"How long can you take? Are you sure they'll let you get off down at Torrey's?" asked Billy, languidly.
"Oh," the Talentless One said, calmly, "I shall get a substitute, of course. They let the girls do that, if the substitute suits 'em. There's a girl that used to be at the handkerchief counter that will be glad enough to earn a little money, I know. She'll be tickled! And she can keep the place open for me when I get back from the country in the fall—" Suddenly the Talentless One laughed out joyously. "Hear me! 'When I get back from the country!' Doesn't that sound splendid! Makes me think of cows and chickens and strawberries and—"
"Pumps painted blue!" laughed Laura Ann. "We're in for a blue pump, girls!"
The substitution at the handkerchief counter could not be arranged for at once, so the proposed voyage of discovery was a little delayed. Meanwhile the Grand Plan and a newly-born family of lesser plans occupied the interim of waiting. One thing they all agreed upon. It was tired little Billy who voiced it.
"We won't be good this summer, will we? I've been good so long that I want to rest!"
"It would seem comfortable not to have to be, wouldn't it?" Loraine laughed. As if Loraine could rest from being good! "Not to have to do anything for anybody—just be good to yourself! Now, I call that the luxury of selfishness! And really, girls, we deserve one little luxury—"
"We'll indulge ourselves," T.O. nodded gravely. "I'm sure I've been polite to people and patient with people long enough to have a vacation—a summer vacation!"
"Give me a paper and pencil, somebody, quick!" This from Laura Ann. She fell to scribbling industriously. The purring of her pencil over the paper had a smooth, wicked sound as if it were writing wicked things. It was.
"Be it known," read Laura Ann, flourishing her pencil, "that we, the undersigned, having endeavored, up to the present, to be good, consider ourselves entitled to be selfish during our summer vacation. That we mean to be selfish—that we herewith swear to be! That we do not mean to 'do good unto' anybody except ourselves! Inasmuch as we have faithfully tried to do our several duties hitherto, we feel justified in resting from the same until such time as we may—er—wish to begin again.