Lucile Triumphant. Elizabeth M. Duffield
course you did, but it seemed an age to me. Listen, girls,” she went on, “everything’s all ready. Your dresses are laid out on the bed in my room, and you’d better get them on as soon as you possibly can.”
“You’re going to the station now, Lucy, aren’t you?” asked one of the girls.
“Yes, right away. I suppose we’ll be back again in about half an hour. Good-by; I’m off!” and she ran down the steps, only to turn at the bottom to add, “Don’t forget any of the directions, girls, and don’t make the least noise when you come into the room, or it will spoil everything. Good-by; I’m off now for good.”
“We’ll do everything just right,” Jessie promised.
“Good luck!” they called after her as she hurried along.
“She almost seems to be walking on air, doesn’t she?” one of them remarked, as she turned for a last wave.
“No wonder,” said Evelyn, gloomily. “She’s going to our guardian.”
“Lucy said they would be back in half an hour,” sighed Marjorie. “How can we wait that long?”
“Nobody knows,” Jessie answered, cheerily; “but as long as we have to get ready, we might as well begin now. Come on; let’s see who’ll be dressed first girls——” which precipitated a general stampede for the door.
As Lucile hurried along toward the station it really seemed as though her feet had wings. The thought of meeting her guardian again, of talking to her in the old familiar way of the old familiar things—all this made her say to herself over and over again, “Oh, I don’t believe anybody was ever so happy before.” She could see in her mind’s eye that old bright, cheery smile of her guardian flash out as she said, as she had said so many times before, “Well, how are my girls to-day?” 34
To-ot! The shrill wail of the locomotive whistle broke rudely through her revery and brought her to a sudden realization that if she didn’t bestir herself, Mrs. Wescott would be at the station with no one to meet her.
“Oh,” cried Lucile to herself, “and I thought I was hurrying just as fast as I could. Well, I’m in for a race with the train, it seems. I wonder what the girls would say,” she chuckled as she ran. “This is almost as good as a canoe race.”
Either the train had been farther off than she thought when Lucile heard the whistle or she had run faster than she had ever run in her life; the result was the same—Lucile won!
Just as she breathlessly reached the station, the great locomotive came thundering around the last curve.
35
CHAPTER VI
“OH, FIRE, LONG YEARS AGO——”
Lucile’s heart beat fast as the train came to a standstill and a crowd of people began to pour out.
“Where is she, where is she?” she cried, scanning one after another, speaking to those she knew, while, at the same time, looking past them with such an intent gaze that more than one turned to look back at her and remark with the shake of a head, “There’s something up.”
Lucile was just about in despair when, at the far end of the platform, she descried her.
With a cry she ran forward and, throwing her arms about her guardian’s neck with a little hysterical sob, she exclaimed, “Oh, I thought you weren’t coming.”
For a moment she was held close while the voice she loved said, gently, “You don’t suppose I could stay away when I had made up my mind to come, do you?”
“Oh, no; I knew in my heart you would be here,” drawing herself away and looking at her guardian with such happiness written on her face that Mrs. Wescott’s bright eyes were dimmed as she said, “It’s good to have a welcome like this!!”
“Oh, it isn’t anything to what you’re going to get,” Lucile wanted to say, but she only answered, ruefully, “I’m afraid all Burleigh will be talking about how boisterous Lucile Payton is becoming. Can’t you hear?” she added, gaily: “ ‘I declare, that child’s terribly rude; she almost knocked me down!’ ”
“A very good imitation of Miss Peabody, Lucile,” laughed Mrs. Wescott. “I wonder how many times I’ve heard her talk just that way.” 36
Miss Peabody was one of the old maids that authors love to picture—straight, prim, opinionated, with a sharp tongue that wrought discord wherever it went. She dealt in other people’s shortcomings, and if Burleigh had not known her too well to give her false tales credence, she might have worked some serious mischief. As it was, everyone took her gossip with a grain of salt, remarking, with a smile and a shrug after she had gone away, “Of course, that may be true, but remember, Angela Peabody said it!”
When Lucile chose, she could mimic anyone from the young Italian at “Correlli’s” to pompous Mrs. Belmont Nevill, who owned millions that she didn’t know how to use. So now she had brought Miss Peabody before her guardian so vividly that the latter added, in surprise, “That must be a recent accomplishment, Lucy. You never did that at camp.”
“At camp I never remembered anybody at Burleigh except Mother and Dad and Phil,” said Lucile. “It seemed like a different world.”
“A rather nice kind of world it was, too, wasn’t it?” said her guardian, with a reminiscent smile.
“Nice?” cried Lucile. “It was glorious! I only wish we could do it all over again. It does seem as if one good thing comes crowding right on the heels of another ever since we decided to form a camp-fire.”
“It has meant happiness for all of us,” said Mrs. Wescott, with a far-away look that Lucile knew how to interpret.
“I know,” she said. “Here we are,” she added, a moment later. “Oh, it’s good to have you here at last.”
For answer, her guardian put her arm about Lucile and ran lightly up the steps, saying, joyfully, “And it’s good to be here, Lucy, dear; but where are the girls?”
“Oh, they’re coming,” Lucile answered, vaguely. “Come on upstairs and get your things off,” she added, guiding her guest past the living-room adroitly. 37
When Lucile ushered her into the great, airy, upstairs sitting-room, she dropped into an easy chair with a sigh of content.
“Oh, Lucy, it is good to be here,” she added. Then, for the first time, Lucile had a chance to get “a really good look at her,” as she expressed it.
The wind had loosened her guardian’s dark hair and it clung in little ringlets about her face. Her eyes, those deep, comprehending, gray eyes, sparkled with delight as she took in the familiar objects about her. The merry dimples that had always fascinated the girls, and others besides, were ever in evidence as she talked and laughed happily.
“I suppose,” she went on, as Lucile took her hat and coat. “I suppose you girls had just about made up your minds I was never coming to Burleigh; six months is such a long time; but it seemed as if I could never get started.”
“Well, you’re here now,” said Lucile, gaily, “and that makes the six months seem like nothing at all.”
“How are your mother and father and Phil and everybody?” asked Mrs. Wescott, with a comprehensive sweep of her hand. “I want to know all about everybody.”
“Oh, they’re all right,” Lucile assured her, and then added, as an afterthought,