Four Girls at Chautauqua | Page 2

saying as she went: "That is Flossy, I know; she always
gives just such little pussy knocks as that." The little lady who entered
fitted her name perfectly. She was small and fair, blue-eyed, flossy
yellow curls lying on her shoulders, her voice was small and sweet,
almost too sweet or too soft, that sort of voice that could change when
slight occasion offered into a whine or positive tearfulness. She was
greeted with great glee by Eurie, and in her more quiet way by Miss
Erskine.
"I'm going," she said, with a soft little laugh, and she sank down among
the cushions of the sofa, while her white morning dress floated around
her like a cloud. "Charlie thinks it is silly, and Kit thinks it is sillier, and
mamma thinks it is the very silliest thing I ever did yet; but for all that I
am going--that is, if the rest of you are." Which, by the way, was
always this little Flossy's manner of speech. She was going to do or not
to do, speak or keep silent, approve or condemn, exactly as the mind
which was for the time being nearest to her chose to sway her.
"Good!" said Eurie, softly clapping her hands. "I didn't think it of you,
Flossy; I thought you were too much of a mouse. Now, Ruth, you will
go, won't you? As for Marion, there is no knowing whether she will go
or not. I don't see now she can afford it myself any more than I can; but,
of course, that is her own concern. We can go anyway, whether she
does or not--only I don't want to, I want her along. Suppose we all go
down and see her; it is Saturday, she will be at home, and then we can
begin to make our preparations. It is really quite time we were sure of
what we are going to do."

By dint of much coaxing and argument Ruth was prevailed upon to
leave her fascinating brown hat with its brown velvet trimmings, and in
the course of the next half hour the trio were on their way down Park
Street, intent on a call on Miss Marion Wilbur. Park Street was a
simple, quiet, unpretending street, narrow and short; the houses were
two-storied and severely plain. In one of the plainest of these, wearing
an unmistakable boarding-house look, in a back room on the second
floor, the object of their search, in a dark calico dress, with her sleeves
rolled above her elbows, had her hands immersed in a wash-bowl of
suds, and was doing up linen collars. She was one of those miserable
creatures in this weary world, a teacher in a graded school, and her one
day of rest was filled with all sorts of washing, ironing and mending
work, until she had fairly come to groan over the prospect of Saturday
because of the burden of work which it brought. She welcomed her
callers without taking her hands from the suds; she was as quiet in her
way as Ruth Erskine was in hers.
This time it was Flossy who asked the important question: "Are you
going?"
Marion answered as promptly as though the question had been decided
for a week.
"Yes, certainly I am going. I thought I told you that when we talked it
over before. I am washing out my collars to have them ready. Ruth, are
you going to take a trunk?"
Ruth roused herself from the contemplation of her brown gloves to say
with a little start:
"How you girls do rush things. Why, I haven't decided yet that I am
going."
"Oh, you'll go," Marion Wilbur said. "The question is, are we to take
trunks--or, rather, are you to? because I know I shall not. I'm going to
wear my black suit. Put it on on Tuesday morning, or Monday is it that
we start? and wear it until we return. I may take it off, to be sure, while
I sleep, but even that is uncertain, as we may not get a place to sleep in;

but for once in my life I am not going to be bored with baggage."
"I shall take mine," Ruth Erskine said with determination. "I don't
intend to be bored by being without baggage. It is horrid, I think, to go
away with only one dress, and feel obliged to wear it whether it is
suited to the weather or not, or whatever happens to it. Eurie, what are
you laughing at?"
"I am interested in the phenomena of Marion Wilbur being the first to
introduce the dress question. I venture to say not one of us has thought
of that phase of the matter up to this present moment."
While the talk went