The Four Corners Abroad

"There are plenty of places that are free," Nan tried to console her by saying.

"Where?" asked Jack.

"Oh, Hampstead Heath, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park," said Nan.

Jack whispered the names to herself as she stood looking out of the window. "Nan," she said presently, "won't you go with me to Hyde Park or somewhere? It is horrid to stay in the house."

"Dear chickabiddy, I am so tired. I didn't realize how tired I was till I reached home. I have been on my feet the entire day. Perhaps some other time we can go."

"Is it very far?" asked Jack.

"Not so very, but it is far for a tired body like me to go there to-day."

Jack was silent a few moments. "London is an awfully big place, isn't it?" she said presently.

"The biggest city in the world."

"Would you be afraid we'd get lost if we went alone?"

"Well, I don't know. I would carry a map, and if we did stray into unknown regions, I'd ask a bobby to set us right."

"What is a bobby?"

"A policeman. They have such nice, big, kind policemen here; they are always so ready to help one."

Jack made no comment and presently left the room.

"Where is Jack?" asked Mrs. Corner as they were about to go to dinner.

No one knew. Nan had been the one who saw her last. "She wanted me to go to Hyde Park with her," she told her mother, "but I said I was too tired."

"Do you suppose the little monkey could have gone off by herself?" asked Mary Lee.

"I am sure I don't know. I verily believe that is what she has done, the minx!" exclaimed Nan. "She asked me whether I would be afraid of getting lost in such a big city, and I very innocently told her I would trust a policeman to set me right, so no doubt she has serenely gone off to follow out my suggestion."

Mrs. Corner looked alarmed. "That child alone in this great city! Almost anything could happen to her."

"Trust Jack," said Nan. "She will come out of it all right. See if she doesn't."

And true enough they had not sat down to the table before Jack appeared jubilant. She had found her way to Hyde Park, had been greatly entertained by watching the people, and had been piloted home by a series of bobbies who proved very acceptable company. "One of them has a little girl just my age though she's 'arf an 'ead taller, he told me," Jack informed her family, "and she knows this part of London like a book."

"Jack," said her mother, "if you are going to keep on doing things of this kind I shall not have an easy moment. Some dreadful thing might have happened to you. Have you forgotten what I told you when you went off with the cocher in Paris?"

"No, I didn't forget, but that was Paris, and you never said I mustn't go here where every one speaks English. I sat quite still after I got to the park," Jack went on in an injured tone. "I didn't run about a bit, and there were bobbies with me all the way back."

"Nevertheless, I cannot allow you to rush off by yourself. You have often been told that you must never go without some older person."

"The bobbies were much older," argued Jack plaintively. "I did remember that you had said that, mother, and I didn't ask any children, only the bobbies."

"Jack, you are perfectly incorrigible," returned her mother. "Please to remember that hereafter, in whatever place we may be, that you must always come to me to ask permission before going anywhere at all. If you disobey this order I shall have to send you to a school where they will be very strict with you."

Jack sighed and looked much aggrieved. As usual her point of view seemed a very reasonable one to her, and she could not understand why she should be dealt with so hardly when her intentions had been good.

She kept very close to the party the next day, however, and lagged behind only once. Nan ran back to see her standing gazing curiously at one of the Beef-eaters, stationed at the point from which they had just made their exit. "Do come on, Jack," said Nan. "What are you loitering here for?"

"I wish you all wouldn't be in such a hurry, Nan," said Jack. "I was just going to ask the Beef-eater whether he liked beefsteak or roast beef best, and whether he eats anything but beef."

"You are such a goose, Jack," laughed Nan, and hurried her little sister along to where the others were waiting to go to the White Tower.

"Now that we have seen the place where so many sad scenes in English history took place, I think it would be an excellent plan for us all to lunch at Crosby Hall," said Miss Helen as they came away from the Tower.

"What is Crosby Hall?" asked Jo.

"It is a famous old building which, I am sorry to say, they threaten to pull down, so this will probably be our last chance of seeing it," Miss Helen answered. "It was built in 1466."

"Before America was discovered," ejaculated Jo.

