“Or worse,” Jessie laughed, good-naturedly, and after that they gradually quieted down.
As usual, they were dressed and ready on the same instant. Lucile opened the door quietly and they stepped into the corridor.
“Guess we must have roused the hotel, after all,” said Evelyn, ruefully, as they heard unmistakable sounds of awakening in the neighboring rooms. “They’ll be notifying us that our patronage is no longer desirable if we don’t look out.”
“I wonder how you say that in French,” said Lucile, her eyes merry. “If they did try to put us out, we could just pretend we didn’t understand.”
“Yes, we could follow the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our ashes,” laughed Evelyn. “Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our shoulders. ‘Me no speck Ang-lish.’”
The girls laughed appreciatively, and Jessie added, “Nevertheless, your comparisons are odious. Joe, the ash-man, is not what you might call—in our class.”
“I could understand French a good deal better than I can some of Jessie’s United States,” said Evelyn, plaintively, and so they laughed their way out onto the broad, picturesque porch of the rambling old inn and stood gazing curiously about them.
The road wound in front of the house, over a small hill, and was lost to view on the other side. The woodland, being so near the city, was not dense, but the girls thought they had never seen foliage so vividly green nor grass so soft and luxuriant. The beckoning shadows of the trees, the fragrance of the dew-drenched flowers, the trilling music of a thousand carefree, joyous little songsters, all combined in one irresistible appeal to the girls.
With common and unspoken consent they ran down the steps of the porch and to the other side of the road. They plucked beautiful, long-stemmed flowers from their 149 hiding-place and excitedly called each other’s attention to the brightly colored birds, that balanced on swaying twigs, regarding them with saucy inquiry.
“To see us now, anybody might think the country was new to us,” exclaimed Lucile, with sparkling eyes and cheeks like twin roses. “Oh, girls, there’s my bird again,” she added, and stood, finger on lips, while the clear note, starting soft and sweet, swelled to a height of trilling ecstasy and abandon, when all the welled-up joy of summer poured liquidly golden from a bursting little heart; then slowly, hesitatingly, with soft, intermittent trillings and gurgles, died and faded into silence.