“Did I get any?” cried Alice, jumping up at their entrance and rushing towards them.
“Everybody got some,” answered Ruth. “Even Marj, who pretended nobody knew her address!”
“I can’t imagine who—” she began, as Lily tossed the letter into her hands. Then, upon recognizing John Hadley’s handwriting, she became silent. But how he had found out the address was a mystery to her, and she was too shy to ask questions and run the risk of being teased.
“You got lots of mail, didn’t you, Miss Phillips?” observed Ruth.
The captain looked up smiling. “Yes, I received a lovely letter from the people who are responsible for this trip,” she replied.
“People!” echoed Lily. “I thought it was a man!”
“It is—but he happens to have a wife. It is she who wrote to me.”
“Curses!” cried Ruth, melodramatically. “And here I’ve been setting my cap for our rich friend—thinking all the time that he surely was a bachelor.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’ll get left then,” laughed Miss Phillips. “For he has a daughter about your age.”
“A daughter!” repeated Marjorie. “Do we know her?”