As Lucile watched the three, she suddenly broke into a little ripple of laughter, and, upon being questioned severely as to the reason of such unseemly mirth, she said, 74 gaily, “I was just wondering what poor Phil will do with three girls, and one his sister, at that.”
Jack laughed amusedly. “It will be pretty hard on the poor fellow,” he admitted. “I think I ought to go along. I could at least relieve him of his sister.”
“For which he would be devoutly thankful,” she added.
“No more than I,” said Jack, from which we may gather that our friend was much accomplished in the gentle art of flattery. However, to do him justice, he meant it, and even the most confirmed old bachelor, looking at Lucile, must have admitted that he had just and sufficient cause. In fact, there were not many who did not look at Lucile, who, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, was the very image of radiant happiness.
At last their party had wormed its way through the crowd and were waiting at the foot of the gangplank for them to come up.
“Goodness! I had no idea it was so enormous!” Evelyn was saying. “I’m almost afraid of it.”
“You’d better stick close to me,” Jessie advised. “Then if we get lost, we’ll at least have company.”
“Don’t let’s stand here, at any rate,” Mrs. Payton broke in, impatiently. “Our friends won’t have a minute to look at our staterooms.”
“We had to wait for the young folks, my dear,” suggested Mr. Payton, mildly, and then, as Lucile and Jack joined them, he hurried them before him with scant ceremony. “We don’t want to lose you,” he explained, when they laughingly protested.
And then, at last, they were on deck, where a steward relieved them of their light luggage.