"Oh, no—after that dreadful tutor goes I don't want to see a book!"
"Let's think of something jolly—and different. Would you like to play travel? It's a game my mother and Little-Dad and I made up. It's lots of fun. We pick out a certain place and we say we're going there. We get time-tables for trains and boats and we decide just what we'll pack—all pretend, of course. Then we look up in the travel books all 'bout the place and we have the grandest time—most as good as though we really went. Last winter we traveled through Scotland. It made the long evenings when we were shut in at Sunnyside pass like magic. Little-Dad has a perfect passion for time-tables and he never really goes anywhere in his life—except in the game."
"What fun," cried Isobel, sitting up against her pillows. A few weeks before Isobel would have scorned such a "babyish" suggestion from anyone. "Where shall we go?"
"I've always wanted to go to Venice. We got as far as Naples and then 'Liza Sloane's grandson got scarlet fever and Little-Dad went down and stayed with him. I'd love to live in a palace and go everywhere in little boats."
"Then we'll go to Venice and we'll travel by way of Milan and Florence. Jerry, down in father's desk there are a whole lot of time-tables and folders he collected the spring he planned to go abroad. And you can get one of Stoddart's books in the library—and a Baedeker, too. We ought to have a whole lot of clothes—it's warm in Italy. Bring that catalogue from Altman's that's on mother's sewing table and we'll pick out some new dresses. What fun!"
Jerry went eagerly after all they needed for their "game." She sat on the other side of Isobel's bed and spread the books out around her. First, they had to select from the colored catalogue suitable dresses and warm wraps for shipboard; then they had to fuss over sailing dates and cabin reservations. In the atlas Jerry traced from town to town their route of travel, reading slowly from Baedeker just what they must see in each town. She had a way of reading the guidebook, too, that made Isobel see the things. It was delightful to linger in Florence; Jerry had just suggested that they postpone going on to Venice for a few days, and Isobel had decided to send back to America for that pale blue dotted swiss, because it would blend so wonderfully with the Italian sky and the pastel colors of the old, old Florentine buildings, when they were interrupted by Gyp and Uncle Johnny.
Gyp was a veritable whirlwind of fury, her eyes were blazing, her cheeks glowed red under her dusky skin, every tangled black hair on her head bristled. She confronted Jerry accusingly.
"So here's where you are!" Her words rang shrilly. "Here—fooling 'round with Isobel and you let the South High beat us by two points! You know you were the only girl we had who could beat Nina Sharpe in the breast stroke. They put in Mary Reed and she was like a rock. And you swam thirty-eight strokes under water the other day. I saw you—I counted. And—and the South High girl only got up to twenty! That's all you cared."
Jerry turned, a little frightened. She had hated missing the swimming meet—contests were such new things in her life that they held a wonderful fascination for her—but she had not dreamed that, through her failure to appear, Lincoln might be beaten! She faced Gyp very humbly.
"Isobel was alone——"