  The two girls with arms about each other stood on the front veranda watching as Miss Dahlia was being driven along the circling drive. Nan knew that she would turn and wave at the gate. A moment later she saw the fluttering of a small white handkerchief. The girls waved their hands, then turned indoors and climbed the wide, softly carpeted stairway and entered the room which they shared together. It was a strange room for each girl had decked her half of it as best suited her taste. On one side the birds’ eye maple furniture was made even daintier with blue and white ruffled coverings. There was a crinkly blue and white bedspread with pillow shams to match, while on the dresser there was an array of dainty ivory and blue toilet articles, two ivory frames containing the photographs of Phyllis’ father and mother, and a small book bound in blue leather in which she wrote the events of every day. There were a few forget-me-nots in a slender, silver glass vase, and indeed, everything on that side of the room suggested the dainty little maid who occupied it. But very unlike was the side occupied by the gypsy girl. Boughs of pine with the cones on were banked in one corner. Her toilet set was ebony showing off startlingly on the bureau cover which was a glowing red. There were photographs of Aunt Dahlia and Aunt Ursula in silver band frames, gifts to her from the aunts themselves, but on the walls there were pictures of wild canon places, long grey roads that seemed to lure one to follow, pools in quiet meadowy places, and a printed poem beginning— “Oh, to be free as the wind is free! The vagabond life is the life for me.” But the crowning touch was the gorgeous crimson and gold shawl with its long fringe mingled with black threads that was spread over her bed. Every girl who came into their room admired it, many asked questions about how it came into Nan’s possession, but to one and all the gypsy girl gave some laughing reply, and as each and every explanation was different, they knew that she was inventing stories to amuse them. Indeed, Nan was often called upon, when storms kept the girls within doors, to invent tales for their entertainment as they sat about the great stone fireplace in the recreation hall, and the more thrilling the tales were, the more pleased her audience. Sometimes Nan recalled another group, to whom she had, in the long ago, so often told stories. Little dark, fox-like creatures with their unkempt hair hanging about their faces. How eagerly they had followed Nan’s every word. Poor little neglected things! Nan often longed to be able to do something for them all, to give them a chance to make something of themselves as she had been given a chance. But would they want it? Had she not rebelled at first when Miss Ursula tried to civilize and Christianize her? Having entered their room, the gypsy girl went at once to the wide window and looked out across the school grounds where the trees and shrubs were still leafless. “Dearie,” she said, “Spring is in the air and calling us to come out. I don’t want to practice now. Suppose we climb to the top of Little Pine Hill that looks down on the highway.” “But I ought to study my French verbs.” Phyllis hesitated— “French verbs on Saturday?” Nan protested, “When a merry breeze waits to run us a race!” The fair maiden laughingly donned her wraps and a few moments later these two were tramping across the fields, and then more slowly they began climbing the path that led over the little hill. There they stood side by side gazing down at the winding highway which, a short distance beyond, was entirely hidden by a bend and a massing of great old pines. “Aren’t bends in the road interesting?” Nan said. “One never knows what may appear next. Let’s guess what it will be, and see who is nearest right.” “Very well,” Phyllis replied, “I’ll guess that it’s the little Wharton girl out horse-back riding with her escort. She passes almost every afternoon at about this hour.” “And I’ll guess that it will be a motoring party from Boston in a handsome limousine,” Nan replied. Then hand in hand these two girls stood intently watching the bend in the road. Several moments passed and Nan’s attention had been attracted skyward by the flight of a bird, when she heard Phyllis’ astonished exclamation: “We were both wrong, Nan! Will you look? I never saw such a queer equipage as the one which is coming. A covered wagon drawn by black horses and there is another following it and still another. How very curious! Did you ever see anything like it?” Phyllis was so intently watching the approaching wagons that she did not notice the almost frightened expression that had appeared in the dark eyes of the girl she so loved, but after a moment Nan was able to say quite calmly, “Why, yes, Joy, I have seen a gypsy caravan before. In California where it is always summer, they often pass the Barrington home in San Seritos.” Then she added, “I’m going back to the school now.” Her friend looked at her anxiously, “Why dear,” she said, “do you feel faint or ill?” Nan shook her head and remarked lightly, with an attempt at gaiety: “Maybe my conscience is troubling me because I’m keeping you from the French verbs.” They returned to the school, and although Phyllis said nothing, she was convinced that the sight of the gypsy caravan had in some way affected Nan. The truth was that the gypsy girl’s emotions had been varied and conflicting. Her first impulse had been to run and hide, as though she feared that she might be discovered and claimed, but, a second thought assured her that this could not be the caravan of Queen Mizella and her cruel son Anselo Spico, for had she not left them in far-away California? And yet, as she gazed intently at the wagon in the lead, again came the chilling thought that it was strangely familiar, and then she recalled a memoried picture of one evening around the camp fire when Anselo had expressed a desire to some day return to Rumania, and, to do so, they would have to come to the Eastern States. Then another emotion rushed to the heart of the watching girl. She remembered with tenderness the long years of loving devotion that Manna Lou had given her. She wondered if that kind gypsy woman had missed her when she ran away. Tears rushed to her eyes as she thought how selfish she had been. She should have tried long ago to let Manna Lou know that all was well with her. Then it was that Nan decided to go close to the highway, and, from a hiding place watch the caravan as it passed, but she wanted to go alone. If it should be the band of Queen Mizella, then Nan would try in some way to communicate with Manna Lou. With this determination in her heart, she had suggested to return to school. Phyllis who was really glad to have an opportunity to study her French verbs, went back willingly, but she glanced often at the dark face of the friend she so loved. She could not understand why Nan had suddenly lost her merry mood and had become so quiet and thoughtful. Luckily for the gypsy girl’s plan, the French teacher, Madame Reznor, delayed Phyllis in the lower corridor, and Nan, leaving them, hurried to her room. Taking from the closet a long, dark cloak with a hood-cape, she slipped it on, and looking cautiously about the upper corridor to be sure that she was unobserved, she tripped lightly down the back stairs and out at the basement door. She heard a gong ringing in the school, and she was glad, for it was calling all the pupils to the study hall, and there would be no one to spy upon her actions. But she was mistaken, for two of the girls who had been for a cross-country hike were returning, and one of them, Muriel Metcalf, chanced to glance in that direction just as Nan crouched behind the hedge that bordered the school grounds on the highway. “Daisy Wells,” Muriel exclaimed, “how queerly Nan Barrington is acting. Let’s watch her and see what she is going to do.” This they did, standing behind a spreading pine tree. |
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