Two Little Women on a Holiday Part 7

"Bless my soul! Take a lot of chattering magpies sightseeing! No, not if I know it! Mrs. Berry will take you; and on a pinch, I might let my secretary accompany you, say to see the downtown big buildings or the bright lights at night."

"Oh, do you have a secretary?" asked Alicia. "What's he like?"

"Fenn? Oh, he's a good sort. Very dependable and really accommodating.

He'll be of great help to you, I'm sure."

"What is your business, Mr. Forbes?" asked Dolly, who was much interested in this strange type of man. She had never seen any one like him, and he seemed to her a sort of fairy G.o.dfather, who waved his wand and gave them all sorts of wonderful gifts.

"I haven't any business, my dear. My occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt is collecting specimens for my collection. I am an entomologist and ornithologist, if you know what those big words mean."

"Yes, sir, I do." And Dolly smiled back at him. "Mayn't we see your collection?"

"I'm not sure about that, I don't show it to everybody. It is up on the fourth floor of this house, and no one is allowed up there unless accompanied by myself or Mr. Fenn. By the way, remember that, all of you. On no account go up to the fourth floor. Not that you'd be likely to, for you have no call above the second floor, where your rooms are.

But this is a special command. The house is yours, as I said, but that means only this first floor and the one above it."

"Goodness me, Uncle Jeff!" said Alicia, "you needn't lay down the law so hard! We're not absolute babes, to be so strictly cautioned and forbidden! If you desire us not to go up the second flight of stairs, of course we won't."

"That's right, my dear, don't. But I do lay it down as a law, and it is the only law I shall impose on you. Except for that you can follow out your own sweet wills."

"But," said Dotty, her dark eyes brilliant with the excitement of the occasion, "I'm not always sure as to what is proper. I want to do just what is right. Is it correct for us to go about alone, in your big motor, with your chauffeur? Can we go to the art galleries and the shops alone?"

"Bless my soul! I don't know." The big man looked absolutely helpless.

"Surely you must know such things yourselves. What do your mothers let you do at home? Oh, well, if you're uncertain, ask Mrs. Berry, she'll know. She's an all-round capable person, and she'll know all the unwritten laws about chaperonage and such things. Do as she bids you."

This was satisfactory, and Dotty began at once to make plans for the next day.

"Let's go to the Metropolitan Museum first," she said.

"All right," chimed in Alicia, "we'll go there in the morning, then.

But to-morrow is Wednesday, and I want to go to a matinee in the afternoon. Can't we, Uncle Jeff?"

"Of course you can. Tell Fenn, he'll see about tickets for you. Just tell Mrs. Berry to see Fenn about it."

"Oh," sighed the outspoken Dotty, "it is just like Fairyland! Tell Fenn! Just as if Fenn were a magician!"

"He is," said Mr. Forbes, smiling at her enthusiasm. "I couldn't keep house without Fenn. He's my right hand man for everything. You girls mustn't claim too much of his time and attention, for I keep him on the jump most of the time myself."

"Does your collection keep you so busy?" asked Dolly, whose secret longing was to see that same collection, which greatly interested her.

"Yes, indeed. There's always work to be done in connection with it.

I've a lot of new specimens just arrived to-day, awaiting cla.s.sification and tabulation."

After dinner they all returned to the drawing-room. Mr. Forbes seemed desirous of keeping up a general conversation, but it was hard to find a subject to interest him. He would talk a few moments, and then lapse into absent-mindedness and almost forget the girls' presence.

At times, he would get up from his chair, and stalk up and down the room, perhaps suddenly pausing in front of one of them, and asking a direct question.

"How old are you?" he asked abruptly of Alicia.

"Sixteen," she replied. "I was sixteen last October."

"You look like your mother at that age. She was my only sister. She has now been dead--"

"Ten years," prompted Alicia. "I was a little child when she died."

"And who looks after you now? Your father's sister, isn't it?"

"Yes, Uncle Jeff. My Aunt Nellie. But I'm at school, you know. I shall be there the next four years, I suppose."

"Yes, yes, to be sure. Yes, yes, of course. And you, Bernice? You have no mother, either. But who looks after you?"

"I look after myself, Uncle. Father thinks there's no necessity for me to have a chaperon in our little home town."

"Not a chaperon, child, but you ought to have some one to guide and teach you."

"Dad doesn't think so. He says an American girl can take care of herself."

"Maybe so, maybe so. It might be a good thing for you to go to school with Alicia."

"It might be. But I like our High School at home, and we learn a lot there."

"But not the same kind of learning. Do they teach you manners and general society instruction?"

"No," said Bernice, smiling at thought of such things in connection with the Berwick school. "But my father thinks those things come naturally to girls of good families."

"Maybe so, maybe so." And then Mr. Forbes again walked up and down the long room, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Dolly and Dotty felt a little uncomfortable. They wanted to make themselves agreeable and entertaining, but their host seemed interested exclusively in his young relatives, and they hesitated lest they intrude.

As it neared ten o'clock, Mr. Forbes paused in his pacing of the room, bowed to each of the four in turn, and then saying, courteously, "I bid you goodnight," he vanished into the hall.

Immediately Mrs. Berry entered. It seemed a relief to see her kind, smiling face after the uncertain phases of their eccentric host.

"Now you young people must go to bed," the housekeeper said; "you're tired,--or ought to be. Come along."

Not at all unwillingly they followed her upstairs, and she looked after their comfort in most solicitous fas.h.i.+on.

After she had shown them how to ring the various bells to call the maids or to call her, in emergency, and had drawn their attention to the ice water in thermos bottles, and told them how to adjust the ventilators, she bade them good-night and went away.

The rooms had a communicating door, and this Alicia promptly threw open and came through into the two D's room.

"Oh, isn't it all the greatest fun! And did you EVER see anything so crazy as Uncle Jeff? What he wants us here for, _I_ don't know! But it's something,--and something especial. He never asked us here to amuse him! Of that I'm certain."

"Not much he didn't!" and Bernice followed Alicia, and perched on the edge of Dolly's bed. "Isn't he queer? I didn't know he was so funny as he is. Did you, Alicia?"

"No; I haven't seen him since I was a tiny mite. But he's all right. He knows what he's about and I don't wonder he doesn't want us bothering around if he's busy."

"I'd love to see his collection," said Dolly. "I'm awfully interested in such things."