Part 9

“It isn’t very easy for me to get on familiar terms with people,” he replied slowly. “I never have made friends quickly—at least,” he corrected himself as he caught sight of her dancing eyes and funny little smile, “never until the present instance.”

“The exception which proves the rule?” she inquired.

“Exactly.”

“But Jim,” she added, more seriously; “the girls like you, and—and my friends must be yours too.”

“I know; I want them to he; and mine yours. You’ll like my special pal Griff Burton. He’s the most unconventional chap you ever saw; a perfect riot. But a prince of a fellow. I hope there will be a chance for you to meet him before you go home.”

“Shouldn’t you think they were sitting calmly in a living room somewhere on dry land, all by themselves, instead of here in a crowd of people on a foggy ocean, not knowing whether we’re going to the bottom or not?” whispered Martha, glancing at the two, absorbed in each other.

“Goodness, Mart, what a cheerful idea”; exclaimed Jeanette, ignoring the first part of her remark.

Miss Ashton made no comment; but she gazed rather thoughtfully out to sea.

“How long do you expect to stay in Boston?” continued Jim.

“I really don’t know. Our plans for the time subsequent to getting into Boston are not at all definite. If Madelon had been with us, you know I told you about Miss Ashton’s protégée, the little French girl?—we expected to run about the city a bit; and there were a couple of boys who spoke of meeting us here.”

“Who are they?” asked Jim quickly.

“One is a Junior at Roxford—his name is Phil Spenser; the other is his cousin, Tom Mixer. He’s a grad. They are having such a funny experience this summer,” and she went on to tell him of their adventures. “If we had come back to Boston when we expected to, I think it unlikely that they would have been here. But I sent Phil a card after our plans changed, and it may be that by this time they have made enough money to come on.”

“I should like you to meet my father and mother before you go back,” said Jim, after she had finished her story of the boys. “My brother is in Bermuda at present——”

“Oh, is he? That’s where Janie and I want to go next summer. We’re planning to ask our folks to give us the trip as a graduation present.”

“And after that, what?”

“I honestly don’t know, Jim. I wish I did. During this last year at college I’ll have to think hard, and come to some decision. I _might_ teach, for I love youngsters——”

“But only for, say a year or two?” interrupted Jim, in a very low tone.

“Why, I don’t know. I probably should keep at it if I liked it.”

“I mean just until I get well settled, and can take care of you?”

There was dead silence, broken only by the harsh sound of the foghorn, and the subdued voices of the crowd around them. Nancy’s heart raced madly; and although she felt Jim’s anxious eyes upon her, and knew he was waiting, she could not force herself to reply at once.

“You’re not angry; are you, Nan?” he asked at last.

She shook her head.

“And—and—you’ll do it?”

“Do what?”

Even in a serious moment like this, her fondness for mischief got the upper hand.

“You know perfectly well what I mean, Nancy,” he replied very gravely.

He had not meant to speak so soon; not for a long time. But in the excitement of the collision, and their possible danger—for truly help did seem mighty long in coming, and he knew that by this time water must be filling the hold of the steamer—he had thrown aside all reserve. He must let her know how very much he cared.

At that moment, a huge bulk loomed out of the fog, and there were shouts of joy from the passengers. Help had come.

Two at a time, “Like the animals going into the ark,” remarked the irrepressible Martha, the people were all transferred to the _City of Boston_ which had come to rescue them; and the disabled steamer, being lightened, prepared to limp into port with her cargo, under her own power.

In the excitement Nancy managed to whisper to Jim:

“I can’t answer you now, with all this going on; maybe we’ll be able to have a few minutes together before I go home?”

“I’ll see that we do,” was his firm reply.

Rumors of the accident had reached Boston, and the wharf was thronged with people. Some were friends or relatives of the passengers on the unfortunate steamers; others merely seekers of excitement. Jim managed to get his party through the crowd, and into a taxi.

“Sorry to hurry you away from Pierce, Miss—Martha,” he said, after they were seated in the cab and on their way to Miss Ashton’s apartment.

Nancy flashed him an approving glance.

“Oh, that’s all right,” replied Martha frankly. “He knows where he can find me.”

¹ Can one say of a thing that it is lost if one knows where it is?

