“Of course,” Babbie promised him, hurrying after the others. “We’ll arrange it when you come.”
John looked after the party admiringly. “I like their spirit,” he said to Mr. Dwight, “going back so as not to disappoint their landlady. Babbie Hildreth is always like that—just as fair and square as any fellow you can name. She’s jolly too—if she did graduate from college. I say, Dwight, I’m much obliged to you for giving me the morning off, and I’ll make up for it this afternoon, sure enough.”
Which was such an unprecedentedly docile attitude on the part of John Morton that his bewildered tutor hoped Babbie Hildreth and her friends would continue to stay in Oban and exercise their beneficent influence.
CHAPTER VI
SCOTCH MISTS
Next day it rained—a dismal, drizzling sort of rain that acted as if it never meant to stop.
“I suppose this is a Scotch mist,” said Babe dolefully at breakfast. “Of course we ought to enjoy it, as an experience of real Scotch weather, but for my part I prefer a good rattling American rain-storm.”
“We shouldn’t want to take another long walk to-day, even if it were pleasant,” said Betty consolingly. “I shouldn’t at least. Sprinting home after the strawberry tarts made me horribly lame.”
“Me too,” sighed Babbie. “Also it made a hole in my shoe—the only pair I have that are right for rough walking.”
“Let’s put on rain-coats and go hunting a cobbler,” proposed Madeline.
“And a history of Dunstaffnage,” added Babbie. “I asked Miss MacNish if there was a library in Oban and she said no; so we shall have to find a book-store.”