There was much applause. Judy was urged by all present to stay with them all day, but she had decided to take a train at the nearby station for Versailles and get her luncheon there, so she bade them good-by. Gathering up her sketches and sliding them into the grooves in the back of her kit, she left the gay throng and soon got a local to Versailles.
On reaching Versailles, she did not go into the palace but wandered in the park, stopping to feed the carp in the pond with some gingerbread she had bought from a red-cheeked old woman. These carp are large and fat and lazy, lying at the bottom of the pool, moving their tails almost imperceptibly and opening and shutting their eyes with such a bored expression that Judy had to laugh. There is a rumor that they are the same carp that Marie Antoinette used to feed; certainly they are very old and very tired. Judy remembering this legend of the carp, began to think of poor Marie Antoinette and decided to go over to the Trianon. The poor misunderstood queen had always been one of Judy's favorites. She walked along under the trees in a brown study musing on the fortunes of that royal lady.
Suddenly she rubbed her eyes. Was she dreaming or was she crazy? The Trianon was before her and on the terrace was Marie Antoinette herself dressed as a shepherdess and leading a beautiful woolly lamb by a blue ribbon. Accompanying her was a pretty maid of honor dressed as a milk maid with a pail in her hand and a three-legged stool under her arm. The Count d'Artois, gay, handsome, debonair, met them and held them in conversation, then the grave, sedate Monsieur, as the elder of the two brothers of King Louis XVI was styled, approached, and with him was our own Benjamin Franklin, dressed in sober brown.
"Where am I? What can it mean? I am wide awake, and that is as certainly Benjamin Franklin as that I ate Quaker Oats every morning for breakfast at Wellington. But who is this madman?"
A furious person in shirt sleeves came tearing across the terrace. In plain American he berated Marie Antoinette, the grave Monsieur, d'Artois and even the dignified Franklin, and, strange to say, they took it very amiably. True, the spoiled Marie pouted a bit, but Franklin, with a vile Cockney accent, said:
"I saiy, wot's your 'urry? The negative hain't spoiled none. Hold 'Press the Button' hain't in his box."
"Moving picture actors," exclaimed Judy. "What a sell!"
She sat and watched them for some time, amused by the vociferous manager, who did not hesitate to swear at the royal Louis XVI, who came into view, forgetting to show the bunch of keys he was supposed to have fashioned with his own kingly hands.
The day had been full of adventure and in consequence a great success in Judy's eyes. She was tired of the humdrum of the last few weeks and her soul thirsted for excitement. "I do wish Molly had come. How she would have enjoyed the thrill of seeing Marie Antoinette in her own setting of the Trianon; but if I had been with anyone, I am sure the dear old dancing father would never have asked me to dance and I should have missed that delightful experience of being one of a wedding party at St. Cloud.
"Molly is a little hurt with me, anyhow, because I have been rather nasty about Frances Andrews. Frances is improved but I have not had the courage to tell Molly I am sorry, and knowing I am wrong makes me ruder than ever to Frances. As soon as I get back to town I am going to 'fess up. Frances is off on a trip with her grandmother, but when she comes back she will find me as polite as a basket of chips. Suppose Molly had turned her back on me when I got into all of those mix-ups with Adele Windsor! I don't know whether I would have had the backbone to go through with the senior year or not if it had not been for Molly. Frances is certainly much more of a lady than Adele Windsor and she has never done a thing to hurt me. I am going to try to be good. I know dear Mrs. Brown will be glad.