He cast a glance at the aeroplane around which the anxious young people were now clustering thickly.
“If that thing is a success,” he mused, as he strode off to join them, “so much the better for me. I think I could use an aeroplane. I don’t see why I should let Roy Prescott beat me out at anything. Ah! They’ve started the engine again and—by ginger, she’s rising! She’s going up! She’s flying!”
The small irregularity in the working of the engine, which had brought the plane to a stop, had been quickly remedied. Even Fan Harding, little as he liked Roy, could not help but join in the cheers as the Golden Butterfly, swinging in an easy circle, began to climb—higher and higher toward the fleecy clouds that flecked the blue dome above.
As for Peggy, she jumped up and down in her enthusiasm till her golden hair was tumbling in a tangle about her pink shells of ears.
“Oh, goody! goody! goody!” she squealed in the intensity of her joy.
CHAPTER III.
THE CLOUDS GATHER.
“And so unless we can raise that money somehow within a short time we shall have to leave dear old Shadyside!”
It was Roy who spoke, in troubled tones, some days after the successful flight of the Golden Butterfly. They were seated in the cool-looking living room of Miss Prescott’s home. The sun filtering in through the Venetian blinds, fell in patches on the polished floors—Peggy’s work, for Miss Prescott’s circumstances had been for some time too straitened to afford the servants she formerly had. But she had kept all knowledge of her struggle from her nephew and niece, until now the time had arrived when she felt that she could conceal no longer the object of old Sam Harding’s visit to her.