Part 19 (2/2)

”Oh, don't be frightened!” exclaimed the princess with a merry laugh as she saw her companion cower in her chair. ”It's only Jimmie! Jimmie, stop that racket!” she continued with a loud clap of her hands. But Jimmie, whoever he was, only replied with another agonizing shriek. This time the princess called angrily, ”Mamma, come and make Jimmie stop his shrieking. Miss Page is awfully frightened!”

Nathalie, as she heard the foregoing explanation, and realized that it was not an insane person screaming, gave a hysterical gasp and turned her head in the direction of the shrieks, but alas! her blinders, like a black wall, barred her vision.

A few hurried steps, a scuffle evidently, accompanied by the loud flapping of wings, and then a jumble of French, Spanish, and English, jabbered in defiant rage, revealed that Jimmie was a c.o.c.katoo!

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Oh, don't be frightened!” exclaimed the princess, with a merry laugh.]

But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his fight to be heard, with much loudness and clearness of note now broke into ”In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial proved too much for Jimmie's audience, and peals of laughter rang out, in which Nathalie's treble and the doctor's deeper note mingled with the c.o.c.katoo's song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore, started in with ”Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief-” but this time he was summarily thrust from the room by an attendant-amid jabbering protests.

The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must be going, as he had an important case on hand; he had waited for her, he explained, knowing that she would be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he called the handkerchief.

As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand, crying, ”No, you shall not go. You have only been here a few moments!” Notwithstanding her mother's admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the invalid persisted in clutching her new friend's hand in a vise-like grip, much to her embarra.s.sment. Finding, however, that she was not to have her way, the princess broke forth into a low whimpering.

Nathalie stood still, and then feeling ashamed that a girl of her age should act the part of a child of five, endeavored to persuade her to let her go, promising to come again soon. She met with no success, and driven desperate by the command, ”Come, Nathalie, we must go!” she roughly pulled her hand away. Whereupon, the whimpering cries of the princess degenerated into shrieks of rage, so prolonged and shrill that Nathalie, with a thrill of surprise, immediately recognized from whom Jimmie had learned his shrieks.

As the car sped swiftly along in the direction of home, after the black handkerchief had been relegated to the doctor's pocket again, Nathalie suddenly reddened furiously, looked queer for a moment, and then burst into stifled laughter, much to the doctor's amus.e.m.e.nt, who was gravely watching her.

”h.e.l.lo!” he cried at length, ”what's up?” after his companion had made one or two ineffectual efforts to control her risibility.

But at last she sobered, and with the tears still in her eyes told how she and Grace had been sent by Mrs. Morrow a short time before-to deliver a letter to Mrs. Van Vorst, and how when they were waiting in the reception room they had heard those same terrible shrieks and frenzied laughter that Jimmie had emitted that morning, and, thinking that it was an insane person, they had run for their lives.

”O dear,” she gasped hysterically, ”what a joke on Grace and me! To think of our running away when it was only a c.o.c.katoo! Oh, what sillies we were!”

”I agree with you,” returned the doctor so solemnly that the girl flushed and looked at him quickly with shamed eyes, but his humorous twinkle did not agree with his blunt a.s.surance, so Nathalie's self-esteem suffered no wound.

”You know where you were then to-day?” questioned the doctor slowly after a pause.

”Oh, yes, at the house of the Mystic!”

”The house of the Mystic?” with some astonishment.

”Oh, that is the name the girls have given Mrs. Van Vorst because she acts so queerly. She has been very disagreeable to the Pioneers, they claim, refusing to let them drill on the lawn in the rear of her house.

The girls say she hates young people, and then she always dresses so queerly in gray, too. She has shrouded herself in mystery by shutting herself up in that big gray house behind those walls. Edith Whiton insists that there is an insane person in the house and that he chased her the day of the Pilgrim Rally.”

”An insane person! There is no insane person in the house. That is nonsense, and should not be repeated!” exclaimed the doctor in an annoyed tone.

”Yes, I know, but the girls believe Edith, and so did I until to-day.

But Grace and I have never told a soul what we heard, only Mrs. Morrow.

But, oh, Doctor,” she cried impulsively, ”can't I tell Grace about the c.o.c.katoo? I will tell her not to tell a living soul,” she ended earnestly.

”No,” returned the doctor decidedly, ”Miss Grace is all right, but she might let it out in her sleep. No, you wait, and some time you girls can have the best laugh ever, as my kiddies say.”

So the story of Nathalie's visit to the princess in the tower was buried deep within her heart, although it came very near being unearthed several times when she was in the company of Grace or Helen, for really, it was hard to keep it a secret when it was such a good joke.

Sat.u.r.day, the day of the wild-flower hike, was warm and suns.h.i.+ny, with the balminess of summer in its gently wafting breezes. Every one present was filled with the antic.i.p.ation that they were going to have a ”dandy time.”

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