at will save us quite a walk!" returned Laura.

"And I'll get home before Uncle Fred," cried Alene.

"Wouldn't they all have been scared if we had had to wait for the
glass-boat to take us home?"

The boy smiled. He thought there were others who would have been
scared in that event.

"Is Mr. Fred Dawson your uncle?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"I used to be captain of the Fred Dawson Baseball Club," he replied
with a tone of pride.

"How nice!" and Alene determined to ask her uncle all about it that
very night. "Ah, here's the wharf! It seems to be coming right up to
us!"

A few minutes later their light, little craft swept in to shore.

Mark gallantly gathered up the bundles and handed them out to Laura,
who had skipped lightly across the bow to the bleached stones of the
wharf, then he gave his hand to his more timid passenger and she
stepped ashore.

"And the Happy-Go-Luckys will be on time as usual," cried Laura, as
they said good-by to Mark, who intended taking the skiff farther up the
river.

"The Happy-Go-Luckys? Who are they?" he exclaimed.

"A sort of a club," returned Laura demurely, glancing mirthfully at
Alene ere they turned away to climb the hilly homeward path.

CHAPTER XXII

VEXATIONS AND CONSOLATIONS

Ivy turned disconsolately from the window. She had waved good-by to
Laura and Alene when they had looked round at the corner ere passing
from view on their way to the glass-boat.

The trip had been postponed from day to day in the hope of her being
able to go along, and even at the last moment her friends had wished to
give it up and devote the afternoon to an indoor meeting of the
Happy-Go-Luckys; but Ivy would not have it so; she insisted on their
going, she vetoed every argument to the contrary, but now that they
were beyond recall and she faced the empty room she almost regretted
her persistence.

And yet it was a pleasant room enough, with nothing of luxury to
recommend it but having an air of quiet comfort. An unobtrusive wall
paper, a green-and-oak carpet, a bright rug before the fire-place,
which was filled with tall ferns; a picture of the "Mammoth Trees of
California," above the mantel, a lamp with a green globe hanging over
the center-table, a few chairs, and Ivy's couch drawn close to the two
windows with their snowy curtains--all beautifully neat and clean, but
alas, so tiresomely familiar to the little prisoner. Even the sight of
her books piled at the foot