Janet ran down the hall, waving a letter over her head.
"Sally, Phyllis, where are you?" she called.
The door of Sally's room opened, and Prue came out carrying a drawer
piled high with clothes.
"Hello there!" she called. "Come and help me move."
"Oh, then you know Daphne is coming? I just had a letter from her and
I'm trying to find Sally and Phyllis," Janet replied, taking one end of
the heavy drawer.
"You'll find them all in there." Prue nodded her head towards the door
she had just left. "They are stuffing my peanut butter, eating my
crackers and making fun of my poetry."
"Why, Prue, I didn't know you wrote," Janet exclaimed.
"I don't," Prue told her; "that is, not for publication, but every once
in a while I put things down on paper and somehow or other they rhyme."
"Why didn't you show me any of them?"
"They weren't good enough. I'd never have let those wild Indians see
them. Just as I was packing, my notebook fell out of my desk, and a lot
of papers I had in it, scattered to the floor. And, of course, Sally
pounced on them."
"Poor Prue," Janet sympathized.
They were walking slowly down the hall carrying the drawer between them.
"Oh, that's not the worst of it; as I told you, they are eating my food
and laughing at my most beautiful thoughts, and to think I'm going to
room with Glad and Ann. I suppose I'll have no peace."
"Better start writing poetry about them and their pet failings," Janet
suggested. "If you wrote an ode to the freckles on Glad's nose, she'd
probably keep very still in the future."
"Oh, good idea! I'll do that very thing!" Prue exclaimed.
They reached the room at the end of the hall and Prue paused to open the
door.
"The Countess's Room," she announced.
"Oh, what a nice name. I didn't know you called it that."
"We don't, but Miss Hull does," Prue corrected. "You see the beautiful
Countess de Something Something, Camier, I think it was, came to visit
Colonel Hull, and she had this room; so it's been called her room ever
since.
"Oh, I think that's awfully nice; Phyllis will be crazy about it. Wonder
who slept in our room?"
Janet looked around the big room with interest. It was plenty large
enough to accommodate three beds. Two of them were cots, the third was
an enormous four-poster. It looked worthy indeed to be the couch of a
Countess. She was so busy exclaiming over the tester, with its glazed
chintz ruffle, that she did not see the sudden gleam in Prue's eye. She
even forgot to make any more inquiries about the possible celebrity that
had slept in her own room.
They dumped the contents of the drawer onto the bed and then carried it
empty back to Sally's room.
As they paused at the door, a shout of laughter greeted them, and they
heard Glad exclaim:
"Oh, do listen to this," she cried: "'The smoky darkness of a rich
Egyptian night.'"
Prue walked into the room, followed by Janet.
"Prue, dear, didn't you mean a Pittsburgh night?" Ann asked provokingly
as she finished spreading a cracker with as much peanut butter as it
could hold.
Prue did not deign a reply. Instead she swooped down upon the
unsuspecting Ann and took her carefully spread cracker away from her.
"Peanut butter is bad for freckles, darling," she said without a trace
of ill-humor in her voice. "Prue will eat it."
There was a scuffle and the cracker was eventually ground under
somebody's heel. When peace was restored, Janet flourished her letter
once more above her head.
"From Daphne?" Phyl cried, recognizing the writing.
"Yes; she's coming today, but how did you find it out?"
"Miss Hull called me down after mail, and told me," Sally explained.
"She gets in about five-thirty, just in time for dinner."
"Oh, I wish we could go to the station," Janet exclaimed.
"Afraid we can't do that," Sally replied, "but we can go down to the
gate."
"Oh, good! Then when we see her carriage we can hop aboard," Phyllis
said.
"To think she'd really be here tonight!" Janet cried. "Funny, beautiful
Taffy."
"Do tell us about her," Gladys demanded.
"Yes, do," Ann and Prue echoed.
The three girls looked at each other.
"You tell them, Sally," Janet said, but Sally shook her head.
"No, Jan, Taffy's more yours than ours," she replied, and Phyllis
nodded.
