The Four Corners Abroad

"Who can tell?" said Miss Helen cheerfully. "One never knows what will happen."

"That is true," returned Jo brightening.

"If any one had told us that day we met Daniella Boggs on the mountain that she would one day go to boarding-school with us, and that she would be ten times better off than we were then, I am sure we would have laughed them to scorn," said Mary Lee. "So, Miss Jo, don't you say you will not be here, for maybe you will."

"It is nice to think there can even come a maybe," said Jo, "and indeed we could go further, and continue the Daniella story by saying that if any one had foreseen that one Jo Keyes would be over here because of a prize given by Daniella's uncle you all would have laughed more scornfully than before."

After St. Helen's came St. Paul's, the Whispering Gallery, the crypt and the many parts that all visitors must see. Then there was another ride home on the top of an omnibus, this time Jack being the one who secured a seat by the driver, and if he did not earn his threepence in answering questions, it was not Jack's fault.

The following day all but Miss Helen and Nan set out for the Zoo. The latter had a quiet day browsing around the galleries, and enjoying one of the times the two delighted in. There was always a peculiar bond of intimacy between them. No one understood Nan as well as her Aunt Helen and there was no one to whom she more readily showed her inner self. Since Miss Helen was Nan's godmother as well as her aunt, Nan had a feeling of proprietorship which she claimed whenever occasions like this offered. She had a fine time spending some of her prize money on photographs, having Miss Helen's undivided attention when they came to select.

"You see," said Nan, "when all the others are along, there is no use in trying to do anything like this, and I do want to think calmly, for to me it is a very important question, whatever it may be to the others. I must have those two Browning portraits, Aunt Helen, for they were Londoners before they became Florentines."

"I should certainly get those," Miss Helen approved the choice.

"And Dickens and Thackeray."

"Without doubt."

"And would you get Wordsworth and Rossetti here or trust to finding copies at Grasmere?"

"I think I would take them while you are sure of getting just what you want."

"Who else? Keats, of course, and, oh, dear, it is going to be harder than I thought."

"Wouldn't it be a better plan to select what you're sure you want to-day and come again after you have made a list?"

"Oh, but can we find time to come again?"

"We'll make time, even if we have to stay a day longer to do it."

"Bless you, my bestest aunt." They pored over the photographs for a half hour longer and then Nan declared she was satisfied for that day, and they went off, Nan carrying her precious package and feeling very rich in her new possessions.

The British Museum occupied the greater part of the following day, which was ended up in Kensington Gardens, and then came a trip to Windsor Castle which included a further journey to Stoke Poges where, if Jack did not see her moping owl, Nan found a charming little photograph of the old churchyard, and on the way home bought a pretty copy of the Elegy in which to put it. There was a second visit to the National Portrait Gallery, taken one day when the rest were out shopping, and this time Nan completed her purchase of all photographs she intended to buy in London, and spent so much time poring over her collection that she was in danger of not getting her trunk packed in time the next day when they made their start for Oxford.

"I feel very much as if I had been faring on guide-books," said Nan, as they settled themselves in the train. "And as for Aunt Helen, I know she feels like one. If she had a red cover I would take her for a Baedeker."

"I am sure Jean knows every item on the list at the pastry cook's, and Mary Lee dreamed last night that she was a monkey and began climbing over me," said Jo.

"Now, Jo," began Mary Lee.

"Well, didn't you?"

"I had a sort of funny dream about monkeys," Mary Lee admitted.

"As for Jack," Jo went on, "I defy any 'bus driver in London to keep up with her questions."

"I know where you come," cried Nan. "You would have turned into a mummy if you had gone to the British Museum once more."

"She is anything but one now," said Miss Helen, looking at Jo's plump figure and saucy nose.

"As for me," put in Mrs. Corner, "I feel as if I had met many old friends from whom I am now parting with regret."

The train started and soon the smoke of London was but a gray cloud in the distance.

CHAPTER IX

WORK

"Get up, lazybones, get up. Don't you know you are to see the whole of Oxford to-day and go to Stratford to-morrow?" cried Nan, shaking Jo from her slumbers.

"Hm, hm," answered Jo sleepily turning over.

Nan gave her another shake. "Don't you know that the toast is getting colder, the black tea is getting blacker, the eggs getting harder and the slabs of bacon getting slabbier and flabbier? I am going to breakfast."

"Dear me, Nan, is it as late as that?" said Jo sitting up suddenly.

"Yes, and there is honey instead of the marmalade you don't like," replied Nan over her shoulder. "Mother got some yesterday."

Jo, thoroughly aroused, sprang from her bed to rush through her toilet and join the others down-stairs.

"We thought maybe you didn't care to see Oxford," said Miss Helen smiling as Jo came in hurriedly.

"Well, no," drawled Jo. "I've seen Harvard, you know, and what are colleges anyhow? I never expect to take a degree and why should I be interested in Oxford? Of course I will go with you all if you insist, but if it were Earl's Court, for example, where there is a maze, a water toboggan and such things, I might be more enthusiastic." It was like Jo to turn off things in this way, and every one laughed.

"You know," said Miss Helen, "that Hawthorne called High Street the noblest old street in England, so that is one of the things we must be sure to see."

"And Addison's walk," put in Nan.

"To be sure, and you girls will find the Bodleian Library very fascinating. As for the colleges themselves, with their chapels and quadrangles, if you do not think them beautiful as well as interesting I am much mistaken."

"Again we sigh for that entire summer which cannot be ours," said Nan.

"Yet – " Miss Helen began.

"Oh, I know what you are going to say," interrupted Nan, "and we know all about that possible future. When do we start out?"

"As soon as I can gather the brood together. Don't dawdle, any of you, if you love me."

Her appeal was not without effect, for the whole party appeared in a very short time, and they set forth to go from college to college, to walk up High Street, to turn into Addison's walk and to return at night tired out.

"We fairly skipped through," remarked Mary Lee. "I have a confused jumble of colleges in my brain, and can't for the life of me tell Brasenose from Oriel or Lincoln from Queen's."

"Study your post-cards, my dear," said Nan, "and they will tell you."

"Not everything."

"What they don't tell Baedeker does, so I wouldn't bother my dear little brain with trying to remember so exactly. As for myself, Oxford represents a mass of beautiful ivy-clad buildings, more or less resembling each other, lovely gardens, chapels and cloisters, a cathedral, a library and one long fine street. That is all the impression my mind has received. After a while I shall try to separate the conglomeration by looking over my post-cards, but just now I am capable of seeing it only as a whole, an impressionistic picture, as it were."