“Don’t, dear!” begged Mrs. Andrews. “You just wait until those boys get on the job. I have great confidence in that big fellow—what’s his name?—oh, yes, John Hadley! I believe he can do almost anything.
“Now girls, suppose you select your rooms and dress for dinner—just simple dresses such as you might wear in the evenings at school, for there will be no celebration tonight, just a quiet time at home. We had thought of a dinner party; but no one feels like it with Marjorie and Frieda missing.”
Mrs. Andrews and the maid went out, leaving the girls to themselves.
“Isn’t this a wonderful place!” exclaimed Ethel, admiringly. She felt that somehow they were not expressing their appreciation as they should. But Lily Andrews, absorbed as she was in her own trouble, was the last person to notice such an omission.
“Your father and mother are simply Angels—with a capital A!” cried Ruth, patronizingly putting her arm about Lily. “Oh, Lil, won’t you please cheer up? I’m so positive nothing’s happened—except some trifling accident—that I’d be willing to bet my last dollar on it. I don’t know how I know it, but I do! Something just tells me! Marj’ll come back just in time to win the race, just as she did the canoe—by finding the cave. I haven’t known Marjie Wilkinson all her life for nothing.”
“Oh, Ruth, you do make me feel better. But I wish I could really, truly, believe you.”
Alice Endicott, who had just made a tour of inspection of the four bedrooms, interrupted the conversation by remarking:
“Girls, guess what! The rooms are all in different colors; green, rose, lavender and blue. Let’s each choose our favorite color, regardless of whom we room with. Don’t you think that would be fun?”
“Great!” assented several.
The results were indeed interesting. Lily, Frances Wright, and Florence Evans selected the rose room in which they were now seated, and which contained, as Mrs. Andrews termed them, triplet beds; Ruth Henry and Ethel Todd had the green room; Doris was alone in the lavender one, and Alice Endicott in the blue one. This left two vacancies for Marjorie and Frieda.