CHAPTER V

IN SYRACUSE

"Beg your pardon! Hope you're not hurt?"

It was the young man standing before Hazel, and bowing as he assisted her in getting to her feet from her seat on the arm of his chair.

"I beg--_your_ pardon," murmured Hazel, her face suffused with the blushes that she could not keep back. "It was--it was----"

"I know, the train! They run a bit unevenly at times with these electric locomotives. Perfectly excusable. Are you sure you're not hurt--sprained ankle, or anything like that?" he asked, anxiously.

"Of course not," murmured Baby. She could see a changed look come over the young man's face. He had taken her for a little girl, and he had found on looking into her eyes that she could not be so classed, though she was "Baby."

By this time Aunt Theodora had become aware of the little accident and was walking down the aisle.

"Is anything----" she began.

"Nothing at all!" cried Hazel, quickly, and she gently disengaged her hand from the rather too warm and ardent one of the young man. He had taken her hand in assisting her to arise, and he seemed very willing to repeat the ceremony. But Hazel knew how to put up the barriers, though she smiled innocently enough at the youth.

"Why--why!" began Aunt Theodora, and Sylvia began to fear that something unpleasant was about to transpire. But certainly it was not Hazel's fault that a lurch of the train nearly threw her into the grasp of a good-looking young man. And he had behaved very nicely about it, too. All the girls agreed on that point when they talked the matter over among themselves afterward.

"It's Jack Benton, isn't it?" demanded Aunt Theodora, as she extended her hand to the young man in question.

Hazel gasped. This was condescension indeed on the part of their chaperon. But, somehow or other, Hazel was very glad. She had evidently "fallen in" with one of Aunt Theodora's acquaintances, and, in spite of her rather conservative ways, Mrs. Brownley was quite cosmopolitan in many respects, and had numerous acquaintances in various queer corners of the earth.

"I'm Jack Benton--yes'm," and he clipped the last word with just the proper accent to prevent it degenerating broadly into "ma'am."

"You don't know me, but your sister Ruth----"

"Oh, of course--Miss Stevenson's school--you're Mrs. Brownley--I met you at the commencement. But--er--I didn't know you with your hat on, I suppose--at least, that is--I--er----"

"Poor fellow!" murmured Sylvia, trying her best not to laugh, for Jack was certainly embarrassed and making a "mess of it."

"Is this--er--your----?" Clearly he was at a loss how to classify Hazel. And she, little minx that she was, said not a word to give him an inkling. She might, indeed, have been Mrs. Brownley's daughter or granddaughter.

"But how could I speak, except to say 'beg pardon!' when I hadn't been introduced?" Hazel asked the girls afterward.

"You couldn't of course--not with Aunt Theodora there," was the decision of Alice, after a long discussion of the point in question, and you may be sure the girls missed nothing in discussing the matter from all its angles.

"Sylvia--Hazel--all of you--you must remember Ruth Benton," said Mrs. Brownley. "And to think of meeting you here. Is your sister with you?"

"No, I am travelling alone, though I expect a party of friends to meet me at Albany. Some Yale fellows and I are going on a little trip up-state."

"How nice! I'm so glad to meet you again, Jack. These are some of my girls. They know your sister slightly, though they were not in her class. Sylvia--Miss Pursell--this is Jack Benton--Miss Hazel Reed----"

"We have met before," and Jack, of the laughing eyes, smiled at Hazel of the brown orbs. The others were presented.

"I wonder if we are to call him Jack?" murmured Sylvia.

"I wish you would!" he said, quickly.

She blushed vividly--not thinking he had heard her.

"It's so much nicer," he went on. "Please, Mrs. Brownley--Aunt Theodora--tell them to!"

"To what, Jack?" The chaperon had been speaking to one of the porters about getting her a hassock.

