A SLEIGHRIDE
“Ready, Bumble?” asked Patty, looking in at her cousin’s room.
“Yes, in a minute.”
“Oh, I know your minutes! They’re half an hour long each! Here, – let me help you.”
Patty straightened Helen’s collar, fastened two hooks, found her gloves, tied her veil, and performed a few more odd services for her, and then held her fur coat for her to slip into.
“It looks like more snow, but Phil telephoned that we’d go anyway,” Patty said: “Mona and Roger will meet us up there, and Mr. Herron will be there too.”
“Perfectly fine! I love a sleighride, though goodness knows we get few enough of them nowadays.”
“You won’t love it, if we get snowed under, or snowbound at the Club.”
“I shan’t mind. We’ll have Mona and Roger for chaperons and we can stay till the storm is over. Philip says the house is lovely.”
“Yes, the Timothy Grass Golf Club is a splendid place, and the winter casino, – The Playbox, they call it, – is most attractive. Oh, we’ll have a good time whatever happens.”
By way of entertaining Helen, Van Reypen had proposed a day at the Country Club, and his invitation was eagerly accepted. There was snow enough on the ground to make good sleighing, and the air was crisp, cold and clear. Warmly garbed for their trip, the two girls ran downstairs to find Philip awaiting them.
“Hooray for two plucky ones!” he cried; “I thought maybe you’d back out on account of the storm.”
“Where’s the storm?” asked Helen. “I don’t see any.”
“You wear rose-coloured glasses. There’s snow in the air, some flying, and more waiting above, ready to come down. But not enough to hurt two such well-befurred Esquimoses! Come along, then.”
The novelty of a real old-fashioned sleighride was a great pleasure and as the fast horses flew along, the girls exclaimed at the new delight of such transportation.
“Are Roger and Mona going in a sleigh, too?” asked Patty.
“Yes, I think so. They’ll come later, as Mona just had a telegram that her father is coming to see her today.”
“But she’ll come to us, won’t she?” Patty asked, quickly. “She’s our chaperon, you know. It wouldn’t do at all for Helen and me to go to the Club without her.”
“Oh, yes, she said she’d come, as soon as her father arrives and she gets him comfortably welcomed. She’s very fond of him, you know.”
“Yes, and he’s an awfully nice man. What time will we get back, Phil?”
“’Long about five o’clock or so. We won’t reach the Club before noon. Then we’ll have time for a game of indoor tennis or whatever you like, of that sort. Then luncheon, and in the afternoon there’s time for a game of Bridge if you choose.”
“Probably we won’t do anything but sit around and chatter,” opined Helen, who was not fond of games. “Mr. Herron is coming, isn’t he?”
“Yes, my lady. But you mustn’t flirt with him, or you’ll turn his head completely.”
“She has done that already,” laughed Patty; “Mr. Herron just sits and gazes at my fair cousin, whenever occasion offers.”
“Nor can any one blame him for that. Look at the ice jam in the river! What a winter we’re having, to be sure.”
“A lovely winter, I think,” Helen said, “I adore cold weather, and I don’t mind snow. I like to feel it on my face.”
“All the same,” Patty put in, “I could do with less of it just now.”
The white feathers were flying briskly through the air, and Patty cuddled her face deep into her high fur collar. She was not quite so fond of the elements as Helen, and felt the cold more.
“The snow is falling all around,
It’s falling here and there;
It’s falling through the atmosphere
And also through the air.”
Helen chanted the lines to an accompaniment of dashing the flakes from her veiled face.
“The snow is falling all around,
And wonder fills my cup,
Whether, when it is all snowed down
We won’t be all snowed up!”
Patty sang her parody, in a high, clear voice, and then returned to her depths of collar.
Then Philip took up the game:
“The snow is falling all around,
But you girls needn’t fret;
We’ll soon arrive where we are bound,
And you’ll get warm, – you bet!”
“Lovely, Phil!” murmured Patty, “you do sing like a cherub!”
“Oh, well, I suppose my coloratura is a little off, but every time I open my mouth the snow snows in!”
“Ought to make liquid notes,” said Patty.
“Oh, come now! If you’re going to talk like that!”
“I can only sing of Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” Helen declared, and just then they came in sight of the Club house.
A huge structure it was, in a large park, and surrounded by trees and gardens. In summer it was a beautiful spot, but in winter some thought it even more so. The Golf Links showed great stretches of white and the bare black limbs of the tall trees made a picturesque foreground. The house itself, with glassed-in veranda and storm doors, looked like a haven of refuge.
The girls ran inside, and were greeted by the sound of crackling flames in a great fireplace.
“I do think a Club is the nicest place!” exclaimed Helen, as she sat down on a fireside settle. “And this one has such a cheery, hospitable atmosphere.”
“Yes,” agreed Patty, “but I don’t see many people around. Aren’t there very few, Phil?”
“Rather so. But it’s an uncertain quantity, you know. Some days the place is crowded, and again nearly empty. It’s always so in a Club.”
“Where’s Mona?”