Wild Wings | Page 5

wit that had made them
the life of the Hill in the old days. Neither looked a day over sixteen,
but Clare had already been teaching two years in a Dunbury public
school and Charley was to go into nurse's training in the fall.
Larry, the young doctor, as Dunbury had taken to calling him in
distinction from his uncle, was not yet arrived, as Tony had explained;
but Ted, her younger brother, was very much on the scene, arrayed in
all the extravagant niceties of modish attire affected by university
undergraduates. At twenty, Ted Holiday was as handsome as the
traditional young Greek god and possessed of a godlike propensity to
do as he liked and the devil take the consequences. Already Ned

Holiday's younger son had acquired something of a reputation as a high
flier among his own sex, and a heart breaker among the fairer one.
Reckless, debonair, utterly irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy"
as his father had jocosely dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as
lovable as he was irrepressible, and had a manifest grace to
counterbalance every one of his many faults. His soberer brother Larry
worried uselessly over Ted's misdeeds, and took him sharply to task for
them; but even Larry admitted that there was something rather
magnificent about Ted and that possibly in the end he would come out
the soundest Holiday of them all.
There remains only Carlotta to be introduced. Carlotta was lovely to
look upon. A poet speaks somewhere of a face "made out of a rose."
Carlotta had that kind of a face and her eyes were of that deep, violet
shade which works mischief and magic in the hearts of men. As for her
hair, it might well have been the envy of any princess, in or out of the
covers of a book, so fine spun was it in texture, so pure gold in color,
like the warm, vivid shimmer of tropical sunshine. She lifted an
inquiring gaze now to Dick, as she held out her hand in
acknowledgment of the introduction, and Dick murmured something
platitudinous, bowed politely over the hand and never noticed what
color her eyes were. A single track mind is both a curse and a
protection to a man.
"Carlotta would come," Tony was explaining gaily, "though I told her
there wasn't room. Let me inform you all that Carlotta is the most
completely, magnificently, delightfully spoiled young person in these
United States of America."
"Barring you?" teased her uncle.
"Barring none. By comparison with Carlotta, I am all the noble army of
saints, martyrs and seraphim on record combined. Carlotta is
preordained to have her own way. Everybody unites to give it to her.
We can't help it. She hypnotizes us. Some night you will miss the moon
in its accustomed place and you will find that she wanted it for a few
moments to play with."

Philip Lambert had turned around in his seat and was surveying
Carlotta rather curiously during this teasing tirade of Tony's.
"Oh, well," murmured Carlotta. "Your old moon can be put up again
when I am through with it. I shan't do it a bit of harm. Anyway, Mr.
Carson must not be told such horrid things about me the very first time
he meets me, must he, Phil? He might think they were true." She
suddenly lifted her eyes and smiled straight up into the face of the
young man on the front seat who was watching her so intently.
"Well, aren't they?" returned the young man addressed, stooping to
examine the brake.
Carlotta did not appear in the least offended at his curt comment.
Indeed the smile on her lips lingered as if it had some inner reason for
being there.
"Hop in, Tony," ordered Ted with brotherly peremptoriness. "Carlotta,
you are one too many, my love. You will have to sit in my lap."
"I'm getting out," said Phil. "I'm due across the river. Want Ted to take
the wheel, Doctor?"
"I do not. I have a wife and children at home. I cannot afford to place
my life in jeopardy." The doctor's eyes twinkled as they rested a
moment on his youngest nephew.
"Now, Uncle Phil, that's mean of you. You ought to see me drive."
"I have," commented Dr. Holiday drily. "Come on over here, one of
you twinnies, if Phil must go. See you to-night, my boy?" he turned to
his namesake to ask as Charley accepted the invitation and clambered
over the back of the seat while the doctor took her brother's vacated
post.
Phil shook his head.
"No. I was in on the dress rehearsal last night. I've had my share. But

you folks are going to see the jolliest Rosalind that ever grew in Arden
or