The next day Mr. Fabian conducted his girls to various cathedrals and
famous buildings in the city, and that night they returned to the hotel
to find little Mr. Alexander standing in front of it waiting for them.
“I’ve got turrible news for you-all,” said he in a most lugubrious tone.
His face expressed the greatest sorrow and concern.
“My goodness, Pa! What’s the matter?” cried Dodo, anxiously.
“It’s worse than you-all can reckon, so I’ll tell you. This afternoon
when I come back from a little joy-ride, I saw a dandy little car out
here, but when I took a good squint at it I saw it were a Packard
Roadster. At that, my legs began to shake and I feared Maggie might have
come over, in spite of my wire to her.
“And then, before I could get courage to go indoors, I heard her voice.
I tried to hide behind that big pillar, there, but no use! So, Dodo,
your Ma’s here and is in the parlor talking to Count Chalmys.”
As everyone had expected to hear dire news, the relief upon hearing that
Mrs. Alexander had arrived was so great that it caused a general laugh.
Nancy Fabian turned and asked of the little millionaire: “How did your
wife meet the Count?”
“Oh, I figgered that she would be so glad to know a real live Count,
that I saved my own head that way. She won’t remember my misdeeds now,”
softly laughed Mr. Alexander.
When the exchange of effusive greetings on the part of Mrs. Alexander,
and the quiet welcome from the other Americans, had subsided, she
remembered something to tell Dodo, that concerned her deeply.
“What do you think, Dodo? About those Osgoods?”
“How should I know, Ma. Your tone indicates that you are not very well
pleased with them, whatever it is,” replied Dodo.
“I should say _not_! Why, I found out that the title of ‘Sir’ and ‘Lady’
does not mean _anything_ in their family. Jimmy can’t inherit the honor,
either. His father got it because he did something unusual with a
factory that made munitions when the war first broke out. It wasn’t an
entailed title at all, and it stops with this Osgood. Dear me! When I
think of it—you might have had to marry just a plain James Osgood,
after all!”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t, Ma. I said from the first, that I never would marry
anyone I didn’t like. And it would take an American to do that,”
declared Dodo.
“What happened when you learned about the title, Maggie?” asked Mr.
Alexander, unusually gay over the information.
“Why, I just told Jimmy Osgood that I wouldn’t _take_ him to Paris in my
new car, if that was the case. I think they might have told me how such
matters were conducted in England, then I might have spared all my time
in planning as I did.” Mrs. Alexander’s voice plainly expressed the
disapproval she felt at keeping her in ignorance of the methods of
Burke.
Her hearers managed to keep straight faces, however, and waited until
the Count said good-day. Then they all went upstairs to plan about the
tour in Europe.
“I invited Count Chalmys to accept the empty seat beside me in my new
roadster,” ventured Mrs. Alexander.
“You did!” gasped Dodo, unbelievingly.
“But he refused, didn’t he?” said Nancy, confidently.
“Oh no! he said he’d be delighted. He planned to go home to his castle,
soon, and he said you-all were going to visit him there; so he felt he
might accept my invitation to tour with me, as long as we were to be all
in one party,” explained Mrs. Alexander, greatly pleased with the
outcome of her meeting with the Count.
Dodo groaned, and her friends smiled in sympathy, for they understood
the reason of Mrs. Alexander’s sudden interest in an Italian Count.
“When do you propose to start on this tour?” asked the lady, after a few
moments of silence.
“Right away—tomorrow!” declared Dodo, angrily.
“Oh! surely not before we buy some nice gowns and things to wear?” cried
her mother, tragically.
“Yes, at once! _I_ don’t want any new clothes!” snapped Dodo.
“But, my child! What about that trooso chest. It ought to be filled, you
know, to be ready to send home,” reminded the mother.
“Oh, I gave that chest away for a birthday gift,” said Dodo,
indifferently.
“Gave it away! Why—what for?” gasped Mrs. Alexander.
“I didn’t want it, and it was my very own—you said so.”
As that was true, nothing more was said about the chest, at the time,
but nothing could stop Mrs. Alexander from planning and scheming about
her daughter’s future. As the other girls and Mrs. Fabian said nothing
about shopping, but preferred waiting until they returned to Paris
again, it was decided that they would start on the trip the following
day. That evening was devoted to studying a road-map and selecting an
itinerary.
Mr. Alexander had but one desire in the matter, and that began and ended
with the first lap of the drive. “I want to see the war-zone, where our
boys fit them Germans. I hear ’em tell in the hotel lobby, that the
roads are fair all through them battle fields like Verdun, on the Somme,
and others. So I want to drive there, and then, afterwards, you can do
what you-all like on this tour with me as chauffeur.”
