"I can't see that the steamer rug is a very close fit," said Rudolph, laughing, as Irma held up the warm-looking square of blue and green plaid. "But the Panama hat's all right,—only the rug and the hat will look rather queer together."
Into the steamer trunk during the week Irma put many little things that the girls at school—and indeed some of the boys—gave her as parting gifts.
"I wish I could take them all," she said, as she stood beside the trunk. "But there are so many duplicates. I suppose I could use two pinballs and two brush-holders, but I don't need three needlebooks and half a dozen toothbrush cases. Oh, dear, and all have been so kind that I wish they had compared notes first, so that I needn't have so many things I can't use."
"It's better to have too many than too few," said Tessie sagely. "Tessie," however, only occasionally, since the ten year old maiden scorned the diminutive of her earlier years, and insisted that now she was old enough to be known as "Theresa."
"It's better for you, Theresa," responded Irma, "for some of these things may find their way to your room. Lucy might let me give you this needlebook, or at least lend it, for perhaps it wouldn't do to give a present away."
"Well, I'll borrow it now, to help me remember you when you are gone," and Tessie, delighted with her treasure, ran off to her room with it.
During her last days at home Irma realized that Nap was not happy. He followed her from room to room, and, so far as he could, kept her always in sight. When she sat down, he lay at her feet with his nose touching her dress. When she moved she almost stumbled over him; and once, when she went to close the steamer trunk, there he was inside! He might have suffered Ginevra's fate, had not Irma happened to look within.
"He truly knows just what you are going to do, and he meant to hide until the trunk was opened on the ship, so you'd have to take him with you," cried Tessie.