"Excited? What's the matter?" asked Tom, for he saw that his friend was not her usual calm self. "Has anything happened, Mary?"
"Oh, I've such news to tell you!" she exclaimed.
"Then get in here, and we'll go on." advised Tom. "We are collecting a crowd. Come and take a ride; that is if you have time."
"Of course I have," the girl said, with a little blush, which Tom thought made her look all the prettier. "Then we can talk. But where are you going?"
"To send a message to a gentleman in Philadelphia, saying that I will help him out of some difficulties with his new electric airship. I'm going to take a run down there in my monoplane, Butterfly, to-morrow, and--"
"My! to hear you tell it, one would think it wasn't any more to make an airship flight than it was to go shopping," interrupted Mary, as she entered the electric car, followed by Tom, who quickly sent the vehicle down the street.
"Oh, I'm getting used to the upper air," he said. "But what is the news you were to tell me?"
"Did you know mamma and papa had gone to the West Indies?" asked the girl.
"No! I should say that was news. When did they go? I didn't know they intended to make a trip."
"Neither did they; nor I, either. It was very sudden. They sailed from New York yesterday. Mr. George Hosbrook, a business friend of papa's, offered to take them on his steam yacht, Resolute. He is making a little pleasure trip, with a party of friends, and he thought papa and mamma might like to go."