*CHAPTER XIII*

*A LETTER*

Dear Mary,

“I don’t know how you will feel about it, but in spite of my careful chaperoning” [Miss Ashton smiled shrewdly to herself as she wrote that] “I’m afraid that I have let your little girl fall in love.

“I fancy I can see you stiffen up at that, and hear you say, ‘What nonsense! She is only a child.’ Perhaps she is in your eyes, still a little girl—I suppose that, to their own mothers, children never really grow up; but to others she is a very lovely and lovable young girl. She was always most attractive, but how wonderfully she has developed and improved during these last two years! I have not seen her, you know, since that summer she was so crushed by her uncle’s departure for Germany; and I imagine I see the change more clearly than you do.

“To get back to the subject in hand, I do not want to forestall Nancy’s confidences to you; for I am sure she will tell you about her new more-than-friend very soon, if she has not already; but I do want to give you my impressions of the case, as well as to let you have some information which will perhaps move you to smile, instead of frown, upon these two young things.

“James Jackson, the driver of the bus and conductor of our motor trip through Nova Scotia, is, except during the summer, a student at Harvard; and, from what I have found but, a very good student. This will be his senior year. His father and mother are well-known and highly esteemed descendants of the founders of the city. He has one brother, Edmund, who is at present running a lily farm in Bermuda. They are not wealthy people, but are very comfortable and live in one of the lovely old-fashioned houses in Cambridge. So much for his antecedents and position.

“Now, for the lad himself. Really, Mary he is a dear! A big, strong, manly fellow, but gentle and bashful as a girl—I correct myself, as girls used to be. He talks very little, and hides his ideas and emotions behind his serious face and quiet manners. There is plenty of character, force, and determination, however, in the background, ready to be exercised whenever needed. He has dark hair and eyes, though not quite so dark as Nancy’s; but he is much taller, and of course heavier, than she.

“Her manner toward him, as well as his toward her, have given no opportunity for criticism even by the most severe judge. It is such an ideal little romance that I just love to watch it. They are over in the Public Gardens now, looking at the flower beds. Whether they will really see them or not, I am not prepared to state.

“Seriously, Mary, they seem to be perfectly suited to each other—made for each other, as we used to say. What is the modern term? Soul mates, or some such foolish expression. It does not matter what we call it, however, as long as real love, respect, and honor form the foundation.

“The girls will be here for a few days longer. Run down, if you like, and look Jim over; or invite him to go home with Nancy for the week-end.

“Sincerely, “Lois Ashton.”

*CHAPTER XIV*

*PLANS*

In the meantime, Nancy and Jim were sitting on a bench which was placed on a tongue of land jutting out into the lake in the Public Gardens. A white swan, which Nancy had been feeding with gingersnaps, uttered its peculiar harsh cry to call her attention to its desire for more food.

“Well, Nan,” Jim was saying, “have you been thinking about what I asked you on the steamer this morning?”

“Yes, I have very seriously, in the intervals of fitting ourselves and belongings into Miss Ashton’s tiny apartment.”

“And you decided——”

“It’s this way, Jim,” said Nancy slowly, as if choosing her words very carefully. “I’m going to be perfectly frank. I—I care a lot for you, and just now I’m sure I’d never want to marry anyone else. But it seems to me that we would be foolish to tie ourselves up with an engagement just now, when we both have a whole year more at college. The senior year is a very important one, and we’ve got to be deciding what we want to do after we finish, and make preparations for work of some kind.”

“We could do all that just the same even if we were engaged,” protested Jim.

“Yes, but suppose this last year you should meet some other girl you care a lot for——”

“I won’t,” said Jim decidedly.

“You can’t be absolutely _sure_, Jim; and while I think there is no danger of my meeting anyone who could take your place, such a thing _is_, after all, a possibility, if not a probability. Just think! A month ago we had never even seen each other! We have known each other such a short time, and under such unusual conditions, don’t you really, way down in your heart, think that it would be wiser, safer, for both of us to go back to our old normal familiar lives for this one year, unfettered?”

“I see what you mean, even if I can’t enthuse over it very much.”

“Don’t misunderstand me—dear,” faltered Nancy, for Jim’s tone was rather hurt. “It’s frightfully hard for me to take this stand; but I feel that it is the right one, and—” her voice broke pathetically.

“Please—Nan,” begged Jim, “don’t. Fix things up to suit yourself, and I’ll do whatever you wish.”