"Yes, and it was considered the finest house in London at that time. It was once occupied by the Duke of Gloucester before he became Richard III, and no doubt he hatched many of his plots under its roof; it was very convenient to the Tower, you will see."

"Where is it?" Nan asked.

"On Threadneedle Street or Bishopsgate within, I am not quite sure which, but we shall soon see."

"What dear quaint names," said Nan. "I love these funny old streets."

"Tell us some more about Crosby Hall, Aunt Helen," said Mary Lee.

"It has had a variety of experiences," Miss Helen went on. "For after being a private residence it became a prison, then it was turned into a meeting-house, later into a warehouse, next into a concert hall. Now it is a restaurant and a very good one. I think you all will enjoy a meal in the hall where Shakespeare was sometimes a guest. He mentions the place in his Richard III."

"It is an awfully nice surprise to spring on us, Miss Helen," said Jo. "I think it will be great to go there."

"What are we going to have for lunch?" asked Jean. And every one laughed.

"I think for one thing we must have some chops, such as one can get only in England," her aunt told her. "There is a fine grill at Crosby Hall where they cook a chop to perfection. While they are doing the chops we can look around, and you will find yourself in a very interesting place."

"I should think it was interesting," said Nan later. "Dear me, I feel so queer to be sitting here where Shakespeare dined and where Richard III ordered his chops."

"Are you trying to make a pun?" asked Jo.

"No. Why, may I ask?"

"You surely remember the conundrum about a cold chop and a hot steak."

Nan smiled, but immediately looked grave. "We are entirely too near the Tower to make ghastly puns," she said. "Poor dear 'Lady Jane Grey,' and poor dear little princes. I wonder if that wicked old uncle planned that horror within these walls."

"One can imagine almost anything," said Mrs. Corner, "but I think we would better not try to imagine too much, for here come the chops, and they are solid facts indeed. Look at the size of them."

"What a number of nice-looking Englishmen are here taking their lunch," Nan remarked to Jo. "See their mugs of ale. Doesn't it make you think of Dickens and Thackeray and all those? I'd like mighty well to stay in London long enough to prowl around all those old Dickens places. I'd like to see the Charterhouse, and the prison where Little Dorrit was, and oh, dear me, London is too big to be seen in a hurry. Why can't we stay here instead of going to Germany so soon?"

"You forget about that summer when we have promised ourselves to come back. London will keep, Nan," her aunt reminded her.

They lingered over their meal, content with their surroundings till Miss Helen mentioned that if they started at once there would be time to see the old church of St. Helen's, adjoining, before they should go to St. Paul's.

"You're a saint, isn't she, Aunt Helen?" said Jean. "Of course we ought to go."

"We'll not go for that reason particularly," her aunt returned, "but because Shakespeare was a parishioner of the church when he lived in London, and because it is a quaint little place in the very heart of what Londoners call 'The City.' This is one of the most interesting sections of London, and scores of famous names are connected with it. If we had time we could see the church of 'St. Botolph without Bishopsgate' where John Keats was baptized, and could go to Leadenhall Street to see the old House of the East India Company, where Charles Lamb was a clerk for so many years. Alexander Pope was born not very far from here, and Samuel Pepys is buried in the church of St. Olaves. Then, too, the old Huguenot church used to be on Threadneedle Street, and many a poor emigré was given a helping hand by the little body of French Protestants who used to gather there."

"Oh, yes, that dear pastor of the French church at Canterbury told us about it," said Mary Lee.

"The new French Protestant church is at Soho Square," remarked Mrs. Corner, "though I am told the old Dutch Protestant church is still in Austin Friars, and that the congregation refuse to part with their property valuable as it is."

"I'd love to go there," said Mary Lee.

"We can't, we simply can't," cried Miss Helen. "We shall have to give up referring to interesting places or we shall become unhappy because we haven't time to give to all. That summer to come we will do nothing but wander around London, and after we have seen it all if there is any time left we will give it all to England."

"Oh, dear, but I shall not be here," sighed Jo.

"Who can tell?" said Miss Helen cheerfully. "One never knows what will happen."

"That is true," returned Jo brightening.

