THE OLD CHATEAU
Lucile had been awake for some time. She lay with both hands beneath her
curly head, staring straight up at the ceiling and thinking, thinking,
very hard.
They were on the outskirts of Paris. Her father had heard from the
Applegates of this wonderful little inn, where one might be as
comfortable as in one's own home. This had appealed strongly to them all,
for the girls were eager for a sight of the country, especially since the
gratifying of their desire would not entail the loss of city delights in
the least--a machine could whirl them into the heart of Paris in half an
hour.
Such was the pleasant trend of Lucile's thoughts as she turned her eyes
toward the bright patch of window and beheld a world bathed in golden
sunshine. "How pretty it all was!" she mused. "Take the clouds, for
instance. How feathery and soft and fleecy and silvery-lined they looked,
floating on that vast sea of brilliant turquoise; and somewhere,
somewhere there was a bird singing, more exquisitely, she was sure, than
bird had ever sung before. Oh, if she could only get one little peek at
him!" With this in view, she stole silently from the bed and over to the
window.
"Time to get up?" yawned a sleepy voice from the bed.
"Oh, he's stopped!" wailed Lucile. "He stopped the minute you began to
talk. Oh, Jessie, why did you have to wake up just then?"
Jessie gazed at her friend as at one gone suddenly and violently insane.
"If it will do you any good, I will go to sleep again," said she, with
much dignity. "But I should like to know what or whom it was I stopped
and--"
"Oh, hush!" begged Lucile, with her finger on her lips. "There he is now;
listen, please!"
And Jessie listened while the little songster poured out his joy in
liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air
like dancing sunbeams turned to music--so light, so rippling, so joyously
alive, that the girls' hearts thrilled in answer.
"Oh, the darling!" cried Jessie, springing out of bed and joining Lucile
at the window. "I wonder what he is; we never heard anything like that in
Burleigh. Now he's stopped again----"
"He won't sing when you talk, of course," said Evelyn, who had been
quietly watching them.
"Of course not," said Jessie, calmly. "He knows there is no use in trying
to compete with the music of my voice."
"Time to get up," exclaimed Evelyn, in a loud voice, and began a show of
dressing in a great hurry, while Lucile gave a little despairing laugh.
"I don't know what you two would do if you didn't have me to act the part
of peacemaker all the time. I'm afraid they would have one or the other
of you up for murder before the end of the week."
"Well, we couldn't get along without you, anyway," said Jessie,
affectionately. "What's the use of thinking of such awful calamities
ahead of time?"
"All right; we won't, if you say so," said Lucile, and, snatching a
pillow from the bed, she hurled it at the unsuspecting and suddenly
pensive Evelyn. The aim was good and Evelyn tumbled over on the bed,
while a couple of feet waved frantically in the air.
"Oh," she cried, half smothered by the pillow, "I'll get even for this,
Lucile Payton! You just wait!" And, being a young person of her word,
Lucile just ducked in time to escape an answering shot.
Then would have ensued an old-fashioned pillow fight, had not Lucile
suddenly bethought her that this was not their own home.
"Girls!" she cried, half choked with laughter. "Girls, we'll have
somebody in here, sure as fate, if we don't stop. They'll think there's a
fire or something."
"Or worse," Jessie laughed, good-naturedly, and after that they gradually
quieted down.
As usual, they were dressed and ready on the same instant. Lucile opened
the door quietly and they stepped into the corridor.
"Guess we must have roused the hotel, after all," said Evelyn, ruefully,
as they heard unmistakable sounds of awakening in the neighboring rooms.
"They'll be notifying us that our patronage is no longer desirable if we
don't look out."
"I wonder how you say that in French," said Lucile, her eyes merry. "If
they did try to put us out, we could just pretend we didn't understand."
"Yes, we could follow the example of Joe, the Italian who puts out our
ashes," laughed Evelyn. "Just grin when they try to argue and shrug our
shoulders. 'Me no speck Ang-lish.'"
The girls laughed appreciatively, and Jessie added, "Nevertheless, your
comparisons are odious. Joe, the ash-man, is not what you might call--in
our class."
"I could understand French a good deal better than I can some of Jessie's
United States," said Evelyn, plaintively, and so they laughed their way
out onto the broad, picturesque porch of the rambling old inn and stood
gazing curiously about them.
The road wound in front of the house, over a small hill, and was lost to
view on the other side. The woodland, being so near the city, was not
dense, but the girls thought they had never seen foliage so vividly green
nor grass so soft and luxuriant. The beckoning shadows of the trees, the
fragrance of the dew-drenched flowers, the trilling music of a thousand
carefree, joyous little songsters, all combined in one irresistible
appeal to the girls.
