"And the cat? You remember the day you bought that, Annabel? You were about the most homesick person in Boston. You said it looked like your own 'Lady Jane Grey' at home, and you cuddled it half the night. I don't see how you can part with it."
"Oh, it goes with the room," Annabel answered indifferently. "You know yourself it's kept away mice. We've never had one, and look at Wee Watts' room, and the sky parlor—"
A knock interrupted further history.
Blue Bonnet put her head inside.
"Girls!" she said excitedly, "we're going to get our three days' cut, and oh, guess what's happened! Patty Paine's mother's here—we just left her down in the reception-room, and she's invited us all—the Lambs—down to her summer home in Maine at a place called Sargentville. They have a cottage there, and she's going down and will take us, and Miss North says we can go."
Annabel pulled Blue Bonnet into the room and looked at her skeptically.
"Really, Blue Bonnet? Do you mean it?"
"Of course I mean it. And Annabel—isn't it too splendid?—every one of the Lambs has brought her average up to eighty, so we can all go! We are to leave Friday and get back early Monday morning. Patty's perfectly wild about it, and her mother's a dear."
Blue Bonnet hurried off to bear the good tidings, but the news had preceded her. In Patty's room a group of girls chatted excitedly.
"Oh, Blue Bonnet, have you heard the news? We're to go—"