“Nonsense,” said Miss Allyn, “I intended to go to-morrow. It won’t take me an hour to pack my things.”
“But where will we go? It is nearly nine o’clock,” said Dollie, anxiously.
“The lame and the lazy are always provided for,” quoted Miss Allyn, merrily. “We’ll take furnished rooms, I guess, for the present. To Bedlam with boarding-houses! I always did hate them!”
The girls dragged their little hair trunk into Miss Allyn’s room to be sure of its safety, taking only what they would need for the night in a paper bundle.
“She can’t touch our trunks, that’s one good thing,” said Miss Allyn. “My board is paid for two days longer and I’ll send an expressman for the trunks in the morning.”
“You are a wonderful woman,” said Marion, as they started out.
“Well, I’m not a howling success in all lines of business,” said Miss Allyn, dryly, “but if I am given half a show I’m a dandy ‘bluffer.’ Now I wonder who the sneak thief was at Mrs. Garvin’s anyway!”
“What!” cried Marion, with a ludicrous expression of dismay, “Do you mean to say that you made that sneak thief up, that there was no such person in the house, Miss Allyn?”
“Sure,” was Miss Allyn’s brief but expressive answer! “But I guess I hit it pretty pat, all right. If I had described the fellow in detail. Mrs. Garvin would not have recognized him any quicker.”