CHAPTER XXII
A GIRL AND HER ROOM
Nancy found Rosa, as she suspected, disappointed and even worried.
“It was the strangest thing,” Rosa explained, “every time we thought we had found Orilla she just seemed to disappear. Of course she didn’t, but on the lake there are so many turns, and ins and outs and, being in the boat, we stayed on the water. I suppose Orilla was on land,” she finished sullenly.
“Why was it so important for you to see her to-day?” Nancy asked, innocently enough.
“I had a message for her, and that should have reached her to-day,” replied Rosa. But she did not go into details and Nancy felt that she could not question further. However, she did try to reassure Nancy that Orilla would probably be around before nightfall.
“I hope so,” Rosa said, “if not, I simply don’t know what I shall do. I went to all her woodland haunts that I know of, and land knows she’s got enough of them, but there wasn’t even a trace to show that human footprints had been over the ground lately. Oh, dear, isn’t it awful to be a crank? Orilla is just a crank, and I tell you I’m about sick of her ways,” Rosa pouted. “But I have to get some of the loose ends tied up before I can wash my hands of it, as Margot would say.”
“And there she is,” Nancy reminded Rosa, for at that moment Margot was coming down the path at a brisk rate.
“On the war path,” Rosa remarked. “I’ve got to surprise her with some news. Let me see! Oh, I’ll tell her about a big sale of linens down at Daws,” and forthwith Rosa rushed up the path to proclaim the glad tidings to the unsuspecting Margot—or the Margot who was pretending to be unsuspecting.
From that moment until after dinner and until almost nightfall, the cousins had not a moment to themselves, for company came, and Rosa had to entertain. Nancy also helped out, the visitors being most interested in her simple reports from the neighboring state. When they were leaving (they were the Drydens from the Weirs and were staying at a hotel in Craggy Bluff) Rosa drove in town with them to bring some mail to the post office, but Nancy declined to go. Rosa was to meet Dell Durand and drive back with her, and as Dell had talked to Nancy on the phone and assured her she would be back before dark (all this in coaxing Nancy to go), there seemed no danger of delay for Rosa.
When they had all gone Nancy felt herself free at last to take her favorite stroll along the lake front. The sunset was glorious; golds, purples, greens and ashes of roses, in hues too brilliant to be so tersely described. Is there anything which can beggar description as can a sunset on that great, majestic lake! Words cannot tell of it, no more than the mist can veil it.