“Oh, we _all_ want to pass through those famous places, too, so that is
settled,” exclaimed Nancy Fabian, glancing at her friends for approval
of this plan.
“All right. Put that down on your paper, Professor,” advised Mr.
Alexander; then he leaned back and sighed as if he had done all that was
expected of him.
After several hours of planning and writing, the route was mapped out,
and the group felt that it was as good as any ever made by a number of
tourists.
It was noon the next day before the party really started on its way, as
the Count failed to appear on time, and an hour was lost in trying to
get him on a telephone. When he did appear, he had a gorgeous bouquet of
hothouse flowers for Mrs. Alexander, and a huge box of bon-bons for the
girls.
That afternoon they drove over the famous sector where millions fought
and fell for a Principle, in the greatest mortal combat the world has
ever witnessed. After seeing the ruins the war made of Verdun, as well
as of other villages, Mr. Alexander drove to Reims. Here they found
quarters for the night, and waited to visit the cathedral in the
morning.
From Reims they went through St. Quentin, and on to Boulogne. That night
they stopped at a quaint inn in Normandy. The ancient hostelry was but
two stories high, with upper windows overlooking a wonderful garden. The
high stone wall that enclosed this garden had niches, every so often, in
the thick wall.
Mr. Fabian spoke excellent French, and the other members in the party
understood everything that was said, so all enjoyed the conversation
that now took place.
“Have you been owner of this Inn very long?” asked Mr. Fabian,
courteously.
“All my life, and my father and grandfather before me,” was the
unexpected reply.
“Then you can tell me if this is an old house, or only modelled after
the old style.”
“Ah!” breathed the old man, softly. “It ees so old that my grandfather
knew not when it was built. It ees the gate-house of a convent that
formerly was famous. When it was abandoned, because of the Order being
abolished by law, my grandfather was left to supervise the work.
“He bought the property when it was sold, and since then his descendants
have lived here. With the old stone gate-house this garden patch was
included, but all the other buildings were razed and the land sold.”
“How interesting,” remarked Mr. Fabian. “Then that old garden was really
part of the original convent grounds?”
“Yes, and those niches you see in the wall held statues and holy figures
at one time. Some of them were carved by well-known men about here. I
found several of them buried in the garden when I turned up the soil for
my father. I was but a boy, then, and I remember he took them away and
put them in the attic.”
The old host then showed the guests to their various rooms and left them
to wash and dress for the evening meal. Polly stood gazing from her
window for a time, picturing the life of past days in that garden, when
Eleanor exclaimed suddenly and called to her.
“Just look at this heavy walnut bed. It has the most marvellous carvings
on its head and foot boards.”
After examining the figures carved on the wood, Polly went to the
toilet-stand and poured some water from a heavy ewer into the stoneware
basin. As she was about to place the ewer on the tiled floor beside the
stand, she saw the carved panels that formed the sides of the stand.
“Nolla! Do help me move this heavy stand out to the light—I verily
believe it is an antique!” cried she.
Having satisfied themselves that the panels were genuine old pieces,
they ran to Mr. Fabian’s room and called him forth. He examined the
stand and the bed, and some of the old stoneware pieces in the room, and
sighed. “We’ve stumbled over a veritable Mecca of antiques, girls,” said
he.
That night after supper, Mr. Fabian led the host to tell of how he
acquired the pieces of furniture. And the result of that talk was the
purchase of the stand, the bed, and many smaller pieces of stoneware and
odd furnishings that had been replevined from the convent building,
generations before. Even the few statues that had been stored in the low
attic of the Inn were sold to the Americans; and the old couple were
made happy at the knowledge that, at last, they were provided for in old
age, through the sale of the objects that they could readily do without.
The Count was made supremely happy with the purchase of a holy picture
which he declared was from the brush of an old master. And Mrs.
Alexander smiled contentedly because the Count was so kind and
chivalrous to her.
A group of humble peasants gathered, the following morning, to wish the
tourists God-speed, for the entire village had heard of the good fortune
that had come to their old friends at the Inn. When a few furlongs
farther on from the Inn, Mr. Fabian read a sign that said “To
Abbeville,” he said aloud, “Well, of all things! We stopped at that
famous old convent spot and never knew it, until this minute.”
