“Oh, we have oceans of time!” exclaimed Daisy, laughingly. “All our worries are over now!” Accordingly they stopped at one of the largest hotels, and Alice went immediately to the telephone booth. What a shock she received when she discovered that Miss Vaughn was not listed!
“Probably she doesn’t want to be bothered with charity solicitors, and keeps her name out of the book,” suggested Lily.
“Or perhaps she’s too old-fashioned to have a phone,” observed Alice, bitterly. “Hard luck for us!”
“And yet she’s up-to-date enough to be interested in Girl Scouts,” said Marjorie.
“And to present us with motor-cars!” put in Daisy.
“She hasn’t yet,” remarked Ethel; “and won’t if we don’t get there before midnight!”
“Well, I always knew that she was as queer as they make ’em,” said Alice. “She’s awfully old, you know, and though she has made a will in favor of those two nephews, mother says they live in deadly terror lest she’ll change it for some whim.”
“I believe it!” laughed Marjorie. “She certainly has kept us in fear and trembling for the last few weeks. But I really think that we are going to get the best of her at last!”
At eight o’clock they started on their way again, in the general direction of the suburb in which Miss Vaughn lived. So jolly and gay were the girls that they lost all track of time; only Marjorie and Ethel kept looking anxiously for the big school-house that was to mark their turning. When houses became fewer and farther apart, and the landscape took on the appearance of the country rather than of the suburbs, Marjorie experienced growing apprehension lest they were lost. At last she stopped the car and turned to the others for consultation.
“We’re on the wrong track, I’m sure!” she declared; “and I think that we had better go back to the hotel and start again. It’s ten o’clock.”