Mademoiselle mildly suggested that they had “given Virginie to eat of cake,” and Madeline asked Babe how Virginie tasted.
“I don’t care,” said Babe sturdily, when she had seen her mistake. “I eat; I feed. It’s exactly the same thing. I eat Virginie; I feed Virginie. Well, that isn’t, is it? Anyhow I know how to feed a turtle if I don’t know how to talk about it. Now come and buy Bob’s candlesticks.”
But while Madeline and Babbie were bargaining with the shop-keeper for the pair of candlesticks that Babe had chosen, Betty, poking about in a dark corner, discovered a queer thing that Madeline told her was a Flemish lamp; and everybody liked it so much better than the candlesticks that Babe renounced the privilege of choosing and joined the unanimous movement in favor of the Flemish lamp. Then everybody wanted one for herself, and the afternoon sped away in the pursuit, for no antique store boasted many of the lamps. There was a great difference in the gracefulness of the tall standards and the quaintness of the small hanging lamps, and each girl insisted upon being exactly suited before she made her choice.
“A perfect nuisance to pack,” laughed Betty on the way home, “and absolutely useless. I can just hear Will say it.”
“Not half so bad to pack as the flossy hats you girls have been buying; they are warranted not to break, and will make excellent substitutes for hammers,” Madeline defended their purchases. “Let’s take them into the garden and see how they look all together.”
Arranged on two little tables, the five lamps looked so imposing that Mrs. Hildreth had to be called down to inspect them and admire the “points” of each, as its fond owner dilated upon them.
In the midst of the “show,” as Babbie called it, John appeared. His greetings were so subdued and formal that no one dared inquire about his trip until Betty broke the ice by asking if any one had mistaken him for a Dutchman again.
“Not quite,” said John modestly. “I guess you are the only ones who ever did that; but my Dutch was all right and so was my French. You should have seen my father stare.”
After that it was easy to see that, as Madeline put it, he was wearing the air of the conquering hero, decently disguised. Mr. Morton had sent boxes of hopje, which is a delicious kind of Dutch candy that can be bought nowhere but at the Hague, to Betty and Babe, and they all sat in the garden eating it while John told his story.
“Dad says he’s felt all right ever since the day he disobeyed all his doctor’s orders at once down in Saint Malo, so he’s kept on disobeying them ever since. He had a big business deal on at Antwerp—buying an interest in a steamship line was the principal part—and as he wanted to buy straight from the men who owned the line he needed an interpreter that he could trust. So he cabled home, but the man he wanted was off on a fishing trip and missed the boat.” John chuckled. “I’m afraid he’ll pay pretty high for those fish. Then, having implicit confidence in Miss Wales’s judgment, he sent for me.” He looked at Betty. “You’ve been ‘Miss B. A.,’ as dad calls you, to me this trip, I can tell you. It’s been all my fault, I know, the way my father has felt about me, and I don’t blame him for not believing that I’ve braced up. Now that he does believe it, you can be sure I shan’t give him the faintest excuse for changing his mind. He’s a brick, when he gets started.” John stopped to laugh at his absurdly mixed metaphor.