Miss Campbell read the inscription over twice before she could make out its meaning.

“Absurd children,” she cried delightedly, “you are giving me a birthday party. I knew you were suppressing something with all your giggling this morning. And here I had quite forgotten I was a year older to-day.”

“Not a year older, dearest cousin, a year younger,” cried Billie. “It was Evelyn who knew about this fascinating little place, and we thought we would entertain you here instead of at one of those tiresome hotels.”

Pasquale rubbed his hands together and smiled broadly with his head on one side.

“La Signora, she isa surprisa,” he exclaimed, as pleased as a child.

He led the way to the back of the house, through a low-ceilinged room paved with red tiles. At a small door at the end of the passage he paused and placed his fingers on his lips with an expression so arch and crafty that the girls laughed out loud in spite of his motions for silence. Then he flung open the door grandly and placed his hand on his heart, heaving a deep and dramatic sigh.

It was not to be expected that our tourists who had come through every variety of scenery, grand, sublime and beautiful, should be very enthusiastic now. But the Italian knew that he had something very fine to show. Just as an old picture dealer knows when he has a good picture and a good audience. The girls fairly danced on the grassy terrace overlooking the exquisite little valley at the foot of the mountain. And there, on the lawn, stood a table covered with a white cloth.

“The ladies willa eat breakfast at what time?” asked Pasquale. “The festa, she commenca at two. You willa come—not so?”

“Oh, yes, we will see all of it, Pasquale,” replied Evelyn.

Pasquale lingered.

“The ladies willa pardon. They have no objec to two others who also eta here?”

But the ladies were not in the humor to object to anything. They were too much engaged in admiring the little valley and the olive grove opposite which clung to the hillside like a soft gray mist.

“It’s just like a little Italy,” cried Billie, enthusiastically. “It looks like Italy. The people are all Italians and so are the houses and the terraced vineyards. Isn’t it sweet?”

“Wait until you see the festa,” said Evelyn, “and Pasquale’s daughter, Lucia. She is out now gathering grapes with the others, I suppose.” Pasquale now appeared bearing a big soup tureen, followed by a graceful young Italian boy who carried a dish of grated cheese. There were plates of ripe olives on the table and in the centre a pyramid of fresh figs and grapes. How charming it all was! Down in the vineyard below came the sound of singing, which grew louder as the young men and girls climbed the mountain to the village.

They were very happy and jolly, and Miss Campbell made a little speech.

“Sweet, lovely girls,” she said, “do you know how very dear you are to me? We have been through so much together, through so many, dangers which we will forget, and pleasures which we shall always remember; up hill and down dale—across mountains—”

“And prairies,” suggested Nancy.

“Yes, across these interminable prairies, that I feel, now that we are coming to the end of it all, how lonesome I am going to be without you. I hope you will all marry, my dears. There is no one in the world so lonely as a spinster—”

Evelyn’s face flushed. The subject of marriage was a painful one to her, because, although she had written twice to Daniel, not one word had she received from him since she left Salt Lake City. And deep in her heart, she was wholly and utterly miserable. No one but Billie noticed the tears that glistened in her eyes, and under the table, the two girls clasped hands for a moment.

“—a spinster past middle age,” went on Miss Campbell, looking so charming and appealing that the girls were obliged to rush from their seats and embrace her.

And in the midst of this scene of affection, comes Pasquale, smiling affably, and bearing an immense bouquet of roses.

“For La Signora Cam-el,” he said. “A gen-man presents with compliments.”

“But who—what gentleman?” demanded Miss Campbell.

“I cannot say, Signora. They are of Sacremen’—these roses here. They came thisa morning by express, in the diligenza from the valley.”

“Where is the gentleman?” asked Billie.

Pasquale shrugged his shoulders almost to his ears and spread his hands out apologetically. Then he disappeared into the inn and presently returned with bouquets for each of the girls. Evelyn’s was as large as Miss Campbell’s, of roses, and the younger girls were smaller bunches of heliotrope, which gave out a delicious fragrance.

“Is he here at this inn?” demanded Nancy, burning with curiosity.

“No, signorina, the gentleman, he coma after the flowers.”

“Mystery of mysteries,” exclaimed Miss Campbell. “Who can it be?”

“It’s just like Mr. Ignatius Donahue,” said Elinor.

“It’s more like papa,” put in Billie.

Evelyn would have liked to add—“It’s more like Daniel,” but she could not bring herself to mention his name when he had treated her so coldly.

“How did anyone know we were here?” asked Miss Campbell.

