  It was Autumn once more. The children with their parents had returned to inland homes and the garden no longer echoed with their shouts and laughter. Mrs. Welton had told Nan that the winter tourists from the snowy East would arrive in January and that she would re-engage her at that time if she cared to continue her little class, which the eager girl gladly consented to do. The remuneration had been excellent, and, during the intervening months, Nan planned keeping happily busy with sewing and home-making. The garden was again glowing with yellow chrysanthemums as it had been on that long ago day when the gypsy girl and the little lad Tirol had first found the beach gate and the home which Nan had little dreamed was to be her own. During the summer there had been many letters from Phyllis who was traveling abroad and from Robert Widdemere. Upon leaving the military academy, the lad’s first desire had been to cross the continent at once, but, when he found many tasks waiting in his father’s office, he believed that he ought not to start on a pleasure trip until these had been in some measure accomplished and it was November before he decided that he could start on the long planned journey. When he told his mother of his decision, she announced that she intended accompanying him and remaining during the winter at their San Seritos home. This was a keen disappointment to the lad, who believed that his mother merely wished to try to prevent, if she could, his friendship with Nan Barrington, but Robert was too fine a lad to be discourteous, and so, on a blustery day, they left the East, and, in less than a week, they arrived in the garden village of San Seritos that was basking in the sunshine under a blue cloudless sky. An hour later, Robert leaped over the little gate in the hedge and raced like a schoolboy across the wide velvety lawns of the Barrington estate. He saw Nan and dear Miss Dahlia in the garden. At his joyous shout, they both looked up and beheld approaching them a tall lad who was jubilantly waving his cap. “It’s Robert Widdemere!” Nan said, and then, as he came up and greeted them, she added, “But only yesterday I had a letter from you and in it you said nothing about coming.” “I wanted to surprise you, Lady Red Bird,” the lad exclaimed. “Isn’t it grand and glorious, Nan, to be once more in this wonderful country. I wish we could start right now for a ride up the mountains.” “I couldn’t go today,” the gypsy girl laughingly told him, “for I have something baking in the oven and it cannot be left.” “I could tend to it,” Miss Dahlia said, but Nan shook her head. “It’s a surprise for tomorrow,” she merrily declared, “and I don’t want even you, Aunt Dahlia, to know what it is.” Then turning happy eyes toward the lad, she said, “Think of it, Robert Widdemere, tomorrow will be Thanksgiving day and five years since you and I rode to the mountain top.” “Nan, comrade,” the boy said eagerly, “let’s take that ride again tomorrow, dressed gypsy-wise as we were before, shall we?” “As you wish, Robert Widdemere,” Nan laughingly replied. “Thanksgiving seems to be a fateful day for us.” A happy hour the young people spent together. Robert wished to hear all that happened and when Nan protested that she had written every least little thing, he declared that it had all been so interesting, it would bear repeating. Suddenly the girl sprang up, holding out both hands as she exclaimed, “Robert, I shall have to ask you to come at some other time. I must look after that something which is baking for tomorrow.” The lad caught the hands as he said, “Good-bye, then, I’ll reappear at about ten.” |
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