'I'D SWEAR TO THEM HANDS ANYWHERE.'
At one o'clock Lossing and I met the ladies at the rendezvous, as we had grown to call the Nebraska House parlour, and the little arbour beside the stream. Lossing, quite himself again, was handsome in his well-fitting light summer suit, and happy in the prospect of an afternoon with beautiful June Jenrys, as who would not be? and I was humbly thankful that I was not, for that afternoon at least, obliged to wear a skin-tight wig upon my sore and tender cranium.
That they might reserve their strength for the ins and outs of Midway, we brought to the gate, for the use of the ladies, the two stalwart chair-pushers, whose work, so far as they had been concerned, had been a sinecure indeed since the attack upon Lossing, and we went at once, and without stops by the way, to the post-office. But there was no letter for Miss Jenrys; and, although I looked about me with a practised eye, followed Miss Jenrys at a safe distance when she entered the office, and kept the others waiting while I took a last long look, I could see no signs of the brunette.
Midway Plaisance was almost unknown ground to Miss Ross, and her wonder, amusement, and quaint comments made her an interesting companion.
'We must see it all, auntie,' June Jenrys declared, her fair face glowing with the sweet content with her companion and the moment, that not even the sorrows of her distant friends, which had weighed so heavily upon her own kind heart, could for the time overshadow or abate.
'I shall be guided by my escort,' was the reply of my companion, 'and I do feel that we may forget our anxieties for a time, and take in all this strangeness and charm with our whole hearts.'
We did not linger long in the Hall of Beauty, the costumes of many nations being passed by with scarce a glance. But my companions lingered longest before the queer little person described in the catalogue as the 'Display of China,' who was a genuine child of the Flowery Kingdom, and generally fast asleep.
We turned away from the very wet man in the submarine diving exhibit with a mutual shiver, and rejoiced anew in the sunlight and free air.
The glass-works, interesting as they assuredly were, we passed by as being not sufficiently foreign; and the Irish Industrial Village and Blarney Castle were voted among the things to be taken seriously, and not in the spirit of Midway. Miss Ross was full of interest in the little Javanese, and we entered their enclosure, feeling sure that here, at least, was something novel.
We had peered into the primitive little houses upon their stilt-like posts, and the ladies had spent some time in watching a quaint little native mother making efforts to at once ply the queer sticks which helped her in a strange sort of mat-weaving, and keep an eye upon a preternaturally solemn-faced infant, who, despite his gravity, seemed capable of quite as much mischief as the average enfant terrible of civilization. And then——