“The hotel clerk knew,” replied Billie, “because we asked him about the road.”

At last, after finishing off with fruit and cheese and cups of black coffee, the delicious birthday luncheon reached an end, like all good things, and the ladies went forth to see the festa.

Down the street came some forty young men and girls singing a wild Sicilian pastorale, each verse of which ended in a weird turn. Many of them were crowned with grape leaves, like Bacchanalian dancers, and some of them carried baskets filled with the fruit. It was the end of the grapecutting season, and each year, Pasquale, the great man of the village, gave a festa at this time.

In front of the inn was a long narrow table whereon stood jugs of wine, plates of cold meats and ripe olives, dear to the heart of every true Italian. The table fairly groaned under the weight of food—cheeses and long loaves, salads, figs, oranges and grapes.

A gentle old priest with a humorous, kindly smile, came out of the church and welcomed the motorists.

“You will enjoy the festa,” he said. “It is a pretty sight not often seen out of Italy.”

The feasting and singing lasted until late in the afternoon. Then the dancing began in the yard of the inn. Pretty Lucia, Pasquale’s daughter, and a young man with fierce black eyes, danced a tarentella together and another man and woman danced a Sicilian dance wilder even than the tarentella. Finally everybody began dancing and the girls joined in, leaving Miss Campbell and the old priest seated in a pergola at the side of the house, absorbed in an interesting conversation.

As darkness descended torches were lit, but it was difficult to distinguish faces and no one noticed two men in dark slouch hats drawn well over their faces who mingled with the crowd. Evelyn Stone, standing alone on the outskirts of the crowd, watched her four friends waltzing among the dancers.

“How much happier Lucia is than I am,” she was thinking. “How I wish I had been born just a simple peasant girl. Money means so little in comparison.”

But her reflections were rudely interrupted. A black scarf was thrown over her head and she was lifted off her feet and carried out of the circle of light into the darkness.

Owing to the unusual festivities, supper for the guests at the inn was very late that evening, and not until well past eight o’clock did Pasquale announce that the ladies would be served on the terrace.

“Where is Evelyn?” asked Miss Campbell anxiously when they had gathered around the table.

“Perhaps she has gone off with Lucia,” suggested Billie.

But Lucia was waiting on the table and had not seen her. Pasquale sent a boy scurrying around to search for her while the others ate their supper. They were quite sure she had wandered off with some of the villagers whom she had known before.

Night deepened and the moon came up, flooding the valley with its golden rays. It was very chilly, and they put on their ulsters and sat in a row on the terrace, waiting. From the inn yard came the sound of music and the beat of the dancers’ feet on the hard ground.

At last the waiting grew unbearable. Miss Campbell went to confer with the old priest next door and the girls hurried down the village street to search for their friend from house to house. Men were sent down the mountain road to the valley below. Others hunted through the vineyard. Somewhere in the village a clock struck midnight. The music ceased. The dancers crept off to bed, cold and tired.

The Motor Maids climbed upstairs to their small bedrooms under the eaves.

Nothing could be done until morning, the priest said. And while it seemed impossible to sleep, they agreed they must take some rest.

Tired out with the long day, they did sleep however, and the sun was high in the heavens before they waked.

CHAPTER XXIII.—A CHANGE OF HEART.

“That would be a good idea, but we must see Pasquale first. Send him up here at once, Billie,” called Miss Campbell as the young girl departed, pinning on her hat as she ran down the narrow steps outside.

A hundred conjectures flashed through their minds as they hastened to get into their clothes. Could Evelyn have done anything rash and foolish? But Miss Campbell felt sure the girl was much too thoughtful and unselfish to have involved them in a trouble of that sort. No, it was that Stone man, her father, who had spirited her away.

Pasquale appeared at the door. His face was an impenetrable mask, through which his small eyes twinkled like the eyes of an animal.

“Pasquale,” cried Miss Campbell, “what are we to do? Where has the young lady gone? Have your men really brought no news whatever?”

“No news, Signora,” he replied, rubbing his hands.

“Don’t stand there blinking at me,” she cried. “Tell me what I must do. Is there no telegraph station up here?”

“No, Signora, but breakfast, ita is served, Signora.”

“Breakfast! Don’t talk to me about breakfast when I’m half distracted. Have some coffee ready and send around the motor car. We will start at once for Sacramento or some town where we can telegraph.”

“The Signora will pleasea have breakfast,” continued the imperturbable Italian.

Miss Campbell was tying on her blue veil ready to leave the instant they had swallowed their coffee.

“Have the bags carried down,” she cried, “and strapped on the car.”

