“I do mean it, and if you and Ethel Blue want to go with Mother and me this afternoon, you must rush home just as fast as you can and get your bags packed. Aunt Louise says Dorothy may go, but I can’t find her, so please stop at the new house and see if she’s there and tell her about it.”
“Well I should say we would,” returned a voice that was now filled with delight. “Ethel Blue wants to know why Mother is going?” she asked.
“On some business for her father—for Uncle Richard. But do stop chattering and come home as fast as you can rush. If we don’t get off this afternoon, we can’t go until to-morrow morning and we shan’t be able to stay so long in Philadelphia.”
It was not until they reached home that the Ethels learned that the Watkinses and the Hancocks were to join the party, and they were so excited over the prospect of this Club pilgrimage, that they were hardly able to get together their belongings.
The most difficult person to find was Roger who did not seem to be within reach of the telephone anywhere. They called up all the places where they thought it possible that he might be, but he could not be found, and he walked in just before luncheon quite unprepared for the surprise that awaited him.
“Helen has packed your bag for you,” his mother told him, “so rush and change your clothes and go to the train to meet Della and Tom.”
Rosemont being already part way on the road from New York and Philadelphia, it was necessary for the party to take a local train to the nearest stopping place of the Express. The Watkinses came out from New York on a local and the Hancocks arrived on the trolley, so that the entire group met at the Mortons’ about half an hour before the time to start. They were all chattering briskly, all filled with enthusiasm for this new adventure.
“Don’t you think I’d better go too?” Mr. Emerson asked his daughter, as he counted up the throng and noticed their eagerness.
“I don’t think it’s necessary, Father,” Mrs. Morton replied. “Roger and Tom and James are surely big enough to escort us, and I know Philadelphia so well that I have no fear of our being lost in the city with three such competent young men to take care of us.”
Mr. Emerson smiled somewhat doubtfully and murmured something about his daughter’s having a hopeful disposition.