Part 25 (2/2)

”Meaning when they cease to be worms and appear clothed in fine raiment,” asked Billie.

”Not so very fine,” answered Nancy, fingering a streamer of her pink sash with a tender touch, as she glanced complaisantly down at her lingerie frock.

Billie laughed teasingly.

”Little b.u.t.terfly,” she said, ”is there anything; you like better than pretty clothes?”

Nancy pouted and smiled.

”There is just this minute,” she answered. ”Dinner with waiters and soup and mayonnaise and strawberry ice cream.”

They exchanged happy smiles over Nancy's inconsequential menu.

After a month's Gypsying, it was good to be civilized for a few days before the thirst for wandering came over them again, and they must push on toward California.

Daniel Moore was not at the appointed meeting-place, in one of the small sitting rooms. They waited impatiently for him for a quarter of an hour, and finally left word at the desk that he would find them in the dining room. There, in the interest of dinner and of the occupants of other tables, their recent fellow traveler completely pa.s.sed from their minds.

”It takes a thousand miles of privation to appreciate real comfort,”

observed Miss Helen Campbell, delicately nibbling the breast of a spring chicken. ”My dear children, how very pleasant this is, to be sure.”

The Motor Maids fully agreed with her. The lights and the flowers, the music and the well-trained waiters, as well as the delicious dinner, afforded them supreme enjoyment for the moment. They tried to remember that less than seventy years had pa.s.sed since the first ox-drawn emigrant wagon had entered the valley.

”And since that time all this has happened,” cried Mary dramatically.

For it was she, more than the others, who loved the history of the places through which they pa.s.sed. ”They say Brigham Young saw it all in a dream,” she continued, ”and the moment he set eyes on the valley and the lake, he said: 'This is the place. Drive on.'”

”'And forty years later Brigham Young laid the corner-stone for the Temple,'” read Billie from the guide book in a sing-song voice. ”'The architecture is composite--' What's that?”

She raised her eyes questioningly. ”Why, you haven't heard a word I--”

she began.

Four pairs of eyes were turned toward the entrance of the dining room, where stood a tall, slender, young girl, in a white dress. Her red-gold hair was coiled low on her neck. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and she gazed with a listless air into s.p.a.ce, without seeing any of the diners at the tables. Her father, the imperturbable John James Stone, was on one side of her, and on the other an equally imperturbable young man, with a stern, rather hard countenance, a square jaw and a mouth as inscrutable and enigmatic as the shut door of a tomb.

The head waiter conducted the party to a table in a far-distant corner of the room, where the girls could see them without staring rudely.

”That's Evelyn Stone,” said a woman at the table next to them. ”She's with her fiance, Ebenezer Stone. He's her second cousin, you know.”

”When did you say they were to be married?”

”The day after to-morrow. That's why they're in town. She is to be married in the annex of the Temple on Sat.u.r.day. They say she's not over-anxious, either. There was another man in the case, you know. But something happened, and she's consented to marry Ebenezer, who's always wanted her. He's a good Mormon and hard working. He's made a lot of money, I believe--”

”He's a piece of granite without any soul,” put in a man in the party.

”Strike it hard enough, and sparks will fly,” said one of the women.

The Motor Maids and Miss Campbell exchanged looks of dismay.

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