"A queen's fan!" exclaimed Kit. "Doesn't it sound romantic?"
"And she would use it like this!" And Bet took the fan from her father, flourished it back and forth coquettishly with a flippant smile, half hidden by the fan.
A chorus of laughter greeted Bet's imitation of a flirt.
"Where did my daughter learn all those arts?" asked her father.
"She didn't have to learn them. They came natural," sang Joy, as she danced out of the room.
"Ladies used their fans to send messages to the lovers they preferred and to tease them with arch glances at other suitors," explained Bet. "It was a gay life at Court!"
"And I can imagine that Marie Antoinette knew how to flirt with her fan. She was so gay and lighthearted," mused Kit.
"Poor Marie Antoinette! I've always pitied her, even if she was thoughtless and spoiled. She didn't deserve to be punished as she was!" Shirley said pensively.
"I always like to think of her at Little Trianon, where she used to play at being a farm girl and churn, and feed the chickens. She was just a child. --I do hope the fan was hers," said Kit.
"And I hope so for many reasons," smiled Colonel Baxter. "It will be worth three times as much money if she owned it."
"Wouldn't old Peter Gruff open his eyes wide if he could see it?" exclaimed Bet. "How that man loves antiques!"
Peter Gruff was a second-hand dealer in Lynnwood whose hobby was picking up antiques at a ridiculously low price and selling them at fabulous sums. In a trade, he could stand watching.
As the Colonel folded up the fan carefully and put it away, Bet exclaimed: "Come on, girls, there's something in my room that I'd like to show you."
"Wait a minute, Shirley," called the Colonel. "Do you want to take a picture of the queen's fan for me?"
"Oh, Colonel Baxter, do you suppose I can do it?"
"Certainly, there's no trick about it. Bring your camera the next time you come up."
Half an hour later the toot of an auto horn sounded from the driveway.
"Aw, that's Bob coming to take me home," pouted Joy. "Wish he'd wait until I telephone. He always comes before I'm half ready."
The Colonel was at the door before the young man could ring the bell. Bob Evans and Phil Gordon were two boys that the Colonel admired and was always glad to welcome to the Manor.