and who should have reached Hymettus early this afternoon. But now I
hear he came all the way by coach instead of by rail, and got off at the
cross-road, and we must have passed each other on the different trails.
So my journey would have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have
the pleasure of going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovely drive
by moonlight."
Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs. Horncastle to
launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty--but, I grieve to say,
entirely imaginative--account of her escapade with Mrs. Barker. How,
left alone at the San Francisco hotel while their gentlemen friends
were enjoying themselves at Hymettus, they resolved upon a little trip,
partly for the purpose of looking into some small investments of their
own, and partly for the fun of the thing. What funny experiences they
had! How, in particular, one horrid inquisitive, vulgar wretch had been
boring a European fellow passenger who was going to Hymettus, finally
asking him where he had come from last, and when he answered "Hymettus,"
thought the man was insulting him--
"But," interrupted the laughing Barker, "that passenger may have been
Demorest, who has just come from Greece, and surely Kitty would have
recognized him."
Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, and not only retrieved it,
but turned it to account. Ah, yes! but by that time poor Kitty, unused
to long journeys and the heat, was utterly fagged out, was asleep, and
perfectly unrecognizable in veils and dusters on the back seat of the
coach. And this brought her to the point--which was, that she was sorry
to say, on arriving, the poor child was nearly wild with a headache from
fatigue and had gone to bed, and she had promised not to disturb her.
The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that had overspread
Barker's face during this lively recital might have pricked the
conscience of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason I fear it did not.
But it emboldened her to go on. "I said I promised her that I would see
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