CHAPTER I
THE LAND OF DREAMS
“I don’t believe anything could be more lovely than this,” exclaimed Mollie Thurston, leaning back in a wicker chair on the piazza of one of the largest hotels at Palm Beach.
“Right you are!” replied her friend, Ruth Stuart, as she gazed across the still blue waters of Lake Worth dotted with pleasure boats. “I can’t decide whether I should like to ride in the automobile, or sail, or just sit in the cocoanut grove and listen to the music. Life seems so easy under a blue sky like this, and there are so many things to do that it is hard to make a choice.”
“What do people usually do at this hour?” Grace Carter asked. “A woman I talked with on the train told me there was a programme of amusements for every hour at Palm Beach.”
“Well, my dear, you have only to gaze about you and see for yourself. It is now high noon,” answered Ruth, consulting her watch.
Grace glanced quickly about her. All along the broad piazza, and under awnings on the lawn, a gay company of men, women and young people were sipping delicious iced fruit drinks in tall, thin glasses.
“It is undoubtedly the witching hour for pineapple lemonades,” said Ruth. “And we must be in the fashion immediately. Papa,” she called to her father, who was immersed in the pages of a New York newspaper several days old, “you are not doing your duty by us. We are getting awfully thirsty.”
Mr. Stuart, clad in white, and looking the picture of comfort, smiled lazily over his paper at his daughter. “Order what you like, my dear. Am I not always at the command of the ‘Automobile Girls’? What do you wish, little lady?” he asked, turning to Barbara Thurston, who had been lost in a day-dream and had heard nothing of the conversation.
“I haven’t any wish,” responded Barbara. “I am too happy to be troubled with wishes.”
“Then suppose I wish for you, Bab?” suggested Ruth. “Go back to your own sweet dreams. I’ll wake you when the wish comes true.”
Presently the four girls were sipping their fruit lemonades like the rest of the world at Palm Beach. On the breeze the sound of music was wafted to them from a morning concert in the distance.
“Where is Aunt Sallie?” Ruth suddenly asked, again interrupting her father’s reading. “This place has bewitched me so that I have forgotten even my beloved aunt. This is the land of dreams, I do believe. We are all spirits from some happy world.”
“Here comes your spirit aunt,” returned Mr. Stuart, smiling. “She has evidently been spirited away by some other friendly spirits.”
The girls laughed as they saw the substantial figure of Miss Sallie Stuart strolling down the piazza. She was walking between two other persons, one a tall, middle-aged man with dark hair slightly tinged with gray, the other a young woman. They were all three talking animatedly.
“Girls, look!” exclaimed Ruth, in suppressed excitement. “Aunt Sallie is with that Maud Warren. You remember we met her at Lenox, Bab, and she tried to ride you down in the famous race. Delightful creature – to keep away from.” Ruth gave a contemptuous sniff, then added. “That nice looking man must be her father.”
“She looks as haughty as ever, and then some more,” said Mollie aggressively.
The girls giggled softly, then straightened their faces for the trio was almost upon them, and it was not safe to indulge in further conversation.
After seeing that his charges were supplied with lemonade, Mr. Stuart had returned to his paper.
“Robert,” broke in Miss Sallie’s dignified voice, “this is Mr. Warren and his daughter Miss Warren. They – ”
But at the first word Mr. Stuart had risen and the two men were enthusiastically shaking hands.
“Why, Warren,” exclaimed Mr. Stuart, “I had no idea that you were in this part of the world. The last time I saw you, you were ranching out in Idaho.”
“Quite true,” replied Mr. Warren, smiling, “but that was ten years ago. A great many things have happened since then.” He sighed and looked out over the blue lake. “Mrs. Warren died the next year,” he said slowly. “Maud and I are alone.”
“I am deeply sorry to hear of your great loss,” sympathized Mr. Stuart and his fine face saddened. He too had known that loss.
Turning to Maud who had been exchanging rather distant greetings with the four girls, he said pleasantly. “So this is Maud. She was a little girl in short dresses when last I saw her. How these children do grow up.”
Maud smiled frigidly and for the fraction of a second allowed her hand to touch that of Mr. Stuart. “One must grow up some time, you know,” she murmured.
“I should like to stay eighteen forever,” exclaimed Ruth, with enthusiasm.
“Would you indeed?” remarked Maud Warren, raising her eyebrows. “How odd!”
There was a brief silence. The four girls stared straight ahead and tried to control their desire to laugh. During their stay at Lenox the year before the circumstances of which having been fully told in the “Automobile Girls in the Berkshires,” they had not been impressed with Maud Warren, on account of her disagreeable and overbearing manner. But the blasé air that she now affected, was in their candid eyes extremely ridiculous, and her remark to Ruth had filled them all with unseemly mirth.