From Boulogne, where they wired Mr. Ashby about the bed and other
articles they had secured, they drove to Ostend. Thence to Bruges, where
Mr. Fabian showed the girls the famous Belfry that is three hundred and
fifty feet high. The quaint irregular houses in the streets of the town
were duly admired and snapshots taken of them by Dodo; then the two cars
started for Antwerp.
Along the road, and in the villages they passed through, most of the
peasants wore wooden shoes. One woman was seen driving a tiny milk-cart
that was drawn by a large dog. The tourists stopped for a drink of the
rich milk, and Mrs. Fabian noticed the bit of priceless Flemish lace
pinned upon the peasant’s head.
“How much do you want for that piece of lace, my good woman?” asked she,
eagerly.
But the woman shook her head and smiled, saying: “My family lace.
Gran’mudder make it.”
Antwerp still displayed the scars left by the German occupation, so the
tourists decided not to tarry there very long.
“When I see these things, I feel like I want to war all over again,”
exclaimed Mr. Alexander.
Late that night they entered Rotterdam, and there found a fine Inn and a
hearty dinner awaiting them. Having replenished the inner being, they
started out to see the town by night.
“I don’t see much use in remaining for a day in Rotterdam, girls,”
remarked Mr. Fabian. “There isn’t much of interest to us, here, and I
don’t believe we can pick up any ‘old bits’ in the city. Bargains in
antiques are more readily found in the country places.”
So, late the following morning, they started for Delft; along the road
Mr. Fabian stopped several times and secured a few fine pieces of old
Delftware.
The tourists remained at The Hague that night. It was a quaint,
beautiful old place founded in the year 1250. The artistic-roofed
houses, the funny dormer windows, the varied and picture-like gables of
the buildings which were placed irregularly on either side of the narrow
crooked streets, provided interesting scenes that the girls eagerly
captured in the camera.
At an antique shop, on a side street not much wider than a country-lane,
the girls found several old door-knockers with the ancient dates stamped
in the metal. A great massive lock and key were bought by Mr. Fabian,
and Dodo got an iron lantern.
Leaving The Hague, the cars drove along beautiful country roads, with
low white-washed cottages having green wooden shutters at the windows,
standing prim and pure beside the way. Everything was so clean and neat,
though the owners seemed poor, that it was remarked by the girls.
“When you compare these peasants and their spotless homes, to the filth
and shiftlessness of the peasants in Ireland, you cannot help but wonder
what causes the vast difference in living,” said Polly.
“It is not poverty alone that does this, Polly,” said Mrs. Fabian. “One
must go way back and seek deep for the causation of such conditions.”
The girls did not understand what she meant, then, but they could not
help but remember her words later, when they began to question political
and national problems. Then they understood.
At Leyden Mr. Fabian showed the girls the university that is erected on
the ground where the Pilgrims landed after their flight from England,
and before their historic sailing for America. And at Haarlem, the two
girls Polly and Eleanor, bought a lot of healthy bulbs to be sent home
for planting in the Spring. As Haarlem is the center of the bulb-growing
industry of Holland, it displayed more tulips to the square foot, than
the girls had ever thought it possible to grow.
That evening the two cars entered Amsterdam. The hotel was good, and the
stop-over most welcome, for the autoists were tired of the continuous
ride for several days, resting only at night.
The Count managed to get in telephonic connection with Paris, that
night, and immediately afterwards, he seemed ill at ease. So much so,
that he finally left the others and they saw him no more that evening.
Mrs. Alexander showed her disappointment at this unexpected action of
her charming Count and refused to be condoled by anyone else.
At breakfast in the morning, Count Chalmys announced his unexpected
desertion of the touring party. “I find I have to fly at once to my
domain in Northern Italy, my dear friends. A most unexpected business
affair there demands my presence. Ah, such is the tormented life of a
land-owner. He can never enjoy freedom, but must always be at the beck
and call of others.”
“Good gracious, Count! Won’t you join us again, as soon as you settle
this business in Italy?” asked Mrs. Alexander, anxiously.
“I trust I may, dear lady. But _you_ must surely visit me at my palace,
when you tour Italy,” returned the gallant Count. Then he gave minute
directions to Mr. Fabian how they might reach his estates.
After Count Chalmys had gone the tourists had Mrs. Alexander to
entertain; before this she had devoted her entire time to the Count as
he was her guest in the small car. Now she insisted upon the girls
taking turns to ride in her car, and this proved to be unappreciated by
the three who wished to be with Mr. Fabian in order to hear his opinions
on the places they passed. Finally Nancy offered to devote her attention
to Dodo’s mother until they could discover a new “title” to occupy her
heart and mind and roadster.
