After tea Babe and Madeline went out to explore Oban, while Babbie helped Marie to make Mrs. Hildreth’s room comfortable, and Betty made a pretext of the letter to Nan to wait for her.
When the four girls met half an hour later on the promenade Madeline and Babe were laughing over a little adventure they had had.
“We were walking along that road off there,” Babe explained, “hurrying pretty fast, because we wanted to go into that lovely ivy-covered castle and be back here in time to meet you. And as we passed two awfully nice-looking youths, one said something to the other in Dutch, and Madeline, having spent a summer in Holland, understood it.”
“And translated it into the American idiom for Babe’s benefit,” Madeline took her up, “as ‘Get on to their stride,’—never thinking, of course, that the men also understood English. But they did, because the one who had said that in Dutch had the audacity to smile and remark to his friend in Italian that we were the first Americans he’d ever met who understood Dutch.”
“And we couldn’t get into the ruin,” Babe went on, “because the gate was locked, so we came back and sat down here by the water to watch the sunset. And by and by they came back too, and that time they were talking English—not for our benefit either, because they didn’t see us.”
“Well, were they Americans after all?” asked Babbie.
“Oh, no,” Madeline explained, “they were Dutch, I suppose. The Dutch are great linguists, you know.”
“They looked awfully jolly,” said Babe regretfully, “especially the one who admired our stride. If he’d been an American he’d have stopped and apologized for his rude remark, and helped us climb the wall into the castle gardens. It’s awfully high and it has broken glass on top just like a story-book, and you can go in only on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
“How disgusting for a castle to have at-home days!” said Babbie. “I love ruins, and we passed so many nice ones on the way up. Isn’t there any other near Oban, man from Cook’s?”
“I’ll find out in the morning,” Madeline promised. “At present I feel more like bed. It’s half-past nine, if it is broad daylight.”