“Not going?” The other two girls stood still and looked at each other, then Claudia gave Joanne a little shake. “Of course you’re going. You needn’t think we’re going to be taken in by such an obvious joke.”
“Really and truly,” avowed Joanne. “Gradda is going to Jamestown, Rhode Island, and refuses to leave me behind.”
“Are you still jollying us, or is that a fact?” queried Winnie.
“I wish it were a joke, but it is only too solemn a fact,” responded Joanne with so grave a face that the others no longer doubted.
“Oh, well, then that will break up the party,” asserted Winnie. “I, for one, wouldn’t think of going if you are to be left out. It would be too mean for words when you were the means of getting us the invitation. Don’t you think so, Clausie?”
“I certainly do, unless Joanne really likes going with her grandmother.”
“If you had seen me when she announced her intention,” said Joanne, with a little whimsical smile, “you wouldn’t have thought I was carried away with enthusiasm.”
“Oh, Jo, what did you do?” inquired Winnie with a little laugh.
“I shrieked protests; I stamped; I defied; I sassed; I flounced out of the room and went up-stairs and howled.”
“Well, for once I think you were excusable, for all, perhaps, except for the sassing. What did your grandmother do?”