Ruth was in a brown study. She was very tired. It was no joke playing chauffeur for more than a hundred miles in one day.

"Bab," whispered Mollie, awed by the lovely vistas of river and valley, "do you think the Vale of Cashmere could be more exquisite than this? Or the Rhine, or Lake Como, or any other wonderful place we have never seen?"

"Isn't it marvelous, little sister? It's like an enchanted country, and it is full of legends and history, too. During the Revolution the two armies were encamped all through here."

"Oh, yes," interrupted Ruth. "If I were not too tired, I might tell you a lot of things about this historical spot, but we must take another spin down here later and see it all again. This village we are now entering is Irvington, the home of Washington Irving. His house is no longer open to the public, however. Tarrytown is only a little distance down the river. We shall soon be there."

It was not long before a tired, sleepy party of automobilists drew up in front of an old hotel shaded with immense elms.

"Wake up, Aunt Sallie, dear," cried Ruth, giving her sleeping relative a gentle shake. "Bestir yourselves, sweet ladies, for food and rest are at hand and the hostelry is open to us."

Supper was, indeed, ready, and rooms, too. For Mr. Stuart had notified the hotel proprietor to expect an automobile containing five women to descend upon him about sundown.

The five travelers mounted the steps to the supper room, and refreshed themselves with beefsteak and hot biscuits; then mounted more steps to their bedrooms, where they soon fell into five untroubled slumbers.

CHAPTER III-ROCKING CHAIR ADVENTURES

"Well, girls," exclaimed Ruth, next morning at the breakfast table, "here we are ready for adventures. But they will have to be early morning or late evening ones. It's already too hot to breathe."

"For my part," observed Miss Sallie, "the only adventure I am seeking is to sit on the shady side of the piazza, in a wicker chair, and read the morning paper."

"But, Miss Sallie, even that might turn into something," said romantic Mollie.

"Yes, indeed," pursued Ruth, "you know the way mamma met papa was by staying at home instead of going to a ball."

"Why, Ruth!" cried Miss Sallie.

"But it's quite true, dear Aunt Sallie. Mamma was visiting at a house party in the South, somewhere, and she had a headache and stayed home from a ball, and was sitting in the library. Papa came a-calling on one of the others, and was ushered into the library, by mistake, and introduced himself to mamma-and she forgot her headache and he forgot he was due to catch a train to New York at nine o'clock. It was simply a case of love at first sight."

"My dear, I am not looking for any such romantic adventures," said Miss Sallie, bridling. "Your father was an intimate friend of the family at whose house your mother was stopping. It was perfectly natural they should have met, if not that evening, at least another one. I always said your mother showed extreme good sense in staying away from a party and nursing her headache. Not many others would have done the same."

Miss Stuart gave her niece a meaning look, while the four girls suppressed their smiles and exchanged telegraphic glances of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Not long before Ruth had "doctored" herself up with headache medicine, and had gone to a dance against her aunt's advice. As a result she had been obliged to leave before the evening was over, more on account of the medicine than the headache, Miss Sallie had believed.

"Dearest little auntie, you have a touch of sun this morning, haven't you?" asked Ruth, leaning over and patting her aunt's soft cheek; while Miss Stuart, who was indeed feeling the general oppressiveness of the weather, melted at once into a good humor and smiled at her niece tenderly.

Two persons were rather curiously watching this little scene from behind the shelter of the morning papers. One of them, a very handsome elderly man, seated at a table by the window, had started perceptibly when the party entered the room; and from that moment, he had hardly eaten a bite of breakfast. He was occupied in examining not the fair young girls but Miss Sallie herself, who was entirely unconscious of being the object of such scouting.

The other individual was quite different in appearance. He was dressed in black leather from head to foot, and a motor cap and gla.s.ses lay beside him on the table. His evident interest in the conversation of the girls was impersonal, perhaps the curiosity of a foreigner in a strange country. There was some admiration in his eyes as they rested on pretty Mollie's golden curls and fresh smiling face; but his manner was perfectly respectful and he was careful to conceal his glances by the newspaper.

"That man is rather good-looking in a foreign sort of way," whispered Mollie.

"Too much blacky face and shiny eye, to suit my taste," replied Bab. "He looks like a pirate, or a smuggler, in that black leather suit."

