[58] [58] “How shall we know when to go?” she asked of Miss Hickey, to whose side she clung in the confusion. “Don’t you worry about that,” returned the other. “Have some gum?” She offered several sticks of the same to Rosalie, who declined, wishing her veil were thicker as she glanced about, dreading to see the Bruce party, and longing to be safely away. Miss Hickey slid a generous quantity of gum into her own mouth and then settled her hat more firmly on her pompadour by a rearrangement of largely gemmed hat-pins. While she proceeded in an experienced manner to break up and chew the gum-sticks into a solacing sphere, her conversation continued, untrammeled by this effort. “Don’t you hear the agent calling the names off?” she asked. “They can’t any of ’em say where they’ll go any more’n we can. They’re going to be took ’round the Park just like a kid out in its baby-wagon. They come when they’re called, you bet; and they don’t know where their bags are any more’n you do. When they get to the Fountain House their bags’ll meet ’em in the hotel; then to-morrow mornin’ they’ll disappear again to meet ’em[59] at the next place. Oh, it’s a great system all right, if too many people didn’t come at once. They have awful times when there ain’t enough places for ’em to sleep, and six or seven get put in one room. These folks that are too exclusive to travel with a party are the ones that get left; for the conductors of these tours get to the hotels a little ahead o’ the other folks, and get all their people provided for; and it’s gallin’ to know you pay just as much as anybody and yet have to herd in with folks you never saw before—just the same as poor heavers like us.” And Miss Hickey gave her companion a nudge that nearly made her reel. “Weren’t you the mad kid last night?” she continued. [59] “I think you were the mad one,” rejoined Rosalie. “I was dazed.—O Miss Hickey!” She made the exclamation involuntarily; for the Bruce party came out of a door not far from where the girls were standing, and they were dressed for a move. “Oh, they’re not lay-overs!” exclaimed Rosalie, retreating behind Miss Hickey’s broad shoulder. “Who—them? Say,
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