When the meal was over Miss Lawrence would not hear of their going back to the camp, or going on with their selling. The bellboy or a maid could go on looking after their things, she said, and sent Billy over to see about it. Then they went into one of the little dancing-rooms and showed each other steps for a long time; that is, Billy and Winona did, for Louise said she was tired, and sat thankfully still, listening to the orchestra that played in the dining-room. After that Miss Lawrence carried them all off to a band concert.
It was ten-thirty by the time they had finished, and all had something more to eat—real, grown-up things to eat in a most gorgeous café. Miss Lawrence wanted them to stay all night, and Winona was willing, but Louise insisted on going back.
“If we’re here to-morrow morning,” she explained, “every blessed woman that we sold things to will want to know all about us and our past lives, and then the secret will come out. No, thank you, Miss Lawrence,
“I see by the moonlight,
’Tis past midnight,
Time pig and I were home
An hour and a half ago!”
“I being the pig, I suppose!” added Winona.
“Well, I won’t keep you against your will,” said Miss Lawrence, getting up from the café table. “So you’d better go back to the hotel. They can be packing up what’s left of your things for you, while you change. But what about rowing across the lake and down the river in the dark? Can you look after them, William?”
“I should think I could!” said Billy. “Besides—I forgot to tell you, girls, or we might have had a grand reunion—Lonny Hughes and Tom are to meet me at the dock at about eleven, with one of the camp canoes. Tom’s Winona’s brother,” he explained to his aunt. “So we’ll take one of the girls in the canoe, and one of us will go in the boat, and get them home safe as anything. For the matter of that, you can’t get hurt on this lake unless the fish should jump up and bite you,” he added as they reached the hotel, and parted to dress.
The girls hurried off their finery, and got hastily into their serge skirts and white blouses.
“I feel like Cinderella!” said Winona as they went down in the elevator again, only to find that, quick as they had been Billy had been quicker, and stood, familiar-looking in his khaki, to take them away. The pottery and linen that was left would all go into one suitcase now, so well had they and the bellboy prospered. Billy gave them, too, the money that had been taken in during the evening. They hurried off, after they had said good-bye to Miss Lawrence, and made her promise to come see them at Camp Karonya and stay a whole day.
At the last moment she pushed a bundle into Winona’s hands.