“The Signora willa be pleased with breakfast. It is Americana breakfast, made specialmente for Signora and the young ladies—the chicken broila—Signora.”

“The man will drive me mad,” cried Miss Campbell rushing down stairs with veils flying, her hand bag in one hand, her coat in the other, followed by the girls who had been struggling to pack their suitcases and get away as soon as possible.

At the bottom of the steps, they met Lucia, smiling and fresh in spite of her dissipations of the day before.

“The ladies will please enter for breakfast,” she said.

Back of them came Pasquale without any suitcase at all.

“On the terrace, Signora. Ah, the terrace, it is bella, bella, in the morning. Sacremen—you will see her on a clear day. Ah, madama, I entreata you to step forth on the terrace.”

Pasquale and Lucia stood in the most theatrical attitudes imaginable, their hands outstretched, exactly like two opera singers when they had reached the closing notes of a grand duetto.

“Ah, Signora, thisa gooda breakfast,—chicken broila—questa bella vista—”

“Good heavens, the man is mad. They are both perfectly mad,” cried poor Miss Campbell rushing to the terrace and almost into the arms of—Oh, horror of horrors! Oh, unspeakable disgrace! John James Stone, who actually held her imprisoned in his iron embrace and looked down into her face with an expression so tender that Nancy and Mary were obliged to retire into the hall for a moment where they fell on each other’s necks and laughed immoderately.

“Release me, sir! How dare you?” cried the excited little woman, looking around to see if anyone else had been a witness of this disgraceful encounter.

There was, indeed, quite an audience. Daniel Moore, leaning on a cane, his other arm clasped in Evelyn’s, stood close at hand; also the four Motor Maids, Pasquale chuckling with joy and Lucia smiling broadly.

“Evelyn, my dear, you have given us such a fright. Where did you come from,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, almost in hysterics. “And Daniel Moore, too.”

“It’s a good ending to what might have been a very tragic affair, Miss Campbell,” replied Daniel. “Evelyn was kidnapped last night by Ebenezer Stone but as luck would have it, Mr. Stone and I were making the trip from Sacramento to catch you here and we met them on the road last night. They had an accident, in fact, and stopped our car for assistance without knowing whom we were. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fight that scoundrel, Ebenezer,” he continued, clenching his fist and growing very white.

“Have you been ill?”

“He has been very ill,” put in Evelyn, clasping his arm and leaning on him.

“Too ill even to know that Evelyn was not married,” went on Daniel. “That little wretch of a mare when she dragged me around by my leg, injured my hip. I owe my life to Miss Billie, and I ought to be thankful that the injury was no worse. The worry about Evelyn and the arrest in Salt Lake City precipitated matters, I suppose and I have been in the hospital ever since, until the day before yesterday. It didn’t seem to matter much with Evelyn married to that—to that——”

“Never mind,” said Evelyn soothingly. “Father and I never really did like him. Did we father?”

This was rather straining a point but Mr. John James Stone was quite equal to it. The truth is the stony old Mormon had suffered a change of heart.

“Ebenezer is a cold blooded scoundrel,” he observed in a tone of conviction which brought covert smiles even to the lips of his long suffering daughter.

“But, please, tell me quickly how you and Mr. Stone came to meet?” demanded Miss Campbell, the answer of which question they were all burning to know.

Mr. Stone cast upon the charming little spinster a glance so melting that it was impossible for the Motor Maids to keep from laughing.

“They have you to thank for that, Miss Campbell,” replied the big man. “I am completely won over, I assure you, madam. A charming woman is the most powerful influence in the world.”

An expression of amazement passed over the spinster’s face, followed almost immediately by one of intense amusement and embarrassment. There was a strained silence. Then Pasquale, clearing his throat several times significantly, announced breakfast.

In spite of the fatigue and nervous strain of the past six hours, everybody was hungry and Evelyn Stone was the most joyous member of the breakfast party. The shadow which had darkened her entire young life was dispelled. She had never dreamed that hidden deep somewhere behind that granite exterior her father had a real flesh and blood heart.

It was Miss Campbell who had discovered it and it was Miss Campbell who must now pay the penalty of her discovery.

No one ever knew exactly what conversation passed between her and the Mormon gentleman on the terrace that morning after breakfast. But they guessed that the little spinster had received a declaration of love and an offer of marriage. At any rate, half an hour later, she shut herself into her room and refused to appear again until dinner time.

