Part 7 (1/2)
”Yes, I know,” Bess agreed, ”but it's such a perfectly entrancing subject. She's a darling and so is he. Why, he's almost as nice as Walter Mason,” she added slyly.
Nan ignored this last. ”Walker is nice, isn't he?” she said. ”And he and Alice do look dear together.”
”He's swell,” Bess said slangily. ”He's tall and handsome and full of fun. Do you know, I think sometimes that Mr. MacKenzie does like him, for all the way he calls him 'lazy' and a 'no-good reporter.'”
”Of course he does,” Nan agreed, ”and Walker likes him too. I just know it.”
Bess looked at Nan questioningly at this latter bit of information. Did Nan know something she didn't know?
”Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what happens,” Nan tried to dismiss the subject.
”I suppose so,” Bess sighed, ”but it would be such fun to be an attendant at a wedding.”
”Oh, Bessie,” Nan ruffled her friend's hair, ”you're such a romantic soul. I'll bet that you think that if worse came to worse and cousin Adair insisted that Alice marry someone else, Walker would ride up on a charger and carry Alice off the way young Lochinvar did in that poem we learned back in the fifth grade. Remember?”
”You mean the one about Lochinvar coming up out of the West, 'through all the wide world his steed was the best,'” Bess laughed.
”Yes, that's the one,” Nan a.s.sented. ”Remember how we loved that thing and how we used to say over and over again the stanza that followed the one where he asked the bride to dance with him
'One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear When they reach'd the hall door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; They'll have fleet steeds that follow, quoth young Lochinvar.'”
”And then at the end,” Bess went on, ”there was this,
'There was racing and chasing, on Cann.o.bie lea, But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?'”
”Oh, Nan,” Bess laughed when she had finished, ”when I was a kid I thought there couldn't possibly be anything more romantic than that.”
”Nor I neither,” Nan admitted, ”And I thought of it often when we were in Scotland last summer. But do you know, Bess,” she giggled, ”that Young Lochinvar of today would have to dash up in a car--”
”Yes, or in Mexico it might be a burro,” Bess laughed heartily at the thought.
”Say, what are you two making such a rumpus about,” Laura stuck her head in through the door. ”First thing you know, they'll be locking you up as a couple of laughing hyenas, because you are making such a racket.”
”Come on in, Laura,” Nan invited, ”We've just got a silly streak, that's all. Bess, here, had a couple of crazy ideas that she aired. She's all right now. You can come in,” she finished rea.s.suringly. ”What's up?”
”Oh, nothing,” Laura answered in such an unusual tone that Nan knew immediately something was wrong.
”Come, what is it?” she asked again, going over to Laura and closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER VIII
TROUBLE FOR RHODA
”Oh, it's Rhoda,” Laura admitted when the door was closed. ”Nan, something terrible's happened and Rhoda is in her room crying her eyes out. Won't you come and see if you can't do something for her.”
”Of course,” Nan started for the door at once. ”But what's happened?”