"Tell them to call me Jack. Let's not be conventional--at least not on this trip. Let's pretend it's a sea-voyage, and that this is a steamer. You know," he went on, speaking to Hazel, but for the benefit of all, "that acquaintances on shipboard don't count for anything--that is, I don't mean that--I--er--I mean--oh, call me Jack!" he finished, as the only way out of the tangle.

"I don't see why they shouldn't," declared Aunt Theodora. "I intend to call you that, as I call your sister Ruth. The young ladies have my permission. Won't you join us in a cup of tea? We had a very early lunch."

Jack winced a little at the mention of tea. Sylvia could see that, and it became another subject for discussion later.

"Delighted, I'm sure," he, however, murmured submissively.

"They're going to put up one of the little tables near our chairs," went on Mrs. Brownley. "You can move down there. The car isn't crowded, and there are some vacant places near us."

"Of course," he assented. "Then it's to be Jack--and--er--Hazel?" he ventured, with another laughing-eyed glance at her.

"I--I suppose so," she murmured, though she did not seem much abashed.

"That's what Chicago will do for one," said Sylvia afterward.

"Oh, it's nothing of the sort!" cried Hazel, defending herself.

But they all ended by calling him Jack, and he addressed them by their first names. After all they were but girls and a boy.

"Very nice people," said Mrs. Brownley, in an aside to Sylvia. "I have visited them. Very cultured and all that. Nice to know."

Sylvia was sure of it, as she glanced at Jack. He was a clean-cut youth, with perfect even and white teeth that made his smile most charming.

Soon they were merrily gathered about the tea table, sipping the fragrant beverage, and nibbling toast and cakes. The girls had better appetites than Jack Benton evinced, but then they had been so excited at the prospect of starting that they had done little justice to the early luncheon Mrs. Pursell had had prepared for them.

"You certainly have a fine trip ahead of you," Jack said, when the objective of the Nowadays Girls had been revealed to him. "I was up in the Adirondacks last fall, hunting, and it was delightful then. It must be more so now, with the lakes, the fishing, the boating and all that. Wish I were going along."

"Yes, it would be nice," murmured Hazel.

"I suppose you think he'll be there to pick you up every time you stumble on the trail," whispered Alice.

Hazel did not answer, save by a look.

At Albany a group of college boys joined Jack. He introduced them to his new friends, and there was a merry party that enlivened the coach for part of the remaining distance.

The boys left the party at Herkimer, and there was where the girls would have gone on to their trip to the Adirondacks had not they voted to visit Rose at Syracuse. I have spoken of "stopping off" at the Salt City, but it really was a going on, since they would have to come back to get on the railroad line that would take them to Fulton Chain.

But they were in no haste, and, as Sylvia said, they might not be up that way again, so it was only fair to take advantage of this opportunity of stopping at the home of Rose.

"I hope I see you all again," Jack Benton had said, on leaving the party, but, though he included all, he had looked last at Hazel, and had shaken hands with her finally.

The girls, naturally, teased her about this afterward. But she only said:

"I don't care! He was awfully nice!"

And that was her only excuse.

Slowly the train rolled through the streets of Syracuse. Slowly because there were so many grade crossings, and then came a whirling taxicab trip to the home of Rose, where a warm welcome was extended to the Nowadays Girls.

They remained in Syracuse for a week, paying a visit out to the salt works, where the brine is pumped up from the depths of the earth, spread out in shallow vats to be evaporated, leaving behind the saline crystals which, after being treated, to clarify them, are ready for the market. The girls secured some of the peculiar, brown crystals left in the bottoms of the kettles. Sawed into blocks, they made odd and excellent paper weights.

It was a round of gaiety in Syracuse, for the University had not yet closed, and Rose knew many young people. So they had all the dances they wished for, with teas, theatre parties and other like forms of entertainment.

"And now really for the Adirondacks!" exclaimed Sylvia, when they were again ready to make a start. She had received word that her brother was doing as well as could be expected, though his fretfulness over his inability to recall the chemical secret was having no very good effect.