As for Mr. Stone, he took an automobile ride with the Motor Maids and made himself most agreeable. On the way home, he bought everything he could find in the way of fruit and flowers for the little lady who had touched his heart. He was as frankly and openly in love as a boy, and love which comes to those past fifty is of an extremely poignant nature.

But Miss Campbell had no intention of wedding even a reformed Mormon and settling in Salt Lake City.

“Never again will I enter that hateful place except in chains as a prisoner,” she had repeated many times, and her old lover, whose youth had been renewed like the eagle’s and whose character had been strangely transformed, entreated in vain.

CHAPTER XXIV.—SAN FRANCISCO AT LAST.

It was the end of their trip across the continent; the end of the summer and the beginning of happiness for their new friends. To-morrow there would be a wedding at which four Motor Maids would act as bridesmaids and Mr. John James Stone would give his daughter to Daniel Moore with a real fatherly blessing.

The bridegroom gave a dinner that night to the bridal party. It was a grand affair, a real dinner party. The girls wore their very best dresses and carried bunches of violets sent by that abject and thoughtful lover, Mr. Stone.

During the dinner which was given in one of the pretty private dining rooms of the St. Francis, John James Stone rose in his might and made a speech, just as if they were the most distinguished company in the world.

“Miss Campbell,” he said, and that lady stirred uneasily under the fire of his ardent black eyes, “and young ladies, I feel that I cannot let this delightful evening slip by without taking the opportunity to thank you for a gift which I count as the most precious I have ever received in my whole life.”

He spoke with the tone of an orator, his voice, vibrating and deep, rising and falling like the sound of the waves on the seashore, and his words were somewhat Biblical, after the manner of the Mormon speechmaker.

“All my life I have been as one walking in the dark,” he continued. “Even my daughter was a shadow to me. Only one thing was real. Money! And now I have lost a great deal of my money. It has slipped from my fingers into the hands of another man, who, thank God, has not forced himself into my family and never will. But I have received something in place of my fortune which is now and always will be of infinitely more value to me than money. The darkness is lifted and I stand in the light. I feel as one who has been groping in the night and have now turned my face toward the rising sun. You have made me the gift of sight. This gracious little lady,” he continued, turning to Miss Campbell, “whose spirit and courage first aroused my admiration and then a deeper feeling,” he placed his hand on his heart with the most unblushing candor. It was difficult for the other members of the party to hide their smiles. “This elegant little lady although she will not consent to make me the happiest of mortals has at least succeeded in inspiring me with a new content.

“Will she therefore and the young Motor Maids—” he paused and smiled at this expression which he had caught from the girls—“do me the honor to accept a slight token of my gratitude?”

The Mormon produced a package which he had been concealing under his chair. That the souvenirs had been planned long beforehand was evident, for the boxes bore the stamp of Salt Lake City.

The souvenirs were jewels and very beautiful. For each of the Motor Maids was a ring set with a deep yellow topaz, the setting and stone representing the “All-Seeing Eye,” the Mormon symbol carved on the Temple and in many other places in Salt Lake City. This was an especially appropriate choice since it might also stand for the Comet’s all-seeing eye which had guided them safely across two thousand miles.

Miss Campbell’s present was a beautiful topaz brooch and represented nothing except the deep regard of the giver.

They were obliged to accept these gifts, strange as it seemed to them to be receiving presents from one so recently a bitter enemy. But then, like Jim Bowles, Mr. Stone was a reformed character. Love had transformed his whole being.

Only two more incidents remain to be told before this history comes to an end. One of them concerns Peter Van Vechten, who, the girls learned at the hotel, never reached Chicago, although he succeeded in flying past the Rocky Mountains. But no else in the race reached the goal and he proceeded farther than any of the other aeroplanists. The young man was the grandson and only heir of one of the richest men in America.

“And we took him for a thief,” said Billie, sadly.

“I never did,” said Mary.

The other occurrence will show that life is full of coincidences and that if our memories are good and our impulses kind, we can always help someone.

The morning of the wedding Elinor was waiting for her friends at a window at one end of the hotel corridor. Someone else was waiting there also, but the two had not even glanced at each other so engrossed were they in their own thoughts. A door opened and a voice called:

“Elinor.”

“Yes?” called two voices at once and two girls turned and faced each other.

“I beg your pardon,” they both began at the same moment and paused laughing.

“My name is Elinor,” began one.

“So is mine,” finished the other.

Then they laughed again, politely and pleasantly.

“Do you know. I think we look very much alike,” began the strange girl. Her voice was English. “I am older than you, many years, I should imagine, but still we have the same profile.”

The two girls sat down on the window sill and began to talk.

