CHAPTER II

A TELEGRAM

Hushed voices--voices that had been exchanging greetings and telling experiences--followed the dramatic announcement of Sylvia Pursell. She gazed at her trio of chums, who had seated themselves about the room, in various positions of comfort.

"Pardon me, Madam President." Alice was on her feet. "But is this a regular meeting, or a special session? I rise to a point of order."

"I rule that your point of order is not well taken, and for your information I will say that it is a session _most extraordinary_, for we have to talk over our plans for going to the mountains. That is if you girls _are_ going?" and she looked around at them, pausing at each face in turn.

"Going!" echoed Hazel, otherwise known as Baby, on account of her rather diminutive size. But she was a lovely dancer.

"I should like to see any one try to keep _me_ at home," Hazel went on, with that breezy Chicago manner of hers that always made the boys look at her a second time, first with surprise, and secondly with admiration. And then they kept on looking, as often as they dared.

"Indeed we are going," declared Alice. "I have heard so much about those wild and rugged mountains, and their grand scenery and----"

"The lakes--don't forget the lakes!" interrupted Rose. "I am just dying for a chance in a canoe with----"

"'A book of verses underneath a bough,'" quoted Sylvia.

"She wants what goes with the book--a young man," declared Hazel.

"I do _not_!" stormed Rose, blushing so that her cheeks, which usually held a most charming centre-tint, were now suffused with carmine.

"Oh, of course she doesn't," soothed Alice. "We forgot about Roy, and----"

"Alice Harrow, if you----"

"Don't mind them," advised Sylvia, but at the mention of the name Roy a shadow seemed to pass over her face. "Let's get on with the meeting. The Nowadays Club will kindly come to extraordinary order and we'll talk about this Adirondack trip. I'm so glad you can all go. Now, first of all I want to speak of----"

"Dresses! What about them?" broke in Hazel. "I simply _must_ have some new ones."

"New York is the best place in the world to get them, and in a hurry, too," said Rose. "I was going to have my dressmaker in Syracuse turn me out some, but I decided to wait. We have a week or so; haven't we, Sylvia?"

"About that, my dear. And I'm counting on showing you everything worth seeing in Manhattan in that time. You can order your gowns--the very newest of the new----"

"Which just perfectly describes our club," murmured Hazel.

And since, perhaps, a little description of the club will aid my readers in understanding the object of the four girls, I can find no better opportunity than now of making them acquainted with it.

Sylvia Pursell, whose home was in New York City; Rose Bancroft, of Syracuse; Alice Harrow, who came from an old Southern family, whose estate was in the vicinity of Baltimore, and Hazel Reed, of breezy Chicago, had been chums, roommates, classmates and various other sort of mates at the fashionable boarding school of Miss Stevenson. They had "finished" there, which means they had just begun, and during their final year they had formed the "Nowadays Club."

It was unlike any other organisation, as far as the girls knew. There were no dues, no initiation fees, no set or formal meetings, and no officers. Every one was a president, and whoever cared to do so presided. Usually it was Sylvia, but that was as circumstances dictated.

The object of the club was expressed in the name. The girls were "up-to-the-minute" damsels, and they were devotees of the nowadays idea. That is, they went in for all that was best of such of the newest matters as came to their attention. As Sylvia said:

"We don't want to get into a rut!"

And most assuredly they were not in any danger of doing so. They at least investigated everything new, from the latest dance to the newest motor cars. For the girls were all of well-to-do, not to say wealthy, families.

They had formed the little club--membership strictly restricted to four--on the spur of the moment, and it had interested them more than they had expected it would. During the dance craze they invented new steps, some of which were adopted by the dancing class which they attended. If the girls had been in any other position in life than school--if, for instance, they had been young business men--they would have succeeded admirably in at least investigating all the newest fads and fancies, from efficiency and system, to conservation and "turning around on a smaller margin," as the trade papers call it.

But, as it was, the girls resolved that they would be real "nowadays" girls. Of them it must not be said, "Oh, that's the way they used to do it." Rather the tribute must be paid them that: "Well, that's the way it's being done nowadays, but I suppose in a week or so something new will crop up, and----"

Well, when it did Sylvia, Rose, Hazel and Alice would not only be ready for it, but waiting impatiently.

And so, during their last year in the boarding school, they had formed the little club. It looked for a time, when they had definitely decided on different colleges, that the organisation would die a natural death. But it only goes to show that real, vital things never die. They may change their form, but they never wholly expire. They still exist.

So it was with the Nowadays Girls.

Sylvia was to go to Wellesley, Rose to Smith, Alice to Bryn Mawr, and Hazel to Vassar. That much had been decided on, the parents having something to say in each case.

At first, when the girls found they were to be separated, there were tears, sighs and protestations. It seemed that they were to go on long journeys to far countries. Then vivacious Sylvia came to the rescue.