"If any one had told us that day we met Daniella Boggs on the mountain that she would one day go to boarding-school with us, and that she would be ten times better off than we were then, I am sure we would have laughed them to scorn," said Mary Lee. "So, Miss Jo, don't you say you will not be here, for maybe you will."

"It is nice to think there can even come a maybe," said Jo, "and indeed we could go further, and continue the Daniella story by saying that if any one had foreseen that one Jo Keyes would be over here because of a prize given by Daniella's uncle you all would have laughed more scornfully than before."

After St. Helen's came St. Paul's, the Whispering Gallery, the crypt and the many parts that all visitors must see. Then there was another ride home on the top of an omnibus, this time Jack being the one who secured a seat by the driver, and if he did not earn his threepence in answering questions, it was not Jack's fault.

The following day all but Miss Helen and Nan set out for the Zoo. The latter had a quiet day browsing around the galleries, and enjoying one of the times the two delighted in. There was always a peculiar bond of intimacy between them. No one understood Nan as well as her Aunt Helen and there was no one to whom she more readily showed her inner self. Since Miss Helen was Nan's godmother as well as her aunt, Nan had a feeling of proprietorship which she claimed whenever occasions like this offered. She had a fine time spending some of her prize money on photographs, having Miss Helen's undivided attention when they came to select.

"You see," said Nan, "when all the others are along, there is no use in trying to do anything like this, and I do want to think calmly, for to me it is a very important question, whatever it may be to the others. I must have those two Browning portraits, Aunt Helen, for they were Londoners before they became Florentines."

"I should certainly get those," Miss Helen approved the choice.

"And Dickens and Thackeray."

"Without doubt."

"And would you get Wordsworth and Rossetti here or trust to finding copies at Grasmere?"

"I think I would take them while you are sure of getting just what you want."

"Who else? Keats, of course, and, oh, dear, it is going to be harder than I thought."

"Wouldn't it be a better plan to select what you're sure you want to-day and come again after you have made a list?"

"Oh, but can we find time to come again?"

"We'll make time, even if we have to stay a day longer to do it."

"Bless you, my bestest aunt." They pored over the photographs for a half hour longer and then Nan declared she was satisfied for that day, and they went off, Nan carrying her precious package and feeling very rich in her new possessions.

The British Museum occupied the greater part of the following day, which was ended up in Kensington Gardens, and then came a trip to Windsor Castle which included a further journey to Stoke Poges where, if Jack did not see her moping owl, Nan found a charming little photograph of the old churchyard, and on the way home bought a pretty copy of the Elegy in which to put it. There was a second visit to the National Portrait Gallery, taken one day when the rest were out shopping, and this time Nan completed her purchase of all photographs she intended to buy in London, and spent so much time poring over her collection that she was in danger of not getting her trunk packed in time the next day when they made their start for Oxford.

"I feel very much as if I had been faring on guide-books," said Nan, as they settled themselves in the train. "And as for Aunt Helen, I know she feels like one. If she had a red cover I would take her for a Baedeker."

"I am sure Jean knows every item on the list at the pastry cook's, and Mary Lee dreamed last night that she was a monkey and began climbing over me," said Jo.

"Now, Jo," began Mary Lee.

"Well, didn't you?"

"I had a sort of funny dream about monkeys," Mary Lee admitted.

"As for Jack," Jo went on, "I defy any 'bus driver in London to keep up with her questions."

"I know where you come," cried Nan. "You would have turned into a mummy if you had gone to the British Museum once more."

"She is anything but one now," said Miss Helen, looking at Jo's plump figure and saucy nose.

"As for me," put in Mrs. Corner, "I feel as if I had met many old friends from whom I am now parting with regret."

The train started and soon the smoke of London was but a gray cloud in the distance.

CHAPTER IX

WORK

"Get up, lazybones, get up. Don't you know you are to see the whole of Oxford to-day and go to Stratford to-morrow?" cried Nan, shaking Jo from her slumbers.

"Hm, hm," answered Jo sleepily turning over.

Nan gave her another shake. "Don't you know that the toast is getting colder, the black tea is getting blacker, the eggs getting harder and the slabs of bacon getting slabbier and flabbier? I am going to breakfast."

"Dear me, Nan, is it as late as that?" said Jo sitting up suddenly.

