“Oh, my—wished!” murmured Evelyn.
“You should have seen Phil,” Lucile went on with her story. “I never saw anyone so dumbfounded. He stopped with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth and gaped at Dad as if he were some curiosity. I must have looked funny, too, for suddenly Dad began to laugh, and he laughed and he laughed till we thought he’d die.”
“‘You couldn’t look more dumbfounded if I had ordered your execution,’ he gasped when he could get his breath. ‘Of course, I can always make arrangements for you to stay behind.’”
“Oh,” breathed the girls in unison, “what did you say?”
“Say? You had better ask what didn’t we say. We talked and talked and talked as fast as our tongues would go till after midnight, and we wouldn’t have stopped then if mother hadn’t shooed us off to bed. Oh, I don’t think I was ever so happy in all my life!”
“But where do we come in?” insisted Jessie.
“Right here. You see, I had been so excited and everything, I hadn’t realized what it would mean to leave you girls for the whole summer. I guess Dad saw there was something the matter, for, when I started upstairs, he drew me back and asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, ‘Why not?’ For a moment I thought he was joking—he’s always doing that, you know—but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could have danced for joy.”
“Don’t blame you. I’d not only have felt like it; I’d have done it, too,” said Evelyn. 14
“Yes, and scandalized the neighbors,” Jessie sniffed.
“I fail to see how the neighbors would have known anything about it,” retorted Evelyn, with dignity, “since they can’t see through the walls.”