The Campfire Girls Go Motoring | Page 8

in time
between our city and this we had been on the road a long day. We were
glad after all that the hotel had not been able to accommodate us when
we saw this house. The hotel was on the main street and the rooms
must have been small and stuffy; anything but comfortable on this hot
night. But this house stood far back from the street in an immense
shady yard, one of those enormous brick houses that well-to-do people
were fond of building about thirty-five years ago, with large rooms and
high ceilings and enough space inside them to quarter a regiment. We
blessed the good fortune which had led our feet to this hospitable
looking door, which, in times gone by, must have opened to admit
throngs of distinguished people.
There was no door-bell, but a big bronze knocker, and in answer to it a
young girl, presumably the "hired girl", let us into the hall. She took
our coming as a matter of course, so we judged they were prepared for

tourists that day, knowing that the hotel was full on account of the
wedding. Without a word she led us up-stairs and we breathed a sigh of
relief when we thought of a bath and supper. The house must have been
the home of fashionable people in its time, for the furnishings, though
old, were still luxurious. The carpet on the stairs was still thick and soft
to our feet, and the curtains I could see on the windows were of a fine
quality. At the head of the stairs there was an oil painting of a woman
in the dress of a by-gone day. The servant opened the door of a room at
the front end of the long up-stairs hall and we passed in.
We had known instinctively as soon as we entered the place that the
lady of the house was a woman of refinement and culture,
notwithstanding the reduced circumstances which made it necessary for
her to rent out rooms in this big mansion of a house in order to make
her living. "I should think she'd rent it or sell it," said practical Sahwah.
"She probably can't bear to part with these things, which remind her of
her former life," I said, sentimentally.
We were all anxious to see the woman who had been the mistress of so
much splendor in days gone by and could not give up the house. The
bedroom we were shown to was luxurious compared to what I had been
used to at home. The bed was a mahogany four-poster covered with a
spread of lace, and the rug on the floor was a faded oriental. Opening
out of the bedroom was a bath with a shower and we made a dash to get
under the cooling flood. I have never seen such towels as were stacked
up on that little white table in the bathroom. They were all heavily
embroidered with initials and the fringe on them was every bit of six
inches long.
"The fringe for me!" exclaimed Sahwah, when she saw them. She
seized a whole pile of them at once, using only the fringe for drying,
and putting on affected aristocratic airs that made us shriek with
laughter. We had been dressing all over the two rooms and the floor
was strewn with towels and articles of clothing. Suddenly the door of
the bedroom opened and a woman stood in the room. She was a
gray-haired woman of about fifty, very handsome and proud-looking,
and dressed in a gown of plum-colored satin. She said nothing; just

looked at us. I glanced around at the others. There was Sahwah, her
kimono wrapped loosely around her, patting her feet dry with the fringe
of a dozen towels; Nyoda stood in front of the dressing-table with a
towel wrapped around her, combing her hair: I was sitting on the floor
putting my shoes on, while through the bathroom door came the sounds
of the shower turned on full force, with an occasional shriek from
Nakwisi when she got it too cold. Suddenly I felt unaccountably foolish.
Nyoda and Sahwah looked up and saw the woman the next instant. She
stood looking at us, her eyes nearly popping out of her head, her face
purple, leaning against the foot of the bed for support. Nobody said a
word. As Sahwah expressed it afterward, "Silence reigned, and we
stood there in the rain."
"How did--how did you get in?" the woman gasped faintly, after a
silence of a full minute. We knew something was wrong. We could feel
it in the marrow of our bones.
Nyoda, holding her towel closely around her, answered in as dignified a
manner as possible. "We were directed to your house from