own mind.

“Come on up to our room, girls, and we’ll make chocolate,” proposed Patsy. “It will probably take away our appetites for dinner, but who cares? I don’t believe I’d have much appetite, anyhow. I’m all upset about this vacation business.”

[16]

[16]

Seated about the writing table which Patsy had cleared for the occasion, the Wayfarers were presently sipping hot chocolate and devouring sweet crackers to the accompaniment of a mournful discussion of the situation.

As a result none of them had any enthusiasm for either dinner or study that evening. Dinner over they gathered once more in Patsy’s room, still too full of their recent disappointment to banish it from conversation.

“We can’t make a single plan until we know what Aunt Martha wants to do,” asserted Patsy with a sigh. “Oh, I forgot to write to her before dinner! I must do it now. Excuse me, Perry children. Bee will amuse you. Bee, entertain the young ladies. I’m going to be busy for a little while.”

“We must go,” declared Eleanor, rising. “It’s half-past eight. I really ought to study a little bit. Mab, you’ve a whole page in Spanish to translate. You’d better come along.”

“All right. Just listen to the wind!” Mabel held up her hand. “How it shrieks and whistles and wails! The banshees are out, sailing around in the air to-night, I imagine.”

“I’m glad we’re not out, sailing around the campus,” commented Beatrice. “We’d certainly[17] sail. We couldn’t keep our feet on the ground. We’d be blown about like leaves.”

[17]

“I think I’d like to go out and fight with the wind,” announced valiant Patsy. “As soon as I write my letter I’m going to take it out to the mail box.”

“Good-bye, then. I may never see you again,” laughed Eleanor, her hand on the door. “You’ll be blown into the next county if you venture out to-night.”

“Then I’ll turn around and let the wind blow me back again,” retorted Patsy, undismayed by Eleanor’s warning.

The two Perrys having bade their chums good night and departed for their own room, Patsy settled down to the writing of her letter. Though her fountain pen fled over the paper at rapid speed, it was half-past nine when she 

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