BUT by the time she had had her luncheon, Mary Jane began to realize that a long swim, or trying at swimming, and a pony ride of an hour was almost enough for a little girl to do in one day. And when, as they came from the dining room, she saw Ellen running toward her with her French doll in her arms, Mary Jane was willing to promise to “play dolls” in the courtyard garden all afternoon. Alice wanted to take a few pictures in the gardens and write letters and send postals to her friends at home, and Mrs. Merrill had letters and a bit of mending, so the afternoon spent in the sunshine of the inner garden passed very quickly.

Next morning, as they were coming out from the dining room after breakfast, Mrs. Merrill stopped a few minutes to talk with the steward and the girls knew immediately that something nice was coming.

“What do you think,” she asked as she joined them a minute later, “of having a picnic luncheon to-day? Remember that pretty street we rode south on yesterday? All those old Spanish houses were built years and years ago. The queer one, that has no garden in front, is supposed to be the oldest house in America. When I was here before the kind lady who takes care of the place sometimes let folks eat their luncheon in the garden by the old well. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Of course it would be jolly and both Alice and Mary Jane were eager to be off.

“Let’s go down that same street we rode on, Mother,” suggested Alice, “because when we were riding we didn’t see a thing but the ponies and the road and I’d like to see everything—every single thing, in this nice old town.”

“Very well,” agreed Mrs. Merrill, “that’s what we’ll do. Our luncheon will be ready in a very little while. Let’s get our mail and tell Ellen that Mary Jane can’t play this morning and I expect by that time it will be waiting for us.”

Sure enough! By the time all necessary errands were finished the steward came to the lobby with the luncheon all neatly packed in a nice box.

“And if that isn’t enough,” he said, with a glance in Mary Jane’s direction, “maybe I can get the little ladies some ice cream when they come back this afternoon.”

Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane agreed to carry the lunch box between them—a block a-piece—because Alice had her camera to look after. They stopped just long enough to buy a new roll of films at the nearest shop and then they set off down the pretty, narrow, old street.

The many palm trees, which Mary Jane insisted on calling “trees with trimming on the top,” the gay poinsettias which bloomed everywhere and the crimson and yellow blossoms on the vines which covered porches and hedges made the street look very beautiful. Mary Jane had to pinch herself two or three times again to make sure that she really was awake! She simply couldn’t realize that up at home her playmates were making snow forts and going to school.

“I think it’s funny,” said Alice thoughtfully, “why folks stay up north at all in the winter. Why doesn’t everybody move south when it gets cold and then go back home in the spring?”

“Sounds sensible,” laughed Mrs. Merrill, “and really very bird-like. But just think of all you’d miss! Snow at Christmas time, skating, you know how you love to skate, and coasting and fireside fun—oh, you’d miss a lot!”

“I guess I would,” admitted Alice, “but I do love the flowers! Wait a minute, Mother,” she added; “I want to get a picture of that vine. See how it covers the house?” Mary Jane had gone on a few steps ahead, but Mrs. Merrill, feeling sure the little girl was safe on that quiet street, waited till Alice took the picture. But when they walked on Mary Jane was not to be seen. Had she turned the corner? No, for Mrs. Merrill hurried to look and no girl was in sight. Had she gone into one of the gardens? Surely not, for Mary Jane would never think of going into any one’s yard without an invitation. Alice shut up her camera and hurriedly began to help hunt. Mrs. Merrill was just beginning to feel a little anxious when she heard Mary Jane’s voice, close by, just inside the hedge, say, “But please, first I have to tell my mother.” Mrs. Merrill dashed into the yard, Alice close behind her, and both stood as though petrified with amazement.

At the foot of the steps leading from the house stood a woman dressed in the gorgeous long robes worn in Spain long years ago. By her side stood a Spanish courtier of olden days, apparently just about to kneel and kiss her hand. And, most astonishing of all, just back of the lady stood Mary Jane, her eyes round with excitement and delight.

“Mary Jane!” cried Mrs. Merrill, “what are you doing? Where are you? How did you come in here?”

“Through the gate just like you did, Mother,” replied Mary Jane, answering the last question first, “and I came because he asked me to, he did.” And she pointed her finger at a man who stood at Mrs. Merrill’s left.

“The little girl is right,” said the man as he stepped up to Mrs. Merrill, “and I must ask your pardon for the fright we seem to have caused you. But I do beg of you to let us borrow your daughter for about five minutes more—we have such need of her.”

Mrs. Merrill looked around the yard and saw what she had been too excited before to notice. In the front of the yard, close by the hedge, was a moving picture camera, and by it two men working under the director who was speaking to her.

“Let me explain,” continued the man. “We are making a picture supposably taken in Spain—not a hard thing to imagine with all these Spanish houses and gardens around here,—and this lady is supposed to be a queen. But at the last minute, just as we were ready to run the picture through, the lady” (and he pointed to the courtly dressed woman by the steps) “wanted some ladies or children-in-waiting to carry her train. We have the robes but not the people here and I have to get the picture done to-day. That explains why, when I looked out of the garden and saw your daughter I ventured to borrow her a minute. If we may use her long enough to throw a robe over her and get the picture of the queen so attended walking down the walk, I’ll be very glad.”

