The Four Corners Abroad

"I think Nan would look fine in one of those costumes on those quaint post-cards we all liked so much at Christmas time," said Juliet. "I have one of the prettiest left. I'll go get it and you might copy that." She ran off, presently returning with the card which all examined with much interest.

"The dress wouldn't be hard," Nan decided, "and I have the scarf. I would need something different from anything in the combined wardrobes of the family to make the bonnet of."

Juliet was busy thinking. "Mother has just the thing, I do believe," she said after a moment: "a big Leghorn hat that can be bent into any shape. She will be delighted to lend it to you. I think you will look dear in such a bonnet, Nan, with bunches of pink roses against your dark hair."

"I can easily make a little bag like that to carry on my arm," decided Nan. "I think it is a costume of the period of 1812 as nearly as I remember."

"One of the boys is to have a costume that will match it," said Juliet. "I shall not tell which one, but I know he will look dandy in it. The boys sometimes spend a lot on these costumes, and come in such magnificence as you wouldn't believe. Of course some are much better off than others, and some of the girls will be gotten up regardless, but I think the main thing is to look picturesque and to wear something which will be becoming when we unmask. When the boys don't want to spend much they go as Pierrots. There will be several in that character, I can promise you."

"I might go as a switch-tender, and borrow Frau Pfeffer's get-up," remarked Jo.

"How you would look," cried Nan, "and what would she do that day, pray?"

"She could go to bed early," said Jo calmly.

It was finally decided that Jo should go in Spanish dress, the girls suddenly remembering what they had brought from Spain with them, which supplemented would do very well to represent an aldeana costume. Juliet eventually went as a peacock, a spreading tail of feathers adorning the back of a greenish gold frock, and upon her head a clever arrangement of feathers and beak to represent the bird's head. Her bodice was of peacock blue and the whole effect was quite dazzling, and strange to say very becoming. Of the four girls it must be said that Mary Lee looked the best, her fair skin, blue eyes and neat features being exactly as they should be for a Dresden shepherdess. A fluffy white wig and a coquettish hat made the finishing touches to her dress, and she was very much pleased with herself as well she might be. Nan, though not so striking, was a quaint figure. Her bonnet was a great success, trimmed outside with long white plumes and some old-fashioned apple-green ribbons, and inside with bunches of pink roses which lay against the clusters of curls in which she had arranged her dark hair. The dress was a green silk with little bunches of pink flowers upon it, and her pink scarf drooping negligently was of the color of the roses in her bonnet. The whole party set off in an automobile and had that kind of good time which youth and high spirits can generally give us on such occasions. That they did not lack in partners for either games or dances goes without saying, and that it was an event long after referred to can be taken for granted.

After this there were not any great merry-makings, the gatherings in Mrs. Hoyt's sitting-room being quite sufficient for ordinary fun, and all worked hard between times. January did not bring anything but dark and sunless weather, so Mrs. Corner felt that she must pitch her tent elsewhere as she was feeling the effects of the lack of sunshine. She therefore decided to go to the Riviera for a couple of months.

"I shall not be so very far away," she said to Nan, who always felt the separation more than any of the others. "It is scarcely more than a day's journey, and if I am needed I can fly to you in less time than it would take to go to Boston from Virginia."

"Will Aunt Helen go with you?" asked Nan.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Corner. "Things didn't go altogether happily with you last winter, Nan, dear, and I hate to leave you in a foreign city with the responsibility of your younger sisters upon you. Mrs. Hoyt has very kindly offered to chaperon you and the Fräulein is quite to be relied upon, but still I do not like to go off and leave you to be the acting head of the family."

"It is quite different from last year," Nan told her, "for this is not a boarding-school, and you will not be the other side of the ocean as you were then. For my part, motherdel– that is a newly coined south German diminutive. I am your mädel; you are my motherdel instead of mutterchin– as I was saying, for my part, I would much rather Aunt Helen should be with you. We shall be perfectly comfortable, and I can't bear the idea of your going off alone. If you should be ill – "

"There are always good doctors and nurses to be had," her mother hastened to say.

