On the day before they had departed to the lake country Feargus O’Connor, the one link which bound them to the early associations of their journey, had resigned from his position as courier and general factotum and hastily left Edinburgh.
So it was that, having cut loose from all former connections, they returned to Edinburgh one Saturday morning near the end of June, their minds crammed full of legends and history and scenery.
A disagreeable, drizzling rain was falling and the prospects from the hotel window were not of a cheerful character.
“Just the time for taking a nap,” Miss Campbell remarked after lunch and proceeded to retire to her room and lock the door.
Mary and Elinor followed her example, but those two indefatigable travelers, Billie and Nancy, were determined not to spend their last day in Edinburgh shut up in a hotel bedroom.
“With overshoes on, and a mackintosh and an umbrella, I could face a cloudburst,” Billie observed.
“When I am prepared for it, I really like the rain,” said Nancy.
“That’s because your hair curls naturally. It’s only people who have straight hair and try to curl it who dislike rain. Now, I don’t mind it, because I don’t bother to curl my hair. Once, years ago, a lady asked papa why he didn’t have my hair curled, and he said, ‘What! make a martyr of my daughter? You’ll be asking me to have her ears pierced next.”
“I don’t call it being martyred to have one’s ears pierced,” said Nancy with subdued indignation.
Billie laughed. It was a great joke among the Motor Maids that Nancy had secretly had her ears pierced and bought a pair of pearl earrings.