“Are you visiting in San Francisco?” began Elinor Butler.

“No, not visiting, only—well, we have been traveling—we have been to a great many ranches through the West——”

Our Elinor gave the new Elinor a long, careful scrutiny.

“Her name is Elinor. She looks like you——” a voice said in her mind.

“Are you not looking for a friend?” she asked presently.

“But, how did you guess?” exclaimed the other girl, clasping her hands with great agitation.

“And his name is Algernon de Willoughby Blackstone Winston?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the English Elinor. “How did you know?”

“I know because I reminded him of you,” answered Elinor Butler, “and because my name is Elinor.”

Then she gave the English girl the address of Steptoe Lodge.

“It is in answer to my prayers—my meeting you,” cried the older girl. “Only it has taken such a long time. If only one has the patience to wait; but it has been very hard. Once we heard of his being in Canada, but when we went to fetch him, his father and I, he had gone and left no trace whatever. We were told that there are a great many young Englishmen on ranches in the Western States and we have been to—Oh, hundreds of places. Lord Blackstone has had detectives looking for him. But you see he changed his name and we have had no success.”

“You will be certain to find him this time,” said Elinor, “only when you go to fetch him, don’t tell him beforehand. Take him by surprise.”

The two girls looked into each other’s eyes, and smiled and pressed hands and—kissed.

“With all my heart I thank you a thousand times,” said the English Elinor.

“I hope you will be very, very happy,” said the American Elinor.

Once more they kissed, as dear friends about to be separated for a long time, and Elinor Butler hurried to join her friends at the elevator. On the way, she caught a glimpse through an open door of a splendid looking old man leaning on a cane. He was very tall with the slight stoop of an old soldier, and as he glanced in her face, she saw that his eyes were the same as those of the cowboy’s who had sat out a dance with her one night in the courtyard of Steptoe Lodge.

At last the story is done. The journey across the continent has not been an unprofitable one. Through the kindly efforts of Miss Helen Campbell and the Motor Maids, lovers long separated have been reunited; hearts of stone melted into flesh and blood, and bad men transformed into good.

Before they left San Francisco, our young girls on a lark one day consulted a crystal gazer. She was only a common fortune teller but sometimes these wandering Gipsy souls make correct guesses.

“In the crystal,” she said, “I see a great stretch of water. There is a ship on it. The waves are rough. I see foreign countries. You will take a long journey across the ocean. I see a flash of red like a shooting star——”

“The Comet,” laughed Billie.

Perhaps, like the Motor Maids, you will be skeptical of the crystal gazer’s predictions concerning their future. But she spoke the truth as you will find for yourself if you read the next volume of this series. In the new book the Motor Maids will wander in their Comet through the British Isles and there many interesting and delightful adventures await them.

As the story ends, we find them gathered together in Miss Campbell’s sitting room at the Hotel St. Francis. On the next day they are to take the train for home. Mr. Stone is with them, and they are listening silently to a song Elinor is singing at the piano. It is a Gipsy song, and very appropriate. Our four girls after their summer wanderings have turned into Gipsy lasses, brown skinned clear-eyed daughters of the Zingari.

As they listen to the thrum of the accompaniment, the walls of the little parlor fade away and once more they find themselves around the camp fire under the stars on the plains.

Here is the song Elinor sang to her friends.

    “‘The  white  moth  to  the  closing  vine,
    The  bee  to  the  open  clover,
    And  the  Gipsy  blood  to  the  Gipsy  blood
    Ever  the  wide  world  over.
 
    “‘Ever  the  wide  world  over,  lass,
    Ever  the  trail  held  true,
    Over  the  world  and  under  the  world
    And  back  at  the  last  to  you.
 
    “‘Out  of  the  dark  of  the  gorgio  camp,
    Out  of  the  grime  and  the  gray,
    (Morning  waits  at  the  end  of  the  world),
    Gipsy,  come  away.
 
    “‘The  wild  hawk  to  the  wind-swept  sky,
    The  deer  to  the  wholesome  wold,
    And  the  heart  of  a  man  to  the  heart  of  a  maid,
    As  it  was  in  the  days  of  old.
 
    “‘The  heart  of  a  man  to  the  heart  of  a  maid—Light
    of  my  tents,  be  fleet!
    Morning  waits  at  the  end  of  the  world,
    And  the  world  is  all  at  our  feet!’”

Motor Maids Series

Wholesome Stories of Adventure

By KATHERINE STOKES.

Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid

THE MOTOR MAIDS’ SCHOOL DAYS.