Switzerland, if we don't go
anywhere else."

"Just hear her talk of Switzerland, as if it were just around the
corner," marveled Ruth. "It has always seemed to me like some myth or
fable."

"And you feel as it you ought to speak of it in whispers," agreed
Marjorie. "That's the way I feel about it."

"Oh, I almost forgot about tea," Lucile interrupted, springing to her
feet and making a dash for the door. "It's getting late, and everybody
must be starved. Come on, Jessie, and help me, for goodness' sake!"

"Coming," said Jessie, stopping at the door to make a low bow and
declaim, "Ladies and gentlemen, we crave your indulgence----"

"You'd better come out here, or I'll use force," cried Lucile's voice
from somewhere in the rear, and the orator fled precipitately.

CHAPTER VIII

ENTER JACK

It was the last day Lucile and Evelyn and Jessie would spend in Burleigh
for some time. Since early morning they had been so busy they had
scarcely found time to breathe, and it was not till five o'clock in the
afternoon that Lucile slammed down the cover of her last trunk with a
triumphant, "There, that's done! Now, I wonder if I've thought of
everything."

Tired and happy, she flung herself upon the bed, a little meditative
frown puckering her forehead, and began a mental checking up of all the
hundred and one things she would need.

"I guess I have all the dresses I'll want," she ruminated. "Shoes and
combs and brushes and ribbons and handkerchiefs--oh, I wonder if I put in
my little flowered scarf; I mustn't forget that----"

Then began a frantic searching through bureau drawers, during which the
scarf failed to come to light. Finally she gave it up in despair and
turned upon the two trunks so fierce a look that the only wonder is they
didn't fade then and there and vanish into thin air.

"You disgusting old things!" she cried, hotly. "I suppose you think it's
fun to go all through you again and take out all your horrid old trays
and everything, just to make sure I put that scarf in. I suppose I'll
find it way down at the bottom, too."

She was on her knees before the smaller of the two trunks and had taken
out a good deal of the contents, still grumbling good-naturedly, when her
mother came in.

"What are you talking to yourself about, Lucile? I could hear you way
down the hall; and what _are_ you doing? I thought you had your trunks
nearly packed." Mrs. Payton's voice was irritably impatient.

Lucile s