"Look here, girls!" she declaimed at a session of the club held in her room one night, "this college life is only for four years, and there are vacations. Besides, the long-distance telephone is available. We may be separated in body but we must not be in spirit. We must still be up-to-date--to the minute and a few seconds past it. We won't give up our club. It shall be all the stronger.

"And we must here and now resolve----"

"Hear! Hear!" half-grunted Hazel, in imitation of an Englishman, "highly excited," at a banquet. "Hear! Hear!"

"We must now resolve----"

"Not to cast our ballots!" broke in Alice.

"This isn't a suffragist meeting," was Rose's rebuke.

"We must resolve," continued Sylvia, whom little could distract, "we must resolve not to give up the spirit we have evolved for ourselves. We will meet and get together whenever we can, after leaving here. We'll have sessions in summer, of course, and spend all our vacations together, if possible. The Christmas Holidays we may except, but the long vacation will give the Nowadays Club even a better chance than we have had here. Now what do you say? Shall we make it a promise?"

She paused to look at her chums. The idea seemed to fill them with enthusiasm.

"I'm for it!" declared Alice.

"It's perfectly fine!" exclaimed Hazel.

"I'm just in love with the idea," Rose said. "I almost cried when I found we were to go to different colleges."

"But it will be all the better for us," declared Sylvia. "For we can absorb all that is best at each institution, bring it away with us, and pass it on to one another. In that way we will each broaden----"

"I don't want to do any _broadening_," broke in Alice. "I'm getting too stout as it is. I'll have to pick up a new step in the hesitation waltz, to make it more difficult."

"I meant broaden our _minds_," Sylvia said, pointedly.

"Oh, that's all right," assented Alice. "Go on."

"That's all there is to it," Sylvia said. "We'll just resolve to meet as often as we can, and be real nowadays girls. Separating now is only a preparation for a newer form of life and healthy activity."

And so it had been decided. The pleasant days at Miss Stevenson's school came to an end in the glories of commencement, with "sweet girl graduates" galore. This was in late May, for as there were repairs to be made on the buildings the term was somewhat shortened.

The Nowadays Girls had separated, with no definite plans for the summer until Sylvia evolved those which, as our story opens, brought the four chums together once more--Rose from Syracuse, Alice from Baltimore, and Hazel from Chicago, she being the last to arrive, much to her chagrin, for she upheld the liveliness of her own town as against Gotham.

In brief the plan was this. Sylvia had proposed a tour of the Adirondacks for that summer, and there was an indefinite understanding that at each succeeding vacation other famous American resorts would be visited. But the Adirondacks was to be the beginning. The girls were to go to Fulton Chain, in the lower Adirondacks, and progress as they pleased, and when they pleased, stopping where fancy dictated, until they reached Saranac.

The four were to be accompanied by Mrs. Theodora Leigh Brownley, a widow, whose husband had been a noted Confederate soldier. A small property brought her in such a meagre income that she was forced to adopt her young-womanhood occupation of teaching school, and she was one of the best-beloved instructresses at Miss Stevenson's establishment. Mrs. Brownley was called "Aunt" not only by courtesy, but through love, for she was a charming character, and the girls were very fond of her, especially our four. So much did they love her that when Sylvia had proposed the Adirondack tour, and a chaperon had been decreed by Mrs. Pursell as absolutely necessary, Aunt Theodora had been selected.

Mrs. Brownley had served as such before. In fact she made it a sort of business to escort parties of young ladies from the school on summer outings. She had made several trips to Europe as such a conductor, and while rather grave and dignified, she could very easily adapt herself to circumstances. Then, too, she was very glad of the added income which this chaperoning provided. So every one was satisfied.

The trip had practically been decided on before Sylvia's friends had reached New York, but after she had summoned them by telegraph, she wanted to make sure that none of them had changed her plans.

"And I'm glad none of you have," she said, as the maid came in to clear away the tea service, Hazel having been refreshed with a specially-brewed cup. "I think we shall have a lovely summer."

"I'm positive of it!" declared Rose, with conviction. Again she looked around, half expectantly, as a masculine step was heard in the hall. It was only the butler, however.

"Miss Pursell," he said, in a low voice.

"Yes, James."

"A telegram."

Sylvia caught her breath rather sharply.

"Did any of you girls wire? Could it have been delayed and reached here after you?" she asked, as she paused, hand outstretched, to take the telegram from the silver server.

"I didn't," declared Rose, and the others shook their heads in negation.

With fingers that trembled Sylvia tore open the yellow envelope. Her eyes rapidly scanned the few typewritten words on the sheet, and once more her breath came in a gasp.

"No bad news, I hope," said Hazel, as she glided across the room and put her arms about her chum.

"It--it isn't--good!" faltered Sylvia. "It's Roy--my brother--he--he's worse!"

A startled cry came from Rose, who turned pale, so that only a small tinted spot glowed in either cheek.

"Roy--ill!" she whispered.