"Just what I say. I believe Nelly Bolivar is as poor as Job's turkey and that Peggy Stewart pays all 'her expenses here. And I know she wears Peggy's cast-off clothes. I saw Peggy's name in one of her coats. You know Peggy has her name and the maker's woven right into the linings. Just you wait and see what her father looks like and then see if I'm far wrong."
"Why, she's nothing better than a charity pupil if that's true," sneered Lily Pearl, who never failed to follow Helen's lead.
"If Mrs. Vincent opens her school to such girls I think it would be well for our parents to investigate the matter," was Isabel's superior criticism.
"Yes, you'd better. Mother would be delighted to have an extra room or two; she has so many applicants all the time," flashed Natalie, her cheeks blazing.
"Children, children, don't grow excited. Wait until you find out what you're fuming about," said Stella in the tone which always made them feel like kids, Rosalie insisted. "And come on down. The horses have been waiting twenty minutes already and Mrs. Vincent will have a word or two to say to us if we don't watch out."
As they crossed the hall to the porte cochere, Peggy, Polly and Nelly came from the reception room, Mr. Bolivar with them. The lively curiosity upon the girls' faces was rather amusing. Juno favored him with a well-cultivated Fifth Avenue stare. Helen's nose took a higher tilt if possible. Lily Pearl giggled as usual. Stella smiled at the girls and said: "Glad you're coming with us." Isabel murmured "Horrors!" under her breath and waddled with what she believed to be dignity toward the door. Marjorie only smiled, but Rosalie and Natalie stopped, the former crying impulsively:
"Introduce your father to us, Nelly; we want to know him."
The man the girls looked upon had changed a good deal from the despondent Jim Bolivar whom Peggy had seen sitting upon the upturned box in Market Square so long ago. Prosperity and resultant comforts had done a good deal for the despairing man. There were still some traces of the handsome Jim Bolivar with whom pretty, romantic Helen Bladen had eloped, though the intermediate years of sorrow and misfortune had changed that dapper young beau into a careless, hopeless pessimist. What the end might have been but for Peggy is hard to guess, but the past two years had made him think and think hard too. Though still slipshod of speech as the result of associating with his humbler neighbors, he was certainly making good, and few lapses occurred as he shook hands with Nelly's friends and then went out to help them mount. In his dark gray suit, Alpine hat and his gray gloves, something of the gentleman which was in him became evident.
He helped each girl upon her horse, greeted Junius Augustus, patted Shashai, Star and Tzaritza; deplored poor Columbine's shorn glories, smiled an odd smile at Isabel's bulky figure upon the more bulky Senator, then said:
"I'll see you when you come back, honey. I've got to have a talk with Shelby. Some things is—are—bothering me back yonder. Have a fine gallop. It's a prime day for it. Good-bye, young ladies," and raising his hat with something of the gallantry of the old Bolivar he followed Junius toward the stables.