however. Jean decided from the weight of her eighteen years of masculine experience that he was a college boy probably in his Freshman year and certainly far more refined in his manner and appearance than his ordinary-looking mother.
"If you were kind enough to be interested in our difficulty of yesterday, I should be glad to explain to you how it had a happy ending," she began in a friendly voice. "I suppose it was foolish for us to have been so frightened."
And then in detail Jean went through the history of the entire occurrence, beginning with their discovery of Frieda's absence, closing with the moment of her appearance, and neglecting nothing to make her story a good one. This in spite of Frieda's hot blushes and imploring although unuttered requests for silence. In the end, however, every member of the audience laughed, and Frieda determined never to forgive Jean's unkindness, while Jean and Olive were both silently congratulating themselves that any mystery surrounding her proceedings had been so soon and so easily cleared up. They were fully aware that their story would soon be circulated among a number of their fellow passengers.
Yet for a long time afterwards Frieda Ralston would always recall this first breakfast aboard the Martha Washington as one of the most uncomfortable meals of her whole lifetime. More than anything she hated being laughed at. And even the young man, whose mother had started the entire unpleasantness, had the impertinence to forget his own responsibility and to smile and exclaim "Great Scott" over her ability to sleep so long and well in the midst of such great excitement. Later in the meal he attempted smiling at Frieda once or twice, hoping that she might have come in time to regard the situation more humorously. But she had returned his glances with a reproachful coldness that apparently had reduced him to a proper state of silence and humility. One thought, however, upbore Frieda until she was able to withdraw from the dining room. At least, she need never again recognize the presence of the two objectionable persons across the table from her. For not only should she never speak to them, she would not even incline her head in recognition of their existence at meal times, although she had heard that this was a polite custom among even the most exclusive of ocean travelers.
Seated in her steamer chair next her sister Jacqueline half an hour later, with a veil tied close about her little scarlet velour hat, Frieda was dumfounded to observe this same objectionable young man stopping calmly before them.
Looked at closely he had a well-shaped head with almost too heavy a jaw, a bright color, brown eyes and hair that he was vainly trying to train into a correct pompadour. His shoulders were broad and athletic, of a kind the younger Miss Ralston had previously been known to admire.
First the young fellow bowed politely to Jack. Then he turned as directly toward Frieda as though they had already been properly introduced.
"I am awfully sorry my mother made you so uncomfortable this morning," he began bravely, and turned so crimson that Frieda felt her heart relenting.
"Mother is an awfully good sort, but she hasn't been around much and did not guess how you would feel. And – oh, well a fellow can't be expected to apologize for his mother! Only as she asked me to come and talk to you, I am trying to do my best."
Then, answering a nod of invitation from Jack, who had liked his straightforward manner, he sat down in the vacant chair next Frieda and pulling out a box of chocolates from his pocket began to tell her the story of his life. His name was Richard Grant. He and his mother came from Crawford, Indiana, where his father had been a candy manufacturer until his death a few months before. Richard was in his second year at Princeton when his father had died, so, as his mother felt a trip abroad might help her, he had dropped behind his class for half a year in order to do what she wished.
He seemed so straightforward and so good-natured that by and by Frieda forgot to remain angry. So when he begged her to come and be introduced to his mother she hardly knew how to refuse.
Nevertheless Frieda found her first conclusion had been right. Mrs. Grant was as impossible as she had previously thought her. Could she ever endure the mother's acquaintance for the sake of the son's?
Still, Frieda continued walking the deck with her newest acquaintance until Ruth was obliged to send Olive and Jean to look for her. And a number of persons aboard had been watching the youngest of the Ranch girls with a good deal of pleasure. For Frieda had never looked more attractive than she did in her scarlet steamer coat and cap, with her blue eyes as wide open and as deeply interested in everything about her as a clever baby's and her cheeks, without exaggeration, as deeply pink as a La France rose.
CHAPTER IV
THINGS PRESENT AND THINGS TO COME
THE ensuing week at sea was one of the most delightful in the Ranch girls' lives and in many ways illustrative of their future history.
An ocean steamer filled with passengers is in itself a miniature world, so many different types of people are represented, there is such freedom of association, such a leveling of artificial barriers that often exist on land. Frequently a fellow traveler reveals more of his character and history to some stranger whom he may meet in crossing than ever he has confided to a life-long friend.
Until the present time the four Ranch girls and their chaperon, Ruth Drew, had lived singularly sheltered lives. First brought up almost like boys under the care of their overseer, Jim Colter, three of the girls had known only the few neighbors scattered within riding distance of their thousand-acre ranch. While Olive's acquaintance, owing to her curious childhood, had been even smaller and more primitive. Then had come the year for Jean, Olive and Frieda at Primrose Hall under Miss Katherine Winthrop's charge, when their horizon had broadened, admitting a number of girls and a few young men to be their friends. But this could hardly be called real contact with the world, since always they were under Miss Winthrop's wise guidance. While as Jack had spent exactly the same length of time at a hospital she had had even less experience with people. The last ten months with three of the girls again at the Rainbow Ranch had meant a return to the same kind of quiet every-day existence, varied only by the interests of the working of the mine. Olive's six months apart from the others had simply been devoted to further study with Miss Winthrop with week-end visits to her grandmother at The Towers.
Then, although Ruth Drew was almost ten years older than any one of the Ranch girls, in many ways she was fully as ignorant of the world. It had never yet occurred to her that there were persons capable of misrepresenting themselves, nor of pretending to be what they were not and using innocent friendships for purposes of their own. Nor had it occurred to her that the reputation of the four girls for having suddenly acquired great wealth might place them in danger.
From the time Ruth had been a little girl she had never had the disposition for making many friends. Always she had been timid and retiring, devoting herself to her father until after his death. Except for the year spent at the Ranch and the winter at the hospital in New York with Jack, Ruth had never known anything outside the narrow circle of a Vermont village life. Not that a village does not furnish almost all there is to learn of human nature, but that she had shut herself in from most of it. The freedom of the wonderful ranch life, the contact and friendship with Jim Colter, which for a while had looked like something more than friendship, had widened the little Vermont school teacher's horizon. Then had come the break with Jim, and the past winter at home she had shut herself up even more completely. During the many evenings alone in her small cottage there had been plenty of opportunity for Ruth Drew to regret her decision against Jim, but whatever passed in her mind she had kept to herself. Not even to Jacqueline Ralston, who at one time had been her confidante, had she made any confession.
So perhaps from the standpoint of worldly wisdom the Rainbow Ranch party was none too well equipped for a long journey or for the meeting with many different types of people and the making of friendships which might be of grave importance in after years.
And, notwithstanding the fact that Ruth and the four
