“That reminds me!” announced Madeline oracularly, and went off in pursuit of the B’s, who were seldom far apart.
But to her disappointment the B’s frowned upon her plan to hold a “Merry Heart” meeting on shipboard and elect Eleanor Watson to membership.
“I’m ready to be nice to her,” declared Bob, “but I think that’s enough, for now, any way. She’s been a brick on this trip and I’m glad she came, on her own account as well as on Betty’s. But I hate cheats.”
“When a person has done a thing like that you can’t ever really trust her,” added Babe.
“And so,” concluded Babbie, who, being very tender-hearted, would have yielded but for the support of the other two members of the triumvirate, “you don’t want to be known as her very particular friend, and ‘The Merry Hearts’ are all very particular friends, Madeline.”
“All right,” said Madeline pleasantly. “I only wanted to find out how you felt. It would be a risk, I know, to take her in. I suppose I’m a risky person. Just consider that the matter hasn’t been mentioned.”
“We will,” promised Babe, and Madeline strolled back to Betty.
“Mary has gone to begin the novel,” Betty told her. “She wants to get as much done as possible before Ethel comes on deck.”
“I suppose,” remarked Madeline, irrelevantly, “that if it wasn’t a lot more trouble to find things than to lose them people would be even more careless than they are now. But it seems a little hard sometimes to have to hunt so many months for a thing you lost in a minute.”
Betty stared at her uncomprehendingly. “What kind of things do you mean, Madeline?” she asked.