While in Amsterdam they visited an old-fashioned coffee-shop with
living-quarters back of it. When Mr. Fabian explained to the good woman
who served, that his girls were decorators from America, and they wished
to see the tiles he had heard of in her living-room, she smiled
graciously and led the way to the rear rooms.
“Oh Nolla! Look at the funny little ladders one has to climb to reach
the beds!” cried Polly, laughingly, as she pointed out the built-in beds
about five feet above the floor.
“I should think they’d smother—all shut up back of those curtains, at
night,” remarked Dodo.
“And not a bit of ventilation that can get in any other way,” added
Eleanor.
The hostess comprehended something of what was said, and she laughingly
shrugged her plump shoulders and pointed to her two “younkers” who were
as fat and rosy as Baldwin apples. Mr. Fabian was admiring the wonderful
dado of tiles, that ran about the room from the floor to a height of
four feet. Each tile presented a scene of Holland, and they were so set
that a white tile alternated with a Delft blue one, making the whole
pattern very effective. The windows were placed above the dado, thus
being four feet above the floor. But instead of high narrow windows,
they were square, or low and long, and opened in casement style.
While Mr. Fabian was conversing with the woman about old tiles and Dutch
furniture, Polly spied a corner cupboard. She beckoned Eleanor over to
it, and the two immediately began examining the old blue ware in the
china-closet.
Dodo heard them and hurried over, and that drew Mr. Fabian’s attention
to them, also. His hostess smiled, and led him across the large room to
the cupboard.
Before the collectors left that room, they had acquired some fine old
Delft pieces, and Mr. Fabian hugged an antique jug that he was not sure
of, but its markings would prove its great age as soon as he could trace
it, he was sure.
Mr. Alexander, who had been almost ignored during the past few days,
excepting at night when they stopped at different towns for rest, now
said: “Would you like to reach Cologne tonight? I figger we can do it
easily, onless you want to stop anywhere?”
“The only place I want to stop and give the girls a peep into a
porcelain factory, is at Bonn. But that is on the other side of Cologne;
so let her go, if you like,” returned Mr. Fabian.
The roads, however, were too bad for speeding, and they had to be
content with reaching Arnheim for the night. The next day they reached
Cologne, but drove on to Bonn, as Mr. Fabian had planned. In the
afternoon they reached Coblentz where the great Byzantine Cathedral was
visited and pictures taken of it. The next day, on the trip southward,
along the Rhine, were many picturesque castles and fortresses which made
splendid scenes for the camera.
Mr. Fabian wished to conduct the girls from Frankfort to Nürnberg, a
famous old mediaeval city with unique houses still to be seen, although
they were built hundreds of years ago. But the girls had no desire to
visit any German cities, they said.
“But it is a famous place,” argued Mr. Fabian. “It was the very first
town in Germany to embrace Christianity.”
“Maybe so, but later, they clearly demonstrated to the world that they
never understood the fundamentals of Christianity,” retorted Eleanor.
“Well aside from that, Nürnberg is the place where white paper was first
invented,” continued Mr. Fabian.
“I’ve heard said that an _American_ invented white paper and the German
who put up the money for the experiment, stole the formulae,” declared
Polly.
“I never heard _that_, but surely you can’t contradict me when I say
that sulphur matches first came to life there. They are a great
convenience in the home and save us a lot of trouble; and the Germans
discovered that use for sulphur,” continued Mr. Fabian.
“Maybe the world has _now_ discovered that the Germans might have saved
us a lot of trouble if they had used the sulphur for self-extinction
purposes,” snapped Eleanor, who was a partisan for the Allies.
Her companions refused to laugh at her remark although they wanted to;
but Polly, who was more lenient to an enemy, said: “I never can
understand how it is that the Germans always invent such wonderful
things.”
“Yes, Prof., especially as we Yanks are just as brainy and capable; yet
you seldom hear of an American inventing such things,” added Dodo.
“Oh yes, we do, Dodo,” returned Mr. Fabian. “But the German nation push
a thing with national zeal and make money out of the world, for
themselves. America generally keeps quiet about her patents and uses
them for her own benefit.”
“But there is a deeper causation for all this material inventiveness,
too,” added Mrs. Fabian. “We must never lose sight of the fact that
America is the cradle of Freedom where Eternal Truth lifted its banner.
Whereas Germany brought forth only the material emblems of brain and
earthly power, the New World has brought forth the Hope of
Heaven—freedom in every sense of the word.”