"Yes, and there is honey instead of the marmalade you don't like," replied Nan over her shoulder. "Mother got some yesterday."

Jo, thoroughly aroused, sprang from her bed to rush through her toilet and join the others down-stairs.

"We thought maybe you didn't care to see Oxford," said Miss Helen smiling as Jo came in hurriedly.

"Well, no," drawled Jo. "I've seen Harvard, you know, and what are colleges anyhow? I never expect to take a degree and why should I be interested in Oxford? Of course I will go with you all if you insist, but if it were Earl's Court, for example, where there is a maze, a water toboggan and such things, I might be more enthusiastic." It was like Jo to turn off things in this way, and every one laughed.

"You know," said Miss Helen, "that Hawthorne called High Street the noblest old street in England, so that is one of the things we must be sure to see."

"And Addison's walk," put in Nan.

"To be sure, and you girls will find the Bodleian Library very fascinating. As for the colleges themselves, with their chapels and quadrangles, if you do not think them beautiful as well as interesting I am much mistaken."

"Again we sigh for that entire summer which cannot be ours," said Nan.

"Yet – " Miss Helen began.

"Oh, I know what you are going to say," interrupted Nan, "and we know all about that possible future. When do we start out?"

"As soon as I can gather the brood together. Don't dawdle, any of you, if you love me."

Her appeal was not without effect, for the whole party appeared in a very short time, and they set forth to go from college to college, to walk up High Street, to turn into Addison's walk and to return at night tired out.

"We fairly skipped through," remarked Mary Lee. "I have a confused jumble of colleges in my brain, and can't for the life of me tell Brasenose from Oriel or Lincoln from Queen's."

"Study your post-cards, my dear," said Nan, "and they will tell you."

"Not everything."

"What they don't tell Baedeker does, so I wouldn't bother my dear little brain with trying to remember so exactly. As for myself, Oxford represents a mass of beautiful ivy-clad buildings, more or less resembling each other, lovely gardens, chapels and cloisters, a cathedral, a library and one long fine street. That is all the impression my mind has received. After a while I shall try to separate the conglomeration by looking over my post-cards, but just now I am capable of seeing it only as a whole, an impressionistic picture, as it were."

"Shall we have another day of it, Miss Helen?" asked Jo.

"I think another morning, so we can take the train for Warwick in the afternoon. It is not so very far and we need not start very early."

"Then, ho for Stratford-on-Avon, where we shall become Shakespeare mad, and for Warwick where Jack can see her white peacocks," cried Jo.

Yet the glories of Warwick Castle were less attractive to the twins than the little tea-garden on Mill Street, which, indeed, pleased them all.

"I never saw such a dear little place," said Jack with satisfaction.

"That cunning cottage with vines all over it," said Jean.

"And that lovely tangled garden down to the very water's edge," Nan put in.

"And the ducks, look at the ducks!" cried Mary Lee.

"Is this little stream really the Avon?" asked Jo. "What a fine view of the castle from here."

"It is the loveliest place to rest in," said Mrs. Corner sinking into a seat by one of the little tables.

"Are we going to have plum-cake?" whispered Jean.

"Pig!" exclaimed Jack scornfully.

"How did you happen upon such a charming spot, Helen?" asked Mrs. Corner.

"I have been here before, and it was one of my pleasantest memories of Warwick. Mother and I came more than once when we were here."

Nan's thoughts flew back to her stately grandmother, whom she had known but such a short time, and she fancied her sitting at one of the tables sipping her tea and looking up at the great castle walls. The girl turned to her Aunt Helen. "I am glad you told us that," she said in a low voice and Miss Helen gave her an appreciative smile, for she understood what was in her niece's thoughts.

"There comes a boat full of young folks," cried Jo. "Isn't that interesting? It is just like an illustrated story, isn't it? They are going to stop here for tea. Aren't the men fine looking, and the girls are exactly like those you hear about. I can't say that they have the style of the Americans, but they have lovely complexions."

"Come, let's feed the ducks," suggested Jack when the others were still sipping their tea. "It will be such fun, Jean, and I am sure they are expecting it."