"Dear me, you are severe, Bab," observed Ruth. "If he were not so young, I should take him for an opera singer on a vacation. He would do nicely dressed as a cavalier."

"Be careful, my dears; you are talking much too loudly," admonished Miss Sallie, for the young foreigner had evidently overheard the conversation, and had turned his face away to conceal an expression of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I vote we adjourn to the porch," said Ruth, "until we decide where we are going this morning. Come on, auntie, dear. There may be a rocking chair adventure waiting for you on that shady piazza. I saw a white haired gentleman giving you many glances of admiration, this morning, around the corner of his newspaper. Did you notice it, girls?"

"I did," replied Grace, somewhat hesitatingly, for she was just a little fearful about entering into these teasing humors with Ruth.

"Don't be silly, Ruth," said Miss Sallie. But she glanced quickly over her shoulder, nevertheless, as she led the little procession from the dining room, her lavender muslin draperies floating in the breeze. She stopped in the office and bought a newspaper, then proceeded to the shady piazza, where she seated herself in a rocking chair and unfolded the paper.

The girls leaned over the railing and looked down into the street, while Ruth expounded her views on their morning's ride.

"Suppose we have a lunch fixed up," she was saying, "and spend the morning at Sleepy Hollow? It's lovelier than anything you ever imagined, just what Washington Irving says of it, a place to dream in and see visions."

A charming tenor voice floated out from an upper window, singing a song in some foreign language.

The girls looked at each other and laughed.

"He did hear us, and he is an opera singer," whispered Grace.

"I knew it," came Miss Sallie's voice from the depths of the paper.

"Knew what?" demanded the four girls somewhat guiltily, as the singing continued.

"Knew that we would all be cremated if we came into these dreadful wild regions," replied Miss Sallie, as she gazed tragically down the shaded street lined with beautiful old homes.

"But, Miss Sallie," interposed Barbara in soothing tones, "the fires are up in the Catskills and the Adirondacks, aren't they? It is only when the wind blows in this direction that we get the smoke from them. Even New York gets it, then; and certainly there is no danger of New York burning up from the forest fires."

"Very well, my dears, if we do run into one of those shocking conflagrations, you may just recall my words to you this morning."

The girls all laughed, and there is nothing prettier than the sound of the light-hearted laughter of young girls; at least so thought the tall, military-looking man they had seen at breakfast. He had strolled out on the piazza, and was walking straight toward Miss Sallie with an air of determination that was unmistakable even to the stately lady in lavender.

A few feet from her chair he paused as if a sudden thought had arrested him, and the two looked straight into each other's faces for the s.p.a.ce of half a minute. The girls were fairly dumb with amazement as they watched the little drama. Miss Sallie's face had flushed and paled before it resumed its natural peachy tone. They could not see the face of the stranger whose back was turned to them.

"Is it possible," asked Miss Sallie after a moment, in a strange voice, "that this is John Ten Eyck?"

She had risen from her chair, in her excitement, and the newspapers had fallen on the floor with her lavender silk reticule, her fan and smelling salts, her lace-edged handkerchief and spectacle case, all in a confused ma.s.s.

"You have not forgotten me, Sallie?" the man demanded, almost dramatically. "I am John Ten Eyck, grown old and gray. I never dreamed that any of my old friends would recognize me after all these years. But are these your girls, Sallie?" he asked, turning with a courtly air to the four young women.

"No, indeed, John," replied Miss Sallie, rather stiffly, "I have never married. This is my niece, Ruth Stuart, my only brother's child." And she proceeded to introduce the others in turn. "Ruth, my child, this is Major John Ten Eyck, an old friend of mine, whom I have not seen for many years. I suppose you have lived in foreign lands for so long you have completely lost sight of your American friends."

"It has been a great many years," answered Major Ten Eyck, after he had taken each girl by the hand and had looked into her face with such gentleness and charm of manner as to win them all completely. "It's been thirty years, has it not, Sallie?"

"Don't ask me such a question, John Ten Eyck! I'm sure I have no desire to be reminded of how old we are growing. Do you know, you are actually getting fat and bald; and here I am with hair as white as snow."

"But your face is as young as ever, Sallie," declared the gallant major.

"Isn't it, Major Ten Eyck?" exclaimed Ruth, who had found her voice at last. "She is just as pretty as she was thirty years ago, I am certain.

Papa says she is, at any rate."