“Anything I can do to help you girls?”
“No, I think not. Just excuse me while I get into traveling garb, and if you want to put those papers into the waste basket for us it will look ‘less worse’ around here, but it isn’t necessary.”
“I’ll have to do something or explode,” said Isabel. “I’m so crazy about going that I can’t keep still. It acts differently with Virgie, she’s going around in a dream, and she is such an intense soul that I’m afraid it will break out seriously later! Aren’t you afraid to take us, Hilary?”
“I should think not!” exclaimed Hilary much amused. “What time did you girls get up this morning that you are ready so early?”
“It was dark, and all I’ve had to do since breakfast was to pack my bag.”
“I barely got into my usual clothes by breakfast time,—it’s so hard to get up these dark mornings,—but I have certainly made things fly in this half hour since.”
“Are these your things laid our for your bag?”
“Yes, except one or two little things.”
Isabel packed the bag while Hilary dressed, telling her that she thought she was mistaken about the time when the ’bus would start. Hilary finished and ran around to say goodbye to the girls who did not start so early. With bright faces and gay farewells, the company of girls going on the morning trains clambered into the ’bus and were off to Greycliff and the station. Isabel settled down into the well-behaved, demure, little rosy-cheeked lass she was at her best and the trip began.
How proud Hilary was of the tall distinguished gentleman who met her and her guests and put them all into a taxi to be taken out to the parsonage. “O, Father, it seems ages since I’ve seen you all! Is Mother as well as she always writes that she is? and the boys? and Mary? and June? Lilian’s married sister came, so she went straight home.”