"Goodness! Anybody would think you were going away to stay forever," gasped Bess, as she tried to disengage herself from a tangle of bag and hat box and umbrella. "For goodness' sake, look out, Nan. We are moving." This, because Nan stuck her head far out of the window to get a last look at the dear folks on the platform.
"I know we're moving," sighed Nan, as she turned from the window and began patiently to separate Bess from her belongings and stow the articles away in the wire basket overhead. "I always have a funny feeling as if I were leaving half of me behind every time I say good-bye to Momsey and Papa Sherwood."
"I should think you would be used to it by this time," said Bess, as she removed her hat and fluffed out her pretty curls. "We certainly can't complain of having to stay too much in one place."
"I should say not!" exclaimed Nan, as she thought of how many wonderful things had happened since that day when she had started out for the great north woods with Uncle Henry. "But, oh, Bess," she added, turning happy eyes upon her chum, "we never went on quite such a wonderful journey as this—not even when we went to Rose Ranch."
"It all comes of having such nice friends," replied Bess, taking out a tiny hand mirror and regarding the tip of her nose critically. "And friends with money," she added significantly.
"Bess! How you talk!" cried the girl from Tillbury, turning a shocked gaze upon her friend. For Nan Sherwood never failed to be shocked at Elizabeth's very evident love of money and what it could buy. "If it were only money we cared for we might have made friends with Linda Riggs, I suppose. I heard her say something about going to Europe next summer, and I shouldn't wonder if she would take Cora Courtney and one or two more of her satellites with her. Perhaps if we had been very good, she might have asked us."
"Well, it would have been fun," said Bess, wickedly enjoying the shocked look that deepened on Nan's face. "Cheer up, Nan," she added with one of her sudden changes of mood. "You know very well how I hate Linda. However," she continued, "I suppose we really ought to be grateful to her now."
"Grateful?" repeated Nan wonderingly.
"For damaging the heating plant up at school, silly," explained Bess, "and giving us a chance to go to Florida."