But Lisa shook her head. “None of the class have much brains except Margaret. I must be a leader,” she declared. “Don’t look so, papa. It isn’t very dreadful to say that, is it?”
“That depends entirely upon your motive,” replied her father, slowly. “If it is love of admiration, I am grieved; if it is because you feel your best powers can be put to their fullest use in a different direction, it is another thing. I do not want to think that one of my daughters would be willing to be a soulless butterfly.”
“I don’t know what it is,” returned Lisa, flushing a little. “I haven’t analyzed it, so far. Now, mamma, what are the plans for the summer?”
“It is a puzzling question, dear, and much depends upon you,” replied her mother. “Mrs. Brown knows of a quiet, pleasant place on the bay shore, and your grandmother has quite decided to go there. It has the recommendation of being moderate in price, as well as being delightfully situated. Persis, of course, is only too ready to go. Mrs. Phillips, likewise, thinks she will join the party with the two boys, and, as Basil has determined to do some extra work this summer, that he may catch up with his class and be ready to take his examinations in the fall, your father has suggested that Mr. Danforth, one of the instructors at the college, shall go along to coach him. Mr. Danforth is anxious to make some such arrangement for the summer, and Persis is quite sure she will like to go ahead with her Latin under his tutelage. Your father must go elsewhere on account of his hay-fever, and I, of course, shall go with him. We feel that we can afford to take only one of you with us, so now, which shall it be, you or Mellicent?”
“Oh, mamma, I should be bored to death down there where the Browns want to go. Will there be other boarders?”
“I think our party, including the Browns and the Phillipses, will about fill the house, which suits the others perfectly.”
Lisa looked annoyed. “I don’t see why there should be any question of who should go with you,” she said; “only that the mountains agree with Mellicent much better than the shore, and she is not very well this spring; she gives signs of inheriting that unpleasant hay-fever. Then, of course,—oh, mamma, why can’t I go somewhere with some of our friends?”
“Because it is not every one in whose care I would be willing to have you go, and you could probably not find any of our intimate friends going where there is as moderate board as that at Bellingly; and I should, moreover, have to provide you with a wardrobe more expensive than I can afford. You know this year we must not expect great help from grandma.”
Lisa looked very dissatisfied. “Everything comes in a lump,” she sighed. “I know I would be perfectly miserable down there.”
“The place has many attractions,” Mrs. Holmes continued, comfortingly. “There is delightful boating, fishing, and bathing; then the drives around are very pretty, and there will be no disagreeable persons in the house.”