“So they say,” Madge replied. “There is a story about it, which as yet I have not heard.”
Madge excused herself and went to her own room to put away her easel and paints and to get her sketching materials. A moment later she returned with shining eyes. “Little dryads,” she said, “I have a beautiful plan. You don’t have to hurry back, do you?”
“Not if I can let mother know where we are,” Adele replied. “She will be expecting us home about noon, and I do not want her to be worried. We left so early that I haven’t seen her to-day.”
Madge Peterson pointed toward a table in the far corner of the room as she laughingly declared, “Yonder is the modern Mercury, who will gladly carry a message to your mother.”
“Good!” exclaimed Adele when she saw the telephone. “But, Miss Peterson, you have not told me what I am to say to my mother.”
“Ask her if you may stay to lunch with me and spend the afternoon,” Madge replied.
“Oh, how nice that will be,” Adele said. “And I am sure that Adorable Mumsie will say Yes.”
She was quite right. Mrs. Doring, knowing that she could rely upon Adele’s good judgment, readily granted the permission desired.
“I’m so glad,” Madge Peterson said gayly. “Now I’ll hie me kitchenward and have a basket filled with good things to eat. Then we’ll hunt up brother Everett, who is a much better oarsman than sailor, and he will row us out to that lovely Pine Island. It’s just an enchanting place for a picnic-lunch, and there are such pretty things to sketch.”
The two girls were delighted with this plan, and they little dreamed of the exciting adventures they were to have before they returned.