The village was well-lighted on the principal street, but that the girls avoided and crept down the side streets where all was quiet and almost dark, except at the corners where small gas-posts sent out feeble rays of light. They passed comfortable homes surrounded by large yards where the élite of Wellington lived. The élite were evidently a well-behaved lot, as they were all safely bestowed in bed, sleeping the sleep of the just as our naughty girls crept in front of their spacious mansions.
Next to the great, came the near great: a row of pleasant cottages, each one with its little garden separated from its neighbor’s by neat whitewashed palings. After these, they approached a cottage set in a large yard and isolated as much as if it were in the country. It was well back from the street and instead of the white palings of its neighbors, it boasted a box hedge about five feet high and at least three feet broad. Generations of close clipping had made this hedge as solid as a brick wall. The yard enclosed was laid out as a formal garden with box labyrinth and winding paths. In the rear was a summer-house with stone pillars covered with ivy. Two stone benches were on each side in this quaint house where no doubt dead and gone lovers had sat and perhaps caught rheumatism. Box bushes were placed at the four sides of the garden and these had been cut to represent armchairs by some zealous gardener long since passed away. The modern shears had but followed the lines of the original ones and the armchairs were still there although somewhat lopsided and hazy in drawing. There was the sun-dial and a snub-nosed stone Hebe who held aloft her little pitcher with a cup in the other hand ready to serve the Gods with imperceptible nectar.
Our girls’ eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and they peeped over the hedge (at least Katherine and Judy did, poor little Otoyo was too short), plainly discerning the charming ensemble of the little formal garden.
“There, Adventure awaits us!” said Katherine melodramatically.
“I want muchly to see,” pleaded Otoyo. So Judy lifted her up for a peep.
“I believe that is where the Misels live,” said Judy. “It looks quite different at night, but I’m almost sure it is the place. Molly and I called at dusk and we came up on the other side, but I think it is this cottage. Isn’t it lovely? I am so sorry for them, they do seem so friendless, somehow. Madame is already working for the Red Cross. Molly says she can make surgical dressings faster than anybody she ever saw. She takes them home and does them and brings them back so neatly folded and tied up that they think it is perfect foolishness to inspect them. They are sure there will be no mistakes where such a careful worker is on the job. M. Misel is so lame he can hardly locomote.”
“Let’s go in their garden and sit down a little while,” suggested Katherine, who but a few moments before had declared she could run a mile. The sedentary life as a teacher had not improved her wind. Her spirits might have been those of a schoolgirl but her endurance was equal only to a full-fledged teacher in a model school.
They passed through the small green turnstile and silently crept around the labyrinth to the summer-house. The three girls sank on one of the cold stone benches and peered out into the picturesque garden. Their veils were raised but ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.
“Ghosts might walk in such a garden,” whispered Judy.
“The bench is coldly like a ghost,” shivered Otoyo.