With common and unspoken consent they ran down the steps of the porch and
to the other side of the road. They plucked beautiful, long-stemmed
flowers from their hiding-place and excitedly called each other's
attention to the brightly colored birds, that balanced on swaying twigs,
regarding them with saucy inquiry.
"To see us now, anybody might think the country was new to us," exclaimed
Lucile, with sparkling eyes and cheeks like twin roses. "Oh, girls,
there's my bird again," she added, and stood, finger on lips, while the
clear note, starting soft and sweet, swelled to a height of trilling
ecstasy and abandon, when all the welled-up joy of summer poured liquidly
golden from a bursting little heart; then slowly, hesitatingly, with
soft, intermittent trillings and gurgles, died and faded into silence.
"Oh, ah!" Jessie whispered, as though afraid to break the spell. "Did you
ever hear such bird music in all your life? What can he be?"
"I wish I'd paid a little more attention to my natural history now," said
Lucile, smiling ruefully. "But even that wouldn't help much until we'd
seen the bird, anyway. Let's see if we can get a glimpse of him."
They were following eagerly, when Jessie exclaimed, "Oh, bother! There's
Phil on the porch beckoning to us. What do you suppose he wants?"
"I don't know; breakfast, maybe," Lucile answered. "Suppose you girls run
over and tell him I'll come right away. I do want to locate that bird."
"All right; only don't be long," Jessie advised, as they started, arm in
arm, toward the inn. "We'll have some time after breakfast to do the
locating."
Lucile retorted laughingly, and was off in the direction from which the
sweet notes had seemed to come.
"Of course, he wouldn't sing now that I want him to in a hurry," she
communed with herself. "Any one of these birds might be the one as far as
looks are concerned."
She was just about to despair, and had almost made up her mind to turn
back, when the golden note rose again and she stopped, entranced. There,
over her head and not five feet away, swaying perilously on a slender
twig, balanced the little songster, pouring out his joy to a responsive
world.
"Oh, you darling!" cried Lucile, impulsively. "I wish I could take you
home with me, which you would not like at all. I must ask Dad what you
are; he would probably know."
So, triumphant, she started happily along the path, anxious to tell the
girls of her luck. It was a great temptation to linger along the way; it
would be nice to take back with her a bunch of wild flowers. She would
give them to a waiter, and see that they were put upon their table.
With this in view, she hastened along, not noticing that the sun had gone
under a cloud and that the path to the road was very long.
Therefore, she was surprised, when she emerged from the woodland, to find
the sky, formerly all blue and fleecy clouds, changed to a threatening,
lowering gray.
"But where is the inn?" she stammered, looking about her, bewildered.
Then, as the appalling truth struck home, she grew pale with
consternation.
"How could I do such a thing?" she wailed. "I must have taken the wrong
path, and now I am goodness knows where. And even the sun has
disappeared. Now I am in a nice fix," and she gazed about her helplessly
and vexedly, not knowing which way to turn.
"Well, there's no use standing here; that never did anybody any good,"
she said, at last. "If my weather eye does not deceive me, I am in for a
good wetting, if I can't find shelter anywhere. Oh, the folks will be
wild!"
With these and other disquieting thoughts, she started to push her way
along the deserted road, with the forgotten wild flowers clutched tightly
in her hand.
She had walked for over half an hour, and the first drops of rain had
begun to splash upon her bare head, when, to her great delight, she saw
the white front of a house among the trees.
With a joyful cry she broke into a run and, a moment later, came upon a
pebbled drive that led up to a low, picturesque structure, built on the
top of a gentle slope.
Lucile had that strange sensation which we all have experienced some time
in our lives, a distinct impression she was not looking upon the chateau
for the first time. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, and it
was on the tip of her tongue to put her thoughts into words when she
dismissed the idea as absurd. Why, she had spent all of her life, up to
the last month at least, in Burleigh, so it was plainly ridiculous even
to imagine she knew the place. Many and many a time she had read
descriptions of French chateaux--ah, that was it! She must have read
about just such a place. But, in spite of all reasoning, the illusion
clung with startling persistency. In fact, the nearer she came to the
house, the more and more was she impressed with its familiarity.
She ran up to the porch just as the storm broke.
"Pretty good time," she smiled, as she lifted the old-fashioned knocker
on the big door and let it fall with a bang.
"Now, if I can't make whoever comes understand my French, and I haven't
very high hopes, then am I lost indeed."
But she had no time for further thought. The door opened quietly and a
soft voice inquired:
"Que voulez vous, Mam'selle?"