Jean was not quite sure that she was willing to sacrifice any of her plum-cake to the ducks but concluded she would give them some bread. "No doubt they will like it just as well," she told Jack.

They lingered so long in the charming little garden that the melodious cathedral chimes were ringing for six o'clock when they reached the hotel, enthusiastic in their praises of the castle and of the little tea garden on Mill Street.

Stratford-on-Avon, with a walk across the pleasant country to Anne Hathaway's cottage took them an hour when it had to be decided whether the Lakes or Devonshire should be included in the next move. Finally, Miss Helen proposed that she and the three eldest girls should take a flying trip to the Lakes, leaving Mrs. Corner and the twins at Warwick, a place where they were delighted to stay, with a promise of the tea-garden every afternoon and a sight of the peacocks on the wall of Warwick Castle between whiles. Mary Lee declared she much preferred Grasmere to Cambridge, and so Nan had her wish, for she beheld Dove Cottage, Helm Crag and all the rest of the places made familiar to her by her last year's study of Wordsworth. The limits of the trip were reached at the Lakes, and then they turned their faces southward to catch a glimpse of the Sussex downs on their way to Newhaven.

Once more in Paris to gather up trunks and to make ready for a long stay in Munich with a glimpse of Switzerland on the way. There had been a meeting with Miss Barnes and her party of schoolgirls and great doings for two or three days before the Corners should separate from the others. Jo, to her great joy, had received permission to stay behind. Daniella had bidden them all a reluctant farewell. The summer had been a sort of fairy-tale to the little mountain girl, and if she had not received altogether correct impressions, and had often been bewildered, yet she had made great progress and could scarcely be recognized as the same girl who had so fearfully entered Miss Barnes's school the year before. Now she did not dread going back, for the same company with whom she had been traveling all summer would be hers for another year. Yet she bade a wistful farewell to her first friends, the Corners, whispering, "I wish you were coming, too," as she took her place in the train which should bear them all to Cherbourg.

So while these traveled west, the Corner party journeyed east, and at last they reached the clean, pretty city where they would settle down for days of study. The two younger girls were to be day-boarders in a small school, while the three elder ones were to give most of their time to particular studies. All would have lessons in German while Nan wanted to make a special point of music.

"You're going to stay with us, mother, aren't you?" said Jean wistfully. "You're not going to leave us here all alone like we were last year?"

Mrs. Corner smiled at the aggrieved tone. "I shall stay here till after Christmas anyhow," she promised, "and then if I must go away for the coldest months we shall all be together in Italy by the first of April."

Jean sighed. After so much freedom it was hard to adjust one's self to school routine, and as yet she had not settled down to the new conditions. "Shall we have to wear funny hats and do our hair in braids up over the tops of our heads or around our ears like the German girls do?" asked the little girl whose looks were something of a matter of pride to her.

"I think you will do as you have always done in that direction," her mother told her. "You are not a German girl, you know."

"But Fräulein is very particular," spoke up Jack. "To-day one of the German girls came with her hair done like ours, and Fräulein marched her out of the room and slicked up her hair and braided it so tight her eyes almost popped out of her head. She came back looking so scared."

"And, oh, dear," groaned Jean, "we have to walk along so soberly when we go out for exercise. We don't dare turn our heads, and the girls look so creer in those funny little flat hats, as if they had crackers on their heads. I feel like a craker, or something, myself."

"Do you mean a cracker or a Quaker?" asked Jack mischievously.

"I mean a craker that you spell with a cu," replied Jean with dignity.

"Look here," said Nan laughing, "you youngsters mustn't begin to whine the minute we get here. Goodness! do you suppose there are not thousands of girls who would give their eyes to be in this beautiful place and have the chances you have? We have been junketing around for so long that we don't want to do anything else. Every mother's daughter of us has got to work; that is what we came to Munich for, and between times we shall have more to see than you would get in any other dozen cities rolled into one."

"It's all very well for you to talk," said Jack. "You are going to operas and grown-up things like that, and we can't."

"But you can do other things, and the operas and concerts are a part of my musical education; they would bore you to death. There are ever so many things for you to do."

"Tell me," said Jack, getting into her eldest sister's lap. Nan always made things pleasant for her.