Phyllis Alden, too, had been busy calculating. "I think we can do it, Madge," she said, leaning over from the back seat to speak to her friend.
"Of course we can. We shall have whole lots of money," announced Madge triumphantly.
Phil shook her head. "I am afraid we won't. There is one thing we must buy that will be expensive."
Lillian straightened up. She had been leaning against the back of the seat, utterly worn out. The three girls gazed at Phil in consternation. What was this new item of expense that threatened to eat up their little capital?
"Don't keep us in suspense, Phil," laughed Eleanor. "What have we forgotten to buy?"
"A kitchen stove!" cried Phil dramatically. "And I know they must be awfully expensive."
"What a goose you are, Phil," said Lillian in a practical tone. "We don't want a kitchen stove. It would take up too much room. We need an oil stove or something like that."
"Then I appoint you as a special committee to look into the stove question, Lillian," laughed Madge.
"I accept the appointment," bowed Lillian, "and I won't waste our capital on kitchen ranges of elephantine proportions, either."
During the next five days the four friends found plenty to occupy their time. Then Miss Tolliver's school closed, and Phil Alden hurried home to her family in Hartford, Connecticut; Lillian returned to her home in Philadelphia, while Madge and Eleanor departed to spend a week with Mr. and Mrs. Butler in their old home in Virginia. Miss Jones, however, remained at the school. She made one hurried trip into Baltimore, and on another occasion had a visitor, but the rest of the time she sewed industriously; for on June the eighth a new experience was to be hers--she was to begin her duties as chaperon to four adventurous girls aboard their longed-for "Ship of Dreams."
Blue waves lapped idly against the sides of a little, white palace that had risen out of the waves of the bay overnight. One side lay close along a quiet shore. Overhead the leaves of a willow tree stirred in the wind, and the birds twittered in its branches. The rosy flush was just fading out of the sky. Dawn had come only a short time before, and the wind, the waves and the birds were the only things stirring so early in the morning. There was not a sound or a movement aboard the odd vessel that was moored to the shore.