maids by Rose, Shamrock and Thistle Part 15

"If you will," answered Lord Glenarm.

"We shall be delighted," answered Miss Campbell.

"And Madame will come, too," he continued, turning to Maria.

"It depends on when they go," she answered. "I shall not be through here for several weeks."

"We are just Gypsies," put in Miss Campbell. "We can make the visit whenever it's convenient to you, Maria."

It was settled, then, that they were to visit Lord Glenarm, the time to be agreed on later.

"I have cousins in Ireland," said Elinor proudly, just as the lights went down. The young girl had always been just a little boastful of those Irish cousins of hers. A glamor of mystery hung about them and she had pictured them in her mind as being wonderful people. She had endowed them with talents, put them in fine old homes and surrounded them with a golden haze of romance.

Then the curtain went up, and presently the great second act of the opera had begun, in which Elsa becomes the bride of Lohengrin.

CHAPTER X.-WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

"London," announced Mary Price, "is just like a moody person. When she is sunny and warm, she is so charming one would never dream how black and ugly she could be."

"She's in a very good humor this morning," exclaimed Billie, trying to bottle up her overflowing spirits until the others had finished their toilets, that they might all go forth together to see the sights.

It was the morning after the opera and their thoughts were still taken up with the great occasion. Nancy hummed the wedding chorus as she twisted her curls around her fingers, and smiled lovingly at her image in the gla.s.s.

"Are you quite ready, now, children?" said Miss Campbell suddenly; a question which caused the Motor Maids to smile secretly, since Miss Helen herself had been keeping them all waiting some quarter of an hour, while she arranged her hat and veil, drew on her immaculate pearl-gray gloves and pinned a jabot of fine Irish lace at her neck.

"What are we to see first, Billie, dear? Have you arranged a schedule for the day? You are to be guide, remember."

"I had planned Westminster Abbey," said Billie, "if that's agreeable to all concerned."

It was decidedly a delightful thing to do, and two at least of the five tourists were thrilled at the notion. All her life Mary had longed to see the great cathedral, and Elinor, also, was moved with a deep pleasure at the thought. Nancy, gay b.u.t.terfly that she was, was not so overcome by the solemnity of the visit.

"Has each person some special thing that she wants to see most? If so, let her wishes be known before we get there, so plans may be made accordingly," announced Billie.

"I want to see the Stone of Scone where all the kings have been crowned," observed Elinor.

"I want to see the tomb of Queen Elizabeth," put in Nancy, after deep thought.

"I know why," cried Billie. "Because she had several hundreds of dresses."

"You're just a tease, Billie. It's because she was a great queen."

"I want to see the Poets' Corner," announced Mary.

"We shall certainly see all those things and a great deal more," said Miss Campbell.

They entered the Abbey by the western door and stood silently in a little group, looking up at the great stone arches which seemed to them like the spreading limbs of ancient forest trees. A pale ray of sunlight flickered in through one of the enormous windows; but the great church was dim and gloomy with age. Here lay most of England's dead kings and queens and her great men.

With a Baedeker in one hand and a guide-book of the Abbey in the other, Billie led her friends from chapel to chapel. Even Nancy was subdued and quiet in "this silent meeting place of the great dead of eight centuries." Mary crept along like a little gray mouse, poking her nose into this tomb and that, and never speaking a word. She intended to write an essay next winter at West Haven High School called "A Visit to Westminster Abbey," and win a prize for the best thesis of the year.

For hours they wandered through the ancient church. Lunch time pa.s.sed and they had not even felt the pangs of hunger.

"Just think," Mary was saying, "Henry VI. was crowned here when he was only nine years old, and the Archbishop put a gold crown on his poor little head; and Richard II., who was just a boy, too, fainted from fatigue when he was crowned and had to be carried out; and Queen Anne cried because her crown hurt her head; and George IV. was almost strangled by his heavy coronation robes."

"All of which argues," remarked Billie, "that it's much more agreeable and comfortable to be a Motor Maid than a royal personage."

A middle-aged woman dressed in black and a young girl who had wandered up to the tomb of Aveline of Lancaster, where the four girls and Miss Campbell had paused, exchanged an amused glance. As they were moving slowly away, Billie called softly:

"I think you dropped something."

She had picked up a beautiful little sapphire brooch which had broken from its fastenings and lay shining like a bit of blue sky on the ancient gray floor.

"Oh, you are very kind," exclaimed the girl hurrying back. "It is my favorite brooch. I would not have lost it for worlds. Thank you very, very much."

"What charming manners," thought Billie.

"How pretty she is," thought Nancy.

"She is very high-bred looking," was Elinor's comment to herself.

And Mary thought:

"If she were turned to stone and laid on top of a tomb with her hands crossed, she would look very much like Aveline of Lancaster."

"I think you must be Americans," said the young girl, smiling into Billie's face with a kind of shy frankness.

"We are," said Billie; "and you are English, of course."

"Half English." She paused. "I thank you again, very much."

Then she turned away rather reluctantly, the girls thought, and they were sorry, too, for some reason.

"Isn't she sweet?" Mary remarked as the girl disappeared from the chapel.

"So simple, too," Miss Campbell observed. "So una.s.suming and such plain, nice clothes."

"I could almost believe she was poor from her clothes," put in Nancy, "but her face doesn't look poor."

"And, pray, how can you tell whether a person's face looks poor or rich?" demanded Billie, always ready to enter into an argument with her friend.

"Don't you know the difference between a poor face and a rich one? Rich faces have a used-to-things expression and poor people always give themselves away by looking surprised."

A most delicious laugh broke into this grave explanation of Nancy Brown's. The young girl had come back.

"I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to be eavesdropping," she explained, "but we have a card that admits us into the room where the wax effigies are kept. You didn't know there were wax works in Westminster Abbey, did you? And we thought perhaps you might like to go with us to see them.