“Why the Johnette?” inquired Lucile, with interest.
“Feminine for John, of course,” Marjorie explained, patiently.
Jessie broke in upon the laugh that followed. “But we haven’t come to the point yet,” she complained. “Speak up, Margaret, before some other rude person interrupts.”
“That’s right,” said Lucile, ignoring the irony in her tone. “Now is your chance, Peggy.”
“Why, you said that our guardian was a vision,” said Margaret, dreamily. “I quite agree with you.”
“Come, come, I can’t allow this,” cried the vision, gaily, as the girls turned adoring eyes upon her. “I’ve 45 been thinking sundry little thoughts on my own account since I’ve seen my girls again.”
“Oh, doesn’t it seem great to be back?” cried Dorothy. “I know I should be terribly homesick if I stayed away six weeks, let alone six months.”
“Indeed it did. Just the same, New York is fascinating, with its great buildings, its busy, absorbed throng of people, each intent on getting ahead of the next one. There is something about it all that draws one irresistibly. The very air seems charged with electricity, and just to walk down Broadway gave me more real excitement and enjoyment than the most thrilling play could have done.” Helen Wescott’s face flushed and her eyes sparkled as she talked.
“Go on,” cried Evelyn breathlessly. “Do tell us all about it. Oh, I can’t even imagine it!”
“I don’t believe I could tell you everything if I should talk for a month,” she went on. “But I do remember a conversation Jack and I had soon after our arrival. We were walking up Fifth Avenue one exceptionally busy day—I don’t know why I should say that, for every day over there seems busier than the last—when Jack asked why I was so quiet. ‘Because everything else is making so much noise,’ I answered. Which, indeed, was almost reason enough. But when he insisted, I said what had been in my thoughts for the past two days: