rd.

It was more than Lucile could stand. She jumped up, danced a few joyous
and absurd little steps, then turning, made the girls a low bow.

"Greetings, fellow-travelers," she said.

CHAPTER II

ECHOES OF THE CAMP-FIRE

"But whatever put it into your head to take us along?" Jessie asked,
after the first wild excitement had abated a trifle.

"Well, you see, it was this way," began Lucile, with the air of one
imparting a grave secret. "When Dad came home last night, the first thing
he did was to begin asking me a lot of foolish questions--or, at least,
they seemed so to me. He started something like this: 'If you had your
choice, what would you want most in the world----'"

"If he had asked me that, I wouldn't be through yet," Jessie broke in.

"Never mind her, Lucy," said Evelyn. "Go on, please."

"I felt very much that way myself, Jessie," and Lucile nodded
understandingly at the ruffled Jessie. "Well," she went on, "I began
naming over several things, and when I'd finished Dad looked so sad I
thought I must have done something terrible, but when I asked him what
was the matter he simply shook his head despairingly and sighed, 'Not
there, not there.'"

The girls laughed merrily.

"Oh, I can just see him," chuckled Evelyn.

"Well, what then?" Jessie urged.

"Oh, I didn't know what to do," Lucile continued. "The more I asked him
to explain, the more disconsolate he looked. When I couldn't stand it any
longer I left the room, saying if he didn't want to tell me, he needn't.
Then, when I got outside the door I could hear him chuckling to himself."

"Just like him," again interposed Jessie.

"Well, all the time I knew something was coming. At dinner it came when
Dad calmly announced that he was going to Europe on business and that if
his family wished--imagine that, _wished_--he might let us go along."

"Oh, my--wished!" murmured Evelyn.

"You should have seen Phil," Lucile went on with her story. "I never saw
anyone so dumbfounded. He stopped with a piece of fish halfway to his
mouth and gaped at Dad as if he were some curiosity. I must have looked
funny, too, for suddenly Dad began to laugh, and he laughed and he
laughed till we thought he'd die."

"'You couldn't look more dumbfounded if I had ordered your execution,' he
gasped when he could get his breath. 'Of course, I can always make
arrangements for you to stay behind.'"

"Oh," breathed the girls in unison, "what did you say?"

"Say?