“We can write regularly, that is, if you want to.”

Jim gave her such a disgusted look that Nancy smiled in spite of her earnestness.

“And probably,” she added, “we’ll be able to see each other once or twice during the year. Then, if next June we both feel the same way as we do now, you may ask me again. Though, as a matter of fact, you haven’t yet asked me _once_.”

“Why Nancy, I did; I’m sure I did,” protested Jim so earnestly that she laughed.

“Why, Jim, you didn’t; I’m sure you didn’t,” she retorted. “You asked me to wait until you were making enough to take care of me.”

“Well, anyhow, you knew what I meant. But to make sure, if you must have it in so many words, Nancy, will you marry me?”

“Ask me that question on Commencement Day, and I’ll answer it.”

“Promise me one thing, Nan,” begged Jim very seriously; “that you won’t become engaged to anyone else until I have had my chance, again in June.”

“Of course, I’ll promise that; and—and Jim.”

“Yes?”

“If you find some other girl, and feel that you don’t want to ask me again, just mail to me the little spray of wild roses that Janie gave us on the Harbor ride that day—what ages ago it seems!—and I’ll understand.”

Jim laughed gayly.

“Fat chance of that!” he declared.

“But you’ll promise?” persisted Nancy.

“Oh, yes; to please you I’ll promise,” he agreed indulgently.

“My goodness!” exclaimed Nancy, looking at her watch after a long silence, during which the swan, disgusted at the lack of attention from the two human beings, sailed off down the lake, “do you know that it’s after five o’clock? Martha went off somewhere with Mr. Pierce; Jeanette was going through some of the shops; and Miss Ashton suggested that we all be back about five thirty. We had rather a ‘picked up’ lunch, as she called it; and to-night we’re going out to dine.”

“I know it.”

“You do? How?”

“Because I invited you all to go to dinner with me.”

“You did! When?”

“I asked Miss Ashton this morning, and she accepted for the crowd.”

“How very nice! And she never said a word about it.”

“She’s an awfully good scout,” said Jim fervently, if a bit irrelevantly.

“To-morrow,” he went on, “I hope to have you meet Mother and Dad. I told them all about you when I ran out home for lunch, and they want you, and the others too, of course, to come out for afternoon tea to-morrow.”

“I shall love seeing them, and your home, Jim.”

“They’ll love you, too. I’m going to have Griff there. I guess I’ll ask him for to-night too; and Pierce, if I can get hold of him.”

“Jim, you’re extravagant, taking such a big party out to dinner; though of course it would be loads of fun.”

“I have my whole summer’s pay, and we must celebrate some way.”

“Celebrate what?” asked Nancy quickly; but Jim only looked at her and laughed.

At six o’clock he was back at the apartment, bringing Griff with him. After introductions were over, they sat in the little living room waiting for John Pierce. Griff, a tall, blond youth, proved to be as lively and unconventional as Jim was serious and reserved. He roamed restlessly about, taking up ornaments and books and setting them down again, stumbling over footstools (whether accidentally of intentionally, it was difficult to tell), and getting into people’s way generally.

“Excuse it, please,” he said, as he bumped into Martha who was just turning away from the window for the third time.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked bluntly, as she watched him continue his ramble about the room.

“Me? Oh, I’m nervous.”

“Over what?”

“Meeting so many charming girls all at one time. It’s quite a strain on a fellow’s nerves. Didn’t you know that?”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said Jim smiling. “He’s quite harmless.”

“Indeed. And when you get really to know me,” added Griff, “you’ll like me a lot. Folks always do.”

Jeanette did not know quite what to make of him, and sat watching him, half fascinated, half disapproving. He noticed her gaze, interpreted it correctly, and, being a born tease, decided to bother her.

“Little blond girl,” he said, going over to her and taking her hand, “I feel that you are the only one here who really understands me. Come over on the window seat and talk to me, and I’ll sit as still as a mouse. Oh, have a heart,” he added, as she hesitated.

“Yes, Janie,” urged Martha; “do take pity on the rest of us, and keep that Perpetual Motion quiet for a few minutes. It would be an act of charity.”

Thus impelled, figuratively and literally, Jeanette, blushing to the roots of her hair, rose to comply with the request. Bowing low, Griff took her hand and led her ceremoniously across the room to the window seat, where he began to talk nonsense to her in a low tone.

