“Oh, no, Kirke, you look like a precious mosaic,” said Pauline lightly, while the whole party managed to crowd closely about the nondescript boy.
Partially screened by his friends, the “precious mosaic” of many colors skulked along to a carriage and vaulted into it. Here the little company separated for the present, the Bradstreets proceeding to a hotel in the city, and the Rowes to the home of Mrs. Tracey, where they were to remain till the sailing of the steamer.
“Auntie’ll think you’re bringing her an almshouse boy, mamma,” Kirke said ruefully, as they alighted before the Tracey mansion.
To greet his aunt and cousins in such a plight, and to be laughed at the livelong day, was an embarrassing ordeal to the lad; but he bore it manfully, and if afterwards he made wry faces and stamped his foot, he did it in the privacy of his own room, and nobody was the wiser. And in the evening, with the arrival of his trunk, the prolonged and disagreeable trial came to an end.
CHAPTER VI
OFF FOR EUROPE
The Silver Gate City party left New York the next Saturday on the French steamer La Bretagne, bound for Havre. They took with them Jane Leonard, a girl of eighteen, who was to have the care of Donald.
They went on board an hour before sailing, and Molly and Pauline immediately ran below deck to put in order the stateroom which they were to share with Weezy. It was a cosy, outside room near the middle of the boat, with two berths, and opposite these a cardinal velvet sofa on which Weezy was to sleep.
“It’s lucky your brush-and-comb case has a loop to hang it up by, Molly,” said Pauline, as they unpacked their toilet articles. “You’d better pin it to your curtain where you can reach it from your berth without raising your head.”
“What for?” asked Molly, a little impatiently. She sometimes thought her friend rather too fond of dictating.
“You’ll find out what for when we get into rough water and things go pitching about the vessel,” responded Pauline in a significant tone. “And please, please don’t put that cologne bottle in the rack. If you do ’twill rattle and dance and thump till it breaks—or you wish it would.”