After the girls had fluffed up their front hair or smoothed it out according to custom, and had brushed every fleck of dust from their neat traveling skirts, and washed the stains of the journey from their fresh young faces, they began to look about the rooms, to peer from the windows and peep into the hall, while they talked in whispers.
On a shelf in one of the rooms were some books, the one human touch they noticed. Mary, always a bookworm, began dipping her inquisitive little nose into these immediately. She had opened a volume of Kipling’s poems and was reading aloud in a sing-song voice:
“On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flying fishes play——”
when something fell from between the pages into her lap. It was a souvenir postcard, which had, apparently, been serving as a book-mark. Without meaning to pry, Mary picked it up and turned it over to look at the picture on the other side, which proved to be a photograph of a lovely girl holding a Boston bull terrier on a leash. She was tall and slender, and seemed to sway toward them from the picture like a young tree in the wind. It had evidently been quite breezy when the picture was taken, for one hand grasped her broad-brimmed felt hat, while the other held the dog leash. She was smiling, too, and there was a gay light in her eyes which seemed to challenge the whole world to make her sad.
Mary had not meant to read the message written across the picture, but is it ever possible to examine a picture on a postcard without taking in the words at the bottom? Besides, it was a harmless message:
“A snapshot smile from Evelyn.
Salt Lake City, Utah.”
Now, Salt Lake City was a place of intense interest to the Motor Maids. They regarded it as a traveler in the Orient might look upon one of those mysterious Eastern cities where women went veiled and faces peeped at one from behind obscure gratings.
“Do you suppose this pretty girl is a Mormon?” exclaimed Mary, exhibiting the photograph.
“She is much too pretty to be a Mormon,” said Nancy decisively.
“Can’t Mormons be handsome?” asked Billie, looking at the postcard over Nancy’s shoulder.