“You other people will have to amuse yourselves,” he paused long enough to say. “We are too busy to bother about you.”

“Thank Heaven!” ejaculated Martha fervently.

After talking nonsense for a few minutes, Griff led the conversation to the subject of books and plays; and Jeanette found him a really delightful companion.

“I like to see the first impression Griff makes on strangers,” observed Jim to Nancy. “Martha is evidently going to fight with him all the time.”

“Yes, and poor Janie is fussed to death. She doesn’t know what to make of him. But,” she added in a lower tone, “they seem to be enjoying each other’s company now.”

“She’ll like him after a while. Girls always do.”

“Sorry to be so late,” said John Pierce, coming in at that moment; “but it couldn’t be helped.”

Jim introduced him to Griff, and the party went down in the elevator. A taxi soon whirled them through the streets to the Copley-Plaza Hotel.

“Oh, I’ve always heard so much about this, and wished to see it,” whispered Nancy to Jim as they entered.

A table for seven had been reserved for them at one side of the circular dining room, and they were soon making up for their “skimpy luncheon.” They had so many things to talk about, that they spent a long time over dinner.

“Now, what should you like to do?” asked Jim, when they finally rose from the table. “A movie?”

“I don’t know, Jim,” said Miss Ashton with some hesitation. “I should not like to be considered a spoil-sport, but it is half-past nine now, and we have had a most strenuous day. I think the girls had better forego the joys of the screen for the benefit of a little rest.”

She had been looking at her party while they were at dinner, and saw how tired and excited they all were; and she didn’t want to send the girls home looking like that. So after a stroll through the hotel, they returned to the apartment.

“I’m not going to ask you boys to come up,” said Miss Ashton, as they got out of the taxi. “But, let me see. To-morrow we’re going out to your house, Jim, for afternoon tea. In the morning we hope to go to church. Monday, these girls are going home. Suppose to-morrow night you all come here for a farewell supper. We’ll be crowded, but I know you won’t mind.”

The exclamations of delight with which her invitation was received fully repaid her for any work which it would entail.

Packing themselves away for the night in Miss Ashton’s tiny apartment was a problem, and they had so much fun over it that all inclination for sleep was destroyed.

The living room had what Martha persisted in calling a “wall bed.”

“Mart, it’s a _Murphy_ bed!” protested Jeanette, whenever it was mentioned.

“That may be its official name,” retorted Martha; “but it comes out of the wall, just the same.”

“Suppose you and Jeanette sleep here, Nancy,” suggested Miss Ashton, pulling it out. “Martha can take the davenport. We’ll push it over to the other side of the room.”

“And what about you?” inquired Nancy. “I have a cot which I can set up in the dressing room.”

“But you won’t be comfortable,” objected the girls. “Let one of us take the cot.”

“Indeed I won’t. I’m used to sleeping anywhere. Wait until I get it fixed and you’ll see how cozy it really is.”

It was. The cot fitted in between the wall and the dressing table in the tiny room which connected the living room with the bathroom; and plenty of air came in from the living room windows directly opposite, if the door between were left open.

“This is heaps of fun,” declared Martha, when they were at last in bed, and the lights had been extinguished. “Who’d ever think that this time last night we were on the ocean, and to be shipwrecked before morning, and not knowing anything about it.”

“If they could have known about it ahead of time, Mart,” laughed Nancy, “I suppose it might have been avoided.”

“I said _we_, not _they_!” retorted Martha, as she turned over with a flop. She was soon fast asleep, as was also Miss Ashton.

“Janie, are you sleepy?” whispered Nancy after a while.

“Not very. Are you?”

“No. Janie——”

“Yes, Nan?”

“I suppose you noticed that Jim has been—has been—sort of nice to me.”

“Yes.”

“Well—he—he asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, Nancy darling, I’m so glad!”

Jeanette caught her friend in her arms, and squeezed her until she could hardly breathe. “I think he’s just fine, and I hope you’ll be just awfully, awfully happy.”

“Not so fast! Not so fast!” protested Nancy. “I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet.”

“You haven’t? Why Nan, don’t you care too? I thought you did.”

“I do; but I must be positive. It is too eternal, too serious a thing to decide in a hurry. I’m not even engaged yet.”

