“The head clerk at the hotel described it to me.”
“Head clerk, indeed! You mean concierge,” corrected his sister. “One would think you had never been abroad before. You must use the French names.”
“A queer country,” said Molly. “No matter how gray-headed a man is, they call him garçon; and garçon means boy.”
It had been Miss Evans’s original plan to proceed directly from Havre to Paris; but on being urged by her Silver Gate friends to visit with them various points of interest along the road, she could not resist the invitation.
“I came to France mainly on account of an important errand in Paris,” she said to Mrs. Rowe. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about it, only I can’t mention the subject without crying. But now I find that the people I wish to see will be out of the city for another week or two. And so,” she continued, drying her eyes, “I believe I may allow myself this pleasant holiday with you.”
Accordingly she wired her uncle that he need not expect her at present, as she was to join the Silver Gate party next morning for a carriage-drive through picturesque Normandy.
CHAPTER IX
THE MYSTERIOUS BAG
The Silver Gate tourists all assembled for breakfast in the hotel dining-room dressed for their excursion. The clothes worn by them on shipboard had been packed in a box to be forwarded to Liverpool, in readiness for the home voyage, and The Happy Six appeared now in tidy new suits. Miss Evans wore a neat black mohair and a fresh black straw hat, but had not laid aside the familiar reticule.
“The bag looks like a padlock, Paul. Do you suppose she needs all that to fasten her belt?”
“It seems like it,” murmured Paul.