Percival rushed down to help them out; two colored men servants carried in their luggage, and presently they found themselves standing before a glowing fire in the hall, which was quite big enough and broad enough to be a room itself.
“It is sweet of you to come out and cheer up two lonely country people, my dears,” Mrs. St. Clair was saying, as she kissed them all around twice. “You are really the nicest children. You must promise to tell me whatever you want, or if you are not warm enough. You know how draughty country houses are. Or if you are the least hungry or your beds are not comfortable or the water isn’t hot enough for your baths, or you wish any particular thing to eat——”
“Dear me,” laughed Billie, looking around her, “you make us feel like four visiting princesses, Mrs. St. Clair. I am sure we could never want for anything in this cheerful, lovely house.”
“Now, Mrs. St. Clair,” put in Elinor, “we all know perfectly well that all the chairs at Pine Lodge are easy and the beds are famous for being the most comfortable in the county.”
Mrs. St. Clair blushed with pleasure. Next to saying nice things to people herself, she loved to have them say nice things to her.
“Percival, my darling, where are the others?” she demanded presently. “Isn’t Belle coming and what is the name of that little foreign girl she asked to bring with her?”
Percy grinned at his friends good-naturedly, when Merry seized a cushion from one of the long settees and began to rock it on his knees, and Charlie gave a silent imitation of a baby’s face in the act of crying. But he was used to these endearing names his mother heaped upon him, and he only replied:
“Give them time, mother; give them time. Remember they didn’t ride on a comet the same as this dashing company did. The foreign girl is Fannie Alta.”
“So it was, and it was sweet and thoughtful of Belle to want to bring her along. She described the poor little thing as being lonely and strange in West Haven.”
The girls exchanged astonished glances at this piece of news. Was it possible that Belle Rogers and the crafty little Spanish girl whom they instinctively distrusted were so intimate as this?