‘And the city will not be as noisy when you depart,’ murmured Jack, with an impudence that luckily passed unnoticed.
‘If Elsie could only come too!’ sighed Polly.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and beautiful as all mornings are wont to dawn in Southern California. A light mist hung over the old adobe mission church, through which, with its snow-white towers and cold, clear-cut lines, it rose like a frozen fairy castle. Bell opened her sleepy eyes with the very earliest birds, and running to the little oval window, framed with white-rose vines, looked out at the new day just creeping up into the world.
‘Oh dear and beautiful home of mine, how charming, how charming you are! I wonder if you are not really Paradise!’ she said, dreamily; and the marvel is that the rising sun did not stop a moment in sheer surprise at the sight of this radiant morning vision; for the oval window opening to the east was a pretty frame, with its outline marked by the dewy rose-vine covered with hundreds of pure, half-opened buds and swaying tendrils, and she stood there in it, a fair image of the morning in her innocent white gown. Her luminous eyes still mirrored the shadowy visions of dreamland, mingled with dancing lights of hope and joyful anticipation; while on her fresh cheeks, which had not yet lost the roundness of childhood, there glowed, as in the eastern skies, the faint pink blush of the morning.
The town is yet asleep, and in truth it is never apt to be fairly wide awake. The air is soft and balmy; the lovely Pacific, a quivering, sparkling sheet of blue and grey and green flecked with white foam, stretches far out until it is lost in the rosy sky; and the mountains, all purple and pink and faint crimson and grey, stand like sentinels along the shore. The scent of the roses, violets, and mignonette mingled with the cloying fragrance of the datura is heavy in the still air. The bending, willowy pepper-trees show myriad bunches of yellow blossoms, crimson seed-berries, and fresh green leaves, whose surface, not rain-washed for months, is as full of colour as ever. The palm-trees rise without a branch, tall, slender, and graceful, from the warmly generous earth, and spread at last, as if tired of their straightness, into beautiful crowns of fans, which sway toward each other with every breath of air. Innumerable butterflies and humming-birds, in the hot, dazzling sunshine of noonday, will be hovering over the beds of sweet purple heliotrope and finding their way into the hearts of the passion-flowers, but as yet not the faintest whirr of wings can be heard. Looking eastward or westward, you see either brown foot-hills, or, a little later on, emerald slopes whose vines hang heavy with the half-ripened grapes.
And hark! A silvery note strikes on the dewy stillness. It is the mission bell ringing for morning mass; and if you look yonder you may see the Franciscan friars going to prayers, with their loose grey gowns, their girdle of rope, their sandaled feet, and their jingling rosaries; and perhaps a Spanish señorita, with her trailing dress, and black shawl loosely thrown over her head, from out the folds of which her two dark eyes burn like gleaming fires. A solitary Mexican gallops by, with gayly decorated saddle and heavily laden saddle-bags hanging from it; perhaps he is taking home provisions to his wife and dark-eyed babies who live up in a little dimple of the mountain side, almost hidden from sight by the olive-trees. And then a patient, hardy little mustang lopes along the street, bearing on his back three laughing boys, one behind the other, on a morning ride into town from the mesa.
The mist had floated away from the old mission now, the sun has climbed a little higher, and Bell has come away from the window in a gentle mood.
‘Oh, Polly, I don’t see how anybody can be wicked in such a beautiful, beautiful world.’
‘Humph!’ said Polly, dipping her curly head deep into the water-bowl, and coming up looking like a little drowned kitten. ‘When you want to be hateful, you don’t stop to think whether you’re looking at a cactus or a rosebush, do you?’
‘Very true,’ sighed Bell, quite silenced by this practical illustration. ‘Now I’ll try the effect of the landscape on my temper by dressing Dicky, while he dances about the room and plays with his tan terrier.’
But it happened that Dicky was on his very best behaviour, and stood as still as a signpost while being dressed. It is true he ate a couple of matches and tumbled down-stairs twice before breakfast, so that after that hurried meal Bell tied him to one of the verandah posts, that he might not commit any act vicious enough to keep them at home. As he had a huge pocket full of apricots he was in perfect good-humour, not taking his confinement at all to heart, inasmuch as it commanded a full view of the scene of action. His amiability was further increased, moreover, by the possession of a bright new policeman’s whistle, which was carefully tied to his button-hole by a neat little silk cord, and which his fond parents intended that he should blow if he chanced to fall into danger during his rambles about the camp. We might as well state here, however, that this precaution proved fruitless, for he blew it at all times and seasons; and everybody became so hardened to its melodious shriek that they paid no attention to it whatever,—history, or fable, thus again repeating itself.
Mr. and Mrs. Noble had driven Margery and Phil into town from the fruit ranch, and were waiting to see the party off.
Mrs. Oliver was to live in the Winship house during the absence of the family, and was aiding them to do those numberless little things that are always found undone at the last moment. She had given her impetuous daughter a dozen fond embraces, smothering in each a gentle warning, and stood now with Mrs. Winship at the gate, watching the three girls, who had gone on to bid Elsie good-bye.
‘I hope Pauline won’t give you any trouble,’ she said. ‘She is so apt to be too impulsive and thoughtless.’
‘I shall enjoy her,’ said sweet Aunt Truth, with that bright, cordial smile of hers that was like a blessing. ‘She has a very loving heart, and is easily led. How pretty the girls look, and how different they are! Polly is like a thistledown or a firefly, Margery like one of our home Mayflowers, and I can’t help thinking my Bell like a sunbeam.’
The girls did look very pretty; for their mothers had fashioned their camping-dresses with much care and taste, taking great pains to make them picturesque and appropriate to their summer life ‘under the greenwood tree.’
Over a plain full skirt of heavy crimson serge Bell wore a hunting jacket and drapery of dark leaf-green, like a bit of forest against a sunset. Her hair, which fell in a waving mass of burnished brightness to her waist, was caught by a silver arrow, and crowned by a wide soft hat of crimson felt encircled with a bird’s breast.
Margery wore a soft grey flannel, the colour of a dove’s throat, adorned with rows upon rows of silver braid and sparkling silver buttons; while her big grey hat had nothing but a silver cord and tassel tied round it in Spanish fashion.
Polly was all in sailor blue, with a distractingly natty little double-breasted coat and great white rolling collar. Her hat swung in her hand, as usual, showing her boyish head of sunny auburn curls, and she carried on a neat chatelaine a silver cup and little clasp-knife, as was the custom in the party.
‘It’s very difficult,’ Polly often exclaimed, ‘to get a dress that will tone down your hair and a hat that will tone up your nose, when the first is red and the last a snub! My nose is the root of all evil; it makes people think I’m saucy before I say a word; and as for my hair, they think I must be peppery, no matter if I were really as meek as Moses. Now there’s Margery, the dear, darling mouse! People look at her two sleek braids, every hair doing just what it ought to do and lying straight and smooth, and ask, “Who is that sweet girl?” There’s something wrong somewhere. I ought not to suffer because of one small, simple, turned-up nose and a head of hair which reveals the glowing tints of autumn, as Jack gracefully says.’
‘Here they come!’ shouted Jack from the group on the Howards’ piazza. ‘Christopher Columbus, what gorgeousness! The Flamingo, the Dove, and the Blue-jay! Good-morning, young ladies; may we be allowed to travel in the same steamer with your highnesses?’
‘You needn’t be troubled,’ laughed Bell. ‘We shall not disclose these glories