Phil blushed. “Nothing important, Father,” she answered.
“Oh, then I must have been mistaken,” replied Dr. Alden, “for I thought I caught the magic word, ‘houseboat.’ No one of you girls has ever spoken of the ‘Merry Maid’ as unimportant.”
A cloud instantaneously overspread five faces about the luncheon table. Neither Mrs. Curtis nor Dr. Alden realized that in mentioning the houseboat they had forced the houseboat passengers to break a vow of silence. Only the day before the five of them had met in Miss Jenny Ann Jones’s room. There they had solemnly pledged themselves that, since it was impossible for them to have this year’s vacation aboard the “Merry Maid,” they would bear the sorrow in silence. This time there was no “Miss Betsey” to pay the expenses of the trip. The girls and Miss Jenny Ann hadn’t a dollar to spare. The cost of going to Madeleine Curtis’s New York wedding was appalling to all of the girls except Lillian, whose parents were in affluent circumstances. But, of course, Madeleine was almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine’s fiancé, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which he found the two girls.
“Mrs. Curtis,” remarked Dr. Alden in the midst of the mournful silence, “Mr. and Mrs. Butler, my wife and I have just been talking things over. We have decided that it would be a good thing for our girls to spend several weeks on board their houseboat. But, of course, if they have decided differently——”
It was a good thing that Mrs. Curtis was not giving a formal luncheon. A united shriek of delight suddenly arose from four throats. Madge sprang from the table to hug her uncle, Eleanor blew kisses to her mother from across the room, Lillian clapped both hands, and Miss Jenny Ann smiled rapturously.
Phil’s face was the only serious one. “Are you sure we can afford it, Father?” she queried.
Dr. Alden nodded convincingly. “For a few weeks, certainly,” he returned.
“Then we don’t need to worry about afterward,” rejoined Madge. “And don’t you think, girls, it will be perfectly great, so long as we are going to Madeleine’s wedding in New York, for us to spend this holiday at the seashore?”
“Where, Madge?” asked Lillian.
“I’ll tell you,” answered Mrs. Curtis, “only, not to-day. It is a secret. Here is our pineapple lemonade. Let’s hope for the happiest of holidays for the little captain and her crew aboard the good ship ‘Merry Maid’.”