She went on to tell Jeanette the substance of Jim’s and her conversation on the subject; adding, as she finished, “Of course you know without my telling you that this is just between you and me. I suppose Miss Ashton suspects; and Jim has told his father and mother. I’ll tell Mother and Dad, and Uncle John, but I don’t want anyone else even to suspect it.”

“But Martha?” said Jeanette.

“Oh, she’s so wrapped up in Mr. Pierce that she probably hasn’t even noticed us,” giggled Nancy softly.

“Don’t deceive yourself,” said Jeanette, smiling to herself in the darkness over Nan’s naivete, “Martha is more observing than you give her credit for being. She hides a lot under that rather abrupt way of hers.”

“I wonder if I had better tell her, then, and caution her not to mention it.”

“Of course, Nan, it isn’t necessary to tell her; but perhaps it would be as well if you did. She will appreciate your confiding in her, and will, of course, say nothing about it. And I think, Nan, that you have been very wise in your decision, hard as it must now seem to you and Jim.”

“I felt that it was the only thing to do, Janie. I really want to finish college, and be prepared to earn my living in some way if it is ever necessary. So many girls think that if they can only get hold of a man, they need never lift a finger again.”

“I know; and one can never be sure what will happen at some time in the future. It is foolish not to find out what one thing we can do well, and then fit ourselves to do it. Then, in an emergency, there is something to depend upon.”

The girls talked for some time. They had missed their intimate companionship in the excitement and confusion of the past few days, and it gave both of them much pleasure to get together and talk things over in the old intimate way.

“Well, now that we’ve talked it all over, and aired our ideas,” said Nan, “perhaps we’d better try to go to sleep. To-morrow is going to be a full day too, and we don’t want to be tired out.”

“I’m glad to be going home to see the folks,” she went on, “for it seems ages since we left. I am a bit disappointed, though, at seeing nothing of Boston; aren’t you? I did hope to _do_ the town while we were here.”

“Yes; I’m disappointed too, Nan. It is such an interesting city—so different from other large cities.”

“There is only one Boston, and I’ve wanted, ever since I studied history, to explore not only the city itself but also its surroundings.”

“And Cape Cod, that Joseph Lincoln writes about,” added Jeanette.

“Well, perhaps some time we shall be able to come back again,” said Nancy, yawning.

“I am quite sure,” said Jeanette, squeezing her friend’s hand, “that at least _you_ will.”

*CHAPTER XV*

*PARTIES*

As a result of the late hours which they had kept, in spite of Miss Ashton’s resolutions, and also of the excitement and over-fatigue, it was eleven o’clock the next morning before any of the girls stirred.

A stray sunbeam, coming through a tiny hole in the shade, shone directly in Nancy’s eyes, and awakened her. For a moment she did not know where she was; then the events of the preceding day rushed through her mind. She lay still for a while, listening to hear if anyone else was awake. Not hearing a sound, she drew her watch from under her pillow. Her involuntary exclamation roused Jeanette.

“What’s the matter, Nan?” she inquired, sleepily.

“Guess what time it is!”

“Oh, about seven o’clock, I suppose. But please tell me it’s only five.”

“Add four to your seven.”

“Nan, you don’t mean it!”

Nancy held the watch before Jeanette’s eyes. “Imagine! And I don’t think I stirred all night.”

“I’m sure I didn’t. I never slept so late in all my life.”

“Oh, did we disturb you?” Nancy asked, as Miss Ashton appeared in the doorway.

“Disturb me!” she repeated. “It’s time somebody did. Do you two know the hour?”

“Just discovered it. I’m afraid we won’t get to church to-day,” said Nancy, regretfully. Martha slept peacefully on.

“It seems a shame to disturb her,” said Miss Ashton; “but we’ll be eating lunch before we have breakfast, if we put it off much longer.”

“Mart,” said Nancy, shaking her.

“What?”

“Time to get up.”

“Can’t be.” And Martha turned over and settled herself for another nap.

“But it’s a quarter after eleven!”

“You’re crazy!”

She was now fully aroused.

“I’ll start breakfast,” said Miss Ashton, going into the kitchen. “Come out as soon as you’re ready.”

“Why don’t we have breakfast and lunch in one?” called Nancy. “Then, since we’re going to have afternoon tea, we won’t need any noon meal.”.

“Not a bad idea,” replied Miss Ashton. “We’ll do that.”