"But not to have any of one's very own. No, mutterdel, Aunt Helen must go, too, and we will behave like the best of Cornelia's jewels."

"I am not afraid of you older girls, except in your case when you sacrifice yourself for Jack."

"Oh, but Jack is much more sensible. She is developing a better sense of proportion, and of right and wrong. She is terribly impetuous, but she does mean all right at heart."

"I am sure of that. She couldn't be her father's child and be lacking in principle."

"She couldn't be her mother's child and not turn out a dear, good woman," said Nan, fondling her mother's hand. "I'll promise you, mother, I'll not do anything rash. If any problems arise I will suspend action till I can hear from you, and if it is something in which I have to act at once I will take the case to Mrs. Hoyt."

"There might be cases that you wouldn't want to consult even Mrs. Hoyt about," said Mrs. Corner thoughtfully.

"Then I'll pour out my woes to Dr. Paul."

Mrs. Corner nodded. "Yes, you can trust him, for he has known you all since you were babies. With him as well as Mrs. Hoyt I think I can feel safe about you. All right, Nan. I'll talk it over with Helen."

CHAPTER XVI

HERR GREEN-CAP

Although Nan's responsibilities did seem heavier after the departure of her mother and aunt, the fact that they were shared in a measure by Mrs. Hoyt and Fräulein Bauer as well as by Dr. Paul, made them seem less. To Dr. Paul Nan poured out her confidences in the most artless manner, and he responded as any considerate older brother might have done. There was plenty of work for all to do, for beyond the demand of music, Nan had her German and other studies in which Mary Lee shared. Jo, though doing well in most directions, floundered terribly when it came to German accent and pronunciation. Fortunately Fräulein Bauer was herself North German, and so was the teacher under whom Jo studied, so she did not fall into a very pronounced dialect, and she comforted herself by saying: "My exams will be written and not spoken, so I think I shall pass all right." Jack cheerfully plunged in with a reckless disregard of anything but making herself understood, and consequently gained a large vocabulary, while Jean, more timid and self-conscious, depended upon her twin when it came to an emergency.

Jo, who had been the life of Miss Barnes's boarding-school, was much more subdued here in Germany. It seemed to be borne in upon her that this was the opportunity of her life, and she must make the most of it. She had never studied very hard before, but being naturally bright, had depended upon a good memory and sudden inspiration to cope with the occasion.

The girls had received Christmas letters from all their late schoolmates, telling of the little events which they knew would interest them on the other side of the water. Charlotte Loring's was the longest; Daniella's the most vividly interesting, for the latter had a picturesque way of presenting things, born of her early free life in the Virginia mountains. There had been, too, letters from home, from Cousin Polly Lewis, telling of her approaching marriage, from Gordon and his brother, from Phil, and last of all from Aunt Sarah, giving the intimate details of home life which brought the brown house and its inmates very distinctly before them.

And now there were three months of hard study before them, interspersed with such pleasures as skating in the Englischer Garten, visits to some specially interesting place, like the great foundry where had been cast such famous works as the great doors of the Capitol at Washington, and numerous world-renowned statues. For Nan there were always opera and concerts as often as practicable, and if Fräulein Bauer could not go with her, Mrs. Hoyt was generally ready. Failing her, Dr. Paul would be called up, and it was seldom that he could not set aside all else in order to act as escort. There were merry doings, too, in Mrs. Hoyt's sitting-room, walks on the Parada to hear the band, expeditions to the Isarthal, or the beautiful Starnberger See when a brisk walk over snowy paths brought them all back ready to attack a supper which, even when wurst appeared as its principal dish, seldom failed to satisfy.

