"But why?" cried Molly, round-eyed with amazement.
"Because he has more liberty at Wellington and more time to devote to his writings."
Molly walked over to the window to hide a smile.
"The comic opera," she thought.
"He's just published a book, you know, on the 'Elizabethan Drama,'" went on Margaret, "which is to be used as a text book in lots of private schools. And he's been on a walking trip through England this summer with George Theodore – "
"How did you know all that?" interrupted Judy.
"Well, to tell you the truth, I came up to Wellington on the train with Andy McLean and he answered all the questions I asked him," replied Margaret, laughing. "I also answered all the questions he asked me about a particular young lady – "
Nance pretended to be very busy at this moment with the contents of her work bag. The other girls began laughing and she looked up, disclosing a scarlet countenance.
"Don't you know she never could take a teasing?" cried Judy.
"Who's teasing?" answered Margaret. "No names were mentioned."
"Don't you mind, Nance, dear," said Molly, always tender-hearted when it came to teasing. "The rest of us haven't had one 'inquiring friend,' as Ca'line, our cook, used to call them. When I wrote letters for her to her family in Georgia, she always finished up with 'Now, Miss Molly, jes' end with love to all inquirin' friends.'"
The dainty little French clock on the mantel, one of Nance's new possessions, tinkled five times in a subdued, fairy chime and the friends scattered to their various rooms to unpack. Judy was now in Frances Andrews' old room, next to the one occupied by Molly and Nance.
"I think I'll take a gimlet and bore a hole through the wall," she announced as she lingered a moment after the others had gone, "so that we can communicate without having to walk ten steps – I counted them this morning – and open two doors."
"Who has your old room, Judy?" inquired Molly.
"You'd never guess in a thousand years, so I'll have to enlighten you," answered Judy. "A young Japanese lady."
"For heaven's sake!" cried Molly and Nance in one breath, while Judy, who loved a climax, sailed from the room without vouchsafing any more information.
CHAPTER II.
OTOYO
Molly and Nance were very busy that night arranging their belongings. Molly's tastes were simple and Nance's were what might be called complicated. Molly had been reared all her life in large spaces, big, airy rooms, and broad halls, and the few pieces of heavy old mahogany in them were of the kind that cannot be bought for a song. Nance had been reared in an atmosphere of oiled walnut and boarding house bric-à-brac. She was learning because she had an exceedingly observing and intelligent mind, but she had not learned.
Therefore, that night, when Molly hung the white muslin curtains, and spread out the beautiful blue antique rug left by Frances Andrews, she devoutly hoped that Nance would "go easy" with the pictures and ornaments.
"What we want to try to do this year, Nance," she announced from the top of the step ladder, "is to keep things empty. We got fairly messy last winter after Christmas. I'm going to keep all those banners and things packed this year."
"Perhaps I'd better not get out those passe-partouted Gibson pictures," began Nance a little doubtfully.
"Just as you like, Nance, dear," said Molly.
She would rather have hung the wall with bill posters than have hurt her friend's feelings.
"Honestly, you aren't fond of them, are you?" asked Nance.
"Oh, it isn't that," apologized Molly. "But I think so many small pictures scattered over a big wall space are – well, rather tiring to the optic nerves."
Nance looked sad, but she had unbounded faith in Molly's opinions.
"What shall we do with this big empty wall space, then?" she asked, pausing in her unpacking to regard a sea of blue-gray cartridge paper with a critical eye.
At this juncture there came a light, timid tap, so faint, indeed, that it might have been the swish of a mouse's tail as he brushed past the door.
Molly paused in her contemplation of blank walls and listened.
"Did you hear anything, Nance?" she asked. "I thought I heard a tapping at our chamber door."
"Come in," called Nance briskly.
The door opened first a mere crack. Then the space widened and there stood on the threshold the diminutive figure of a little Japanese girl who by subsequent measurements proved to be exactly five feet one-half an inch in height. She was dressed "like white people," to quote Molly, that is, in a neat cloth suit and a straw turban, and her slanting black eyes were like highly polished pieces of ebony.
"I beg the honorable pardon of the young ladies," she began with a prim, funny accent. "I arrive this moment which have passing at the honorable home of young ladies. I not find no one save serving girl who have informing me of room of sleeping in. Honorable lady of the house, her you calling 'matronly,' not in at present passing moment. I feeling little frighting. You will forgive poor Otoyo?"
With an almost superhuman effort Molly controlled her face and choked back the laughter that bubbled up irrepressibly. Nance had buried her head in her trunk until she could regain her composure.
"Indeed I do forgive you, poor dear. You must feel strange and lonely. Just wait until I get down from the ladder and I'll show you your bedroom. It used to be the room of one of my best friends, so I happen to know it very well."
Molly crawled down from the heights of the step ladder and took the little Japanese girl's brown hand in hers. "Shall we not shake hands and be friends?" she said. "We are such near neighbors. You are just down there at the end of the hall, you see. My name is Brown, Molly Brown, and this is my roommate, Nance Oldham."
"I with much pleasure feel to making acquaintance of beautiful young ladies," said the Japanese girl, smiling charmingly and showing two rows of teeth as pointed and white as a spaniel's.
Nance had also risen to the occasion by this time, and now shook Miss Otoyo Sen's hand with a great show of cordiality, to make up for her crimson face and mouth still unsteady with laughter. They conducted the Japanese girl to her room and turned on the lights. There were two new-looking American trunks in the room and two cases covered with matting and inscribed with mystic Japanese hieroglyphics. Wired to the cord wrapping was an express tag with "Miss O. Sen, Queen's Cottage, Wellington," written across it in plain handwriting.
"Oh," exclaimed Miss Otoyo, clasping her hands with timid pleasure, "my estates have unto this place arriving come."
Nance turned and rushed from the room and Molly opened the closet door.
"You can hang all your things in here," she said unsteadily, "and of course lay some of them in the bureau drawers. Better unpack to-night, because to-morrow will be a busy day for you. It's the opening day, you know. If we can help you, don't hesitate to ask."
"I am with gratitude much filled up," said the little Japanese, making a low, ceremonious bow.
"Don't mention it," replied Molly, hastening back to her room.
She found Nance giving vent to noiseless laughter in the Morris chair. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and her face was purple with suppressed amusement. Molly often said that, when Nance did laugh, she was like the pig who died in clover. When he died, he died all over. When Nance succumbed to laughter, her entire being was given over to merriment.
"Wasn't it beautiful?" she exclaimed in a low voice. "Did you ever imagine such ludicrous English? It was all participles. How do you suppose she ever made the entrance examinations?"
"Oh, she's probably good enough at writing. It's just speaking that stumps her.