vacation business!”

“It’s a shame!” exclaimed Mabel. “I don’t want to go any place else. Why can’t we go there, anyway? It would take us two or three days to go and the same length of time to come[9] back. We’d have a week there. That would be better than nothing.”

[9]

“I suppose it would,” concurred Patsy rather reluctantly. “It’s only that I hate being torn up by the roots and hustled back here just the very minute I’m getting used to things at the Beach. There is so much to see there. Besides, I’m simply crazy to go to the Everglades. Father promised that he’d hire a real Indian guide, to take us there on an expedition.”

“Let’s write to our people and tell them to write to the registrar, asking if we can’t have that extra week,” proposed Eleanor eagerly. “If your Aunt Martha, our mother and Bee’s mother would all write to her, it might do some good.”

“We can try it. I doubt whether it will help much,” Patsy said gloomily. “Miss Osgood is so awfully strict, you know. It’s our only chance and a slim one. I’m going straight to my room and write to Aunt Martha. Bee can write to her mother as soon as she finishes a theme she’s toiling over. You’d better write to-night, too. The sooner we find out the best or the worst, the sooner we’ll knew what to do about Easter. If we can only have two weeks, Aunt Martha may want to do the Beach anyway. If she doesn’t—well, we’ll have to think up some place nearer[10] Yardley to go to. I’m determined to have some kind of trip, if it’s only to Old Point Comfort. The Wayfarers have been cooped up all winter. It’s time they went wayfaring again.”

[10]

[11]

[11]

CHAPTER II A HARD-HEARTED REGISTRAR

A HARD-HEARTED REGISTRAR

“If I were a registrar, I’d not be so horrid as Miss Osgood,” wrathfully exclaimed Patsy Carroll.

Four days had passed since the Wayfarers had despatched their letters to their home allies. The quartette were emerging from Yardley Hall as Patsy flung forth her disgruntled opinion of Miss Osgood.

They had been summoned to the registrar’s office after classes that afternoon, there to be stiffly informed by Miss Osgood that she saw no convincing reason for granting them the privilege of an extra week’s vacation.

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