A Colony of Girls

by Kate Livingston Willard

"Guess I did, Nancy. By Jove, girls," he whispered mischievously, "you are all stunning to-night," and he drew himself up with an air of pride and satisfaction.

"You shine in a kind of reflected glory; don't you, Dick?" laughed Nathalie.

After dinner they gathered about the great wood fire burning cheerily in the drawing-room. The evening had grown suddenly chill. The wind had veered to the southeast, and the strong sea breeze lowered the temperature by many degrees; a not uncommon occurrence in our American summers.

Helen seated herself at the open piano, and her music did much to enhance the charm of the hour. She felt a bit sad to-night and something of her feeling crept into her music, as she drifted into a plaintive melody, with an oft-recurring refrain almost like a spoken regret. As her eyes wandered about the fire-lit room, with its far-off corners half in mystic shadow, there were awakened within her memories of happy childhood days when the love of her father and mother had been the sunshine of their home. Interwoven with these thoughts came the recollection of one who, in those days, had been near at hand and who was now far away, in strange lands, separated from her by more than the mere expanse of restless waters.

She sighed a little and, bringing her music abruptly to an end, rose and crossed the room. After a few words of courteous explanation to Mrs. Dodd, she ran away upstairs to assure herself that the children were safely in bed.

Just as she was passing through the doorway, she caught a glimpse of Jean, who, with earnest upturned face, was talking interestedly with Farr, and something she saw in her sister's blue eyes made her start. What was there in that upturned face, in those eyes, which made Helen feel so strangely, as if something were going to happen?

And Eleanor Hill chatting gayly with Cliff Archer found her thoughts traveling in much the same direction.

In all these summers they had been a very happy little colony of girls, and they had entered into a sort of compact in true girl fashion that no lover should be allowed in their midst, to break the spell. Helen had been engaged, but that relation had existed previous to the making of the bond, and she had been so little absorbed that no one had thought much about it. One other exception had to be made, for there was no use in trying to hold Emily strictly to any such agreement, for flirt she would whenever the opportunity offered. However, her digressions had been few and far between, for Cliff Archer and Dick were almost the only men who came to Hetherford, and they were so like brothers to her that a sentimental attitude toward either of them would have seemed supremely ridiculous.

So this summer had come around as many others had before, and already a new element had entered into their midst, and that naughty little Nathalie was at the root of the matter; for ever since one bright day in May, when the Sylph had come sailing along these pleasant waters and Wendell Churchill had called at the manor to pay his respects, the old order of things had been changed. Until that day the Sylph had been better known to Hetherford than her good-looking owner; for rarely had he cast anchor in the harbor without having aboard his yacht a party of gay and fashionable people, who urgently claimed his whole attention. But now he no longer brought strangers to Hetherford, and when, as now and then occurred, he was obliged to absent himself for a few days, the Sylph lay at the disposal of the girls. And all this that little minx Nathalie had brought about, laughing while she disclaimed emphatically any disloyalty to the vows of their bond.

The worst of it was the mischief was spreading, and Eleanor's eyes falling just then upon Jean, she experienced a sense of keen annoyance, for warm-hearted Jean had been the most whole-souled, the most valiant of them all. It was a great pity that the Vortex had been stationed here, and doubly a pity that there was no immediate prospect of her departure. It would not do to be introducing all sorts of folly into their circle.