"Strategy!" whispered Jack, in a deep, mysterious voice. "I could manage it, somehow, I'm sure."
"Well, it wouldn't do any good. He'd just come back after me, and we'd take the next train. But, oh, girls, I do wish I could stay here! I never had such a disappointment before. I've grown to love this place; and all you people; and my dear Camilla!" Patty's blue eyes filled with real tears, as she dropped her light and bantering manner, and spoke earnestly.
"It's a shame!" declared Jack, as he noted the drops trembling on the long, curled lashes. "Come on, girls, I'm going home before I express myself too strongly."
So Jack and the Sayre girls went away, and Patty went up to her own room.
CHAPTER II
MONA'S PLAN
That night, when Patty was alone in her own room, she threw herself into a rocking chair, and rocked violently, as was her habit, when she had anything to bother her. She looked about at the pretty room, furnished with all her dear and cherished belongings.
"To go away from all this," she thought, "and be mewed up in a little bare room, with a few sticks of horrid old furniture, and nowhere to put things away decently!"
She glanced at her room wardrobes and numerous chiffoniers and dressing-tables.
"Live in a trunk, I s'pose," she went on to herself; "all my best frocks in a mess of wrinkles, all my best hats smashed to windmills! No broad ocean to look at! Nothing but mountains with trees all over their sides! Nothing to do but walk up rocky, steep paths to a spring, take a drink of water, and come stumbling down again! In the evenings, dress up, and promenade eighty thousand feet of veranda, AS ADVERTISED!"