"Oh, thank you!" cried Joyce, looking wistfully through the window. "The outdoors never did look so tempting, it seems to me, and those programmes are getting so monotonous I can hardly make myself go back to them. I wish I could go. But I can't shirk even for a few hours, or they might miss getting there in time."
"Couldn't anything tempt you to go?" urged Phil.
She shook her head resolutely. "'Not all the king's horses and all the king's men' could draw me away from these programmes till they are finished."
"No wonder she preached me such a sermon on loafing, this morning," thought Phil, as he rode away beside Jack, with the roll of films in his pocket. "Anybody with that much energy and perseverance doesn't need to go to the School of the Bees. It makes her all the harder on the drones. And I know that's what she thinks I am."
CHAPTER XIII.
A CHANGE OF FORTUNE
It was nearly two o'clock next day when the thirtieth programme was finished and placed in the last row of dainty cards, laid out for the family's farewell inspection. While Lloyd cut the squares of tissue-paper which were to lie between them, Joyce brought the box in which they were to be packed and the white ribbons to tie them.
Jack, having saddled Washington, was blacking his shoes and making other preparations for his ride to town. A special trip had to be made, in order to get the package to the Phœnix post-office in time.