"Go ahead," she encouraged. "If we were talking about Sally I'd be
spokesman."
"Preserve my character," laughed Sally.
"Oh, don't worry; they'd never learn the truth from me," Phyllis said
airily.
"We know all there is to know about Sally," Prue exclaimed.
"Yes, Jan, tell us about this Daphne. She has a lovely name," Ann added.
"Well, it exactly suits her," Janet began, "only we call her Taffy
because she has a mop of hair that looks exactly like taffy candy, the
rich yellow kind, and her eyes are green, just the color of the sea,
when you look straight down into it on a misty day, and her cheeks are
like rose petals, not bright pink, but a soft, delicate tint, and her
cheeks are ivory white, like cream. She has long slender hands and the
most wonderful voice you ever heard; it's soft and furry; she always
drawls; in fact, Taffy always looks and talks as if she were half
asleep. Her eyelashes are so long and heavy that they almost cover her
eyes. When she opens them wide she looks as if she were surprised at
what she saw. She's got the keenest sense of humor you ever heard of,
and when she says a thing it sounds twice as funny as if anyone else had
said it, because of her queer little laugh."
Janet stopped and looked suddenly very self-conscious while the girls
looked at her with a new expression in their eyes.
"Why, Jan," Prue exclaimed. "You're a poet."
"I feel as if I'd been listening to a fairy story," Gladys said.
"With the lovely Daphne as the enchanted princess," Ann added dreamily.
"I never realized before how really lovely Daphne was," Sally laughed.
"Honestly, Jan, I felt as if she was here in the room as you talked."
Phyllis said nothing. She was curled up on one end of the bed, her head
against Sally's pillows, her arms stretched above her. Her face wore an
expression of pride and ownership, but not surprise. Janet was her twin,
and everything Janet did was perfect in her eyes. When other girls
admired her, too, Phyllis just sat back and smiled contentedly.
"You'll make a great old quartette," Gladys laughed.
"Sort of a mutual admiration society," Prue added.
"Phyl, I'd think you'd be jealous of this Daphne," Ann laughed. "Won't
your nose be out of joint when she arrives?"
The twins stared at her in blank amazement.
"Jealous!" they said together. "Why, how perfectly silly."
"You might as well say that I might be jealous of Sally," Janet
chuckled.
"No," Phyllis shook her head, "Jan and I couldn't possibly be jealous.
We're twins, you see."
The little phrase ended all argument and doubt as it always did. The
girls realized with something of a start how close the bond between them
was, and they felt a glow of pride around their hearts. Affection like
this was worthy of a place at Hilltop, and could be pointed out with
pride.
"My Aunt Jane's Poll-parrot!" Sally exclaimed, jumping up. "Look at the
time," and she held out her wrist watch. "Ten minutes past five. If
we're going to meet Taffy we'd better hurry."
They found sweaters and started off down the long avenue that lead to
the gate.
Prue turned to Gladys and Ann.
"Are the twins elected?" she inquired.
"They are," they replied. "To the very heart of Hilltop," Ann added.
They sauntered back to their room.
"Look at my beautiful bed that a perfectly good Countess has slept in,"
Gladys wailed, as she saw the contents of three drawers piled high on
the blue and white counterpane.
"Oh, never mind that," Prue brushed some of the things aside and sat
down on the edge of the bed.
"Speaking of Countesses," she began, "Janet wanted to know if anybody
really important had ever slept in their room, and I thought it was a
good chance for a ghost story."
"Of course, the very thing," Gladys agreed decidedly.
"We might as well have a good one while we're about it. You'd better
make it up, Prue," Ann suggested.
Gladys had been gazing out of the window; she turned half way around
now.
"Don't have to make it up," she said slowly. "There's a perfect
cracker-jack about a pretty lady popping off the balcony when they
brought in her lover who had been shot in a duel."
"Which balcony was it?" Prue demanded.
Gladys's eyes twinkled. "Well, it might just as well have been theirs,"
she said.
The other two nodded in understanding.