"Yes," said the young girl. "It really holds more than I require. I have planned it all, Paulina. You shall never have any trouble about the luggage if you will leave the whole to me."
"I shall only be too thankful to do so," said her cousin lazily. "I think you are a genius, my dear. The way you have arranged my dresses and everything is simply perfection."
Half an hour or so later, the two, summoned by the breakfast gong, made their way downstairs, where most of the family were already assembled, and as the others dropped in, Clodagh looked round eagerly for her new-old friend. But come she did not, and after a short delay Mrs. Marriston turned to her elder daughter.
"Thomasine, my dear," she said. "I think you had better go upstairs to enquire for Cousin Felicity and offer to escort her. I scarcely like to begin breakfast without her, for fear of seeming to lack respect."
For those old-fashioned days were very ceremonious and any want of deference to the eccentric old lady was not to be thought of. Thomasine went at once, but in a very few minutes returned alone, holding a scrap of paper in her hand, looking somewhat disconcerted, though she was half laughing also.
"She has gone!" she exclaimed, "bag, baggage and all, leaving this."
Mrs. Marriston took the paper eagerly. "Oh, can we have offended her?" she said anxiously, but a moment after, she too laughed. "No, I see it is all right," she went on, reading aloud the note in her hand.
"'Farewell for the present, kind friends,' it said. 'A sudden summons to——'—no, I can't decipher the word—'cuts short my visit. Fare you well, one and all.'"
They looked at each other. Annot took the paper from her mother. "No," she agreed, "I cannot read it. But we never do know where she goes or how she goes! It may be Kamschatka or the moon."
"Or fairyland," murmured Clodagh.