Mrs. Merrill was just about to refuse for she had no desire to have Mary Jane in a movie, when Alice nudged her and whispered, “Mother! Couldn’t I be in it too?”

The director noticed the whisper and guessed what she was saying. “We’d like to have this little girl too,” he said; “we have plenty of clothes for two and I’m sure if one train bearer is good, two will be better—isn’t that so, Miss Arlson?”

The pretty lady in the queen’s robe nodded and smiled and said she must have two maids, so the director hurried away to get the costumes. In a jiffy he was back and with two or three deft touches he tossed a robe over each girl, covered Mary Jane’s bobbed hair and Alice’s braids with lace head-dresses and showed them where to stand behind the queen.

Then with a hurried “click, click, click, click, click, click!” the picture was taken and every one began to move about and talk. The girls almost hated to give up their pretty costumes and Mary Jane remarked as the director took hers off, “Those would make awfully nice ‘dress-up clothes’ I think!”

“Do you like to play dress-up?” asked the man.

“’Deed we do!” exclaimed Mary Jane heartily; “we like it most the best of anything!”

“Then you take these head-dresses you wore and keep them with my compliments,” he said, and that is how it happened that two fine and interesting bits of Spanish lace were taken home from the southern trip. “Mother!” exclaimed Alice when they were out on the street again, “did you ever hear of such fun? And to think it happened to us!”

“Being in a movie!” cried Mary Jane, “and riding a pony and swimming in a house—why just everything’s happening to us! If Dadah doesn’t come with us pretty soon there won’t be anything left in the world to do.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” laughed Mrs. Merrill; “I know two or three things left in the world to do. And it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you’d do them some day. But the thing we’re doing right now, is seeing the oldest house in the United States. Alice, will you pound the knocker?”

They stopped short and there, sure enough, they had come to the queer, old house they had set out to see. Alice stepped up on the doorsill and awesomely pounded at the brass knocker. A pleasant faced old lady opened the door and peered out at them.

“Why, don’t I know you?” she asked as she spied Mrs. Merrill.

“I hoped you’d remember,” replied Mrs. Merrill, “though I don’t see how you do when you see so many folks every year. And I hoped you’d let my girls and me eat lunch by the old well as I did years ago.”

“Indeed I will that,” said the old lady cordially, “and they may pick flowers in my garden, too, though that’s something very few folks are allowed to do. But first they want to see the house.”

She took them all over the house, up stairs and down, and such a lot of quaint, queer old things the girls had never seen. Candle sticks hundreds of years old, cradles, dishes, andirons, pitchers, dresses, chairs, sewing baskets, spinning wheels, looms, knitting racks, tables, rugs—everything that one could think of as interesting and old seemed to be crowded into that one small house. Mary Jane looked and looked and looked till everything she saw seemed a confusion of queer old things.

“I think I’d better stop looking, Mother,” she said finally, “’cause the looks get all mixed up in my head.”

“You’re right, Mary Jane,” said Mrs. Merrill sympathetically, “I’m getting tired looking myself. Let’s go out into the garden and eat our luncheon.”

Nobody, looking at the outside of the house, would have even guessed of the lovely garden behind the wall. There was an old well with its windlass and sweep, several gnarled old trees and shrubs and bushes and flowers in every corner. The little old lady was persuaded to come out into the sunshine and share the luncheon with them and she told them, while they ate, tales of the many famous folks who had visited this very same garden and picnicked by this very same well. Then, after they had finished eating, she showed Mary Jane how folks, years ago, used to draw water from that same old well.

“I think it’s lots more fun to get water out of a well this way than to turn on a faucet,” said Mary Jane as she tried the windlass herself and drew up a brimming bucket.

“But what would you think,” asked Mrs. Merrill, “of getting up early in the morning and coming out to draw the water for your bath?”

“Well,” said Mary Jane doubtfully, “I’d think that would be different.”

“I guess it would be,” laughed Alice, “I know I’d think so!”

“Now I must get back to my work,” said the little lady. “But make yourselves at home here. And remember, the girls may pick flowers if they wish.” And she went back into the house.

Alice was happy at the chance to pick a few flowers as she had wanted to make a collection of pressed flowers that would include every variety they saw on their trip. And in this one garden she found a sample of every single sort she had seen thus far and two or three new kinds besides. She took pictures of the garden and of Mary Jane at the well and then it was time to go.

As they walked back under the palm trees to the hotel Mary Jane said, “I think I’d like to live in this place all winter.”

“I’d like that myself,” said Mrs. Merrill, “but we can’t. To-morrow morning, bright and early, we’ll be going on. And if you ask me, I’ll tell you that there’s even more fun at the next place we go to—think of that!”