Strange to say, it was not Jack nor Jean about whom Nan finally felt a certain anxiety, but it was Jo. Had it been one of her own sisters, if she could not have laid the matter before Mrs. Hoyt, Nan could have consulted Dr. Paul, but she felt a certain hesitancy in discussing Jo with any one but Mary Lee who was the first to discover that all was not right and who came to her sister in great perplexity.

"Nan," she said, "I think we ought to do something about Jo."

Nan, who was puzzling out a difficult passage in her translation, stopped short. "What do you mean, Mary Lee?" she said.

"Where are the twinnies?" asked Mary Lee, looking around.

"Gone with Mrs. Hoyt to the Englischer Garten. Jo isn't here either."

"I know that well enough. She is skating at another place with that horrid boy."

"What horrid boy?" Nan looked amazed.

"Some one she met on the ice last week one day when you weren't there. He is a student, and he came up and asked Jo to skate with him. You know how free and easy she is. He is a good skater, waltzes on the ice and does that sort of thing, so off Jo went before I could say a word. Ever since then he has been trying to get chances to meet her. He followed her home and found out where she lived. Jo is the most unconventional girl in the world, and she didn't hesitate to tell him her name, so he wrote to her and asked her to meet him on the ice the next day. We all went together, all but you, and in that crowd Mrs. Hoyt couldn't keep track of us all. Jo has skated with him every day since, but often they go to another skating pond. She has been answering his notes and all that. He speaks English and says he is the son of a countess."

"Dear me, I wonder if that is so, but, even if it is, that amounts to nothing. There are plenty of disreputable counts and countesses over here and we don't know a thing about him. It is too bad that my music lesson comes in the afternoon, or I would go oftener with you all. I really don't have time to go more than twice a week, and opera nights I can't go at all."

"Do you think we ought to tell Mrs. Hoyt?"

Nan considered the question for a moment. "Oh, I don't know," she replied, presently. "It seems mean to tattle – yet – I'll tell you, Mary Lee, we'll see if we can't get her to stop, and if she won't we'll think of what is best to do."

"She won't stop. She thinks it is the greatest piece of fun, and can't, or won't see that there is any harm in it."

"Why couldn't she be satisfied with the nice boys she already knows?"

"That's what I asked her, and she said that none of them was a count and that it was much more of a lark to carry on with a foreigner. She could know all the Americans she wanted at home. You know how Jo talks."

"Did the other boys see her skating with this fellow?"

"Yes, and she told them he was a friend of hers. I suppose Mrs. Hoyt thinks so, too, now that she has seen the two together. He is rather nice-looking, and I have no doubt Mrs. Hoyt thinks we know all about him and that it is all right. She doesn't know that when Jo isn't with us she is off skating at some other place."

"I'll try talking to her," said Nan, "though it may not do any good. Probably she thinks I am not old enough to give advice. Of course we are not exactly responsible for her in one way, but she is of our party and that does give us some rights. If mother were here she would soon settle it in the nicest sort of way. I will try talking and if that does no good I will write to mother and get her advice. Jo is very fond of both mother and Aunt Helen and would hate to displease them or lose their respect."

"I feel differently about Jo than about most girls," said Mary Lee, "for you know she hasn't had much comfort at home, and as she says, has 'tumbled up.' Before her father married a second time she was left to the care of servants, and now there are all those little children, she is out of it. All the training she has ever had has been at Miss Barnes's. She really doesn't realize, Nan, for out West where she has always lived they are much more ready to make friends with every one than we are. You know how full of fun and nonsense she is. The boys all like her and I suppose this one never met a girl like her before."

"I hope he doesn't think all American girls are ready to make chance acquaintances in that way. All you say is quite true, Mary Lee, and for that very reason I don't want to discuss it with any one but mother or Aunt Helen. They know all about Jo and can make allowances. I will write to-night."

"I thought you had a lot of work to do and that was why you couldn't go this afternoon with us."

Nan sighed. "Yes, I have a lot, but I can get up early and finish it."