Gee should hear you," laughed Laura, referring to one of the
very strict lady teachers of Central High, Miss Grace Gee Carrington.

"She's too busy with Margit Salgo--Beg pardon!" exclaimed Bobby.
"Margaret Carrington, as she will in future be known. Gee Gee has
scarcely called me down this week."

"Now, if it was Margit who wanted to go," sighed Nell Agnew, speaking
of the half-Gypsy girl who had just come under the care of Miss
Carrington.

"Or Eve Sitz," added Bobby. "But Eve says she gets out-of-door work
enough on the farm in the summer. Camping out is no fun for her."

"I don't know what to say about Lily," began Laura. "I cannot
understand mother promising such a thing. If anybody should decide, it
should be Jess' mother. _She_ is going with us."

"Oh! there's another thing," interrupted the fly-away Bobby. "If Lil
goes, she's going to take along a lady's maid."

"_What_?" gasped the other girls.

"Mrs. Pendleton is going to pay the wages of a girl to go with us and
do the camp work," announced Bobby, and now she spoke with some
enthusiasm.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Laura.

"Not so bad," sighed Nellie, who really did _not_ like hard work and
had dreaded that division of labor which she knew must fall to her if
they went camping without "help."

"Having a girl along to cook and do up the beds and wash dishes and
the like wouldn't be so bad," announced Bobby, growing braver as Nell
seemed to encourage the idea.

"Well! Miss Hargrew!" accused Laura. "I believe you have gone over to
the enemy. _You_ really want Lil to go with us to Acorn Island."

"No. But I'd be glad to have her mother pay the wages of somebody to
do most of the hard work," grinned Bobby.

There was a regular "buzz society," as Bobby called it, after the
girls were dressed. The original six who had planned to go camping on
Acorn Island _did_ hum like a colony of bees when they all learned
that Lily Pendleton was likely to be foisted upon them.

"It's a shame!" exclaimed Jess, angrily. "She knows well enough we
don't want her."

"Well," murmured one of the Lockwood twins. "She asked us and we said
the invitation would have to come through Laura."

"Cowards!" exclaimed Mother Wit, dramatically. "That's why she got her
mother to go to _mine_. And I am real angry with mother----"

"Oh, Laura! we wouldn't offend your mother for anything," said Nell,
hastily.

"Or put her in an uncomfortable position," Bobby added. "She's been
too nic