y and riotous life of Paris." They
promised laughingly, thankful to their friends for making the parting a
so much easier one than they had anticipated.

The little packet steamed away from the dock and the girls waved to the
group on the wharf and the group on the wharf waved to them until they
were out of sight.

"Wasn't that lovely of them?" fairly beamed Lucile, as she turned from
the last wave at the little dots that had been people. "I think they are
the jolliest crowd I've ever met. Jessie, your bow is crooked; hold still
a minute. There, it's all right now. Oh, girls, I'm so happy that, if
some one doesn't hold me down, I'll go up in the air like a balloon and
sit on that fluffy white cloud. No, that one over there, the one that
looks like a canary bird."

"Goodness! She's quite romantic!" said Jessie, squinting up at the cloud
in question. "It looks more like an elephant to me."

"To come down from the discussion of clouds and elephants," began Evelyn,
"to every-day matters, I wonder if that Frenchman we met on the
steamer--what was his name? Oh, yes, I remember; Monsieur Charloix--I
wonder if he's found that girl yet."

"And the fortune," added Lucile. "Don't forget to mention the most
important part. I've----"

"Lucy, how very mercenary!" reproved Jessie.

"Don't you call my sister names," said Phil, who was always pretending
surprise at Jessie's long words.

"I've been wondering about that myself," said Lucile, ignoring Phil's
remark. "Now that we're going to France, perhaps we will hear something
about him."

"France is supposed to be a respectable-sized town," said Phil, with what
was meant to be biting sarcasm. "It's not like Burleigh, where Angela
Peabody can tell you the history of everybody in town, and then some. We
might be in Paris a year and never hear a word about him."

"I realize that quite as well as you do, brother, dear," said Lucile,
sweetly. "However, you must admit that there is more chance of our
finding out something about the gentleman in France than there was in
London."

"Or in Egypt," Phil agreed, and Lucile gave up with a little shrug of her
shoulders.

"Well, it doesn't matter, anyway; only I would like to know the end. It's
like starting to read an interesting serial story in a magazine, and just
when you get to the most exciting part, you come up against a 'To be
continued in our next.' Look!" she added, irrelevantly, clutching
Jessie's wrist and pointing upward.